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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
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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