The BulleTin • SaTurday, June 5, 2021 A7
Crews gain upper hand on Southern Oregon wildfire
BY RYAN PFEIL
Ashland Daily Tidings
Firefighters reached 90% containment on a
110-acre brush fire burning on a steep hillside in
Douglas County, fire agencies reported Friday
morning.
Douglas Forest Protective Association crews
responded to the Mehl Creek Fire, located 3
miles southwest of Elkton near Mehl Creek
Road, at 8:25 p.m. Tuesday. The first firefight-
ers on scene estimated the blaze to be about 40
acres and burning in an area that had previously
been logged. The flames spread quickly, fueled
by heavy brush and logging slash, association
spokesman Kyle Reed said.
Wind ignited numerous spot fires around the
main blaze, according to a news release.
Accessing the fire proved to be a challenge at
first.
“There were (logging) roads into it and
around it, but we had to get those opened back
up,” Reed said. “That was the biggest slowdown,
initially, was trying to get those roads opened
back up.”
Crews from the Kellogg Rural Fire Depart-
“I don’t know how long, exactly, it’s going
to take, but we’re going to be out there for a
little bit working on this.”
— Kyle Reed, Douglas Forest Protective Association
spokesman
ment, North Douglas County Fire & EMS, and
Oakland Rural Fire Department also responded.
The 115 firefighters to respond received aid
from multiple water tenders, bulldozers and he-
licopters.
Mop-up operations could continue for several
days.
“A lot of what burned was residual logging
slash, so there’s a lot of material on the ground
that burned. Going through that is a tedious
process to make sure it’s fully mopped up,” Reed
said. “I don’t know how long, exactly, it’s going to
take, but we’re going to be out there for a little bit
working on this.”
Reed added crews will almost have to
“babysit” the fire over the course of the summer
to make sure it doesn’t flare back up.
Douglas Forest Protective Association
Firefighters work to stop the Mehl Creek Fire burning in Southern Oregon.
Farmer
Continued from A1
Havstad-Casad, a first-gen-
eration farmer, was highlight-
ing concerns raised by others
in Jefferson County, whose
water allotments this year are
so small that roughly half the
county’s farmland is fallow.
When the wind kicks up, the
exposed ground creates clouds
of dust in the Central Oregon
sky as topsoil gets blown off
the landscape.
“We watch it happen. We
stand in the middle of it. It’s
like watching your children’s
future blow away,” she said.
She had been invited to
speak to the legislators by the
Coalition for the Deschutes, a
nonprofit that works with both
farmers and environmentalists
to protect the Deschutes River.
Her stirring testimony com-
pared the topsoil loss in Jeffer-
son County to the Dust Bowl of
the 1930s. Havstad-Casad asked
legislators to support farmers to
plant cover crops, which help to
reduce the dust storms.
“The farmers must be sup-
ported to cover that topsoil,”
she said. “It is securing our fu-
tures.”
In addition to topsoil loss,
said Havstad-Casad, farmers
are facing financial hardship
because their costs remain just
as high as a normal season, but
their profits are slashed due to
the lost acreage.
“While we maintain 100%
of our overhead costs, we are
only able to farm 40% of our
land because of the 40% allot-
ment we have been given,” said
Havstad-Casad, who practices
regenerative agriculture on
200 acres of land. She has been
farming near Madras since
2017 after moving there from
a smaller property near Bend.
The farm’s products include or-
ganically grown potatoes, on-
ions and winter squash, as well
Theater
Continued from A1
And over the past month,
Plascencia finished acting
in his most challenging and
prestigious role yet for Sum-
mit: Jean Valjean from “Les
Misérables.”
Valjean is arguably the most
beloved role in one of modern
Broadway’s biggest musicals —
originated by stage icon Colm
Wilkinson and famously por-
trayed by Hugh Jackman in
a 2012 filmed adaptation. It’s
such a towering role that Plas-
cencia admitted he was initially
terrified.
“You have a lot of big shoes
and expectations to fill,” he
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Dust fills the air as Trevor Smith, front, and his mother prepare a field to plant a crop Friday near the town of Metolius in Jefferson County.
as cattle and turkeys.
Drought and low reservoirs
are the primary reasons behind
the drop in water allotments.
Wickiup Reservoir, the source
of water for the North Unit Ir-
rigation District, was just 31%
full as of Friday. In an average
year on the same date, the res-
ervoir would be 79% full.
At its current pace, the res-
ervoir will be empty by early
August. A similar scenario
played out last year when the
water dried up in early Sep-
tember, forcing some irrigation
districts to shut off their water
prematurely.
The reservoir is draining
quickly even though North
Unit patrons are getting just 1
acre foot of water. Water pa-
trons of other irrigation dis-
tricts, including the Central
Oregon Irrigation District
(COID), are getting three times
that amount. That’s because
districts like COID have older
(senior) water rights, so when
water resources are restricted
due to drought, junior rights
holders have to curtail their
water usage. Junior water rights
holders get cut off in times of
shortages.
Gail Snyder, founder of Co-
alition for the Deschutes, backs
Havstad-Casad, saying that too
much of Central Oregon’s wa-
ter is being wasted and more of
it needs to be shared.
“From watering sidewalks in
the city to flooding fields in the
county, our current use of wa-
Meet the grad
Name: Branden Plascencia
Age: 18
School: Summit High School
Hometown: Bend
Post-high school plans: Study theatre at Cornish College of the Arts
Favorite food: Barbecue chicken pizza
Favorite TV show or movie: La La Land
If you could hang out with a famous person for a day, living or
dead, who would it be?: Walt Disney
Once COVID-19 restrictions are fully lifted, where do you want
to go?: Ireland
If Hollywood makes a movie about your life, which actor would
play you?: Jim Carrey
said. “It’s one of those charac-
ters that’s so iconic, that you
want to do it right and you get
scared.”
“Les Misérables” is also a
tricky musical to perform due
ter is wasteful and unsustain-
able,” said Snyder. “We need
a cultural paradigm shift that
leads to better stewardship by
all of us.”
“And we need to address
the glaring imbalance in the
amount of water available to
different groups of farmers so
that some aren’t left like Oliver
Twist, begging for drops while
others have more than they
need,” she added.
Farmers are asking Oregon’s
legislators to eliminate red tape
that makes sharing water dif-
ficult.
Tod Heisler, director of the
rivers program for Central Or-
egon LandWatch, said the bar-
riers to sharing water are the
result of a lack of legislation.
“In response to drought,
COID offered to allow patrons
to share their water with farm-
ers in Jefferson County,” said
Heisler. “But without a pro-
gram in place to do this, and
a concerted communications
effort to recruit patrons into
the program, it is questionable
what can actually happen.”
Greg Mintz, legislative di-
rector for Rep. Ken Helm,
D-Washington County, said
state legislators are actively
working to resolve the water
crisis faced by Jefferson County
farmers. House Bill 3103A
could make a difference, he
said. This bill seeks to “fix Or-
egon’s broken statute for trans-
fers of stored water,” said Mintz.
The bill passed out of the
to its format: every line of di-
alogue is sung, almost like an
opera.
“Getting every note cor-
rect and moving the scene at
the same time, there’s a lot of
things you have to watch out
for,” Plascencia said. “But with
this cast, it was so fun — we
nailed it.”
Because of COVID-19 re-
strictions, Summit High’s the-
ater company decided to film
the show outdoors, song-by-
song, over a 12-day period,
said theater teacher Lara Oka-
moto. The filmed production
will be streamed online for two
nights only — June 11 and 12,
at 7 p.m. — at summittheatre-
company.com.
Plascencia said filming a
musical, rather than perform-
ing on stage with a live audi-
ence, was odd.
But it did allow for the actors
to start over and try again if
they flubbed a line or missed a
note, he said.
“It was an experience that
was truly unique,” Plascencia
said.
Okamoto, who’s taught Plas-
cencia on stage for four years,
not only praised Plascencia’s
talent and work ethic, but also
his humbleness.
“He would never boast
about having any of these roles,
and he’s very sweet and hum-
ble and even shy at times,” she
said. “It’s kind of heartwarming
House Committee on Water in
April with bipartisan support
and it is now awaiting consid-
eration of necessary funding in
the Joint Committee on Ways
and Means, said Mintz.
“We hope to see the bill pass
out of Ways and Means and
move to the House and Senate
floor for votes,” said Mintz.
While North Unit farmers
like Havstad-Casad are hoping
for a better way to move water
around Central Oregon, it’s still
going to take a fair amount of
campaigning to get other ir-
rigators interested in sharing
their water.
Shon Rae, the deputy man-
aging director for COID, said
just two out of 3,600 of the ir-
rigation district’s patrons have
expressed interest in sharing
their water.
“That is approximately 17
acres out of our 46,000 acres of
irrigated land,” said Rae.
Havstad-Casad said sharing
water is the only short-term
option, as current canal pip-
ing projects, which will also
save water, are years away from
completion.
“We don’t have time.The
piping projects will take years
to unroll,” said Havstad-Casad.
“We are excited to see those
projects send water this way,
but I promise you, based on
last season and the realities of
this season, people who are
seventh-generation farmers in
this district are seriously con-
sidering throwing in the towel.”
She also offered the legisla-
tors a message of hope and a
warning.
“We have the opportunity as
a region to improve our man-
agement and share water more
equitably,” she said, “because
the farmers of North Unit do
not have one more season in
them like this one or the one
last year.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7818,
mkohn@bendbulletin.com
to see him take on these mon-
strous roles and still do so with
a lot of humility.”
This fall, Plascencia will
study theater at Cornish Col-
lege of the Arts, near down-
town Seattle. He’ll be studying
stage performance, as well as
the behind-the-scenes aspect
of theater.
Plascencia said his goal is to
make a career out of theater,
and hopefully write his own
show someday.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m act-
ing or directing, but as long as
I’m creating things and mak-
ing people happy, I’m fulfilled,”
Plascencia said.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
STATE BRIEFING
Chiloquin men convicted in Nevada
homicide, attempted robbery
Montana man sentenced for uploading
child porn in Southern Oregon
RENO, Nev. — Nevada prosecutors say two
Oregon men face possible life sentences with-
out parole for the killing of a man during a 2019
robbery attempt in Reno.
Daniel Shadow Bear Hutchinson, 24, and Jus-
tin Tyron Jackson, 55, both from Chiloquin are
scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 17 in the shoot-
ing death of Christopher Dressler, 37, of Sparks,
the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office
said Thursday.
Hutchinson and Jackson were convicted of
first-degree murder and attempted robbery with
the use of a deadly weapon, the office said.
A Montana man was sentenced Thursday to
nearly three years in prison for uploading im-
ages of child sexual abuse from an unsecured
Wi-Fi hot spot in Southern Oregon.
David Levi Watters, 30, of Dillon, Montana,
pleaded guilty in Jackson County Circuit Court
to three felony counts of first-degree encouraging
child sexual abuse, admitting he possessed child
pornography in January 2019 and uploaded the
files in Talent. In October, Watters was arrested at
his home in Montana and extradited to Jackson
County, where he’s been held since Nov. 2.
— Bulletin wire reports
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