2A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • April 29, 2015
Polk County News
‘Unearthed’ follows truffle hunters in Falls City
Discover Channel shares mushroom adventures in Western Oregon in show’s Friday premiere
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
FALLS CITY — If all you are see-
ing in Oregon’s forests are trees,
you need to dig a bit deeper. Seri-
ously, dig.
That is what six men in the Falls
City area do for a living as truffle
hunters, and The Discovery Chan-
nel is premiering a show Friday
“Unearthed” that examines the se-
cretive world of black truffle for-
agers in Western Oregon.
The show, produced by Zodiak
NYC for the Discovery Channel,
actually came about not because
of the mysterious — and potential-
ly lucrative — nature of black truf-
fle industry, but because of the
landscape where the delicacies are
found.
Joseph Schneier, Discovery’s ex-
ecutive producer on the show, said
after seeing photos and footage of
Oregon, producers knew they had
find a way to film here.
He said they were impressed
with “how gorgeous Oregon is, es-
pecially Western Oregon.”
“We wanted to tell a story about
Western Oregon,” he said.
Profiling the players in the black
truffle world seemed a perfect way
Truffle treasure
hunters
What: “Unearthed.”
Where: The Discovery Chan-
nel.
When: Friday, 10 p.m.
to combine a compelling story
with the beautiful backdrop of
Oregon’s forests, Schneier said.
“It’s incredible that something
that smells funny and looks like it
should be trash is so valuable,” he
said.
Crews filmed the majority of the
footage last fall, in the run up to
the busy holiday season when “the
truffle men of Oregon,” Roy
Siegfried, Terry Drazdhoff, Ty Hale,
Levy Schwartzendruber, Richie
Maxfield and Justin Anderson were
trying to collect their haul.
These guys range from “lone
wolf” Maxfield to “truffle kingpin”
Anderson, but they are all facing
the same problem: a dry fall.
Black truffles are fungi after all,
and require water to thrive. Dry
weather threatens truffle “seams”
that have taken years to find and
develop into productive patches.
Dependent on the delicacy for
their living, the season’s five-
episode span show how each
hunter navigates the challenge.
“I think (the audience) will like
the ingenuity and the lengths they
go to,” Schneier said.
Schneier also admires the rela-
tionship the hunters have with the
forests.
It’s not just about finding and
keeping secret areas with the per-
fect combination of trees, soil and
water to produce the coveted fun-
gus. Truffle hunting is a delicate
art; disrupt the soil too much and
the patch may die out.
“Old timers” Siegfried and
Drazdhoff especially are interested
in educating people in the right
way to harvest truffles — anything
else could threaten an industry
they helped established.
“They have a ‘do no harm’
ethos,” Schneier said.
He added he’s hoping the show
is a success, so Discovery can look
into what other fascinating indus-
tries and characters can be found
in the woods of Oregon.
“We think we are not done
telling stories out there,” Schneier
said.
DISCOVERY CHANNEL/for the Itemizer-Observer
Terry Drazdhoff co-stars on the truffle men of Oregon, featured on
Discovery Channel’s new show, “Unearthed,” which premieres on Fri-
day. The show was filmed in Falls City for its striking beauty.
Monmouth PD station costs wrapping up
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
SUNDAY, MAY 3 RD
HOURS: 9-3
EARLY ADMISSION SUNDAY 6AM-9AM $5
REGULAR ADMISSION $1 ★ FREE PARKING
ESPRESSO BAR PROVIDED BY
JOIN US AT THE POLK COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS.
WWW.POLKFLEAMARKET.COM
POLKPRODUCTION@MINETFIBER.COM
MONMOUTH — The
Monmouth City Council ap-
proved an additional
$96,000 at its April 21 meet-
ing to complete the renova-
tions to the new Monmouth
Police Station, located off
Highway 99W.
“For whatever reason, we
didn’t have the best estimate
for the station from the ar-
chitect for the bond,” said
City Manager Scott McClure.
The council had already ap-
proved $375,000 in July 2014,
but it wasn’t enough to com-
plete the project, McClure said.
The original estimate was
$3.785 million to renovate the
old Boise Cascade building,
done by Group Mackenzie, the
architect that was ultimately
hired for the renovation.
McClure said the voters ap-
proved a bond of $4 million.
“To try and save taxpayers
a few dollars, we only issued
$3.935 million in bonds,” he
said. “Project costs aren’t fi-
nalized yet, but we antici-
pate that the total project
will be $4.406 million.”
“When we got everyone
contracted and going, we
only went with a 3 percent
contingency,” he said. “We
knew we were low, and just
through a whole bunch of
different things, we ended
up off a little bit.”
One of the bigger issues
that threw the budget off was
making the building seismi-
cally safe, McClure noted.
“I think when the archi-
tects looked at (the building)
initially, they thought it was
stouter than it was,” he said.
“When they really started
looking at it, they said no, we
have to do more.”
Other projects to renovate
the old Boise Cascade build-
ing took longer than expect-
ed, which cost more time
and money, McClure said.
“The project manager
said it’s probably just 80 dif-
ferent things that came up a
bit more expensive (than
planned),” he said.
One of the most recent issues
was a problem with the build-
ing’s sump pump, McClure said.
“We have an emergency
electrical backup system,”
he said. “The sump pump
had failed in the vault, and
the vault had rusted out all
the components.”
Those components had to
be replaced before the back-
up generator could be in-
stalled, costing another
$3,000 to $4,000 more than
expected, McClure said.
All said and done, total
costs went over budget by
about 12 percent — only 10
percent above the voter-au-
thorized $4.0 million, Mc-
Clure said, including bond
costs, construction and buy-
ing the building itself.
He said 12 percent isn’t
much over budget, especial-
ly for remodel projects.
“The fact is, we have a great
police station,” McClure said.