OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, July 18, 2019
East Oregonian
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ICE: Some Hermiston residents are on high alert
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ment action.
Last Friday — after the
arrests near Hermiston —
President Donald Trump
reported that ICE was plan-
ning raids across the country
to arrest thousands of undoc-
umented immigrants, start-
ing July 14.
“They’re going to take
people out, and they’re going
to bring them back to their
countries, or they’re going
to take criminals out — put
them in prison or put them
in prison in the countries
they came from,” Trump told
reporters.
Since then, CNN reported
people in major cities across
America have been unable to
confi rm many reports of ICE
activity.
Meanwhile, some local
residents are still on high
alert following the arrests and
multiple ICE sightings in the
Hermiston area.
A sergeant from the Herm-
iston Police Department who
spoke with an ICE offi cer July
9 was led to believe that there
was a small operation occur-
ring in the Eastern Washing-
ton and Oregon area, HPD
Chief Jason Edmiston stated.
Edmiston stated it was
later determined the offi -
cer had a large caseload and
did not “have time to address
immigration violations.”
“We cannot enforce immi-
gration law and will not. Our
involvement will only be to
assist an offi cer that is in need
of immediate help due to dis-
tress. This is something we
would do for [any] entity or
agency,” Edmiston stated.
Zaira Sanchez, the exter-
nal communications director
with the organization Raices
— which aims to “unite and
educate Latinx people” of
Umatilla County — said the
organization had received
recent reports of ICE sight-
ings in the area.
She said early last week
that ICE offi cers had been
spotted questioning people in
a van outside of Lorena’s on
11th Street in Hermiston.
“That invoked a lot of
fear,” Sanchez said. “Peo-
ple were quick to check in on
family members in vans that
day.”
Sanchez said that the Port-
land Immigrant Rights Coa-
lition hotline had received
eight calls from the Hermis-
ton area recently. The hotline
takes reports of sightings
and interactions with ICE in
Oregon, and has volunteers
trained to verify those sight-
ings and provide resource
referrals.
She said Raices hopes to
form a rapid response team
for immigration rights, but
that the organization cur-
rently lacks the capacity.
There were reports on
social media of ICE sight-
ings at Walmart last Friday
as well.
Jesse Roa, who works
with the Tri-Cities Immigrant
Rights Coalition, said the
sighting was reported by vol-
unteers specialized in spot-
ting ICE offi cers.
He said there were also
sightings in the Irrigon area.
Roa said that some peo-
ple were using vacation time
to avoid going out during the
sightings, and others were
leaving the area.
“(This) is tearing the
community in half and add-
ing a lot of fear. Not only
for migrant families, but for
people who are friends or
relatives to families,” Roa
said. “I think this commu-
nity is really resilient. I’m
pretty sure the community
is going to come together to
help each other.”
Turbines: More wind power means more transmission lines
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developers pushing to build
turbines at new sites across
the region are stirring a brew
of new and age-old confl icts:
bird and bat mortalities, push-
back from rural communities
that resist change and obsta-
cles created by the limited
power grid infrastructure.
Gone with the wind
For years, wind was dis-
missed as a fi ckle power
source that could never meet
a signifi cant portion of the
nation’s energy needs. New
technologies and falling costs,
however, are changing the
industry.
According to the American
Wind Energy Association,
since 2009, the cost of wind
energy has plunged 69%,
making it the most afford-
able power source in much
of the U.S. According to the
U.S. Department of Energy,
the installation cost for a com-
mercial-scale wind turbine
today is $3 million to $4 mil-
lion. The industry, which for
decades relied on tax incen-
tives, is being weaned off
subsidies, said Janine Ben-
ner, director of the Oregon
Department of Energy.
Most U.S. wind turbines
are manufactured in the U.S.
Benner said Oregon has 8
manufacturers. Vestas, the
world’s largest wind turbine
manufacturer, is based in
Portland.
New turbines, Benner said,
are more effi cient. Blades are
longer. Rotors are better. And
they are taller. One of the new-
est models stands at 650 feet
— taller than Seattle’s Space
Needle.
But bigger turbines mean
more controversy.
The birds and the bats
Birds and bats have a
fraught history with wind
turbines, but new technolo-
gies are making it easier for
winged creatures and wind
power to co-exist.
The wind-bird controversy
dates to the 1990s, when con-
servationists found thousands
of bats and birds annually
— including protected spe-
cies, such as Golden Eagles
— dying or being mutilated
at California’s Altamont Pass
wind farm.
Bat mortalities are often
harder to quantify, said Todd
Katzner, a research wildlife
biologist with the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey. Because bats
are tiny, their remains often
vanish.
Industry advocates say
mortalities from turbines are
scant compared to millions of
annual bird deaths caused by
cats, power lines, vehicles or
crashes into windows.
Katzner calls this an unfair
comparison.
“It matters what spe-
cies you kill,” said Katzner.
“Songbirds probably crash
into every house in North
America. You never hear of
a Golden Eagle killing itself
by crashing into a window,
but eagles do die from turbine
blades. If you killed a million
chipping sparrows, it would
affect only 1% of the popu-
lation. If you killed 100,000
Golden Eagles, you’d wipe out
the entire U.S. Golden Eagle
population twice.”
Researchers are pushing
for laws and practices that kill
fewer birds. One solution is
choosing sites for wind farms
away from migratory fl yways.
But siting is challenging.
In the West each year, more
than a billion birds follow the
Pacifi c Flyway — a migration
path stretching from Arctic
tundra to tropical rainforest.
However, said Garry
George, the National Audu-
bon Society’s renewable
energy director, tracking birds
in the western U.S. is diffi cult
because migration pathways
change based on rainfall and
plants.
Face-recognition
tech-
nology isn’t just for smart
phones and Facebook. Scien-
tists use similar artifi cial intel-
ligence-based technologies,
such as IdentiFlight, to train
machines to recognize and
track bird species.
Kevin Martin, direc-
tor of environmental per-
mitting at Terra-Gen Power,
devised a GPS tracking sys-
tem for protecting endangered
California condors from
death-by-turbine.
Energy companies pay for
and operate these technol-
ogies because it’s expected
and, sometimes, required.
But developers have more
to worry about than wild-
life. They must also please
U.S. power capacity by source, 2018
Many farmers, however,
don’t want a bigger grid.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates the potential market share
of wind energy could be as high as 20% by 2030 and 35% by 2050.
Battle over B2H
(In billions of kilowatt hours)
Wind: 275 or 6.6%
Hydropower:
292 or 7%
Natural gas:
1,468 or 35.1%
Biomass: 63 or 1.5%
Coal:
1,146 or 27.4%
Nuclear:
807 or 19.3%
Solar: 67 or 1.6%
Other: 61 or 1.5%
Total (all sources):
4,178 billion kWh
NOTE: Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2018
Sierra Dawn McClain and Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
landowners.
Farming wind turbines
Threemile Canyon Farms
— which encompasses 93,000
acres near Boardman — is
near the Columbia Gorge.
The hills along the gorge
buckle together like a great
patchwork quilt of gold,
brown and green draped over
the earth. Trees grow bent
from the gusts that tear across
the plateau. A wind develop-
er’s dream.
In 2007, Marty Myers,
general manager of Threemile
Canyon Farms, accepted an
offer from then-developer
John Deere Renewables to
erect six wind turbines on the
farm’s land.
For Myers, the turbines are
a low-maintenance source of
added income. The developer
is responsible for maintenance
and bird monitoring. Myers
grows organic crops on that
portion of the farm, leaving
uncultivated a 1-acre patch
under each turbine.
“It’s good business for a
farmer,” he said. “No matter
what happens in the ag mar-
ket, it’s a source of stability.”
Myers said he wanted
more turbines but was pre-
vented because the farm lies
too close to the Boardman Air
Force Range, where turbines
could interfere with low-fl y-
ing planes.
“These turbines are fas-
cinating things,” said Myers.
“When night comes and the
red lights of the turbines
fl ash across the fi elds, it’s like
somethin’ from outer space.”
He gestured west, toward
the violet hills and Shepherd
Flats, the neighboring wind
farm.
“I wish those ones were
mine, too,” he said.
An interstate for
electricity
Not everyone in Board-
man, however, is happy with
the energy industry.
More wind power means
more transmission lines,
which concerns rural people.
Todd Cornett is secretary
for the state Energy Facility
Siting Council, a branch of
the Oregon Department of
Energy responsible for ensur-
ing that energy sites are cho-
sen responsibly. According to
him, even if turbines generate
enough power, it’s useless if it
can’t be moved to where it’s
needed and when it’s needed.
An expanded grid is essential
— more high-tension power
lines.
There’s the roadblock.
The U.S. uses 21st-cen-
tury technology to pro-
duce energy, but still uses
20th-century infrastructure
that can’t effi ciently move
energy from windy rural
locations to urban markets.
America’s power grid is like
the nation’s roads before
President Dwight Eisenhow-
er’s Interstate Highway Sys-
tem. Cornett said that how-
ever much wind developers
want to expand, they will be
limited by access to trans-
mission lines and substations.
One common criticism
of renewable energy is that
it’s intermittent — the wind
doesn’t always blow. But on
a big enough grid, that’s not
a problem.
Boardman to Heming-
way, or “B2H,” is a pro-
posed 500-kilovolt transmis-
sion line that would string
together 180-foot tall steel
towers, 74% of which would
be on private land. The power
line would snake across 290
miles from Boardman in
eastern Oregon to Heming-
way in southwestern Idaho.
Many rural people aren’t
happy about it.
In June, the Energy Facil-
ity Siting Council held a series
of public hearings about the
transmission line. On June
27, according to hearing tran-
scripts, more than 200 people
attended a 4-1/2-hour hearing
in La Grande to express their
concerns.
Residents said the power
line will degrade natural
areas with a 250-foot-wide
clear cut, increase the like-
lihood of wildfi res linked
to transmission lines, cause
health issues from electro-
magnetic fi elds, blot the land
with an eyesore and damage
the wagon tracks of the Ore-
gon Trail.
“I would no longer be able
to reside or fulfi ll my life-
long dreams and goal of liv-
ing here,” said resident Greg
Larkin.
Cornett of the EFSC
said building another trans-
mission line is like adding
another straw to your drink.
You can only suck a certain
amount of liquid through
one straw, but add another
straw and you can pull up
more. Add B2H, he said, and
you can move more power
quicker.
It remains to be seen
whether rural communities
will add another straw to
their drink.
Tale of two counties
Not everyone is upset. Two
Oregon counties, Gilliam
and Sherman, have thrived
because of wind power.
Welcome to Condon
— a rural town in Gilliam
County. Wheat and cattle, a
couple dozen streets, popula-
tion 675.
K’Lynn Lane, execu-
tive director of the Con-
don Chamber of Commerce,
grew up here. Over the
years, she watched agricul-
ture fl ounder, families sell off
land, survivors hang on. The
wind industry, Lane said, is
what turned the town around.
Lane’s husband got a job
working in management at
the Montague Wind Power
Facility, one of the largest
wind sites under construction
in the West.
“Condon was dying,” said
Lane. “Wind power brought
stable jobs with good benefi ts
and gave people hope. Now
look around — doesn’t this
street look like something
out of a Norman Rockwell
painting?”
Sherman County. We end
where we began.
When the turbines went
up 17 years ago, said former
County Judge Gary Thomp-
son, things got crazy.
“It was like a gold rush,”
he said. “All the big develop-
ers were knocking on doors.
Everybody wanted a piece of
the action.”
Jealousies cut deep, said
Thompson. People whose
land wasn’t good for turbines
felt jilted. To curb resent-
ments, Thompson struck a
deal with developers.
While farmers negotiated
with developers, the Sher-
man County government,
led by Thompson, also nego-
tiated on behalf of the com-
munity. The deal they struck
was for developers to pay
the county, which in turn
would pay residents whose
view of Mount Adams now
included a panorama of tur-
bines. They modeled the plan
after Alaska, where residents
receive a dividend generated
by revenue from the state-
owned Prudhoe Bay oil fi eld.
Thompson kept checks
under $600 so county clerks
wouldn’t have to fi le hun-
dreds of tax forms. Since
then, every Sherman County
head of household who has
owned property for more
than a year has received an
annual Christmas check. The
county has invested the rest
in infrastructure.
Thompson said the haves
and the have-nots may be at
the heart of the debate over
wind turbines in rural com-
munities. Those who benefi t
like them. Those who don’t
benefi t don’t like them.
Raiders: Thunderous sound of motorcycles replaced by roar of B-25
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community support that
make this event shine.”
As the thunder of hun-
dreds of motorcycle engines
died off, the wind kicked up
and fi lled dozens of Ameri-
can fl ags held by the crowd
of bikers. Out of the whip-
ping wind, the roar of a
B-25 bomber swept over-
head before landing and
taxiing to the waiting group.
The plane, a B-25J Mitchell
nicknamed the “Heavenly
Body,” is a part of the Erick-
son Aircraft Collection in
Madras and was fl own by
Pilot Bill Shephard.
“I think everyone holds
something different that
brings a special meaning
to this for them,” Shephard
said. “For me it is the liv-
ing history and the ability
to continue the legacy for
many of the veterans that
fl ew a B-25.”
For Jim Benji of Yakima,
Washington, the event
brought him back to his
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A Harley hearse bearing a box with the names of all deceased Oregon veter-
ans roars onto the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport tarmac as part of the Ride
with the Raiders event.
childhood.
“It brings back memo-
ries,” Benji said. “I grew
up in Spokane and remem-
ber the noise of the planes
overhead constantly. It just
brings back that feeling.”
Following the event the
B-25 took off carrying the
names of thousands of Ore-
gon’s fallen service mem-
bers in an urn bound for
Madras.
Since starting in 2015,
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Capt. David Bower helps load a box containing the names of all 17,000 di-
ceased Oregon veterans into a B-25 bomber for a short fl ight.
Bike Week has revolved
around the convention cen-
ter. The event includes coor-
dinated rides, a motorcycle
show, and a classic rock
concert, which has featured
bands like Three Dog Night
and Grand Funk Railroad.
This year, the Marshall
Tucker Band headlines the
festivities with a concert
Saturday night.
Pendleton Bike Week
will continue through Sun-
day morning with daily
events, group rides, and
concerts
for
motorcy-
cle enthusiasts of all ages.
Organizers expect the event
will draw 16,000 people
across the week.