REGION
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 3A
Committee turns to state for
Fire destroys family’s home help on groundwater nitrates
PENDLETON
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
A fire that started near
a furnace and water heater
burned through a Pendleton
home Tuesday morning and
killed three of the family’s
pets.
Andi Davis said she lived
at the house at 1525 S.E.
Alexander Place since she
was 8, and her mother and
stepfather, Carol and Ralph
McCall, still live there. But
as far as she knew no one was
home except for their dogs.
Two large dogs escaped the
fire, said Pendleton assistant
fire chief Shawn Penninger.
The first reports of
smoke coming from the
back of the house arrived at
8:45 a.m. and Pendleton Fire
and Ambulance were on the
scene soon after. Fire Chief
Mike Ciraulo said flames
were showing by the time
crews arrived.
Pendleton sent three fire
engines and their attack was
stalled as they called for
more from nearby agencies.
Ciraulo said a team tried
to attack the interior of the
house, but that was too
dangerous.
“The
roof
was
collapsing,” he said.
Firefighters hauling hoses
and ladders also had to be
careful just walking. The
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Phil Wright
A home at 1525 S.E. Alexander Place caught fire
Tuesday morning in Pendleton. No one was injured, but
the house was severely damaged.
freezing weather made for a
thin layer of ice over streets
and concrete. A couple of
crew members slipped on
the slick surfaces.
Teams hit the home with
water from the front and the
back. Flames still shot high
above the pitched roof of
the one-story home. Davis,
tearful, watched from the
edge of a nearby yard. She
said it would have been
better if the fire was quick,
but watching the home
slowly burn was torture.
“It’s like a play-by-play
of every memory you have,”
she said.
Davis said her single
mother raised her and her
sister, and this place always
felt like home.
“She worked hard for
everything she had,” Davis
said of her mom. “She didn’t
deserve to lose it.”
As firefighters got control
of the blaze, an ambu-
lance was dispatched to a
two-semi wreck on Clark
Lane and Airport Road near
Woodpecker Truck.
There were no injuries,
Penninger said, because
the trucks were moving so
slowly but couldn’t stop
because a layer of ice about
1/8 of an inch thick was
covering the roadway.
Eastern Oregon schools get
first look at new state tip line
Students will be
able to text, email
or use an app
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
If a local student has public
safety concerns, they’ve long
been able to call an anony-
mous tip line to share them.
Starting this week, many
Eastern Oregon students can
now also text, email or use
an app to let authorities know
if they think something is
wrong.
Several Eastern Oregon
school districts are involved
in the pilot project for the
Oregon School Safety Tip
Line, a new Oregon State
Police initiative.
According to InterMoun-
tain
Education
Service
District superintendent Mark
Mulvihill, the tip line went
live on Monday for the
Pendleton, Ione and Morrow
County school districts.
The Umatilla, Echo and
Pilot Rock school districts
will be able to access the line
by the end of the week and
the Stanfield School District
next week.
The origins of the tip line
go back to 2014, when the
state Legislature created the
Oregon Task Force on School
Safety.
The task force recom-
mended creating a new tip line
to replace the Department of
Justice line already in place,
and the Legislature complied
during the 2016 session,
passing a bill that directed $1
million to establish the new
tip line with the OSP.
As OSP selected a vendor
and looked to launch the
new program, Mulvihill and
Pendleton police chief Stuart
Roberts were garnering
attention for their efforts to
improve school security infra-
structure and communication
in schools across the IMESD.
Roberts said OSP reached
out to him to see if schools
in Umatilla County would
be interested in piloting the
project.
He convinced OSP to
expand the pilot project to
schools in the IMESD, and
now seven are signed up with
more to come.
With most school shoot-
ings, Roberts said there
are students who know
something beforehand, but
don’t always report that
information.
Roberts said one of the
strengths of the new tip line
is all of the options it affords
students — children may be
more comfortable texting,
emailing or using an in-app
function instead of a voice
call.
Students who contact
the tip line will go through
the vendor’s technicians in
Louisiana before the infor-
mation is passed on to police,
school officials or other local
authorities, depending on the
situation.
The line between notifying
police and school officials is
a fine one, Roberts said, but
he trusts that the vendor will
notify both entities if it is
unclear.
All tip line interactions
and their results will be
logged into a database that
schools can access, a feature
Roberts said will make it
HERMISTON
City issues call to action
on downtown revitalization
East Oregonian
Anyone interested in
taking action to help revi-
talize Hermiston’s downtown
is invited to a meeting on
Feb. 28.
The meeting, planned for
5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Eastern
Oregon Trade and Event
Center, 1705 E. Airport
Road, Hermiston, will be to
discuss needs for downtown
and will end with participants
breaking into groups to tackle
specific needs.
Presenters include Sheri
Stuart, Oregon Main Street
coordinator; Emma Porri-
colo, Hermiston’s Main
Street program coordinator;
and Mark Morgan, assistant
city manager.
Porricolo has been inter-
viewing downtown stake-
holders, including business
owners and property owners,
and has identified five major
themes: a need for more
retail and restaurants, a need
for more downtown events,
a perceived lack of parking,
needed building upgrades/
upkeep, and beautification.
The second hour of the
meeting will consist of
breaking into task forces with
the goal of recruiting and
establishing groups that will
create action plans for tack-
ling the issues listed above.
“This meeting will be both
informational, and action-ori-
ented,” Porricolo said in a
news release. “Everyone
who is interested in seeing a
vibrant downtown is invited
to come learn what the
priorities of downtown stake-
holders are, and seize on an
opportunity to volunteer on
one of these committees and
capitalize on the momentum
that is building downtown.”
easier for authorities to stay
on the same page.
In the past, Roberts said
individuals would receive
information about a public
safety concern but didn’t
always share it with others.
“Most of these people
have busy lives and didn’t
take time to initiate the
report,” he said.
At the pilot stage, Roberts
said there’s still details that
need to be worked out, like
how school districts will
coordinate the tip line data-
base with the records they
already keep.
“This is still one of the
air bubbles that needs to be
burped out,” he said.
Brad Bixler, the Pend-
leton School District human
resources director, said Pend-
leton will begin to roll out the
tip line as it gets materials
from the OSP and teachers
will take time out of their
classes to inform students
about it.
Bixler said district admin-
istrators have been assigned
to provide around-the-clock
response if an issue is
reported.
Bixler said the district
can benefit from the more
advanced reporting functions
from the tip line, which will
give school officials a better
sense of the public safety
trends going on in the district.
Students can contact the tip
line at 844-472-3367 or via
email at tip@safeoregon.
com, The mobile app can be
downloaded at www.safeo-
regon.com.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
A volunteer committee
grappling with groundwater
contamination in the Lower
Umatilla Basin is reaching
out to the state for additional
help.
The Lower Umatilla
Basin Groundwater Manage-
ment Area, or LUBGWMA,
was declared in 1990 due to
elevated levels of nitrates in
groundwater. Nitrates come
from a variety of sources,
though the primary culprit
is fertilizer, according to
the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality.
The advisory committee
is charged with writing a
new action plan designed to
curb the level of groundwater
nitrates in the area, which
spans 550 square miles and
encompasses six communi-
ties in Umatilla and Morrow
counties:
Hermiston,
Stanfield, Echo, Umatilla,
Boardman and Irrigon.
The committee reached
out to Oregon Solutions
in October, a program that
serves at the pleasure of
the governor’s office to
leverage state resources for
local projects. On Monday,
Oregon Solutions staff met
with the committee in Herm-
iston and said they hoped to
finish assessing the group’s
proposal by next month.
Pete Dalke, senior project
manager for Oregon Solu-
tions, said they are trying to
get more specific feedback
from committee members,
such as major issues posed
by groundwater nitrates and
the urgency to address the
situation immediately.
“It’s hard for us to engage
if there isn’t some driver, or
some timeline,” Dalke said.
“You’ve got to help us with
what we need to bring to you
“I think there was enough positive feed-
back in the meeting (Monday). It should
resonate that this is a definite need.”
— Clive Kaiser, LUBGWMA committee
to help you move forward.”
Tamra Mabbott, Umatilla
County planning director,
said
the
Groundwater
Management
Area
is
affecting economic devel-
opment by preventing some
businesses from building or
expanding.
“There are businesses that
want to come in that can’t
locate here, even if they have
enough water, because of
limitations of land applica-
tion of wastewater,” Mabbott
said. “I think there’s a whole
host of things that would
warrant Oregon Solutions, if
they could help the group.”
Oregon’s Groundwater
Protection Act requires DEQ
to declare a Groundwater
Management Area if contam-
ination exceeds certain
levels. In the case of nitrates,
the trigger is 7 milligrams
per liter, or 70 percent of
the federal drinking water
standard.
The Lower Umatilla Basin
came to exceed that mark
through a number of different
land uses, though DEQ says
an overwhelming majority of
those leached nitrates — 81.6
percent — come from the
region’s vast irrigated farms.
Pastures make up another 8.1
percent, and food processors
account for 4.6 percent.
An action plan was
developed in 1997 with
voluntary actions to reduce
nitrates, though after 20 years
the results have been mixed.
DEQ data shows nitrates are
still increasing overall in the
basin, though not as sharply
as in years past.
The
LUBGWMA
PENDLETON
committee is now working
on a second action plan,
which chairman Clive
Kaiser said is nearly ready
for peer review. Kaiser, an
extension horticulturist for
Oregon State University in
Milton-Freewater, said he
feels Oregon Solutions could
help them put their plan into
action.
“I think there was enough
positive feedback in the
meeting (Monday),” Kaiser
said. “It should resonate that
this is a definite need.”
In a previous interview
with the East Oregonian, Phil
Richerson, hydrogeologist
for DEQ in Pendleton, said
it will likely take decades to
realize the necessary, basin-
wide improvement. Changes
in agricultural practices
and technology, including
more efficient watering and
fertilizing, have helped, but
Richerson said there is still
work to do.
“I think there’s room for
improvement,” Richerson
said.
The basin is also bracing
for potentially more mitigated
irrigation water available
from the Columbia River,
which would add even more
farmland to Eastern Oregon.
Dealing with groundwater
can be a difficult task, Rich-
erson said, since the resource
is often out of sight and out
of mind.
“I do think we’ll be able to
find a solution,” he said. “It’s
a complicated thing.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
HERMISTON
Third cannabis
store approved
East Oregonian
A third recreational marijuana
store was approved by the Pendleton
Planning Commission last week.
The store — owned by Michael
Ekblad of Hermiston — will be
located at 2003 S.W. Emigrant Ave., a
former Tom Denchel Ford dealership.
City planner George Clough said
Ekblad’s store was represented by its
manager, Amy Brown.
Maureen McCormmach, the chair-
woman of the planning commission,
said a meeting attendee, Robert Tally,
questioned the owner’s character
and got into an argument with one of
the other audience members before
leaving.
McCormmach said she told Tally
that the planning commission’s sole
responsibility was to determine
whether the marijuana shop met
the city’s zoning rules. Character
concerns should be addressed with
the Oregon Liquor Control Commis-
sion, the state agency that conducts
background checks on all marijuana
retailers.
This is the third cannabis retailer
the commission has approved,
following Pendleton Cannabis and
Kind Leaf Pendleton.
All three will have to receive
licenses from the city and state before
they can open.
De la Cruz honored
for work on Hispanic
Advisory Committee
East Oregonian
Former Hispanic Advisory Committee chair
Eddie de la Cruz was honored Monday night
by the Hermiston City Council.
De la Cruz helped begin the Hispanic Advi-
sory Committee about four and a half years
ago. Since that time the committee won the
National League of Cities’ Cultural Diversity
Award in 2013 and has hosted monthly public
meetings in Spanish and English that are often
standing-room only.
“You took the ball and ran with it,” mayor
David Drotzmann said when he presented
a plaque to de la Cruz. “Your committee has
done a phenomenal job.”
City councilors Rod Hardin, Manuel
Gutierrez and Clara Beas Fitzgerald praised
de la Cruz for his work in making the city a
more inclusive place and providing a place for
Latino members of the community to feel more
comfortable airing concerns or learning about
city programs.
“It has been excellent, so thank you Eddie,”
Gutierrez said.
De la Cruz left the Hispanic Advisory
Committee last fall after moving to Texas,
but was back in town this week for business
reasons.
De la Cruz said he was honored to have been
able to help the city get the committee started.
“It has made a difference and opened a lot of
doors,” he said.
Jose Garcia is the committee’s new chair.
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