OUTDOORS B1
SPORTS A5
Assessing the danger of avalanches
Baker wrestlers dominate Tigers, 49-18
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • OUTDOORS & REC • SPORTS
QUICK HITS
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Gary
Smith of Baker City.
BRIEFING
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Local students earn
academic honors
at Gonzaga
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
FIRED UP ABOUT
A BUILDING
The Baker City Planning
Commission will have a
public hearing on Feb. 16, to
discuss proposed revisions
to the city’s comprehensive
plan related to the North-
ern Baker Transportation
Improvement Plan. That plan
covers proposed changes to
Cedar Street, Hughes Lane,
10th Street and Pocahontas
Road. The public hearing is
scheduled for 6 p.m. at City
Hall, 1655 First St. Materials
that will be used in the hear-
ing will be available by Feb.
9 at the Courthouse, 1995
Third St., and copies can be
emailed for free by emailing
tandrews@bakercounty.org.
WEATHER
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Today
35/15
Mostly sunny
Sunday
35/18
Mostly sunny
Monday
33/16
Mostly sunny
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
Resident
calls on
Nichols to
apologize
Curtis Martin objects
to Nichols’ request for
deputy’s presence
during Feb. 2 meeting
SPOKANE, Wash. — Three
Baker City students earned
academic honors during
the fall 2021 semester at
Gonzaga University.
Jazmine Labonte was
named to the president’s list.
To be eligible, students must
earn a GPA of at least 3.85.
Gabriel Gambleton and
Jacob Jackson were named
to the dean’s list. To be eli-
gible, students must earn a
GPA between 3.5 and 3.84.
Public hearing set
on North Baker
transportation plan
FEBRUARY 5, 2022 • $1.50
BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Sean Lee, chief of the Baker Rural Fire Protection District, is excited about the amount of space inside the District’s new fire
station on 23rd Street in the Elkhorn View Industrial Park in northwest Baker City.
Baker Rural
Fire Protection
District excited
about its new
fire station
“This is going to be a huge
recruitment and retention
benefit for us.”
— Sean Lee, chief, Baker Rural Fire
Protection District
ter’s Edge, which manufac- was going to end in sev-
tured fire rescue saws.
eral years on the land that
Sean Lee stands in the
houses the Pocahontas
cavernous space, and all
The district’s history
Station, about two miles
he can think about is fire
Baker Rural Fire Pro-
west of Baker City near
trucks.
tection District formed in Washington Gulch Road.
Specifically, how many
1983. It has three stations
They needed a new lo-
trucks can fit in the new
in Baker Valley: Lind-
cation.
station for the Baker Rural ley Lane, Pine Creek and
“So we started looking,”
Fire Protection District.
Pocahontas Road.
Lee said.
“We could park two
The district owns the
They considered buying
trucks side by side,” says
station on Lindley Lane.
property and building a
Lee, who is chief of both
The other two are on
new station.
Baker Rural and the Baker leased ground.
“We were looking at
City Fire Department.
The fire district covers
millions — probably $3
The bathrooms are a bo- a swath of Baker Valley
million,” Lee said.
nus, too.
from the foot of the Elk-
The district depends on
“We have four bath-
horn Mountains to Sun-
local taxes, which haven’t
rooms,” Lee says.
nyslope Road east of In-
changed since the mid-
None of the three cur-
terstate 84. The district’s
1980s, as well as grants.
rent Baker Rural fire sta-
volunteer firefighters also These funds pay for nec-
tions has plumbing, much assist other rural and city essary equipment, such as
less a bathroom.
fire departments through the $3,500 turnouts that
Thanks to a partnership mutual aid agreements, as must be replaced every 10
with Oregon Trail Electric well as the Bureau of Land years, and truck tires that
Cooperative, Baker Rural Management, U.S. Forest are replaced every seven
has purchased a building
Service, and Oregon De-
years.
on 23rd Street in Baker
partment of Forestry for
During the property
City, in the Elkhorn View wildland blazes.
search, board member
Industrial Park. The prop-
In 2021, Baker Rural
Casey Vanderwiele dis-
erty formerly housed Cut- learned that their lease
covered the Cutter’s Edge
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
building, which would suit
their needs.
“We started scrambling
to find funding sources,”
Lee said. “We had a large
anonymous donor, which
helped greatly.”
The property, which in-
cludes three acres, the build-
ing and all the contents, was
priced at $690,000.
Curtis Martin of North Powder
is asking for an apology from Baker
County Commissioner Bruce Nich-
ols after Nichols requested that a
sheriff ’s deputy at
the Courthouse
be present during
a contentious dis-
cussion between
Martin and the
two other com-
missioners at their
Wednesday, Feb. 2,
Martin
meeting.
Martin chas-
tised commission-
ers for failing to
reject Gov. Kate
Brown’s executive
orders requiring
some employees to
be vaccinated and
Nichols
mandating face
masks in indoor public spaces, in-
cluding the Courthouse.
See, Commissioners/Page A3
OTEC’s involvement
Then word of the project
got back to OTEC.
As a nonprofit coop-
erative, OTEC quali-
fies for the USDA’s Rural
Economic Development
Loan and Grant program
(REDLG), which provides
funding for rural projects
through local utilities.
“They’re really for eco-
nomic development in ru-
ral counties,” said Heidi
Dalton, OTEC’s chief fi-
nancial officer.
In a whirlwind of pa-
perwork, Dalton and Lea
Hoover, OTEC’s director
of administration and stra-
tegic services, submitted
the application.
It offered two options:
a loan and a grant. OTEC
applied for both.
COVID cases
continue
trending
downward
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
New COVID-19 cases in Baker
County are on pace to drop for the
second straight week, following five
consecutive weekly increases.
For the first five days of the Jan.
30-Feb. 5 measuring week, the
county reported 96 cases.
That compares with 134 cases in
the first five days of the previous week,
which ended up with a total of 165.
See, Station/Page A3
See, COVID/Page A3
County to pay fine for asbestos violation
Agreement
reduces fine
from $7,400
to $1,480
BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER
AND JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
Baker County is not con-
testing a state finding that
county workers failed to do
an asbestos survey before de-
molishing a mobile home in
Halfway in December 2020
and then disposed of material
containing asbestos in an un-
licensed pit.
The county has agreed to
a settlement with the Ore-
gon Department of Environ-
mental Quality (DEQ) that
reduces the fine for the viola-
tion from $7,400 to $1,480.
In exchange, the county
has agreed to spend the dif-
ference — $5,920 — on lo-
cal projects, what DEQ calls
“Supplemental Environmen-
tal Projects.”
TODAY
Issue 113
12 pages
DEQ sometimes agrees to
such projects so that money
that would otherwise be paid
in fines to the agency instead
is used for work that benefits
the local environment.
The county will use the
money to help clean up pri-
vate property whose owners
have violated or are suspected
of violating the county’s nui-
sance ordinance, said Laura
Gleim, public affairs special-
ist for DEQ’s Eastern Region.
If the county fails to submit
required documentation by
Dec. 31, 2022, for how it used
the $5,920, the county would
have to pay that amount by
Jan. 15, 2023.
However, Kim Mosier,
the county’s attorney,
told county commission-
ers during their meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 2, that if
the Supplemental Environ-
mental Projects don’t hap-
pen this year because, for
instance, the property own-
ers choose not to participate,
DEQ will allow the city to
propose other projects in
lieu of paying the $5,920.
Classified ................B3 & B4
Comics ..............................B5
Community News.............A3
Commission Chairman
Bill Harvey signed the agree-
ment with DEQ.
The DEQ initially notified
the county of the violation in
a Nov. 24 letter to Mosier.
Kieran O’Donnell, the
DEQ’s office of compliance
and enforcement manager,
wrote in the letter that the
violations happened in De-
cember 2020 when county
workers, using heavy equip-
ment, dismantled the 1970s
mobile home at 267 W.
Church St. in Halfway.
The home’s wallboard ma-
terial was 60% chrysotile as-
bestos, according to O’Don-
nell’s letter.
The county disposed of
that material, as well as fiber-
glass insulation and treated
and painted wood, in an
open pit on Orr Road near
Halfway, where the materi-
als were burned, according to
the letter.
Oregon law prohibits those
materials from being burned.
Asbestos, a known carcino-
gen, was used in many build-
ing materials in past decades.
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B6
Horoscope ..............B3 & B4
The debris remained in the
pit until May 2021, when the
county “properly packaged
and disposed of the material
as asbestos-containing waste
material,” O’Donnell wrote.
Gleim, the DEQ public af-
fairs specialist, wrote in an
email to the Baker City Herald
in November that the agency
learned about the incident
several months after the dem-
olition when “a county em-
ployee contacted DEQ to ask
if they should have followed
asbestos rules. The answer is
yes. The county then hired an
asbestos contractor to survey
and properly dispose of the
remaining ash and debris.”
In addition to the county’s
fine, the DEQ has notified
Rodney Tarter, who owns
the property where the mate-
rial was disposed of, that the
agency is fining him $3,300
for maintaining an illegal
solid waste disposal site.
According to DEQ docu-
ments, on April 19, 2021, an
accredited inspector collected
samples from the material in
the pit on Tarter’s property.
Letters ...............................A4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
Obituaries .........................A3
Opinion .............................A4
Outdoors .................B1 & B2
A subsequent analysis
showed the 60% chrysotile
asbestos concentration in the
wallboard.
On May 5, 2021, a licensed
asbestos abatement contrac-
tor removed about 10 cubic
yards of material from the pit
and disposed of it.
The original $7,400 pen-
alty includes three separate
violations:
• $3,200 for failing to have
an accredited inspector ex-
amine the mobile home be-
fore demolition.
• $2,400 for performing an
asbestos abatement project
(the demolition qualifies as
such) without a license.
• $1,800 for disposing of ma-
terial in a non-permitted site.
In her email to the Her-
ald, Gleim wrote: “DEQ un-
derstands the county’s goal
in demolishing the mobile
home was to eliminate the
safety hazards it posed to the
public. But in doing so, the
county put the public, as well
as its employees, at risk of ex-
posure to asbestos and other
harmful chemicals.”
Sports ...............................A5
Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B6