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THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2016
140th Year, No. 189
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WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
HERMISTON
Lifeways to open psychiatric facility
Expected to be operational in spring 2017
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Eastern Oregon residents expe-
riencing a psychiatric crisis will
no longer be sent across the state
to receive help after construction
is fi nished on an acute psychiatric
care facility in Hermiston.
Lifeways, which provides
mental health and addiction
services to the region, broke
ground on the new 16-bed Aspen
Springs facility on Wednesday. It is
expected to become operational in
spring 2017.
“This is a great day for us,”
Lifeways CEO Judy Cordeniz told
the crowd.
Good Shepherd Medical Center
CEO Dennis Burke applauded
Lifeways for taking the “bold step”
of upgrading their original plans
from a residential treatment facility
to a regional acute psychiatric
facility.
That type of secure facility can
take care a step beyond residential
treatment facilities such as McNary
Place in Hermiston, providing
the most intensive level of mental
health care, including hospital-level
crisis care for a per-bed cost cheaper
than the Oregon State Hospital.
“Having a facility like this is an
investment, a signifi cant invest-
ment, and I very much expect to see
a return on it,” Burke said.
The need for such facilities is
great. According to the American
College of Emergency Physicians,
Oregon’s number of psychiatric
beds per 100,000 people dropped
from 28.8 in 2009 to 8.7 in 2014
— the fourth fewest in the country.
The result is that local residents in
need of in-patient treatment after a
severe mental health crisis are often
sent to the other side of the state
because there are no beds available
closer to home.
Cordeniz said Lifeways is
See LIFEWAYS/8A
Fresh delivery
RIGHT: An adult osprey fl ies up with a fi sh in its talons
to feed its mate and two juveniles in their nest over-
looking the Umatilla River on Wednesday in Pendleton.
BELOW: Juvenile osprey, with the checkered feather
pattern, get up to eat as their parents look on from
their nest.
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
PENDLETON
BOARDMAN
From dropout to master’s student First fi ring
Olivera to lead
BMCC student
success program
successful at
gas-fi red plant
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Planned to be in service by July 31
Roman Olivera doesn’t
look like a guy who is ever
scared of anything. He laughs
a lot and wears an easygoing
smile. His relaxed demeanor
puts others at ease.
About 14 years ago,
however, something fright-
ened him to the core — the
thought of going back to
school. He had dropped out of
his “gang-infested” California
high school decades earlier.
In the years following, he had
worked as a driver, plasterer
and meat cutter. The father
of fi ve had carved out a good
blue collar life.
Then liver failure in 2001
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Roman Olivera has been named as the director of the TRIO Student Success Service at
BMCC in Pendleton.
changed everything. The idea
of possibly dying without
graduating from high school
niggled at him.
“I didn’t want my kids to
say their dad didn’t have a
high school diploma,” Olivera
remembers thinking.
A liver transplant saved his
life, but the idea of fi nishing
school lingered. He enrolled
in the GED program at
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Visit the Pendleton Round-Up
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“I invite students to let me walk through
their fears with them. I work with
students who are just like I was.”
— Roman Olivera, director of TRIO
Student Success Service at BMCC
Blue Mountain Community
College and forced himself
to hit the books. The college
environment
intimidated
him at fi rst. The culture was
foreign. The idea of taking
tests terrifi ed him.
Olivera, now 56, credits
tutoring,
cajoling
and
encouragement from success
coaches in BMCC’s TRIO
program. They dragged him
along, he said, until a latent
love of education kicked in.
Eventually, he earned not only
his GED, but undergraduate
and master’s degrees.
Things have come full
circle. Olivera is now the
director of TRIO Student
Success Services — the
program that jumpstarted his
affection for the academic
life. The TRIO program,
fueled by federal grant money,
focuses on fi rst-generation,
low-income and disabled
students who are transitioning
to college, and supports them
along the way. The name is
not an acronym, despite the
capitalization, but rather a
package of three programs
that boost student success.
The father of fi ve won’t
have to move his offi ce too
far, only down the hall. He
worked as a success coach
in the program for the two
previous years. On Tuesday,
See OLIVERA/8A
It might be more than $100 million over
budget, but Portland General Electric hopes to
have the Carty Generating Station in commercial
service before the end of the month.
PGE fi red up the turbines at its 440-megawatt
natural gas power plant near Boardman for the
fi rst time June 21, and is aiming to complete the
startup phase by July 31. That was the deadline
set by the Oregon Public Utility Commission in its
2016 General Rate Case order for Carty.
But in a recent fi ling with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission, PGE cautions the
service date could be delayed due to continued
uncertainty over shoddy work by former
contractor Abeinsa, which was terminated from
the project last December. Abeinsa is a subsidiary
of Abengoa, a Spanish multinational corporation
that fi led for chapter 15 bankruptcy in the U.S.
earlier this year.
After fi ring Abeinsa, PGE claims it found
serious and potentially deadly defects at the plant
that could pose severe safety hazards if they
weren’t fi xed. Morrow County records also show
52 liens have been placed on the project by local
subcontractors who claim they weren’t paid for
their work.
All that has caused the total estimated cost
for Carty to rise between $635 and $670 million,
which is well above the $514 million previously
approved by the Oregon PUC. Abengoa has since
claimed it was wrongfully terminated by PGE,
and the insurance companies that backed a $145.6
million bond on the project denied liability. PGE is
suing those companies — Liberty Mutual Surety
and Zurich North America — for upwards of $180
million in damages.
Unless the bond is recovered, PGE intends to
ask for a rate increase to recoup the additional
costs for Carty. The PUC already approved an
overall rate increase of less than 1 percent for
2016 in anticipation of Carty’s completion this
year. Most PGE customers live in and around the
Portland metro area.
Carty was identifi ed in PGE’s long-range
See CARTY/8A