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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Boutique unexpectedly
changes flight schedule
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