Wallowa County Chieftain
News
wallowa.com
April 13, 2016
A7
QUINOA
Continued from Page A1
Wallowa County quinoa
is better because of where it
come from, Thiel said.
“It’s grown in glacial silt,
isolated, easy to certify or-
ganic.
Just a few hundred feet
difference on another proper-
ty in the valley will mean a
shorter growing season (and
possibly no quinoa). We have
pretty virgin soils, so the
mineral contact is still in tact
and it’s right there at the ori-
gin of the water supply.”
Plenty of people in Wal-
lowa County have been inter-
ested in quinoa for a while.
Deb Reth of Wallowa grew a
test plot. Janie Tippett of Jo-
seph grew a test plot. Jerome
Goertzen of Enterprise has
been growing it and wants to
test it in Imnaha.
Kurt and Kevin Melville
of Cornerstone Farms in
BREWERY
Continued from Page A1
“It’s more about trying
to repair what’s happened to
our resources in this county.”
While starting small,
Hays sees significant but
steady growth to the busi-
ness over the next five to 10
years.
“The whole focus is mak-
ing beer to ship out of the
county. ... This is awesome
because it’s a pure Wallowa
County brew. The Klages
barley is engineered locally,
grown locally, malted locally
MEETING
Continued from Page A1
Host Dave Miller mod-
erated a panel of guests that
included Malheur National
Forest Supervisor Steve Bev-
erlin; Darilyn Parry Brown,
executive director of the
Hells Canyon Preservation
Council; King Williams, a
natural resources consul-
tant based in John Day; Eric
Quaempts, natural resources
director for the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indi-
an Reservation; and James
Nash, a Ày ¿shing out¿tter
and ¿fth-generation rancher
from Enterprise.
The Blue Mountains For-
est Plan comprises 4.9 mil-
lion acres of public lands on
the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whit-
man and Malheur national
forests in Eastern Oregon.
Each forest gets its own in-
dividual plan, with the docu-
ments adding up to thousands
of pages of desired condi-
tions for the landscape.
Beverlin described the
forests like a quilt, patched
together in various shades
of green, brown and black.
It’s up to the Forest Service
to make sure tree stands are
healthy, that access is main-
tained and habitat preserved.
The challenge, Beverlin said,
is striking an appropriate bal-
ance.
“I think some people be-
lieve that every acre can pro-
vide every use for everyone.
It can’t,” Beverlin said. “It’s
going to take compromise
from everyone.”
Finding that compromise
has been an ongoing effort.
When the Forest Service re-
leased its draft Environmen-
tal Impact Statement for the
Forest Plan in 2014, the reac-
tion was “less than stellar,” as
Beverlin put it. That prompt-
ed another round of public
meetings in 2015, which has
led to two new alternatives
that will be included in the
¿nal EIS later this fall.
Former Joseph mayor
Peggy Kite-Martin spoke
during the show, saying that
the forests are part of East-
ern Oregon’s culture. She
said the politics of the debate
have left forest users in a dif-
¿cult situation as the pendu-
lum swings back and forth
between industry and conser-
vation.
“Our culture is in dan-
ger of dying because people
can’t get out into the woods,”
Kite-Martin said.
Public access was a com-
mon concern among mem-
bers of the crowd, who vent-
ed their frustrations over
Ellen Morris Bishop/For The Chieftain
Wallowa County quinoa seeds spread across a pan.
Enterprise got in on the qui-
noa idea early on, allowing
a few test rows to be plant-
ed on Kurt’s property and
then more than ¿ve acres on
Kevin’s property in the last
two years. This year Kevin is
planting 30 acres under con-
tract with PNW Grain and
Feed Association.
Bob’s Red Mill is even ex-
pressing an interest in locally
grown quinoa, according to
Golder.
Golder who is “the go to
guy” for the latest knowledge
on the burgeoning quinoa
business likes to say “I ain’t
no businessman, I ain’t no
scientist, and I ain’t no farmer,
but I seem to be able to bring
them together.”
“Ted’s knowledge touches
every aspect or level of in-
and fermented locally with
local wild yeast and bottled
in ceramic bottles from lo-
cal clay. It’ll probably be the
most local beer happening in
the world today.”
Hays said he’s not trying
to compete with Terminal
Gravity Brewing in Enter-
prise as he is seeking a dif-
ferent clientele.
He added it would be a
highly experimental brewery
with the possibility of host-
ing visiting brewers and per-
haps brewing several dozen
different kinds of beer.
The initial brewing will
be about 50 handmade bot-
tles.
“We’ll probably never
drink it because it will be
collectible,” Hays said. He
added that he hopes to even-
tually increase production to
brew several thousand gal-
lons at a time but stressed
that it will never be a large-
scale beer operation with
truck loads of beer leaving
the operation daily.
Hays said he plans to have
¿ve employees brewing beer,
manufacturing furniture and
crafting ceramics by the end
of the year.
The project already is
well underway in Joseph.
“We’ve got the building
going, we’ve ordered the
wells drilled, we’re sampling
water and building the sys-
tem.”
He has already retained
the services of local contrac-
tor Louis Perry for building
construction.
Although Hays plans to
hire locals in the main, he
will also import people to
train employees.
“For the woodworking,
one of my guys is going to
move up there to train. My
intention is build a solid lo-
cal industry there. Whether
that’s exclusively local, or I
have to ship people in with
the expertise for training.”
Hays already has a cou-
ple of brewers he’s talking
to oversee the brewery oper-
ations once the project gets
off the ground.
“I design a lot of the brews
myself. We’re not going to
center the brewery around
one brewer. It’s going to be
working different brewers
and probably guest brew-
ers whether local or abroad.
I believe in the alchemy of
brewing more than having a
master formula.”
While Hays is passionate
about the project and hopes
to eventually be the county’s
largest employer, he knows it
won’t happen overnight.
“It’s not about hiring a
road closures. However,
environmental issues were
also brought to the forefront
by Brown, who directs the
Hells Canyon Preservation
Council. She said the forests
already have too many roads,
which has caused heavy ero-
sion in wild habitat.
“I do believe there is a
place for ATV riding on our
public lands. I really do,”
Brown said. “They have to be
at the right place, at the right
time.”
Williams, who owns his
own consulting company,
said a lack of active man-
agement — such as tree thin-
ning and cattle grazing — is
causing a whole other set of
concerns, leaving the for-
ests to become overstocked
and prone to disease or ¿re.
Meanwhile, the region’s tim-
ber industry has shriveled.
Williams said the forests
grow about 800 million board
feet of wood every year, of
which 500 million board feet
is left to waste.
Beverlin said the two new
forest plan alternatives take
that feedback into account,
and will focus on increasing
both the pace and scale of
restoration. That could help
provide more logs to the mill,
he said, while lowering the
risk of destructive wild¿res.
Quaempts said the tribes
are working where they can
with the Forest Service on
restoration projects to protect
traditional First Foods. The
key, Quaempts said, is to be
mindful of what the forests
are capable of providing. He
believes the forests are big
enough to accommodate ev-
eryone’s interests.
Others, like Nash, were
less optimistic. Nash said he
is not happy with the current
state of the forests, and wor-
ries that even after a plan is
¿nalized, lawsuits will inev-
itably keep the whole thing
tangled up in court.
“There will be groups that
¿le lawsuits that stop any
progress of using the for-
ests,” Nash said. “There are
a lot of people out there who
don’t think people should use
the woods.”
A majority of the crowd
raised their hands when
asked if they felt the Forest
Service just planned to do
whatever it wanted, regard-
less of the outcome. Beverlin
sharply disagreed.
“I don’t believe that’s
true,” he said. “Otherwise,
why are we here listening
again?”
Full audio from the show
can be found at http://tinyurl.
com/hu5eahw.
Courtesy photo
Marketing pro Ted Golder examines some of the test rows of quinoa grown in Wallowa County.
201 East Hwy 82
Enterprise, OR 97828
541.426.0320
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Ronan Nash is a 7th grade
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take things apart to discover
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editor. His consistent positive
attitude and leadership is why
he is receiving this recognition.
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Adventist School
The Student of the Week is chosen for
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involvement. Students are selected
by the administrators of
their respective schools.
Made possible by our sponsors:
volvement,” Thiel said.
And plenty of good peo-
ple are working hard to iron
out the local processing prob-
lems. Sara Miller at NorthEast
Oregon Economic Develop-
ment District has been work-
ing with Golder and Thiel and
the duo have started enlisting
the aid of other talent in the
county to help them start a
crowdfunding campaign.
lot of people soon, it’s about
building a stable thing that
has traction and grows like
a redwood tree rather than a
berry bush.”
In the meantime, he is
building community support
for the project.
“We’re hoping to get local
people behind it if we can,
because it’s not something I
can do alone.”
Wallowa County is never
far from Hays’ mind, and he
is intent on leaving a positive
Wallowa County legacy for
the future.
“When I die, I’ll have giv-
en something to my heritage
there.”