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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2018)
REGION Thursday, July 5, 2018 East Oregonian Page 3A PENDLETON Hydropower off McKay Dam scrapped By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Bill Hampton of Pend- leton is giving up his idea of building a small hydro- electric generator at McKay Dam. The project would have produced 2 megawatts of power April through Octo- ber, when the flow from the dam is higher. Hampton estimated the project would have cost $3 million to $4 million and generated 5.6 gigawatt-hours each year, or enough power for about 500 homes. But he said PacifiCorp’s 2016 feasibility study of the project also was its obituary. “That was when they told me I needed to build a trans- mission line to Yakima,” Hampton said. His original project called for a 3,000-foot, 69 kilovolt line connecting to the Pacific Power distribution system. But a 90-mile, 230 kilovolt line to tie into that system would cost tens of millions more. Hampton called the sce- nario ludicrous, but so was fighting PacifiCorp. Hampton said he is famil- iar with the state, federal and tribal permitting processes, but taking on PacifiCorp’s legal team was another matter. “That’s just a chal- Staff photo by E.J. Harris Passengers disembark the afternoon flight of Boutique Airlines on May 1 at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport in Pendleton. EO file photo The idea for a hydroelectric generator at McKay Dam has been scrapped because of the high costs cited by PacifiCorp to connect the project to the company’s distribution system. lenge that was too much to tackle,” he said, so he sur- rendered the permit back to the Federal Energy Regula- tory Commission. Pacific Power spokes- person Tom Gauntt said the company could not com- ment on particular business negotiations with a customer or even a potential customer, but “our support of qualify- ing facilities and renewable customer generation is well documented.” PacifiCorp has more than 6,500 net metering agree- ments in Oregon, he said, which bring 62.5 mega- watts onto the grid to bene- fit customers. The company also has 74 power purchas- ing agreements in the state involving 463 megawatts. Gauntt said that amounts to a “significant amount of power from biomass, wind, solar and small hydro.” Hampton said the McKay generator would have been similar to the small gener- ator he worked on in Cot- tage Grove, or the 1.1 mega- watt generator PacifiCorp owns on the Wallowa River near Wallowa Lake. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in early 2017 renewed the company’s operating license for the site for 40 years. Hampton said PacifiCorp likes small hydro as long as it owns it, but oth- erwise strives to obstruct small projects. Gauntt said the company follows the law and looks closely at what it takes to connect projects to the grid. “Connecting these resources can be costly, and the feasibility studies we undertake when these new resources are proposed look closely at all costs involved and propose the most cost effective alternative avail- able to the customer while not impacting costs to other customers,” he said. UMATILLA COUNTY Meeting, short on commissioners, sees no action By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian The Umatilla County Board of Commission- ers took no action Tuesday during its meeting for lack of a quorum. Commissioner Bill Elfering said the blun- der was his. “I’m embarrassed, really,” he said. The county board voted 3-0 in April to move the meeting to July 3, away from its usual Wednes- day morning slot, because of Independence Day. Elf- ering said he fixed it in his mind the board meeting was on another day and so he attended other meetings he scheduled in Hermiston. He said he wished he had a better reason but was thank- ful the meeting agenda was light. The board planned to take action on renewing insurance coverage, adopt- ing the Stepping Up Initia- tive to divert the mentally ill from jail and authorizing the sheriff’s office to seek bids for new vehicles. Commissioner Larry Givens was out for a doc- tor’s appointment at 9 a.m., the same time the meeting started, leaving Commis- sioner George Murdock as the lone member to attend. Murdock heard the pre- sentation on the cost of insurance for the new fis- cal year, which will come to almost $196,000 for SAIF, the State Accident Insur- ance Fund, and $537,000 for property and causality. The staff recommendation is to renew both coverages, but Murdock could not do that alone. Likewise, he held off on hearing from sheriff’s Capt. Dave Williamson to issue a bid for new law enforcement vehicles. Murdock, however, was able to recognize Riley Wortman as the county employee of the month. Wortman works in the com- puter information services and was instrumental when the county upgraded its dis- patch services. Murdock also said Wortman comes to work all hours of the day or night to help ensure com- puter updates and the like do not interfere with county business and delivering of service. Wortman began work- ing for the county about four years ago. The recogni- tion comes with some perks, including a day off with pay. Elfering said he called Murdock and county counsel Doug Olsen about resched- uling the meeting. The board now plans to meet Monday at 9 a.m. at the courthouse in Pendleton. BRIEFLY One person shot in possible robbery in Boardman BOARDMAN — Board- man Police Chief Rick Stokoe reported one person was shot early Monday in a possible robbery. “We do have a person of interest,” Stokoe said Tues- day, “and hopefully we will be able to locate that person today.” Stokoe said Boardman police responded to the call about the shooting around 1 a.m. Monday. An aircraft ambulance flew the victim to Legacy Emanuel Medi- cal Center, Portland. Stokoe added the injuries do not appear to be life-threatening. He also said Boardman police is not revealing other information about the shoot- ing at this time. Irrigon man injured in fatal I-84 crash TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Authorities say an Ohio truck driver was killed in a fiery explosion when two tractor-trailers collided on Interstate 84 in southern Idaho. The Idaho Transportation Department says all lanes of I-84 east of Twin Falls have reopened following Tues- day’s collision that sent a massive plume of smoke into the air and blocked traf- fic for hours. The Idaho State Jour- nal reports that 39-year-old Corey McCaslin, of Port Washington, Ohio, died in the crash. State police say a trac- tor-trailer driven by an Ore- gon man crossed over the center line in a construc- tion zone and collided with McCaslin’s truck. Police say David Wet- more, of Irrigon was airlifted to a hospital in Pocatello. He was in stable condition Tuesday and is expected to survive. Crash injures Milton-Freewater woman M I LT O N - F R E E WA - TER — La Vonne Anderson of Milton-Freewater was injured in a crash Monday near Burbank, Washington. The Washington State Patrol reported the crash occurred at 2:29 p.m. on State Route 12 about two miles south of Burbank. Anderson, 70, was driving a 2003 Mitsubishi Galant west on the highway when Eriberto Perez-Leyva, 18, of Kennewick, who was head- ing east in a 1998 Toyota Camry, tried to turn left onto Dodd Road and smashed into Anderson’s vehicle. Expungement NO Court Appearance DIVORCE & Arrests $155 , Clear Many Convictions , BMCC hires new VP of instruction Blue Mountain Com- munity College will have a new person overseeing all academic programming and faculty. In a Tuesday press release, BMCC named John Fields as its new vice presi- dent of instruction. Fields comes to East- ern Oregon from Florida State College at Jackson- ville, where he worked for 12 years as a French profes- sor, a department chair, and a dean. “We’re excited to have John join our team,” BMCC President Cam Preus said. “He has strong leadership skills that will continue to help guide our academic programming and outstand- ing faculty in innovative ways that put our students first.” Fields has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Florida and www.paralegalalternatives.com Children ·Custody ·Support ·Property ·Bills Division 503 503-772-5295 Later flights irk some passengers, but airline sees increase in usage By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian A change to Boutique Air’s schedule came as a surprise to regular passen- gers and the Pendleton air- port administration alike. A few weeks ago, Dave Conant-Norville was noti- fied that his Tuesday flight from Portland to Pendle- ton would be switched from 8:05 a.m. to 10:05 a.m. as a part of a permanent sched- ule change. A licensed psychiatrist, Conant-Norville ran a prac- tice in Pendleton from 1987- 1993, and although he’s since moved to Hillsboro, he continues to commute to Pendleton once a week to see patients. As the only psychiatrist in Pendleton, Conant-Nor- ville said the schedule change is forcing him to condense his schedule to meet the last flight out of Pendleton at 4 p.m. while trying to accommodate his patients. “I wasn’t a happy person about it,” he said. Over the years, Conant-Norville has flown on all the air services that have run passenger flights at the Pendleton airport, whether it was Horizon Air, SeaPort Airlines, or Bou- tique. Despite the schedule change, Conant-Norville said he is satisfied with Bou- tique’s level of service and the quality of its aircraft. Boutique now has a flight departing from Pendleton at 7:15 p.m. on Thursdays, so Conant-Norville said he’s working around the problem by moving his appointments to that day. But he wishes Boutique would have given him more advanced warning so he could have changed his practice’s schedule sooner. Boutique, which is based out of San Francisco, didn’t return multiple requests for comment, but schedules posted on its website pro- vide some information on the new schedule. 7/5 $5 Classic Movie • 7/11 • 12:00 PM Awakenings $5 Children’s Classic Movie • 7/11 • 10 AM Ice Age 2: The Meltdown Free Small Popcorn & Small Soda Saturday, July 7 304 SE Nye, Pendleton * Matinee Pricing 541-276-6111 AS LOW AS 29 99 $ wildhorseresort.com • 541-966-1850 PENDLETON Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216 Ultimate Hawaii Save up to $ Tour with Pearl Harbor Experience per couple 900 Departs weekly year-round /per mo. for 12 mos when bundled* Blazing fast Internet is available and can be yours with Spectrum Internet™ With speeds starting at 60 Mbps SPECTRUM TRIPLE PLAY TM TV, INTERNET AND VOICE UNLIMITED CALLING JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (PG13) 7:00 4:00 10:00 THE FIRST PURGE (R) 5:00 7:30 9:50 INCREDIBLES 2 (PG) 6:50 4:10 9:40 ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (PG13) 6:00 8:40 SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (R) 3:50* 6:40 9:20 Red Lion Lounge • No Cover Charge SPECTFUM INTEFNET™ UP TO 60MBPS While Boutique origi- nally offered three flights into Pendleton and three flights back to Portland seven days a week, the new schedule offers only two flights both ways on Satur- day while bolstering Sunday to four flights in and out. On the ticket booking page, it shows a fourth flight on Thursday and Friday in the evenings that doesn’t show on the schedule, but instead of a ticket price it states “non-available.” Pendleton Airport Man- ager Steve Chrisman said he too was surprised when Boutique modified its schedule and inquired with the company about why it made the change. According to Chrisman, Boutique responded by say- ing it used a “heat map” to determine what times were selling the least tickets. To boost enplanements, Chrisman said Boutique moved some flights away from Saturday and redistrib- uted them elsewhere in the schedule. Chrisman said he admired Boutique’s ini- tiative to boost enplane- ments — the U.S. Depart- ment of Transportation uses that figure when evaluating whether Pendleton should continue to receive the Essential Air Service sub- sidy — but he doesn’t want to alienate loyal passengers either. “It didn’t sit well with some people,” he said. “We caught some complaints.” While Boutique tries to boost enplanements, Chris- man said it was already an area of strength for the airline. In 2017, its first full year serving Pendleton, Boutique had 5,689 enplanements, an 87 percent increase from the year before. Boutique is already ahead of the curve com- pared to last year. From January through May, Boutique has 2,427 enplanements. During the same time period in 2017, the airline had 2,099 boardings. ——— Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0836. Cineplex Show Times MOFE HD CHANNELS, FASTEF INTEFNET AND UNLIMITED VOICE. 125+ CHANNELS Complete Preparation Includes: legalalt@msn.com a law degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey. He’s also multilingual, fluent in French, proficient in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and is currently learning Italian. While at Florida State College, Fields was an exec- utive board member of the Jacksonville Sister Cities Association and the coordi- nator for the southern region of the National French Contest. Fields replaces Mary Jeanne Kuhar. • Speeds up to 60Mbps • Unlimited data – no data caps NO Court Appearances Divorce in 1-5 weeks Possible! An ambulance took Anderson to Lourdes Medi- cal Center, Pasco. The state patrol did not report Ander- son’s injuries. Perez-Leyva did not yield the right-of-way, according to Washington State Patrol, and received a citation for second-degree negligent driving. 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