NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Judge upholds Hells Canyon grazing permits
neys to discuss the lawsuit.
Kris Stein, who man-
ages the Forest Service’s
Hells Canyon National Rec-
reation Area and Eagle Cap
Ranger District, said she
was pleased that Simon
upheld Sullivan’s March
ruling.
The Greater Hells Can-
yon
Council’s
lawsuit
named as defendants the
U.S. Forest Service and
Stein.
Greater Hells Canyon
Council argues that cat-
tle grazing along the lower
Imnaha River endangers
the Spalding’s catchfly, a
perennial species that the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice listed as threatened in
October 2001.
Spalding’s
catchfly
grows on grassland prairies
mainly in the Palouse region
of Washington, as well as in
parts of Oregon, Idaho and
Montana, according to the
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Its name, “catchfly,” refers
to the dense, sticky hair that
cover its leaves and stems
and can trap insects and
dust.
In September 2015 Stein
signed a decision allowing
grazing to continue on four
allotments covering about
44,000 acres.
During an analysis that
preceded Stein’s decision,
By JAYSON JACOBY
EO Media Group
BAKER CITY — A
federal judge has upheld a
magistrate’s March order
allowing cattle grazing to
continue in a section of
Hells Canyon despite an
environmental group’s con-
tention that grazing imper-
ils a threatened plant.
Judge Michael H. Simon
adopted the findings of
Magistrate Judge Patri-
cia Sullivan, who in March
recommended denial of a
motion for summary judg-
ment from the Greater
Hells Canyon Council of
La Grande, which sued the
Forest Service in January
2018.
Sullivan recommended
approving a motion for
summary judgment by the
Forest Service and two
intervenors in the lawsuit
— McClaran Ranch Inc.,
which has the permit to
graze cattle in the contested
area, and Wallowa County.
A summary judgment
means the judge believes
one side in a lawsuit should
prevail without having to
take the matter to trial.
Darilyn Parry Brown,
the Greater Hells Canyon
Council’s executive direc-
tor, said the plaintiffs will
be meeting with their attor-
Capital Press File Photo
A federal judge has upheld a magistrate’s March order allowing cattle grazing to continue in
a section of Hells Canyon despite an environmental group’s contention that grazing imperils
a threatened plant.
Forest Service employ-
ees found 948 Spalding’s
catchfly plants, distributed
among 70 patches and three
of the allotments, in that
area.
No plants were found in
one of the allotments.
The plaintiff described
the catchfly population in
the grazing allotments as
“vulnerably small.”
There are much larger
populations, of around
40,000 plants, on The
Nature
Conservancy’s
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
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Sunny
Mostly sunny and
hot
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hot
Mostly sunny and
hot
Partly sunny
90° 59°
96° 61°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
99° 64°
100° 63°
99° 66°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
93° 56°
99° 58°
102° 62°
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
Olympia
77/55
85/51
89/56
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
91/63
Lewiston
84/56
92/55
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75/55
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Yakima 90/57
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89/61
The Dalles 93/56
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Corvallis
89/56
Yesterday
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La Grande
89/57
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100/68
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94°
69°
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59°
104° (1965) 44° (1987)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
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Albany
89/57
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98/63
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0.00"
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9.61"
6.49"
7.97"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
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TEMP.
Pendleton 86/51
89/58
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
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Enterprise
90/59
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89°
66°
90°
60°
107° (1898) 40° (1897)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
81/53
Aberdeen
86/56
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Tacoma
Yesterday
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By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Oregon Capital Bureau
PENDLETON
TEMP.
Seattle
Tamara Dykeman
charged with putting
the Student Success
Act into action
ALMANAC
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Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
97/65
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NNE 4-8
NNW 6-12
NNE 4-8
N 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
91/53
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Sunrise today
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5:40 a.m.
8:22 p.m.
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First
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Aug 7
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NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 116° in Thermal, Calif. Low 35° in Boca Reservoir, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
plete range of options for
protecting Spalding’s catch-
fly habitat.” That option,
Stein wrote, “introduces
additional
management
activities to protect the hab-
itat and plants while moni-
toring changes to determine
the effectiveness of those
management changes.”
One of those activities is
changing the grazing rota-
tion in some areas to reduce
the risk that cattle will eat
Spalding’s catchfly plants
or trample on the plants or
Transforming Oregon’s public
schools begins with one person
100° 64°
101° 66°
OREGON FORECAST
Zumwalt Preserve, also in
Wallowa County, accord-
ing to the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
In the 2015 decision
authorizing grazing to con-
tinue in areas with catchfly
populations, Stein acknowl-
edged that “there is uncer-
tainty about the extent of
the effects of cattle grazing
on Spalding’s catchfly or
habitat.”
However, she wrote that
she picked the option that
“provides the most com-
its habitat.
Stein said cattle graze in
the allotments from Novem-
ber through May.
Greater Hells Canyon
Council did not seek an
injunction to stop grazing
while the lawsuit is in court.
Officials from Greater
Hells Canyon Council point
out that the Forest Service’s
2003 management plan for
the Hells Canyon National
Recreation Area requires
the agency to have a recov-
ery plan for all threatened
species, including Spald-
ing’s catchfly.
Sullivan wrote in her
findings in March that “the
Forest Service used the best
available science to deter-
mine that its decision would
benefit the catchfly. The
Forest Service’s choices of
how to proceed with lim-
ited data and in the face of
uncertainty were decisions
within Forest Service’s
expertise that are entitled to
deference.”
Sullivan also concluded
that the Forest Service
complied with federal envi-
ronmental laws in approv-
ing grazing plans for the
four allotments, and that
the agency had adequate
information about the Spal-
ding’s catchfly to assess the
potential effects of grazing
on the plant.
SALEM — Oregon’s
ambitious and costly plan to
transform its public schools
begins with one person.
The first employee — one
of dozens — charged with
putting the Student Success
Act into action joined the
state’s education department
on Thursday.
Lawmakers voted in May
to raise new tax dollars to
boost the amount of money
flowing toward Oregon’s
public schools by $1 billion
every year.
It’s a major effort to
increase academic achieve-
ment, improve students’
mental health, boost high
school graduation rates and
improve Oregon kids’ long-
term prospects.
That first employee,
Tamara Dykeman, will
coordinate, plan and put into
action the programs paid
for by the Student Success
Act, according to the job
description.
While she has a myriad
of duties, much of the work
will involve shepherding the
agency through the land-
mark new program.
Dykeman, who previ-
ously worked as an analyst
for the legislative policy and
research office, is expected
to work with multiple teams,
offices and divisions of the
education department and
advise department leaders
on how the agency can inno-
vate, grow and improve.
She will report to the
department’s director and
deputy superintendent of
public instruction, Colt
Gill.
Among her other duties,
Dykeman is also supposed
to foster relationships inside
and outside the agency,
bringing together students,
teachers, school districts and
other interested people and
groups to make the legisla-
tion effective.
“It’s one that we
are diving into as
quickly as possible,
but as cautiously
and thoughtfully as
possible”
Colt Gill ,
Department’s director
The money raised by the
new tax will support new
and ongoing state efforts
to renew Oregon’s flagging
public education system.
Those efforts range from
increasing preschool slots
to helping Latinx, Native
American and Black stu-
dents do better in school to
cutting class sizes.
Over the next year, the
department plans to hire
about 70 new workers to
make the expanded pro-
grams run, including grant
managers and research
analysts.
Lawmakers authorized
$25 million to pay for those
positions, contracts and
“other costs necessary” to
implement the law.
Legislators directed the
department to improve edu-
cation for Oregon students
who aren’t being adequately
served by its public schools,
Gill said.
For example, a good
share of the money will
go to school districts and
charter schools for “stu-
dent investment.”
The state will apply the
same formula the state nor-
mally uses to distribute
money for schools, but with
a key tweak.
The process will be
weighted to account for pov-
erty in a given school dis-
trict to boost the education
money available for poor
students.
“I think that’s a critical
aspect,” Gill said.
Districts have to have a
plan for spending the money
that has been approved by
the education department to
get the extra state money,
according to legislative
records.
Those positions will
include auditors to check
that all that new money is
spent properly.
“The Legislature was
really clear around design-
ing the implementation of
this process around two
things,” Gill said. “One is
that we keep equity at the
forefront, and the second is
that we are accountable for
the public dollars that we’re
spending.”
Local school districts
won’t start seeing the new
money until the 2020-21
school year.
Gill noted that the Stu-
dent Success Act is the
state’s largest investment in
education in at least three
decades.
“It’s one that we are div-
ing into as quickly as pos-
sible, but as cautiously and
thoughtfully as possible,”
Gill said.
Two other state agencies
are expanding to brace for
the expanded schools effort.
The state Revenue Depart-
ment got an extra $4 million
to put in place the system to
collect the new corporate tax
and the state Justice Depart-
ment received $460,000 to
work on legal issues around
the new tax.
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