June 3, 2016
CapitalPress.com
7
California to dismiss Rural school extends invitation to students
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irrigation district
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
By SCOTT SMITH
Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. (AP)
— Water regulators rec-
ommend dismissing a his-
toric $1.4 million fine
issued at the height of
California’s drought last
summer against a group of
Central Valley farmers ac-
cused of taking river wa-
ter that didn’t belong to
them.
It marks a sharp re-
versal to the first of such
fines against a district with
claims to water that are a
century old. Entities with
those rights have long en-
joyed immunity from cut-
backs.
In a draft order, the State
Water Recourses Control
Board said May 26 that
its prosecutors failed to
prove its case against By-
ron-Bethany Irrigation Dis-
trict.
The case should not have
dragged on this long, said
attorney Dan Kelly, who
represented Byron-Beth-
any, a district that serves
160 farms east of San Fran-
cisco.
“The prosecution team
certainly held this out as
a test case, something that
would teach everyone not
to ignore the state water
board,” Kelly said. “The
fact that they didn’t have
sufficient evidence to prove
what they were alleging is
troubling.”
The water board also
recommended dropping a
similar civil case against
West Side Irrigation Dis-
trict, which serves farmers
near Tracy. State officials
had not proposed a fine for
West Side.
The turn-around raises
several questions, said at-
torney Jeanne Zolezzi, who
represents West Side.
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Washington river
“There’s a real question
whether the state board
is the policeman of how
much water is in the river
and who should be able to
take it,” said Zolezzi, not-
ing that has historically
been left to the courts to
decide.
After the state issued its
complaints, both districts
asked for a hearing.
The state’s prosecu-
tors presented the case in
March, and two state water
board officials overseeing
the hearing abruptly halted
it before the districts could
present their cases in de-
fense.
The draft order dismiss-
ing the cases says the wa-
ter enforcement officials
couldn’t explain the basis
for alleging that the district
took more water than they
had a right to take.
State
Water
Board
spokesman George Ko-
styrko said the allegations
appeared to be true when
they were first made at
the height of California’s
drought, when hundreds
of farmers throughout the
state were being ordered to
stop taking river water.
A fair and impartial
hearing process showed
otherwise, he said.
“This happened during
a fourth and very crucial-
ly dry year in California,”
he said. “It appeared that
some parties had been tak-
ing water that didn’t belong
to them.”
The full State Water Re-
sources Control Board must
approve the dismissals be-
fore they become final.
Attorneys for both dis-
tricts said they will seek
damages and attorneys’
fees from the state in court.
For Byron-Bethany, Kelly
said that will be more than
$1 million.
PORTLAND — A tiny
Eastern Oregon school has an
invitation for Portland high
school students: Come stay
with us for a semester and
learn about ag and science.
The program, which will
begin next school year with
eight Portland girls visiting
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Portland boys arriving for
second semester, is a delib-
erate attempt to span the ur-
ban-rural divide. And Oregon
does not get more rural than
the Burnt River School in
Unity, Ore., about 50 miles
east of John Day.
The Burnt River School
District has a single build-
ing, a K-12 charter school.
In the 2015-16 school year
— they’re already out for the
summer — the district had 34
students. Fielding an eight-
man football team last fall re-
quired an alliance with Prairie
City School. Cattle ranching
is the primary way to make a
living in the area.
District
Superintendent
Lorrie Andrews also serves
as school principal, teaches
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helps seniors with their port-
folios and advises the year-
book kids. She’s been there
30 years. “Time for me to go,
huh?” she jokes.
She’s been working on
Burnt River’s invitation to
Portland for a couple of years,
with noteworthy help from
state Rep. Greg Smith, a Re-
publican from Heppner, state
Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republi-
can from Ontario, and Baker
County Commissioner Mark
Bennett. Now they are ready
to try it.
“It is something we’ve
thought a lot about,” An-
drews said. Burnt River has
a “great school and an ex-
cellent staff,” she said, but
the district’s enrollment has
declined for several years.
Twenty-eight of the school’s
34 students are high school
age.
“We were just thinking we
need to think outside the box,
Courtesy of Burnt River School District
The entire student body and staff of Burnt River School poses on picture day in September 2015. The
Eastern Oregon school invites Portland high school students to stay for a semester and learn about
agriculture and science. Lorrie Andrews, the superintendent and principal who also teaches careers
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so to speak,” Andrews said.
Over the May 21-22 week-
end, Portland Public Schools
sent an email to its high
school families, telling them
of the opportunity to take part
in the Burnt River Integrated
Agriculture/Science Research
Ranch program, or BRIARR.
On Monday, May 23, An-
drews responded to 23 emails
about the program. A bunch
more arrived Tuesday.
Portland students will
get a semester of hands-on
learning in what Burnt Riv-
er describes as a “variety of
natural resource settings.”
They’ll learn about animal
production science, sustain-
able rangeland science and
forest restoration studies, and
do water quality monitoring
with the Powder Basin Wa-
tershed Council.
She said it made sense to
extend the invitation to Port-
land, by far the state’s largest
urban center. The city has
more than 49,000 students in
78 schools, including 10 high
schools.
“We were thinking there
probably are students out
there who would enjoy a ru-
ral experience and a small
school experience at the
same time,” Andrews said.
“I think it’s a way to bridge
that divide. I think there are a
lot of misconceptions in both
directions. I think we can all
learn from one another. Kids
are usually open to that.”
Attracting more students
helps the district’s budget.
The Oregon Department of
Education pays school dis-
tricts a standard per-student
amount of $7,100, and that
funding will follow the Port-
land students to Burnt River
School. The students will be
hosted by local parents, but
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ized.
Andrews said the district
is engaged in several alter-
native ways to stay viable.
The school became a charter
school so it could offer “dis-
tance learning,” and attract
students outside the district
who attend class by Skype,
the online system. The dis-
trict also has successfully
hosted foreign exchange
students over the years, An-
drews said.
Burnt River partners
with other institutions. Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege, in Pendleton, put on a
short-term welding class for
Burnt River kids. Welding,
GPS use and small engine
maintenance will be offered
as mini-courses next year,
and Andrews hopes to have
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insemination lab visit the
school. She’s talking to Trea-
sure Valley Community Col-
lege about an equine science
unit.
Students can take college
credit courses, and the dis-
trict pays for it, she said.
“It’s important,” Andrews
said. “It’s a priority for the
school board to have stu-
dents prepared to go on, even
though we’re so rural.”
The district will interview
applicants in June, looking
for students who will be the
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75.
“If it’s important to you
to spend a lot of time at the
shopping mall or the movies,
this isn’t the place for you,”
Andrews said. “Because that’s
not where we are.”
Application forms and a
brochure are available on the
district’s website: http://burn-
triver.k12.or.us/home
John Deere Dealers
See one of these dealers for a demonstration
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Fleischmann’s
Vinegar
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for spilling concentrated
vinegar on March 4 into the
White River in Pierce County,
according to the state Depart-
ment of Ecology.
The 10,000-gallon spill
was caused by a faulty valve
at the company’s Sumner
manufacturing plant, accord-
ing to DOE. The company has
replaced the valve, the agency
said.
The river was high at the
time of the spill, minimizing
the environmental effects, ac-
cording to DOE. There were
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Efforts to obtain a comment
from the California-based
company were unsuccessful.
The vinegar that spilled
was twice as strong as house-
hold vinegar. The company
reported the spill the day it
occurred.
DOE has authority to issue
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tion. In deciding to levy the
full amount, the agency con-
sidered the Sumner plant’s
history, a DOE spokeswom-
an said.
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a total of $24,000 in 2014 by
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$4,000 for spilling about 2,000
pounds of concentrated vine-
gar onto the ground and anoth-
er $19,000 for violations found
in follow-up inspections.
The vinegar spilled when
corroded steel hoops on a
49,000-gallon wooden stor-
age tank failed. The vinegar
was contained in two storm-
water ponds. DOE learned
about the spill from an anon-
ymous tip.
Fleischmann’s can appeal
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Control Hearings Board.
According to the company
website, Fleischmann’s is the
world’s largest industrial vin-
egar producer and has man-
ufacturing plants across the
country.
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