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129 new cases
COVID-19 data for Sunday, March 7:
Deschutes County cases: 6,035 (9 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 65 (zero new deaths)
Crook County cases: 781 (zero new cases)
Crook County deaths: 18 (zero new deaths)
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Jefferson County cases: 1,979 (3 new cases)
Jefferson County deaths: 30 (zero new deaths)
Oregon cases: 157,285 (211 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 2,296 (zero new deaths)
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What is COVID-19? It’s an infection caused by a new coronavirus. Coronavi-
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130
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Lottery results can now be found on
the second page of Sports.
Union County locals line up against proposal for massive quarry
BY PHIL WRIGHT
The Observer (La Grande)
U
NION COUNTY —
People here are lining
up against a proposal
for a massive rock quarry near
Perry and La Grande.
David Moyal, of La Grande,
is leading the charge to block
the 250-plus-acre Ponderosa
Quarry Project that would op-
erate on more than 4,700 acres
where Robbs Hill Road meets
Interstate 84 near the com-
munity of Perry. Locals know
Robbs Hill Road as a place to
pick huckleberries, Moyal said,
ride bikes or just go for a beau-
tiful drive. The quarry would
end that, he said, and the effect
on Perry would be drastic.
“With the dust, and noise
and the pollution — it’s unen-
viable,” he said.
But the downside as Moyal
painted it does not stop at
Perry.
Interstate 84 from Pendleton
to the Grande Ronde Valley is
special, he said, and designated
as a scenic corridor. Plunking
this large mining site with a
crushing facility and railroad
access near the interstate and in
full view of the entrance to the
Grande Ronde Valley, he said,
“is just an objectionable idea”
with “absolutely no justification
for doing it beyond profit.”
Application makes a comeback
James A. Smejkal, of Banks,
submitted the application to
the county on Sept. 18, then
provided a pair of updates be-
fore the end of the year. Ac-
cording to the site plan appli-
cation, the project would create
the quarry approximately 2.5
miles west of La Grande and
about a mile from Perry and in-
volve rock crushing, screening,
washing and stockpiling. The
project would build a railroad
spur to ship aggregate across
the western United States.
The Union County Planning
Commission is holding a pub-
lic hearing Monday to consider
approving the application.
Moyal said he plans on call-
ing in and will speak against
the project, which he did in
2018 the first time the plan-
ning commission considered
the plan. The commission at
that time deemed the applica-
tion to be incomplete.
This time, as Moyal put it,
the application is more ro-
bust — stacking up to about
400 pages. He said he was not
aware the project had come
Alex Wittwer/The Observer photos
The site for the proposed Ponderosa Quarry reflects in the sunglasses
of David Moyal on Tuesday. Moyal is a vocal opponent to the project
that would sit less than a mile from the community of Perry. At top, a
train passes off Interstate 84 near Perry.
back for reconsideration until
Feb. 1 when he received a no-
tice that the planning commis-
sion would consider the new
application plan for the quarry
in seven days. But the county
postponed the meeting. That
gave Moyal a month to prepare.
“So I thought, if I’m going
to do anything with that, I’m
going to have to do grassroots
organizing,” he said.
Raising awareness
Moyal drafted flyers to raise
awareness about the meeting
and express concerns with the
quarry and handed them out
in Perry and to businesses in
La Grande. He created a Face-
book page, Stop the Robbs
Hill Road Quarry, which as of
Wednesday had 52 followers.
And Moyal started an online
petition against the quarry on
change.org. More than 530 peo-
ple have signed the document.
Moyal said if the county
gives the approval, the prob-
lems with the quarry will be
here in the Grand Ronde Val-
ley for a long time.
Depending on what part of
the application you read, he
said, the lifespan of the quarry
is 89 years or 137 years and
would extract 300 million tons
of rock. Per the application,
one gallon of diesel via rail can
transport 1 ton of aggregate 440
miles, and the plan is to ship
2,000 tons a day every day of
the year to Western states. Do-
ing the math, he said, and be-
ing generous with doubling the
distance, requires almost 1.47
million gallons of diesel a year.
“The carbon footprint is
truly alarming,” Moyal said.
“This is an immense amount
of fuel being burned and an im-
mense amount of carbon being
emitted.”
That makes the quarry, he
said, “a massive polluting proj-
ect.”
Others also concerned
Raymond Myer, of La Grande,
also is opposed to the project. He
said as a child he played in the
seasonal creeks that run through
where the quarry would oper-
ate. He questioned the reasons
behind the proposal.
“First off, there’s no need for
it,” he said. “Second, environ-
mentally it’s wrong. And third,
it would be an eyesore.”
Union County and the sur-
rounding areas have several
rock quarries, he said, and
Harney Rock & Paving Co. in
North Powder already provides
ballast to Union Pacific Rail-
road for the Pacific Northwest
and other rock products to the
local community.
The outdoors and fish and
wildlife matter to residents
here, Myer said. The site for
the quarry helps support sev-
eral hundred elk, and he said
erosion from a quarry would
raise concerns for endangered
salmon spawn in the Grande
Ronde River, which is adjacent
to and downhill from the site.
“Here we go again, destroy-
ing their habitat,” Myer said.
Dust pollution from the site
would blow down the canyon
into La Grande, and the place
would be noisy. And like Moyal,
he said a quarry operation of this
scope could knock the “scenic”
right out of the scenic corridor.
“Is it still (scenic)? If so, how
can this rock quarry be turned
into the scar on the hillside next
to I-84?” he said.
Dan Steele lives in Perry
and also does not want the
quarry to go in. A retired rail-
road worker, he said he spent
a long time around the Har-
ney rock pit, and big quarries
mean heavy equipment and in-
evitable breakdowns that lead
to diesel spills and more. All of
those fluids, he said, would end
up in the Grande Ronde River.
“There’s just a lot of things
wrong with the whole thing,”
he said, including possible de-
preciation of property values.
Steele also joined the chorus
in questioning the placement
of the project.
The Harney pit for example,
he said, is far from any scenic
area and homes. Steele said his
home, where his grandchildren
often visit, would be half a mile
from the Robbs Hill Road pit.
“There’s got to be a million
places more appropriate for
such a quarry,” Steele said.
Preparing for the longer fight
Moyal said he has put to-
gether about 35 pages of spe-
cific objections for the county
planning commission to con-
sider. The real purpose of gath-
ering all the details he can, he
said, is to be ready with an ap-
peal to the Oregon Land Use
Board of Appeals, the tribunal
that serves as the arbiter of local
land use decisions in the state.
The application states the
quarry would create five to
seven full-time jobs. Moyal
argued the quarry also would
cost Union County jobs.
The LUBA application
would place 4,550 acres into
a conservation easement with
the Mule Deer Foundation to
protect habitat for mule deer
and elk. According to the ap-
plication, the easement would
allow cattle grazing and timber
management.
Moyal called the easement a
way to make the quarry more
palatable for the county plan-
ning commission.
The meeting Monday will
be a public hearing, with the
applicant getting to present
arguments for the quarry, and
then public comments for and
against.
If the planning commission
gives its stamp of approval
to the project, Moyal said he
is ready to step up his oppo-
sition with more community
organizing and even fundrais-
ing to pay for a lawyer to take
up the fight.
The headquarters of
Portland Public Schools was
vandalized overnight Friday
in what the district superin-
tendent is calling “an attack
on our city’s public school
system.”
Multiple school district
vehicles were set on fire, of-
fice windows were broken
and graffiti was scrawled on
the district headquarters,
501 N. Dixon St., Superin-
tendent Guadalupe Guer-
rero said.
“While I am relieved
that no one was hurt and
there was no further dam-
age to the building, this
malicious act of arson and
property destruction last
night was criminal and it
has no place in our com-
munity,” Guerrero said in
a statement posted to the
district’s Twitter account
Saturday. “This was an at-
tack on our city’s public
school system.”
Food delivery trucks and
maintenance vans were de-
stroyed.
“This act of violence will
not deter us from our com-
mitment to educating our
students, providing them
meals, or any of the other
work we are privileged to
carry out every day in sup-
port of students and fami-
lies,” Guerrero said.
Portland Fire & Rescue
extinguished the fires be-
fore they caused additional
damage, according to Guer-
rero. Cleanup began before
sunrise Saturday.
A crew was putting up
plywood to patch five large
broken windows near the
building’s main entrance
Saturday morning. Graffiti
was visible on the building.
No burned vehicles were
present.
Schools reopening soon
The vandalism came as
the district is preparing to
return students to school
buildings. On Friday, Gov.
Kate Brown ordered Or-
egon schools to shift into
in-person instruction by
spring break. She has in-
creasingly faced pressure
from parent groups and
some lawmakers to reopen
the state’s public schools.
Guerrero said he was
confident the district would
meet Brown’s deadline. He
pointed to the district’s late
February announcement
that schools would begin
offering hybrid instruction
by mid-April.
The Portland Police Bu-
reau said it was increasing
the number of on-duty of-
ficers in other parts of the
city over the weekend, amid
growing public concerns
over shootings and pro-
test-related property de-
struction.
It was unclear Saturday
who was responsible for the
school headquarters dam-
age or what their motiva-
tions were.