GRANT UNION WRESTLERS PREPARE FOR SEASON
– PAGE A10
The
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W edNesday , d ecember 5, 2018
• N o . 49
• 18 P ages
• $1.00
www.MyEagleNews.com
Cold case murder could be subject of TV show
Remains found
in Vance Creek
20 years ago
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Sheriff Glenn
Palmer
A 20-year-old cold case
considered a homicide in Grant
County is getting new attention
and new funding.
Sheriff Glenn Palmer ad-
vised the Grant County Court
Nov. 28 that the History Chan-
nel was interested in the case
and will pay for additional anal-
ysis in an effort to confirm the
identity of the victim.
Human remains were ini-
tially found in the Vance Creek
drainage about a mile and a half
west of Highway 395 and south
of John Day by Chad Holliday
in 1997, Palmer said. Additional
remains were found by Ted Fer-
rioli the next year in the same
area.
The sheriff’s office has spent
a lot of time and effort on the
cold case and reached a stand-
still because of funding issues,
Palmer said. The new analysis
might identify the victim within
a short period of time, and if so,
the sheriff’s office would have
another homicide case on its
hands, he said.
“I am not sure as to what they
are using to identify this person
and haven’t been in contact with
them as of yet,” Palmer told the
Eagle.
As part of the arrangement
with the History Channel, the
sheriff’s office would be a will-
ing participant in a show about
He left the skull fragment
where he found it and only
briefly scanned the area for ad-
ditional remains. He wasn’t sure
he wanted to find any more.
“It was kind of eerie,” he
said.
Holliday reported his find-
ing to the sheriff’s office, and
the next day he escorted Sheriff
Fred Reusser, John Day dentist
Curtis Hansford, John Day Po-
lice Chief Swede Larson and
Cpl. Julie Armistead to the site.
the case, he said.
“There are several other cas-
es across Oregon that they will
also be looking at,” Palmer said.
Grim discoveries
Chad Holliday was gathering
cattle on horseback near Fall
Mountain in fall 1997 when he
spotted what appeared to be part
of a human skull.
“I’ve seen most every skull
this county has to offer,” he told
the Eagle at the time. “There
is nothing as big as a human
brain.”
See CASE, Page A18
OBJECTION!
Locals express issues with Forest Plan
Congress directed the U.S. Forest Service to develop plans for its national forests with the National Forest Management Act in 1976, but the process
has become cumbersome and slow. Development of a 15-year plan to replace the 1990 plans for the Blue Mountains region began in earnest in 2004,
with a draft issued 10 years later. Facing strong public criticism — more than 1,000 letters with more than 4,000 comments — the Forest Service opted
to re-engage the public in 2015-2016.
A new revised plan was released June 29 for the Malheur, Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman national forests — which will be separated into three
forest-specific plans providing guidance for future project and activity decision-making. Its publication kicked off a 60-day period for people to object
to the plan, followed by a 90-day period in which the Forest Service would attempt to address those objections. To accommodate in-person discussions
with the large number of objectors and issues, the Forest Service arranged public meetings in John Day, Pendleton, Wallowa and Baker City. The
timber and vegetation management and forest access sessions were well attended at the John Day meeting.
Forest Plan objectors
confront officials
on road closures
Objectors want accelerated
forest management
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
W
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
O
bjectors and inter-
ested persons had a
chance to meet with
Forest Service review-
ing officers for the Blue
Mountains Forest Plan at
the Grant County Fair-
grounds on Nov. 27.
The session on access
drew a crowd, and facil-
itator Mary Farnsworth
reminded everyone that
it wasn’t likely anything
would be resolved that day.
Chris French, the re-
viewing officer from the
Forest Service office in
Washington, D.C., noted
that access had struck a
nerve for people in Grant
County. Issues in the Mal-
heur National Forest in-
cluded off-road motorized
use, safety reasons such
as fire and emergency re-
sponse, access to private
lands and protecting his-
torical and recreational
uses. On top of all that was
a concern about a trav-
el management plan that
could follow the forest
plan.
Past closures
Numerous
objectors
noted that the Forest Ser-
vice didn’t need to close
roads — they close on their
own from lack of use. The
public maintained many
forest roads as they used
them, the objectors said.
Locals were witness to
forest roads closing over
the years project by proj-
ect, Billy Jo George said
— and then they saw the
Forest Plan. The Malheur
National Forest was head-
See ACCESS, Page A18
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
From left, Harney County Commissioner Mark Owens,
Rex Storm from the Associated Oregon Loggers, King
Williams of Iron Triangle Logging and Mark Webb
of Blue Mountains Forest Partners participate in a
Forest Plan objectors meeting at the Grant County
Fairgrounds on Nov. 27.
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Left to right, Forest Service reviewing officer
Allen Rowley and Malheur National Forest Acting
Supervisor Craig Trulock listen to people objecting
to the revised Forest Plan.
hen it came to tim-
ber and vegetation,
objections to the
Blue Mountains Forest Plan
raised at the Nov. 27 meet-
ing at the Grant County Fair-
grounds were technical and
detailed, but the objectors
appeared well informed and
clear about their disagree-
ments.
Allen Rowley, from the
Forest Service office in Wash-
ington, D.C., served as the re-
viewing officer for the meet-
ing, and Earl Stewart, from
the Tongass National Forest,
facilitated the meeting.
Based on what he had
read, Rowley noted that many
comments were for or against
increasing the allowable sale
quantity for commercial tim-
ber harvesting or choosing
more aggressive forest man-
agement over an ecological
approach. This meeting of-
fered objectors an opportunity
to speak in person to explain
their case, he said.
Plan restrictions
Harney County Commis-
sioner Mark Owens noted that
timber harvest numbers had
increased very little from the
2014 draft forest plan, which
the county opposed, to the
2018 revised plan. More tim-
ber management was needed
to help prevent wildfires, he
said.
Regional Forester Jim
Peña had described 60 percent
of the Malheur National For-
est as being in fire condition,
Owens said, but that situation
will not improve at the rate of
forest management called for
in the forest plan.
Owens wanted accelerated
forest management without
additional National Environ-
mental Policy Act review,
adding if timber managers
didn’t do it, nature would. He
See FOREST, Page A18
Broadband coalition not awarded big grant
Additional grant
opportunities will
be targeted
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
After all the hard work
and news coverage, officials
in Grant County received bad
news about the immediate fu-
ture for improved internet ac-
cess here.
“Unfortunately, we were
not one of the recipients of
the 2018 Community Connect
grant,” John Day City Manag-
er Nick Green told the Eagle.
John Day, on behalf of the
Grant County Digital Net-
work Coalition, had applied
for a $2.9
million grant
from the U.S.
Department
of Agriculture
with plans to
expand broad-
Nick Green band coverage
south from the
John Day Fire Hall to Sene-
ca, with laterals and fiber-to-
home service along the way.
The $450,000 match for
the grant would have come
from the $1.8 million ap-
propriation the city of John
Day received from the legis-
lature in 2017. The goal was
to leverage the state money
as match funding for grants.
Phase 2 would continue the
trunk line to Burns, and Phase
3 would involve running fiber
laterals east
and west into
the John Day
Valley.
The
co-
alition
also
used the state
Dan Becker
money to hire
Commstruc-
ture Consulting for infra-
structure design and project
management. All told, the
coalition spent about $93,000
developing the USDA grant
application, Green told Rep.
Greg Walden Oct. 31.
A total of 124 project ap-
plications were submitted,
and 19 projects were award-
ed. The winners included nine
telephone companies, two
electrical cooperatives, two
telephone cooperatives and
the Choctaw Nation in Okla-
homa.
The 19 projects will ben-
efit more than 27,000 busi-
nesses and households in 12
states, not including Oregon.
USDA Rural Development
awarded $33 million in grants
and $58 million in loans for
the projects.
“I expect we will talk with
USDA in the coming weeks
regarding our application and
how to make it stronger if we
reapply next spring,” Green
told the Eagle.
Congress recently made
available $600 million in ad-
ditional funding to help small
rural communities improve
internet access, and the Fed-
eral Communications Com-
mission’s Connect America
Fund Phase II auction allo-
cated $1.4 billion to support
broadband expansion in un-
derserved communities in 45
states over the next decade.
Coalition board member
Dan Becker was upbeat about
the future for broadband in
Grant County.
“We have a high-quali-
ty package to go after other
grants,” he told the Eagle.
“We learned a lot.”
Possibilities for funding
include grants to improve ru-
ral health care and the U.S.
Department of Transporta-
tion BUILD discretionary
grant program, which has
$1.5 billion focused on im-
proving rural highways for
autonomous vehicles, Becker
said.