NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Friday, August 9, 2019
Water crisis in Warm Springs drags into third month
blinds, because when the sun-
light hits the water too long, it
creates algae,” she said.
She said the window
shades were open so she could
see to take an inventory. The
results made her anxious.
“We’re low … and so in
my mind, I’m thinking, what
if we don’t have enough?” she
said. “I want to help serve the
community, and say we run
out. What are we going to
do?”
The center runs on dona-
tions, and it might distribute
3,000 gallons of water a day,
plus other supplies like bleach
wipes, plastic plates, utensils
and commodes, said Danny
Martinez, emergency man-
ager for the Confederated
Tribes of Warm Springs.
At first, donated supplies
poured in from all over the
Pacific Northwest.
“But they’re all hoping that
it’s resolved today,” Martinez
said. “And so when I call them
back, they’re kind of puzzled
by it. … ‘You mean you still
don’t have water, Dan?’”
The list of problems is
long. Firefighters can’t count
on hydrants to work, Marti-
nez said, and “the sprinkler
system, the cooling systems,
air-conditioning systems, the
restrooms, the toilets, every-
thing is affected by lack of
water.”
Meanwhile, federal agen-
cies have been slow to com-
mit money toward long-term
fixes in Warm Springs. At the
same time, the Environmental
By EMILY CURETON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
WARM SPRINGS — The
Warm Springs Indian Reser-
vation in Central Oregon has
been without safe drinking
water all summer. Some peo-
ple don’t have running water
at all. In May, a burst pipe led
to a cascade of infrastructure
failures. That leaves around
4,000 people improvising for
an essential human need.
“I’ll go back to being a
teacher, hopefully, after this is
done,” said Dorothea Thurby,
a volunteer emergency man-
ager whose days now revolve
around a man-made disaster.
The preschool where she
teaches shut down when the
water system failed. Thurby
was furloughed.
At an ad-hoc water dis-
tribution center on the reser-
vation, she lifts about 1,000
pounds of water contain-
ers a day, organizes supplies
and helps keep mobile show-
ers clean. She said her main
job, though, is being a leader,
supervising youth workers as
they work out of an old grade
school building. It’s where she
was once a student.
“I wish we could make
something better out of this
place, but right now we have
to store all of our water in
here,” Thurby said.
She surveyed bottles tak-
ing up one of the defunct
classrooms. “See how the
sunlight hits some of the gal-
lons? … We’ll cover those
OPB Photo/Emily Cureton
Volunteer Emergency Manager Dorothea Thurby, of Warm
Springs, takes inventory of bottled water. The Warm Springs
Indian Reservation in Central Oregon has been without safe
drinking water all summer. Some people don’t have running
water at all.
Protection Agency has threat-
ened to fine the tribe nearly
$60,000 a day if it doesn’t
make repairs by October.
The EPA order says “the
system may present immi-
nent and substantial endan-
germent” to human health,
while “state and local author-
ities have not acted to protect
the health of such persons.”
A spokesperson for the
EPA said the tribes have not
requested funding from its
water infrastructure-related
loans and that it would be
unlikely to get such an appli-
cation approved since those
programs require systems to
bill individual users for water.
That idea has been shot down
by Warm Springs tribal mem-
bers before.
A spokesperson for the
Forecast for Pendleton Area
SATURDAY
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency, or FEMA, said
in an email that the tribes have
not asked for aid since the
Warm Springs Tribal Council
declared an emergency May
31.
In an unusual move, this
summer the Oregon Legisla-
ture stepped in, earmarking
$7.8 million in lottery bonds
for water and sewer proj-
ects on the reservation. The
amount is about half of what
Rep. Daniel Bonham, R-The
Dalles, said he first proposed
adding to an omnibus bill.
“Although (Warm Springs
is) a sovereign nation, they are
also my constituents,” Bon-
ham said.
“There are philosophical
questions we can ask at some
point, about what should the
A few afternoon
showers
87° 58°
79° 58°
Intervals of clouds
and sunshine
Partly sunny and
pleasant
Mostly sunny and
nice
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
79° 56°
83° 57°
83° 53°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
82° 60°
91° 62°
83° 56°
86° 57°
OREGON FORECAST
87° 53°
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
68/56
84/57
90/59
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
90/65
Lewiston
75/55
92/64
Astoria
68/56
Pullman
Yakima 90/63
75/54
91/65
Portland
Hermiston
80/60
The Dalles 91/62
Salem
Corvallis
80/53
La Grande
Yesterday
Normals
Records
87/57
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
81/57
82/49
85/55
Ontario
91/61
Caldwell
Burns
83°
70°
89°
59°
108° (1972) 40° (1934)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
79/55
0.00"
0.00"
0.05"
4.56"
5.10"
5.97"
WINDS (in mph)
89/61
83/45
0.00"
0.00"
0.09"
9.61"
6.49"
8.04"
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
82/61
Sat.
S 6-12
NNW 6-12
SW 7-14
WSW 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
77/44
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
5:48 a.m.
8:13 p.m.
4:02 p.m.
12:46 a.m.
Full
Last
New
First
Aug 15
Aug 23
Aug 30
Sep 5
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 111° in Palm Springs, Calif. Low 40° in Climax, Colo.
a red flag warning remains
in effect until Saturday at
10 a.m. with danger lev-
els high and public use
restrictions on chain saw
use in effect. Winds are
expected to be light with
high temperatures, while
Friday is also expected to
be partly cloudy with scat-
tered showers. Thunder-
storms are expected over
the next couple of days.
A closure order in the
area is also in effect due to
the fire activity. People are
urged to be cautious while
driving in the area and to
expect increased fire traf-
fic on the roads.
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 82/53
80/56
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
PENDLETON — A
majority of the fires in the
Umatilla National Forest’s
HK complex have been
contained according to a
Thursday morning press
release as firefighters tran-
sitioned command from a
Type 3 management team
to a Type 2 team at 6 a.m.
The HK Complex con-
sists of 13 fires sparked by
lightning that are burning
15 miles north of Mon-
ument on the Heppner
Ranger District. 8 of those
fires have been 100% con-
tained by Thursday while
the fires have grown to
2,455 acres in total.
The Sulfer Springs fire
was active on Wednes-
day and pushed toward
the 21 road, where it is
being contained by dozer
lines. The Little Bear fire
is 50% lined but avia-
tion resources stalled on
Wednesday due to light-
ning in the area.
According to the press
release, 474 personnel
have been assigned to the
fire with multiple engines
and crews, along with mul-
tiple fixed-wing resources
from John Day Airbase.
Fire officials warn that
HERMISTON
Enterprise
87/58
86/64
86°
61°
89°
59°
111° (1972) 40° (1893)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
75/57
Aberdeen
84/60
87/66
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
74/59
will take years to be ready to
move into construction.
Nationally, IHS has found
Native homes are nine times
more likely to lack access to
safe water than those in the
general population.
According to Warm
Springs Chief Operating
Officer Alyssa Macy, repairs
underway now “are consid-
ered temporary, and tem-
porary is a couple of years
… because we know this
isn’t the permanent fix,”
as reported by the tribally
owned radio station KWSO
in June.
Macy did not respond to
requests for comment.
The boil water notice
could be lifted by the end of
the month, but that timeline
has been extended before.
On a recent morning at
the water distribution center,
two teenage volunteers took
a break from hauling water
around in the warm weather
to chase a yellow butterfly.
Fifteen-year-old Cajun-
Rain Scott giggled as she
tried to cup it in her hands.
“Butterflies keep com-
ing around me,” she said. “…
That’s good. … That means
change.”
She said summer nor-
mally means “having fun
with my friends and skate-
boarding. But I can’t do
that now because I’m help-
ing the community, and
that’s more important than
skateboarding, so I’d rather
be doing this.”
Most fires contained at HK Complex
East Oregonian
A strong afternoon
thunderstorm
state’s role be, what is the
federal government’s com-
mitment in terms of trea-
ties already signed. But right
now we’ve got a commu-
nity in need,” Bonham said.
He added: “If everybody is
responsible, then no one is
responsible.”
Still, the state lottery
bonds won’t pay out before
2021, according to the gover-
nor’s office.
Leaders from the Bureau
of Indian Affairs declined to
be interviewed and a spokes-
person sent a written state-
ment: “The trust relation-
ship is shared by all federal
agencies, not just the BIA.
The specific level duties and
appropriate responses that
fall under the trust responsi-
bility will be dependent on
the factual circumstances
and the treaty, statute, or reg-
ulation at issue,” according to
the statement.
The BIA statement said
the agency has provided
over $400,000 in emergency
funding for things like bot-
tled water and portable bath-
rooms in Warm Springs.
The Indian Health Ser-
vice, an agency within
the federal Department of
Health and Human Services
with responsibility for serv-
ing Native populations, said
in a statement it has been
responding. IHS said it has
sent engineers to the reserva-
tion six times since Novem-
ber and helped with fund-
ing applications, but those
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
BRIEFLY
Judge: Trump
administration can’t
withhold Oregon grants
PORTLAND — A judge has barred
the Trump administration from withhold-
ing public safety grants from the state and
the city of Portland over Oregon’s sanctu-
ary law that directs police not to help federal
agents enforce immigration policies.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane,
who is based in Eugene, also said in the
decision issued late Wednesday that the
federal government can’t impose immigra-
tion-related conditions on the grant awards.
McShane’s ruling mirrors similar ones
by federal judges elsewhere in the country.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reported
McShane made the decision in a case brought
by Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon Attorney Gen-
eral Ellen Rosenblum and the city against
President Donald Trump and U.S. Attorney
General William Barr.
He found that two federal statutes uncon-
stitutionally ban local and state govern-
ments and agencies from enacting laws or
policies that limit communication with fed-
eral officials about immigration or some-
one’s citizenship status.
PAC helps pay fines for GOP
senators
SALEM — A political action commit-
tee has donated enough money to cover
the majority of fines for each of the 11
Republican state senators in Oregon who
walked out of the Capitol to kill a clime
change bill in June.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the
Stand with Our Senators Political Action
Committee on July 30 contributed $3,000
to each of the campaign committees
of the 11 senators involved in the walk-
out, according to state campaign finance
records. That’s most of the $3,500 that
Senate leaders, who are Democrats, fined
Republicans for missing seven days of
work near the end of this year’s legisla-
tive session.
The fines accrued at $500 per day,
per absent senator. The largest donor to
the political action committee was 2018
gubernatorial candidate Knute Buehler,
who chipped in $5,000. Other top donors
include individuals and companies in the
construction and logging industries.
— Associated Press
CORRECTION: In the Page A3 story “Condon Times-Journal,” published Tuesday,
July 9, the name of The Times-Journal‘s new owner Stephen Allen was misspelled.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
50s
ice
60s
cold front
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