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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 2018)
WEEKEND EDITION HEPPNER CLINCHES TITLE TEACHER! TEACHER! MIGRANTS GET TO BORDER SPORTS/1B LIFESTYLES/1C WORLD/13A OCTOBER 20-21, 2018 143rd Year, No. 4 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD HERMISTON Farmers still in recovery from fire season Wildfires took toll on Northwest agriculture By GEORGE PLAVEN EO Media Group tubers to be planted at HAREC. There, plant pathologist Kenneth Frost eval- uates them for disease, and contacts growers if he finds any issues. The gusty winds of October howled across fire-scarred Gordon Ridge overlooking the Deschutes River, prompting Molly Belshe to shield her face from swirling dirt and debris. It was here last July that the 78,425-acre Substation Fire raced out of control across north-central Oregon through tinder dry grass and standing wheat. Farmers like Molly Belshe and her husband, Marty, lost an esti- mated 2 million bushels of what was expected to be a bumper crop of wheat in Wasco and Sherman counties. They watched helplessly as months of hard work went up in flames in just minutes. “It would have been one of the better years we ever cut on that property,” Marty Belshe said. “Now, it’s just the cleanup process.” The Substation Fire was one of several large blazes that scorched Central Oregon in 2018. Statewide, wildfires had burned more than 811,357 acres as of Oct. 12, as well as 392,652 acres in Washington, 588,980 acres in Idaho and 1.5 million acres in California. All that fire and smoke has a big effect on agricultural producers, who now must recover the charred landscape. Not only did the Belshes lose 870 acres of wheat, two barns and an empty guest house in the Substation Fire, but the bare ground is more vulnerable to soil erosion, as seen during recent high winds that choked the sky with hazy dust. Shortly after the fire passed, Marty Belshe went out with a chisel plow to break up the soil, which he said has helped to reduce wind erosion in his field. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also approved changes to assist local farmers impacted by the rash of fires, allowing them to plant cover crops next sea- son without affecting their crop insurance. As for ranchers who lost forage in the fires, the USDA will allow emergency grazing on land currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, in six counties: Gil- liam, Hood River, Morrow, Sherman, Wasco and Wheeler. The CRP normally pays farm- ers to take environmentally sensitive land out of agricultural production for up to 15 years. Emergency grazing was approved for 90 See SPUDS/14A See FIRES/12A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Potatoes harvested at the Hermiston Agricultural Research & Extension Center are sorted at the Walchli Farms potato pro- cessing facility on Wedneday outside of Hermiston. The majority of the potatoes will go to the Oregon Food Bank, which will then distribute the potatoes to their network of food banks across the state. A wealth of spuds Local partnership sends surplus potatoes to food banks By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian T he local agricultural community came together Wednesday to send thousands of pounds of potatoes to Oregon food banks. In the past, the spuds would have gone to waste, tilled over after they served their purpose as a test plot at the Hermiston Agricultural Research & Extension Center. But four years ago the experiment station decided to start partnering with local producers and the nonprofit Farmers Ending Hunger to put them to good use in food boxes for families in need. “It’s a great program,” said John Burt, executive director of Farmers Ending Hunger. “It takes a lot of people to make it happen.” The program starts with test plots at HAREC, paid for by grants from the Oregon Potato Commission and tended by the experiment station. HAREC director Phil Hamm said while some Staff photo by E.J. Harris Potatoes harvested at the Hermiston Agricultural Research & Extension Center are off-loaded from a semitrailer Wednesday at the Walchli Farms processing facility outside of Hermiston. produce grown at the experiment station couldn’t be used for human consump- tion after being subjected to experi- ments, the potatoes harvested Wednes- day weren’t experimented upon. Instead, area growers each send 300 ‘Grit and Ink’ documents a newspaper family Author examines story behind East Oregonian and The Daily Astorian Portland historian William F. Willingham pores over 1950s com- pany history in the Asto- rian-Budget Publishing Co.’s minutes book in 2014. By ERICK BENGEL EO Media Group Alex Pajunas/The Daily Astorian Receive Care Whenever and Wherever You Need it! Journalists try to avoid becoming the story, but a new book about East Orego- nian and The Daily Astorian puts these sister dailies on the front page. “Grit and Ink,” by historian Wil- liam F. Willing- ham, is about the Aldrich-Forrest- er-Bedford-Brown family’s devo- tion to community journalism. The book focuses on the East Oregonian Publish- ing Co. (now the EO Media Group), taking readers from the rugged early years of Ore- gon newspaper- ing to the present — from the dusty frontier to the dig- ital frontier, from agrarian Pendleton to riverine Astoria. The book’s sub- title is “An Oregon Family’s Adven- tures in Newspapering, 1908–2018,” but Willingham opens with the EO’s founding See GRIT/14A ONLY $35 PER VISIT! • COUGH • COLD • FLU • SORE THROAT • EAR ACHE • PINK EYE • RASH • URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS • AND SO MUCH MORE! Virtual Care 844.724.8632 FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.SAHPENDLETON.ORG
