PRESORTED
STANDARD MAIL
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
PORTLAND, OR
PERMIT NO. 700
New casino food outlet
honors Tribal hops
harvesting history
— pg. 8
april 15, 2022
Tribe begins second round of Blue Heron demolition
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
O
REGON CITY – The Confederated Tribes
of Grand Ronde started the second round
of demolition on Monday, April 4, at the
former Blue Heron Paper Mill site it purchased
in August 2019.
The continued demolition will take down the
site’s water filtration plant, millwright shop,
auto shop and carpentry shop.
Photo by Timothy J. Gonzalez
Oregon City staff approved some demolition
permits in March and the Tribe is expecting the
permits for the auto and carpentry shops will be
approved by Friday, April 15.
The structures in this demolition phase are
visible from Main Street in Oregon City.
In total, the Tribe stated in a press release, the
See BLUE HERON
continued on page 6
A worker with Elder Demolition uses an excavator to grab debris during stage two of the demolition
of the former Blue Heron Paper Mill site on Tuesday, April 12. Work is focused on the water treatment
building, which will take four to six weeks to complete.
Tribe condemns
PGE effort at
Willamette Falls
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
T
he Confederated Tribes of
Grand Ronde reacted neg-
atively to a Friday, April 8,
move by Portland General Elec-
tric to condemn property in and
around its Federal Energy Regu-
latory Commission boundary at
Willamette Falls, which includes a
contested five-acre strip upon which
the Tribe constructed a temporary
ceremonial fishing platform in Oc-
tober 2018.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S.
District Court in Portland and
seeks to use PGE's condemnation
authority under the Federal Power
Act to acquire the Oregon Depart-
ment of State Land's interest in the
property.
Tribal Communications Director
Sara Thompson said the company’s
move is “nothing more than PGE
trying to steal one of Oregon’s gems
from the public trust” and added
that Oregon’s natural wonders,
including Willamette Falls, belong
to all Oregonians.
“PGE’s only concern is protecting
their business relationships with
these Tribes at the expense of
Grand Ronde’s ability to exercise a
legally authorized ceremonial fish-
ery from a temporary platform at
Willamette Falls,” Thompson said
in an e-mail distributed on Friday,
April 8. “They are trying to circum-
vent a state process under a false
narrative surrounding ‘safety’ and
their claims that they have made
every reasonable attempt to resolve
this issue are simply not true.”
Thompson is also the Grand
Ronde Tribe’s only female fisher at
See PGE
continued on page 7
Photo by Kamiah Koch
Tribal member Michele Plummer spoke about her experience with the Family Preservation Project at the
second annual Day of Empathy event held Wednesday, March 30, at Abundant Life Church in Portland. The
event was put on by the project and Dream Corps Justice organization to highlight the effectiveness of these
organizations’ work with families through speakers and artistic presentations.
Parenting from prison
‘In your children’s eyes, it’s like you just disappear’
By Danielle Harrison
and Kamiah Koch
Smoke Signals staff
S
(Editor’s note: The U.S. criminal justice system
disproportionately affects Native Americans, women
in particular, who are overrepresented in the prison
population with the highest incarceration rate of any
racial group. This story is the first in a series that
examines the effects of mass incarceration on
Grand Ronde Tribal mothers and their children.)
ALEM — Michele Plummer
went to court to face drug
charges during a lunch break
in September 2008.
She never made it back to the
office.
Plummer was arrested and taken to the Marion
County Jail. From there, it would be five months
until she was able to see both of her daughters, who
were then 14 and 5.
“I committed a crime and deserved to be where I
was, but for your children it’s like you just disap-
pear,” Plummer says. “My oldest daughter (Myranda
See PARENTING
continued on pages 12-13