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East Oregonian
DOCTOR: Loan forgiveness
available to rural doctors
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commitment from them to
work at least ive years in
an underserved rural area
in Oregon after graduation.
It covers doctors, dentists,
physicians’ assistants and a
master’s in nursing.
Buck was not a Scholars
for a Healthy Oregon partic-
ipant, but the program hopes
to foster more stories like
his of students who left their
rural Oregon hometown for
medical school and returned
later to practice medicine
there.
Winding Waters Clinic
in Enterprise and OHSU
are celebrating the 25-year
anniversary this weekend of
a “rural training” program
where doctors completing
their residency program
spend three months in
Enterprise or John Day to
gain experience in a rural
setting.
Other
programs
available to potential rural
doctors are the loan forgive-
ness programs administered
by the Oregon Ofice of
Rural Health. The Oregon
Medicaid Primary Care
Loan Repayment Program,
for example, provides
up to $105,000 in loan
forgiveness for providers
that work at least three years
serving Medicaid patients in
underserved rural areas.
Robert Duehmig, deputy
director of the Oregon
Ofice of Rural Health, said
those types of programs
have “absolutely” helped
rural hospitals and clinics
hire more medical practi-
tioners.
“Providers come out (of
school) with a lot of debt,”
he said. “That kind of loan
repayment really helps
them start a practice without
having to worry about that.”
Duehmig said it tends to
be harder to make money
as a doctor, dentist, or other
provider away from the big
cities because there tends to
be fewer patients available
and more of those are on
Medicaid. Doctors have to
practice a wider range of
medicine when there aren’t
specialists down the hall,
and less backup means more
hours at work and on call.
He said sometimes
doctors also don’t want to
move to a rural area because
their spouse working in a
different ield might have
limited professional oppor-
tunities in a small town.
“It’s important for
practice sites to remember
they’re not just recruiting
doctors, they’re recruiting
their families,” he said.
Programs like loan
forgiveness or scholarships
can at least guarantee a
hospital or clinic a provider
for three to ive years that
they might not otherwise
have had, Duehmig said.
And some providers end
up spending most of their
career in the same town. He
said as a result, OHSU looks
for applicants who are from
rural Oregon to begin with.
“They’re the most likely
to come back and stay,” he
said.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
OFF PAGE ONE
BUTTE: City may build fence, lease some of the land
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path that stretches from there along the
Hermiston Irrigation District canal and a
large section of the grassy ield next to the
spray park. The end of the chainlink fence
behind the spray park marks the end of
the city’s property and the beginning of
Davis’s. Anyone heading to the left of the
fence along the canal is trespassing.
Davis said he has “tolerated a lot”
through the years. But an incident on the
Fourth of July, in which people refused to
move off of his land as a ireworks-caused
ire burned nearby, caused him to decide
to “buckle down” and place signs at each
point a trail crosses into his property.
The fact that several trails on the butte
lead directly to Davis’s property has
created an understandable public impres-
sion that his land is owned by the city.
Now that he is making it clear it is not,
Davis said he understands it’s frustrating
for people who have gotten used to using
the area in the past. However, he said an
easy ix would be for the city to put in a
gate or two in the fence along Butte Park,
giving people a legal access point directly
onto the publicly-owned part of the butte.
“People are coming to jog or hike
anyway,” he said. “So they’ve got to go a
couple of extra blocks.”
Hermiston Parks and Recreation
director Larry Fetter said the city is
aware of the tensions that have cropped
up. He said the city and Davis have been
communicating about a range of possible
ixes, from building a fence to leasing
some of the land.
Fetter said the goal is to preserve as
much public access as possible while still
being respectful of property owners who
border the butte.
He said it is hard to measure how
much trafic the area gets, but he would
guess that between 50 and 100 people use
it on any given summer day. They access
a “patchwork” of trails that include some
city-made paths, the utility access road
and a number of trails that “just kind of
formed” through the unoficial efforts
of some users. The Hermiston Irrigation
District has an easement where the canal
borders the eastern side, and at the top of
the butte is a water reservoir, a metal cross
maintained by Oasis of Hope Church and
telecommunications equipment.
Much of the land is actually owned
by the Bureau of Land Management,
with the city acting as an oficial steward.
Other sections are owned by the city
outright. In 2011 a 1.5 acre section of land
on the southeast side of the butte went
up for sale and the city bought it from a
private citizen in order to prevent houses
from being built alongside the distinctive
landmark.
Overall the public property is consid-
ered part of Butte Park. That means
city park rules — including no ires, no
camping, no alcohol and no off-leash
pets — apply. Even though several trails
lead to Davis’s property, and people have
used the Standard Avenue access point
for years, Fetter asked people to be good
neighbors and heed the signs that inform
them when they’re about to cross into
private land.
DAIRY: Currently produces 70,000 gallons of milk every day for Tillamook
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location within the Lower Umatilla Basin
Groundwater Management Area, which
was designated by the agency in 1990 due
to high levels of nitrates that exceeded
federal safe drinking water standards.
Animal waste has the potential to
load even more nitrates in groundwater,
if it isn’t dealt with properly. However,
Butcher said the dairy’s plan might just
prove to be a template for permitting
future facilities.
“We were pretty satisied with how
the permit inally came out for public
comment,” Butcher said.
Details in the application were ironed
out over a period of months, according
to te Velde. They include designs for
a wastewater lagoon, land application
and extensive groundwater and soil
monitoring. Overall, te Velde said he is
relatively conident they have everything
covered.
“We’re abiding by the CAFO rules
provided by the state,” he said.
Lost Valley Ranch would be located
about a mile and a half east of where
Homestead Lane meets Poleline Road.
About 5,900 acres of the property would
be used to grow feed for the cows, such as
corn silage, alfalfa and triticale.
Currently, the dairy produces roughly
70,000 gallons of milk every day for Tilla-
mook Cheese, which operates a plant just
down Interstate 84 at the Port of Morrow.
Others, including Morrow County,
have their concerns. Planning Director
Carla McLane said that while she did
sign the project’s land use compatibility,
she did so with trepidation. That is based
in part on the location within the Ground-
water Management Area.
“The fact that there are already two
dairies and a beef CAFO within a three-
or four-mile radius, with some signii-
cantly closer, only increases the concerns
about the development of another much
larger dairy,” McLane wrote in comments
submitted to ODA.
The dairy would also span three other
critical groundwater areas, McLane
wrote, which in some cases have
completely restricted the use of ground-
water for agriculture. McLane requested
the hearing Thursday so their issues can
be fully discussed.
The Riverfront Center is located at
2 Marine Drive in Boardman. Written
comments can be submitted to Matthews
at the ODA’s CAFO program, 635 Capitol
Street NE, Salem, OR 97301, or emailed
to wmatthews@oda.state.or.us.