BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022 A5
LOCAL, STATE & NATION
Continued from Page A1
A list of the mining
plans covered in a draft
environmental impact
statement released last
week by the Wallowa-
Whitman National Forest:
• AC, placer, 11 acres,
Cracker Creek
• Amigo Mines, placer,
4 acres, Elk Creek
• Anchor 1/Old Crow/
Peerless, placer, 20 acres,
Elk Creek
• Bald Mountain Mine,
lode and ponds, 1 acre,
McCully Creek
• Barbara 1, lode, 2 acres,
Lake Creek
• Blue Jay, placer, 2 acres,
Cracker Creek
• Buster 1, placer, 10 acres,
Blue Canyon
• Buster 3, placer, 2 acres,
Blue Canyon
• California Gulch, 5 acres,
processing with hand tools,
possible suction dredging
• David No. 1, placer,
3.5 acres, Cracker Creek
• Dead Horse, placer, 9 acres,
Buck Gulch
• Fine Gold, 3 acres,
processing in existing pond,
Cracker Creek
• High Bar No. 1, placer,
22 acres, possible suction
dredging, Cracker Creek
• J&J, placer, 1 acres,
Blue Canyon
• Medic, placers, 5 acres,
McCully Creek
• Native Spirit, placer,
3 acres, McCully Creek
• Pardners Group, placer/
lode, 2 acres, Poker Gulch
• Return Placer Group,
placer, 44 acres, Deer Creek
• Salmon Creek, placer,
1 acre
• Slow Poke, placer, 15 acres,
Buck Gulch
• Struggler Lode and French
Gulch, placer/lode, 12.5
acres, French Gulch
• Tough Luck Charley, placer,
11 acres, Bridge Creek west
of Auburn
looked at data from the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agen-
cy’s eGRID, a comprehensive
database that shows the envi-
ronmental characteristics of
nearly all of the nation’s power
plants.
According to the report,
Oregon’s top 10 most cli-
mate-polluting plants in 2020
were responsible for 98.4%
of carbon dioxide equivalent
emissions from the power sec-
tor while generating 32.2% of
total electricity. The total emis-
sions of Oregon’s top 10 power
plants are 9.7 million metric
tons, which is equivalent to 2
million cars on the road for
a year.
While none of Oregon’s
power plants fell in the top
100 dirtiest in the country, this
doesn’t mean the power plants
were in the clear. The top oper-
ating plant, Calpine Corpora-
tion’s Hermiston Power Plant
in Hermiston, produces more
than 1.56 million metric tons
of carbon dioxide emissions.
With coal plants out of the
picture, next up could be nat-
Biden approves raise for federal firefighters
the move announced Tues-
day, June 21 is intended to set
“federal agencies on a path to
continue working with stake-
holders towards an updated,
competitive, and equitable pay
structure, along with a sup-
port system that will address
the many challenges that have
plagued our wildland fire-
fighter workforce for decades.”
The legislation stipulated
that the $600 million in the
infrastructure bill to increase
pay for wildland firefighters
should go to all those fire-
fighters provided that they
are “located within a specified
geographic area in which it is
difficult to recruit or retain a
federal wildland firefighter.”
BY AAMER MADHANI
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Presi-
dent Joe Biden has signed off
on giving federal wildland
firefighters a hefty raise for
the next two fiscal years, a
move that affects more than
16,000 firefighters and comes
as much of the West braces
for a difficult wildfire season.
Pay raises for the federal
firefighters had been included
in last year’s $1 trillion infra-
structure bill, but they had
been held up as Biden admin-
istration officials studied re-
cruitment and retention data
to decide where to deliver
them.
The White House said
The Biden administration
in the end decided on a raise
for all the federal wildland
firefighters over the next two
years, according to a senior
administration official who
spoke on the condition of an-
onymity ahead of the formal
announcement. The official
said the infrastructure bill of-
fered enough money to pro-
vide across-the-board raises
but the administration was
looking to work with Con-
gress to provide a long-term
fix on the firefighters’ pay.
“I will do everything in my
power, including working
with Congress to secure long-
term funding, to make sure
these heroes keep earning the
paychecks — and dignity —
they deserve,” Biden said in a
statement.
The infrastructure law
also authorized agencies to
increase the base salary of
federal wildland firefighters
by $20,000 per year or 50%
of their current base salary,
whichever is lower, through
2023. The firefighters will re-
ceive back pay for the raises,
dating to October 2021.
The National Federation
of Federal Employees union
had been urging the Biden
administration to interpret
the statute as broadly as pos-
sible, as firefighters across the
country were struggling to
make ends meet.
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’S
cies to study the potential en-
vironmental effects of projects
on public land, such as min-
ing or logging, and to give the
public a chance to comment
about such proposals.
The draft EIS and associ-
ated documents, as well as
instructions on commenting,
are available at www.fs.usda.
gov/project/?project=45945.
“We look forward to re-
ceiving public comments and
expect they will help us to en-
hance the draft environmental
impact statement,” said Ken-
dall Cikanek, ranger for the
Whitman District. “After we
finalize the environmental im-
pact statement and publish the
Record of Decision, those who
submitted substantive public
comments will have another
opportunity to engage during
the objection and resolution
process.”
Alexander said she doesn’t
expect any mining will take
place until 2023 at the ear-
liest, since the final EIS and
Record of Decision are still
pending.
Alexander said the claims
involved in the draft EIS have
all been mined in the past,
some dating back more than a
century.
Today’s miners are either
picking through the remnants
left by historic miners, or
looking for deposits on parts
of claims that weren’t mined
before, she said.
“We don’t have those rich
deposits just lying there,” Al-
exander said.
Michael Durham/Contributed Photo, File
Portland General Electric’s Carty Generating Station in Boardman
came in at No. 3 on a list Thursday, June 16, 2022, detailing Oregon’s
top 10 climate-polluting power plants.
ural gas plants. These plants,
mostly operated by Portland
General Electric, also are
changing.
“Our natural gas plants con-
stitute a part of our generation
fleet that is changing, and will
continue to do so,” Allison
Dobscha, a spokesperson for
PGE, said. “These plants will
serve a different purpose in
the future than they do to-
day, serving more as capacity
resources that can provide
flexibility and reliability when
needed.”
The remaining nine plants
on the list use methane gas,
and the proposed shift away
from gas to cleaner energy is
something Meiffren-Swango
is hopeful for.
“This list underscores how
methane is an extremely po-
tent gas,” the Environment
Oregon director said. “We
will figure out better ways to
power our lives before it’s too
late.”
With Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown signing a clean energy
bill that promises 100% re-
newable energy for electric-
ity by 2040, Meiffren-Swang
said she believes that change is
coming, and soon.
N
Locations near Sumpter in-
clude claims along Cracker,
McCully, Deer and Lake
creeks, and Buck Gulch.
Several of the claims are
southwest of Baker City, in-
cluding ones along Blue Can-
yon, French Gulch and Cal-
ifornia Gulch. There is one
proposed mining operation
along Salmon Creek west of
Baker City.
The proposed work in-
cludes placer mining, suction
dredging and, in four places,
underground (lode) mining.
“I’m very, very pleased that
it is finally out,” Jan Alexan-
der of Unity, mineral policies
director for the Eastern Ore-
gon Mining Association, said
of the draft EIS. “It’s been a
long haul. I’m very glad for the
miners. They waited an aw-
fully long time for this.”
The initial project started
around 2005 or 2006, said Ray
Lovisone, minerals coordina-
tor for the Wallowa-Whitman.
At some point, he said, a
previous forest official stopped
work on the analysis of the
proposed mining plans. Lovi-
sone said the work restarted
soon after he started work
on the Wallowa-Whitman in
2017, in response to repeated
requests from miners.
He said a staffing shortage
on the forest forced officials to
hire a contractor to do much
of the work on the draft EIS,
which is part of the reason the
process has taken four years.
Alexander said many of the
miners whose operating plans
are included in the draft EIS
are members of the Eastern
Oregon Mining Association,
based in Baker City.
Although claim holders can
do minor exploration on their
claims without an approved
plan of operation, they need
such a plan to use equipment
to process ore, even at a small
scale, Alexander said.
That means the release of
the draft EIS, with the poten-
tial for final approval of the 22
operating plans, is significant,
she said.
Alexander, a former Wal-
lowa-Whitman employee who
retired in 2001, said all 22 of
the proposed mining opera-
tions are relatively small scale
projects, generally involving
a few miners who work their
claims during the spring and
summer, often only on week-
ends.
She said that in most cases
the mining proposed would
take place on less than one
acre each year.
“The amount of ground dis-
turbance we will see is pretty
insignificant,” Alexander said.
None of the mining plans
involve the use of chemicals to
process ore, she said.
The claims are unpatented,
meaning the land remains
publicly owned, with the claim
holder having the exclusive
right to prospecting and min-
ing for minerals or precious
metals.
One exception is the Bald
Mountain lode mine north-
west of Sumpter, which is a
patented claim, meaning it
was converted to private land
decades ago.
The Bald Mountain plan of
operation is included in the
draft EIS because the owner
plans to use ponds that are on
adjacent public land as part of
the mining.
The draft EIS includes a 45-
day public comment period,
as required by the National
Environmental Policy Act.
That federal law, which
dates to 1969, requires agen-
Claims covered
in draft EIS
PENDLETON — Two Or-
egon environmental groups
on Thursday, June 16, posted
their findings for the state’s
most climate-polluting power
plants, and the results look
grim for plants in Umatilla
and Morrow counties — at
least for now.
Six of the top 10 dirtiest
plants in the entire state are
in the two counties, accord-
ing to research from the En-
vironment Oregon Research
& Policy Center and Oregon
State Public Interest Research
Group Foundation.
“Climate change is here
and already impacting lives,”
said Celeste Meiffren-Swango,
state director at Environment
Oregon. “We need to do ev-
erything we can to move away
from fossil fuels and towards
renewable energy.”
That action already has
taken place in Boardman,
where Portland General Elec-
tric Co. in 2021 dismantled the
final coal-powered plant in the
state. The pair of environmen-
tal groups rated it the dirtiest
plant in Oregon in 2020.
The two sister groups
2
Mining
BY ANTONIO ARREDONDO
East Oregonian
RD
— Jan Alexander of Unity, mineral policies director
for the Eastern Oregon Mining Association, said of the
draft environmental impact statement
Report: Majority of state’s dirtiest
power plants are in area counties
TH
“I’m very, very pleased that it is finally
out. It’s been a long haul. I’m very glad for
the miners. They waited an awfully long
time for this.”
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