Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2022)
GO! MAGAZINE OREGON A5 THE WEST A6 What’s happening around NE Oregon Few using state’s COVID vaccine card Groups supporting River Democracy Act Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • BUSINESS & AG LIFE THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022 • $1.50 HEREFORD A WET SPRING Woman dies in 4-wheeler accident Much needed rains a boon for farmers and ranchers SUMMER 2022 BLACK LOGO The Blue Mountain HERMISTON EAGLE HERALD Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 REVERSE LOGO - COLOR BAR CAN CHANGE REVERSE LOGO - COLOR BAR CAN CHANGE INSIDE TODAY ————— A 30-page special section focusing on the farming and ranching industry will be includ- ed with the July 21 issue. Topics include how a damp spring helped ease the drought and im- prove prospects for wheat, hay and other crop yields, a benefi - cial trend that’s being offset by escalating costs for diesel and other production expenses. QUICK HITS ————— Good Day Wish To A Subscriber A special good day to Herald subscriber Carrie Folkman of Baker City. BRIEFING ————— Biologist to talk about beavers, grazing, water supplies Aug. 3 Carol Evans, a retired biolo- gist from the Bureau of Land Management, will talk about livestock grazing management, and how it can attract beavers to streams, during a free presenta- tion Aug. 3 at the Baker County Library, 2400 Resort St. The presentation, sponsored by the Powder Basin Watershed Coun- cil, will start at 6 p.m. Evans’ presentation, “How to Move Mountains and Make it Rain!,” discusses projects in Ne- vada in which grazing changes spurred the growth of stream side plants, which led beavers to colonize the areas and, by building dams and storing water, increased water supply. WEATHER ————— Today 94/51 Sunny Friday 87/45 Sunny Full forecast on the back of the B section. The space below is for a postage label for issues that are mailed. Searchers found Kate Sullivan two days after she was last seen BY JAYSON JACOBY jjacoby@bakercityherald.com A Hereford woman died in a four-wheeler accident west of Dooley Mountain Summit late last week. Kathleen Marie “Kate” Sul- livan, 66, was killed when her four-wheeler rolled in the Bald Mountain area, about two miles west of the summit on Highway 245, said Ashley McClay, pub- lic information officer for the Baker County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the county’s search and rescue team found Sullivan’s body about 10:43 a.m. on Saturday, July 16, McClay said.Her dog, who had accom- panied her on a ride to set out salt blocks for cattle, had stayed with Sullivan, and was not in- jured, McClay said. Baker County’s campaign gets federal financial boost Saving sage grouse See Accident / A3 Nick Myatt/Oregon Department of Fish and WIldlife, File Sage grouse males inflate their air sacs during the spring mating ritual. BY CLAYTON FRANKE cfranke@bakercityherald.com Emmy Tyrrell calls sage grouse the “mountain men” of birds. That’s because they don’t like to be around people. Unfortunately for the chicken-size birds, many of the places they live — tracts of land dominated by sagebrush, including in Baker County — are popu- lar with people, too. But a Baker County program coordi- nated by Tyrrell, which aims to improve conditions for sage grouse on private lands, recently received an influx of dol- lars. Baker County will receive $100,000 from last year’s federal infrastructure bill. Four other Eastern Oregon counties will get the same amount — Crook, Harney, Malheur and Lake. The three latter counties harbor the large majority of Oregon’s sage grouse habitat, most of which is on public land. Baker County is at the northern fringe of the sage grouse’s range in Eastern Oregon, and the county’s sage grouse population accounts for less than 10% of Oregon’s total. Much of the county’s sage grouse habitat, unlike in those three other counties, is on private property. The federal dollars augment a $6.1 million, six-year grant that Baker County received in 2019 through the Lottery-funded Oregon Watershed En- hancement Board. The state money is also intended to pay for sage grouse conservation projects in the county. That can include a variety of things. Among the projects planned in Baker County are deterring ravens, which prey on sage grouse eggs, and build- ing an ATV wash station at the Virtue Flat OHV Area east of Baker City to re- duce the spread of noxious weeds and invasive grasses that can degrade sage grouse habitat. Another key part of the effort is the Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA). These are agreements between the federal gov- ernment and private landowners whose property includes sage grouse habitat, in which the landowners agree to take actions, such as altering cattle grazing schedules, to benefit sage grouse. Land- owners don’t receive payments through the agreements. Tyrrell said the federal money will partially pay for her position as CCAA coordinator with the Powder Basin Watershed Council. She said she’s also working on an application for another grant through the Watershed Enhance- ment Board after the current grant ends in 2025. Tyrrell’s job is to act as a liason be- tween landowners and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to help start — or continue — conservation measures and ranching practices that benefit sage grouse. To ensure that conservation projects are consistent across counties, CCAAs usually follow a specific outline — what’s called a “programmatic” CCAA — with a basic formula for how the agreements work. The FWS established the formula in 2015. “These programmatic (CCAAs) have these really fantastic plans laid out and we can really tailor these plans very spe- cific to whatever the landowners goals are what exists on the landscape instead of the one size fits all,” Tyrrell said. Besides crafting these agreements, Tyrrell works to recruit new landown- ers into the program. Statewide, 500,000 acres of private land are enrolled under CCAA agree- ments for sage grouse, Tyrrell said. That includes 42,000 acres — among eight different property owners — in Baker County, with a small portion just across the border with Union County. Any property that contains habi- tat accessible to the Baker sage grouse population — which inhabits an area northeast of Interstate 84 and south of the Wallowa Mountains, as well as a few other places in southern Baker County — can be enrolled in the program. Tyrrell said she’s in the process of en- rolling 9,000 more acres divided among three properties. See Grouse / A3 County’s new tourism director on the job County hired Jessica Hobson on 2-year contract IAN CRAWFORD icrawford@bakercityherald.com Local publisher Jessica Hob- son is wading into the fray of Baker Coun- ty’s summer activities as the county’s newly hired tourism mar- keting direc- tor. The two- Hobson year contract started July 1. “Just hoping to get tourists to help local vendors and busi- nesses here in town,” Hobson said. The contract, which Baker County commissioners ap- proved in late May, is for $65,000 per year. Hobson is a contractor, not a county employee. See Director / A3 State council to discuss B2H on Friday BY ANTONIO ARREDONDO East Oregonian SALEM — The latest review of moving the massive Boardman to Hemingway power transmission line from proposal to reality is this week. Originally proposed in 2010, the B2H line travels from the Longhorn Substation in Boardman to the existing Hemingway Substa- tion in Idaho. Primarily 500 kilovolts, the line would be approximately 300 miles long. Idaho Power Co. is primary energy producer behind the project. The Oregon Department of En- ergy’s Energy Facility Siting Council meets is Friday, July 22, and B2H is on the docket. The council plans to go over the proposal for the project and its application history and conduct straw polls to determine if any changes need to be made. This review is the latest step in a checkered past for the transmission line. A fence line traces the ap- proximate route of the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line Feb. 2, 2022, along the edge of Richard and Jean Hemphill’s family prop- erty near Pilot Rock. How to participate The July 22 meeting is from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The Boardman to Hemingway transmission line is one of many items on the docket for the council, with others ranging from wildlife protection to carbon dioxide emissions. For those interested in attending the meet- ing, the event is available online. People who want to participate may address the council during th public comment portion and at other designated agenda points. For more information, visit www.oregon.gov/ energy/facilities-safety/facilities/Pages/ Council-Meetings.aspx. East Oregonian, File See B2H / A2 TODAY Issue 30 62 pages Business .................B1 & B2 Classified ....................B2-B4 Comics ..............................B5 Community News.............A2 Crossword ...............B2 & B4 Dear Abby .........................B6 Horoscope ..............B3 & B4 Lottery Results .................A2 News of Record ................A2 News of the Weird ...........B6 Opinion .............................A4 Senior Menus ...................A2 Sudoku..............................B5 Turning Backs ..................A2 Weather ............................B6
