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East Oregonian
Thursday, June 2, 2016
WYDEN: ‘Hermiston High is a hotbed of capitalism’
HOUSING: Land needs to be rezoned
Continued from 1A
Continued from 1A
looking at what type of legislation
might help boost graduation rates,
research has shown that those rates
are tied to attendance, and CTE
programs help boost attendance.
When Congress passed the
Every Child Achieves Act to
replace No Child Left Behind,
Wyden included language that
will give schools with low gradu-
ation rates access to federal grants
for programs that help keep at-risk
students interested in school.
He told the students the “spark”
he could see in them as they talked
about their hands-on projects is
something he wants to see spread
to other schools.
“You guys have a chance to
be a real model, and that’s why I
came here today,” he said.
One of the students who shared
their project with Wyden was
Hannah Reese, who won a gold
medal at state for Family, Career
and Community Leaders of
America (FCCLA). She received
97 of 100 points for a recreation
and tourism project that involved
creating a detailed business plan
for a restaurant and catering
business that she said she plans to
open someday. One of her ideas
included cupcakes made fresh
every day that will appeal to a
variety of customers.
“I want to invest in vegan and
gluten-free options,” she said.
Wyden said he was working
on a bill that would help cut red
tape for recreation and tourism
businesses, such as requiring all
of the permit applications to be
accessible online.
7,800 acres now in organic peas, corn,
onions, carrots and other vegetables.
General manager Marty Myers has said
they hope to expand to over 12,000
organic acres in the next two years.
In order to do that, the farm will
need to bring on a larger seasonal
workforce. In a previous interview,
Myers compared organic farming to
going back 20 years in terms of farm
practices, to the point of pulling weeds
by hand. It takes more labor to grow
organic, and those workers will all need
somewhere to live.
In its application, PROfuutt Limited
Partnership said they initially plan to
build one housing complex with 36
units, each with three bedrooms. Ted
Sanders, the company’s real estate
development manager, declined to talk
more about the project when contacted
Wednesday.
McLane, the county planning
director, said the irst step is to get the
land rezoned. Space Age Industrial, or
SAI, is something of a throwback, she
said, created by the Oregon Legislature
in the 1960s around the time of the
Space Race.
The housing site has been zoned
SAI since the early 1980s in hopes of
luring aerospace industries to Morrow
County. Those companies never came,
and since then McLane said they’ve
been discussing what to do with the
property.
“It kind of has marginal value as
industrial land,” she said. “It really is
a 1960s space race holdover here in
Morrow County.”
The Planning Department has
recommended approving a zoning
change to Exclusive Farm Use.
McLane said the location is preferable
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Sen. Ron Wyden listens to Hermiston senior Hannah Reese,
second from left, talk about her project on hospitality and
recreation Wednesday at Hermiston High School.
“I’d like you to take a look at
it,” he told Reese. “I’d really like
to have your comments.”
Salma Anguiano, a soph-
omore, shared that she was
recently elected president of the
Oregon FCCLA chapter and will
be working with the national
council to draft proposals for
education-related education. She
said she didn’t know what she
would be doing if she didn’t have
programs like FCCLA to keep her
busy.
“Not all schools in Oregon
have the awesome opportunity to
take the classes we do,” she said.
After the roundtable with
students, they took Wyden on a
tour of the Java Dawgs coffee
shop run by accounting students,
and the Dawg House, a shop
selling Bulldogs gear that is also
run by business students.
“I’ve decided Hermiston High
is a hotbed of capitalism,” Wyden
said.
Following the tour at the high
school the group headed over
to Fieldstone #2, the second
student-built home created by
the Columbia Basin Student
Homebuilding Program. While
students from an agricultural class
worked to landscape the yard,
homebuilding students put the
inishing touches on the highly
energy-eficient home, which is
on the market for $345,000.
“This is gorgeous,” Wyden
remarked as he got the grand tour.
The home will be open to the
public for tours on Friday, from
1-6 p.m.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com
or 541-564-4536.
for farmworker housing, since they’ll
be closer to the farm itself and avoid
straining sewer and water services
within Boardman city limits.
Another part of the application
would also allow the Port of Morrow to
extend a sewer line from nearby prop-
erty it owns to serve the development.
That condition would not take effect
until after the housing is approved.
Some neighbors have expressed
concern about the proposal. Kelly
Doherty, a nearby property owner, said
the entire application process has made
her leery. If a zone change is approved
irst, she said there is no assurance the
development wouldn’t morph into
“Boardman West.”
“In this case, there’s no regulation
on how many units they can actually
build,” Doherty said.
Doherty, who is the wife of newly
elected Morrow County Commissioner
Jim Doherty, also has concerns about
the amount of trafic on Tower Road,
though she said the farm has indicated
seasonal workers wouldn’t arrive in
their own vehicles and would be bused
into town once a week for groceries.
That raises its own set of issues,
she said, with farmworkers essentially
being isolated from services in the
community.
“I don’t understand why we treat our
farmworkers the way we do,” she said.
“It’s my estimation that we have ample
water, ample sewer and ample building
space within the city.”
Doherty has testiied against the
project in public meetings, and said she
will consider hiring an attorney to ight
the development if it passes through the
planning commission.
———
Contact George Plaven at gplaven@
eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0825.
WINE: Zinfandel vineyard had been abandoned for about 20 years
Continued from 1A
daddy of wine in the Columbia
River Gorge, a pioneer on the
level of the visionaries who
made the Willamette Valley
an internationally acclaimed
producer of Pinot Noir.
He’s planted, planned or
consulted on hundreds of
acres of vineyards on both
sides of the river from Hood
River, Ore., east to Maryhill,
Wash., a region that includes
two American Viticultural
Areas and produces robust
reds, delicate whites and
boasts of “a world of wine in
40 miles.”
Other vineyard owners
call him mentor, advocate
and friend. In 2011, the
Oregon Wine Board gave
him its Lifetime Achievement
Award. He was nominated by
his peers.
But right now he’s just
another dirt farmer dealing
with a dang problem. The
issue is resolved a few
minutes later when Rojas,
the vineyard foreman, inds a
closed valve on an irrigation
well. Water soon lows to the
drip lines strung through the
legacy vines up on the hill,
and Lonnie Wright is smiling
again.
Gorge takes off
Columbia River Gorge
wine is on a roll. Vineyards,
wineries and tasting rooms
dot the towns that line the
river and now compete with
orchard stands and brew
pubs for tourists. Increas-
ingly, the region is tapping
the big Portland market on
the shoulder and reminding
wine lovers that Interstate 84
through the Gorge is a much
quicker drive than creeping
out Oregon 99W to the Pinot
Noir vineyards of Yamhill
County. An April “Portland
Grand Tasting” held in the
city’s posh Pearl District was
packed with people eager
to sample Gorge wines. In
the meantime, Wine Press
Northwest, an insider trade
publication, named Hood
River’s Mount Hood Winery
as its 2016 Oregon Winery of
the Year.
The Gorge itself, a
National Scenic Area known
for its massive basalt forma-
tions and dazzling waterfalls,
is part of the attraction and is
key to the variety of wines
grown in the region. The
river bisects the spine of the
Cascade Mountain Range,
which divides Oregon and
Washington into western wet
and eastern dry sides. Wine
enthusiasts like to say the
region loses an inch of rain
with every mile traveled east.
The west side of the Hood
River Valley gets 36 inches of
precipitation annually, while
only 15 inches falls in The
Dalles and only 10 beyond
that.
As a result, the region
produces at least 40 types of
wine from grapes that grow
in a wide range of heat and
water, from Zinfandel, Merlot
and Pinot Noir to Pinot Gris,
Riesling and Chardonnay.
For winemakers, the Gorge
represents the “blessing
and challenge” of a diverse
American Viticultural Area,
said Mark Chien, program
coordinator of the Oregon
Wine Research Institute at
Oregon State University.
“They are well on their
way to making great wine,”
Chien said. “It’s sort of like
where the Willamette Valley
was 25 years ago: You igure
out what the heck you’ve got
and what to do about it.”
Vineyard revival
That might have been
Lonnie Wright’s line 34 years
ago as he stood on a slope
above Mill Creek a few miles
southwest of The Dalles.
He’d heard — through the
grapevine, if you will — that
an orchardist planned to
revive an 8-acre, century-old
Zinfandel vineyard that had
been abandoned for about
20 years. Wright showed up
unbidden at 7 a.m. and found
the orchardist literally reading
from a University of Califor-
nia-Davis pruning textbook.
Wright grew up in Indiana,
where he earned a scholarship
and played guard on Butler
University’s basketball team
and igured he’d most likely
teach and coach hoops. But the
call of the road eventually led
by way of Central America to
the Paciic Northwest, where
in 1978 he found himself part
of a crew planting the irst
vineyards at Columbia Crest,
a winery owned by Chateau
Ste. Michelle in Paterson,
Wash. He learned he had a
knack for the work, soaked
up information, became a
manager and supervised the
irst harvest.
The road called again,
however, and he went off
for the irst of two trips to
Libya to install irrigation
systems — adventures that
seem crazy given the current
state of affairs in the Middle
East. In 1982 he was back in
the Gorge, starting a family
with his wife, Linda, and the
idea of getting in on the start
of reviving the old vineyard
appealed to him.
The rest is Gorge lore.
The long-neglected vineyard
apparently is among the oldest
in the Paciic Northwest.
Wright learned it was planted
by a stonemason, Louis
Comini, probably between
1890 and 1900. Comini also
made the headstones placed
at the local Catholic cemetery,
built a couple of stone houses
in The Dalles and worked on
The Grotto, a Catholic shrine
in Portland.
Early photos, one dated
1910, show the Old Zin
vines weren’t grown on
a trellis system but were
“head-trained on the ground,”
essentially grown like low
bushes. The method provided
protection against freezing
but left grapes susceptible to
bunch rot.
Wright revitalized the
Old Vine Zin and eventually
bought the vineyard and
adjoining property, which
among other iterations had
once been a dairy. Today the
wine made from the old block
is highly praised by connois-
seurs and sells for $35 a bottle
at The Pines 1852 tasting
room Wright opened in Hood
River.
He also started a “Young
Zin” block from Old Zin
cuttings 25 years ago, and
planted Merlot and Syrah
grapes as well. In 1983
he planted a Chardonnay
vineyard for a neighbor along
Mill Creek, veterinarian and
beef cattle rancher Terry
McDuffee. From that irst
job, he emerged as the go-to
consultant, cheerleader and
vineyard manager among
people likewise drawn to the
prospects of growing grapes
and making wine in the
dramatic landscape framed by
the Columbia River, Mount
Hood and Mount Adams.
Bob Morus, president of
Phelps Creek Vineyards in
Hood River, tells a familiar
story. Arriving in the Gorge
in the late 1980s, he learned
Wright was the “guru” to ask
about starting a vineyard.
Wright “came up to the
place and kicked the dirt,”
and asked Morus what type
of grapes he wanted to grow.
Morus answered Pinot Noir,
then becoming Oregon’s
signature grape.
“I suppose we can do
that,” Wright drawled, but
he cautioned that he’d not
planted Pinot Noir before.
Wright and his crew planned
and planted the irst eight
acres. Phelps Creek has
expanded over the years and
its wines enjoy a sterling
reputation with reviewers.
“He got me going and
we’ve remained friends ever
since,” Morus said. He jokes
that he eventually had to “ire”
Wright “because I needed to
make my own mistakes.”
A break came when King
Estates of Eugene, one of
the state’s largest and most
prominent wineries, came
looking for grapes. Wright
was friends with the late
Brad Biehl, King Estates’
viticulturist, and introduced
him to Morus and others who
became King’s suppliers.
“The combination of
Brad and Lonnie really boot-
strapped grape growing in
the Gorge,” Morus said. The
company liked what it found
and paid promptly, critical to
the beginning Gorge vine-
yards.
“All those formative years
sucked us into growing more
grapes,” Morus said with a
laugh. “It really helped us get
established.”
Morus said Wright also
pressed for recognition of the
Gorge within Oregon’s wine
industry.
“He’s such a strong
advocates for grapes in the
Gorge,” he said. “It was really
a struggle to get the Oregon
Wine Board to recognize
people were growing grapes
somewhere other than in the
Willamette Valley.
“When they write the
history of the Gorge, they’ll
need to talk about Lonnie.”