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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Boardman:
Continued from Page A1
The Oregon Legislature
convenes Sept. 21-23 for
legislative days. Heartquist
said OHA expects the Human
Services Subcommittee of
the Joint Emergency Board to
consider the request on Sept.
21. If the subcommittee gives
the OK, it goes before the full
Emergency Board for consid-
eration Sept. 23.
Doherty said most of the
fi lters the county has installed
are doing the job, with more
than 90% of homes testing
at below 10 mg/l two weeks
after installation. The kinds
of fi lters the state is looking
at buying cost $1,500-$1,800
each, he said, and he has
some concerns if the fi lters
can get to a stricter level of
milligrams per liter require-
ment in the Lower Umatilla
Basin Groundwater Manage-
ment Area in Morrow and
Umatilla counties.
“We’re worried a little bit
because in the LUBGWMA,
the trigger is 7,” he said.
Oregon Health Author-
ity has estimated there are
approximately 4,500 domes-
tic wells in the area serv-
ing about 12,000 household
members.
Installation is
weeks away
Republican Sen. Bill
Hansell of Athena serves
on the Emergency Board as
does Rep. Smith. Hansell
explained the board does just
what its name says — address
emergencies state agencies
could not have planned for.
“A way to describe it is
Epson Tour:
Continued from Page A1
“We think the economic
benefits from it will be
reaped by and enjoyed by
the local economy,” George
said. “Our hotel doesn’t have
enough rooms for everyone,
so they are going to have to
stay at local hotels. They are
going to have to eat some-
where. They are going to
have to get their gas and other
products that they need for
the tournament. So we think
that it’s going to have a huge
economic impact.”
The tournament also will
bring national and interna-
tional media exposure to
Pendleton. The tour already
is generating attention from
news outlets in Portland,
Boise and the Tri-Cities,
according to George. The
professionals that make up
the Epson Tour represent
around 32 countries, which
also means there will be inter-
national coverage.
“It won’t be on the scale of
an offi cial LPGA event, but
it’s the next best thing to it,”
he said.
Growing the game of
golf
Wildhorse is hosting two
youth golf clinics as part of
the tournament events. The
fi rst is Aug. 29 at Birch Creek
Golf Course and is open to the
general public. Members of
the Epson Tour and Nike are
helping run the camp.
Erick Peterson/East Oregonian, File
Erick Peterson/East Oregonian, File
Ana Pineyro, Morrow County communicable disease and emergency prepared-
ness coordinator, and County Commissioner Jim Doherty look at results from a
rapid test of drinking water in a Boardman home on July 14, 2022. The Oregon
Health Authority plans to ask the Legislature’s Emergency Board for $800,000
to test more wells and buy better water fi lters for Boardman residents.
Tory Uskoski, Blue Mountain Plumbing plumber, adjusts a newly installed
fi lter July 14, 2022, in a Boardman home. The new fi lters, however, might not
remove enough nitrates from contaminated wells to reach the Environmental
Protection Agency’s standard of 10 milligrams per liter of water. Two weeks af-
ter initial installations, more than 90% of the fi lters are meeting the standard.
this is the state of Oregon’s
contingency fund,” he said.
Hansell also said he
recently spoke with the
governor, and she also is
working on allocations
for Echo due to the fl ood-
ing there and for Wallowa
County because of the
sudden storm Aug. 11 that
damaged property, injured
people and killed livestock.
The requests for emer-
gency funds come from the
governor’s office or state
agencies, he said, not from
legislators.
“They have to come from
a budgeted agency,” he said.
Doherty said while the
state needs to help, it could
be a while before those better
filers are in the homes of
Boardman residents.
Morrow County Emer-
gency Manager Paul Gray on
Aug. 8 sent an email asking
about the filters to Curtis
Cude, manager of OHA’s
Environmental Public Health
Surveillance Program. Cude
in response stated OHA
continues “to make prog-
ress towards our plan to
support delivery of outreach
and education, lab testing of
domestic wells and point-of-
use reverse osmosis treat-
ment systems to households
impacted by high domestic
water nitrates in the Lower
Umatilla Basin Groundwa-
ter Management Area in
Morrow and Umatilla coun-
ties.”
He said he and staff were
contacting local water profes-
sionals potentially inter-
ested in installing the fi lters
and developing a contract
template for this purpose.
“It will likely be a few
weeks before the fi rst contract
has passed review and we
are ready to start work,” he
said. “That contract will
give local professionals fl ex-
ibility in terms of what prod-
ucts they use, provided they
are NSF-certifi ed to reduce
nitrates. That fl exibility is
important because fi lters are
added or removed from time
to time.”
But Cude also told Gray
he believes there is emer-
gency funding available to
bridge the gap from when
the fi rst contract is issued and
legislative funding becomes
available.
Doherty also said he is
concerned that state agen-
cies could use the crisis in
Morrow County to seek
funds from the Emergency
Board and then use that
money for additional staff
outside the county. And he
said he took issue with OHA
in a July 7 letter to the EPA
claiming it was ramping
up eff orts to help Morrow
County, including with
“linguistically appropri-
ate outreach and education
to low-income households
about nitrate contami-
nation; a detailed hazard
assessment of nitrate data
and demographic analysis
of impacted communities;
domestic well water test-
ing; and, for well users with
elevated nitrate concentra-
tions, alternative drinking
water or drinking water
treatment options.”
Doherty said that letter
raised his hackles.
“Frankly, they’ve done
none of the above,” he said.
Likewise, the state’s
claims it is working with
Morrow County and its part-
ners don’t carry much water
with him.
“I sure as hell don’t know
where they’ve been,” he said.
“I haven’t seen them.”
Doherty also said it was
time for the state to “Get your
butts out there and do some-
thing, and pay us back.”
By the time the Emer-
gency Board meets, he esti-
mated Morrow County will
have spent at least $500,000
since June 9, when the county
board of commissioners
declared an emergency due
to the water contamination.
The following day there
will be a Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation youth clinic at Wild-
horse Golf Course, which
is sponsored by N7 — the
Native American division
of Nike. Gabby Lemieux is
hosting the clinic. She is a
member of the Shoshone-Pai-
ute Tribe of Duck Valley
Indian Reservation and an
N7 ambassador. She helped
Vallivue High School in Cald-
well, Idaho, win a state title
in 2014 and played golf at the
collegiate level for Texas Tech
University, where she earned
Big 12 Conference Player of
the Year honors in 2016 on her
way to the No. 1 ranking in
the country.
Following the youth clin-
ics early in the week, there
will be Pro-Am tournaments
Aug. 31 and Sept. 1.
“We brought (the Epson
Tour) here with the idea that
these are younger profession-
als, young ladies, who are
aspiring to move onto some-
thing greater, to become a
member of the LGPA. We
hope that people can see that
and I know that when you
play with one of the profes-
sionals, you’re just in awe and
inspired by what they’ve been
able to accomplish,” George
said. “We hope that some of
those traits and qualities are
observed by our youth from
the region and, more specifi -
cally, to our tribal youth.”
Another goal of the tour-
nament is to provide more
exposure to the world of golf
to young women. George
said a lot of the time women’s
sports do not get the level of
recognition they deserve, but
that has slowly been chang-
ing. There has been a rising
interest in women’s sports
and recognition of female
athletes.
“Golf can be played by
both men and women, and
we want to grow the game of
golf,” George said. “To grow
the game of golf is to have
more exposure to golf and
what you could do with golf
as a young lady.”
$5 and a week pass $20.
“There’s a lot of possibili-
ties out there, so I don’t want
to discount any of them,” he
said. “We bring in a lot of
events now and especially
bringing in the Epson Tour
helps bring us to another
level. So now, we hope we
might become a host site
for USGA national events,
like the amateur women’s
and amateur junior boys and
girls.”
There are plans to build a
new hotel tower in place of
the old hotel building from
1996, which would add 214
rooms and a larger multi-pur-
pose event space. George said
they would like to build the
event space on hydraulic
risers, which would allow for
the area to be confi gured in
diff erent ways for every event.
The possibilities are endless
— the room could be flat
for a conference, raised into
stadium seating for boxing or
tiered for a play. He believes
an event space of this caliber
would help to differentiate
Wildhorse as a venue.
“It will be an exciting
venue in Eastern Oregon,”
George said.
Doherty calls out
the state
Hub of entertainment
Wildhorse Resort &
Casino hosts a number of
events from concerts to
comedy shows through-
out the year. According to
George, they aim to bring in
a diverse group of performers
to cater to a wide variety of
audiences from Pendleton and
the surrounding area.
“We at Wildhorse like to
think that we’re the hub of
entertainment around here,”
he said.
Whether Wildhorse will
host other professional sport-
ing events and tournaments
of similar caliber depends on
the price point. George said
the Epson Tour — which cost
$200,000 to host — was a
price point Wildhorse could
aff ord. The resort and casino
partners with 47 sponsors at
the local and national level to
help off set the cost, George
said, adding sponsors also
were how Wildhorse was able
to keep the cost of attendance
low — with a day pass costing
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