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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 2019)
A8 OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Tuesday, August 6, 2019 Veto: Gov. Brown moves to veto several rural proposals Friday Continued from Page A1 can be expensive and com- plex. Often it includes hir- ing an environmental con- sultant, and is a process that can happen every one to five years. Cooper said the state is regulating farmers under a law that’s designed for new development, not existing farms. Rather than fully exempt farms, the bill provided middle ground where the state maintains some oversight. Cooper said she believes the deci- sion to veto the bill is based on misinformation. It passed easily, get- ting two-thirds support in the Senate and House. But Brown said it goes too far, cutting out the wildlife management community. “Collectively, these changes could have a sig- nificant impact on our wild- life populations and wetland habitats, including poten- tially adverse effects on our native salmon populations,” Brown’s statement said. Cooper said the farm bureau has reached out to Brown’s office and is hoping to meet with her this week to explain the misunderstandings. The proposal was cham- pioned by Sen. Betsy John- son, D-Scappoose, who was an early opponent of the environmental legislation. Johnson did not return a request for comment. Additionally, Brown is considering vetoing money for local projects approved by the Legislature. Brown may cut $4 mil- lion designated for the city of Newport to plan for the replacement of two dams on Big Creek. According to the Newport News Times, the city fears the dams could fail in an earthquake, shut- ting residents off from water and trapping some commu- nities due to flooding. “I intend to line-item veto this project because we need to study all of Ore- gon’s dams, prioritize them for repair, and develop funding mechanisms before dedicating funds and plan- ning work on any specific dam,” Brown said in her statement. The city wants to rebuild the dams before a breach, and estimates it would cost $60 million to $75 million. If it had all the resources, it could break ground in about two years, with construc- tion taking another three, said Public Works Director Timothy Gross. Gross said he’s worked for nine years to get funding for this project, and during the legislative session was in Salem a couple times per week lobbying lawmakers. But Brown says the appropriation puts the Big Creek dams ahead of other vulnerable dams. Accord- ing to the governor’s office, 72 state-controlled dams are rated as high hazard. In her proposed budget this fall, Brown asked law- makers to approve $2 mil- lion to study the dams and prioritize repairs. Brown’s proposal would have also created a task force to over- see the state’s assistance to local government working to repair dams. The Leg- islature didn’t approve her plan. The dams are tiered, Gross said, and hold back up to 381 million gallons of water. If the top dam fails, the bottom one goes with it. He said seepage is already a problem and it’s now a race against the clock, he said. “If they fail before we fix them, our community is gone,” Gross said. Further, Gross was using the $4 million to get federal matching dollars, so the cut is actually twice as deep. Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, who represents Newport in the Senate, said he was disappointed by the governor’s announcement. He is seeking a meeting with the governor. Roblan was one of three Senate Democrats who publicly opposed Brown’s cap-and- trade program. Fair: Beating the heat during the Umatilla County Fair Continued from Page A1 Relief for the Rabbits Visitors might get a lit- tle wet if they visit the large animal barn in the mid-af- ternoon. Humans aren’t the only ones seeking relief from the heat. “We’ll spray them down sometimes,” said Carson Davis, 13, Pendleton, who shows sheep. Exhibiting livestock at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center means shaded barns and built-in water misting systems for the larger animals. “The beauty of being in a new location is there was a lot of forethought into this,” said 4-H Agent Anna Browne. “The barns are really shady. At the old fair- grounds, a lot of that was out in the open.” Smaller animals, like rabbits and chickens, will have frozen water bottles in their cages so they have something cool to lean up against. Browne said that the ani- mals tend to acclimate to the high temperatures fairly well, but that with this year being so hot, extra precau- tions will be taken. Don’t overlook overheating Kelly Shelton, firefighter and paramedic with Uma- tilla Fire District 1, said they don’t deal with over- heating too often at the Umatilla County Fair. “It’s usually when peo- ple haven’t been drink- ing enough water,” Shelton said. “The first thing we’ll U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Photo/Sheri Whitfield, File The Cold Creek Fire burned nearly 42,000 acres of sagebrush and grass land near Hanford in July, including on Rattlesnake Mountain. Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Chloe Wilson bathes her pig Mario during load-in for the Umatilla County Fair on Monday afternoon. do is take them out of the heat.” “Try to stay in the shade as much as possible,” Shel- ton added. According to the Mayo Clinic, heat exhaus- tion can be characterized by faintness, cool skin and goosebumps during heat, fatigue, nausea, and headache. Heatstroke, which is the most serious heat injury, happens when the body’s temperature goes above 104 F degrees, according to the Mayo Clinic. Some- one with heatstroke might stop sweating, experience confusion and disorienta- tion, have flushed skin and headaches. First aid can be found by the small animal barn at the fair. Catch the cool Fair attendees can find nearly 20 different water-misting stations scat- tered around the grounds to help alleviate the stress of the heat. In addition to that, some vendors bring their own stations. “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate,” said EOTEC general manager Al Davis. “We have water fountains in the center and back by the barns. There’s places.” In addition to keeping up on water consumption, a little planning can make unbearable heat more tolerable. Those looking to cool off shade during peak heat, which usually occurs around 3 p.m., can save their carnival rides for after dusk, when the tem- perature drops to more tolerable levels, and opt instead for events in the barns — where fans and shade are plentiful — or at the Event Center, which is air-conditioned. Fire: Young elk not fast enough Continued from Page A1 said just being up there was emotional. “It almost, it’s like tak- ing you to the point where you want to cry it’s so beau- tiful,” he said. “But at the same time, it just makes you so happy. There just are no words for it in English. And I’m not even sure what it would be in our own lan- guage right off the top of my head. But it’s the kind of things we sing songs about. It’s tied to the wind, and it’s tied to the air and it’s tied to all of the resources that are out there, and the plants and the animals.” Plants And Animals The fire damaged many sensitive native plants and wildland managers worry that invasive plants might move into the disturbed area. The scorched earth looks bleak and lonely. Some of this land burned in 2016 and 2017. “Well, it’s too many fires too quickly on the landscape and then the native plants can’t recover,” said Heidi Newsome, a biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Frequent fires threaten big, important shrubs like sagebrush — the old growth of the desert. And animals depend on sage for cover and nesting sites: sparrows, meadowlarks, jackrabbits. Even lizards need sage. “They can get overheated, they can get dehydrated,” Newsome said. “They really don’t regulate their body temperature without shade.” Newsome also worries young elk — unable to run fast enough — might have been caught in the fire, or trapped because of their strong instinct to hide. She estimates about 1,000 acres are vulnerable to severe ero- sion after these fires. board of trustees of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reserva- tion in northeastern Ore- gon. Those tribes also view the mountain as sacred. He said when he sings tradi- tional songs on top of Rat- tlesnake Mountain, he can’t hear himself. “So you just have to believe that your voice and the words that you are sing- ing are true,” Ashley said. “I’m confident that when we are singing those songs it does feel like it means a lit- tle more. And those words and songs and prayers are actually reaching all the way up.” Shellenberger said being on Rattlesnake totally con- nects him to the environ- ment and all the resources that are in the mountain. “And imagining that connection with all of those resources at the very same ‘A Total Sense Of time,” Shellenberger said. Belonging’ “That is the power. A total Aaron Ashley is on the sense of belonging.” Shootings: Merkley has co-sponsored legislation to curb mass shootings Continued from Page A1 using mass shootings as a platform to run on or to cause disruption. More than a politician’s politi- cal party, he said, people want a plan that takes into account the constitutional right to have guns with public and personal safety. That means listening to an array of top practitioners in mental health, policing and more. No doubt, he said, the equation is difficult and means considering an array of variables. But one element that makes no sense, he said, is restricting gun sales at the point-of-retail. He called that an “absurd” way to try to curb gun violence. The black market for guns is too lucrative, he said, and any- one can find a gun illegally, even if if costs a little more. Roberts said this is not a problem the country can simply legislate its way out of. Tackling gun vio- lence needs policies, but he also said there need to be cultural shifts in what it means to take responsi- bility and be accountable. That is lacking now, he said, “and we’re reaping the consequences.” Hermiston Chief of Police Jason Edmiston said he also sees several trends playing a role in gun vio- lence, starting with the mental health care continu- ing to receive short shrift. “Elected officials across the nation have done lit- tle to address the issue,” Edmiston said. “Instead, there is a drive to train the police on how to handle it.” The two lawmen also weighed in one how decriminalizing drugs has harmed livability, teachers have less control of their classrooms and the crimi- nal justice system has less power to hold offenders accountable. Edmiston also took the delivery of social services to task. “Law enforcement has become social ser- vice workers, which is fine because we are all human and we care about those we serve,” he stated, “but much of what has trans- pired over the last couple of decades is not sustain- able. We cannot arrest our way out of addressing the issues.” Oregon’s two U.S. sena- tors, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, weighed in. After the Ohio shooter killed nine people and injured 27 in less than a minute, Merkley pointed out semi-automatic assault rifles and extended maga- zines are weapons of war. The shooter had both. Merkley spokesperson Sara Hottman reported the senator finds a Uni- versity of Alabama study “quite striking.” The study shows the United States has 270 million guns and 90 mass shootings from 1966 to 2012. No other country has more than 48 million guns or 18 mass shooters. In short, accord- ing to Hottman, the U.S. does not have more men- tal illness, more poverty or more violent video games than other countries, but the country does have more guns, including weapons of war, available to nearly everyone. Merkley also “knows there are vastly differ- ent perspectives when it comes to guns in Amer- ica,” she continues, “and says he knows there is no perfect solution that will end deadly violence in the nation, but there is a lot we could do to make mass shooting tragedies less fre- quent and less deadly.” Those actions include closing loopholes in our background check sys- tem, prohibiting the sale of semi-automatic rifles to anyone under 21, and even banning the sale of “assault rifles — weapons of war that are made only to kill people.” He also calls for limiting the size of maga- zines, which would make it harder to carry out a deadly rampage uninterrupted. And she said Merkley advocates for making sure students have the mental health resources available to prevent thoughts of mass violence and suicide. “At town halls when this issue comes up,” accord- ing to Hottman, “he’ll ask for a show of hands on each of these items. Typically, most people support clos- ing loopholes in the back- ground check system, and increasingly people sup- port limiting the avail- ability of semi-automatic weapons.” Merkley has co-spon- sored legislation to curb mass shootings, from the Background Check Expan- sion Act to require unli- censed or private sellers to conduct a background check prior to transfer- ring a firearm to the 2017 assault weapons ban, “which would make it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, or transfer a semiautomatic assault weapon or large capacity ammunition feed- ing device.” He also intro- duced the Elementary and Secondary School Coun- seling Act, bicameral legis- lation to help provide crit- ical school-based mental health services providers in elementary and secondary schools. Sen. Wyden held a town hall Sunday in Beaverton. During a phone call Mon- day he said gun violence and what to do about it was the topic of discussion. “I can just tell you everything I’m picking up from Oregonians, they are tired of meaningless talk and want some action,” he said. That goes for rural Ore- gonians as well. He recalled Eva Jones, the Hood River Valley High School student who came to his town hall last year in Odell and spoke out against gun violence. He said she told him it was time for common sense to take the lead on the issue. Wyden said he was so impressed, he invited her to Washington, D.C., to share her concerns about gun violence in schools. “I think rural young people are going to change this issue,” he said. He also said he remains committed to better fund- ing for mental health ser- vices for schools and wants to shut down background check loopholes. While no legislation will stop any- one from committing vio- lent acts, he said, we should take steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. That knowledge can start in rural communities, he said, where the gun shop owners know who should not have a gun. He also said internet message boards such as 8chan bear some responsi- bility. The site allows anon- ymous posters to spread racist and hateful messages with no consequences. He said he wrote the law that allows website moderators to deal with that kind of content. “There is legal protec- tion for getting the slime off the website,” he said. Wyden also called out President Donald Trump for his rhetoric on immi- grants, which the El Paso killer echoed in a mani- festo. Trump on Monday said, “In one voice, our nation must condemn rac- ism, bigotry and white supremacy.” But Wyden said the pres- ident needs to make a firm commitment against white supremacy. “He has spent more than two years fanning the flames of white suprem- acy,” Wyden said, “and now he’s going to throw a water balloon at it.” U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, did not respond with comments before deadline Monday.
