OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, April 2, 2022
East Oregonian
Forum:
Grazing:
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
in the wake of the passage
of Measure 110, the law that
decriminalized the personal
possession of small amounts
of hard drugs.
Pullen said Umatilla
County is his home and talked
up his 10 years in county
management and 20 years in
government overall. He also
is serving a three-year term
on the Tillamook County Fair
Board, which expires June 30,
2023.
He said he would make
improving county roads a
priority. While some are fine,
others are in serious need of
repair.
“They look like they’re on
the moon,” he said.
And the county needs to
be ready to help farmers due
to the 2022 Legislature pass-
ing a bill to establish overtime
pay requirements for agri-
cultural workers in Oregon
after 40 hours per week.
He said that bill is going to
have devastating effects on
local farmers and the county
needs to get ahead if what is
coming.
Barton, owner of Barton
Laser Leveling Inc., said his
decades in business give him
the skills the county board
needs. He said he considers
homelessness a major hurdle
for the county, which faces
challenges to increase hous-
ing and providing enough
services.
In a similar vein, he said,
the county needs to find a
way to confine people suffer-
ing from mental illness to
protect them and the public.
He also said he wants more
for the county’s youth, such
as a virtual recreation center.
Umatilla County, he said,
afforded him the opportunity
to have a good life, and he
wants to pass that on.
Bonifer said as commis-
sioner he would take hard
stances again state mandates
for masks and vaccines.
“We are a charter county.
We don’t have to listen to the
state,” he said.
He also said he would
cut “unnecessary” county
jobs to free up more funds
to help with mental health
and homelessness.
be barred from the pastures
for research, he said.
“It’s hard to accept the
permittees were somehow
caught by surprise,” Lacy
said, noting that the plan to
stop grazing was enacted
seven years ago, while the
ranchers were formally
notified two years ago.
Attorneys for the BLM
and Cahill Ranches, which
intervened in the lawsuit,
a rg ued a tempora r y
restraining order isn’t justi-
fied because livestock graz-
ing won’t cause irreparable
harm to sage grouse popu-
lations, the environment or
the nonprofits.
Ba r r i ng l ive s t o ck
would be an “extraordi-
nary remedy” that would
be far more detrimental to
the ranch than any harms
to the environmental plain-
tiffs if grazing continues
another year, the defen-
dants argued.
“At core, the plaintiffs’
argument is one of impa-
tience rather than harm,”
said Arwyn Carroll, attor-
ney for BLM. “They have
not identified any data
that would be lost or not
collected if the closures
don’t happen this season.”
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Umatilla County commissioner candidate Jesse Bonifer speaks to the audience during a can-
didates forum on Thursday, March 31, 2022, at the Pendleton Convention Center.
UPCOMING
FORUMS
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Umatilla County commissioner candidate Susan Bower
speaks to the audience during a candidates forum on Thurs-
day, March 31, 2022, at the Pendleton Convention Center.
Bower said as commis-
sioner she would focus on
the roll the county plays in
regional economic develop-
ment and working on ways
to improve mental health
services, perhaps through
grants but also through
private-public partnerships.
The county’s organiza-
tional health also is of impor-
tance, she said, and voters
need to support commis-
sioner candidates who have
professional backgrounds.
That way, she explained, the
county would not have to go
down the road of hiring a
professional manager.
During a question about
what the candidates know
on the defunct Blue Moun-
tain forest management plan,
Bower said as a commis-
sioner, she would not have to
know the ins and outs of that
kind of sweeping plan, but she
has to know who the experts
are to call about the topic.
Timmons touted her work
serving on the Blue Mountain
Community College Founda-
tion and as vice-chair on the
Umatilla County board for
CAPECO.
“I think it’s important to
be involved because that’s
how you have the thumb on
the pulse of the community
and know what’s going on,”
she said.
As commissioner, she
said, she would want to take
on homelessness as well as
push for helping local busi-
nesses keep their doors open
while recruiting new busi-
nesses to the county. The
county also needs to address
the rising use of drugs, she
said, and focus on elder care.
Beers, Pullen and Bonifer
admitted they knew nothing
of the Boardman to Heming-
way transmission line, the
project to build a massive
500-kilovolt line across from
Boardman to Western Idaho.
The Umatilla County
Republican Party hosted
energytrust.org
If you missed the Umatil-
la County commissioners
candidates forum on
Thursday, March 31, you
still have a pair of oppor-
tunities to learn more
about those running for
the positions:
• April 7, 6 p.m. at the
Oregon National Guard
Armory, 900 S.E.Colum-
bia Drive., Hermiston.
• April 8, 6 p.m. at the
Milton-Freewater Com-
munity Building, 109 N.E.
Fifth St.
For questions about the
April 7 forum, email val-
erie.bradley@gmail.com
or josiahbarron.pcp@
protonmail.com. For the
other event, contact Suni
Danforth, Umatilla Coun-
ty Republican Central
Committee chair, at 541-
215-9389 or ucrpchair@
gmail.com.
the forum at the Pendle-
ton Convention Center, and
Vance Day, a former Marion
County Circuit Court judge,
served as moderator. Day was
on a swing through Eastern
Oregon campaigning for a
seat on the Oregon Court of
Appeals. Perhaps as many as
50 people were in the audi-
ence when the event began at
6 p.m.
The Oregon primary elec-
tion is May 17. The last day to
register to vote in the primary
is April 26. For more informa-
tion about voter registration,
visit bit.ly/38lxaHk.
BLM insists on
bureaucratic
processes
According to ONDA,
grazing must be prohibited
in the 13 pastures to allow
for research on the sage
grouse under a broader
2015 conservation plan for
the species across the West,
where its populations have
been falling for decades.
These 13 “research natu-
ral areas” were originally
required under a conserva-
tion plan developed during
the Obama administration
but dropped from a revised
version enacted by the
Trump administration.
However, a 2019 federal
court order in a separate
case reinstated the origi-
nal conservation plan that
required grazing to end in
the 13 pastures. The envi-
ronmental groups then
filed the lawsuit alleging
A9
the federal government has
unlawfully failed to imple-
ment the livestock-free
“research natural areas.”
The BLM counters that
it must follow bureaucratic
processes before halt-
ing grazing within the 13
pastures, such as studying
the environmental impacts
of building necessary
fences to keep cattle out.
“Fences don’t spring
into existence at the stroke
of a pen,” said Carroll,
noting that fences are “not
the most environmentally
friendly way” to close
pastures due to the effects
on wildlife and plant
species. For that reason,
BLM is studying alterna-
tive methods.
Ending grazing permits
requires additional regula-
tory steps that take time,
but the agency hasn’t
issued new ones, accord-
ing to BLM. The delay in
implementing the “research
natural areas” hasn’t been
unreasonable in light of
those hurdles.
“BLM has complied
with that requirement and
has not issued any new
permits for those pastures,”
Carroll said. “The plan
does not create a deadline.
It doesn’t use the manda-
tory language one would
expect to see in a deadline.”
The environmental
plaintiffs want to block
grazing in pastures that
have met rangeland health
standards, so contin-
ued livestock grazing is
unlikely to cause popu-
lation-level effects on the
sage grouse, according to
BLM. Invasive weeds and
other fuels for wildfires are
also reduced by grazing,
benefiting the public inter-
est.
Meanwhile, halting
grazing would force Joe
Cahill, the ranch’s owner,
to take drastic measures,
such as reducing his cattle
herd, feeding expensive
hay, finding other forage
ground, or disrupting irri-
gation schedules, the defen-
dants said.
“We don’t know what
the options are until he
knocks on doors to find
alternative pasture,” said
Caroline Lobdell, the
ranch’s attorney.