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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2020)
Enterprise, Oregon 134th Year, No. 41 Wallowa.com Wednesday, January 22, 2020 Wallowa County’s community dream comes true 1,791 prime acres of Wallowa Lake’s East Moraine become public land as Wallowa County acquires the Yanke Property Wallowa Lake Moraines Partnership and Ellen Morris Bishop Ellen Morris Bishop Two basketballs seem to be waiting for the return of their players in the devastated Joseph Charter School gym. Available light image, 48 second exposure. AFTER THE FIRE JOSEPH CHARTER SCHOOL PREPARES TO RESUME CLASSES Some buildings cleaned, ready for students next week. Classes to resume Jan. 27 By Ellen Morris Bishop and Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain fter weathering a major fire and its consequences, Joseph Char- ter School is putting things back together. Classes will resume on Jan. 27 according to superinten- dent Lance Hohman. “We are not sure of the timing to return to the upper classrooms,” Homan said. “Grades 5 and 6 may have to have classes off campus for awhile, but we’d like to keep grades 5 to 12 on campus when classes start up next week.” The elementary school, or Lower Level for grades K-4 should be cleaned up and ready for students by Monday. “We are taking every precaution during this restoration process,” Homan said. “So when we give the OK to resume classes in the building, it will be a safe, clean place for students and everyone.” The classsroom damage was mainly the consequence of smoke and particles spread by the fire in the gym and mechani- cal room. The cleanup crews have assured Homan that when students come back a lot of it will be repainted, and everything will look brand new. The school’s office area has already been cleaned up and there’s a temporary wall that separates it from the rest of the build- ing, so that cleanup can continue there. But the newly accessible office provides a space for staff to plan their next steps. A JOSEPH, Or. – The breathtaking beauty of Wallowa Lake’s East Moraine forest and open space was permanently protected when almost 1800 acres were transferred into Wal- lowa County ownership late last week. “This has been an important priority for the people of Wallowa County,” said com- missioner Susan Roberts. “Keeping the moraine as a natural and working landscape was something that everyone agreed on. We are doing this for everyone in the County.” For more than a decade, the Wallowa Lake Moraines Partnership – a consortium comprised of the County, Wallowa Land Trust, Wallowa Resources, and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department – worked to acquire the property in order to eliminate any risk of home development, especially on the moraine’s vulnerable crest. At the property sale closing at Wallowa Title, there was an air of solemnity rather than celebration as county commissioners, Wallowa Resources, and the Wallowa Land Trust all signed the sale documents. In one very Wallowa County moment, they discov- ered that the $1,350,382.79 check brought to seal the deal was precisely $5 short. So someone opened their wallet and added a five dollar bill to the million-dollar check on the table. Now that the Yanke property’s 17,791 acres is under Wallowa County ownership, all development and sub-division rights have been extinguished and the property will be managed as a working community forest, protecting native plants, wildlife habitat, and cultural resources while providing non-mo- torized recreational access and returns to the local economy through sustainable forestry and grazing. “We couldn’t have hoped for a better out- come that serves the public’s need for per- manent protection and access to this spectac- ular natural landscape,” said John Hillock, Wallowa County Commissioner and Chair of the East Moraine Campaign. After nearly a decade of negotiations, the Partnership and the former landowner, the Ronald C. Yanke Family Trust, came to a purchase agreement of $6 million in January 2019. Fundraising then went into full-gear, See Moraine, Page A10 Ellen Morris Bishop The Peterson family shepherds their children home from shelter at the Joseph Community Center on Thursday, Jan. 16, after a fire caused the evacuation of the Joseph Charter School. “The reaction of the community here and our neighboring communities make me feel very fortunate to be where I am,” Homan said. “It’s been very humbling.” The gym has been badly damaged by the fire. The upper level on the south side, with weight room and wrestling mats and equip- ment bore the brunt of the damage. Light fixtures exploded or melted. All the walls are now mostly charcoal, weightlifting and exercise equipment are charred and burned, and even the iron barbells bear signs tell- ing rescue from the fire. The wall between the mechanical room and weight room was breached by flames that quickly spread to the ceiling, walls and staircase. Sprin- klers went off, helping to quench some of the flames, but the heat, smoke and flam- ing particles from the open upper level spread into the gym. Banners melted. Water flooded the floor. Ceiling tiles fell, as did the flag and the lights. See Fire, Page A7 Ellen Morris Bishop Nearly 1800 acres of the East Moraine, on the left side of Wallowa Lake, is now public land owned by Wallowa County. In the near future, the county and other members of the Wallowa Lake Moraine Partnership will develop a plan for public access and sustainable grazing and timber harvest that will be available for public review. Aluminum-Alzheimer connection grows more certain George Perry University of Texas, San Antonio A new study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (JAD) supports a growing body of research that links human exposure to aluminum with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers found significant amounts of aluminum content in brain tissue from donors with familial AD. The study also found a high degree of co-lo- cation with the amyloid-beta protein, which leads to early onset of the disease. “This is the second study confirming significantly high brain accumulation in famil- ial Alzheimer’s disease, but it is the first to demonstrate an unequivocal association between the location of alu- minum and amyloid-beta in the disease. It shows that aluminum and amyloid-beta are intimately woven in the neuropathology,” explained lead investigator Christo- pher Exley, Keele Univer- sity, Staffordshire, UK. An association between aluminum and amyloid-beta has been suggested for over 40 years. In an earlier study, brain tissue from donors in the United Kingdom diag- nosed with familial AD showed significant accumu- lations of aluminum. To fur- ther understand this relation- ship, in the current study the researchers measured alumi- num in the brain tissue of a cohort of Colombian donors with familial AD who shared a specific mutation. The mutation leads to elevated levels of amyloid-beta, early disease onset, and an aggres- sive disease etiology. The levels were compared with a control set of brain tis- sues from donors with no diagnosis of neuropatholog- ical disease. They also used aluminum-specific fluores- cence microscopy imaging to investigate the relation- ship between aluminum and amyloid-beta in familial AD. The results were strik- ing. The aluminum con- tent of the brain tissue from donors with the genetic mutation was universally high, with 42% of tissues having a level considered pathologically significant, and the levels were signifi- cantly higher than those in the control set. The imag- ing studies identified alu- minum deposits in all brain tissues studied. They were predominantly co-located with amyloid-beta in senile plaques and occasionally in the brain vasculature. Alu- minum was also found sep- arately from amyloid-beta in intracellular compartments including glia and neuronal axons. The results strongly suggest that genetic predis- positions known to increase amyloid-beta in brain tissue also predispose individuals to accumulate and retain alu- minum in brain tissue. “Compelling localization of aluminum with a central player in AD, amyloid-beta, strengthens the link of alu- minum to the pathogenesis of AD,” commented George Perry, University of Texas at San Antonio. “One could envisage increased amyloid-beta in brain tissue as a response to high levels of alumi- num content, or that alumi- num fosters the accumula- tion of amyloid-beta,” said Dr. Exley. “Either way, the new research confirms my resolve that within the nor- mal lifespan of humans, there would not be any AD if there were no aluminum in the brain tissue. No alumi- num, no AD.”
