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OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Transload facility
a game changer for
Eastern Oregon ag
Officials in southeast
Oregon are calling a
proposed rail transload
facility in Malheur
County a game
changer for the local
agricultural economy.
It’s big news,
particularly after a
disastrous winter that
saw local farmers lose
100 million pounds
of onions from last
year’s crop when heavy
snows destroyed 60
storage sheds.
The $5.3 billion
transportation package
passed by the Oregon
Legislature includes
$26 million to create
the facility near
Ontario.
The facility will be a
big benefit to the area’s
agricultural sector,
Sean Ellis/Capital Press File
particularly the onion
Onions are sorted at a packing-shipping facility
industry, Rep. Cliff
in southwestern Idaho last year. A rail transload
Bentz, R-Ontario, said. facility planned in Oregon’s Malheur County could
save onion shippers in the region up to $15 million
The 300 growers in
a year and speed delivery of their produce to East
the Treasure Valley of
Oregon and Idaho raise Coast markets.
1.5 billion pounds of
Spanish big bulb onions each year. There are 30 packer/shippers.
Much of the crop is shipped to East Coast markets by rail now. But
to do that, the onions first have to be trucked more than 200 miles
to the nearest transload facility in Wallula, Wash. Shippers say that
costs about 50 cents per 50-pound bag of onions, and wipes out the
geographic advantage the area has over competitors in Washington.
Packers say the facility could put $15 million a year back into the
hands of farmers, and turn a trip to the final market that now takes weeks
into days.
“This thing is huge,” Paul Skeen, an onion farmer who is president of the
Malheur County Onion Growers Association, told the Capital Press. “It’s a
big, big deal. It will allow us to move product faster and cheaper.”
Getting onions to market faster and cheaper is a big deal in itself, but
growers also see the opportunity to expand the region’s market share once its
access improves.
Kudos go to Bentz, who has been working over the last couple of years
to get Oregon’s urban legislators to pay a bit more attention to the needs of
rural Oregonians, particularly those in his far eastern district.
At Bentz’s invitation, House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, made a
three-day trip to Eastern Oregon last year and saw first-hand the challenges
farmers and other businesses in the region face.
That eventually led to the passage of House Bill 2012, which provides $5
million for a special economic development region in Eastern Oregon.
In the context of a $5 billion spending package, a $26 million investment
in Eastern Oregon is small potatoes. But it will produce a big return for
people in a region that hasn’t had a lot of good economic news over the
years.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public
issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website.
The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns
about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of
private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include
the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not
be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to 211 S.E.
Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
What if Hitler had
invaded Britain?
or more than a thousand years,
held back the Germans for a few days
the tribes of Europe have stared
at the Dunkirk perimeter. They may
into the gun-metal-gray chop of
have saved upward of 100,000 lives
the English Channel and thought of
with their rear guard action.
conquest. “We have six centuries of
Later, a German commander
insults to avenge,” said Napoleon. I
called the halt order one of the
was just there, on the same spring week
biggest blunders of the war. Most of
when the great bedraggled scraps of
those rescued soldiers would live to
the French and British armies were
Timothy fight another day, many landing at
cornered for slaughter by the Nazi war
Normandy, when the Allies returned to
Egan
machine 77 years ago.
retake the continent four years later.
Comment
Perhaps many people did not know,
The fiasco at Dunkirk became a
as Donald Trump says about obvious
psychic triumph in England. But that
things that he just learned about, that the
brings up the second big question: At the
miracle of the Dunkirk evacuation continues to height of their power, why didn’t the Germans
prompt one of the great historical “what-ifs” of cross the channel and march to London?
all time.
“Hitler knows he will have to break us in
Alternative history is all the rage now. One
this island or lose the war,” Churchill told his
television series imagines a
countrymen on June 18,
United States under German
1940. “But if we fail, then
and Japanese rule (“The Man
the whole world, including
in the High Castle”). Another
the United States, including
series in development at
all that we have known and
HBO will ask us to envision
cared for, will sink into the
an equally horrid new
abyss of a new dark age
world: the slaveholding
made more sinister, and
Confederacy continuing to
perhaps more protracted
the present day.
by the light of perverted
Both scenarios are
science.”
preposterous. But the
And here we have
question of whether the
the prospect of the Nazis
swastika could have flown over the Thames is
developing an atomic bomb. Imagine the
much more than Hollywood fiction.
Germans controlling all of Europe to the
Thanks to the film “Dunkirk,” an
Ural Mountains, giving the most evil of men
improbably intimate look at what Winston
enough time to develop the most lethal of
Churchill called “a colossal military disaster,”
weapons.
minds otherwise gone soft by the heartless
As Churchill said, it was not just Britain
current governing policies of the United States at stake, but lands under imperial control,
can turn to a day when bigger minds guided
including the Middle East oil fields. The
Western democracies. Aside from slighting
United States, which had its own appeasement
the French, the film is an energy drink of
movement at odds with Franklin Roosevelt,
speculative fuel.
was a long way from entering the war.
Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, the
Hitler’s generals drew up plans for an
British were able to evacuate more than
invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion.
330,000 allied troops from the French beach
Before there could be an invasion, the
at Dunkirk, aided considerably by a flotilla
Luftwaffe would have to destroy the Royal
of fishing boats, pleasure craft and other
Air Force.
small ships. They had been routed; those who
England held — what became its “finest
remained were sitting ducks for a fatal blow.
hour,” in Churchill’s best-known phrase —
Home, as the soldiers who queued up in the
because the Royal Air Force bested Hitler’s air
sand while the Nazis shelled and strafed them,
force in the monthslong Battle of Britain.
was almost close enough to touch.
But even if England were occupied, it’s
By the close of summer of 1940, most of
fair to think a vigorous resistance movement
Western Europe was under German control
would have forced Germany to keep a huge
or that of puppet states. Would England fall
reserve of troops in place to hold down the
as well, and usher in a Nazi empire, with its
island kingdom. And Hitler, of course, had
horrific Jewish genocide, that might have
other things in mind: the invasion of the Soviet
lasted well beyond the war’s end in 1945?
Union.
The first big question is, why didn’t
Walking along the sand of the English
the Germans finish off the stranded forces
Channel, you can’t help seeing those shivering
of good? Shockingly, one day before the
boys at Dunkirk, part of the World War II
evacuation, the Blitzkrieg took a break.
generation that will soon be gone entirely.
Historians say German troops needed rest, and Before they disappear into the churn of history,
wanted to consolidate their forces for a final
we owe them another deep thanks, for the
push of the allies into the sea. Plus, there was
speculation that can remain just that.
concern about tanks getting bogged down,
■
and the weather was less than ideal for aerial
Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a
bombing.
writer for The New York Times, first as the
And the French, still ridiculed for letting
Pacific Northwest correspondent, then as a
Paris fall in barely a month’s time, heroically
national enterprise reporter.
F
Here we have
the prospect
of the Nazis
developing an
atomic bomb.
OTHER VIEWS
Making bipartisan progress on safe drinking water
ll of us in Oregon
seen horrible problems
and across the
from Flint, Michigan
country deserve
to drinking fountains in
access to safe, clean
Oregon schools.
drinking water. That’s why
Our legislation focuses
the Energy and Commerce
on addressing drinking
Committee — where I
water systems’ physical
serve as chairman — just
needs, aiding states and
passed bipartisan
utilities with compliance
Greg
legislation to modernize
Walden and operation of the
the nation’s drinking water
drinking water program,
Comment
infrastructure.
and encouraging the wisest
Today, drinking water
use of money that is spent.
flows to our homes and businesses
For the last 20 years, Congress
through more than one million
has helped drinking water delivery
miles of pipes operated by both
systems meet the challenge of
publicly and privately owned water providing consumers with safe
systems. Many of these pipes
and affordable water through the
were laid in the early to mid-20th
Drinking Water State Revolving
century with an expected lifespan
Fund. From the end of 1997
of 75 to 100 years. In fact, some
through 2016, Oregon has received
communities in Oregon still rely
more than $274 million in grants
on wood stave water pipes that are
to help improve the safety and
reaching the end of their life. While quality of tap water, comply with
in most places drinking water
drinking water rules and reporting
quality remains high, we also have
requirements, and give a helping
A
hand to the most economically
distressed communities struggling
to provide their residents safe
drinking water. This fiscal year,
Oregon is set to receive nearly $12
million in funding
to improve its
water systems.
Many rural
communities
across Oregon
struggle
with failing
infrastructure and
a limited ability
to afford these increasingly costly
projects. They turn to the drinking
water fund for help. In Malheur
County, rural communities such
as Vale and Nyssa are completing
new water treatment and storage
facilities to bring safe drinking
water to their residents. In Umatilla
County, the city of Pendleton is
upgrading more than 30 miles of
water lines that are nearly a century
old — Mayor John Turner said
this project would be impossible
without the program.
Our bill, the Drinking Water
System Improvement Act,
continues those
important
investments and
authorizes $8
billion over five
years for the
drinking water
fund while also
expanding the
number of ways
in which the fund can be used to
improve delivery systems. In fact,
we’re authorizing an increase of
$350 million in funding for next
year from which states such as
Oregon could benefit.
Perhaps most important is
how the bill looks to the future,
using smart technology to monitor
drinking water quality in real time.
This allows us to better prevent,
Many rural
communities are
struggling with
infrastructure.
detect, or rapidly respond to
contaminants in our water systems.
The ability to have up-to-the-
minute information helps ensure
water is safe and clean, system
leaks and recent contamination are
identified quickly, and the accuracy
and availability of compliance data
is maintained. We also included
a program to help our schools
replace drinking fountains that
might contain lead.
These are just some of the
highlights of the bill. As this
measure heads to the House for a
vote, I will continue working with
my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle to ensure it passes and we do
our part to make sure the water
Americans drink is safe.
■
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Hood
River), represents Oregon’s second
congressional district, which
includes 20 counties in central,
southern and Eastern Oregon.