PENDLETON GIRLS
BEAT UMATILLA
Kentucky clerk
released from
jail NATION/8A
SOCCER/1B
85/53
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2015
139th Year, No. 234
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
PENDLETON
Schools push trades, tech training
Bond projects coming in under budget
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Having already hired a full-
time administrator and dedicated
a building for it, the Pendleton
School District is going full
speed ahead in bolstering its
career and technical education
program.
Curt Thompson, who was
named CTE coordinator after
serving as Washington Elemen-
tary School’s principal for six
years, presented the district’s
early ideas for the program to
the Pendleton School Board at a
meeting Tuesday.
Pendleton High School
already offers 23 CTE classes
— courses that specialize in a
vocational track — including
food service, graphic design and
marketing, but the district wants
to expand the program further.
As a part of the school
district’s $57 million bond, West
Hills Intermediate School will
be turned into the Pendleton
Tech and Trades Center, its
working title.
While not every CTE class,
like metalworking, will be
housed at the center, the building
will focus on CTE classes in
addition to hosting the district’s
alternative school.
District staff will try to grow
their CTE offerings by applying
for money from the CTE
Revitalization Grant Program,
a $2 million fund created by
the Oregon Legislature in 2011
expressly for that purpose.
Although the district already
boasts a couple dozen CTE
classes, Thompson sees room
for improvement.
In addition to their current
career tracks, Thompson said
See SCHOOL/8A
AP Photo/Bilal Hussein
Syrian refugees sit outside their tents
as they cover their face with masks
Tuesday during a sandstorm in a ref-
ugee camp in the town of Bar Elias in
Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
U.S. vows
to help
migrants
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Obama admin-
istration wants to help its allies across the
Atlantic with an escalating migrant crisis,
but is unlikely to open America’s doors to
vast numbers of Syrian and other refugees
arriving each day by the thousands in
Europe.
While Germany braces for some
800,000 asylum seekers this year, many of
whom are À eeing Syria’s civil war, the U.S.
isn’t saying if it will increase its worldwide
quota for resettling refugees from 70,000.
Only a fraction of those would be Syrians,
who must ¿ rst navigate a multiyear appli-
cation process before learning if they can
start a new life in the United States.
Secretary of State John Kerry plans
See MIGRANTS/8A
PENDLETON
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Al-packed up
A pair of bushy-haired alpaca stand in a fi eld off Highway 395 on Tuesday south of Pendleton. Alpaca are a domesticated
type of camelid from the Andes Mountains in Peru. Alpaca, which are smaller than their cousins the llama, were not bred
as a beast of burden but rather for their soft fi ber that can be used for knitted or woven items of clothing.
Man dies
three days
after rollover
HERMISTON
City compromises on landscaping rules
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The city of Hermiston has
revised its proposed land-
scapinJ ordinance after ¿ eldinJ
complaints
from
business
owners who would be affected
by the rules.
A public hearing on the
revised ordinance will take place
on at the city council’s Monday
meeting at 7 p.m. at city hall.
The city held ¿ rm on
reTuiring speci¿ c percentages
of new developments to be
landscaped but did respond to
other concerns, like resident
Don Skeen’s point that the
ordinance’s provision about
“preserving natural vegetation”
wherever possible didn’t always
translate well in real life.
“In our area natural vegeta-
tion is goatheads,” he said at the
Aug. 24 public hearing.
In response the city added
new language to the ordinance
specifying that natural vegeta-
tion does not include noxious
weeds or prohibited tree species.
It also added language
allowing for drought-friendly
xeriscaping, clari¿ ed how
enforcement will take place, put
a cap on commercial zone land-
scaping at 20,000 square feet
if the property is more than 10
acres and changed the amount of
non-plant ground cover allowed
from 35 percent to 50 percent.
Under the new language
failure to follow the landscaping
requirements would result in
the same process of notice and
abatement as violations of the
city’s nuisance codes.
At a previous public
hearing Hermiston Chamber
of Commerce director Debbie
Pedro said the chamber had
sent out a survey with a copy
of the original ordinance and 71
percent of the 69 respondents
agreed with implementing some
sort of landscaping ordinance,
although many of them had
worries about the wording of the
ordinance.
According to a news release
from the city, staff sat down
with Hermiston Chamber of
See HERMISTON/8A
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Oregon State Police have identi¿ ed ¿ ve
people involved in a single-vehicle rollover
crash Sept. 3 on Interstate 84 in Pendleton,
including one man who was ejected from
the vehicle and later died from his injuries.
Gary Elkins, 42, of Stayton, died Sunday
while being treated at Oregon Health &
Science University, Portland. Four others
were also identi¿ ed by OSP on Tuesday
— including three local residents — while
authorities continue to search for two men
who reportedly À ed the scene.
State police Lt. Mike Turner of the
Pendleton command said, “We have one
tentatively identi¿ ed,” but that is not 100
percent certain. He also said it is unlikely
the public could help in this case. The man
See WRECK/8A
Salting the Earth
Drilling boom means more harmful spills
By JOHN FLESHER
AP Environmental Writer
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
In this April 22 photo, Wesley Graves looks over a crater left after a saltwater
disposal pipeline ruptured on his ranch near Snyder, Texas. Equipment failure is a
major cause of oilfi eld wastewater spills.
CROSSROADS, N.M. —
Carl Johnson and son Justin,
who have complained for
years about spills of oil¿ eld
wastewater where they raise
cattle in the high plains of
New Mexico, stroll across a 1
1/2-acre patch of sandy soil —
lifeless, save for a scattering
of stunted weeds.
Five years ago, a broken
pipe soaked the land with as
much as 420,000 gallons of
wastewater, a salty drilling
byproduct that killed the
shrubs and grass. It was
among dozens of spills that
have damaged the Johnsons’
grazing lands and made them
worry about their ground-
water.
“If we lose our water,”
Justin Johnson said, “that
ruins our ranch.”
Their plight illustrates
a side effect of oil and gas
production that has worsened
with the past decade’s drilling
boom: spills of wastewater
that foul the land, kill wild-
life and threaten freshwater
supplies.
An Associated
Press
See SPILLS/8A