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.