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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 2020)
LOCAL & STATE TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2020 BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A IDAHO POWER, THE LEAD IN THE B2H PROJECT, WOULD BUY BPA’S 24% SHARE BPA might bow out of power line plan acquire BPA’s ownership share and provide transmis- The ownership structure sion service to BPA’s south- of the proposed 500-kilovolt east Idaho customers. Boardman to Hemingway BPA has a 24% share in transmission line project, the project. Idaho Power’s which would pass through share is 21%, and Paci- Baker County, could lose a fi Corp’s is 55%. Under the major player. proposed arrangement, The Bonneville Power Idaho Power would assume Administration, one of B2H’s BPA’s share, boosting its three partners, along with ownership level to 45%. Idaho Power Co. and Pacifi - BPA, under the arrange- Corp, may pull out in a move ment now, is expected to pay that would electrify discus- 24% of the expense of the sions about the controversial B2H project, which could be project but not endanger it. between $1 billion and $1.2 Idaho Power has notifi ed billion, said Sven Berg, an the public utility commis- Idaho Power spokesperson. sions of Oregon and Idaho This means should BPA pull that it is discussing a possible out, B2H would lose between change in the project’s owner- $240 million and $288 mil- ship arrangement. Under the lion in up-front funding. proposal, Idaho Power would However, that likely would By Dick Mason The (La Grande) Observer WELCOME Continued from Page 1A “Over 20 people contributed to this project,” Cowan said. Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative (OTEC) donated employee time and not spark a fi nancial prob- lem for the project. Berg explained under the proposal, BPA would pay a surcharge to use the Idaho Power lines after the trans- mission line begins sending juice to its southeast Idaho customers. The surcharge would last until it raised enough revenue to cover that 24% of the cost of the project. Berg said the proposal actually might make the process of getting the B2H project underway work more smoothly. “It would simplify things,” he said. Berg explained that with just two owners, decisions could be made more effi cient- ly, which would ultimately benefi t consumers. equipment to hang the sign. “We know a lot of our members are struggling and want to help our members however we can,” said Joseph Hathaway, OTEC’s communications coordinator. “We just want to do our part to support the community.” He added that the B2H project is meant to make it possible for clean, afford- able and reliable energy to continue to be available in the Northwest. “The project is best for customers, period. If (the proposed ownership struc- ture change) will help us get over the fi nish line, it will be in the best interest of our customers,” he said. The Idaho Power spokes- man emphasized that talks about this step are still very preliminary. “Things are up in the air,” Berg said. Kevin Wingert, a spokes- person for BPA, seconded this assertion. See B2H/Page 5A Michael Bourne, 18, is one of the volunteers who helped repaint the sign. Bourne said that he has been volunteer- ing with the Kiwanis Club since he was 9, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. “There was a way to help, so I did it,” Bourne said. City water extra aerated VIRUS Baker City residents might notice their water has more air bubbles, making it appear cloudy. The water is safe to drink and the bubbles will dissipate if water is left to stand, according to a press release from the city. As demand for water has increased due to warm weath- er, the city is bringing more water to town through a pipe at Marble Creek that has higher pressure and increases the amount of air entrained in the water, city offi cials said. Continued from Page 1A Kendall Cikanek, ranger for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest’s Whitman Ranger District, said last week that two Forest Service workers from Baker County who lived in the same house tested positive. Three other agency employees who were friends with the pair and spent time at the house also were listed as confi rmed cases. Four tested positive and the other, who tested negative, had symptoms consistent with COVID-19, Cikanek said. LAWSUIT public under RS 2477, includ- ing the section that runs through that property. Instead, Hudson notes, the original purpose of commis- sioners’ 2002 actions was to ensure public access at the eastern end of the Connor Creek Road, where it was temporarily blocked by a gate at the privately owned mine parcel. The county failed to notify the owners of the property Longgood now owns that the 2002 resolution was not limited to the section of the Connor Creek Road passing through the mine property, but in fact encompassed the entire road, including the section, several miles from the mine, that crosses the Longgood parcel. Hudson also writes that the county has not surveyed the section of the Connor Creek Road that crosses Longgood’s property. In his response to the coun- ty’s amended lawsuit, Hudson writes that Longgood, prior to buying the property in 2017, talked with county offi cials, including then-Roadmaster Jeff Smith, about the Connor Creek Road. Hudson writes that a map Smith gave to Longgood, purportedly showing the route that the county consid- ered public, does not depict the Connor Creek Road but rather one of the four other routes mentioned in the county’s lawsuit. That map, Hudson writes, did not depict the Connor Creek Road, which is the road where Longgood installed the gate that was locked in August 2017. Hudson writes that Long- good and the Hansen Trust decided to buy the property, early in 2017, based in part on his belief, from reviewing the map that Smith provided, that the county would not contest his decision to install a locked gate on the Connor Creek Road. Allowing unlimited public access on that road through Continued from Page 1A County commissioners discussed the lawsuit during an executive session, which was closed to the public as al- lowed under Oregon’s public meetings law, on July 8. The lawsuit, which seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to cease restrict- ing public access on the Connor Creek Road, contends that a resolution county com- missioners passed in 2002 affi rms the road as public and precludedes landowners from blocking access on that road. Commissioners passed that resolution after a differ- ent property owner, on the eastern end of the road at the Connor Creek Mine, also put in a locked gate. The resolu- tion, citing a one-sentence federal statute from 1866 that assures public access to routes not otherwise reserved, states that the entire Connor Creek Road, including the section crossing the property Longgood now owns, is a public right-of-way that can’t be blocked. That 1866 statute is com- monly known as RS 2477. Other counties have cited the statute to show a route is legally open to the public. The key to proving a claim under RS 2477 is that the route in question was being used before the property it crosses was reserved for another purpose, a common example being that the land was transferred from public to private ownership. The county’s lawsuit also argues that four other roads have, dating to at least 1908, crossed Longgood’s property and that each of those routes should be legally open to the public. Those routes, unlike the Connor Creek Road, are not developed, but the public doesn’t have access to them because Longgood’s property is fenced. County commissioners have discussed during previ- ous meetings the possibility of reopening one of those routes as an alternative public ac- cess across Longgood’s prop- erty, one that would rejoin the Connor Creek Road after it leaves Longgood’s parcel. Charles F. Hudson, the Portland attorney who repre- sents Longgood, the Hansen Trust and Forsea River Ranch LLC, fi led a response to the county’s amended lawsuit on July 1. Hudson argues that the basis of the county’s argu- ment is fl awed because the Connor Creek Road, in its current alignment, was not built until after the property that Longgood now owns was transferred from public to private ownership. As a result, Hudson con- tends, the county’s RS 2477 claim is invalid. In a July 2018 letter to Sul- livan, the county’s attorney, Hudson included multiple historic maps, the earliest from an 1882 survey, none of which shows that a road existed on the route of the current Connor Creek Road through Longgood’s property prior to the property being transferred from public to private ownership. That transfer happened between 1912 and 1923, ac- cording to deed records that Hudson included with his letter. Hudson contends that the earliest record of a road that follows, at least in places, the route of the current gated section of the Connor Creek Road is a 1938 federal survey — one done at least 15 years after the property Longgood now owns became private, thus negating a later public route claim under RS 2477. Although the people who owned the property before Longgood bought it allowed public access on that section of the Connor Creek Road, by doing so they did not forfeit their legal right to close the road across their property, Hudson writes in his July 1 response to the county’s amended lawsuit. Hudson also wrote in his letter to Sullivan that in 1978 the Bureau of Land Management negotiated an easement to use the Connor Creek Road to allow logging on public land in the area. That easement “expressly acknowledged that the road was private and might be locked by the owner,” Hudson wrote. Hudson also contends, in his July 1 response, that the county, prior to passing the Connor Creek Road resolu- tion in 2002, failed to notify the previous owners of Long- good’s property that com- missioners were considering declaring the entire road as FOUND Continued from Page 1A The Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce was notifi ed at about 6:03 p.m. Friday. “It does appear that at some point he fell in the water and drowned,” Mc- Clay said. Bah could not swim, she said. “This is not the outcome myself, or anyone on our Search and Rescue team, had hoped for,” Sheriff Travis Ash stated in a press release. “Our condo- lences go out to the family and friends of Thierno.” Dr. James Davis, Baker County medical examiner, said drowning was the cause of death. “There were no signs of any other contributing fac- tors there,” Davis said. Bah had gone missing on Friday, July 3, from the Hewitt Park campground where he was vacationing with his foster parents, Ahmed Ebeid and Omnia “Nora” Mahmoud, who live in the Portland area, and a group of friends. The park is in eastern Baker County, 3 miles east of Richland just off Highway 86. Bah was originally from the West African country of Guinea. He had been placed in foster care with the Portland-area couple about two months ago, McClay said. Bah had gone for a walk about 5:30 Friday evening. the property, Hudson wrote in his response, “would interfere with ranching operations, signifi cantly increase costs for road maintenance, and have a material negative impact on the market value of the property.” In his response, Hudson writes that Longgood, after buying the property, also discussed road access with Smith and with Bill Har- vey, chairman of the Baker County Board of Commis- sioners. According to Hudson, Longgood didn’t learn until December 2017, in a phone call with Smith, that the county was objecting to the locked gate and contending that Longgood lacked the le- gal right to block the Connor Creek Road. As for the four other routes that Sullivan lists in the He commonly took long walks, family members said. They called to report him missing about 9 o’clock that night after he failed to return to camp. McClay said Bah is be- lieved to have fallen in the water and died sometime that night. Last week, his fam- ily offered a reward to anyone with information that might lead to helping searchers fi nd the boy. Members of the Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce Search and Rescue Team were summoned the night of July 3 and began searching for Bah. They later were joined by members of the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Offi ce Search and Rescue Team, Malheur County Sheriff’s Offi ce, Oregon Depart- ment of Forestry, Idaho Power and Oregon State Police. The search included ground crews who inter- viewed people camped at Hewitt Park and the nearby Holcomb Park on Brownlee Reservoir as well as residents of the Richland and Halfway areas. Aerial drones with infrared capabilities, boats equipped with side scan sonar, a diver and a fi xed- wing aircraft were used during the effort to fi nd Bah. Fliers with photos of Bah and a detailed de- scription of him also were distributed widely in the area. county’s amended lawsuit, Hudson contends that “to the extent they once existed, none of these roads have been used by the public in many decades.” Further, Hudson contends, with the possible exception of sections of one of those roads, “there is no evidence to establish that any of these roads was ever accepted or designated by plaintiff as a public road.” Trying to rebuild or reopen any of those roads, Hud- son writes, “would neither “provide a means of travel between public places, or serve any legitimate public purpose.” Hudson, in addition to arguing that the county’s lawsuit lacks legal merit, con- tends that Longgood and the other defendants are entitled to “reasonable attorney fees.” Opened its doors on July 16, 1960 as the Arctic Circle 60 th Anniversary Specials New Name. Same Great Team. Same Exceptional Service. 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