Blue Mountain
EAGLE
The
MEMORIAL TRIBUTE
Flags fly in Prairie City rites
– PAGE A5
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W EDNESDAY , M AY 27, 2015
• N O . 21
• 22 P AGES
• $1.00
Drop in the bucket
Recent rains don’t relieve our parched summer forecast
Brown declares
drought in Grant,
other counties
By Scotta Callister
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY – File the past
week’s heavy rains in the “looks
can be deceiving” category.
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moisture, while welcome,
isn’t enough to deter the re-
gion’s now-inevitable plunge
into extreme drought this
summer.
Last Friday, Gov. Kate ers: Deschutes, Jackson, Jose-
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ing a drought declaration for la and Wasco.
Grant County and seven oth-
In all, 15 counties now are
under drought declarations,
a measure that allows more
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when the supplies dry up.
The declaration follows a
sobering report from the U.S.
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service, which warned
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this season due to the winter’s
record-low snowpacks.
“The winter of 2015 will
go down in Oregon history
books as the year that was
dominated by bare ground in
the mountains,” said Julie Ko-
berle, NRCS hydrologist.
The agency reported Ore-
gon’s snowpack, as of May 1,
stood at 11 percent of normal.
Only 15 of 112 snow monitor-
ing sites across Oregon had
any snow at all.
See RAIN, Page A12
www.MyEagleNews.com
ODF: Get ready
for a hot one
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land. Landowners will learn
how they can assist in the
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their land and what resourc-
es are available to them to
Blue Mountain Eagle
repair and restore their prop-
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JOHN DAY – The Ore-
“As most folks are already
gon Department of Forest- aware, ongoing drought con-
ry’s John Day Unit will hold ditions have set the stage
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for Grant County forestland season in Grant County and
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terson Bridge Road, from 3HQW]HU 2')¶V -RKQ 'D\
5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Unit Forester. “This meeting
is intended to help landown-
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provide the most current out- LIWKH\KDYHD¿UH´
For more information,
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along with information on contact the John Day ODF
what landowners should ex- RI¿FHDW
Agency plans
June 4 briefing
for landowners
It’s a rendezvous!
Fun for everyone at Mt. Vernon celebration
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
Contributed/EPA Region 10
EPA on-scene coordinator Brooks Stanfield and
a contractor check the air at a residence, as the
investigation into fumes in Southwest John Day
continued last week.
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doors in fume probe
Crew working
with city, DEQ to
find source
sending someone this week
to work with the interagency
investigation.
The testing comes after
local agencies, including the
By Scotta Callister
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Blue Mountain Eagle
works departments, respond-
ed to complaints about fumes
JOHN DAY – An Envi- rising from basements and
URQPHQWDO 3URWHFWLRQ $JHQ crawl spaces.
cy emergency response team
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is looking into the odors March, when the problem
seeping into homes and busi- cropped up at the Soil and
nesses in the southwest part Water Conservation District
of the city.
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7KH (3$ FUHZ DUULYHG vard. The concern ramped
last Thursday and continued up earlier this month when
its work through the holiday the problem appeared to mi-
weekend, going door-to-door grate underground to nearby
to take indoor air readings residences and buildings, in-
DW KRPHV DQG RI¿FHV LQ D cluding the Grant County Li-
10-block area of the city.
brary and the Canyon Creek
-XG\ 6PLWK (3$ FRP Apartments.
munity outreach coordinator,
“Our immediate concern
said the state Department of
See EPA, Page A12
Environmental Quality is
S TUDENT
ART
M
T. VERNON –
Festivities for Sat-
urday’s Cinnabar
Mountain
Ren-
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through town and included
games and food at the park.
Cinnabar volunteer Karen
Hinton said this year’s event
was a lot of work to put togeth-
er, but worth it. She said she was
glad the weather held, since it
had been rainy through the night
and that morning.
“We had a good turnout and
everyone who attended had a lot
of fun,” she said.
Game winners
Ax throw: Josh Moulton
Women’s ax throw: Ersela Dehiya
Frying Pan toss: Ersela Dehiya
Bore and buck: Artie Dickens
Choker Set: Terry Harper
All Around: Terry Harper
Horse shoes: 1st, Wade Keith and Alex
Titus; 2nd, Wade Wadell and Toby Thomas
Team scavenger hunt: 1st place, Sydnee
and Sophie Brockway, Trinity Hutchison
Duck Race: 1st, Bill Hickerson; 2nd,
Wayne Saul; 3rd Kim Ballard.
Golden spike hunt: Maudean Brown
Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter
The Cinnabar Mountain Rendezvous parade gets started May 23 with Grant
County Search and Rescue volunteer Kelly Collins leading the colorful entries
in Mt. Vernon.
Look for parade results on-
line and in next week’s paper.
Bransyn Harper rides
a pony with his mom,
Shilo Burton, at his side.
A youngster enjoys his fire truck
ride in the parade.
Wolf tracked in Grant County
OR22 found them, and the wolf started
moving West after they were removed,
VHYHUDOIDUPHUVQDSSLQJLQDZKHDW¿HOG Milburn said.
Milburn and Christensen said one of
and by ditch workers as it swam across
the biggest lessons learned from OR22’s
a canal.
Before OR22, no other wolf was visit to the county is that dead livestock
known to have spent more than a brief carcasses are an enticement to keep
wolves around and should be removed
period in the county, Milburn said.
“I don’t know why he took a month- quickly.
“Having a readily available food
long break in Malheur County, but he
did,” Milburn said. “He’s been a little source ... can really hold these animals
unique. There’s probably no telling in non-typical wolf habitat,” he said.
“That’s a pretty good lesson.”
where he will ... move to.”
Milburn said communicating with
The wolf was moving 10-plus miles
a day in recent days and was south of people during the wolf’s stay here
turned out to be helpful.
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Milburn used emails to update me-
“We’re pretty happy he’s moved on,”
said Malheur County Cattlemen’s As- GLD ORFDO RI¿FLDOV DQG WKH OLYHVWRFN
sociation president Chris Christensen. industry on the wolf’s movements and
“Obviously, he didn’t like Malheur QRWL¿HG SURGXFHUV ZKR ZHUH GLUHFWO\
impacted through text messages and
County and that’s a good thing.”
Fish and wildlife biologists found phone calls.
“Good communication when some-
two cow carcasses the wolf had been
feeding off and believe they played a thing like this happens really helps so
major factor in the wolf’s decision to people are not having to rely on third-
hang around so long. Both died before hand information,” he said.
A collared wolf turns up in south Grant County
By Sean Ellis
EO Media Group
James Kreamier
Grade 7
Long Creek School
Teacher: Cindy Wimer
Grand Marshals of the Cinnabar
Mountain Rendezvous Lyle and Linda
McCumber ride the parade route.
ADRIAN — A lone wolf that inex-
plicably spent more than five weeks in
an area of Malheur County not con-
sidered typical wolf habitat has moved
on.
The wolf, known as OR22, moved
into Grant County a little over a week
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trict wildlife biologist in the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife’s Ontario
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The male wolf, which separated
from a Northeast Oregon pack in Feb-
ruary, moved into Malheur County on
April 10 and bucked conventional wis-
dom by spending much of its time here
in sagebrush country west of Adrian and
south of Vale.
OR22, which has a tracking collar,
even made a brief foray into farm coun-
try near Adrian, where it was seen by