2017 SPECIAL SECTION
DALLAS MEN
SENTENCED
FOR POACHING
BULL ELK REGION/3A
57/44
INSIDE TODAY:
YOUR GUIDE
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HOME & GARDEN
How to child, pet
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Persistence key to
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How to attract birds
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Best times to plant vary
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
plants like broccoli and caulifl ower early.”
Kopacz said Hermiston’s climate is good for
growing most types of crops, and that often the issue
in the summer is protecting plants from too much
fully in this area, Kopacz said. Fruit trees, she said,
Many perennial fl owers and shrubs are fairly
In mid-May, gardeners can start planting bulb fl owers
cabbage maggot adult fl ies and carrot rust fl ies.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2017
141st Year, No. 127
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Army drafts plan to transfer Depot Report: Wolf
Delayed handover date set for Dec. 1
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
It may be later than expected,
but the U.S. Army has submitted
a draft agreement to transfer
ownership of the former Umatilla
Chemical Depot into local hands.
Members of the Columbia
Development Authority met over
the phone Tuesday to review
the 22-page document, which
director Greg Smith said marks a
huge milestone.
“It means we’re in the home
stretch of transferring the prop-
erty,” Smith said.
However, Smith added the
agreement was due by February,
and delays have already cost the
CDA millions of dollars in lost
economic development over the
past two years.
The latest timeline from the
Army Base Realignment and
Closure Division pushes the
proposed transfer date back even
further, from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1.
“This is an extraordinarily
frustrating process,” Smith said.
The CDA plans to use a portion
of the depot land for industrial
development in Umatilla and
Morrow counties. Smith said
a number of industries have
shown interest in the property,
including data centers, animal
feed producers, aggregate mining
and four different national hotel
chains.
See DEPOT/12A
Pendleton SWAT holds training in now-vacant Elks building
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Members of the Pendleton SWAT team train with Umatilla County Sheriff’s department deputies and Hermiston Police
offi cers in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks building on Tuesday in Pendleton. The Pendleton chapter of the Elks
has ceased operating in their old building due to falling membership.
Fraternal order fizzles out
Pendleton Elks close Third Street
lodge due to dwindling membership
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
At its height, a visitor would
be hard pressed to fi nd a local
man who wasn’t a member
of Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks Lodge No. 288.
The Pendleton Elks Lodge
has since hit hard times, with
leaders deciding to close the
lodge at the end of March.
On Tuesday, as police used
the abandoned building at 14
SE 3rd St. for SWAT training,
local leaders talked about the
club’s decline over the last half
century and what’s next for the
organization.
Larry Blanc, the Pendleton
Elks’ esteemed leading knight
and public relations coordi-
nator, said the local Elks lodge
“voluntarily surrendered the
charter” to the national organi-
zation, which means the lodge
will be mostly dormant for the
near future.
Under the agreement, Blanc
and two other trustees will
See ELKS/11A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pendleton Police SWAT team members secure a stairwell in
the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks building while
training Tuesday in Pendleton.
growth rate
weak in ’16
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon had only two more
confi rmed wolves at the end of 2016 than it
did the year before, a growth rate the state
wildlife department described as “weak”
and a sharp drop from the 27 to 36 percent
growth rates the previous three years.
The state visually documented 112
wolves at the end of 2016, according to
ODFW’s annual report. At the end of 2015,
Oregon had 110 confi rmed wolves.
Department spokeswoman Michelle
Dennehy acknowledged the low popula-
tion gain but said ODFW is not concerned.
“It’s one year, one data point, based on
what we saw,” she said. “It’s not a trend of
growth rates decreasing.”
Russ Morgan, ODFW’s wolf program
manager, said the weak population gain is a
“byproduct of our counting methodology,”
in which wolves aren’t counted without a
confi rmed sighting. He called that method
“very conservative.”
“You get what you get,” he said. “It’s
not the actual population, but the actual
minimum. You know there can’t be fewer.”
In the future, the department may rely
more on pack counts than on breeding pair
counts, he said, and include population
estimates based on known birth rates and
other information.
Oregon Wild, a conservation group long
involved in wolf management issues, holds
an opposite view.
In a prepared statement, Conservation
Director Steve Pedery noted the report
shows population growth is “stalled” and
the number of breeding pairs and packs
declined from 2015.
“This raises troubling questions about
ODFW’s continuing drive to pursue
hunting and trapping,” Pedery said. Oregon
Wild and other activists believe the state
may ultimately allow hunting of wolves, as
it does cougars and bears.
The ODFW report lists several reasons
why the wolf count is low, including
disease.
Blood samples taken from wolves
commonly show high rates of exposure to
parvovirus; the same is true of domestic
dogs, said Morgan, the ODFW wolf
program manager. But in 2016, 68 percent
of samples taken were positive for a
specifi c marker that shows active or recent
infections. Parvovirus can increase pup
mortality rates, which would affect short-
term population growth rates. However, the
report indicates the fi nding is not expected
to impact the wolf population long-term.
Another possibility is what the report
calls known or unknown “human-caused”
mortality. Seven wolves are known to have
been killed during the year, including four
by ODFW itself. The department shot
members of the Imnaha Pack, including
longtime alpha wolf OR-4, in March 2016.
The wolves had attacked and eaten or
injured calves and sheep in private pastures
fi ve times that spring.
Meanwhile, Oregon State Police
continue to investigate two other wolf
killings, and one wolf was legally shot
by a herder when it was caught in the act
See WOLVES/12A
Data boosts economy, but not without growing pains
Pineville hosts Facebook
and Apple data centers
By AMANDA PEACHER
Oregon Public Broadcasting
AP photo/Andrew Selsky
In this July 2016 photo, the Facebook Data Center is seen in Prineville.
In 2012, Steve Duke’s garage in
Prineville was fi lled with cardboard
boxes. He and his family had
reluctantly begun packing up toys,
books and kitchen appliances for an
imminent move to Texas.
Duke lost his job when his
employer, Les Schwab Tires, moved
its headquarters from Prineville to
Bend. He spent the next year looking
for work.
“It was horrible,” Duke said.
“There were no jobs in Central
Oregon at that time.”
But just before he was about to
uproot his life and move across the
country, a friend encouraged Duke
to apply for a job at Facebook. He
was hired soon after. Now Duke
schedules all of the electrical and
mechanical maintenance for Face-
book facilities in Prineville.
“Having [an] opportunity to stay
here meant everything,” Duke said.
“I fully plan to retire in Central
Oregon.”
His community is one of many
Northwest timber towns that strug-
gled to reinvent themselves after
the timber booms of the 1970s and
’80s. Prineville was once home to at
least fi ve lumber mills, as well as the
headquarters of Les Schwab.
A few years ago, the community
welcomed an unexpected new
See DATA/12A