LOCAL & STATE
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
RIVER
COMING IN ...
... GOING OUT
Volume of the Powder
River measured at
Hudspeth Lane, just
above Phillips Reservoir,
in cubic feet per second:
Volume of water being
released from Phillips
Reservoir into the
Powder River, in cubic
feet per second:
• APR. 15: 50.27
• APR. 15: 65.84
• APR. 20: 83.04
• APR. 20: 152.61
• APR. 25: 88.87
• APR. 25: 149.16
• APR. 30: 102.70
• APR. 30: 200.71
• MAY 5: 109.30
• MAY 5: 216.52
• MAY 10: 89.64
• MAY 10: 370.88
Source: Bureau of Reclamation
Source: Bureau of Reclamation
Continued from Page 1A
The most basic explanation
for the Powder’s recent rise —
from 150 cubic feet per second
(cfs) on April 27, measured
near Wade Williams Park in
south Baker City, to 371 cfs
on May 10 — is that farmers
need the water to irrigate
their crops and pastures,
Colton said.
“Things are growing down
here,” he said on Wednesday
morning, May 12. “It can’t
wait.”
Mark Ward is one of those
farmers, and he concurs with
Colton’s assessment.
“We’ve got to have the wa-
ter,” said Ward, whose family
grows peppermint, potatoes,
alfalfa, wheat and silage corn
in Baker Valley. “There’s a
lot of water coming down the
river, but we can’t save that
water for July. If you kill the
crop now there’s no use for the
water later.”
Colton said water that
fl ows into Phillips Reservoir,
and water that’s stored in it,
irrigates about 42,000 acres.
He said the owners of that
land have two types of rights
entitling them to use that
water for irrigation.
“Freefl ow” rights are for wa-
ter in the Powder River, and
to fulfi ll those rights, Colton
said he basically pretends the
reservoir doesn’t exist, releas-
ing water from Mason Dam
in volumes necessary to meet
the demand.
Freefl ow rights all have
“priority” dates, some dating
to the 1860s, and the holders
of the oldest rights have fi rst
priority for the water.
But the reservoir, which
started fi lling in 1968, also
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Colton said earlier this
spring that the reservoir won’t
the reservoir exists, shrunken fi ll this year, given the signifi -
though it is.
cant defi cit from last year.
“It would be a much more
As of Wednesday the reser-
dire situation if we didn’t have voir was at 20% of its capacity.
the reservoir,” he said.
Colton said the current situ- ‘A month of wind’
Ward said the demand for
ation, with much more water
irrigation water has been
coming out of the reservoir
higher than usual, and earlier
than is fl owing in, won’t last
than normal, due in part to
much longer.
persistent gusty winds.
Newly seeded crops are
“The wind has just killed
gaining a roothold and won’t
need so much water until later us,” he said. “We’ve had a
month of wind, and not a
in the summer, he said.
Colton expects to reduce the gentle breeze. It’s just sucked
the water out of every crop out
outfl ow from Mason Dam as
there.”
early as this Saturday, May
The soil-desiccating effect
15. By later in the month the
of the wind has been exac-
Powder River’s volume in
Baker City likely will be half erbated by a lack of rainfall,
Ward said.
what it is today.
March was the second-dri-
At the same time, the
est since at least 1943 at the
mountain snow eventually
will melt, boosting the volume Baker City Airport, with just
fl owing into the reservoir and 0.14 of an inch falling. April’s
causing the reservoir level to total of 0.57 was also below
the monthly average of 0.80.
begin to rise, he said.
The Powder River fl ows beneath the Bridge Street bridge Wednesday morning, May 12.
has “storage” rights, all of
which have the same date,
Colton said.
What’s unusual about this
spring, he said, is that because
consistently cold nights have
largely prevented the moun-
tain snowpack from melting,
the amount of water fl owing
into the reservoir, primarily
from the Powder River but
also from tributaries such as
Deer Creek, has been below
average.
The volume of the Powder
River at Hudspeth Lane,
just above the reservoir, has
peaked at 126 cfs, on May 2,
and has been below 100 cfs for
most of the spring.
In 2019, by contrast, the
Powder River’s fl ow exceeded
200 cfs for much of April and
May, including peaks above
310 cfs on several days in
mid-May.
With those volumes, Colton
COUNCIL
Continued from Page 1A
Councilor Jason Spriet asked Ben-
nett about the effects of the pandem-
ic on hospitals in Boise.
“I think I heard Mark mention
that we sent our severe COVID cases
to Boise. Was there ever a time when
they were overwhelmed?” Spriet
asked.
Bennett said that in early January,
St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus were
near capacity.
Staten said local patients who
had severe symptoms were taken to
one of the Boise hospitals because
they have specialized equipment
not available at Saint Alphonsus
Regional Medical Center-Baker City.
Spriet followed with another ques-
tion.
“Do you feel that, what has hap-
pened in Oregon since we’re, I feel
like hopefully we’re in the downslide
of this whole thing, do you feel like
how this was handled was at all
appropriate? Do you think these
lockdowns had prevented or helped
our community prevent the spread of
the virus?”
Staten’s response: “I’m coming at it
from a public health perspective and
the health and wellness of all of our
said, he can fulfi ll down-
stream water rights and
still store some water in the
reservoir.
But 2021 is quite a different
year.
On Wednesday morning,
May 12, the Powder River at
Hudspeth Lane was running
at 83 cfs.
The outfl ow from Mason
Dam, meanwhile, was 377 cfs.
Little wonder, then, that the
amount of water in Phillips
Reservoir had dropped from
16,400 acre-feet on May 1 to
14,791 acre-feet on May 11.
(One acre-foot of water
would cover one acre of fl at
ground to a depth of one foot.
One acre-foot equals about
326,000 gallons.)
To meet irrigation demand
and fulfi ll water rights, Colton
said he has to release both
freefl ow and storage water.
Ward said he’s grateful that
people, and so I really can’t speak to
that. From a public health perspec-
tive, it’s evolved; science has evolved
from what we did a year ago, from
what we did 14 months ago, from
what we know today and it certainly
has evolved. In public health we
just do our best to, as recommenda-
tions change, we change with them,”
Staten said.
Councilor Lynette Perry asked
whether contact tracing showed that
people have been infected while din-
ing in restaurants.
“In these case investigations, we
ask those questions — where have
you been?” Staten said. “And we hon-
estly, in our case investigation, have
not found that it’s to a specifi c res-
taurant. And we go off of what people
tell us to the best of their ability.”
Staten said she believes outbreaks
in individual businesses stemmed
from people bringing the virus into
the business.
“In contact tracing and investiga-
tions people are honest but they may
forget where they have been,” Staten
said.
Perry pointed out that state
guidelines are particularly strict for
restaurants.
Mayor Kerry McQuisten said that
during a February meeting with
offi cials from the Oregon Health
Authority (OHA), they said the state
agency had bought information from
credit card companies to get data
about residents’ restaurant visits.
“That’s what they said their data
was,” McQuisten said.
Bennett said the county from the
start of the pandemic has sought to
pinpoint the actual sources of infec-
tions.
“Nancy’s team did, has done, and
continues to do excellent investiga-
tions in contact tracing,” Bennett
said. “So we have pushed and pushed
and pushed all over the county that,
let’s identify the areas where this is
occurring and work on that rather
than a blanket approach because
this is devastating to primarily our
food industry, but the rest of the com-
munities,” he said.
Perry asked about deaths attrib-
uted to COVID-19, and how many
of those people had been infected
within 60 days of their death.
“It bothers me that they’re being
listed as a COVID death as opposed
to a heart attack when the heart
attack is actually what killed them,”
Perry said.
Bennett said that if the virus
further weakens someone’s immune
system, it is a contributing factor.
“Maybe it’s not exactly what killed
them but it might have led to that
path,” Bennett said.
Staten agreed that COVID-19 can
be a contributing factor.
“So, they maybe have had COVID,
they may die of pneumonia, but a
contributing factor was COVID-19,
because they had tested positive,”
Staten said. “Now, who’s to say, did
that speed up their death? We don’t
know but that could be a contribut-
ing factor. Or it could be the main
cause of death and that’s determined
by the medical certifi er which would
be the physician.”
Perry asked if it is true that hospi-
tals receive additional money based
on the number of COVID-19 patients
they treat, or for having a COVID-19
death.
“I don’t believe that to be true with
what I know but I’m not the author-
ity,” Staten said.
Councilor Shane Alderson asked if
any positive cases could result in one
person being counted as a case more
than once.
Staten said people who test
positive are counted only once —
including people who are deemed a
presumptive case and then later test
positive.
“We take that very seriously and
RESERVOIR
Volume of Phillips
Reservoir, measured in
acre-feet. The reservoir
is at full pool at 73,500
acre-feet:
• APR. 15: 16,342
• APR. 20: 16,510
• APR. 25: 16,611
• APR. 30: 16,342
• MAY 5: 16,403
• MAY 10: 15,190
Source: Bureau of Reclamation
On April 7, Baker County
Commissioners approved a
drought emergency declara-
tion and sought state and
federal aid for the county.
early on, I started keeping track be-
cause I wanted to know,” Staten said.
Councilor Joanna Dixon posed
a situation of a person who tests
positive the fi rst week of a month
and then returns the fourth week of
the same month and tests positive
again.
“It’s counted once,” Staten said.
If the same person tests positive
twice, but with more than 90 days
between positive tests, both would
count as a case. She said the county
has had only a few such instances.
Dixon also asked about situations
in which a person tests positive after
being vaccinated, what’s known as
a “breakthrough” case if the positive
test happens more than two weeks
after a person has been fully vac-
cinated.
“We’ve had a few,” Staten said.
According to OHA data, as of May
3 there had been 17 breakthrough
cases in a region that includes Baker,
Morrow, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa
and Malheur counties.
Perry asked Staten why, when
Perry was vaccinated, there were no
COVID-19 tests offered.
Staten said a team of state of-
fi cials did offer testing at three of the
vaccination clinics the county had at
Baker High School.
Legislature approves bill extending grace period for past-due rent
not forgive any rent, and it
requires renters to be current
Gov. Kate Brown’s signa-
on payments after July 1. But
ture awaits a bill that gives
it would extend until Feb. 28,
tenants more time to pay
2022, a moratorium on evic-
past-due rent stemming from tions for nonpayment of rent
the coronavirus pandemic
during the pandemic.
and protects their future abil-
“This is a huge weight off
ity to rent.
my shoulders and will give
The Oregon House sent
me or my landlord enough
Senate Bill 282 to the
time to apply for rental as-
governor on a 39-17 vote on
sistance to cover the back
Tuesday, May 11.
rent,” Morgan-Platt said in
Tosha Morgan-Platt — who a statement furnished by
lives in Portland with three
Stable Homes for Oregon
children, one of them with
Families. “There are so many
disabilities — was among
Oregonians in similar situa-
the tenants who submitted
tions who lost jobs or income
testimony in favor of the
during COVID through no
bill. She lost her job during
fault of our own and are still
the economic downturn that struggling to catch up. As
resulted from the pandemic
Oregon continues to face a
more than a year ago, and
statewide housing crisis and
subsequent work has not
our communities are suf-
helped her earn enough to
fering, SB 282 is going to be
eliminate $3,000 in past-due a lifeline to protect us from
rent.
eviction.”
The bill allows Morgan-
Rep. Julie Fahey, a Demo-
Platt and others an extended crat from Eugene and chair-
grace period until Feb. 28,
woman of the House Commit-
2022 — instead of June 30
tee on Housing, said the bill
— to pay past-due rent going banks on millions coming in
back to April 1, 2020. It does state and federal aid to ten-
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
ants and landlords.
“It is a reasonable compro-
mise bill that sets the stage
for a more equitable recov-
ery,” Fahey, the bill’s fl oor
manager and chief sponsor
in the House, said. “By pass-
ing this bill, we can ensure
that Oregon tenants and
landlords can get the full
benefi t of rental assistance
coming to our state and help
prevent the fallout from the
pandemic following the most
vulnerable Oregonians for
years to come.”
A Dec. 21 special session
of the Legislature extended
the evictions moratorium
from Dec. 30 to June 30,
and also set aside a total of
$200 million for assistance
— $150 million for landlords
and $50 million for tenants.
The Oregon Department of
Housing and Community
Services reported to the
House committee on May 4
that $40 million was paid
from the landlord compensa-
tion fund in the fi rst round
in March.
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