FROM PAGE ONE
A6 — THE OBSERVER
SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2022
MELT
Continued from Page A1
supplies and leave farmers
and agricultural industries
dry.
Last year’s heat wave
depleted water supplies
and caused some farms
in Oregon to run out of
water entirely by late June
2021, weeks ahead of
schedule. In one instance,
Plantworks, a nursery in
Cove, had to purchase
new water storage con-
tainers and fi ll them with
city water in order to keep
their crops alive.
“Essentially, folks that
rely on irrigation water
will have less available,
and there will probably be
some restrictions applied
depending upon where
they get their water and
their water rights,” Oviatt
said. “There will be less
available surface water
for instream fl ows to sup-
port things. There will
be less available ground-
water storage because
we’re not recharging our
system with our ground
soil moisture and because
we’ve been in a long-term
drought and we didn’t
really recover from that
over this winter.”
Union County water-
master Shad Hattan
agrees, stating that if the
area doesn’t get signifi -
cant spring rain, “it will
be hard on everything.
Agriculture, stream fl ows.
If we don’t get moisture
for April and May, that’s
(going to be) hard on
everybody.”
One silver lining to the
early melt off and con-
tinuation of the drought?
Fire season might be
milder compared to last
year.
“The biggest thing
is how fast the snow we
have right now comes
off ,” said Trevor Lewis,
assistant fi re manage-
ment offi cer with the Wal-
lowa-Whitman National
Forest. “If we lose our
snow real quick, and it
dries out fairly quickly
then our grass growth
isn’t as high, so we gen-
erally see lower rates of
spread with our fi res,
even if we do have sig-
nifi cant fuel moistures
that are dryer. It really
depends on how this snow
comes off .”
Lewis said that last
year’s slow runoff allowed
for above average grass
and brush growth — pri-
mary fuels for wildfi res
that were primed by the
heat wave that pushed
temperatures to record
highs in most of Oregon.
That grass growth meant
that fi res spread more rap-
idly, and in the case of the
Bootleg Fire resulted in
one of the nation’s largest
wildfi res for 2021.
“It’s kind of a catch-22
for us,” Lewis said. “Does
it come quickly and we
have a drought? Or does
it come off slow and we
end up getting the grass
growth?”
Despite being a La
Nina year, the Eastern
Oregon snowpack wasn’t
enough to start turning
around the drought con-
ditions in the area. As of
March 31, most of Eastern
Oregon remains in severe
or moderate drought, and
conditions are expected to
worsen over the summer.
“In order to recover
from that long-term
drought we need succes-
sive years and we need
excessive amounts of pre-
cipitation, and we’re just
not getting it,” Oviatt
said. “It’s not going to
happen this year, we’re
going to have to make
some sacrifi ces in terms
of surface water and
available water.”
Ignite! Reading/Contributed Photo
A student at Quinsigamond Elementary School in Worcester, Massachusetts, takes
part in an Ignite! Reading session on Wednesday, March 23, 2022. The program, which
is partnering with the Eastern Oregon University College of Education, pairs tutors
with students in 15-minute, one-on-one sessions to improve literary skills.
IGNITE
Continued from Page A1
hands-on experience throughout
a 10-week training and tutoring
program this spring semester. The
program focuses on giving future
teachers a one-on-one tutoring
experience, building a productive
relationship between teacher and
student.
The partnership, which is the
fi rst between Ignite! Reading and
a university, was initiated when
Sliwerski’s interests aligned with
those of Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity’s Ronda Fritz. The associate
professor at EOU’s College of Edu-
cation has been an advocate for
bringing the “science of reading”
curriculum to rural Oregon schools
to improve reading skills. Fritz
noted that the partnership with
Ignite! Reading allows Eastern
students to have a positive impact
on students locally and across the
country.
“Ronda and I had this brain
meld around marrying Ignite!
Reading with EOU’s intention-
ality of ensuring that their teachers
leave EOU, step into the class-
room and are completely prepared
to ensure their kids learn how to
read,” Sliwerski said. “That was
the spark.”
According to The Nation’s
Report Card national achieve-
ment-level results, roughly 65% of
fourth grade students in the United
States read at an effi ciency below
their grade level. Sliwerski’s vision
with Ignite! Reading is to close
that gap and give students founda-
tional skills and the confi dence to
Ignite! Reading/Contributed Photo
A student at Coney Island Prep in New York City, New York, participates in an Ignite!
Reading session on Monday, March 21, 2022. A partnership between Eastern Oregon
University and Ignite! Reading will allow education students to have a positive impact
on young readers across the country.w
thrive in the classroom.
“We are trying to stamp out a
statistic right now that is utterly
heartbreaking,” Sliwerski said.
Students at Eastern will par-
ticipate in the 10-week program
that consists of training using evi-
dence-based curriculum. The
Ignite! Reading program includes
daily tutoring with students from
kindergarten through fi fth grade,
both locally and nationwide. Fritz
noted that the virtual format of
the training and tutoring sessions
allows for both the grade school
students and teachers to make
adjustments and improvements as
they go along.
“Because it’s delivered on
Zoom, we can keep track of how
they’re doing and help them hone
their teaching skill,” Fritz said. “It
has the possibility to help strug-
gling readers make huge gains.”
The partnership between
Eastern and Ignite! Reading car-
ries a shared mission, bettering
child literacy and improving the
methods teachers use to teach the
skill.
As the university looks to build
on the new partnership in years to
come, “the possibilities are end-
less,” Fritz said.
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