NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Seeding the future
Forestry partners
look to extend
federal funding for
Malheur restoration
dent the funding will come
through.
“The proposed appropri-
ations are $80 (million) to
$100 million that are float-
ing around in Washington,”
Trulock said. That figure
would more than double what
the Southern Blues initiative
has received in the past, he
said.
The Southern Blues Resto-
ration Coalition is a joint effort
of Blue Mountains Forest
Partners and the Harney
County Restoration Collab-
orative. Both are forestry
collaboratives, groups of
diverse stakeholders formed
to find solutions to stubborn
forestry issues that satisfy
environmental concerns while
providing jobs in the woods
and generating a steady and
predictable timber supply to
feed area lumber mills.
Backed by the two collab-
oratives, the Southern Blues
Restoration Coalition has been
supported by CFLRP money
since 2012. The coalition was
initially awarded $2.5 million
per year and received a bump
to $4 million per year in 2016.
According to the coali-
tion’s application for a federal
funding extension, it currently
oversees nearly 900,000 acres
on the Malheur and proposes
to treat an additional 210,000
acres.
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — A coali-
tion of environmentalists,
public land managers and
timber industry profes-
sionals who found common
g rou nd on hot-but ton
forestry issues a decade ago
have applied for a 10-year
extension of their federal
funding at $4 million per
year to continue doing
restoration projects on the
Malheur National Forest.
According to Craig
Trulock, Malheur National
Forest supervisor, U.S. Agri-
culture Secretary Tom Vilsack
has not yet approved a list of
prioritized projects to be
funded under the Collab-
orative Federal Landscape
Restoration Program, which is
intended to encourage ecolog-
ical and economic sustain-
ability and reduce the risk of
catastrophic wildfires.
Money for CFLRP projects
— including ongoing work on
the Malheur by the Southern
Blues Restoration Coalition
— is supposed to be included
in the infrastructure bill work-
ing its way through Congress.
Despite the uncertainty
surrounding that measure,
Trulock said he is confi-
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
The Southern Blues Restoration Coalition, a joint effort of the Blue Mountains Forest Part-
ners and the Harney County Restoration Collaborative, has applied for 10 years of additional
funding to continue restoration projects on the Malheur National Forest.
Restoration Coalition’s work
has received praise at the
national level, but its most
dramatic success story might
be Malheur Lumber, Grant
County’s lone sawmill and
largest private employer.
In 2012, the same year
Southern Blues was formed,
Malheur Lumber announced
plans to close down, citing an
inconsistent and unreliable
timber supply. But the coali-
tion was able to help broker a
deal that kept the mill running.
Working with the coalition,
the U.S. Forest Service was
able to accelerate timber sales
and increase the pace of resto-
ration work on the Malheur by
entering into a 10-year stew-
ardship contract with Iron
Triangle, a John Day-based
logging company.
Stewardship contracts
typically involve a mix of
A record of success
The Southern Blues
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
FRIDAY
| Go to AccuWeather.com
SATURDAY
Warmer with
clouds and sun
Periods of rain;
cooler
76° 55°
57° 36°
SUNDAY
Partly sunny
MONDAY
Cool with
abundant sunshine
A shower possible
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
51° 34°
49° 40°
50° 33°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
77° 57°
64° 39°
57° 34°
52° 42°
55° 35°
OREGON FORECAST
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
60/45
62/51
66/50
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
71/55
Lewiston
64/50
77/59
Astoria
62/48
Pullman
Yakima 69/54
61/47
69/55
Portland
Hermiston
66/51
The Dalles 77/57
Salem
Corvallis
66/51
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
65/52
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
68/54
70/52
67/51
Ontario
68/45
Caldwell
Burns
61°
51°
61°
36°
77° (1935) 19° (2002)
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
67/50
Trace
0.92"
0.68"
3.59"
2.29"
6.35"
Today
Medford
71/52
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
WSW 6-12
WSW 8-16
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
7:29 a.m.
5:48 p.m.
11:45 p.m.
2:49 p.m.
Last
New
First
Full
Oct 28
Nov 4
Nov 11
Nov 19
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 97° in McAllen, Texas Low 11° in Bodie State Park, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
ing an area with commercially
marketable trees, marking the
boundaries of the proposed
timber sale and estimating
the amount of merchantable
wood in the sale area, Walker
said. Then the agency eval-
uates the fair market value
of the timber and opens up a
bidding process to companies
that can meet bonding and
other requirements.
According to Walker, the
Forest Service also can award
service contracts for projects
that do not include removing
marketable timber. He said
this could consist of pre-com-
mercial thinning, trail main-
tenance or stream restoration.
As the Forest Service
expanded its forest resto-
ration, fuels reduction and
thinning activities, Walker
said, it melded forest manage-
ment work, which often lacks
What’s next?
The Iron Triangle contract
expires in 2023, and it’s not
clear at this point what will
happen then.
Trulock said he’ll be
discussing that topic next
month at the November meet-
ing of Blue Mountains Forest
Partners. While long-term
stewardship contracts have
certain advantages, he pointed
out, there are lots of other
approaches that can work as
well.
His talk to the Blue Moun-
tains collaborative, Trulock
said, will focus on the “suite
of tools in the toolkit.”
Rescuers find man snowbound in Wallowas
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Crews
from Baker and Union coun-
ties rescued a Baker County
man in the snowbound
Wallowa Mountains north of
Halfway Monday, Oct. 25,
the day after he was stranded
by a blizzard while packing
in supplies with horses for an
elk-hunting trip.
Robert Derald Borders,
67, who lives near Baker
City, did not need medical
treatment, Baker County
Sheriff Travis Ash said.
Borders, who had four
horses, was able to use his
satellite device, which works
even when cell service is
limited or nonexistent, as is
the case in that remote part
of the county, to send a text
message to a friend late Oct.
24, McClay said.
The friend then called
the Baker County Dispatch
Center around noon Oct.
24. The text message also
included Borders’ precise
location, which aided rescu-
ers, McClay said.
Around 2:30 p.m. Oct.
25, McClay said rescu-
ers reached Borders, who
had sent text messages to
rescuers with his satellite
device while they were en
route. Although Borders’
use of the device was a help
to rescuers, the weather
on Sunday was a major
hindrance.
A group of Baker County
Search and Rescue team
members started travel-
ing to the location, which
is in the Eagle Cap Wilder-
ness several miles north of
Cornucopia, in the Soldier
Lake and Sugarloaf Moun-
tain area.
McClay said rain was
falling, snow was on the
ground and powerful winds
were toppling trees as rescu-
ers traveled higher into the
mountains.
They eventually had to
retreat late Oct. 24, McClay
said.
On Oct. 25, Baker County
crews were joined by search
and rescue members from
Union County to resume
the effort, McClay said.
The Union County team
members arrived at the
Baker County Sheriff’s
Office around 5 a.m., travel-
ing from there to the moun-
tains.
McClay said Borders
apparently had left from
the Cornucopia trailhead on
Oct. 23.
The weather deteriorated
on Oct. 24, and accord-
ing to the text message the
man sent to his friend, he
was unable to get back to
the trailhead and he needed
help.
The first rifle elk season
started Wednesday, Oct. 27.
IN BRIEF
Fri.
SW 6-12
SSW 7-14
Boardman
Pendleton
65/39
Funding streams
Forest Service program
manager Roy Walker pointed
out that stewardship contract-
ing and CFLRP are different
funding mechanisms.
He also said stewardship
contracts are fundamentally
different from traditional
timber sales contracts.
The Forest Service awards
timber contracts by identify-
WINDS (in mph)
68/47
65/36
0.01"
0.84"
0.95"
5.84"
9.83"
10.16"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 63/46
67/51
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
76/55
67/55
57°
48°
59°
38°
77° (1906) 13° (1911)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
63/47
Aberdeen
61/51
57/47
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
61/49
timber sales and restoration
work while supporting local
jobs in the timber industry.
According to the coali-
tion’s funding application,
the long-term contract with
Iron Triangle has enabled
the logging company to add
approximately 50 employees
while creating a predictable
supply of restoration byprod-
ucts to Malheur Lumber, thus
allowing the mill to keep its
doors open.
commercial value, with timber
sales.
Stewardship brings the two
together, allowing the Forest
Service to award the commer-
cial value that loggers ordi-
narily would bid on to finance
restoration work on national
forest land.
Webb said roughly 70 or
80% of the commercial timber
harvested each year on the
Malheur National Forest is
through the 10-year steward-
ship contract.
Another 30%, Webb said,
comes from traditional timber
sales or other contract mecha-
nisms that anyone can bid on.
In a traditional timber
sale, Webb noted, the highest
bidder gets the timber, logs it
and pays the Forest Service,
which then hands the money to
Washington, D.C. One benefit
of a stewardship contract, he
said, is that the money stays
in the county.
Oregon Forestry declares
end to 2021 wildfire season
SALEM — The Oregon Department of
Forestry announced fire season has come to
an end on the 16 million acres it protects.
The last three districts — Klamath-Lake,
Northeast Oregon and the Walker Range
Forest Patrol Association — ended their fire
seasons Friday, Oct. 22, at 12:01 a.m.
The 2021 wildfire seasons in ODF’s
districts and forest protective associations
lasted an average of 131 days, tying it with
2018 for fifth longest average fire season since
2000. The longest fire season average was
147 days back in 2002. The shortest was 99
days in 2019.
Statewide more than 800,000 acres burned
in wildfires this year — fewer than in 2020
but above the 10-year average.
River cruise ship beaches
in Columbia Park near
blue bridge in Kennewick
KENNEWICK — In an unusual sight,
a Columbia River cruise ship was beached
near the blue bridge in Kennewick on
Friday, Oct. 22.
Crew members of the American Song
cruise ship called Kennewick firefighters a
little after 6:30 p.m. about a passenger with
a serious medical problem, according to Fire
Chief Chad Michael.
The cruise ship captain nudged the five-
deck ship up against the Columbia Park
shoreline, just west of the bridge, Kennewick
firefighters said on Facebook.
Firefighters were able to walk onboard
using a gangplank through a hatch that
opened at the ship’s bow.
A cruise line nurse helped the patient get to
the Kennewick medics, who look the person
to a Tri-Cities hospital.
The firefighters credited both the
people onboard for noticing the medical
emergency, and the captain for getting the
ship close enough to shore to easily get the
patient.
The American Song ship is part of the
Columbia and Snake Rivers Cruise for USA
River Cruises. The ship travels between Port-
land and Clarkston, stopping in Richland and
offering tours in Pendleton.
— EO Media Group and Tri-City Herald
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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