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Derby results and more, page A10
Enterprise, Oregon
www.wallowa.com
Issue No. 13
July 15, 2015
$1
Ponds, lakes
cooking fish
day, July 9, Wallowa County’s
rain luck was holding. The
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county, which Bates said
could be a real boon to stock
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in this situation,” he said.
The mystery of dead
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lakes and ponds of Wallowa
County has been solved.
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cooked, so to speak, as water
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ture in the ponds rises.
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managers are suspending
summer trout stocking in
Wallowa County ponds.
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tions it’s unlikely that trout
stocked in these ponds
would survive to be caught
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See DROUGHT, Page A6
See FISH, Page A6
Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
After three days of rain and a NOAA flash flood warning, the trickle on the left is the best Bear Creek can muster as it flows into the Wallowa River.
Drought now critical in county
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
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es of good luck, Wallowa
County teeters on the edge of
a drought worthy of a state of
emergency designation.
The U.S. Drought monitor
reports Wallowa County in a
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evated from just a week ago
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gion’s drought status was still
designated as drought. “We
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normally see in the middle of
August,” said Diana Enright,
water policy analyst for the
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Water Resources Department.
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ahead of schedule across the
state.”
In
Wallowa
County
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vid Bates. “We’re way ahead
of where we should be and
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It is true, Bates said, that
Wallowa County has enjoyed
normal rain patterns, and even
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on Mt. Howard in late spring.
“We had 10 inches of rain
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unique. No one else got that big
storm like we did,” he said.
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THE MEMORY PROJECT
TELLS THE STORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LOGGERS
Dam
rehab
on track
By Rob Ruth
Wallowa County Chieftain
said Mary Hawkins of the Wallowa Band Nez Perce Trail
Interpretive Center, Inc.
Wallowa Lake Dam owners’ plan
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bilitation by selling water downstream
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ing state regulators’ approval of water
releases.
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order on the March 2014 application
from Associated Ditch Companies Inc.
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for lodging protests against the plan.
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cluding in May 2014. Submitters of
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prise rancher Chad Nash, Wallowa city
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ing of Wallowa’s Future Foundation,
Enterprise resident Robert J. Hipple,
Joseph city attorney Wyatt Baum, and
Enterprise resident Marc Stauffer.
As summarized in the proposed
order, issues the commenters raised
concerned “water availability, release
monitoring, how releases will affect
other water right holders, how releases
will affect the downstream bionomics,
the effect these releases will have on the
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ulations from the Department of Land
Conservation and Development,
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ment Administration, and National
Marine Fisheries Service, and the
impact this application may have on
other uses.”
WRD determined, however, that
“the proposed use will not impair or
be detrimental to the public interest”
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newly released draft permit.
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on work of an Interagency Review
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partments of Environmental Quality
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available habitat and potentially
cooling waters of the Wallowa and
Grande Ronde Rivers,” states the
proposed order, which also notes
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mit would basically clear the way
for ADC to further pursue its plan
of transferring stored water to users
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transfer of water rights will require its
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sions transferring rights through lease
rather than through outright sale.
See EVENT, Page A3
See DAM, Page A6
Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
”
Pearl Alice Marsh, daughter of African-American logger Amos Marsh, Sr. of Wallowa talks about the history represented in the many
photos she has collected of former Wallowa city residents of African-American heritage. This project is showing in the Wallowa City
Hall through July 20.
I WANT PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THERE IS A STORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN WALLOWA AND
IT IS A STORY OF MIGRATION, OPTIMISM, LABOR AND COMMUNITY AND IT’S A POSITIVE STORY.
the Wallowa area. They are featured along with
dozens of others in “The Memory Project” which
will remain on display through the 20th of July
KHSKRWRH[KLELWRI$IULFDQ$PHULFDQORJ – along with Marsh herself, available to answer
gers inside Wallowa City Hall is the result questions.
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Marsh was president of the Maxville Heritage
together,” said organizer Pearl Alice Marsh. “It Interpretive Center for a number of years before
needs to be professionalized, but it’s a good story, her desire to create an oral history in a broader
a positive story.”
context led her to her own work.
Marsh is the daughter of Amos Marsh, Sr. and
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the granddaughter of Joseph “Pa Pat” Patterson, WHUZKLFKKDVDQRI¿FHLQ-RVHSKLVFHQWHUHG
6UZHOONQRZQ$IULFDQ$PHULFDQORJJHUVIURP around the experience of loggers in the tiny
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
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Maxville village.
“Maxville is a brief part of this history,”
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cestors — many of them were in Maxville, but
many more lived in other locations around the
area.”
Marsh, for instance, lived with her family
in Wallowa until she was 12 when the family
followed Mike Holloran’s logging company
to N. San Juan, Calif.
See MARSH, Page A6
Tamkaliks celebrates past, future
This year’s event will showcase
dancers and the longhouse plans
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
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land Project grounds outside of Wallowa will see special
presentations, the top dancers in the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla, and a celebration of both past and future.
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tion of the longhouse plans.
It’s taken a decade of development, but the Tamkaliks
Longhouse Project at the Nez Perce Homelands Project in
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kins.
The plans for the public gathering place on the site of the
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had to be approved by the elders in three dispersed Nez
Perce Reservations in Lapwai, Idaho, Colville, Wash., and
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Kathleen ELlyn/Chieftain
Ralph Swinehart of Enterprise and Joe McCormick of
Joseph worked together to reset the hot water heater
for the showers at the Homeland Project site prior to
Tamkaliks Celebration in Wallowa.