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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 2019)
Walla Walla football visits Hermiston on Friday | SPORTS, A8 E O AST 143rd Year, No. 245 REGONIAN THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Bird rehab center faces dilemma PENDLETON Getting a bird’s-eye view Binoculars on Main Street Bridge provide opportunities to view river wildlife By BEN LONERGAN East Oregonian PENDLETON — The Pendleton Center for the Arts recently arranged for the instal- lation of two sets of binoculars on the Main Street Bridge. The binoculars, funded by a grant from Umatilla County and several private donors, are free for the public to use and provide opportunities for viewing wild- life along a section of the Umatilla River. Roberta Lavadour, the executive direc- tor of the Pendleton Center for the Arts, says that the project has been in the works for several years now, however, it was not until more recently that things took off. “We’ve been looking for ways to get people to come downtown and across the bridge and this fit the bill,” said Lavadour. “The river through town is one of the most overlooked, beautiful resources we have and we wanted to encourage the engage- Staff photo by Ben Lonergan See Binoculars, Page A7 Lynn Tompkins looks in on an enclosure at Blue Mountain Wildlife on Tuesday morning near Pendleton. By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY P ENDLETON — The latest edi- tion of the Blue Mountain Wildlife newsletter included a section called “Now the Unsettling News.” Blue Mountain Wildlife Director Lynn Tompkins gave a brief history of how the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Department of Agriculture have regulated the wildlife rehabilitation center’s ability to import birds from out of state before cutting to the chase. “Recently, the ODFW State Veter- inarian has determined that the risk of importing diseased birds into Oregon is too great to allow rehabilitators to import migratory birds,” she wrote. “Initially, I was hopeful that we could address ODFW’s concerns of disease transmis- sion across state lines, and maintain the integrity of BMW’s wildlife rehab pro- gram. I am not sure that is going to be the case.” In an interview, Tompkins said the state preventing Blue Mountain Wildlife from rehabilitating birds that were found in Washington could be an existential threat to the nonprofit, but state officials maintain that nothing has changed from the previous way they did business. Founded by Tompkins and her hus- band in 1990, Blue Mountain Wildlife specializes in rehabbing birds of prey like eagles, hawks, and owls. When raptors get sick, injured or hurt, often from direct or indirect con- tact with humans and manmade objects, Most of Oregon’s delegation behind inquiry By REBECCA ELLIS Oregon Public Broadcasting Staff photo by Ben Lonergan A great gray owl with only one eye swoops across an enclosure at Blue Mountain Wildlife on Tuesday morning. Blue Mountain Wildlife usually gets the call. The organization received its first migratory bird from Washington in 2001, and Tompkins now estimates more than half the birds Blue Mountain Wildlife receives are from the Evergreen State as rehab centers in Walla Walla, Tri-Cities and Yakima have closed. With Blue Mountain Wildlife the only rehabilitation facility in Oregon east of The Dalles and the closest Washing- ton facility at Washington State Univer- sity in Pullman, Blue Mountain Wild- life’s coverage is now nearly the size of New York state, stretching from Burns to the south to Wenatchee, Washington, to the north. Washington not only provides Blue Mountain Wildlife with a steady stream of birds, but also brings in an important source of revenue. Tompkins said the nonprofit gets much of its funding through member- ships, a source of revenue that’s often cultivated when Blue Mountain Wild- See Birds, Page A7 WASHINGTON — Most of Oregon’s delegation stood behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Tuesday as she launched a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Pelosi’s announcement fol- lowed new allegations that the president had tried to coerce a foreign power to aid his political campaign. Three of the state’s congressional rep- resentatives had spoken out in favor of an inquiry prior to last week’s reports that Trump had pressured the president of Ukraine to launch a corruption investiga- tion into former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender, and his son, Hunter. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, was the first in Congress to call for an impeach- ment inquiry in early May, a few weeks after Special Counsel Robert Mueller released his report. At the time, Blumenauer called the investigation “a treasure trove of infor- mation that deserves further investigation,” See Impeachment, Page A7 Anti-immigration group sends Oregon sheriffs to D.C. Morrow County Sheriff Ken Matlack to visit nation’s capital By EMILY CURETON Oregon Public Broadcasting PORTLAND — An anti-immi- gration group is paying for two East- ern Oregon sheriffs to attend politi- cal events in Washington, D.C., this week. Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer said that he and Morrow County Sheriff Ken Matlack were the only Oregon sheriffs going to the cap- ital for a “training in regards to some of the immigration policies.” The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, confirmed cover- ing travel expenses for 191 sheriffs to convene on Capi- tol Hill on Wednes- day for “Badges and Angels,” a press con- Matlack ference with the rela- tives of people killed by undocumented immigrants, or “angel families.” FAIR lobbies to curtail immi- gration. Its leaders have been accused Palmer of making racist statements and spreading anti-im- migrant propaganda, such as con- necting increases in local crime to undocumented people. Non-parti- san researchers analyzing FBI data recently found no such link. FAIR spokesman David Ray said in an email: “America’s sheriffs are the frontline of public safety and are often the first to encounter criminal aliens and the carnage that some of them leave behind.” Ray added: “Sheriffs who have shown the most interest in immi- gration are among those who were invited.” Palmer said while in D.C. he plans to meet with senators, congressional representatives, “and we’ve actually got a White House briefing.” Angel families have appeared at dozens of Trump events over the last few years, as the president justified his administration’s punitive immigration policies, such as family separation. When asked if undocumented immigrants are a problem for law enforcement in remote Grant County, Palmer said no. He estimated that in the two decades he’s been sher- iff, there’s never been a non-citizen booked in the local jail. Matlack did not return requests for comment. FAIR has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit best known for legal cases against extremist and white suprema- cist organizations. When FAIR founder John Tan- ton died over the summer, SPLC’s responded with a lengthy piece exploring his influence, saying Tan- ton’s “legacy is difficult to overstate.” Tanton was also a co-founder of the Center for Immigration Stud- ies, which in 2010 published a paper calling SPLC’s hate group designa- tion a “smear.”