TUESDAY
TRACK EVENTS PLANNED AT BAKER HIGH SCHOOL THIS SUMMER: PG. A6
In HOME, B1
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
July 13, 2021
Local • Home & Living • Sports
IN THIS EDITION:
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Dixie
Amis of Baker City.
BRIEFING
$1.50
Work Continues On Baker City’s Wastewater Lagoon, Pipeline
Baker’s Big Dig
WEATHER
Today
94 / 50
Sunny
Wednesday
97 / 53
Sunny
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
Jubilee
parade
is on
By Joanna Mann
P.E.O. awards fi ve
scholarships
Five local women have
received scholarships from
P.E.O. after being nomi-
nated by the organization’s
Chapter CJ in Baker City.
• Torie Andrews received
a $2,800 Program of
Continuing Education
scholarship to continue
her education in Biblical
Counseling at Calvary
University in Kansas. Her
goal is to work with teens
and support their spiritual
and religious growth.
• Mckenzie Hall received
a $2,250 Marguerite
Scholarship to continue
her education at Eastern
Oregon University, where
she is studying to become
a registered nurse.
• Naomi Potter received
a $1,250 Marguerite Schol-
arship to continue her
education at Blue Moun-
tain Community College,
where she is pursuing a
degree in psychology.
• Savanna Potter
received a $1,250 Oregon
scholarship to continue
her education at Eastern
Oregon University, where
she is pursuing a degree
and hopes to become an
ophthalmologist.
• Keegan Masterson
received a $7,000 Oregon
Cottey scholarship to
continue her education at
Cottey College in Missouri,
where she is studying
international relations.
Appetizers
that outdo
entrees
jmann@bakercityherald.com
The Miners Jubilee pa-
rade will happen after all.
The parade had been
in jeopardy due to a lack
of entries, even though
other Miners Jubilee events
return this weekend after
being canceled in 2020 due
to the pandemic. But a late
fl urry of entries was enough
to justify the parade Satur-
day morning, July 17.
See Parade/Page A5
Anderson-Perry and Associates/Contributed Photo
This view from a drone shows the wastewater lagoon under construction in Baker Valley.
County
vaccine
rate 10th
lowest
in state
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
By Samantha O’Conner
soconner@bakercityherald.com
Work continues on Baker City’s
biggest public works project in
years, a $5.7 million job to build a
new wastewater storage lagoon and
a pipeline between the new and
existing lagoons.
Michelle Owen, the city’s public
works director, expects the project
to be fi nished around May 2022.
The City Council voted in Janu-
ary of this year to hire Gyllenberg
Construction of Baker City, the
lowest among 10 bidders, to do the
work.
In May, councilors approved a
$150,000 addition to the initial
$5.57 million contract due in part to
winter storms that damaged petro-
chemical plants on the Gulf Coast
and increased the cost of pipe.
The construction is the culmina-
tion of a project that’s been on the
city’s agenda for about a decade.
Since the early 1960s the city has
piped its wastewater to a complex of
four lagoons off Imnaha Road about
a mile north of town. The city adds
chlorine to the wastewater to kill
bacteria, then uses sulfur dioxide
into the river because the water
could promote algae blooms and
otherwise pollute the river.
“Baker City Public Works has
At an estimated $5.7 million, it’s
been working on a new method of
one of the bigger public works
disposing our effl uent for a number
projects in Baker City in the past
of years and we fi nally got the go
few decades. The job involves:
ahead to move to a land application
as opposed to depositing our effl u-
• Building a new wastewater
ent into the Powder River,” Owen
storage lagoon on a 51-acre
said,
parcel the city bought in 2019 for
City offi cials considered several
$123,000.
alternatives, including using the
• Building a seven-mile pipeline
treated wastewater to irrigate non-
between the city’s existing
food crops near the current lagoons,
storage lagoons, off Imnaha
but settled on the current plan that
Road about one mile north
includes building a new pipeline
of town, and the new lagoon,
and lagoon. In 2017, the city entered
which is at the northeast
into a Mutual Agreement and Order
corner of Baker Valley, south of
(MAO) with DEQ that required the
Highway 203.
city to pursue a modifi cation to the
wastewater treatment process.
Owen said the new lagoon will in-
to remove the chlorine before the
crease the city’s wastewater storage
wastewater is released into the
capacity, making the city better able
nearby Powder River.
to deal with population growth.
But several years ago the Oregon
The additional storage also will
Department of Environmental
allow the city to hold water when
Quality (DEQ) told city offi cials that there’s no need for irrigation water.
the agency would eventually prohib-
See Big Dig/Page A6
it the city from piping wastewater
The Project
State restrictions
related to the COVID-19
pandemic have ended, and
Baker County’s rate of
new cases has remained
well below a spring peak
during April, but Nancy
Staten is concerned that
the county’s relatively low
vaccination rate makes the
county vulnerable to future
outbreaks.
Staten is
director of the
Baker County
Health De-
partment.
“COVID has
Staten
not left our
community,”
Staten said on July 6. “I
still encourage vaccina-
tion.”
As of July 9, Baker
County’s vaccination rate
— 44.9% of residents 16
and older — ranked as
10th lowest among Or-
egon’s 36 counties.
See Vaccine/Page A5
Honoring a vet
■ Patrick Morrissey recognized for his
service during World War II in Europe
By Samantha O’Conner
soconner@bakercityherald.com
A smile of excitement and joy crossed Patrick Morrissey’s
face as his family gathered at Settler’s Park with him
Thursday afternoon, July 8.
Rick Gloria, Baker County’s Veteran Services Director,
stood in his military uniform and saluted Morrissey for his
service in World War II.
Morrissey, who turned 96 in March, was drafted into the
military in 1943, not long after he had turned 18.
After D-Day, the June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of Nazi-
controlled France, the Army needed tens of thousands of
fresh troops. Morrissey, a private fi rst class, went to France
as a member of the 99th Infantry Division in September
1944.
In December 1944 Morrissey fought in one of the worst
battles of the war, a German counterattack in Belgium
known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
See Honor/Page A3 World War II veteran Patrick Morrissey was honored for his service on Thursday, July 8.
TODAY
Issue 27, 14 pages
Calendar ....................A2
Classified ............. B4-B6
Comics ....................... B7
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B5 & B6
Dear Abby ................. B8
Home ....................B1-B3
Horoscope ........B5 & B6
Letters ........................A4
Lottery Results ..........A2
News of Record ........A2
Obituaries ..................A2
THURSDAY — THE NEWLY EXPANDED, 20-PAGE GO! MAGAZINE
Opinion ......................A4
Sports ........................A6
Weather ..................... B8