WEEKEND EDITION
BOB HUBBARD
OF IONE
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TWO VIETNAM VETERANS REUNITED
AFTER 47 YEARS LIFESTYLES/1C
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JULY 30-31, 2016
140th Year, No. 206
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WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
BOARDMAN
GMO wheat
found again
in northwest
By MATTHEW WEAVER
EO Media Group
SPOKANE — The USDA is investigating
22 genetically engineered wheat plants found
in a fallow Washington state agricultural fi eld.
The wheat plants are resistant to the herbi-
cide glyphosate, known by the trade name
Roundup, according to an Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service notice.
“APHIS has taken prompt and thorough
action in response to this discovery and has
no evidence of GE wheat in commerce,” the
notice states. It did not say when or where the
discovery was made or reveal the name of the
farmer.
The GE wheat was developed by the
Monsanto Co. and is referred to as MON
71700 and contains the CP4-EPSPS protein,
according to the notice.
“Due to the small number of affected plants
and based on available information about
MON 71700 and CP4-EPSPS, (the Food
and Drug Administration) has concluded it
See WHEAT/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A truck drives down Poleline Road between poplar trees on the left and a corn fi eld on the right as the transition begins
at the Boardman Tree Farm from trees to food production.
It is rocket science
for Pendleton grad
Receding tree line
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Sometimes it takes Ryan Lacey longer than
expected to grasp things. But once he does, he
takes off.
Graduating from
Pendleton
High
School with a 4.0
GPA, the top SAT
scores in his class
and all the other
accolades that come
with being a top
student betrays the
fact that Lacey didn’t
know how to read
until third grade.
By the next year
he was in the top
reading group.
“As easy as riding
a bike” was more
of an adage than a
personal truth for
Lacey until he was Lacey
around 10, when he
fi rst learned to ride a bicycle unassisted in the
Alvord Desert, a dry lake bed in southeastern
Oregon.
And it may have taken some time for
Iconic poplar tree farm making room for cows, crops
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Piles of cut poplar trees sit in a fi eld Friday at the Boardman
Tree Farm.
remaining trees are harvested.
Evans said the transition has
gone better than expected
since the company took over in
February.
“It’s a beautiful piece of prop-
erty,” he said. “This is a great
place to farm.”
Terms of the deal, which
included both the land and water
See LACEY/10A
No protection for no man’s land
By ALEXA LOUGEE
East Oregonian
There are 156,000 of acres
of land in Umatilla County
with no offi cial fi re protection.
This land is predominantly in
three areas of the county —
north of Pendleton, east of
Hermiston and south of Pilot
Rock — and is known as “no
man’s land” among county
fi re offi cials.
These areas are unpro-
tected because those land
owners do not pay taxes for
fi re coverage. Fires that start
in those areas have the poten-
tial to become large fi res,
like the recent fi re in Gilliam
County, that would threaten
land and homes owned by
citizens within a fi re protected
area. As a result, time and
resources are often expended
outside district boundaries
to prevent small fi res from
getting out of control.
Where possible, district
fi re crews will preserve
resources by allowing a fi re in
no man’s land to burn toward
a boundary line and then take
action.
Most often, land owners
are the fi rst responders to
fi res on their land and do
their best with tractors and
equipment, but according
to Scott Stanton, fi re chief
of the Umatilla County Fire
District, their efforts are just
not enough.
Stanton wants to see the
county, landowners and area
fi re chiefs sit down and fi nd
solutions to the no man’s land
issue and the problems unpro-
tected land pose. Stanton has
at least three possible ways to
address no man’s land.
One idea is to have current
fi re districts adjacent to the
lands annex the unprotected
area. Landowners would have
to fi le the request and then
voters would have to approve
the annexation.
Another solution is to
create a new fi re district. The
process is similar to annex-
ation and requires a vote.
A third possibility would
be to form a rangeland fi re
protection association through
the state. In a fi re protection
association, landowners agree
to serve as volunteer wildland
fi refi ghters in case a fi re starts
on their lands. There is no fi re
station, no paid fi re crew and
no tax district.
Through forming an
See FIRE/12A
Umatilla County areas
lacking fire protection
Area in detail
Ore.
No official fire district
r
Parts of county left uncovered by fi re districts
82
R
Col u m b i a
Umatilla
730
84
Hermiston
Stanfield
12
Wash.
Wash.
Ore.
ive
Once a captivating landmark
along Interstate 84 in Eastern
Oregon, the Boardman Tree
Farm is quickly disappearing to
make way for more conventional
crops and cows.
GreenWood
Resources,
headquartered in Portland,
sold the land earlier this year
and already large swaths of
poplars have been cut down and
replaced with irrigation pivots.
Approximately one-third of the
25,000-acre property is slated to
become a dairy farm — permit
pending — while the rest was
purchased by AgriNorthwest,
based in the Tri-Cities.
Will
Evans,
division
controller for AgriNorthwest,
said the plan is to convert all
acreage into cropland as the
rights from the Columbia River,
were not disclosed. AgriNorth-
west grows a variety of local
staples, including potatoes, corn,
wheat and carrots.
Don Rice, director of North
American operations for Green-
Wood Resources, said it will
likely be a few years before all
the trees are gone. Part of the
wait, he said, is to allow younger
trees to fi nish growing before
they are ready to be processed.
Another part is based on what
the markets will bear.
The Collins Companies
informed Morrow County offi -
cials they will permanently shut
down the Upper Columbia Mill
by the end of October, with most
of the facilities’ 67 employees
laid off by Sept. 19. However,
Rice said the Columbia Forest
Products veneer mill is still open,
See DAIRY/12A
Milton- Ore.
Freewater
11
37
Echo
Athena
Pendleton
iver
illa R
Umat
204
84
207
Pilot Rock
UMATILLA
82
74
La Grande
MORROW
244
395
Source:
Umatilla County
Alan Kenaga/
EO Media Group
UNION
Ukiah
10 miles
84