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East Oregonian
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Read signals intent to pursue public ownership for Elliott Forest
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
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Capital Press graphic
Courtesy Oregon Department of Forestry
Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read said Tuesday that he sees a “path forward” for public
ownership of about 82,500 acres of the Elliott Forest in Coos and Douglas counties.
Jeanne Atkins — decided
to sell the land after litiga-
tion challenged the state’s
management of areas occu-
pied by protected species. The
state said lawsuits prevented
it from harvesting enough
timber to generate money for
the fund.
But a year later, only
one entity — the partner-
ship between Lone Rock
Resources, a Roseburg timber
company, and the Cow Creek
Band of Umpqua Tribe of
Continued from 1A
ODOT advised travelers to use
alternative routes.
Lt. Mike Turner with OSP said
they are still working to identify the
victim. A preliminary investigation
shows the driver was heading
northbound when she went into the
southbound lane and sideswiped
one of the trucks, striking its rear
axle. She then hit the second truck
which caused her vehicle to roll.
Turner said factors such as
speed and alcohol are under inves-
tigation.
James Wonser, 39, of McMinn-
ville, was among the fi rst witnesses
Indians — had submitted an
acquisition proposal, which
drew fi re from the state’s
environmental groups.
And Brown has said she no
longer wants to sell the forest.
Environmental activists
have been lobbying the board
for months, and of late have
focused on Read.
They warn that the sale
of the Elliott to a private
company would realize fears
that under the administration
of President Donald J.
Trump, states will follow the
president’s lead and privatize
public land.
In a statement Tuesday,
Brown alluded to those
concerns, saying public
ownership was “critical” to
sustainable timber harvests
and protecting the environ-
ment for future generations.
“I remain committed
to exploring a path toward
public ownership of the
Elliott that continues to honor
the Common School Fund,”
Brown said. “I am heartened
that Treasurer Read shares
this vision and I appreciate his
unwavering commitment to
the state’s fi duciary responsi-
bility to Oregon schools.”
Brown has proposed using
the state’s bonding capacity
to buy a portion of the forest.
Read said Tuesday that the
governor had worked to drum
up support for that strategy.
“I have made it clear to
all sides that if Gov. Brown
brought forward a viable
alternative I would consider
it,” Read said. “The governor
and her team have continued
to refi ne her framework, and
most importantly she has
worked to build support for
key bonding components
to arrive shortly after the wreck
happened. Wonser said he was on
his way to Milton-Freewater when
he discovered the scene, though
he did not see what had happened
beforehand.
Wonser, who is trained in CPR
and fi rst aid, said he jumped out of
his van to see if there was anything
he could do. That’s when he saw
the body and called 9-1-1.
“I thought I would come and
see if anybody needed help. I guess
it was too late,” he said.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com or
541-966-0825.
Staff photo by George Plaven
One woman died Tuesday afternoon in a wreck on
Highway 11 north of Pendleton.
Continued from 1A
hormone, can reveal if a whale was exposed
to ship traffi c, environmental noise, climate
change and other stressors.
The team reconstructed the life of a
beached blue whale that washed up in 2007
near Santa Barbara, California, after likely
being struck by a ship. The researchers
learned the 12-year-old whale got a load of
contaminants transferred from his mother
in his fi rst year of life. The whale’s stress
hormones and testosterone levels spiked
about age 10 when he probably became
sexually active. Mercury levels spiked
twice when the whale was about 5 and
10. DDT, banned now, was detected in the
whale’s earlier years. Just before he died,
his cortisol increased 800 percent.
The study appeared in the Proceedings
of the National Academies of Sciences
journal. The research is also part of a
current exhibit at the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of Natural History in
Washington, D.C.
Usenko, of course, didn’t start out with
the goal of studying whale earwax. He said
he was just a kid who loved exploring the
outdoors, often on his family’s couple of
acres on the outskirts of Pendleton. His
scientifi c curiosity grew during the hours
he spent in Jess Cooper’s high school
chemistry and physics classes. Usenko
said his career sprang from “inspiration
provided by Mr. Cooper combined with a
love of the great outdoors.”
He spent summer days working at the
Oregon State University Columbia Basin
Contributed by Sascha Usenko
Baylor professors Sascha Usenko (left) and Stephen Trumble stand with Smith-
sonian’s Charles Potter in front of the Objects of Wonder exhibit at the National
Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Agricultural Research Center near Pend-
leton, driving a small combine to harvest
wheat and mustard seed and soaking in
research methodology.
“They taught me a lot about scientifi c
thought and experimental design,” Usenko
said.
He parlayed undergraduate and
doctorate chemistry degrees into post-doc-
torate work at Baylor, where he is now
associate professor of environmental
science and director of the Environmental
Science Graduate Program.
Studying whale earwax doesn’t take
ROADS: Public work’s
budget is about $10.5M
for the fi scal year
up all Usenko’s time — far from it. He
has other research, too, and a family. He
lives with his wife, Crystal, and daughters
Violet, 4, and Olivia, 1, in Marina, Texas.
Usenko said he looks forward to delving
deeper into the lives of whales.
“Studying whales through their earwax
is a unique opportunity to make a giant
contribution to the fi eld,” he said. “It is also
an amazing opportunity to encourage the
next generation of scientists and explorers.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastore-
gonian.com or call 541-966-0810.
“Winter was not just hard on the paved
roads,” Fellows said, “the gravel roads took a
beating, too.”
The county owns nine graders, and usually
operates one for half a day or so around
Milton-Freewater, two each day outside of
Stanfi eld, and three daily around Hermiston.
Now, Fellows said, all nine are running.
Umatilla County Public Works Department
has 36 employees, including a six-person crew
dedicated to road work — grading, paving and
patching. Getting the work done in the wake of
this winter means shifting priorities.
“We’re primarily in the maintenance work,”
Fellows said. “It puts you behind on your
scheduled maintenance. You don’t get to your
scheduled work — you’re taking time out of
one pot and putting it in another pot.”
Fellows said crews already repaired a lot of
the paved roads around Pendleton that winter
damaged, but some stretches throughout the
county still “show a lot of distress.” Southeast
Fourth Street in Hermiston near the Safeway
stands out, he said, as does the Old River Road
between Umatilla and Hermiston. He said those
roads show “raveling,” the rough, textured
look that means the aggregate and asphalt are
breaking apart.
Getting to all this, he said, is “an interesting
game of chess sometimes.”
The public work’s budget is about $10.5
million for the fi scal year, which included
about a $4.2 million carryover, according to
the county fi nance department. Fellows said
overtime for the employees is most often
compensation time. There is not an extra pot of
money public works can dip into.
“We work off state highway funds,” Fellows
said, which includes more than $3.7 million in
driver’s license fees. “The county road depart-
ment does not receive one bit of property tax
money, we don’t get anything from the county
general fund.”
The county public works receives its share
of calls from folks asking when someone is
going to grade their road. Fellows said he has
been on the phone with residents just as the
grader arrives.
Given what this winter created, and now
spring rains and runoff, Fellows and company
might just get a few more calls than usual.
———
Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-966-0833.
MULTI-MEDIA SALES
HART: Wal-Mart most popular
destination out of 32 stops
projections. If that trend
continues, the city could
choose to keep the savings or
use them to expand the hours
or days that the bus runs. The
transit advisory committee
has also considered elimi-
nating a few stops to allow
time for more loops around
the city each day. Before
changes are made, however,
Morgan said the committee
and the tribes want to get a
picture of ridership patterns
during different seasons.
They don’t want to take on
too much at once and have
the project “fl ame out” if
projections are wrong.
“The name of the game
right now is that we need to
just keep running the system
to get more data,” Morgan
said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
among legislators, including
the Senate president.”
Oregon Senate President
Peter Courtney, D-Salem,
has suggested using revenue
bonds payable from revenues
generated by the forest —
whether through timber
harvests or other activities.
The lone Republican on the
land board, Secretary of State
Dennis Richardson, voted in
favor of moving forward with
the sale in February. His offi ce
did not immediately respond
Tuesday to a request for
comment on Treasurer Read’s
announcement.
On Sunday, the Demo-
cratic Party of Oregon passed
a resolution that urged the
state Land Board to work with
the governor on the public
ownership option.
The move puts newly
elected party chair Jeanne
Atkins in the position of
advocating against a concept
she signed off on when she
was secretary of state and
member of the land board in
2015. Read, who was elected
treasurer in November, is a
Democrat, as is Brown.
The land board meets
again May 9 in Salem, Until
then the Department of State
Lands is both preparing a sale
agreement and a report on
public ownership options.
Continued from 1A
WHALES: Research part of current exhibit at Smithsonian
Morgan said the city is
hoping to “relieve some
pressure” on the taxi
program through the bus
system. So far, he said, it
seems that some taxi ticket
users are using the bus to
get to appointments or the
store, but then using a taxi
to get home again after since
the bus only comes by every
hour and fi fteen minutes.
So far the most popular
destination out of 32 stops
is Wal-Mart, followed by the
stop on Columbia Drive near
the Stafford Hansell Govern-
ment Center and Blue Moun-
tain Community College’s
Hermiston campus. In third
place is the Hermiston Plaza.
The city budgeted conser-
vatively for the bus system,
and Morgan said in the fi rst
two months transportation
expenses came in under
101
38
CRASH: Factors leading to crash under investigation
Continued from 1A
Florence
Elliott
State
Forest
Pa
SALEM — After a
sustained outcry from envi-
ronmental groups, Oregon
Treasurer
Tobias
Read
appeared to signal his intent
Tuesday to side with the
governor in her evolving plan
to stop the impending sale of
an expanse of coastal forest in
southern Oregon.
Read said Tuesday that
he sees a “path forward” for
public ownership of about
82,500 acres of the Elliott
Forest in Coos and Douglas
counties.
Last month, though, the
treasurer voiced qualifi ed
support for a proposal to sell
the forest to a partnership
between a Roseburg timber
company and a Native Amer-
ican tribe.
Read announced Tuesday
that he would work with the
Department of State Lands to
develop a plan for the forest
that would end its obligation
to generate revenue for the
Common School Fund, which
is essentially an endowment
for K-12 education.
In 2015, the State Land
Board — then comprised
of Gov. Kate Brown,
then-Treasurer Ted Wheeler
and then-Secretary of State
126
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