WALLOWA COUNTY TEAMS
PERFORM WELL IN DISTRICT
TOURNAMENTS
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Enterprise, Oregon
134th Year, No. 44
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
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Joseph council member looks for legal relief in land-use dispute
By Christian Ambroson
Wallowa County Chieftain
Steve Tool/Chieftain
Joseph City Council member Teresa Sajonia, right, looks on at
the city’s attorney Wyatt Baum (left).
In small communities
people often fi nd themselves
wearing more than one hat,
so to speak. Sometimes
those hats confl ict.
The city of Joseph
recently found itself in a
sticky land-use dispute.
Scott Reinhardt and Patri-
cia Bufford of Joseph have
made several claims against
the city of Joseph centered
on the disputed right to use a
water meter and pipeline and
the city’s failure to remove
such at Reinhardt and Buf-
ford’s request.
Bufford, a member of
the Joseph City Council,
brought the suit as a resi-
dent of Joseph and not in
the capacity as a city coun-
cil member, and has recused
herself from deliberations on
the matter as an interested
party.
The initial complaint,
which was fi led in November
of 2018 in the Circuit Court
for Wallowa County, claims
that Joseph has no legal right
to possess the land as it is by
using and maintaining the
water meter and pipeline.
The complaint asserts that
there are no recorded liens or
easements allowing this con-
duct to continue.
Reinhardt and Bufford,
through their attorney Ben-
jamin Boyd of the Hostet-
ter Law Group, further claim
that they offi cially requested
that the city remove the
meter and pipeline back in
November of 2017.
The city, represented by
Robert E. Franz Jr. of Spring-
fi eld, responded by claim-
ing that the disputed meter
and pipeline, along with the
city’s access to them, have
been in use for over 20 years.
As such, the attorney
claims that the city does
in fact have rights to con-
tinue using the meter under
Oregon’s prescriptive ease-
ment laws. Under very spe-
cifi c circumstances, Ore-
gon law may recognize such
an easement right through
its adverse possession laws,
even without being offi cially
recorded.
Elk encroachment on Wallowa County ranch-land
A COMPLEX ISSUE
Ellen Morris Bishop
By Melissa Wagoner
for Wallowa County Chieftain
W
hat happens when the bal-
ancing act between the
human population and
nature is thrown off? Is it
more important to protect the man-made
infrastructure or the natural environment
that predated it? These questions and
many more are being asked all over Ore-
gon and beyond as ranchers struggle to
hold their ground while native species
of wildlife – in this case elk – encroach
on their grazing land, reducing their cat-
tle’s feed and leaving them struggling to
survive.
“Historically the elk were only on the
prairie for a few months during the sum-
mer,” John Williams, a retired Wallowa
County extension agent and Associate
Professor of Animal and Range Sciences
for Oregon State University, explained.
“Now these elk spend most of the year
on the prairie.”
“Living off ranching is marginal any-
way,” 77 year old Bill Tsiatsos, a rancher
near Starkey, Ore. said. “And I’m paying
more for these elk than I get off the lease
of my land.”
Although Tsiatsos has always had elk
herds grazing on his property, the past 20
years have shown a sharp increase in the
herd size and, in direct correlation, the
destruction they cause.
“Years past the numbers weren’t so
high and the damage wasn’t so signifi -
cant,” he remembered. “I was born and
raised here and in that period of time we
never had a problem with elk.”
The elk in question, which are made
up of two subspecies, are both native
to Oregon but because of market hunt-
ing in the late 1800s they became nearly
extinct.
“Settlers hunted elk as a primary
source of meat and harvest was unregu-
lated. During the latter half of the nine-
teenth century ‘market hunting’ and
human encroachment on elk range took a
heavy toll on Oregon’s elk populations,”
said Michelle Dennehy, the Communi-
cations Coordinator for Oregon Fish and
Wildlife. “Market hunters killed thou-
sands of elk for meat, hides and antlers.
These products were sold in population
centers in Oregon and shipped through-
out the nation.”
That scarcity led Oregon Legislation
to provide protection for the few elk that
remained. Conservation efforts led to the
restocking of herds – 15 from Jackson
Hole, Wyoming in 1912 and another 15
in 1913.
“The scale of transplanting in the
early 1900s was limited and alone does
not account for the rapid increases in
elk numbers and distribution,” Dennehy
noted. “Recovery of elk in Oregon and
elk expansion into much of their original
range is largely the result of total protec-
tion of local remnant populations.”
Although the initial protection lasted
only until 1904, when a small amount
of hunting became permitted, two fur-
ther periods of protection occurred from
1909 to 1932 and again, by decree of the
War Department, during World War II
– at which time the herd size increased
dramatically and complaints about the
encroachment of elk on cattle ranches
began.
See Elk, Page A8
Winter driving in Wallowa County proves hazardous
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
It was just a patch of
slush lurking at milepost
40 on Highway 82. But
when Marty Steven’s Honda
CRV’s rear wheels hit it on
Friday morning, the nor-
mally reliable all-wheel
drive vehicle spun out of
control, struck the guard
rail and plummeted into the
Wallowa River. The side air-
bags deployed. And fortu-
nately for Marty and her two
dogs, the CRV came to rest
on its wheels in the shallow,
icy cold river.
Even more fortunately,
neither Stevens nor her
two dogs, an Airedale and
Labrodoodle, were hurt. But
they were about 25 vertical
feet below the roadway, in a
spot diffi cult to see. Stevens
left her two dogs in the vehi-
cle, and then hiked up the
steep embankment to sum-
mon help.
“I was driving really
carefully, staying in the
bare-pavement
wheel
tracks,” Stevens said. “Then
I hit a patch of icy slush, and
the next thing I remember
we were in the river. It all
happened really fast.”
Oregon State Police,
Wallowa Fire Department
and the Wallowa Ambu-
lance responded to her call.
Ellen Morris Bishop
See Winter, Page A8
Wallowa Firefi ghters watch as Steven’s Honda CRV is towed out of the Wallowa River.