News
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Finding common ground on wolf plan proves difficult
WATER
Continued from Page A1
The amount has topped 1
million gallons.
Options in addition to haul-
ing water include tying the
city’s water system to a private
well near Dixie Creek or a well
at the former Prairie Wood
Products mill, but Mayor Jim
Hamsher estimated the cost
of hooking up the wells was
about the same as paying for
trucking water from John Day,
Brown said.
Hamsher has promoted
the Faiman Springs site as the
city’s best option for more than
a decade, but debt the city in-
curred for constructing a wa-
ter treatment facility on Dixie
Creek Road made it difficult
to arrange loans to develop
Faiman Springs. The original
estimate to develop the site
was about $900,000.
Recognizing the emergen-
cy situation, the state agreed to
provide Prairie City up to $1.5
million for the project, with
one-third as a grant and the rest
as a 30-year loan at 1.7 percent
interest.
Brown said engineering
consultant firm Anderson Per-
ry is working with the state to
finalize the state funding ap-
plication for the city. She ex-
pected the application could
be completed and submitted
in about three weeks, and the
state funding would become
available about 45 days after
that.
The city will receive a
$550,000 grant and a loan up
to $950,000, Brown said. Once
the city begins making pay-
ments on the loan, city water
fees will increase by $7.60
per month. Sewer fees will re-
main the same, she said.
Brown said 105 people
showed up at an Aug. 22 town
hall meeting where the water
fee increase was brought up.
All of the people present at
the meeting agreed to the fee
increase, she said.
The city is also applying
for a $1 million emergency
grant from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture Rural
Development. That money
could be used to pay the cost
of hauling water from John
Day and pay off the state loan,
Brown said. The state will not
penalize the city for paying
off the loan ahead of schedule,
she said.
The availability of the fed-
eral grant could be 24 months
away, and there’s no guaran-
tee the city will be awarded
the grant, Brown noted.
The water emergency and
proposed infrastructure im-
provements are not on the
Sept. 12 city council agenda,
Brown said. The city council
will meet again Oct. 10, at
which point more informa-
tion will be available.
HOMICIDE
Continued from Page A1
lives in Hawaii, told the Ea-
gle she felt pretty sure from
the beginning that the Smiths
had died and were consumed
in the fire. But there were still
unanswered questions.
“I can’t understand where
the truck went,” she said.
She said the sheriff’s office
asked her for a DNA sample
and then three weeks later
Second meeting
scheduled for
Sept. 21
By George Plaven
EO Media Group
It was a tale of two meet-
ings Thursday in The Dalles
as traditional adversaries sat
down to find common ground
within the Oregon Wolf Con-
servation and Management
Plan, now three years past
due for an update.
Around the table, mem-
bers of farming, ranching,
environmental and hunting
organizations laid out their
objectives for the plan, which
will guide wolf recovery
across the state for the next
five years.
Conversations were heat-
ed at times — especially
while discussing the prospect
of hunting wolves — but the
group eventually reached
some areas of compromise,
and agreed to schedule a sec-
ond meeting.
Deb Nudelman, a medi-
ator with Kearns & West in
Portland, was hired by the
Oregon Department of Fish
& Wildlife to facilitate the
talks. ODFW staff mem-
bers, including Director Curt
Melcher, were also on hand
to listen.
Joining the work group
were Todd Nash, with the
Oregon Cattlemen’s Asso-
ciation; Mary Anne Cooper,
with the Oregon Farm Bu-
reau; Rob Klavins, with Or-
egon Wild; Nick Cady, with
Cascadia Wildlands; Jim Ak-
enson, with the Oregon Hunt-
ers Association; Dave Wiley,
with the Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation; Amaroq Weiss,
with the Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity; Quinn Read,
with Defenders of Wildlife;
and Amira Streeter, natural
resources policy adviser to
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.
“I think it’s a great group,”
EO Media Group/George Plaven
Todd Nash, a rancher and Wallowa County commissioner representing the Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association, speaks during a meeting in The Dalles to find common
ground on an update to the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, while
Quinn Read with Defenders of Wildlife and Amira Streeter, natural resources policy
adviser to Gov. Kate Brown, listen.
Nudelman said. “Groups like
this don’t come together if
it’s easy. They come together
because it’s hard.”
This is not the first time
opponents have met face-
to-face to talk about wolves.
The Oregon wolf plan was
first written by ODFW in
2005, and last updated in
2010. Environmental groups
sued the department in 2011
to halt killing wolves that had
preyed on livestock under
Phase I of the plan, which
resulted in a settlement in
2013 emphasizing non-lethal
deterrents.
Since then, the Oregon
wolf population has grown
to a minimum of 124 ani-
mals, and the plan has pro-
gressed to Phase III in East-
ern Oregon, allowing greater
flexibility for ranchers and
wildlife managers to consid-
er killing so-called “chronic
depredators.” Wolves remain
protected under the federal
Endangered Species Act west
of highways 395, 78 and 95.
ODFW was supposed to
update the wolf plan again
in 2015. The Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Commission
decided to postpone its vote
indefinitely in January so the
sometimes the only conclu-
sion we can come to.”
Klavins, northeast Ore-
gon field coordinator for Or-
egon Wild, fired back at the
notion of hunting wolves.
Adding hunting into the wolf
plan would be troublesome,
he said, and might actually
backfire when it comes to
protecting livestock. He re-
ferred to research that sug-
gests killing wolves actually
increases the odds of future
attacks, because it disrupts
the social structure of packs.
“We’re not trashing hunt-
ing,” Klavins said. “We are
expressing serious concerns
about (wolf) hunting.”
Weiss, the West Coast
wolf advocate with the Cen-
ter for Biological Diversity,
said hunting wolves in the
lower 48 states is not being
done for subsistence, and de-
cried it as a “waste of wild-
life.”
Having reached an im-
passe, the group shifted gears
to focus on collaring wolves
with GPS tracking collars,
and using the data to alert
ranchers when wolves are in
the area.
The cattlemen’s associ-
ation has called for making
Continued from Page A1
Monument
City council position 4 — one position, four-
year term
No candidate filed
City council position 5 — one position, four-
year term
No candidate filed
City council position 6 — one position, four-
year term
No candidate filed
Mt. Vernon
Mayor — two-year term
Kenny Delano
City council at large — two positions, four-
year term
Prairie City
Mayor — two-year term
Carole Garrison
Frances M. Preston
City council at large — three positions, four-
year term
Scott Officer
Tisha Packard
Les Church
Chantal Marie DesJardin
Chase McClung
Eddy Hicks
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Lilly Foster
return the next day.
The Smiths sometimes let
people stay on the 80- to 100-
acre property on Nan’s Rock
Road that the couple bought
in the mid-1990s, Hinshaw
said. They were a very social
couple, and their disappear-
ance was very unusual and
suggested foul play, she said.
Hinshaw said she’s dealing
with the tragedy.
“After a while, it gets easi-
er,” she said. “I’m trying. There
are good days and bad days.”
sure at least one wolf from
every pack in the state is
wearing a collar. But Roblyn
Brown, wolf program coor-
dinator for ODFW, said it is
nearly impossible for staff to
find and safely collar certain
wolves in densely forested
habitat. ODFW also esti-
mates collaring costs about
$2,000 to $7,000 per wolf,
with an average lifespan of
18 months per collar.
“It’s just a tough thing to
do,” Brown said.
Nash said ranchers need to
know where wolves are mov-
ing to make the most effec-
tive use of range riders and
other non-lethal deterrents.
Rather than provide specific
GPS points of where wolves
have been, Brown said it may
be more effective to use the
data as a whole, coloring a
picture of where wolf activity
is most active — what wild-
life officials call the “blue
blob.”
Despite concerns about
whether the data would
be used to poach wolves,
Klavins said GPS collars may
be one area where environ-
mental groups may be willing
to make a compromise.
With that bit of progress,
the work group decided it
would be worth it to meet
again on Sept. 21 in Red-
mond.
Derek Broman, state car-
nivore biologist for ODFW,
said the tentative plan is to
go back before the Fish and
Wildlife Commission in Oc-
tober to receive further direc-
tion.
“We know there’s not
going to be unanimous deci-
sions,” Broman said. “That’s
ultimately why this process is
so valuable.”
Melcher, the ODFW di-
rector, said he is an “eternal
optimist,” and believes the
collaboration will prove to be
a positive investment.
“We’re writing the checks,
and we’re happy to keep do-
ing it,” Melcher said.
Barbara Northington
Sue Holliday
Jan Lowry
Mitchel Wilson
Bryan Montague
RACES
asked her to send a form con-
firming that they could use her
sample.
Hinshaw said she spoke
to Sharon the evening of the
fire, and Sharon had told her
they were headed to bed. The
Smiths had planned to clean
the caretaker’s house the next
day and then go fishing.
The caretaker’s wife had
suffered a stroke. The couple
were in Idaho seeking med-
ical treatment at the time of
the fire but were expected to
agency could build a broader
consensus among stakehold-
ers.
Thursday’s work group
got the process started,
though it nearly faltered out
of the gate. After identifying
numerous issues, the group
attempted to debate the mer-
its of killing wolves that re-
peatedly prey on livestock,
which led to an uneasy di-
alogue that had Nudelman
openly questioning whether
to proceed.
Akenson, conservation di-
rector for the Oregon Hunters
Association, said he believes
hunting needs to be included
in management of wolves.
“The bottom line is, hunt-
ers need to be part of the pro-
cess,” Akenson said. “It’s a
real need.”
Nash, a Wallowa County
commissioner and longtime
rancher, said livestock pro-
ducers never wanted to kill
wolves in the first place, but
are in a predicament now
where they must protect their
livelihood.
“There isn’t a class of
livestock out there that is
safe anymore,” he said. “Le-
thal take in the remote areas
where we run (livestock) is
COUPLE
Continued from Page A1
was 12. Hinshaw was Terry’s
age and was in his class at
school.
Even at 13, Terry was a
“go-getter,” Hinshaw said.
He found a job as a bus boy
at a restaurant at a large hotel
in Eugene and one month later
was the assistant manager, she
said.
“His goal at the time was to
have a career in hotel manage-
ment,” she said.
Sharon was a cheerleader
in high school and was very
social, Hinshaw said. When
Terry was hired to help man-
age a hotel at Seattle-Tacoma
Grant County Soil
and Water District
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Zone 1 — four-year term
Jim Bahrenburg
Zone 3 — unexpired term
Brian Campbell
International Airport in Wash-
ington, Sharon dropped out
of high school and went with
him, Hinshaw said.
After a time, the Smiths re-
turned and established a trad-
ing post or second-hand store
in the Springfield area. Anoth-
er trading post in Harrisburg
followed, then a restaurant
in Springfield and another
restaurant in Eugene.
Terry and Sharon were a
happy couple, Hinshaw said.
“I never saw them yell at
each other,” she said.
The Smiths never had chil-
dren. They were always work-
ing and keeping busy — Terry
with his various business in-
terests along with hunting and
fishing, and Sharon gardening
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and reupholstering furniture
or working for senior homes
and hospice. Hinshaw recalled
them serving food at homeless
shelters on Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
“Terry would give you the
shirt off his back,” she said,
adding that he always picked
up hitchhikers.
Hinshaw moved to Hawaii
in the early 1980s, and after a
few visits, the Smiths bought
property there. Over the years,
Terry bought numerous prop-
erties in Hawaii and rented
them out.
The Smiths later went into
the clothing business, hiring
seamstresses in Bali, Indone-
sia, and even designing clothes
and printed fabrics. Hinshaw
joined them for a time.
“We really got into it for a
while,” she said.
The Smiths wintered in
Hawaii and sold clothing and
other items during the sum-
mer. They had outlets at Fri-
day Harbor, in the San Juan
Islands of Washington and at
a large flea market in Blaine,
Washington, Hinshaw said.
Terry had suffered two
heart attacks in the past few
years, Hinshaw said. He was
in Hawaii each time and was
flown to a hospital in Hono-
lulu. One of the heart attacks
was brought on when Hin-
shaw’s 400-pound semi-wild
pig passed away under her
bedroom window and Terry
was trying to deal with the
dead animal.
“If it had happened three
or four weeks later, he would
have been out hunting in
Eastern Oregon,” she said.