BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2022 A3
LOCAL
Quiet
wrote that, based on comments needed to be on the ballot in
he and other promoters have
the very beginning as well,” Sells
Continued from A1
heard from residents
said. “I stated this in
over the past three
the last discussion. As
The City Council most re-
years, he believes train
I learned more about
cently discussed the quiet zone whistles “are a relent-
the group who is put-
issue in October 2021, when it
less insult to their qual-
ting the funds together,
was still a six-member group.
ity of life, sleep, and
I don’t feel that that
During the Oct. 12 meeting,
health ... and/or the
needs to be on a ballot
councilors deadlocked twice on horns impact their kids
because it’s no taxpayer
3-3 votes.
at South Baker School.”
dollars. If there was
McQuisten
The first motion was to put
taxpayer money, abso-
the quiet zone matter on the
Cost questions and
lutely, that’s something
May 2022 primary election bal- citizen opposition
everyone needs to have
lot, letting city voters decide
Dixon, who opposes
a voice in.”
whether the city should pursue the quiet zone, cited
Dixon countered that
the designation. Mayor Kerry
costs.
she was elected to rep-
McQuisten and Councilors
“We’ve got issues with
resent all city residents,
Johnny Waggoner Sr. and Jo-
the staffing on our po-
not just what she called
anna Dixon voted in favor.
lice department, we’ve
special interests. She ad-
Alderson
Councilors Shane Alderson,
got issues on our fire
vocated for letting vot-
Jason Spriet and Heather Sells
department, public works, there ers decide whether to pursue a
voted against the motion.
are other areas that our funds
quiet zone.
The second motion was sim- need to be going to,” Dixon said.
McQuisten, citing Facebook
ilar to what Guyer proposed on
However, a citizens group
polls she has done as well as
Tuesday, Jan. 25 — to have the
has offered to raise the esti-
personal conversations, said
city make a formal application
mated $150,000 to upgrade five 85% of the respondents are urg-
with the Federal Railroad Ad-
crossings in the city to make it ing her to oppose a quiet zone.
ministration for a quiet zone
more difficult for vehicles to
She said 416 people who re-
designation.
reach the tracks when a train is sponded to the polls oppose a
The vote on the motion was
passing.
quiet zone, while 44 supported
divided the same way. This time
The proposal from Guyer
it so long as there are no costs
the trio of Alderson, Spriet and that passed by the 4-3 vote on
to the city.
Sells was in favor, and the three- Tuesday states that the city
“I presented these numbers
some of McQuisten, Waggoner would install those safety mea- last time and they were ignored
and Dixon was opposed.
sures “when sufficient external mostly by council because of
Peter Fargo, a Baker City res- funds are available to improve
where they came from — per-
ident who has been promoting
each crossing.”
sonal contact one-on-one with
the quiet zone for about three
The proposal states that city
me or Facebook polls, which
years, wrote in an email to
administrators can “spend the
are completely valid,” McQuis-
the Herald, in response to the
time necessary to support the
ten said.
Council’s vote:
Quiet Zone as part of their City
She said she believes council-
“The railroad quiet zone
work, understanding that their ors can’t ignore such input from
will improve the safety of our
time is already budgeted and
citizens even if people with a
kids and community. On Tues- need not draw on externally
different viewpoint are passion-
day night, the City Council af-
raised funds.”
ate in supporting the quiet zone.
firmed that safety comes first.
Sells, who voted in favor of
“I’m not for or against, hon-
the quiet zone plan, said that
We are grateful for their deci-
estly,” McQuisten said. “I will
based on information the citi-
sion and look forward to shar-
support the will of the people
zens group has provided, and
ing more information about
and if we put this on the bal-
how Baker City’s quiet zone will the experience of other cit-
lot and the majority say ‘yeah,
benefit everyone’s safety, health, ies, including La Grande, she’s
we want a quiet zone,’ OK, let’s
and/or economic opportunity.” convinced that the quiet zone
roll with it. So far I’m not get-
ting that. That’s why I’m against
In a letter he sent to council- would benefit Baker City.
“I personally felt like this
pushing this through.”
ors prior to the meeting, Fargo
Watershed
Continued from A1
In the late 1990s the Wal-
lowa-Whitman spent more
than $2.2 million to cut trees
and light prescribed fires to
create fuelbreaks on the fringes
of the watershed. Most of the
work was on the south end and
along the road under which is
buried the city’s water pipeline,
with a goal of giving fire crews
a place to head off a blaze mov-
ing toward the watershed.
The project the Wal-
lowa-Whitman is working on
now would expand on those ef-
forts, Cikanek said.
He hopes to distribute to
the public what’s known as a
“scoping letter” by the end of
February.
That letter in effect intro-
duces the watershed project
and gives its basic outline.
Cikanek said the field stud-
ies for the project have been
done, and the next major step
for the Wallowa-Whitman
is to write an environmental
assessment, a document that
examines the project in detail
and studies its potential envi-
ronmental effects.
A 1969 federal law, the Na-
tional Environmental Policy
Act, requires federal agencies
to conduct such environmen-
tal studies.
Cikanek said his goal is to
finish the environmental as-
sessment for the watershed
project in early 2023. Once
Wallowa-Whitman officials
have approved that, work
could get started, barring legal
challenges.
Work outside the watershed,
and inside
The project calls for some
type of work, whether cutting
trees or prescribed burning, on
about 22,600 acres.
Most of the commercial
logging would happen outside
the watershed, on its fringes
on the south and east sides,
including below the pipeline
road, which forms the eastern
boundary of the watershed,
Cikanek said. The other ma-
jor tactic is lighting prescribed
fires to reduce fuel loads on
the ground. This includes ar-
eas that were thinned and
burned about 20 years ago
— what’s known as “mainte-
nance” work, Cikanek said.
“What we’re trying to do is
create defensible zones between
likely sources of ignition and
the watershed itself,” he said in
a 2021 interview.
Although lightning has
sparked several fires inside
the watershed over the past
25 years or so, firefighters
have quickly doused all of
those blazes.
In August 2019 lightning
from a single storm started
three fires in the watershed,
the largest of which burned
about 3 acres.
That’s in part because
smoke wafting out of the wa-
tershed is readily visible from
most of Baker Valley, and
in part because fire crews
can reach the area relatively
quickly, Cikanek said.
“Detection up there is pretty
good,” he said.
He said the Wallowa-Whit-
man strives to have a heavy
helicopter stationed at either
the Baker City or La Grande
airport when the fire danger is
high. A helicopter from Baker
City potentially can be drop-
ping water on a fire in the wa-
tershed less than 10 minutes
after taking off.
Although the fuel load is
high in parts of the watershed
— a function of the many de-
cades that have passed since
the last major blaze — Cikanek
said he worries more about a
fire starting outside the water-
shed and then pushing into the
10,000-acre area.
“A fire moving into the wa-
tershed likely is going to carry
more energy,” he said, com-
pared with, say, a lightning
bolt that starts a blaze high in
the watershed, where the for-
est is more sparse and inter-
spersed with rocky outcrops
and alpine meadows.
That said, the risk of a fire
starting inside the watershed
and growing rapidly absolutely
exists, Cikanek said.
To deal with that danger, the
project also proposes work in-
side the watershed. The focus,
he said, would be on creating
fuelbreaks on ridgelines be-
tween the major streams such
as Salmon, Marble and Mill
creeks. The idea is to thin the
forest and light prescribed fires
late in the season when the risk
of fire is “basically zero.”
The one area where more
intensive thinning, including
commercial logging, could
happen is along the Marble
Creek Pass road, since that
area, unlike most of the rest of
the watershed, is accessible to
motor vehicles.
The overriding goal of
work inside the watershed,
Cikanek said, is to create a
series of interconnected fu-
elbreaks where firefighters
could potentially stop a blaze
and minimize the number of
streams or springs that the
city might have to temporar-
ily stop using for drinking
water in the case of a blaze.
“The way I look at it is try-
ing to give firefighters the saf-
est chance to be successful,”
he said.
Improvements to Marble
Creek Pass Road
Creating a more significant
fuelbreak in the Marble Creek
corridor requires commercial
logging, and that means log
trucks.
But the Marble Creek Pass
road, which more resem-
bles a stream bed in places,
is far from suitable as a
Alderson, who voted in favor
of the quiet zone, said when he
goes to look at the social media
polls, he cannot find them but
instead reads comments arguing
back and forth, including some
calling him and Guyer liars and
accusing them of taking bribes.
“When I ran, I promised
that I would give fair and equal
voice to anybody that would
come talk to me and if you want
to come and talk to me, I will
always be willing to,” Alderson
said. “The quiet zone (support-
ers) were willing to come talk to
me and I heard them out.”
Alderson said 51 businesses
have signed a letter asking the
city to pursue a quiet zone. He
said he received more than 60
emails in the past week, and
more of those are from people
who support the quiet zone.
“The people who are in op-
position of this, need to come
forward with as much effort and
enthusiasm, not a day late and a
dollar short, to do what you are
proposing to do,” Alderson said.
“You’ve had since 2019 to ask
that this be put on the ballot.”
Although the citizens group
has volunteered to raise money
for the crossing upgrades, res-
idents have raised the question
of ongoing maintenance.
Common improvements
needed to qualify for a quiet
zone include building con-
crete medians that block vehi-
cles from reaching the railroad
tracks when a train is passing
and the crossing arms are down.
Spriet, who voted in favor of
pursuing a quiet zone, asked
Michelle Owen, the city’s public
works director, about long-term
maintenance costs.
Owen said the most common
maintenance task could be re-
placing reflectors on arms and
other items at crossings.
“I would guess $500 a year to
maintain those,” Owen said.
Arrest
Continued from A1
Anders was arrested about 10:41 a.m. on Tuesday,
Jan. 25, following a brief pursuit by police in the Hun-
tington area about 45 miles southeast of Baker City.
According to Oregon State Police, officers, who
had been alerted that Anders was a suspect in the
Baker City incident, saw him driving a silver Dodge
Avenger near Huntington.
During the ensuing chase, Anders drove head-on
toward an unmarked OSP detective’s vehicle, nearly
causing a collision, according to OSP.
The pursuit ended when Anders drove over a
spike strip and an OSP patrol car forced his car off
the road on Old Highway 30 near Farewell Bend.
OSP was assisted by the Baker County Sheriff’s
Office, Baker City Police Department, Ontario Police
Department and Malheur County Sheriff’s Office.
Anders, who was convicted in 2013 of first-de-
gree burglary and is on probation for that felony
conviction, is also charged with being a felon in
possession of a firearm, a Class C felony. Other
charges include pointing a firearm at another per-
son, an unclassified misdemeanor; coercion, a Class
C felony; and menacing constituting domestic vi-
olence and second-degree criminal mischief, both
Class A misdemeanors.
The incident happened Sunday evening, Jan. 23.
According to records from the Baker County
District Attorney’s office, Anders allegedly broke
into a home and pointed a gun at a woman with
whom he had a previous relationship. A 10-year-old
was in the home at the time and witnessed part of
the episode.
Anders then left the home but later sent threat-
ening text messages to the woman, according to
court records.
In addition to the charges from the Jan. 23 inci-
dent in Baker City, Anders was cited to appear in
Malheur County on charges of driving under the
influence of intoxicants, eluding in a motor vehi-
cle, reckless driving, reckless endangerment and
unlawful possession of methamphetamine, ac-
cording to OSP.
Anders pleaded guilty to harassment on Feb.
11, 2021, in Baker County Circuit Court for an
incident on Jan. 10, 2021, in Baker City. He also
pleaded guilty on on March 3, 2021, to resisting
arrest, a Class A misdemeanor, for an incident on
Feb. 17, 2021.
On June 10, 2021, Judge Robert Raschio ex-
tended Anders’ probation for 18 months, to Dec.
9, 2022.
Limestone Led To Road
The Marble Creek Pass road was built as a haul route for trucks
carrying limestone from a quarry at Baboon Creek, on the west
(Sumpter) side of the pass, to a lime-processing plant in Baker Valley
near the intersection of Wingville Road and Highway 30, about five
miles north of Baker City. There were two such quarries, the other
being on the Baker side of the Elkhorns, along Marble Creek, hence
the name of the pass.
The two quarries, owned by the Chemical Lime Co., produced
an estimated $8 million in chemical-grade lime between 1957 and
1971, according to a 1989 report, “Limestone Deposits in Oregon,”
from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.
The Marble Creek quarry was the first to be mined. It closed in 1963
in part because the limestone deposit was cut by a different type of
rock. Chemical Lime then opened the Baboon Creek quarry, which
operated from 1963 until 1971, when both the quarry and the pro-
cessing plant closed. Lower-grade lime from the processing plant is
still piled at the site; the bright-white mounds are conspicuous even
from the top of Elkhorn Peak, more than 5,500 feet above.
Both quarries tapped deposits of limestone formed from the re-
mains of billions of shellfish that hardened into calcium carbonate
at the bottom of a tropical sea about 250 million years ago. The de-
posits are the biggest in the Elkhorns but only of moderate size for
Northeastern Oregon. There are massive outcroppings of limestone
in parts of the Wallowa Mountains, including the imposing west face
of the Matterhorn, and along the Burnt River, where Ash Grove Ce-
ment Co. mines limestone to produce portland cement near Durkee.
The name “Marble” for the creek and the pass refer to the metamor-
phic form of limestone. Marble is created when limestone, a sedimen-
tary rock, is subject to heat or pressure, or sometimes both, over millions
of years. Some of the rock in the Marble Creek area isn’t a true marble,
but rather a sort of intermediate stage between limestone and marble.
Mike Upmeyer of Baker City, who died in 2010, told the Herald
in 1995 that he drove limestone-laden trucks over the pass in 1970
and 1971. “We just locked up the trailer and let it slide,” he said, re-
ferring to places where the grade reaches 15 percent, more than
twice as steep as Ladd Canyon on Interstate 84. One driver was
killed in October 1968 when his truck plunged off the road.
log-hauling route, Cikanek
said. The road is accessible
to high-clearance four-wheel
drive vehicles and ATVs.
The condition of the
road prompted the Wal-
lowa-Whitman to apply for
almost $1.3 million in For-
Jay & Kristin Wilson, Owners
2036 Main Street, Baker City
541-523-6284 • ccb#219615
Celebration
of Life
Mary Jean
Henry
October 30, 1936 - January 1, 2022
Quail Ridge Golf Course, Baker City OR
Sunday, January 30, 2022 ~ 12:00 p.m.
Please join us to share memories,
stories and lunch.
Baker City Public Works/Contributed Photo
One of the intakes in the Baker City watershed where water is diverted
into the city’s supply pipeline.
est Service capital improve-
ment money to rebuild about
6 miles of the road, creating
a 21-foot-wide route with a
fresh layer of gravel.
Cikanek said the Wal-
lowa-Whitman will receive
the money for road improve-
ments once it approves the
watershed project.
Besides making it feasible
to haul logs from the Mar-
ble Creek corridor, the road
project will make it easier for
hikers, mountain bikers and
other recreationists to reach
Marble Creek Pass from the
east (Baker Valley) side of the
Elkhorns.
(The road continues west
into Sumpter Valley, but that
section, which is steep and
rough but in somewhat bet-
ter shape, isn’t slated for im-
provements.)
Marble Creek Pass, eleva-
tion 7,542 feet, is the south-
ern trailhead for the Elkhorn
Crest National Recreation
Trail, the 23-mile route that
follows the Elkhorns north to
Anthony Lakes.
Dwight E. Brooks
October 25, 1929 - January 17, 2022
Dwight Brooks, 92, of
Union, Oregon, died Monday,
Jan. 17, 2022, in the comfort of
his home. Friends are invited to
join the family for a graveside
service at the Union Cemetery
at 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 28,
2022.
Dwight Elbert Brooks was
born on Oct. 25, 1929, in Half-
way, Oregon. He was raised and
educated in Richland, graduat-
ing from Eagle Valley High School in 1947. He mar-
ried schoolmate Lorraine Thompson of Richland and
together they had three children.
Dwight met Donna Van Housen while working at
Ronde Valley Lumber Company. They were married in
Union, Oregon, at Donna’s folks’ house on March 10,
1967.
Dwight spent his career working in the lumber indus-
try. He worked at the Melvin Hess Sawmill in Richland,
Oregon, Louisiana Pacific Lumber in Rexburg, Idaho,
and Linton Plywood in Portland, Oregon. And 27 years
at Ronde Valley Lumber in Union as a head sawyer.
Dwight loved horseback riding, camping and golf-
ing. He enjoyed the seasons of summer and fall and
anything Western-themed. When asked about mem-
orable times in his life, Dwight replied, “Raising my
children and living with my wife. Donna made me hap-
py.” Dwight will be remembered for not being afraid
to work, helping others and his discipline to get things
done.
He was preceded in death by his daughter, Debbie
Fifer; parents, Paul and Olga Brooks; brothers, Stanley
and Charles Brooks; and son-in-law, Jim Collier.
Dwight is survived by his wife, Donna Brooks of
55 years; sons, Larry (Prinipa) Brooks, Bart (Karen)
Mitchell and Dalton (Yulia) Brooks; daughters, Tanya
Collier and significant other Gary Moe, and Sharon
(Field) Paine; 20 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchil-
dren; and his faithful cat, “The cat with no name.”
For those who would like to make a memorial do-
nation in memory of Dwight, the family suggests the
Union Ambulance Service or the charity of your choice
through Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home and Crema-
tion Services, PO Box 543, Halfway, OR 97834. Online
condolences can be shared at www.tamispinevalleyfu-
neralhome.com.