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