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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2019)
Two Grant Union wrestlers qualify for fi rst girls state tournament PAGE A9 The Blue Mountain EAGLE EAGLE Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 Wednesday, February 6, 2019 151st Year • No. 6 • 18 Pages • $1.00 BlueMountainEagle.com New programs support local veterans Coffee, haircuts, counseling and more offered for those who’ve served By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle From coffee and doughnuts and free haircuts, conversations to counseling and technical assis- tance — there are many ways in which veterans and others are reaching out to local veterans to show their appreciation. Katee Hoffman at the Grant County Veterans Service Offi ce offers an array of assistance to local vets as the county’s veterans service offi cer. She’s also involved in other ongoing and new ways to support veterans. A free coffee time for vets from 9-11 a.m. on Wednesdays at the John Day Elks Lodge, at 140 NE Dayton St., has been avail- able for the past fi ve years. “It’s just about hanging out and camaraderie with people who ‘get’ you,” she said. Bob Van Voorhis, a veteran, provides coffee, and Hoffman, also a veteran, brings doughnuts. Van Voorhis, the State Elks Southeast District Veterans chair- man, said there are usually 15-20 people at the Wednesday get-to- gethers, including younger and older veterans. He said they like to discuss the differences in their experiences across the generations, from the gear they used to what boot camp was like. “As much as things change, they don’t,” he said, adding there is that “human, emotional side” of things. Once a month, on the fourth full week of the month, Greg Ford, a readjustment counselor with the Central Oregon Vet Cen- ter in Bend, attends the gathering. Besides shooting the breeze around the table, Ford also offers confi dential counseling, outreach and referral service to veterans and their families. The Eagle/Angel Carpenter Ford also visits Burns and Christmas Valley during that Grant County veterans join together for coff ee on Wednesdays at the John Day Elks Lodge 1824. On Jan. fourth week of the month. In one or two months, a video 30, from left, Josh Parker of John Day (Coast Guard), Bob Van Voorhis of John Day (Army) and Greg Ford of See Program, Page A18 Bend (Navy). EXTRA MEASURES Fish protected during highway project By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle Addressing the steep slope was an expensive option and constant maintenance was not a satisfactory solution, so ODOT chose to reconstruct about 600 feet of channel. T he Oregon Department of Transpor- tation took extra measures to protect fi sh in Canyon Creek during a fl ood mitigation project on Highway 395 last summer. ODOT personnel from Regions 4 and 5 and ODOT Environmental Services joined local Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife crews to salvage 1,794 fi sh, crayfi sh and mussels from the creek bed at mile markers 4.5 and 7.25 south of Canyon City. The crews used handheld nets, electrofi sh- ing equipment and buckets as summer tempera- tures reached 100-plus degrees, Region 5 Envi- ronmental Coordinator Paul Kennington told the Southeast Area Commission on Transportation in John Day on Jan. 28. A total of 985 fi sh listed as threatened or endangered were salvaged from the creek with a mortality rate of about 1 percent, he said. Fire impacts Last year’s Canyon Creek Flood Mitigation Project was in response to concerns about ero- sion and fl ooding following the 2015 Canyon Creek Complex fi re. Highway 395 was closed during the fi re because of smoke, trees falling on the roadway, emergency vehicles and damage to guardrails, signs and asphalt, Kennington said. Following the fi re, the Forest Service’s Burned Area Emergency Response team rec- ommended increasing the capacity of the Vance Creek and Sheep Gulch culverts, protecting a bridge at mile marker 7.25 and removing haz- ard trees. In addition to being undersized, the Vance Creek structure near the hairpin turn on High- way 395 was damaged by the Canyon Creek Complex fi re and fi sh passage was compro- mised, Kennington said. Fish passage was also compromised at the Sheep Gulch structure about 4 miles south of Canyon City. The culvert was undersized and required ongoing maintenance, Kennington said. Both structures were replaced in 2015. A giant metal culvert was used at Vance Creek, and a concrete structure was used at Sheep Gulch. Trash racks were installed at both sites. Projects in 2018 ODOT addressed two more problems in the burned area last summer — roadway fl ooding and a berm in the clear zone at mile marker 4.5 and scouring at the bridge footings and upstream from the bridge at mile marker 7.25. The bridge project was more straightfor- ward, Kennington said. Boulders were placed upstream and around the bridge footings and partially grouted to riprap the banks and protect the bridge. See Fish, Page A18 Contributed photos/Oregon Department of Transportation ABOVE: State personnel removed fi sh, crayfi sh and mussels from a section of Canyon Creek before it was de-watered and lined with riprap in summer 2018. TOP PHOTO: A large plastic pipe was used to contain Canyon Creek streamfl ow while a section of the creek bed was de-watered and lined with riprap in summer 2018. Oregon lawmakers unveil carbon cap and trade bill By Aubrey Wieber and Claire Withycombe Oregon Capital Bureau After nearly a year of work by a legislative committee, a bill released Thursday afternoon outlines how Ore- gon would drastically cut its green- house gas emissions and become the second state to implement a cap and trade system. The anticipated legislation — crit- icized before it even appeared — instantly became the talk of the Cap- itol, though many legislators weren’t exactly certain what had emerged. At 98 pages, the legislation is more some- thing to devour after dinner with a bot- tle of wine than something to skim through between committee hearings. Lawmakers, lobbyists and nonparti- san legislative analysts alike scrambled to read the proposal, called the Oregon Climate Action Program, branded as Legislative Concept 894. Brad Reed, spokesman for Renew Oregon, an organiza- tion that has heavily Gov. Kate pushed cap and trade, Brown said the bill is a land- mark environmen- tal move that will improve the lives of Oregonians and energize the econ- omy. If passed, the policy would start in 2021. Reaction to the new bill was swift — and partisan. Gov. Kate Brown issued a statement soon after the legis- lation became public, putting her polit- ical muscle behind it. “It is encouraging to have reached this important milestone with a bill that refl ects signifi cant work on the part of legislators, advocates, and businesses across Oregon,” Brown said in a state- ment. “I look forward to further refi ne- ments through the legislative process to ensure the program achieves our climate goals while growing our economy.” Sen. Michael Republicans and Dembrow, some business orga- nizations criticized the legislation soon after it became publicly available, though their critiques were general. The bill is similar to legislation introduced in 2018, in that the overar- ching goal is to reduce the state’s car- bon emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The cap is also still set at 25,000 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. Like last year, this proposal would regulate oil companies immediately. Utilities would be given special allow- ances to freely exceed the limits for nine years, then start to pay — something Reed said was too generous. In a diver- gence from last year’s legislation, man- ufacturers would get 100 percent free allowances in the fi rst year, then have fewer free allowances each year after. “That creates the incentive to start investing in more energy-effi cient oper- ations,” said state Sen. Michael Dem- brow, D-Portland. “If they don’t, they’re going to have to purchase on their own more and more of those allowances. This is a market-based system, so if they’re able to become more effi cient more quickly, they’re actually going to have a valuable asset in their permits (and) will be able to sell them to other businesses that need them.” The money polluters would pay for permission to put more emissions into the air than allowed would be spent by the state on projects to help Oregon’s environment. See Bill, Page A18
