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SPORTS/1B
REGION/3A
NATION/6A
FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017
141st Year, No. 204
Your Weekend
•
•
•
Yoga Round-Up at the
Round-Up Grounds
Ruckus in the Boonies
Music Fest in Heppner
Arlington car show at
Earl Snell Park
For times and places
see Coming Events, 6A
Skip a movie
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
The indomitable Terry Prouse
Pendleton coach retires after kid-centric career
Long-time
Pendleton
coach and
teacher Terry
Prouse is
retiring and
moving to
Beaverton.
Prouse
spent three
decades
coaching
softball,
volleyball
and golf.
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
When Terry Prouse started Pend-
leton High School’s fi rst softball
team, she seemed unfazed by the lack
of bats, balls, bases, playing fi eld or
even a league.
Prouse arrived at the Pendleton
School District in the mid-1980s to
teach elementary physical educa-
tion and coach both junior varsity
basketball and freshman volleyball.
Staff photo
Some of her volleyball players had
played softball in middle school and
lamented that the high school had no
team.
That wouldn’t do, Prouse decided.
In 1987, she started a softball
team. Prouse already owned a
collection of balls, bats and helmets
she had purchased as a softball coach
at Beaverton High School. The team
held fundraisers to pay for a pitching
See COACH/10A
HERMISTON
Sony Pictures Animation via AP
DO NOT go see “The Emoji
Movie.” It’s little more than
just product placement
marketed toward children.
Stay home and watch
Pixar’s “Inside Out” or
go outside and build a
birdhouse, or anything else.
For showtime, Page 5A
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
93/61
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97/61
BOARDMAN
State won’t
reconsider
permit for
mega-dairy
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Despite concerns of water
pollution and contamination,
the agencies responsible for
permitting a 30,000-cow
dairy farm in Morrow County
will not be reconsidering their
decision.
Lost Valley Farm, located
on a portion of what used to
be the Boardman Tree Farm,
was issued a controversial
wastewater handling permit
March 31 from the Oregon
Department of Agriculture
and Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality, which
together administer the state’s
confi ned animal feeding
operations, or CAFOs.
Opponents of the dairy
fi led what’s known as a
See DAIRY/10A
BMCC unveils new ag center
Will focus
on precision
irrigation
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Before Preston Winn
took over as chair of the
agriculture department at
Blue Mountain Community
College, he began his
teaching career at Hermiston
High School in 1978. At the
time, he said local farmers
used fl ood irrigation to grow
famous Hermiston water-
melons, producing around
3-5 tons per acre.
Today, Winn said those
same farmers are now
using one-third the amount
of water to grow 10 times
as many melons, thanks
to advances in precision
irrigation — the fi ne art of
watering crops in just the
right place at just the right
time.
“Water is very, very
valuable, second only to
the value of human life,”
Winn said as BMCC cut the
ribbon Thursday on its new
Precision Irrigated Agricul-
ture Center. “The need is
there for having an educated
workforce that can utilize
water appropriately.”
That’s precisely what the
Precision Irrigated Agricul-
ture program is designed to
do, teaching students how
to operate and maintain
technology such as soil
moisture monitors, variable
rate sprinklers and drones
capable of surveying fi elds
with infrared cameras to
detect where and how much
water is needed.
“What they learn is how
to manage our precious
resource of water, and place
that resource where it needs
to be, when it needs to be,”
Winn said.
The Precision Irrigated
Agriculture Center is one of
three new facilities paid for
by the $23 million BMCC
capital construction bond
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
BMCC Agriculture Director Preston Winn, second from left, gives a tour of one of the new classrooms to some
guests at the new Precision Irrigated Agriculture Center on Thursday at HAREC in Hermiston.
“I can see,
with a little bit
of effort, that this
can become a
global center for
teaching irrigation
technology. There’s
no place like this.”
— Fred Ziari,
IRZ Consulting
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Debbie Pedro, with the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce, holds the ceremonial
ribbon as Kathleen Cathey signs it before a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new
BMCC Precision Irrigated Agriculture Center on Thursday in Hermiston.
approved by voters in 2015.
The building is located on
the campus of Oregon State
University’s
Hermiston
Agricultural Research and
Extension Center, which
is home to 15 center-pivot
systems.
Classes will begin at the
new building in the fall,
Winn said, and students will
have the chance to work
hands-on with equipment
at the experiment station
through the college’s part-
nership with OSU.
“There’s
no
other
program like this that I’m
aware of in Oregon,” Winn
said.
In fact, there may be no
other program like this in
See BMCC/10A
Fire at Stanfi eld dehydration plant injures one
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
The 3D Idapro Solutions dehy-
dration plant in Stanfi eld caught
fi re Wednesday night, injuring one
employee, who was sent to Good
Shepherd Medical Center for treat-
ment. According to a press release
by Umatilla County Fire District,
the fi re was started by an explosion
in the “bag house,” but the cause of
the explosion is still under investi-
gation.
The plant has had at least two
other fi res in the past few months,
including one in February that
burned some of the facility’s scrub-
bers, or air purifi cation equipment.
Residents have been complaining
about the smell from the plant for
the last several months. But last
week, the complaints culminated
in a heated city council meeting
where the council directed the city
manager to start fi ning the plant for
the smell, and to seek a court order
for shutting the plant down.
Fire Marshal Tom Bohm said in
the latest fi re, two of the scrubbers
and bags were burned.
The smell, which residents have
said hurts their noses and makes it
nearly impossible to sit outside, gets
worse if the wind is blowing toward
the town. Residents described it as
a smell of rotting or burnt potatoes,
and one even said it smells like
“dead fl esh.”
A representative for the Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality
said they had been in communi-
cation with the plant’s operators,
who had been responsive to their
requests for a plan to mitigate the
odors.
But citizens are not convinced,
and many are concerned about the
company, which has had a lawsuit
brought against a factory it operates
in Burley, Idaho.
Citizens were also upset at
city manager Blair Larsen for not
prohibiting the plant from opening
in Stanfi eld in the fi rst place.
But at the most recent council
meeting, Larsen said he did not
feel the city was legally allowed to
prevent a business from opening
there.
Attempts to reach 3D Idapro
representatives were unsuccessful.
The plant is located at 405
Hoosier Lane in Stanfi eld.