WEEKEND EDITION
CTUIR Chair Brigham receives federal appointment |
REGION, A3
JUNE 18 – 19, 2022
146th Year, No. 78
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
Fine against Port of Morrow now tops $2.1M
DEQ urges port to
complete project
to address nitrates,
reduce penalty
East Oregonian
BOAR DMAN — Oregon
Department of Environmental Qual-
ity has increased the penalty against
the Port of Morrow from $1.3 million
A family’s
life changed
in an instant
Local baby’s seizure
launches medical
nightmare that persists
two years later
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Morrow
County sheriff ’s deputy Todd Siex
stiffened as a call crackled over
the radio in his police pickup. The
dispatcher reported a baby was
having a seizure at a Lexington resi-
dence.
Siex (pronounced “Six”) checked
the location on his mobile computer
and saw the address was his home,
where he lived with his wife, Deona,
grown daughter, Lindsey Hodges,
and his 11-month-old granddaughter,
Oakleigh. His stomach in a knot, he
drove from Irrigon to Pioneer Memo-
rial Hospital in Heppner to meet the
ambulance carrying the little girl.
Earlier that morning, it had been
a normal day inside the house. Until
it wasn’t.
It was Dec. 8, 2019, and Deona
prepared the home for the baby’s
fi rst Christmas. Oakleigh had come
into the world as a seemingly normal,
healthy baby girl on Dec. 28, and the
family imagined a magical holiday
with the child. Lindsey just returned
home from her job as kitchen lead
at Heppner Elementary School.
Her mother cleared off the top of an
armoire for decorations. Oakleigh
stood in the playpen happily observ-
ing.
Then the baby toppled over and
lay still. The women rushed to the
playpen.
“She was face down and unre-
sponsive,” Hodges said.
The initial stillness erupted into a
seizure that would continue for more
than an hour and launch a medical
nightmare that persists two-and-a-
half years later.
“We were all so scared, and it
seemed like time was standing still,”
Deona said. “Oakleigh was having a
grand mal seizure and they could not
get her to stop seizing.”
See Seizure, Page A10
to a little more than $2.1 million.
State environmental regulators
levied the initial fi nes in January,
accusing the port of excessively
spreading nitrogen-rich wastewa-
ter as fertilizer on area farmland
for years. DEQ announced in a
statement Friday, June 17, the addi-
tional $800,000 is “for additional
violations involving over appli-
cation of wastewater containing
nitrogen to agricultural fi elds in
the Lower Umatilla Basin, an area
with longstanding groundwater
contamination.”
The Port of Morrow has been
appealing the $1.3 million in fi nes.
Port Executive Director Lisa Mittels-
dorf was not available June 17 for
comment.
According to the statement from
DEQ, the Port of Morrow is one of
many sources contributing to nitrate
contamination in northern Morrow
and Umatilla counties — an area
known as the Lower Umatilla Basin
Groundwater Management Area.
The primary source of contami-
nation in the area, about 70%, is from
fertilizer used on irrigated farmland,
according to the management area’s
action plan. Additional contributors
are dairy and cattle farms (about
20%), food processing facilities,
such as the port that reuse wastewa-
ter to irrigate fi elds (about 5%) and
residential septic systems and other
sources (about 5%).
The Port of Morrow collects
wastewater from food processors,
storage facilities and data centers in
its industrial park outside Boardman.
The port has a DEQ water quality
permit that allows it to use the nitro-
gen-rich wastewater for irrigation on
nearby farms, but the permit includes
limits on how much nitrogen the port
can apply to the farmland and how
much nitrate and moisture can be
present in soil prior to applications.
See Fine, Page A10
PENDLETON
MOTOLODGE
READY FOR GUESTS TO MOTOR IN
Owners aim to have
all 40 rooms ready
in a week; 25 rooms
booked next week for
Jackalope Jamboree
By ANTONIO ARREDONDO
East Oregonian
P
ENDLETON — As guests
f locked to the ribbon-cut-
ting ceremony for the new
MotoLodge hotel near down-
town Pendleton, there was one
thing they all seemed to agree
on: Things sure looked diff er-
ent.
The lot at 310 S.E. Dorion Ave. has seen
a lot of logos outside its doors over the
years, most of them belonging to cheaper
hotels. The most recent tenant was the
Knights Inn.
That’s all history now.
“It went from a huge eyesore to some-
thing beautiful,” said Stacey Candlish, a La
Grande resident who traveled to Pendleton
for the event Thursday, June 16.
Cascadia Hospitality bought the hotel in
late 2021. The company’s $1.3 million reno-
Photos by Yasser Marte/East Oregonian
TOP: MotoLodge owners David Mogg, right, and Jeremy Duncan cut the ceremonial
ribbon Thursday evening, June 16, 2022, to open their boutique hotel in Pendleton.
ABOVE: The MotoLodge sign is on display Thursday, June 16, 2022, at the Pendleton
hotel. The new sign was part of a $1.3 million renovation and rebranding to give new life
to the site.
vation transformed a relic from times past
into a new boutique hotel, the MotoLodge.
The process was no easy one, either.
“We put in new beds, new carpets, new
bathrooms, new everything,” hotel manager
Abraham Barnett said,” Essentially, we got
rid of everything except the bricks.”
Cascadia Hospitality owners Jeremy
Duncan, David Mogg and Nick Pearson
spearheaded the renovation. While Pearson
missed out on the ribbon-cutting, instead
opting to attend his own bachelor party,
the other two owners talked and showed
off the rooms to the hundred or so guests
who attended.
See Hotel, Page A10