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About The Baker County press. (Baker City, Ore.) 2014-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 2017)
8 — THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2017 Local City: Tesoro to relocate line BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER Samantha@TheBakerCountyPress.com Tuesday, August 22nd, The Baker City Council held their regular meeting at the City Hall Council Chambers. The Council board ap- proved and appointed Fred Stampflee to serve on the Golf Board, filling the va- cancy it has had for several months. According to a handout given at the meeting, “The City Council can consider an amendment to the loca- tion of the Tesoro pipeline through Baker City.” According to the handout, “The City of Baker City entered into an agreement with (issued a license to) the Salt Lake Pipe Line Company in July of 1950 for the installation of their pipeline in Baker City. There is now a desire on the part of Tesoro, a successor to Salt Lake Pipe Line Company, to relocate a portion of the pipeline in the vicinity of 17th street and H Street.” The handout also explained; “The exist- ing pipe in the vicinity of 17th and H is in need of repair. Tesoro has opted to relocate the new pipe in that area from the east side of 17th to the west side of 17th and eliminate a section of line no longer needed. The plan is to bore under the railroad tracks and the project would have minimal impact on the 17th Street or H Street right of way. The existing agreement requires Tesoro to restore any disturbed ground in the right of way to be restored.” Midge Kline from Tesoro Logistics explained that the purpose of the realignment is to remove the pipelines current cas- ing. The casing is causing problems with the pipeline, so that is something they are doing system-wide, not just in this area. The council approved the agreement amendment. The board had recently ap- proved the second reading of Ordinance 3356 Fran- chise Agreement Wind- wave Communications and nothing has changed since that time and the council approved the third reading. The board also approved the third reading of Or- dinance 3357 Franchise Agreement Inland Devel- opment. City Manager Fred Warner Jr. explained that the Governor signed a transportation bill and over the next 10 years there will be a gas tax that is implemented. That means is there is $270,000 for our street fund, there are $5.8 million for the Highway 30, Pocahontas, Hughes intersection and then High- way 30 reconstruction. “It is something Michelle and I and the county will be working on with the public trying to figure out what they want to do in that corridor,” explained Warner. Warner explained that they also have $1.5 mil- lion for Cedar Street and Hughes Lane. Public Works Director Michelle Owen explained that they received a grant for the Dog Park they are developing to be adjacent to the skate park at Sam-O Swim Center. She also explained that the last of the curb and gutter work on Auburn Street will be finished at the end of August. “I’d just like to say a big thank you to all of our city staff,” Mayor Mike Down- ing stated. “Public Works, Ffirefighters, police offi- cers, who helped with this last weekend, it was a big challenge; we had a lot of people in town. Thanks to all the County Sheriffs, the deputies and the National Guard for coming in and helping. We had represen- tatives from ODOT, Forest Service, BLM, Fire Mar- shall, it was good to see and have the cooperation of all those different agen- cies on a kind of a personal trial basis, it was really good practice on what we could get together and ac- complish if we had a major emergency. So I’d like to thank all those people.” Scientists explain the eclipse CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Crumpler explained that they were on the Viking Mission to Mars 1976 and they have been in their profession since then. He was also a participant in operations and science analysis of Viking Orbiter, Magellan, Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and, currently, Mars Ex- ploration Rover missions. According to their biographies on the Geiser Grand Events website, “They’ve published many books and papers and won prestigious awards such as the NASA Achievement Award.” According to Aubele’s Biography, “Jayne is Senior Educator/Geologist for the New Mexico Mu- seum of Natural History and Science. “She has two master’s degrees, one in geology and one in planetary sci- ence and is working on a long-overdue Ph.D. As a geologist, she has focused on volcanoes and has mapped and researched the geology of New Mexico and the southwest (in person) and of the Moon, Mars and Venus (remote- ly). “Prior to coming to the Museum, she was a research scientist and Pro- gram Manager for NASA’s Space Grant Program at Brown University.” In Crumpler’s Biogra- phy, some of his research interests are: “Planetary Science, Comparative planetary volcanology of Mars, Venus, Earth; use of planetary data to under- stand volcanic processes from well-preserved plan- etary examples; explora- tion of Mars with surface landers and rovers.” They came to Eastern Oregon due to the best predictions for clear weather during totality for the Eclipse and they heard about it from a friend who used to live in Baker. Aubele explained that this eclipse was so big, the first heat sensitive stamps the post office has put out was in commemoration Post Office had special eclipse postmark BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER Samantha@TheBakerCountyPress.com Monday, August 21, in celebration of the solar eclipse, the Baker City Post Office had a special postmark. The postmark was applied to anything with a postage stamp. The Baker City Post Office was one of 30 post offices that celebrated the eclipse with those postmarks. This event was a national event and other post offices that were in the path of totality could use them if they wanted. Post offices can have special postmarks for their specif- ic community. One example is Bridal Veil, Oregon where a lot of newlyweds send things to them for a postmark. Baker used the national design, as they did not have enough time to find someone local in order to make it specific to Baker City. They began working on this since June to prepare and go through the processes to get the postmark set up and made and customized for Baker City. Along with the postmark, they sold the first heat sensi- tive stamps. The stamp shows an eclipsed sun and, when someone puts their finger over it, the heat reveals the moon, and when it cools down, it goes back to black. Supervisor of Customer Service Kirk Johnson ex- plained, “This specifically was because of the eclipse because, what it means to the community and what it was bringing to the community, plus being in the path of total- ity anyway, so we thought we would be a part of it.” They sold out of the envelopes available for the eclipse and are still offering the heat sensitive stamps. “It’s been kind of interesting seeing different license plates and stuff around town,” explained Johnson. “And talking to a few different people from different areas. I think it’s been good for the town because it’s been busy but not overwhelmingly so, so I think it’s actually been perfect.” Johnson has been with the post office since 1995, be- ginning as a letter carrier, and became a supervisor. Sumpter sees a book signing BY MEGHAN ANDERSCH Meghan@TheBakerCountyPress.com Samantha O’Conner / The Baker County Press Aubele and Crumpler explain the process of the solar eclipse, using slides for an audience at the Geiser Grand last weekend. for it. The stamp shows an eclipsed sun and, when someone puts their finger over it, the heat reveals the moon. Their slide show pre- sentation, “Some Things to Know,” explained what was happening during the eclipse. According to the pre- sentation, there are two shadows during an eclipse; the larger penumbra, in which are the areas that experienced the partial eclipse, and the umbra, the smaller shadow in which areas experienced totality. In the slides, they explained, “On average, it takes about 375 years for a Total Solar Eclipse to happen again at a specific location. “Totality can last from a few seconds to a maximum of seven minutes and 30 seconds. Solar and lunar eclipses come in pairs—a solar eclipse always hap- pens two weeks before or after a lunar eclipse.” Most solar eclipses hap- pen in remote areas, such as the middle of the ocean and Antarctica where few people could view them. According to their slide show, 99 years ago in 1918 for the last total solar eclipse seen in Baker City, “The US Naval Observa- tory mounted an eclipse expedition to Baker City. At the 1918 solar eclipse from Baker City, the artist Howard Russell Butler painted the sun’s corona.” The corona is the out- ermost part of the sun’s atmosphere and was vis- ible during the eclipse on Monday. In their presentation, they described the se- quence of events during an eclipse. The first was “First contact. This is the mo- ment when the Moon first nicks the perfect circle of the sun. For the next hour, this bite will steadily grow larger until the Sun be- comes a narrow crescent.” According to them, 30 minutes before totality the intensity of the sun is equivalent to sunlight on Mars 10-15 minutes before totality. Aubele said, “You will start to see an eerie quality of daylight. It will dimin- ish minute by minute and shadows are grow- ing sharper. You will also start to noticeably feel the temperature drop.” They explained that four minutes before total- ity, the intensity of the sunlight was equivalent to sunlight on Jupiter, then two minutes before totality it was the same as sunlight on Saturn. One minute before and after totality, they ex- plained, “Shadow bands ‘Ripple of Lighting’ visible on light-colored objects.” They described that, before the sun was ex- tinguished by the moon, Baily’s Beads became visible. Baily’s Beads were the very thin crescent of the sun suddenly breaking into a thin string of beads. The last bit of sunlight visible before totality was called the “diamond ring.” During totality, the presentation explained, “Throughout the two min- utes or so of totality, you will see something like a 360-degree sunset, brighter towards the north and south which are outside the path of totality. “You’ll notice darken- ing first to the west and as the eclipse progresses, the darkening moves to the east as the moon’s shadow rushes over you.” More information on future events at the Geiser Grand can be found on their Facebook page or Web site. “The book was written for both men and women,” said Wayne Hussey of his novel The Desert Sun. “There is something for everyone to enjoy—action, adventure, in- trigue, and romance, with many twists and turns along the way.” Hussey held a book signing at Carole’s Mad Dog Restaurant in Sumpter on Saturday, August 19th. Although based mostly between Washington DC and Libya, a couple of the book’s chapters are set in a cabin in Sumpter. The story follows the adventures of Steve Gaston, on a secret mission for the Commission on Inter- national Terrorism (C.I.T.) Hussey said the story idea had been in his head a long time, based on his escape from Libya in 1984. He origi- nally approached it as a nonfiction work, but realized he didn’t have enough material to go that route. He changed to a novel format, including a lot of the experiences he’d had. Hussey grew up in Vale and worked as a John Deere mechanic for twenty years. Due to a back injury, he had to retrain and was in charge of computer programming for Providence Health Systems across five states for seven- teen years. Though Hussey had written the first three chapters of his book, his job kept him too busy to finish it. His father was an avid reader and read his first chapters. Hussey promised him to become an author someday. His father’s passing was the driving force that influenced Hussey to complete the book, which he did in about two years of off-and-on-work. Hussey said he took what he had in his head and wrote as it flowed. He didn’t think about where the story was going to end. About halfway through, he started working on the story structure, which required changing some locations and part of the chronological order. He plans to start a sequel in October. With this one, Hussey plans to try the process of laying out the story beforehand. He anticipates as he works through the writing, he’ll occasionally wander off “on a side road” but hopes the outline will bring him back to the main road eventually. Hussey said The Desert Sun is an adventure that takes you out of the normal day-to-day routine. He had never read a romance novel before he wrote his book but wrote what he imagined would be in one. He normally signs his books “Enjoy the adventure” and hopes his readers will be able to relax, enjoy, and get away from whatever’s going on around them. The Desert Sun is available on Amazon for $12.95 paperback and $3.99 on Kindle. It is also available free on Kindle Unlimited. For adult audiences only. Hussey has blogs at facebook.com/thedesertsunbook/ and https://thedesertsunblog.wordpress.com. He plans to hold another book signing during the Labor Day Flea Market at his cabin across from the Grounds in Sumpter.