A trio of juvenile
red-tailed hawks sit
in a nest perched
on a rock outcrop
on Wednesday
in Juniper Canyon,
north of Pendleton.
Staff photo
by E.J. Harris
THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2017
141st Year, No. 163
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
TRANSPORTATION PACKAGE
Legislators
make bill
an all-or-
nothing deal
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Photo by Debbie McIntosh
This 2015 fi le photo shows a grove of aspen trees near the East Lostine River Trail, less than a mile from Two Pan Trailhead
in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Conservation groups sued to stop a logging project on the road to the trailhead.
Groups sue over Lostine
logging and safety project
Complaint fi led in federal court
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Two nonprofi t conservation
groups are taking the U.S. Forest
Service to court over a contro-
versial logging project in the
Lostine Corridor — one of the
most popular and well-trodden
entry points into the Eagle Cap
Wilderness in Wallowa County.
The
complaint,
fi led
Wednesday by Oregon Wild and
the Hells Canyon Preservation
Council, accuses the Forest
Service of violating the National
Environmental Policy Act by
improperly authorizing the
project as a “categorical exclu-
sion,” allowing the agency to
sidestep a formal environmental
impact study.
Kris Stein, district ranger for
the Eagle Cap Ranger District on
the Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest, signed off on the project
April 5. Restoration activities
include treating roughly 2,110
acres of forest and removing
hazard trees to make the area safer
and more resilient to wildfi re.
The Lostine Corridor is
located along an 11-mile stretch
of road that follows the Wild and
See LOSTINE/8A
“It’s a bad situation.
If we got the right
type of conditions
and a fi re started,
it’s going to take off
like a tinderbox.”
Bruce Dunn, chairman of
the Wallowa County Natural
Resource Advisory Committee
SALEM — Oregon’s proposed 10-year,
multi-billion-dollar transportation package
could be repealed in its entirety if voters
challenge even one of its provisions.
Legislators said they added that caveat
to the transportation bill because projects
and programs depend on corresponding
increases in taxes and
fees in the package.
“The logic is that
this is a package. If
you pull one string,
the whole thing comes
apart,” said Sen. Lee
Beyer, D-Springfi eld,
co-chairman of the Joint
Committee on Trans-
portation Preservation
and Maintenance.
Legislative counsel, who drafted the
provisions of the package, unveiled the
fi rst draft of the 298-page legislation to the
committee Wednesday, May 31.
The 14-member committee will hold
public hearings on the bill June 5-7 at the
state Capitol in Salem. A vote on the House
fl oor could come as soon as mid-June.
“I am feeling relieved we have (the
package) out on the table,” Beyer said. “I
don’t think the Oregon Legislature has ever
done as openly transparent a package as
this.”
Beginning last year, the committee held
meetings throughout the state to speak
to constituents about their transportation
needs and held open meetings at the Capitol
to negotiate specifi cs of the package.
The end result would raise about $8
billion over a 10-year period to pay for
projects to relieve congestion, maintain
roads and bridges and enhance safety for
different types of commuters.
See TRANSPORTATION/8A
Fire season expected
to be worse than 2016
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
EO fi le photo
In this July 2016 fi le photo, a pair of helicopters perform bucket drops while
fi ghting a wildfi re near Emigrant Hill east of Pendleton. Oregon and Wash-
ington had 2,519 wildfi res spread across 513,226 acres in 2016. Northwest
offi cials are expecting the 2017 fi re season to be more damaging.
The 2017 fi re season in
the Northwest may be more
damaging than last year. And a
total solar eclipse is a late-season
wildcard that will bring hundreds
of thousands of people stream
into Oregon forests and pose a
major challenge to fi re safety.
In 2016, Oregon and Wash-
ington had 2,519 wildfi res spread
across 513,226 acres, according
to data from the Northwest Inter-
agency Coordination Center.
John Saltenberger, the fi re
weather program manager for
the center, said that was below
average for both states. But both
Oregon and Washington, he
said, should expect a normal fi re
season this year.
Going back to 2000, Salten-
berger said Oregon and Wash-
ington average around 4,000
wildland fi res per year, a fi gure
he described as fairly reliable.
And the center’s data pegs the
10-year average number of acres
burned at almost 760,000.
The number of large fi res
is more diffi cult to pin down.
The center defi nes large fi res as
blazes that burn more than 100
acres in timber or more than 300
See FIRE/8A