REGION
Saturday, March 25, 2017
East Oregonian
HERMISTON
Planning commission approves
data centers, mushroom compost
Amazon project would remove farmland
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
A proposed data center
campus near Hermiston and
mushroom compost factory
north of Adams took big steps
forward Thursday during
separate land use hearings
before the Umatilla County
Planning Commission.
E-commerce
titan
Amazon — doing business
through its subsidiary, Vadata
— wants to build four new
data centers along Westland
and Cottonwood Bend roads,
near interstates 82 and 84.
The company already oper-
ates multiple data centers east
of Umatilla, and two more
campuses at Boardman.
Meanwhile,
Ostrom
Mushroom Farm of Olympia,
Washington, plans to locate
its newest compost plant
along Sand Hollow Road,
about five miles north of
Adams. If built, the facility
would generate 180 tons of
finished compost every week.
After a marathon three-
hour meeting, the planning
commission voted unani-
mously to approve the condi-
tional use permit for Ostrom,
and voted 7-1 to recommend
the county rezone 120 acres
of farmland to light industrial
for Vadata. The Board of
Commissioners will have
final say on land use for the
data centers.
Amazon
Gary Rhinhart, vice
chairman of the planning
commission, was the only
one to vote against Vadata’s
request, saying he was frus-
trated with eliminating more
farm ground to accommodate
another industrial develop-
ment.
“I have a problem with
that,” Rhinhart said.
Rhinhart also asked why
the company did not consider
locations on the east side of
the county toward Pendleton,
which has more available
industrial land to sell.
Jim Footh, real estate
manager for Vadata, said
all campuses need to be
connected by fiber optic
cable, and Pendleton is
simply too far from their
existing data centers.
“The distance between
the Pendleton and Hermiston
areas is just too far for our
connectivity,” Footh said.
“Unfortunately, that’s just the
nature of our business.”
The Hermiston site has
other advantages, Footh
added, such as access to
nearby high-voltage power
lines. Amazon is also signed
on to use Hermiston’s
regional water system, which
will proved the roughly 400
gallons per minute needed
to keep the computer servers
cool.
Footh said the company is
considering options to recycle
cooling water for local farms,
but did not have a specific
proposal.
“Our intention is to be
able to take our process water
and use it for agricultural
purposes,” he said.
Each of the four data
centers would run 24 hours
per day and support up to
40 jobs. Footh said multiple
campuses are needed to
create redundancy and avoid
outages.
“In other words, if one of
these sites goes down, there
can be another still oper-
ating,” Footh said.
Several
neighbors
expressed concern about
what the project will mean
for their quality of life.
Dan Burnam testified at the
hearing, arguing the property
could still be used as farm-
land if it had a water right. He
also questioned what kind of
buffer would be in place.
Mary Buckallew, who
testified after Burnam, said
she was worried about what a
large industrial campus would
mean for the neighborhood.
“It is a farming area,”
Buckallew said. “It’s going to
change the whole lifestyle.”
The Umatilla County
Board of Commissioners will
hold another public hearing
on the matter at 9:30 a.m.
April 13.
Ostrom Mushroom Farm
The mushroom farm was
a decidedly less contro-
versial hearing, with all
testimony in support of the
project. That was in contrast
to pre-application meeting
held last month in Athena,
where neighbors grilled
developers about odor and
water use.
Founded in 1928, Ostrom
Mushroom Farm is the largest
edible mushroom grower in
the Northwest, producing 15
million pounds of per year. It
takes a specially made fertil-
izer to sprout mushrooms,
composting wheat straw,
chicken manure, canola meal
and water before mixing in
the mushroom spawn.
Ostrom president David
Knudsen said the company
has long sourced its wheat
straw from Eastern Oregon.
The company needs to
expand to stay competitive,
he said, and they are excited
about the prospect of being
so close to one of their
primary raw materials.
“We’re excited to be in
this community,” Knudsen
said.
The facility in Umatilla
County would be dedicated
strictly to brewing compost,
and not to growing and
harvesting the mushrooms
themselves, which Knudsen
said is done at a different
farm. Ostrom does intend to
build a new mushroom farm,
but has not yet determined
where.
Members of the planning
commission asked whether
that process could also be
done locally. Knudsen said
it was possible, though the
difficulty was finding access
to an available natural gas
line.
Knudsen said the plant
would create 13 new jobs
out of the gate, with plans to
expand in the future. In the
end, the planning commis-
sion was won over with little
deliberation.
“This was presented to us
very well,” said commission
chairman Randy Randall.
Ostrom still needs to
obtain a permit from the
Oregon Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality before
the development can move
forward.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
PENDLETON
BMCC arena project opens up land
discussions between Round-Up, city
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Thanks to a Blue Moun-
tain Community College
project, the city of Pendleton
might have found a use for
a collection of Southwest
Byers Avenue properties it
owns west of the Round-Up
grounds.
The city council has had
ideas for the land — dubbed
the G2 properties —
including a hotel, a housing
complex and an equine
center. But talk has now
shifted to a less ambitious
function for the checkerboard
of properties the city owns in
the area — parking spaces.
As a part of its FARM
project, BMCC is targeting
the Round-Up pavilion as the
site of an arena for its rodeo
team combined with class-
room space for its animal
science
and
veterinary
programs.
The project has the
support of the Round-Up and
the city, but constructing the
building would also remove
parking space on Fallen Field
for trailers and livestock.
Pendleton Mayor John
Turner said the Round-Up
has talked with the city about
using the G2 properties for
parking if the new arena is
built, a development he’s
open to because of the lack
of development on the land
since the city started buying
up properties more than a
decade ago.
“Right now, there’s no one
knocking on our door saying,
‘Gee, I would like to build
something there,’” he said.
As both the city and the
Pendleton
Development
Commission, city officials
began buying properties on
Byers in 2006 as a way to
clear blight and with an eye
toward future development.
Attracting a hotel to
support the Round-Up
and the nearby Pendleton
Convention Center was a
longtime goal, but a lack of
contiguous land and a group
of home owners uninterested
in selling their land made it a
difficult proposition.
The city and urban
renewal district has spent
$296,000 to acquire various
properties around Byers,
the last purchase coming in
2015.
The last time the city
discussed the G2 properties
at length, Chuck Wood,
a former councilor and
commission
chairman,
suggested the commission
fund a $25,000 feasibility
study to determine whether
any developments are real-
istic.
Turner said there aren’t
any plans to sell the land at
this point, but the partnership
could portend future deals
like a land swap.
Round-Up
commu-
nications director Randy
Thomas confirmed the city
and Round-Up board had
talked about using the G-2
properties for parking, but
described the discussions as
“preliminary.”
Commenting on the
FARM project as a whole,
Thomas said they were
excited to work with BMCC
in potentially locating its
new facility in the Round-Up
grounds, especially since
supporting higher education
is a part of the Round-Up’s
articles of incorporation.
Casey White-Zollman,
BMCC vice president of
communications, said one
of the reasons the college
sought out the Round-Up
location was that it didn’t
have enough room on its own
campus.
White-Zollman
added
that the building also
needed more centrality since
BMCC’s partners would be
looking to book events at the
new arena.
BMCC will have to clear
some funding hurdles before
the new facility can come
to fruition. The college is
currently seeking $5 million
from the Oregon Legislature,
which would fund half the
cost of the building.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
7PM
No Cover
541-276-6111 • Red Lion Lounge • 304 SE Nye, Pendleton
EO file photo
Shannon Moulton of Richland holds a photo of her
daughter, Alexxyss, as traffic passes by on Highway
395 in Pendleton. Moulton lost her daughter after
she collided with a vehicle while driving on High-
way 395 and using her phone in February 2016
south of Pendleton.
Distracted driver’s
crashed vehicle on
display at high school
East Oregonian
“What we are
asking people to do
is to take a pledge
... to stay off their
hand-held electron-
ic devices and focus
on the road.”
Alexxyss Therwanger
of Hermiston was 19 when
she died in a crash Feb. 19,
2016. Oregon State Police
reported she was using her
cellphone when lost control
of her car.
That car will be on
display April 3 and 4 at the
Hermiston High School
parking lot. The Oregon
Department of Transpor-
tation announced Friday
afternoon the display is part
of a distracted driver safety
campaign. The display
also has information about
the campaign and links to
several safety messages,
including a three-minute
video about Alexxyss
that features her mother,
Shannon Moulton, and a
plea from Oregon State
Police.
“What we are asking
people to do is to take a
pledge,” Oregon State
Police Captain Bill Fugate
said, “... to stay off their
hand-held electronic devices
and focus on the road.”
ODOT then will take the
— Bill Fugate, Oregon
State Police Captain
display to Salem Capital
Mall for the April 6 start of
2017 National Distracted
Driving Awareness Month.
From there, the display tours
Oregon for six months.
Kelly Kapri, a program
manager for ODOT’s
Transportation Safety Divi-
sion, said the state has been
working for years to raise
awareness of the problems
with distracted driving.
For more information
on when and where the
display will be in Eastern
Oregon, contact ODOT
Region 5 Traffic Safety
Coordinator Billie-Jo Deal
at 541-963-1387 or email
billie-jo.m.deal@odot.state.
or.us.
EO file photo
A studded snow tire
sits at G&S Tire Factory
in Hermiston.
Studded tire
season ends
March 31
SALEM — Winter
has ended, and Oregon’s
studded tire season ends
Friday, March 31.
But
the
Oregon
Department of Transpor-
tation urges drivers not
to wait until the deadline
to change the wheels on
their rides.
Drivers with studded
tires on their vehicles
after the deadline can face
a class C traffic violation,
according to ODOT.
Studded tires cause
about $8.5 million in
damage each year to state
highways, according to
ODOT, which encour-
ages drivers to consider
other types of traction
tires or chains to help
minimize the roadway
wear and tear.
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March 25th
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