NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, May 5, 2022
John Day greenhouse may be headed to private managers
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — After
losing $122,000, the city-
owned greenhouse in John
Day soon could be under new
management.
City Manager Nick Green
said he plans to propose that
a private corporation run the
greenhouse at the Tuesday,
May 10, city council meeting.
Green declined to disclose
the name of the company at
this point but said that infor-
mation will be made public at
the meeting.
The greenhouse cost the
city $155,000 to operate
in fiscal year 2020-21 and
produced $33,000 in reve-
nue. Green said the corona-
virus pandemic put a lot of
the plans the city had for the
greenhouse on hold, contrib-
uting to the $122,000 deficit
for the fiscal year.
There are no plans to
recover the funds lost on
the greenhouse to date, but
Green said the greenhouse
played an integral part in
securing some of the grant
funding for the city’s planned
$17.5 million wastewater
treatment plant.
“It was a proof of concept
to show that we could grow
hydroponic crops in the
valley,” Green said. “And
(as a) result of having that
and having economic value-
added traded-sector indus-
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
The city-owned greenhouse in John Day on April 20, 2022. The city could lose the greenhouse after running a $122,000 deficit
for the fiscal year.
try that can benefit from the
reclaimed water, we gained
about $6 million in grants for
the water treatment plant.”
Green said he doesn’t see
the greenhouse as a failure.
“Next month we’ll be
announcing the $3 million
award for the reclaimed
water system, which is going
to give us all the purple pipe
and the storage capability to
provide water to the green-
house, golf course, Malheur
Lumber and our parks,” he
said. “I’m not counting that
with the $6 million we’ve
already gotten. This is $3
million on top of that.”
Green said the firm taking
over the greenhouse will
benefit from the purple pipe
and water treatment facili-
ties as well as provide private
sector jobs and sell produce
locally.
“The greenhouse is abso-
lutely not a failure,” Green
insisted. “It did exactly what
we intended it to do. I would
Forecast for Pendleton Area
| Go to AccuWeather.com
TODAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
Cloudy, brief
showers; cooler
Periods of rain
Cloudy, a shower
or two; windy
Windy in the a.m.;
cloudy, cool
A couple of
showers
58° 48°
58° 44°
62° 50°
61° 48°
51° 40°
52° 39°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
60° 41°
57° 42°
59° 43°
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
54/45
58/44
60/40
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
61/49
Lewiston
55/47
64/52
Astoria
54/46
Pullman
Yakima 62/48
52/42
66/50
Portland
Hermiston
57/49
The Dalles 62/50
Salem
Corvallis
56/47
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
62/45
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
57/49
61/44
60/45
Ontario
69/48
Caldwell
Burns
74°
41°
73°
43°
90° (1966) 29° (2011)
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
57/49
0.00"
0.25"
0.10"
4.14"
1.99"
3.65"
WINDS (in mph)
72/49
59/38
0.00"
0.30"
0.16"
5.92"
3.81"
5.50"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 64/40
57/49
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
58/48
60/49
75°
41°
69°
44°
92° (1966) 22° (1897)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
52/42
Aberdeen
55/42
60/44
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
52/44
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
62/49
Fri.
SW 6-12
WNW 6-12
WSW 7-14
W 7-14
BAKER CITY — Manne-
quins, fortunately, don’t mind
getting soaked.
They’re immune to hypo-
thermia, too.
Those attributes helped
keep a major search and
rescue training exercise going
last weekend despite heavy
rain on Saturday afternoon
and evening, April 30, in the
forest near Phillips Reservoir.
About 50 search and
rescue team members from
six Eastern Oregon counties
gathered for the annual train-
ing, said Ashley McClay,
public information officer for
the event’s host, the Baker
County Sheriff’s Office.
Baker County search and
rescue members were joined
by their counterparts from
Union, Wallowa, Malheur,
Gilliam and Umatilla coun-
ties, McClay said.
Those six counties, along
55/40
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
5:37 a.m.
8:07 p.m.
8:33 a.m.
12:26 a.m.
First
Full
Last
New
May 8
May 15
May 22
May 30
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 96° in Thermal, Calif. Low 11° in Bodie State Park, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
0s
showers t-storms
The rain also delayed the
rope rescue since the showers
made the rock cliff slick.
Instead, searchers, after
finding the two manne-
quins during the ground
search April 30 in the Old
Auburn Road and California
Gulch area, north of High-
way 7, returned to the camp-
ground and welcomed meals
provided by retired Baker
County Sheriff Terry Speel-
man.
On May 1, with the skies
having cleared, the rope
rescue exercise took place,
but the second planned
ground search was canceled,
McClay said.
In addition to the ground
searchers, teams from
Umatilla and Malheur coun-
ties brought aerial drones to
participate in the training.
The annual exercise shifts
among the 10 counties in the
region. This was the first time
Baker County has played
host since 2015.
IN BRIEF
Walla Walla park to
become more walkable
WALLA WALLA — Pioneer Park’s
accessibility and “walkability” just got a
boost from Walla Walla city leaders.
The Walla Walla City Council recently
accepted a $300,000 grant to build addi-
tional sidewalks, ramps compliant with the
Americans with Disabilities Act and cross-
walk enhancements around the well-used
park between Alder and Whitman streets
just west of downtown.
The proposed improvements would cost
a total of $600,000, half of which the city
or other funding sources would need to
cover.
The project will build more than
1,000 feet of sidewalk infill along Whit-
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-0s
with Grant, Harney, Morrow
and Wheeler, constitute the
Eastern Oregon Search and
Rescue group.
Participants spent the
weekend at Union Creek
campground, on the north
side of Phillips Reservoir
about 17 miles southwest of
Baker City.
The initial plan was to
have a ground search, involv-
ing a live “victim,” as well as
a rope rescue, involving a
mannequin, both on April 30
followed by a second ground
search on May 1, McClay
said.
But with rain forecast,
organizers decided to replace
the live subject of the search
with a pair of mannequins,
simulating a father and son
who failed to return from a
trip to the woods, McClay
said.
“We didn’t want to have
someone sitting out in the
cold and wet for several
hours,” she said.
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
-10s
“We knew that up front,”
he said. “What we didn’t
know was COVID. So we
lost time having to adapt to
a very dynamic marketplace
with changing customer
preferences and needs as a
result of that pandemic. That
happened to every enter-
prise.”
The COVID-19 pandemic
probably accelerated the
timeline for moving the
greenhouse to private owner-
ship, according to Green, but
Soggy Saturday no deterrent
to search and rescue training
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
53° 39°
do it again. I think we should
do it again, probably with a
private partner out of the gate
this time, but we didn’t have
that luxury in 2017. Nobody
was growing anything hydro-
ponically in the valley four
years ago.”
Green added the plan
always was to take the
greenhouse private or move
to a co-op arrangement
because the facility wasn’t
ever going to work with
government labor.
he added that things happen
for a reason.
“We probably would’ve
kept growing had the
pandemic not happened. At
the end of the day we’re not
worse off for it,” he said.
“It brought our timeline
forward a bit, but having a
private operator who is less
constrained about what they
can grow, where they can
sell, who they employ and at
what prices — I don’t have
much choice. I have to pay
all government employees
PERS and public benefits.
They don’t have that restric-
tion.”
Despite the monetary loss,
Green said it would have
been “highly unlikely” that
the city would have gotten as
much grant funding as it did
for the wastewater treatment
plant if the greenhouse had
not been tied to the proposal.
“What is the story without it?
We’re building a wastewater
treatment plant, so give us
money?”
Green added he thinks
the new owners of the green-
house will be successful
if the council approves the
proposal to transfer opera-
tions.
“They’ve got a turnkey
facility, the staff is ready to
roll, they’ve got the seeds,” he
said. “We’re going to parti-
tion the facility off into its
own lot, lease the lot with the
buildings and let them roll.”
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
60s
cold front
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CORRECTION: In the Page A4 letter to the editor, “Susan Bower has Umatilla
County’s best interest at heart” published Saturday, April 30, a sentence should have
stated: “She is a team player, but one who is willing to take charge and work in a trans-
parent method when the situation merits.”
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man Street, with a number of crosswalk
enhancements on South Division Street.
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