BUSINESS & AG LIFE
B2 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2021
Return from remote work provides energy-saving opportunities
By JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Herald
HERMISTON — As
businesses reopen, extend
their hours or bring workers
back to the offi ce for the
fi rst time since the pan-
demic began, Energy Trust
of Oregon is reminding
them it is a good opportu-
nity to examine their energy
usage.
“Smaller changes that
wouldn’t be noticeable to
employees working in the
space or customers can
make a big diff erence,” said
Susan Jowaiszas, marketing
lead for Energy Trust of
Oregon.
She said businesses can
think about how they’re
using their buildings, and
pull back on heating or
cooling areas that aren’t
being used, for example.
That practice has been
a focus for Blue Mountain
Community College.
BEES
Continued from Page B1
kind of motivated me to get
started,” Barnes explained.
“And it was purely a hobby.
I only extracted enough
honey for our own use.”
After 10 years in Wash-
ington working as an open
channel hydraulic engi-
neer, Barnes grew tired
of the growing popula-
tion and wanted to move
to somewhere she could
ride her horses. While vis-
iting Oregon, she stopped in
La Grande and noticed its
resemblance to her home-
town in Colorado, which
inspired her to move to the
area.
When she moved to La
Grande and began a job as
a hydraulics engineer for
the Oregon Department
of Transportation, Barnes
signed up for the Oregon
Master Beekeeper Program
at Oregon State University,
and she never looked back.
“That program really
RANCH
Continued from Page B1
“Now, six years later,
they’re gathering them
again,” she says, though
she’s unsure of the herd’s
current numbers.
“There are a lot of horse
advocates out there for the
wild mustangs, too, who
say, ‘Hey, this is an Amer-
ican heritage, a living
symbol of the historic and
pioneer spirit of the West.’
But you really have to look
at it as overpopulation,”
she says. “It’s just like
with people. You have to
manage it somehow or it’s
just going to get out of con-
trol. I don’t want to say I
believe in slaughter, but …”
Dawn said she’s aware
of three horse slaughter-
houses in Canada and fi ve
in Mexico. The last three
in the U.S. closed in 2007
under pressure from ani-
mal-rights groups. But was
that the best solution?
“Even the loving horses
that you’ve raised from
birth, people will take
quarter horses … and,
unfortunately, there’s a
bad rap going on for the
(BLM’s Adoption Incentive
Program) right now,” Dawn
says.
Taming friends
Dawn spends hours each
day working with her mus-
tangs learning the idiosyn-
crasies of each.
“I troubleshoot what
each horse will let you do,”
she says.
The fi rst diffi cult chore,
once a mustang has been
brought to where it will be
trained, is to get a halter
on it. Keeping the bridle
on can be a chore, too.
One mare, CoCo, was an
example.
“She’s still learning that
touches aren’t going to hurt
her and what is OK and
what isn’t OK,” Dawn says.
“She lost her halter the
other day and it took my
husband about 10 minutes
to get it back on.”
She has to fi nd ways to
gradually get horses used
to being touched.
Dwayne Williams, facili-
ties director for BMCC, said
his department has asked all
staff to provide a schedule
of when they will be in their
offi ces or classrooms so
that they can plan heating,
cooling and lighting accord-
ingly. If no one is going to
be in a certain room or sec-
tion of the building, the
temperature will be allowed
to drop or climb, depending
on the season.
“We’re doing out best to
try and conserve as much
energy as we can while still
keeping everyone comfort-
able,” he said.
The HVAC systems
across BMCC’s campuses
can be controlled remotely
from Pendleton, as can
much of the lighting, which
is also attached to motion
sensors.
The college is part of
Energy Trust of Oregon’s
Strategic Energy Man-
kicked me into expanding
into more than just a couple
of hives,” Barnes recalled.
“I learned a bunch, and
when I decided to leave
work a little early, I got
more into it and then I did
some traveling to Slovenia
for a beekeeping excursion.”
According to Barnes, the
trip to Slovenia completely
changed the way she viewed
beekeeping. While there,
she toured local beekeepers’
operations and saw them in
practice.
“I came back from Slo-
venia really inspired,” she
said. “The beekeepers there
are phenomenal, and they
might be small, but their
hearts are really in it.”
Now, two years after that
trip, Barnes has expanded
Circle A Bees to 12 bee-
hives, each of which starts
with one queen bee and
nearly 25,000 worker bees.
She said that the Farm-
2Food accelerator program
has given her new ideas
for expanding her business
and working with other
“When people try to
put a bridle on a horse, the
horse is like, ‘Don’t touch
me.’ They’re very sensitive
up here,” she says, touching
CoCo’s head.
Dawn is still trying to
get her wildest mustang to
relax around her. Girlfriend
was only two weeks out of
the wild.
“It took me about a week
to be able to touch her,”
Dawn says.
She often uses a long
stick with a string on it
much like is used to direct
show hogs. It gets the mus-
tang used to being touched.
“She’s the wildest,”
Dawn says. “She’s the most
apprehensive about being
touched.”
She coos and talks
to to Girlfriend, allows
Girlfriend to get used to
Dawn’s smell to get Girl-
friend used to her and calm
down.
“This is just basically
teaching her that I’m not
going to kill her,” she says.
“When they realize that I’m
not going to kill them, they
really start settling down.”
Preparing for
adoption
Under the BLM’s Adop-
tion Incentive Program, the
horses remain government
property and an adopter
signs a one-year contract to
ensure they properly care
for the horse. Adopters
must show they have suffi -
cient feed, water, pasture, a
trailer and can pay veteri-
narian expenses.
Under the program, an
adopter pays $25 for the
recently captured mustang
and in about two months,
receives from the govern-
ment $500 to help cover
agement program, which
provides a free year-long
training and cash incen-
tives for businesses and
other organizations looking
to save money on energy.
Williams said BMCC has
saved thousands of dol-
lars through simple man-
agement practices, and
been able to funnel that
money back into things
like new equipment for
groundskeeping staff .
In 2019 they had a
contest between build-
ings owned by the col-
lege. The building that
saw the most energy sav-
ings over the course of a
month got $1,000 for staff
in that building to use on
something that would help
them save energy, such
as lap blankets. Williams
said that small activity pro-
vided a good reminder for
people to get in the habit of
thinking about their energy
consumption.
“People would walk by
and turn the lights off if no
one was in the room,” he
said. “We did actually see
some pretty good savings.”
In addition to being stra-
tegic about heating, cooling
and lighting schedules,
Energy Trust of Oregon
recommends businesses
think about the air they’re
using. Jowaiszas said with
the focus on airfl ow in
preventing the spread of
COVID-19, many busi-
nesses are following recom-
mendations to pull in 100%
of the air coming through
the HVAC system from out-
doors instead of recircu-
lating the same air inside
the building.
While that is a good
practice to help pro-
tect people from airborne
viruses, she said, pulling
hot air in from outside takes
more energy to heat, so
businesses keeping their
HVAC system on to some
extent in their off hours
could consider recirculating
air during times no one is in
the building.
Keeping blinds closed
when hot sunlight is
pouring in during the
summer and opening them
to let sunshine in during the
winter can also help, she
said. So can keeping ther-
mostats at a more moderate
level, sealing up cracks with
caulk and using weather-
stripping under doors.
If a business is opening
up their building after a
long period of employees
working from home, she
said, they should be espe-
cially careful to check that
fi lters, heat pumps, vents
and other parts of their
HVAC systems are clean.
“It’s not uncommon
to fi nd birds’ nests, rac-
coon leavings, beehives,
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Caroline Barnes inspects a hive as worker bees scatter across the honeycomb on Tuesday, June 22,
2021. This hive, according to the La Grande beekeeper, is missing its queen as evidenced by the lack
of larvae cells.
beekeepers.
“Small beekeepers aren’t
making any money because
the prices don’t refl ect the
amount of work that goes
into it,” Barnes said. “I get
excited about other bee-
keepers on a similar scale,
and I’d like to explore cre-
ating a co-op for beekeepers
that are producing honey
and not selling to large
corporations.”
However, Barnes has
learned that running your
and things like that inside,
which can hinder airfl ow,”
she said.
When it comes to equip-
ment, starting up large
items on a staggered time-
table instead of all at once
can help prevent a surge to
the system. Jowaiszas rec-
ommend people also do
their research on energy rat-
ings and available incen-
tives when purchasing new
appliances or other equip-
ment for their business.
“When people are
looking at purchasing
equipment, they need to
look at not just what the
equipment costs upfront but
also what it will cost to run
over time,” she said.
The cheapest energy is
the energy we as a society
never have to produce,
she said, so Energy Trust
of Oregon is here to help
people save as much power
as they want to.
own beekeeping busi-
ness is no easy task. Every
spring, she works to replace
queens, clean out hives,
move the hives to diff erent
locations, and then work to
feed them. For most of the
summer, she performs reg-
ular inspections to ensure
the bees are being fed and
producing the honey.
In the fall, she extracts
and packages the honey.
She works mainly by
herself, though she hopes
to hire someone long-term
next year.
But to Barnes, bee-
keeping isn’t about money
— it’s about the integrity of
her product and of the pro-
cess behind it.
“I don’t envision making
much money off of it,”
she said. “It’s all about
respecting the environment,
trying to reduce impacts
and supporting good prac-
tices. Beekeeping is a life-
time experience of learning.
The more you know, the
more you realize you
don’t know.”
The Observer, File
Firefi ghters with the Oregon Department of Forestry training in June
2017. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden says he is awaiting an announcement by
President Biden’s administration about a mobilization plan for fi re-
fi ghters and equipment for widespread forest fi res in the West.
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Dawn Medley stands with 5-year-old Mouse, one of her tamer
gelding mustangs Thursday, June 10, 2021, at her Medley’s Mus-
tangs, the ranch she operates in the Imnaha Canyon with husband
Eddy Medley.
costs of training. Dawn
says about two months
prior to the conclusion of
the contract, the govern-
ment gives another $500.
“It’s an incentive to get
more people to adopt more
mustangs that are com-
pletely wild,” she says.
“The government would
really like you to take that
$500 and send that horse
to a trainer rather than just
spend it — put it toward the
animal instead of toward
your personal gain.”
She charges $125 for
a horse that goes to an
adopter.
“It may be the most-ex-
pensive $125 you spend,
but I’ve got three and I will
never go back to domestic,”
she says.
Home on the range
The Medleys love what
they do and where they
do it. Their ranch is about
5 miles downriver from
Imnaha and the 18 acres
have hardly a fl at spot
among them.
“It’s almost all vertical,”
Now Open for Dine In
Eddy says.
He’s the one who did the
lion’s share of building the
ranch before he came down
with a disability.
They have a garden and
a wide variety of fruit trees.
They also have a boar, a
sow and a litter of piglets,
along with chickens and
dogs.
Dawn’s two older kids
from her fi rst marriage are
grown and gone, but her
daughter recently made
Dawn a grandmother. The
two younger kids, ages 6
and 9, help on the ranch and
attend school in Imnaha.
But in the three years
they’ve been training and
taming mustangs, the Med-
leys seem to have found
their calling.
“We have a motto: To
get as many wild-to-mild
mustangs out of the cor-
rals and fi nd the loving
adoptable homes,” Dawn
says. “Also, to watch some-
thing so majestic and ‘wild’
become your partner and
become one with them” she
fi nds fulfi lling.
FIRES
Continued from Page B1
order to deal with this grave
threat,” he said.
In Oregon, that responsi-
bility is divided among fi re
protection districts, Oregon
Department of Forestry —
which also contracts to pro-
test western Oregon for-
ests overseen by the Bureau
of Land Management —
and the Forest Service for
national forests.
Wyden said Congress
should increase the amount
of money available for the
Forest Service to reduce
hazardous-fuel buildups
in national forests. Oregon
itself has about 2 million
acres eligible for treatment.
Wyden said Forest Service
chief Christiansen estimates
it will take $20 billion to
eliminate the backlog.
Wyden also is pro-
moting the creation of a
21st century equivalent of
the Civilian Conservation
Corps, the New Deal-era
agency that put primarily
young and unmarried men
to work in the nation’s for-
ests between 1933 and 1942.
Silver Falls State Park,
east of Salem, is one of the
CCC’s legacies in Oregon.
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