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East Oregonian
EMPLOYMENT: Oregon’s
job growth ranks as eighth-
fastest in the country
Continued from 1A
rebounding more slowly
than their urban counterparts.
Out of 23 counties identifi ed
as “rural” or “non-metro,”
17 remain below their peak
employment prior to the
2007-09 recession.
Morrow County bucks
that trend in a big way, thanks
largely to the Port of Morrow
in Boardman which has lever-
aged available land and infra-
structure to recruit a diverse
economic base including
food processors, biofuels and
a recent proliferation of large
online data centers.
Dallas Fridley, state
regional economist, said
Morrow County was not
as exposed to industries hit
hardest by the recession, such
as wood products or trans-
portation equipment manu-
facturing. On the contrary,
manufacturing across the
county actually increased
from 1,050 jobs in 2008 to
almost 1,500 jobs in 2015,
driven primarily by expan-
sions in food processing
plants.
“That industry continues
to grow,” Fridley said.
Overall, Oregon’s job
growth ranks as eighth-fastest
in the country, though rural
counties account for just 13
percent of that growth with
238,000 jobs combined — “a
small enough share to be
lost in broader analyses of
the state economy,” says the
Employment Department.
The agency’s report takes
into account factors such as
limited infrastructure and
aging workforce in rural
areas, as well as communities
that may depend on just a
few industries, making them
more vulnerable to economic
shocks.
Fridley said Morrow
County has managed to dodge
those impacts compared to its
neighbors that are yet to fully
recover from the recession.
Employment is still down
by as much as 20.2 percent
in Gilliam County and 15.6
percent in Grant County,
compared to pre-recession
peaks.
“In
some
respects,
(Morrow County) is an
island,” Fridley said. “There
really wasn’t a dip in
employment related to the
recession.”
Food processing at the
Port of Morrow has grown
hand in hand with the
region’s irrigated agriculture,
which Fridley said has tacked
on 785 jobs since 2001. That
has fueled companies like
Lamb Weston and Tillamook
Cheese to expand their local
facilities, with 37 percent of
Morrow County’s private
sector jobs now in manufac-
turing.
That increase in manufac-
turing jobs has also translated
into higher average wages.
Between 2008 and 2016,
the average Morrow County
wage climbed 47 percent
to $52,782, beating the
statewide average of $48,847
and ranking third behind only
Washington and Multnomah
counties.
Total payroll for private
industry jobs more than
doubled in the county
between 2008 and 2016,
rising from $120.1 million to
$252.1 million.
“That’s
incredible,”
Fridley said. “I can defi nitely
say that didn’t happen
anywhere else.”
Gary
Neal,
general
manager for the Port of
Morrow, said he doesn’t see
that momentum slowing
down any time soon. Last
year, the port fi nished an
expansion of its freezer ware-
house which is now capable
of holding 85 million pounds
of frozen products for its
expanding food processors.
Other projects are also
in the works, Neal said,
including two new building
permits for data centers at
the port. If the Legislature
passes a state transportation
package, he said the port is
also eyeing further road and
rail improvements.
“We’re making invest-
ments today for the future,”
Neal said. “It’s a constant
effort.”
Don Russell, a Morrow
County commissioner and
former Port of Morrow
commissioner, said the
region was fortunate to avoid
a recession in agriculture,
which has long been the
“In some respects,
(Morrow County)
is an island. There
really wasn’t a
dip in employ-
ment related to
the recession.”
— Dallas Fridley,
state regional economist
bread and butter of the
northeast Oregon economy.
The port, meanwhile, has
continued to diversify its job
base with ample electricity
for data centers.
“They’ve just added to
that base,” Russell said.
As for Umatilla County,
Fridley said employment has
nearly battled its way back to
pre-recession peaks, down
just 1.5 percent. It’s a remark-
able feat, he explained,
considering the loss of
federal jobs at the Umatilla
Chemical Depot and nearly
1,000 positions axed from
the professional and business
services sector.
In its place, Fridley said
Umatilla County — much
like Morrow County — is
adding manufacturing jobs
that provided an additional
$28.5 million in payroll
between 2008 and 2016.
“You lost a couple of
pretty important industries,
yet the county has moved
itself pretty close to even
territory again,” he said.
What’s more, Fridley said
Morrow and Umatilla coun-
ties rank second and third
in the state, respectively, in
natural population increase,
meaning there are more
births than deaths. That will
eventually result in a larger
and younger workforce that
can continue to push job
trends in the right direction,
Fridley said.
“Umatilla and Morrow
counties are pretty unique,”
he said. “They defi nitely
have some things working
for them.”
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0825.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
ECHO: Construction to be completed by December 2019
Cattle graze
in the 10
acres of
irrigated
farm land the
City of Echo
wants to con-
vince Michael
Yunker to sell
and turn into
a reclaimed
water pond
and irrigation
fi eld for an
upgrade to
the city’s
sewer
system.
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easement to build an access
road. And he worries what
his home will smell like
when the project gets up
and running.
“It would trash my
place,” he said. “It would
never be the same.”
City administrator Diane
Berry said in an email to
the East Oregonian that
the proposed project would
not take Yunker’s home, as
rumored around Echo, but
would only encompass a
“small piece” of fi eld.
When private property
owners like Yunker refuse
to sell their land to make
way for a public project,
the government does have
the power to go to court and
take the land via eminent
domain. The property
owner is given fair market
value as compensation, but
they don’t get a choice of
refusing to sell.
In this case, the city of
Echo will argue that the
property is needed for a
sewer system upgrade,
which Berry said the city
has faced “epic” problems
in trying to complete,
including lack of funding
and changing regulations.
If the project does not go
forward soon, she said
the small city could face
“tremendous fi nes.”
Paul Daniello, a natural
resources specialist at the
Oregon Department of
Environmental
Quality’s
Pendleton offi ce, said the
city of Echo is under order
to upgrade its sewer system
because the recycled water
it is discharging into the
Umatilla River does not
meet permit requirements
for biochemical oxygen
demand, which are in
place to make sure there is
enough dissolved oxygen in
the river for organisms like
fi sh to survive.
Daniello said when it
fi rst became a problem more
than 10 years ago, the city
signed a mutual agreement
with the DEQ to meet less
strict, interim limits while
it planned an upgrade and
pursued funding. The city is
now on its sixth extension of
that agreement, which now
requires construction to be
Staff photo
by E.J. Harris
completed by December
2019.
“This has been dragging
on for a number of years,”
Daniello said.
There is no guarantee
the DEQ will grant another
extension, which is why the
city is anxious to begin the
upgrade project. According
to drawings given to Yunker,
treated water previously
discharged into the Umatilla
River would instead go into
an approximately 10-acre
section of Yunker’s ranch,
using a two-acre water
pond slowly emptying into
a three-acre irrigation fi eld
with 100-foot buffer.
The need for the project
is clear, given the DEQ
fi nes hanging over the city’s
head. But what is less clear
to Yunker is why the city
can’t locate the project
somewhere else.
That’s a question that
went unanswered after a
follow-up email to Berry,
but minutes from the coun-
cil’s November 17, 2016
meeting show that mayor
Jeanie Hampton stated she
felt that Echo residents
would understand the city’s
decision to pursue Yunker’s
land, given another possible
site would take a projected
$100,000 to develop and
was part of a sale that would
take up to a year to fi nalize.
Her comments came
following a unanimous vote
by the council to “authorize
the city attorney and (engi-
neer) Anderson Perry and
Associates to move forward
with the condemnation of
the needed portion of the
Yunker property.”
Yunker received the letter
from Kuhn Law Offi ces
about two weeks later. He
said after sustaining brain
damage in an explosion at
the LNG natural gas plant
in Plymouth, Washington,
he has trouble expressing
his thoughts out loud, so a
friend helped him put his
thoughts down in a letter
he intended to read at the
next city council meeting.
He said the council told him
he needed to read the letter
to them in a closed-door
executive session.
Yunker said he has tried
to make his reasons for not
wanting to sell to the city
clear: He plans to pass the
ranch, which he purchased
in 1985, down to his chil-
dren.
The property is not for
sale, he said, and certainly
not for a sewer project
that will “greatly devalue
my home and remaining
acreage.”
Since his appearance at
city council, Yunker said he
has not heard back from the
city.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.