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East Oregonian
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Ruling forces discussions on
Hot Lake resort aims to
become veterans care center breaching dams to save salmon
Will need $44M
investment
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Hot Lake Springs, an
historic hotel and mineral spa
located 10 miles east of La
Grande, may become an alter-
native care center for disabled
veterans under an ambitious
proposal unveiled Friday.
But it will take $44 million
in investment to make it a
reality.
David and Lee Manuel,
who restored and reopened the
resort 13 years ago, are in the
process of selling to a group
of partners that plan to create
the Veterans Restorative Care
Center, specializing in natural
medicine to heal soldiers with
physical and mental injuries.
The center would be
owned and operated by the
Warrior Bonire Program, a
Mississippi-based nonproit
organization that brings
wounded veterans together
for small, therapeutic retreats.
Medical services would
be provided on site by the
National University of Natural
Medicine, based in Portland.
Finally, Dyne Aquaculture,
of Texas, wants to build a
facility across the street to
annually raise 20 million
pounds tilapia, a freshwater
ish raised for meat, along
with a four-acre hydroponics
farm. All proits will go
back to support the veterans
center, and Dyne Aquaculture
estimates they could create as
many as 200 direct jobs.
The team will lay out its
vision and begin fundraising
during an open house Saturday
from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the
resort. It is expected to cost $14
million to buy and re-purpose
the property, and another $30
million to build the irst phase
of the aquaculture project.
“Our goal in all of this is to
be self-sustainable,” said John
Bickel, founder and CEO of
Dyne Aquaculture.
Historically, Hot Lake
Staff photo by George Plaven
Hot Lake Springs could become the Veterans
Restorative Care Center under a proposed plan
involving four different organizations.
Springs was a healing place
for Native American tribes
prior to 1812. The building
was also a sanitarium in its
heyday in the early 1900s,
where geothermal waters
were used and experimented
with to cure patients.
Bickel, who is himself a
retired U.S. Army Lieutenant
Colonel and disabled veteran,
irst came up with the idea for
the Veterans Restorative Care
Center while looking into Hot
Lake Springs as a potential
location for his aquaculture
business. Though it seemed
like a great spot, he said he
had no idea what to do with
the resort.
“I’ve never done anything
with hospitality,” he said.
Earlier this year, the
Warrior Bonire Project
came on board and they soon
reached out to the National
University of Natural Medi-
cine — the oldest accredited
naturopathic school in North
America. All four partners
held a three-day meeting in
June to work out their model.
Lee Manuel, who along
with her family began restoring
Hot Lake Springs when the
building was falling apart, said
they are honored to step aside
for such an honorable project.
Mike Chesne, vice presi-
dent of outreach for Warrior
Bonire, said they will come
up with a vetting process for
accepting soldiers and their
families, and could get started
sometime within the next year,
if everything comes together.
Chesne, who spent 25 years
in the military including nine
tours of duty in Iraq and one in
Afghanistan, said he realized
the value of natural medicine
and group trips for veterans
after he was wounded and
sent home in 2008. Doctors
had him on 27 different pills,
he said, as he struggled to
regain his identity.
“Literally, I thought I was
crazy,” Chesne said.
The suicide rate among
veterans is reaching an
epidemic rate, Chesne said,
now averaging 22 every day.
He said he hopes the Veterans
Restorative Care Center can
offer an integrated solution for
soldiers into the future.
“I found a new mission.
That’s brought me here,” he
said.
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with ishing groups, envi- northeast Oregon, which
ronmentalists, the state of could help salmon survive
Oregon and the Nez Perce in a warming climate.
“We have the healthy
SPOKANE, Wash. — A Tribe, inding that the latest
federal judge is forcing of ive federal plans for rivers, but the salmon aren’t
discussion of a radical step protecting the ish wasn’t making it back,” Mace said.
In a typical year, only
to save endangered salmon: adequate. He ordered the
taking out four dams on the agencies to prepare a new about 40 percent of the
Idaho sockeye counted
one by early 2018.
Lower Snake River.
Simon said federal on the Lower Columbia
The public will get a
chance to weigh in at meet- agencies had “done their River make it back to their
ings throughout the North- utmost” to avoid consid- Idaho spawning grounds.
ering breaching the Snake During last year’s drought,
west starting next month.
“Scientists tell us that River dams, ignoring strong mortality was in the 99
removing the four Lower suggestions to do so by a percent range. Warm water
in the four Lower Snake
Snake dams is the single previous federal judge.
While Simon said he reservoirs is a contributor.
most important action
The economic argument
we could take to restore wouldn’t dictate what
salmon in the entire Colum- options agencies should for the dams isn’t as strong
bia-Snake river basin,” said consider, he said a proper as it once was, Mace said.
The Lower Snake dams
Sam Mace of Save Our analysis under federal law
“may well require” consid- were built from the 1950s to
Wild Salmon.
The four dams produce ering breaching, bypassing the 1970s, with navigation
about 5 percent of the or removing one or more of as a primary goal. But that
Northwest’s hydroelectric the four Lower Snake River barge trafic has dropped in
recent years as the region
power. They allow barges dams.
Salmon advocates said has invested in rail capacity,
to ship goods between
Lewiston and Portland. But the ruling is the closest the Mace said.
“These dams weren’t
they also hamper salmon region has come to dam
migration to some of the breaching since 2000, when built for lood control.
the Army Corps of Engi- They’re not big water
best remaining ish habitat.
Commercial
inter- neers did a study of taking storage dams . and their
ests have long opposed out the Lower Snake dams. power beneits are replace-
The four dams produce able,” she said. “It’s time to
removing the Lower Snake
about 1,000 megawatts of call the question on them.”
dams.
Salmon
advocates
“We think those dams electricity on average, which
need to stay in place because is enough to meet the needs “downplay the value of
of the multiple beneits of about 800,000 house- the dams,” said Flores, of
they provide,” said Terry holds each year. But despite Northwest River Partners.
Dams provide more
Flores, executive director of millions of dollars spent on
Northwest River Partners, ish passage improvements, operating lexibility than
which represents public adult salmon still die in the other renewable energy
utilities, port districts and reservoirs behind the dams. sources, such as wind
“The four dams on the and solar, Flores said.
farm groups.
“They provide clean, Lower Snake River have Electricity generated from
carbon-free energy. We had a devastating impact wind turbines and solar
think they’re an important on salmon, steelhead and panels can’t be stored
part of the Northwest Paciic lamprey, and in turn easily. But dams can store
economy and the environ- on the Nez Perce people,” water, releasing it during
said McCoy Oatman, vice periods of high demand for
ment,” she said.
Three federal agencies chairman of the tribe, electricity.
Breaching the four
will hold public hearings which is also advocating
Lower Snake dams would
across the region this fall dam removal.
The Snake River is the require the Northwest to
to discuss the creation of a
gateway to millions of acres build a natural-gas-ired
new salmon plan.
Back in May, U.S. of pristine, high-elevation plant, the Bonneville Power
District
Court
Judge habitat in central Idaho, Adminstration said this
Michael H. 190-092816-EOInternationalCarrierDay-Page1-Composite
Simon sided southwest Washington and spring.
By BECKY KRAMER
The Spokesman-Review
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