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NOVEMBER 26-27, 2016
City may
sell land
to Ranch
& Home
Public hearing at council
meeting Monday night
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The Hermiston City
Council will hold a public
hearing Monday on the ques-
tion of whether to sell a small
piece of land to Ranch &
Home founder George Dress
as he seeks to build a store in
Hermiston.
The business plans to
build a 100,000-square-foot
retail location on 6.55 acres
off South Highway 395
between Hermiston Foods
and the Wal-Mart Distribu-
tion Center. The city owns
1.71 adjacent acres, which
surround a municipal water
well. In order to have room
for the store’s preferred
plans, Dress has requested
to purchase 0.43 acres of the
city’s property for $6,565.
According to a memo to
the city council by city staff,
the section of land is “unde-
veloped with any city struc-
tures, is not needed for future
water system development,
and lies outside the existing
fenced boundary of the city’s
lot.” Once declared surplus
and sold, it would be added to
the city’s tax rolls.
Ranch & Home, which
has locations in Kennewick,
Pasco and Milton-Freewater,
sells sporting goods, hunting
and fi shing equipment,
clothing, livestock and pet
items and home and garden
items.
On Monday the city
council will also consider a
request to waive utility fees
on the Umatilla County Fair-
grounds from Dec. 1, 2016 to
May 31, 2017.
See COUNCIL/3A
SUSAN FITZPATRICK
OF MILTON-FREEWATER
Visit Elite
Guns &
Bows in
Pendleton
for a free hat
A pipeline runs through it
Gas, petroleum
lines cut across
tribal land
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
The explosion shook the
ground beneath the Umatilla
Indian Reservation and
unleashed a massive fi reball
that roared up to 500 feet into
the air.
On Jan. 2, 1999, a natural
gas pipeline ruptured about a
mile south of Cayuse at the
base of the Blue Mountains,
triggering the blast that left
behind a large crater and sent
shrapnel fl ying hundreds of
feet.
“It sounded like a jet
engine had crashed,” remem-
bers Chuck Sams, now the
communications director for
the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion.
Fortunately, no one was
hurt and no homes damaged
in the accident, but for tribal
offi cials it underscored the
potential danger of fossil fuel
pipelines criss-crossing the
landscape where American
Indians live, hunt and retain
cultural resources.
Now as protesters clash
with police over the Dakota
Access Pipeline on the
Standing Rock Sioux Reser-
vation in North Dakota,
Sams said the CTUIR knows
fi rsthand that some utilities
simply are not capable of
protecting tribal resources
and treaty rights.
“For the Standing Rock
Reservation, that’s what
they’re trying to do,” Sams
said.
There are actually two
underground pipelines that
run underneath the Umatilla
Indian Reservation — neither
of which were originally
negotiated by the CTUIR.
The Northwest Pipeline,
owned and operated by the
Williams Companies, is
what blew up on the reser-
vation nearly 18 years ago.
The entire line spans 4,000
miles over six western states,
with the capacity to carry 3.9
million dekatherms of Rocky
Mountain natural gas per
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Markers denote the path of the Tesoro Logistics pipeline at the point where it crosses underneath the Umatilla
River south of Cayuse.
Pipelines on Umatilla Indian Reservation
Williams northwest pipeline
Umatilla Indian Reservation
Colum
bi
Tesoro pipeline
12
125
Wash.
Wash.
r
HERMISTON
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
ive
141st Year, No. 30
a R
Ore.
Ore.
Milton-
Freewater
730
11
37
Athena
Stanfield
Echo
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The Jan. 4, 1999, front page coverage of the
natural gas pipeline explosion on the Umatilla Indian
Reservation in the East Oregonian.
“Right or wrong, good or bad, we want
to build systems to manage (pipelines)
and ultimately draw a benefi t off of that.”
— Dave Tovey, executive director for the CTUIR
day.
The other line is owned by
Tesoro Corporation, an inde-
pendent refi ner and marketer
of petroleum products based
in San Antonio. Its North-
west Products System pipe-
line stretches 760 miles from
Salt Lake City to Spokane,
Washington. It transports
gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Both lines converge on
the reservation east of Pend-
leton, and were essentially
inherited by the tribes. The
right-of-way for each was
settled in the 1950s by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. At
84
Pendleton
illa
Umat
er
Ri v
204
UMATILLA
Pilot Rock
74
395
82
84
10 miles
244
La Grande
Source: National Pipeline Mapping System
Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group
the time the CTUIR govern-
ment was not developed
to the point where it could
provide much technical or
legal analysis.
It wasn’t until President
Gerald Ford signed the Indian
Self-Determination
and
Education Assistance Act of
1975 that tribes, including
the CTUIR, assumed greater
control over their own
welfare. The legislation also
authorized the government to
See PIPELINE/14A
PENDLETON
UAS range manager has eye on the sky
Abling brings 29
years of aerospace
experience to job
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Darryl Abling is the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems range manager at the
Eastern Oregon Regional Airport.
While drones might not
have entered Pendleton’s
consciousness until a few
years ago, they’ve been on
Darryl Abling’s radar for
much longer.
Abling, the Pendleton
Unmanned Aerial Systems
Range manager, came to
Eastern Oregon after a
29-year career at Northrop
Grumman, a company that
has been working with
drones since 2000.
Abling had worked
on the stealth bomber by
that time, an airplane he
described as “super secret,
black world stuff.” He
eventually worked his way
up even farther, becoming
the fl ight test lead for the
aerospace giant and mili-
tary contractor.
During that time, Abling
oversaw tests of full-sized,
unmanned versions of
a helicopter and stealth
bomber at Naval Air
Station Point Mugu on the
Southern California coast.
Although he’s a Phil-
adelphia native, Abling
decided against a move
back to the Northeast and
retired when Northrop
Grumman moved testing
operations to Maryland.
Northrop Grumman still
indirectly helped him get
the job in Pendleton when
an old colleague, who now
works at the University of
Alaska campus that admin-
isters the test ranges in
See UAS/14A