A8
NEWS
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
A Texan takes the reins at Wallowa Lake State Park
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
There’s a new manager
at Wallowa Lake State Park
these days.
Mac Freeborn arrived in
April, and has picked up the
management reins at one of
eastern Oregon’s most pop-
ular and revered state parks.
The 216-acre reserve serves
more than 400,000 day-use
visitors per year, and its pop-
ularity is growing. It’s cur-
rently the 12th most popular
place to camp in all of Ore-
gon’s State Parks, serving
almost 90,000 campers in
2018, up 6% from the previ-
ous season.
Freeborn hails from
Texas, where he worked in
and managed a number of
parks and recreation areas.
Most recently, that included
the Guadalupe Mountains
National Park, as well as
other state and local facil-
ities. Most were parks that
included water and boating,
which makes him a natural
Ellen M. Bishop/Chieftain
Mac Freeborn, the new manager at Wallowa Lake State Park, inspects the foundation for the
park’s new micro hydro power generation plant.
for Wallowa Lake.
Freeborn is enthusias-
tic about his new position
and about being in Wallowa
County. “It just seems like
a place where I belong,” he
said. “Everyone has been
friendly and helpful. The
staff here is really connected
to this place, and so for now,
I’m just listening and learn-
ing from them. They are
really the ones who know
the park and are running it.”
Freeborn and the park
will be undertaking two
major projects in the next
year. There is the realign-
ment of the Wallowa Riv-
er’s channels, which will
include re-allocating about
30 percent of the river’s
fl ow to an old and soon-to-
be-refurbished channel that
runs through the central por-
tion of the day-use area.
That will include construc-
tion of new pathways and
pedestrian bridges to cross
the stream, establishment
of riparian vegetation, some
re-sizing of parking areas,
and new interpretive signs,
all of which are presently
being designed.
Freeborn is enthusias-
tic about this project. “It’s
going to be great to connect
our visitors more closely
with the kokanee and the
river,” he said.
Establishing
a
new
“micro-hydro” power plant
is another “green” project
that has just started at the
park and will be completed
under Freeborn’s tutelage.
Developed in collaboration
with Wallowa Resources
and Pacifi c Power, the proj-
ect will pipe the park’s water
from its source higher on
Chief Joseph Mountain into
a turbine located near the
park’s old amphitheater.
The turbine will be
housed in a small log cabin
and will be visible to the
public,
complete
with
an interpretive sign that
explains its functions. The
150 kilowatts per year that
this micro hydro project pro-
duces will save the project’s
owner, the Wallowa Lake
Service District, a municipal
water and sewer entity man-
aged by Wallowa County,
about $15,000 a year in
energy costs.
Freeborn is looking for-
ward to learning more about
his park and enhancing its
roles in Wallowa County.
“We are one of the major
attractions here,” he said.
“We can help people con-
nect better with this incred-
ible landscape.”
Gov. Brown reverses state’s position on wolf delisting
warranted.
Brown has now sent
a letter to Interior Secre-
tary David Bernhardt, who
oversees the Fish and Wild-
life Service, to “clarify and
correct” ODFW’s position
by opposing the delisting
proposal.
Although the “success
of wolf recovery is unques-
tioned” and ESA listing
within Oregon isn’t neces-
sary, the state’s efforts “can-
not protect imperiled wild-
life beyond our borders in
other states,” which necessi-
tates federal listing, accord-
ing to Brown’s May 15 letter.
“Unlike salmonids and
sage grouse, the principal
reason for the decline of
the wolf across the West-
ern United States was delib-
erate extirpation,” she said.
“We are not yet far enough
from that cultural history to
warrant confi dence that wolf
recovery is inevitable.”
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
EO Media Group
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
is urging the federal govern-
ment not to lift Endangered
Species Act protections for
wolves, contradicting an ear-
lier position taken by state
wildlife regulators.
Gray wolves are currently
classifi ed as threatened or
endangered across most of
the country but the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has
proposed delisting the spe-
cies because it’s “thriving on
its vast range” and doesn’t
face imminent extinction.
The decision initially
won the support of Curt
Melcher, ODFW’s director,
who wrote in a May 9 let-
ter that Oregon’s wolf pop-
ulation is projected to con-
tinue expanding regardless
of federal ESA status and
that a federal delisting is
WALLOWA COUNTY
Health Line
‘THEY’LL WORK
FOR A TIME BUT
THEY’RE JUST
NOT REALISTIC.’
Jerome Rosa, executive direc-
tor of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association, on non-lethal wolf
control measures
Courtesy of ODFW/Capital Press
Two adult wolves from the Walla Walla Pack in northern
Umatilla County, Ore.
Representatives of the
Governor’s Offi ce and
ODFW did not respond to
requests to explain the dis-
crepancy between Brown’s
and Melcher’s positions.
Brown is known to meet
regularly with the heads of
state agencies, so it’s not
likely Melcher’s support
for delisting was a surprise,
THE ONE
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said Jerome Rosa, execu-
tive director of the Oregon
Cattlemen’s
Association.
“I would fi nd that highly
unusual for her not to be
aware of that.”
It’s more likely that
Brown’s
thinking
was
swayed by the outcry from
wolf advocates, who recently
held a rally against delisting,
PARTS S &
SERVICES
MAINTENANCE
72
INSTALLATION
as well as public criticism of
Melcher’s decision by Rep.
Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.,
Rosa said. Blumenauer rep-
resents Portland.
“I think this occurred
because of pressure from the
environmental community
and some in the Oregon con-
gressional delegation also,”
he said.
Oregon is currently esti-
mated to have at least 137
wolves that primarily inhabit
the northeast corner of the
state, though some have
become established in cen-
tral and southern portions as
well. The species is already
delisted at the federal level
in the eastern third of the
state.
Ranchers support federal
delisting because the state
government has more staff
and resources available to
devote to wolf management,
and because the change in
status would allow for lethal
control of wolves that attack
livestock, Rosa said.
PET OF
K
THE WEE
Non-lethal
measures
aren’t effective across vast
landscapes,
particularly
in Western Oregon where
dense underbrush impedes
the visibility of wolves,
he said. “They’ll work for
a time but they’re just not
realistic.”
The Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity, an environ-
mental group, is pleased by
Brown’s decision to retract
support for the “premature
and unlawful” proposed del-
isting, said Collette Adkins,
the organization’s carnivore
conservation director.
“It’s clear wolves haven’t
recovered nationwide and
recovery has just begun in
places like Oregon,” Adkins
said.
Adkins said she doesn’t
know what led to the incon-
sistency between Brown’s
and Melcher’s positions
but said the governor’s tone
indicated she was “taken
aback” by the letter, which
was presumably sent with-
out her authority.
A similar proposal to del-
ist wolves in 2013 was with-
drawn due to public opposi-
tion, so the Fish and Wildlife
Service will hopefully aban-
don the plan again due to the
letter from Brown and oth-
ers like it, Adkins said.
“Time will tell, but the
same legal fl aws that existed
then exist now,” she said.
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