Saturday, March 4, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
Next in line to lead Russia probe: Rosenstein has respect FIRE: Forest Service spent $2.1 billion
Sessions recused
WASHINGTON (AP) — a d m i n i s t r a t i o n .
himself from any
Some Democrats worry the That staying power,
fighting fires throughout the region
Trump-Russia
appointment of a Jeff Sessions extraordinary
for
Page 12A
East Oregonian
subordinate to oversee an
investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 elec-
tion won’t be a clean enough
break from the embattled
attorney general.
But the veteran prosecutor
in line for the job may be
uniquely politically palatable.
Rod Rosenstein, who
faces his confirmation hearing
next week for the role of
deputy attorney general, was
appointed top federal prose-
cutor in Maryland by George
W. Bush and remained in
the post for the entire Obama
investigation
a position that
Thursday after the
routinely turns over
Justice Department
with changes in the
acknowledged he
White House, lends
had spoken twice
weight to the repu-
with the Russian
tation he’s cultivated
ambassador
last
as an apolitical law Rosenstein
year and had failed
enforcement official.
“He is so well-respected. to disclose the contacts during
He cannot be influenced, he his Senate confirmation
cannot be bought, he cannot process. Sessions said he had
be pressured because of not tried to mislead anyone but
outside political forces,” said could have been more careful
Baltimore criminal defense in his answers. He planned
attorney Steven Silverman, to file amended testimony on
who has known Rosenstein Monday, a Justice Department
spokesman said.
for years.
PENDLETON: Also considering adding
management of the Vert to the position
Continued from 1A
the end of the current fiscal
year in June.
Neil Brown, a member of
the city council and conven-
tion center commission,
said he supported the move,
which has nothing to do with
Chrisman’s performance.
“It’s too much work for
one person to do,” he said.
Brown said Chrisman’s
part-timer status meant
convention center office
specialist Kathy Marshall
had to fill in the gaps
Chrisman wasn’t able to
cover.
In addition to increased
responsibilities
at
the
convention center, Brown
said the city is also consid-
ering adding management
of the Vert Auditorium to the
position’s responsibilities, a
task that would be difficult
for a part-timer to achieve.
Kennedy had convinced
the city council to allocate
money toward bringing
more events to the Vert, but
the plan was put on hiatus
when he retired.
Hiring a new convention
center manager means the
city will have to add an
administrative salary to its
payroll.
While the current salary
range for the convention
center manager is between
$73,692-$98,412 per year,
Corbett wrote in the report
that staff had done a salary
survey to determine the pay
for the new position.
If the council approves the
position, the new manager
will earn between $60,564
and $80,892 annually to
start, and would max out at
$108,000.
Corbett expects the
salary will be covered partly
by projected increases in
convention center revenue.
According to human
resources director Andrea
Denton, Chrisman only earns
salary as the airport manager,
despite his other titles. He
earns $90,468 per year.
Chrisman did not return a
request for comment.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
WATER: Sitz plans to stay with the coalition
for two years before applying to law school
Continued from 1A
Sitz is a former PHS
athlete and Lantern Cup
winner, the school’s highest
award for personal and
classroom achievement. Her
family comes from a cattle
ranching background and she
said rural issues have always
informed her way of thinking
— even after college in the
San Francisco Bay Area.
Sitz graduated from
Stanford in 2015, and
followed that up with a
one-year fellowship with
the Bill Lane Center for the
American West. It was there
she became involved with a
program called Water in the
West, researching solutions to
the region’s increasing water
shortage.
From there, Sitz said
she began looking at
opportunities in Oregon and
came across the Northeast
Oregon Water Association,
or NOWA. That’s the group
working to negotiate new
mitigated water rights for
Umatilla and Morrow county
farmers out of the Columbia
River, a delicate and lengthy
effort with potentially huge
economic rewards.
Sitz reached out to J.R.
Cook, executive director for
NOWA and a board member
for the Oregon Water
Coalition. Cook said he felt
Sitz would be a great fit for
the water coalition, which
formed in 1992 to educate
and do outreach, but had
largely become inactive and
nearly dissolved last year.
“(Sitz) lit a fire under us,”
Cook said.
With Sitz on board, Cook
said the coalition has been
reborn. And though Sitz
said she is still learning the
ropes, she is already at work
rebuilding their website and
re-establishing their commu-
“Water is not going to become any less
important in the future. It’s just key to the
economic engine of so many areas.”
— Marika Sitz, Oregon Water Coalition
nity partnerships.
“It’s a little bit about
finding our place,” she said.
Ray Kopacz, coalition vice
president and manager of the
Stanfield Irrigation District,
said it will take some time
to get themselves organized
after years of sitting in limbo.
“It never really died. We
just lost some key people who
were helping run it,” Kopacz
said.
Sitz plans to stay with the
coalition for two years before
applying to law school. She
said the relationships she
builds now will be invaluable
down the road.
“Water is not going to
become any less important in
the future,” she said. “It’s just
key to the economic engine of
so many areas.”
When Sitz leaves, Cook
said they hope to continue
recruiting new blood to carry
on the work that’s already
been done. It has taken 30
years of work to get to where
they are now, he said, and it
will be up to the new guard to
see many of these projects to
fruition.
“The goal is to bring
people Marika’s age back
our way to work for northeast
Oregon,” Cook said.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0825.
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Continued from 1A
people must do to contain
them in the future.
On Wednesday, Hessburg
spoke before a mostly full
house at Maxey Hall on the
campus of Whitman College
in Walla Walla. The commu-
nity had its own brush with
the destructive Blue Creek
Fire in July 2015 that burned
6,000 acres, 12 structures
and nearly crept into the Mill
Creek watershed.
While the prospect of
megafires is a scary thought,
Hessburg said it wasn’t
his goal to make people
afraid — quite the opposite,
actually.
“I want you to feel more
powerful,” Hessburg said.
“We need to work toward
making our forests fire-resil-
ient again.”
Hessburg, who lives in
Wenatchee,
Washington,
relayed the experience of
his own hometown battling
the massive Sleepy Hollow
blaze during the same 2015
wildlife season. That fire
morphed into a nearly 3,000-
acre inferno that destroyed
29 homes and three commer-
cial businesses.
Less than two months
later, Eastern Oregon would
face a trio of monstrous fires:
the Canyon Creek Complex
near John Day, Grizzly Bear
Complex outside of Troy
and Cornet-Windy Ridge
Fire in Baker County. All
together, those fires would
torch nearly 300,000 acres,
and another 43 homes would
burn in Canyon Creek.
The Forest Service
spent $2.1 billion fighting
fires throughout the region,
though Hessburg said the
toll was much higher in
reality. Suppression costs are
just one piece of the puzzle,
he said. Combined with
rebuilding infrastructure, lost
property values and business
revenue, the actual cost
figures to be more than $50
billion.
“As taxpayers, this should
concern all of us,” he said.
Getting to the root of
modern megafires requires
a look back at history. In
1905, President Theodore
Roosevelt and forester
Gifford Pinchot created the
Forest Service. Five years
later, the Great Fire of 1910
burned roughly 3 million
acres across northeast Wash-
ington, northern Idaho and
western Montana.
From then on, Hessburg
said the Forest Service
pledged to fight fires at all
costs. It took about 25 years
for the agency to get really
good at fire suppression, and
by 1934 the agency adopted
the so-called “10 a.m.
policy,” which ordered every
fire be put out by 10 a.m. the
day after it was first reported.
The result, Hessburg said,
has been decades of fire
exclusion on the landscape,
which has changed the
composition of the forests
to overly dense and crowded
with vegetation. Past logging
practices also removed
older and larger trees from
the forest, encouraging the
growth of less fire-resilient
species.
“This is when our forests
started to become sick and
unhealthy,” Hessburg said.
Comparing historical and
current photos, Hessburg
pointed out how forests used
to be a patchy mosaic of
large trees and open grassy
meadows, which kept fires
low to the ground and low
in intensity. Now forest
fires have much more fuel
to consume and climb their
way up into the canopy of
tree stands.
Climate change is also
making summers warmer
and extending fire season
by months, Hessburg said,
turning the forests into a
powder keg. By 2050, data
show the West could expe-
rience two or three times as
much fire as it does now.
“Even the most conserva-
tive forecasts are pretty darn
dire,” he said.
Fire suppression alone
is an incomplete solution,
Hessburg said. What needs
to happen is large-scale reha-
bilitation of the forests and
rangeland using a variety of
management tools.
It will be an immense job,
as Oregon and Washington
have a combined 11.6 million
acres in need of treatment to
restore better fire behavior.
The first and perhaps
most important step, Hess-
burg said, is restoring fire to
its natural role on the land-
scape. He pointed to things
like prescribed burns and
managed wildfires, where a
naturally caused, low-inten-
sity blaze is allowed to run
its natural course.
Fire is the most important
natural process for forests in
the West, Hessburg said. Not
only does it increase future
resilience, but some species
depend on wildfire for
survival — lodgepole pine
cones will only open after a
fire, while certain types of
birds make their habitat in
burned snags.
Mechanical thinning can
also be a valuable tool if
it’s done in the right places,
Hessburg said. The timber
industry has a role to play,
using the wood to make
products such as lumber,
chips and biomass for power
plants.
Homeowners who live
in the woods also need to
consider thinning around
their homes in an effort to
keep their properties safer,
Hessburg said. The general
rule of thumb is a 30-foot
buffer of defensible space.
“Continued development
in the wildland-urban inter-
face is putting a whole lot
of stress on our firefighters,”
Hessburg said.
The Oregon Department
of Forestry does have a
program to work with home-
owners on “firescaping”
projects, and reimburse up to
75 percent of the cost.
By being proactive
instead of reactive, Hessburg
said local agencies and
communities can help reduce
the trend of megafires and
restore forest and rangeland
health.
“It’s up to us,” he said.
“The question is, how do
you want your fire and your
smoke?”
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