WEEKEND EDITION
BEST
OF PREP
SEASON
SOUND OF MEXICO
WARRIORS SWEEP
SPORTS/1B
LIFESTYLES/1C
SPORTS/1B
JUNE 9-10, 2018
142nd Year, No. 167
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
CSAs help bring
local farms
to your doorstep
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Participants in the Mass Timber Rising Summit look up into the canopy while touring a thinned section of
forest Thursday north of Union.
Building with wood
moves beyond the boards
Forest products find
new uses in construction
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Bill Gamble stood before the
crowd Thursday in the Sandbox and
touted the work to restore its health.
The Sandbox Vegetation Manage-
ment Project encompassed 16,000
acres in the Blue Mountains near
Union in the Upper Catherine Creek
Watershed. Gamble is the U.S. For-
est Service ranger for the La Grande
District. He oversaw the work that
resulted in a more open and natural
forest while selling 16 million board
feet of timber. The project wrapped up
in 2015.
The crowd was a couple dozen aca-
demics, forest managers and industry
insiders who were attending the Mass
Timber Rising Summit in La Grande.
The Sandbox, Gamble said, is an
example of good, smart work to keep
the forest healthy. Around 1.2 million
acres of the Blue Mountains needs
some kind of restoration, he said.
That includes thinning and timber
sales, which the mass timber industry
wants and needs.
Mass timber is about engineer-
ing load-bearing structures of wood
and using those to build high, such
as Framework, the 12-story high rise
going up in Portland this fall. Nearly
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Participants walk through a cleared section of forest while on a tour
during the Mass Timber Rising Summit north of Union.
all of the building is wood in one form
or another, including cross-laminated
timber, or CLT, which comes in pan-
els the size of walls. The material is
catching on in urban construction, but
the U.S. lags behind its use in Canada,
the United Kingdom and some other
parts of Europe.
Jonathan Heppner is with Lever
Architecture, the firm that designed
Framework. He told the crowd earlier
in the day that Lever spends a lot of
discussion on how to build to “elevate
the human experience.” But the firm
did not shirk the obligation to keep
people safe in a wood building.
Fire, after all, is the big threat.
Heppner said Lever had to prove
load-bearing beams could withstand a
two-hour fire at 2,000 degree in a fur-
nace, the kind of test steel and con-
crete also have to pass.
Lever did that in the fall of 2016,
becoming the first mass timber prod-
ucts in the world to pass the test.
Framework also uses a “self-center-
ing design” for earthquake livability.
“This building won’t be torn down
See WOOD/8A
Val Tachenko, who operates Val’s Veggies, sets up shop
Thursday at the Nixyaawii Governence Center.
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
As Val Tachenko smiles
and hands over a carton of
just-ripe strawberries to a
customer on Thursday after-
noon, one person is not
happy.
Her young grandson
pokes his head over the edge
of the table and frowns at the
remaining boxes.
“He took my best one!”
It’s hard to say what
looks best. The table in the
Nixyaawii Governance Cen-
ter groans with baskets of
fresh greens, onions, cher-
ries and strawberries, which
Tachenko, owner of Val’s
Veggies, sells alongside
the CSA boxes that she’s
brought to deliver to weekly
customers.
A CSA, or Communi-
ty-Supported Agriculture,
allows people to pay a fee
at the beginning of a sea-
son and then get a box of
fresh vegetables delivered
to them each week from a
local or regional farm. As
of this week, Tachenko has
expanded her delivery ser-
vice to customers in Pendle-
ton and Hermiston.
Tachenko said she’s
noticed more awareness
about eating local since she
started her CSA in 2009 at
her Baker City farm, where
she raises cattle, chickens
and grows vegetables in a
16-acre garden. Before that
she sold wholesale produce,
operated farm stands and
sold at farmer’s markets.
“I’ve always been very
passionate about people eat-
ing local,” she said.
Tachenko has been one of
the only consistent growers
in the region to maintain a
CSA. She has 48 customers,
and usually caps the service
at about 60.
Tachenko sells at farm-
er’s markets in La Grande,
and has a fruit stand in Baker
City. Each Thursday, she
sells produce at a table in the
Nixyaawii Governance Cen-
ter in Mission.
With so many opportu-
nities to buy local produce,
Tachenko said many people
don’t understand why a CSA
box is a good option.
The service relies on sea-
sonal vegetables, which
means that you won’t find
peppers in early June.
“People struggle to eat
seasonally,” Tachenko said.
“The first few weeks it’s
mostly greens. (People)
want tomatoes, corn. Those
aren’t available yet.”
But the boxes allow peo-
ple to get vegetables that
may not be available at the
market.
“The CSA boxes come
first,” she said, opening up
one of the boxes awaiting
pickup. It’s stuffed with kale,
rainbow chard, spinach, bok
choi and green onions.
“Today they got zucchini
and broccoli. I don’t have
enough of that to sell at the
table, but the boxes got that.
See CSA/10A
MILTON-FREEWATER
Neighbors oppose proposed hay processor
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Tim Werhan, who owns Smiley RV, opposes the
proposed Blue Mountain Hay facility next door
because of increased truck traffic and potential water
quality concerns.
More than 18 acres in
the exclusive farm use zone
near Milton-Freewater could
be home to a hay processing
operation. But Tim Werhan
and some other locals are
fighting the development.
“I support a good busi-
ness,” Werhan said. “But
let’s find a place to put them
that won’t conflict with all
these people’s lives and
property values.”
Jeremy Christman rep-
resents Blue Mountain Hay,
the company in question.
“What we’re really try-
ing to do is just bring all of
our farming and baling oper-
ations to one central loca-
tion,” he said.
Blue Mountain Hay oper-
ates out of Walla Walla but
has an office in Milton-Free-
water. The company is an
offshoot of the Derstine
family’s Valley Hay Co.,
which ships pressed for-
age products from the Wil-
lamette Valley. The family
— a father and five sons —
formed Blue Mountain Hay
in 2008 to take advantage
of wheat and alfalfa prod-
ucts east of the Cascades.
See HAY/10A