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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2020)
SATURDAY WIND CHILL CHALLENGE: A HIKING ROUTE THAT AVOIDS THE GUSTS: PG. 1B Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com October 31, 2020 Local • Sports • Outdoors • TV IN THIS EDITION: Fall back Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday – set your clocks back one hour before going to bed Saturday 11 12 1 10 2 9 3 8 4 7 6 $1.50 County health official frustrated by virus surge ■ Baker County has had its highest weekly total of new cases, with 29 reported since Oct. 24 5 By Jayson Jacoby jjacoby@bakercityherald.com QUICK HITS Good Day Wish To A Subscriber A special good day to Herald subscriber Mark Berthelsen of Baker City. Staten Baker County this week had its biggest surge in new COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started, and Nancy Staten is frustrated. Staten is the director of the Baker County Health Depart- ment. In a Thursday interview she said she is disturbed not only by the number of new cases — 29 in the 5-day period Oct. 24-29 — but also by the source of many of the recent infections. “When we do contact tracing, one of the things that is becom- ing quite evident is that social gatherings, these are super- spreader events,” Staten said. “I don’t know how to say it more blunt.” Forest Service Seeks To Reduce Wildfi re Risk In Baker City Watershed Sports, 5A The Baker High School girls varsity soccer team got a pleasant surprise this week. Expecting only to practice this fall in prepara- tion for a possible regular season with matches in the spring, the Bulldogs started a series of friendly matches with rival La Grande. Baker played the La Grande varsity on Wednes- day, and the Tigers’ JV on Thursday. Both matches were at the Baker Sports Complex. Stringent COVID-19 pre- cautions were required. Today 56 / 24 Sunny Sunday 63 / 26 Mostly sunny Monday 66 / 26 Sunny jjacoby@bakercityherald.com Baker City’s watershed covers 10,000 acres on the east slopes of the Elkhorn Mountains west of Baker City, ranging from near Elkhorn Peak, the highest point at far right in the photo, south (left) for several miles. Project Planned To Protect City Water By Jayson Jacoby jjacoby@bakercityherald.com Full forecast on the back of the B section. The space below is for a postage label for issues that are mailed. City ends water advisory By Jayson Jacoby Lisa Britton/ For the Baker City Herald WEATHER See Virus/Page 3A The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is planning its largest project in about 20 years to reduce the risk of a wildfi re spreading through Baker City’s watershed. The campaign, which likely won’t start until 2022, involves several tactics, some to be employed inside the 10,000-acre forested watershed, but with a focus on its fringes, said Kendall Cikanek, ranger for the Whitman District. “What we’re trying to do is create defensible zones between likely sources of ignition and the watershed itself,” Cikanek said. Almost all of the watershed is public land, managed by the Forest Service. The city taps a dozen streams and springs in the watershed to supply al- most all of its drinking water. The city also has one supplementary well — which is also used as an underground reservoir to store excess water from the watershed — and a company is drilling a second well now near Quail Ridge Golf Course. The focus of the Baker City Wa- tershed Fuels Management Project is on the east and south sides of the watershed, including the Washington Gulch and Elk Creek areas. In those areas a swath of national TODAY Issue 74, 12 pages “What we’re trying to do is create defensible zones between likely sources of ignition and the watershed itself.” — Kendall Cikanek, Whitman District ranger, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest forest land lies between private prop- erty and the watershed. The Forest Service’s goal, Cikanek said, is to thin overcrowded forests and light prescribed fi res in that buffer zone, reducing the amount of combustible material and, ideally, cre- ating zones where fi refi ghters would have a better chance to stop a fi re before it burned into the watershed. The project calls for some type of work, whether cutting trees or prescribed burning, on about 22,600 acres. Inside the watershed, the prior- ity would be on the major ridgetops, such as those separating Salmon and Marble Creeks, and Mill and Little Mill creeks, Cikanek said. In those areas workers would cut and pile smaller trees, and later burn the piles, again with the goal of creat- ing “defensible spaces” where the fuel load is reduced and where fi re crews would try to block the advance of fl ames, Cikanek said. Classified ............. 2B-4B Comics ....................... 5B Community News ....3A Crossword ........3B & 4B Dear Abby ................. 6B Horoscope ........3B & 4B The work would be similar to what has happened over the past two years along the Anthony Lakes Highway near the ski area, Cikanek said. Because there are few roads in the watershed, it will be expensive to create defensible spaces on the ridgecrests, as workers will have to hike in, he said. Also, the work will all be “precom- mercial thinning” — the trees cut will be too small to have any commercial value. “It’s quite a bit more expensive be- cause of the access,” Cikanek said. The project does propose commer- cial logging on more than 5,000 acres, mostly outside the watershed. The exception is a narrow area along the Marble Creek Pass Road, near the center of the watershed. That’s the only road through the watershed that’s open to the public. The road, built in the early 1960s as a route to haul limestone from a quarry on the Sumpter side of Elkhorn Ridge to a processing plant near Wingville, is steep and rocky and is not in good enough shape to accommodate log trucks now, Cikanek said. The Wallowa-Whitman is seeking $1.3 million from federal coffers to rebuild a 6-mile section of the road, a complementary project to the fuels management work. See Watershed/Page 3A Jayson Jacoby ..........4A News of Record ........3A Obituaries ........ 2A & 3A Opinion ......................4A Outdoors ................... 1B Senior Menus ...........2A Baker City ended its drink- ing water advisory Friday afternoon after receiving re- sults from four water samples tested for the presence of a fi re-suppression foam that entered the city’s water supply during a fi refi ghting operation Tuesday morning. Two of those samples didn’t contain the ingredient in the foam concentrate that can cre- ate bubbles, odors and tastes, according to the city. Two other samples con- tained concentrations of the substance well below the level that can cause “aesthetic” issues such as taste or odor, although even at that level the substance is not considered a health hazard, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The methylene blue active substance is listed as a “foam- ing agent” on the EPA’s list of “nuisance chemicals.” See Water/Page 3A School board discusses $4 million bond plan By Chris Collins ccollins@bakercityherald.com The Baker School Board agreed Tuesday night to con- tinue moving toward a plan to place a $4 million bond measure on the ballot in the May 18, 2021, election. In the coming months, the discussion will focus on setting priorities for how to spend the money, should vot- ers approve the measure. The District also hopes to receive a $4 million match- ing state grant. And it would add another $4 million from the District’s Capital Projects fund and a portion of its share of state money received through the Student Invest- ment Account of the Student Success Act, approved by the 2019 Legislature. See Bond/Page 5A Sports .............. 5A & 6A Turning Backs ...........2A Weather ..................... 6B TUESDAY — HOW NEW SCHOOL REOPENING METRICS APPLY LOCALLY
