Baker City herald., July 21, 2022, Page 52, Image 52

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SPRING RAIN | GRANT COUNTY
Spring rains ease drought concerns in Grant County
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — While Grant County is
still in a drought, the situation may not be
quite as dire as was projected earlier this year
— and it’s much better than it was at this time
in 2021.
Robust rains throughout the early spring
have largely blunted drought concerns, even
though Drought.gov, the national integrated
drought information system, says almost
87% of Grant County is currently aff ected by
drought at some level.
Kyle Sullivan, manager of the Grant Soil
and Water Conservation District, said the
rains throughout April and May defi nitely
helped, but he’s heard mixed reports about
their impact.
“That’s what I’m hearing,” he said. “I
think I was visiting with someone from the
South Fork (John Day) area, and (they said)
that they were having issues with springs
drying up and a lot of the things we were see-
ing last year.”
“I KEPT TELLING MY GUYS, IF WE GET THREE GOOD
RAINS IN MAY AND JUNE IT’LL BE A WHOLE DIFFERENT
YEAR THAN LAST YEAR.”
— Ken Holliday, Grant County rancher
On the other hand, Sullivan added, the
local hay crop looks much more bountiful
than it did at this time last year.
“Driving through the upper (John Day)
valley, it seems that everyone has their hay
down now, and before they cut it, it was a lot
taller and seemed to have a lot more volume
to it, certainly, than it did last year,” he said.
“I’m not sure how extensive the rains were in
hitting everybody in the county; it might be a
bit more localized.”
Grant County rancher Ken Holliday said
the wet spring helped ranchers avoid a poten-
tially bleak year coming on the heels of last
year’s historic dry spell and record-setting
heat wave in late June.
“All the guys in the cattle industry, I tried
to tell them one year of this stuff is one thing,
but you get two years in a row and we’re in
big trouble,” he said.
Following the damp spring, Holliday said
he’s optimistic, and he stressed to the people
working on his ranch that a little moisture in
the late spring can make all the diff erence.
“I kept telling my guys, if we get three
good rains in May and June it’ll be a whole
diff erent year than last year,” he said.
Holliday says he is leaving more feed in
his pastures than he ever had last year.
“Everything is healing up,” he said. “The
carrying capacity is above normal. Mother
Nature is an amazing thing if it goes in your
favor. Sometimes not, but this time it went in
our favor.”
Shaun Robertson, president of the Grant
County Farm Bureau, said the spring mois-
ture has been a blessing and has allowed the
county to make signifi cant gains from last
year’s severe drought.
“Across the county, landowners are
talking about putting up record amounts of
hay and haying ground that hasn’t seen a crop
for decades,” he said. “That’s quite a turn-
around from last year, when local producers
were reducing herds and feeding hay early
because of the lack of a fall range.”
Robertson said there is a double edge to
an abundance of spring moisture as talk of
conservation falls by the wayside when water
storage is in good shape.
“Nobody feels like it’s necessary to talk
about water conservation, but those conver-
sations are just as important when you have
lots of water as they were during last year’s
drastic water shortages,” he said.
“This is a very, very important topic for
everyone and something that isn’t getting any
kind of attention it deserves, regardless of the
hundreds of times we visit and revisit over
the centuries as a community.”
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