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137th Year, No. 53
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
WALLOWA.COM
DROUGHT EMERGENCY
Mary
Welch
Wallowa County
still attempting to
recover from last year,
commissioner says
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Joseph
Mrs. Claus loves
the small-town
feel of Joseph
JOSEPH — Mary Welch is well-
known around Joseph, especially
at Christmastime. She’s Mrs. Claus
during the Jingle Thru Joseph
parade.
In fact, it was her marriage to
Santa — Dennis Welch — that
brought her to Joseph six years ago
from John Day. Dennis is the lead of
the city’s Parks Department there
and his bushy white hair and beard
make him just right to portray Santa
Claus in the parade.
But Mary spends most of the
year working as a phlebotomist at
Wallowa Memorial Hospital, one
who draws blood for lab technicians
to analyze. She’s been doing that for
about three years.
“But I’ve been accessing veins for
17 years,” she said. “I love it.”
She recently shared her thoughts
about living in Wallowa County.
What’s your favorite thing
about Wallowa County?
I have a lot of favorite things
about the county. I love the lake. I
love the small-town feel of living in
Joseph.
E
NTERPRISE — Another year of
drought was declared by the Wal-
lowa County Board of Commis-
sioners during its meeting Wednes-
day, April 6.
“We don’t have a lot of infor-
mation other than we’re in D4,” Nash said,
referring to the most-extreme drought con-
dition. The county was listed as D4 all sum-
mer until the fall.
“We’ve been in D3 since, over a good
portion of our county,” he said, referring to a
less-severe designation. “So there is reason
enough there to declare drought. We have
somewhere between 50% and 70% snow-
pack in the mountains.”
The commissioners issued a drought dec-
laration in May 2021, a full month later than
this year.
But the snowpack is only where the mois-
ture comes from to the valley fl oor.
“Most of our soils, especially in the
northern portion of the county, are extremely
dry,” he said. “Reports vary on watering
conditions for livestock from full capacity
in the pond storage to not so much. It does
vary from site to site throughout the county.
The bearing it has, I think, we have some
potential wet weather coming. May and
June are really the critical times for Wallowa
County and so we could be getting ahead of
ourselves a little bit, but for where we are
right now, 88% of Oregon is in a drought
condition.”
At this, Nash recommended moving
toward a drought declaration.
Wet spring needed to improve current conditions
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Spring
is traditionally the wettest
season of the year in Wal-
lowa County.
That is going to have to
be the case this year to pre-
vent
already-concerning
drought conditions from
reaching extremes.
Nearly half of Wallowa
County, as of last week, is
in extreme drought condi-
tions, or D3, according to
the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Conditions are such that the
county commissioners on
April 6 declared a drought
emergency, doing so more
than a month earlier than
they did in 2021.
Drought conditions did
not improve much during
the winter, according to
the Drought Monitor. At
its worst last summer, the
website showed more than
83% of the county in D3,
with a small sliver reach-
ing the worst level, which is
D4, or exceptional drought.
The conditions were at this
level from late August until
mid-October.
Even the best condi-
tions were not great, as early
winter snows did little to
bring improvements. The
best conditions were a fi ve-
week stretch in January and
early February that saw the
county’s D3 level drop to
Katy Nesbitt/For EO Media Group, File
Weeks of subfreezing temperatures have held snow in the
higher elevations of Northeastern Oregon, as is evident in
this February 2022 photo of the Wallowa Mountains. Despite
reasonable snowpack levels in the high country, however,
most of the region is still facing severe drought conditions.
just more than 38%. It has
ticked upward since, and
as of April 5, when the last
recording was taken, was at
49.13%.
The entire county is in at
least D1, which is a moder-
ate drought, and 96.3% of it
is in D2, a severe drought,
or D3. The county has been
entirely in the D1 range, or
worse, since June of 2021.
The county dried out
quickly last year, as well.
In early April 2021, there
were no drought conditions,
according to the Drought
Monitor, and by mid-April,
barely a fraction of the
county, less than 2%, was
even considered abnormally
dry, or D0. But by early
May, the entire county was
in at least D1, and condi-
tions have not let up since.
Depending on one’s loca-
tion in Wallowa County,
April, May and June are the
wettest months on average,
according to weather.gov. In
Joseph, the average amount
of rain that comes down at
that time is 5.94 inches.
But last year, both April
and June were more than
an inch below average, with
June nearly 1.4 inches below
at 0.59 inches (the average
is 1.97, making it the wet-
test month of the year). The
website does not have data
for May.
See Spring, Page A8
See Drought, Page A8
Are you getting cabin fever
yet?
Never. I’m from Northern Wis-
consin. The winters here are nothing.
What are you looking
forward to once the weather
warms?
Taking our boat out.
What do you think of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine?
It’s horrible. I think any crimes
against humanity are horrible.
How is the high price of fuel
aff ecting you directly?
It’s killing me. I have to drive. It’s
only 8 miles from my house to the
hospital, but I can’t really aff ord gas.
It’s too much.
What’s your advice for
people who are thinking
about moving here?
Check and see if there’s any place
to live before coming here, because
there aren’t many places to rent and
if you want to buy, you’d better have
a lot of money. I know that’s not a
very popular thing to say, but it’s the
truth.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
A fresh but light layer of snow lay over the Wallowa Valley
at Enterprise on Monday morning, April 11, 2022. It will
likely take much more precipitation to alleviate expected
drought conditions anticipated for the county.
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Greater Idaho organizers get OK to gather signatures
Group needs 242
valid signatures by
Aug. 10 to get a spot
on the Nov. 8 ballot
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA COUNTY —
Proponents of the Greater Idaho
movement are again making a
push to add Wallowa County to
the fold.
Organizers announced Thurs-
day, April 7, that Wallowa County
Clerk Sandy Lathrop approved
circulation of a petition to get the
Greater Idaho ballot initiative in
front of voters during the Novem-
ber general election.
The group needs to gather 242
valid signatures and submit them
to Lathrop by Aug. 10 to garner a
spot on the Nov. 8 ballot. Accord-
ing to information on the website
greateridaho.org, the group’s goal
is to gather 295 signatures.
“It’s a percentage of the amount
of people that actually voted for
the (governor race) back in 2018”
Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Proponents for the Greater Idaho movement received the OK last week to
begin gathering signatures for a petition they hope to get on the November
2022 ballot.
in the county, said Lathrop, who
approved the petition April 3. That
year is chosen, she added, because
it was the most recent year that a
governor was elected to a full term.
The clerk added it’s a pretty
simple procedure on her end. She
received several forms from the
petition-seekers, then just had to
verify the content.
“I double-check to make sure
that everything (is OK) — a lot
of I’s are dotted, T’s are crossed
(and that it) conforms to the regu-
lations,” she said.
Should the ballot initiative make
it to voters and pass in November,
it would require the county com-
missioners to meet twice annually
“to discuss the issue of moving the
Oregon/Idaho border to include
rural Oregon into Idaho,” accord-
ing to a press release. The measure
is almost verbatim the one that
Wallowa County residents turned
away by just 41 votes in the 2020
general election, as that measure
would have required commission-
ers meet three times a year.
According to text of the peti-
tion, the commissioners would
be required to meet on the fourth
Wednesday of each February and
August.
Presently, eight counties have
approved Greater Idaho ballot
measures: Baker, Grant, Harney,
Jeff erson, Lake, Malheur, Sher-
man and Union counties, with
approval rates ranging from 51%
to 74%. Three additional counties
— Douglas, Josephine and Klam-
ath counties — are slated to vote
in May.
All told, the group is targeting
part or all of 22 counties across
Eastern and Southern Oregon to
become part of the Greater Idaho
movement.
See Idaho, Page A8