GIRLS BASKETBALL: Dawgs survive Bombers in MCC thriller | SPORTS, A8
E O
AST
144th Year, No. 77
REGONIAN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2020
WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
WEATHER
$1.50
Quiet start
to legislative
session
First day of meetings
in the Capitol not as
contentious as expected
ahead of votes on
controversial bills
By SAM STITES, JAKE THOMAS
AND CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Oregon Capital Bureau
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Marc Austin, the warning coordination meteorologist at National Weather Service station in Pendleton, demonstrates a
graphic tracking hourly rainfall throughout the weather station’s reporting area as meteorologist Rob Brooks looks on.
WEATHER TECH
Pendleton weather
service office uses
advanced technology
to generate forecasts
Editor’s Note: This is the third in
a four-part series on the National
Weather Service.
By PHIL WRIGHT
EO Media Group
P
ENDLETON — Weather fore-
casters want to know “ground
truth,” but getting those direct
observations of weather in the
Pacific Northwest can be difficult.
Rob Brooks is one of the meteorol-
ogists at the National Weather Service
station on Pendleton’s Airport Hill.
In Kansas, he said, the NWS can rely
on a rancher who would look up and
report the storm system coming over
the ridge on his land. Kansas is flat,
the Pacific Northwest anything but.
And while the Pacific Ocean gener-
ates massive weather systems, eyewit-
nesses may be sparse.
“If it’s coming off the ocean, you
got a few boats out there sometimes,”
he said.
Marc Austin, the warning coordi-
nation meteorologist at the Pendleton
office, echoed the notion, equating
it to heavy fog impeding an angler’s
view of the river.
“The fewer observations you have
upstream, the less you’re going to
know,” he said.
To fill that gap, the NWS at its
office in Pendleton uses advanced
technology to generate forecasts that
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan, File
Crews work to lower the internal structure of the radar dome at the National
Weather Service station in Pendleton in July 2019. The removal of the dome was a
part of the endeavor to update and replace the radar system.
help inform residents, seven airports
and dozens of school districts from
Central Oregon to Yakima and as
far east as the Snake River about the
weather. The two major developments
on that front in recent years are Geo-
stationary Operational Environmental
Satellites and dual-polarization radar.
The technology
The National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration — the
National Weather Service’s parent
federal agency — will spend $10.8
billion to launch a quartet of GOES
weather satellites into orbit about
22,300 miles above the Earth. Geosta-
tionary means the satellite remains in
the same place in orbit in relation to a
point on Earth, thus the satellites have
a continual view of the Western Hemi-
sphere. The first of the four launched
in 2016. The third is scheduled to lift
off in December 2021, and the final
satellite in 2024.
The satellites can detect fog, tell
the difference between hail storms
and dust storms and reveal thunder-
SALEM — A contentious proposal to
reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emis-
sions dominated political chatter in the
weeks before the 2020 legislative ses-
sion began. So much so, that observ-
ers expected “sparks” when lawmakers
convened on Monday, said Sen. Brian
Boquist, R-Dallas.
But sitting in his office on the
appointed day, wearing cowboy boots,
jeans and his signature turtleneck under
a sports jacket, Boquist said, “It seems
like it’s in neutral. This building is never
neutral.”
Then
the
longtime
senator
reconsidered.
Instead, he said, it was more like the
Legislature was “out of gear” or like
standing on a calm beach as the water
recedes before a tsunami.
As legislators prepared for meetings
inside the Oregon Capitol, Boquist said
he was going back to his district office
in Dallas to read legislation and meet
with constituents. This might be his last
chance to do that for a while.
“As soon as committees begin, our
lives are not our own,” he said.
The pace is expected to pick up
quickly as legislators race to meet dead-
lines to finish within 35 days.
“If it doesn’t happen fast, it doesn’t
happen at all,” Senate Majority Leader
Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, told report-
ers on Monday. “And that’s the reality
of a 35-day session. So, I think you’re
going to see a lot of pressure at the very
beginning.”
Republicans have complained Demo-
crats, who hold large majorities in both
chambers, would push through hefty pro-
posals without giving the public enough
time to weigh in.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Herman
Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass, opposes
“robust” legislation in such a compressed
time, and said in an interview that Dem-
ocrats “have a large appetite.”
Senate President Peter Courtney,
D-Salem, Oregon’s longest-serving Sen-
ate president, was at the Capitol on Mon-
day, despite worries he might be absent
due to a hip injury that had kept him from
attending a series of pre-session meet-
ings earlier this month.
Despite using a walker, Courtney, 76,
gaveled through a light agenda speed-
ily, and drew that day’s floor session to a
close in less than an hour.
In the House, things stretched on a bit
longer, as Republicans voiced opinions in
a series of procedural “remonstrances.”
See Weather, Page A7
See Session, Page A7
BMCC’s FARM II project delayed until 2021
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Still in its
planning stages, Blue Mountain
Community College’s FARM II
project is being delayed by a year.
At a BMCC Board of Education
meeting on Wednesday, college
President Dennis Bailey-Fougnier
will report that the planned indoor
arena and classroom facility
west of the Pendleton Round-Up
Grounds won’t start construction
until 2021.
In an interview Monday, Bai-
ley-Fougnier said the college
decided to delay the project after
meeting with officials from the
Rendering Courtesy of Blue Mountain Community College
See BMCC, Page A7
BMCC plans to use FARM II as indoor rodeo arena in addition to classroom space for veterinary science, UAS, and
other agricultural education.