WEEKEND EDITION
204-unit apartment complex going up in Pendleton |
REGION, A3
MAY 21 – 22, 2022
146th Year, No. 66
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
PORT OF MORROW
Medelez Trucking in Hermiston and
other trucking companies are surviving
despite paying record diesel prices to
keep their trucks on the road.
Looking
the other
way: Part 1
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
State offi cials rarely
intervened and never
stopped POM as it
dumped hundreds of
tons of nitrogen
By ALEX BAUMHARDT,
COLE SINANIAN and JAEL
CALLOWAY
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Editor’s note: This is part one of a
series that follows the article “Don’t
Drink the Water,” which ran in the
May 10 East Oregonian. Subsequent
parts will run in next week’s editions
of the EO.
BOARDMAN — The state’s
chief environmental agency know-
ingly let the Port of Morrow pollute
year after year, contributing to
drinking water contamination for
thousands, an investigation by the
Capital Chronicle showed.
To protect jobs, the state Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality
addressed the industrial pollution
with deals instead of enforcement.
Agency officials accepted the
port’s plans over the years that prom-
ised correction but were seldom
followed.
Front-line DEQ employees
tasked with monitoring the port
encountered unexplained directives
that gave reprieve after reprieve to
the port, identifi ed as one source
in the region of nitrogen pollution.
The port pumps nitrogen-laced
water from its industrial complex in
Boardman to farm fi elds, where it
can convert into nitrate and seep into
groundwater.
The people endangered by the
environmental mismanagement are
mostly low-income families with
unsafe wells. They hold little power
and have few allies to counter the
political might of port authorities.
DEQ directors over the years
had the legal authority to suspend or
revoke the port’s wastewater permit
over repeated violations. They
didn’t, the Capital Chronicle found.
DEQ officials could have
mandated that the port reduce nitro-
gen levels in the wastewater before
spreading it on farms and over
groundwater aquifers. They did not.
And the agency’s leaders could
have used stiff penalties to compel
the Port of Morrow to comply. For
years, they imposed none.
A combination of budget and
staff cuts and powerful political and
economic forces account for DEQ’s
weak enforcement, according to
hundreds of pages of public records
and dozens of interviews.
As a result, hundreds of tons
of nitrogen that should never have
made it out of the port’s industrial
See Water, Page A9
Record-high diesel prices hit home
Medelez Trucking in
Hermiston adapts under
ballooning fuel costs
By JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
H
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Diesel fuel prices keep hitting record highs. Dave’s Chevron at 220 S.W. 12th St., Pendle-
ton charged nearly $5.80 per gallon for diesel on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.
ERMISTON — The national aver-
age price for diesel fuel set a record
high of $5.57 per gallon on Tuesday,
May 17, the American Automobile
Association reported. A year earlier
it was $3.17, for a 76% increase. Regular gas
grew by 48% during the same 12 months.
Diesel rose another cent May 18.
Yet, despite daily records, some Umatilla
County trucking companies are surviving,
while others struggle.
Bennie Medelez, owner of Medelez
Trucking, is a top employer in Hermis-
ton, with more than 500 employees during
harvest and 225 to 250 year-round. They
mainly haul potatoes and other agricultural
commodities for farmers and supermarket
chains. Melendez has to keep 180 big rigs
on the road, plus fuel about 30 pickups and
smaller vehicles.
“The situation is killing us,” Medelez
said. “Our fuel bill was $20 million last year.
It’ll probably be $30 million this year. It’s
ridiculous, if we don’t get any help from the
government or anywhere. We need the pipe-
line and drilling in Alaska. Some shippers
have let us tack on surcharges, but others of
course don’t want to share the costs. We can
raise rates only so much.”
It costs $1,500 to fi ll up a semitrailer,
which needs to be topped off every one-and-
a-half to two days. The trucks are on the
road most of the time. After potato harvest
in Oregon and Washington, the company
hauls seed from Montana and Idaho.
“It has been a devastating thing,” Medelez
said. “I’ve been in business over 40 years, but
am losing the taste for it. Fuel costs are 40%
of our gross. I’m second generation, so used
to working 7 days a week. My dad started it.
I’m 66 now. I like what I do, but this is just
heart-breaking.”
His family is involved in the company,
too, so Medelez wouldn’t mind working only
fi ve or six days a week.
“I could fi nd something to enjoy doing for
one or two days off ,” he said.
See Diesel, Page A9
History in the making
Three women vie
for Oregon governor
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon apparently
will have at least three women in
the general election for governor on
Nov. 8 — and two of them, Democrat
Tina Kotek of Portland and Republi-
can Christine Drazan of Canby, faced
each other for two years in the Oregon
House.
Kotek and Drazan emerged from
record fi elds to win their party nomi-
nations Tuesday night, May 17, and
Betsy Johnson of Scappoose, a former
Democrat, plans an independent bid
by qualifying for the ballot by petition.
All of them hope to succeed Demo-
crat Kate Brown, who will have served
just 38 days shy of two full terms when
she leaves offi ce Jan. 9, 2023. Brown
was barred by term limits from a third
consecutive term.
According to the Center for Amer-
ican Women and Politics at Rutgers
University, 45 women have been
governor of their states or territories.
Two-thirds were elected in their
own right, such as Oregon’s Barbara
Roberts, a Democrat elected in 1990.
A few succeeded their husbands. Most
others were next in line of succession,
including Brown, a Democrat who
was secretary of state when John
Kitzhaber resigned under pressure
amid an ethics scandal in 2015, just
38 days into his fourth term. Brown
was elected in 2016 to the two-years
remaining in that term, and in 2018 to
a full term of her own.
See History, Page A9
Contributed Photos
Christine Drazan, from left, Tina Kotek and Betsy Johnson are running for gover-
nor in the 2022 general election. Drazan, a Republican, and Kotek, a Democrat,
prevailed in packed fi elds to win their party nominations. Johnson, a former
Democrat, plans an independent bid by qualifying for the ballot by petition.