READY TO HIT THE BIG-TIME
Local rodeo cowboy Hanley “Noodle” Miller has earned
a slot at the National Junior High Finals Rodeo | A9
Enterprise, Oregon
Wallowa.com
135th Year, No. 10
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
$1
OLD BARRELS FOUND IN WALLOWA LAKE
COME UP CLEAN
No herbicides or
other toxins found
in barrels to date
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
One of the dozen
more or less intact
barrels raised from
the lake bottom
is poised out of
its containment
overpack drum
for sampling on
Monday evening.
“It’s a really old
barrel, judging by
the markings,” said
EPA site manager
Mike Boykin.
A
fter a week of exploration, diving, and retrieval,
the potential hazards posed to Wallowa Lake
by a barrel labeled “2,4-D or 2,4,5-T” and the
approximately 70 other old metal barrels strewn
about the bottom of Wallowa Lake’s southwest
end have proved to be vanishingly small. The herbicide
barrel reported by Blue Mountain Divers last fall turned
out to be a rusted, punctured container, empty of its for-
mer contents, and fi lled only with water, said Mike Boy-
kin, project manager for the EPA. And it certainly did not
contain “Agent Orange” at any time in its history, accord-
ing to its label. Agent Orange is a combination of 2,4-D
and 2,4,5-T. The label on the barrel clearly indicated that
it once contained one or the other of these herbicides. But
not both, and hence not Agent Orange.
Examination of another six intact barrels that divers
have recovered revealed that they probably once held
petroleum products. But they lost their original content
long ago, likely entered the lake as empty containers, and
now are fi lled principally with lake water and some sed-
iment. The EPA has examined the content of these bar-
rels, and will also sample the four barrels that lie in deep
water and will be removed from the lake as soon as Tues-
day, Boykin said.
See Barrels, Page A7
THE BARRELS IN THE LAKE
What’s in them?
The barrel did not contain “Agent Orange” at any time in its history, according to its label.
EPA offi cials opened it and inspected the suspect herbicide barrel. “Upon opening the drum,
the contents appeared to be lake water,” said Oregon DEQ spokesperson Laura Gleim.
Where did they come from?
Used, empty barrels were resealed and served as fl oats for docks through the 1970s. Barrels
were also commonly fi lled with rocks and used as anchors for buoys or other purposes.
Where do they go now?
The remaining intact barrels were scheduled to be removed from the lake on Monday. The
contents will be inspected at the EPA site at the marina once they are in a safe area that
will contain any hazardous spills. The barrels will then either go to the landfi ll, to a metal
recycler, or an appropriate EPA disposal site, depending upon their contents.
WHAT ELSE IS ON THE BOTTOM OF WALLOWA LAKE?
Photos by Ellen Morris Bishop
Global Diving and Salvage workers and an EPA crew pull
a containment drum that holds the fi rst of about a dozen
hazardous or intact barrels from Wallowa Lake Sunday
afternoon. This barrel, marked 2,4-D or 2,4,5-T proved to
be old, rusted and punctured, and held only lake water.
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
During the past week of intensive sonar, video,
and visual inspection of part of Wallowa Lake’s
bottom, Wally (our equivalent of the Loch Ness
Making fi rewood
from fi re
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Newly elected county
commissioner, John Hillock,
had an idea he’d been chew-
ing on for awhile. In Janu-
ary, Joseph loggers Tom and
Seth Zacharias, had planted
a bug in his ear about visit-
ing parts of the 2015 Griz-
zly Bear Complex fi re that
nearly destroyed the town
of Troy and put more than
80,000 acres to the torch.
Hillock called the Walla
Walla District Ranger, Mike
Rassbach.
“Of course it was snowed
in, so we made an agreement
monster) seems to have gone into hiding. But
there appears to be a lot more than mud, rocks
and barrels on the bottom of Wallowa Lake.
Blue Mountain Divers’ SCUBA teams have been
See Bottom, Page A8
Josephy Center
installs new
bronze by Nez
Perce sculptor
to meet out there in May,
which we fi nally made on
the last day of May.”
Hillock thought it was
important for the board of
commissioners to not only
foster a good relationship
with the federal government,
but to also have good rela-
tionships with local busi-
nesses providing local jobs.
Commissioners Nash and
Hillock, along with Inte-
grated Biomass owner, Dave
Schmidt drove down to Troy
by way of Flora and met
with USFS employee, John
Williams, who then escorted
Josephy Center to feature new
Nez Perce bronze sculpture at its
entry.
On Saturday, June 22, the Jose-
phy Center will celebrate the
installation of a new sculpture in
its courtyard in Joseph. Talks and
a drum ceremony begin at 2 p.m.
There will be a salmon feed for the
public at 4 p.m.
See Firewood, Page A8
See Sculptor, Page A8
By Rich Wandschneider
For Wallowa County Chieftain
Nez Perce sculptor Doug Hyde stands next to a
clay model for his life-sized sculpture ‘etweyé·wise,
which means, in the Nez Perce language, “I return
from a diffi cult journey.”