New art unveiled
for First Friday
NORTHEAST OREGON
THURSDAY
FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE FEATURES FREQUENT INTERRUPTIONS: PG. 5A
OCTOBER 1, 2020
www.gonortheastoregon.com
Also:
Tom Brosseau in concert tonight
Sumpter Valley Railroad rides
‘A Night In’ chamber concert
Submitted image
“ The Simple Life: My Ride” by Mary Gardiner
GO! Magazine
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
October 1, 2020
IN THIS EDITION:
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Robert
Trumbull of Baker City.
BRIEFING
Resident offers
$1,000 reward in
recent burglary in
Baker County
A Baker County resident
is offering a $1,000 reward
for credible information
leading to the arrest and
prosecution of burglars
who entered property on
Foothill Road in a rural
area of the county and
took a variety of items.
The Baker County
Sheriff’s Offi ce announced
the reward offer in a press
release issued Wednesday.
The items taken include
fi rearms and related acces-
sories, ammunition and
tools.
Anyone with informa-
tion about this incident
is asked to call the Baker
County Sheriff’s Offi ce at
541-523-6415.
Local • Business & AgLife • Go! magazine $1.50
County
Digging Deep says
road
must
open
Work Starts Soon On Baker City’s New Drinking Water Well
■ Landowner recently locked
gate across Pine Creek Road
in the Elkhorn Mountains
west of Baker City
By Samantha O’Conner
and Jayson Jacoby
Casey Swanson
named to OSU
honor roll
Baker City Herald
The Baker County Board of Commis-
sioners voted 3-0 during a special meeting
Wednesday morning to have employees from
the county road department remove a lock
from a gate blocking the Pine Creek Road in
the Elkhorn Mountains.
David McCarty, who recently bought 1,560
acres in the Pine Creek area, about 12 miles
northwest of Baker City, installed the lock
recently.
CORVALLIS — Casey
E. Swanson, a post bac-
calaureate student in
mathematics, was named
to the scholastic honor roll
for the summer term at
Oregon State University.
To qualify, students
must earn a grade point
average of at least 3.5 and
take at least 12 hours of
graded courses.
WEATHER
See Road/Page 3A
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
A contractor is scheduled to start drilling a new drinking water well for Baker City next week.
The drilling site is at the east side of the parking lot at Quail Ridge Golf Course.
Today
82 / 39
Sunny
Friday
84 / 42
Sunny
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
Your guide to arts,
entertainment
and other events
happening around
Northeast Oregon
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
One of the deepest digs in
decades in Baker City is slated
to start next week, but residents
probably won’t see its dividends
until 2022.
And then they’ll just have to
turn a faucet.
Workers from Schneider
Water Services of St. Paul, near
Salem, will begin drilling an
approximately 700-foot-deep
well that will supplement the
city’s drinking water supply, said
Michelle Owen, the city’s public
works director.
The City Council voted
on April 14 to pay the fi rm
$677,000 to drill the well.
The site is on the east side of
the parking lot at Quail Ridge
Golf Course at 2801 Indiana
Ave.
The area will be fenced off
during the drilling, which Owen
said likely will continue well
into November.
Boring through the basalt to
reach groundwater is the fi rst,
and the least-expensive, part of
the well project.
Owen said the second phase,
which involves installing a
pump and distribution pipes,
and building a structure around
the well, will cost an estimated
$2 million. That work won’t
start until the next fi scal year,
which begins July 1, 2021.
Owen said the new well
probably will start delivering
water to Baker City homes and
businesses starting in the spring
of 2022.
The new well is one of the ma-
jor projects that prompted the
City Council to boost water rates
by 10% in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Those increases will pay for
the well and for the continuation
of a long-term effort to replace
the century-old, leaky concrete
pipeline that brings water to
town from the city’s watershed
on the east slopes of the Elkhorn
Mountains about 10 miles west
of town.
Woman sues
hospital on
behalf of her
daughter
By Chris Collins
ccollins@bakercityherald.com
A Baker City woman has fi led a $5.2 mil-
lion lawsuit in Baker County Circuit Court on
behalf of her daughter against Saint Alphon-
sus Medical Center, orthopedic surgeon Dr.
Eric T. Sandefur and Veronica Crowder, a phy-
sician assistant who worked with Sandefur at
the Baker City hospital.
In her claim, Chrissy Ann Martin alleges
that Sandefur and Crowder were negligent
in treating a serious fracture to Avery’s right
arm at the elbow.
See Well/Page 3A
See Lawsuit/Page 3A
FISHING SEASON STARTS TODAY ON GRANDE RONDE RIVER
Surprising coho salmon
run results in first chance
for anglers since 1980
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Jeff Yanke was optimistic about
this year’s run of Lostine River coho
salmon, but he was still surprised by
how many fi sh began battling their
way up the Columbia River earlier in
2020.
“This year’s return was frankly
really unpredictable,” said Yanke, the
district fi sh biologist at the Oregon
TODAY
Issue 61, 22 pages
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s
(ODFW) Enterprise offi ce.
This unexpected bounty has buoyed
biologists’ hopes about the long-term
success of their effort to reintroduce
coho salmon to the Grande Ronde
River basin. It’s also given anglers a
chance they haven’t had since Ronald
Reagan was elected to his fi rst term as
president.
Business ...........1B & 2B
Calendar ....................2A
Classified ............. 3B-6B
See Salmon/Page 2A
Comics ....................... 7B
Community News ....3A
Crossword ........5B & 6B
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife / Contributed Photo
Kyle Bratcher of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife with
a Lostine River coho salmon trapped at the Lostine weir in Wal-
lowa County in 2018.
Dear Abby ................. 8B
Horoscope ........5B & 6B
Letters ........................4A
Lottery Results ..........2A
News of Record ........2A
Obituaries ..................2A
Opinion ......................4A
Sports ........................6A
Weather ..................... 8B
SATURDAY — EXPLORING A CURIOUS COLLECTION OF ROCK PINNACLES