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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 10, 2017)
NATION/8A 80/54 TRUMP FIRES FBI DIRECTOR PENDLETON ROUND-UP HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES NEWEST INDUCTEES SPORTS/1B WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2017 141st Year, No. 147 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Part of tunnel collapses at Hanford Workers evacuated, no radiation leak detected By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press RICHLAND, Wash. — A portion of a tunnel containing buried rail cars full of radio- active waste collapsed Tuesday at a sprawling storage facility in a remote area of Washington state, forcing an evacuation of some workers at the site that made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades after World War II. Offi cials detected no release of radiation In this 2014 fi le photo, a sign warns of radioactiv- ity near a wind direction fl ag indicator at the “C” tank farm on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. An emer- gency has been declared Tuesday at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation after a portion of a tunnel that contained rail cars full of nuclear waste collapsed. at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and no workers were injured, said Randy Bradbury, a spokesman for the Washington state Depart- ment of Ecology. No workers were inside the tunnel when soil collapsed two to four feet over a 400 square foot area. The tunnels are hundreds of feet long, with about eight feet of soil covering them, the agency said. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, fi le See HANFORD/7A CTUIR honored by Governor for creek restoration ECHO East Oregonian Staff photo by E.J. Harris The city of Echo wants to expand their sewage treatment facility onto ten acres of Michael Yunker’s ranch outside of Echo. The city says they would like Yunker to sell the property willingly, but will take the land through condemnation if necessary. Landowner turns up nose at sewage plan City has power to use eminent domain, asks ranch owner to sell voluntarily By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Michael Yunker loves his ranch on the Umatilla River. He doesn’t love the idea of giving up 10 acres of it to store the city of Echo’s recycled water. But the city may not give him any choice in the matter. Yunker was given a letter from the city’s attorney in December stating that the city needed somewhere to locate a “reclaimed water” pond and irrigation fi eld to upgrade to the city’s sewer system. Engineers had determined that a 10-acre section of his 65-acre property was the best spot. The city could take the land from Yunker and compensate him for it in a legal process called condemnation, the letter stated, but it would be better for him to sell it voluntarily so the city did not have to handle the situation in the “most expensive and least neighborly way.” The news hit Yunker hard. “I kind of went into a funk,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.” He called those 10 acres the “heart” of his ranch. They encompass the only area of the ranch not in a fl ood plain, he said, as well as his pump and irrigation lines. The condem- nation would also include an See ECHO/10A Morrow County bucks rural trend, comes roaring back from recession By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian By and large, job growth in rural Oregon has lagged behind the post-re- cession recovery seen in metro areas like Portland and Salem, according to a report issued Tuesday by the state Employment Department. One notable exception, however, is in Morrow County, where employment has risen a whopping 40.1 percent compared to pre-recession levels and workers are paid the third-highest average wages statewide. The state’s report, titled “The Employment Landscape of Rural Oregon,” details why rural areas are See EMPLOYMENT/10A EO fi le photo A shipping container is offl oaded from a railcar at one of the railroad spurs at the Port of Morrow in May 2015. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation were honored by the Oregon State Land Board and Gov. Kate Brown for a fi sh habitat restoration project on Catherine Creek. The Stream Restoration Project Award was given to the CTUIR and its partners by Brown at a ceremony Tuesday in Salem, which was also attended by Trea- surer Tobias Read and Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. The Tribe restored one mile of salmon, steelhead and bull trout habitat on Cath- erine Creek near La Grande, funded by $2.8 million from Bonneville Power Administration and its ratepayers as part of a 10-year Columbia “Restoring Basin Fish Accords with fl oodplains and states and streamfl ow is tribes, which help mitigate critical to our the environ- efforts to offset mental impact of dams on the mainstem Co- Columbia and Snake rivers. lumbia River The project fi sh mortality included the purchase of and increase 545 acres fi sh numbers.” of land and rebuilding the — Eric Quaempts, stream bed, CTUIR natural according to a resources director press release, which allows for permanent protection of wetlands, instream water and summer fl ows. “People tend to separate the fi sh, the riparian zone, the stream and the fl ood- plain from each other, but they’re all interconnected in our restoration view,” Eric Quaempts, CTUIR natural resources director, said in a press release. “Restoring fl oodplains and streamfl ow is critical to our efforts to offset mainstem Columbia River fi sh mortality and increase fi sh numbers.” Over the years, portions of middle Catherine Creek were pinched off from its natural fl oodplain to make room for farms, resulting in a loss of habitat and increased erosion along the stream bank. This longterm trend affected both man and fi sh — ranchers saw their property chronically fl ooded by the erosion while seasonal fl ows created a power fl ush effect that swept away gravel beds where adult salmon spawn and prevented juve- niles from resting on their journey to the Pacifi c Ocean. To reconnect Catherine Creek with its original fl ood plain, the tribes and their partners restored the area by carving out pools and side channels while also planting boulders, log jams and native vegetation in the stream and alongside it. The creek is part of the Grande Ronde River Basin, a habitat for federally protected populations of wild salmon, steelhead and bull trout. The CTUIR is now managing the land and restoration site.