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East Oregonian
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Court reinstates wolf delisting challenge OLIVERA: Dropped
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
The ight over Oregon’s
wolf protections is heading
back to court.
The state Court of Appeals
has reinstated a legal chal-
lenge iled by conservation
groups Cascadia Wildlands,
Oregon Wild and the Center
for Biological Diversity,
which argue wolves were
prematurely removed from
the Oregon Endangered
Species List.
In their challenge, the
groups assert the Oregon
Department of Fish &
Wildlife did not follow the
best available science in its
recommendation to delist
wolves last year — nor was
the evidence independently
reviewed. The Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Commission
voted 4-2 in favor of delis-
ting on Nov. 9.
The groups initially iled
the challenge on Dec. 30.
Earlier this year, the Oregon
Legislature passed House
Bill 4040 which ratiied
ODFW’s decision. Gov. Kate
Brown signed the bill on
March 14, and the Appellate
Commissioner
dismissed
any further judicial review as
moot.
But in a new twist, the
court reinstated the challenge
on Tuesday, with Chief Judge
Erika Hadlock describing the
issues as “complex matters
of public importance.”
“Without deciding what,
if any, effect HB 4040 has on
this judicial review, the court
determines that the issues
of possible mootness and
the validity of HB 4040 are
more appropriately decided
by a department of the court
following a full brieing,”
Hadlock wrote in the court’s
ruling.
The
announcement
was met with cheers from
environmentalists and exas-
peration by Eastern Oregon
ranchers. Nick Cady, legal
director for Cascadia Wild-
lands, said they are conident
in their case, with wolves
currently occupying just
12 percent of their suitable
habitat statewide.
“In no way should
management of Oregon’s
small population of recov-
ering wolves be dictated by
the livestock industry and its
anti-wolf allies in Salem,”
Cady said in a statement.
“This ruling is a hopeful irst
step to ensure politics do not
trump science when it comes
to managing our treasured
wildlife.”
Steve Pedery, conser-
vation director for Oregon
Wild, said the passage of HB
4040 has only helped to turn
the focus away from science
and on to politics.
“Now this gets us into
a constitutional issue in
Oregon,” Pedery said. “It’s
really just a mess.”
The groups will have until
Aug. 23 to ile their opening
brief with the court.
Ranchers,
meanwhile,
have long argued they need
to be able to kill wolves
that make a habit of preying
on livestock in order to
protect their operations.
Since wolves were delisted
under Phase II of the state’s
management and conserva-
tion plan, ODFW did follow
through with shooting four
wolves from the Imnaha
Pack in Wallowa County.
Todd Nash, a rancher
based in Enterprise, serves
as chairman of the wolf
committee for the Oregon
Cattlemen’s
Association.
He said ranchers breathed a
sigh of relief over the spring,
feeling like the wolf plan was
inally working. Now facing
another lawsuit, he said
they’re becoming exhausted.
“It just goes on and on,”
Nash said. “At some point,
I hope everyone can see
what these groups are doing,
in that they’re litigating
because they can.”
HB 4040 was championed
by local Rep. Greg Barreto,
R-Cove, in the House, and
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
in the Senate. Cady, with
Cascadia Wildlands, had
also iled an ethics complaint
in May against Barreto,
claiming he knowingly
misled the Legislature about
the bill before it was passed.
In particular, the complaint
alleged Barreto made false
claims that the bill would not
block a legal review of the
wolf delisting in court. The
Oregon Government Ethics
Commission dismissed the
complaint on July 1.
Barreto said he was never
really concerned about the
complaint leading to an
ethics investigation. He did
not comment further on the
newly reinstated legal chal-
lenge against HB 4040.
Hansell said the bill’s
primary purpose was never to
dodge a lawsuit, but rather to
go on record stating ODFW
had followed the letter
of the wolf plan. He said
the department presented
evidence showing the wolf
population is on the rise, and
met the recovery thresholds
that were approved by all
parties under Phase I of the
plan.
“Everybody was at the
table when we worked out
the plan,” Hansell said.
“The plan is working. I just
wanted to get on record
that the Legislature, in fact,
supports the decision.”
Gov. Brown signed
the bill and, in a letter to
Secretary of State Jeanne
Atkins, said, “The trajec-
tory of wolf populations in
Oregon remains strong, with
available habitat and prey to
support continued growth.”
A representative
of
Brown’s ofice said they
would not comment on
pending litigation.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
CARTY: PGE
says it is up to
15 percent more
eficient than
other models
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Partners in a new 16-bed acute psychiatric facility that Lifeways is building in
Hermiston participate in a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday.
LIFEWAYS: CFO says facility
should create 35 family-wage jobs
Continued from 1A
pursuing certiication from
the state to allow the facility
to take Medicare patients,
which has become crucial
as Baby Boomers continue
to retire.
The project’s construc-
tion budget is expected to
run to about $4.3 million,
with an annual operating
cost of about $2.8 million.
Greater Oregon Behavioral
Health and the Eastern
Oregon Human Services
Consortium
contributed
$500,000 in seed money for
the project.
Lifeways CFO Steve
Jensen said the facility
should create about 35
family-wage jobs when
completed.
Greg Schneider, the
former Lifeways CEO who
helped get the project off
the ground, said building a
16-bed facility in Hermiston
to allow people in crisis to
stay closer to home was a
“no-brainer.”
“I think this will be great
for the community, and for
Lifeways,” he said.
The facility will be
located at 1212 Linda
Avenue and will be consid-
ered part of the Good Shep-
herd Health Care System
campus. According to
information handed out at
the groundbreaking, Good
Shepherd Medical Center
will collaborate with Life-
ways to provide “general
ancillary hospital services
and restore the availability
of
community-based
psychiatric hospital services
for our community, lost
with the closure of Blue
Mountain Recovery Center
as a hold facility and state
hospital unit.”
Financing of the project
is being handled by Zions
Bank, design by Pinnacle
Architecture and construc-
tion by W.C. Construction
and various local subcon-
tractors.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
energy plan to account for
growing demand. Steve
Corson, a spokesman for the
utility, said the irst iring of
the plant afirms their goal to
bring the plant online by July
31, but there’s much work
left to do before that happens.
“This is, without a doubt,
a complex situation,” Corson
said.
The station, which is
being built in the shadow
of the Boardman Coal Plant
on Tower Road, operates by
burning natural gas to drive
one turbine, and capturing
excess heat to create steam
that drives the second. This
is known as a combined
cycle system, which PGE
says is up to 15 percent more
eficient than other models.
Corson said they are
working with subcontractors
and vendors to settle liens
found to be valid. If the plant
is not up and running by July
31, PGE says it will work
with the PUC to determine
how and when rates will be
affected moving forward.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
out in the 10th grade
Continued from 1A
he stood in the middle of
his old ofice and breathed
deep. A four-foot-long sign
hanging above his desk
proclaimed “Knowledge
is Power.” He said he
will carry the sign to the
new ofice along with his
French press coffee pot and
photos of his ive children
engaged in various sports.
This was the ofice
where he counseled many
ledgling irst-generation
college students as they
tackled the intricacies of
academic life.
“I invite students to
let me walk through their
fears with them,” he said.
“I work with students who
are just like I was.”
That student, the one
struggling to keep it
together — that was him.
He drifted back in time to
describe his own journey,
saying his disillusionment
with school started after
his father died when
Olivera was eight.
“It changed how I saw
myself,” he said. “I had
this big void. I wasn’t
fully engaged. I didn’t
participate in sports. I
disappeared into the back
of the class.”
He dropped out of
school in 10th grade to
take a job driving for a
dental lab and later worked
for 10 years in his uncle’s
construction
company.
After moving to Pend-
leton in 1992, he worked
at Hill Meat Company,
spending his days cutting,
pickling, smoking and
deboning meat. Liver
failure knocked him lat
in September of 2001.
After the liver transplant,
he awoke to the news that
terrorists had crashed into
the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. He went
home with instructions
from his doctors not to lift
more than ive pounds for
at least six months. Side-
lined from the work world
and determined to get that
elusive high school degree,
he enrolled in BMCC’s
GED program.
Olivera shook his
head as he remembered
how uncomfortable and
nervous he felt in the
college environment. The
TRIO ofice became his
second home, he said.
There, he found encour-
agement,
along
with
tutoring and proofreading
support.
“The people there
wanted nothing but success
out of their students,”
he said. “I had skills but
I didn’t know it. They
brought a little bit out of
me at a time.”
He remembers the day
he inally got brave enough
to take the GED test,
though he wavered until
the inal moment, fearing
the math portion of the
exam. In the testing center,
then-test
administrator
Shannon Elner gave him a
pep talk.
“She said, ‘Take the
test. If you don’t pass, take
it again, but I think you’re
ready,’” Olivera recalled
her saying.
After Elner informed
him he had passed, “I
practically went over
the counter to give her a
hug.” He soon received
a GED certiicate signed
by Camille Preus, current
BMCC president and
then-Commissioner
of
Community Colleges.
At that time, Preus
personally signed piles of
GED certiicates instead of
using a stamp.
“Each one represented
a mountain of work,” she
said. “The least I could do
was to sign them by hand.”
Getting his GED was
huge for Olivera. He had
caught the bug. He reveled
in this paradigm shift.
“I fell in love with the
academic world,” he said.
“I fell in love with educa-
tion. I knew I could learn.
My conidence started
building.”
Olivera started working
toward an associated of arts
transfer degree at BMCC
and later a bachelor’s in
multidisciplinary studies
with an education minor
from Eastern Oregon
University. Between his
bachelor’s degree and
master’s, he substitute
taught for the Pendleton
School District and also
tutored BMCC students. In
2012, he became a career
coach at the college and,
in 2014, a success coach
at BMCC. The TRIO
director job came open a
couple of times over the
years, but he lacked the
required master’s degree
so he didn’t apply. Finally,
he enrolled in a master’s
management
program
at Colorado Technical
University.
Preus marveled as
Olivera worked full-time
at BMCC while earning
his master’s degree online.
“He sets goals and has
a clear eye for accom-
plishing those goals,” she
said.
The next time the TRIO
director job came open,
Olivera applied.
Allison Severin, a
success coach with TRIO,
said Olivera is a natural
in the way he deals with
students in transition.
“Severin said. “He can
talk to anybody. He brings
a completely different
perspective to non-tradi-
tional students,” she said.
“He went from a GED to
a master’s degree. He is
why TRIO exists — for
students like him.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney
at kaney@eastoregonian.
com or call 541-966-0810.
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