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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 2019)
A10 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, June 26, 2019 North Fork to see forest projects this summer By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle The North Fork area of Grant County has several forest projects in the works, North Fork District Ranger Paula Guenther told the county court, but fire danger is always a concern. Guenther started work as the district ranger in Ukiah last May. She came to the Umatilla National Forest from the Medicine Bow- Routt National Forests in Saratoga, Wyoming, where she served as an environ- mental coordinator since 2016. She has a bachelor’s in zoology and a master’s in water resource management. Olive Lake dam A plan with options for the failing Olive Lake dam should be completed early this summer, according to Joe Neer, an integrated watershed staff member at the Umatilla National For- est Supervisor’s Office in Pendleton. The discharge gate installed at the base of the 30-foot dam in 1979 stopped working properly in 2016, and the lake has drained close to its natural level. The log crib and rock dam and an 8-mile wood and metal hoop pipeline were built in 1908 to drive generators at the Fremont Powerhouse, which powered the Red Boy Mine during the gold rush days in the North Fork. Located about 12 miles west North Fork of Gran- ite, Olive John Day District Lake’s 149 Ranger Paula acres when Guenther full has become a popular tourist destination, especially around Fourth of July. The Forest Service maintains a campground at the lake, but a lower level and smaller surface area could impact recreational opportunities, Guenther told the court. Professional consultants investigated the integrity of the dam over the past few years, Neer told the Eagle. One option that could be considered is “notching” the dam so the lake would main- tain a natural and safe level, he said. The lake’s depth changes naturally with sea- sonal runoff, he added. A decision on the dam would follow a public pro- cess, with a special focus on historical values, Neer said. A decision might not be made for several years, he said. Guenther told the court that if the stumps and debris on the exposed lake shore were cleaned up, more recre- ational space would become Eagle file photo Visitors will find trails, boating, fishing and camping at Olive Lake, located about 12 miles west of Granite. available, but there would be less lake to use. The lake provides good fishing, and boats with trolling motors are permitted. Commissioner Jim Ham- sher stressed the importance of water storage in East- ern Oregon for firefighting and recreation. Helicopters could lower their buckets in a lake if the thick lodgepole forest surrounding the lake caught fire. He also suggested trying to rebuild the dam using the same log crib design used a century ago. Guenther, who recalled seeing otters at the lake during a visit, said rebuilding the dam could be a multi-million dollar project and would require partners. Ten Cent project Guenther said visitors to the North Fork area this summer can expect to see trucks and equipment work- ing on the Ten Cent Com- munity Wildfire Protec- tion Project, which seeks to address fire risks on about 37,800 acres around the Granite and Greenhorn com- munities, Olive Lake and the Fremont Powerhouse. The project, which was approved in June 2017, calls for 7,859 acres of commer- cial thinning, 3,557 acres of small-diameter thinning on riparian habitat conser- vation land and 1,227 addi- tional acres of small-diame- ter thinning. Iron Triangle won two of the project contracts. The larger Nickel sale calls for thinning on mixed stands, while the smaller Penny sale consists mostly of small-di- ameter lodgepole pine, Guenther said. Dale demolition Demolition of six of the remaining 15 buildings at the closed Dale administra- tive site, north of Ritter on Highway 395, took place in May. Guenther said a tub grinder the size of the county court room was brought in to reduce the structures to mulch. The 20-acre sloped site served as a district office and compound for 40 years, but after a large por- tion of the Dale Ranger District became wilderness in 1984, the district was combined with the Ukiah Ranger District to form the North Fork John Day Ranger District. The Dale site was closed in 2002, and 10 build- ings were offered for sale in 2016, but no bids were submitted and the build- ings continued to degrade. Some of the flooring was reused at the Fremont Pow- erhouse and some cabinets were transferred to the Tup- per Guard Station. A small gas house will be moved to the ranger office in Ukiah for interpretive use, Guen- ther said. The Forest Service is still open to suggestions for how to make good use of the Dale site, Guenther said. The site has good roads and power, but water and sewer are no longer available. A high- way rest stop is one sugges- tion, Guenther said. Ham- sher suggested constructing some small corrals for horse campers. Grant will help archive Kam Wah Chung documents By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle A recent grant announce- ment is good news for researchers interested in the Kam Wah Chung Historic Site in John Day, a desig- nated national landmark. The Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Port- land has been awarded a $39,610 grant by the State Library of Oregon to sup- port a collaborative proj- ect between the college and the historic site called “Kam Wah Chung: A Historical Archive of Chinese Medi- cine in Rural Oregon.” The grant will support in the 2020 fiscal year the creation of an online digi- tal archive that will include images and translations of various Chinese medical artifacts stored at the Kam Wah Chung site. The announcement was made by Beth Howlett, vice president of communi- cations and academic ser- vices at the college. In Octo- ber 2018, she and Dr. Eric Brand, who studied under Professor Zhao Zhongzhen, participated in a video shoot at Kam Wah Chung for the American version of Dis- THANK YOU FAMILY FUN DAY 2019 EVENT SPONSOR Bank of Eastern Oregon Coordinating Advisory Council J & L Shelk Foundation John Day Auto Parts John Day River Vet Clinic Mobile Glass Oregon Telephone Oregon Trail Electric Co-op Umpqua Bank BOOTHS Advantage Dental Chester’s Elves Child Care Resource & Referral Community Health Improvement Families First Frontier Early Learning Hub Grant-Harney CASA Heart of Grant County Intermountain ESD – EI/ECSE John Day Fossil Beds Len’s Drug Prairie Sky Center for the Arts Safe Communities Coalition Strawberry Wilderness Clinic IN-KIND DONOR Blue Mt. Eagle ER Printing & Graphics Families First Grocery Outlet KJDY VOLUNTEERS/STAFF Addie Northway Athena Tipton Chris Gorman Chris Northway Colleen Malaney Curtis Perry Davy Blood Debi Hueckman Eli Wright covery Channel. Zhao, a Chinese expert on oriental medicine, par- ticipated in a video shoot on the same subject at Kam Wah Chung two months ear- lier for the Chinese version of the Discovery Channel. Last year, according to site curator Don Merritt, a 10-year project to scan about 20,000 documents discov- ered at Kam Wah Chung was completed — three years ahead of schedule. This is the largest collec- tion of Chinese documents in North America outside of British Columbia, he said. About 6,000 of the docu- ments are in Chinese, and plans called for a small com- mittee of translators to work on the documents in batches to ensure quality control, he said. The history of the Kam Wah Chung site dates back to the 1860s gold rush in Grant County, when many miners were Chinese immi- grants. An estimated 2,000 Chinese men lived in the “Tiger Town” part of John Day by 1885. Two Chi- nese immigrants bought the Kam Wah Chung business in 1888 and expanded it into a grocery, dry goods store and clinic. Ing “Doc” Hay made diagnoses using pulsology and offered herbal medicine Eagle file photo From left, Eric Brand, a consultant on Chinese herbal medicine, and Beth Howlett, director of communications at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, discuss their roles during production of the Discovery Channel Asia film about the Kam Wah Chung Co. in John Day in October 2018. to the burgeoning Chinese population and others as an alternative to Western med- icine. Lung On, who spoke both Chinese and English, ran the general store and facilitated communication between Chinese and Amer- ican settlers. In 1967, while survey- ing for a new park, John Day city staff discovered the ownership deed for the site. When volunteers opened the long-closed building, they found the interior just as it was in 1955, with food in the kitchen, a stock of dry goods and medicinal herbs and Hay’s tools on the apothe- cary table. The college’s grant- funded project will focus on Chinese medical objects and other items that have been cataloged and translated by the college’s students and faculty. The resulting digital archive will be available to the public and will be of interest to anyone con- cerned with Oregon his- tory, the Chinese immigrant experience in the Ameri- can West or traditional Chi- nese medicine and herbal practice. Prairie City Class of 2019 and their parents want to thank everyone who contributed gifts, money and time to our Grad Night. Without you none of this would have been possible. Your generous support will be forever appreciated. Ethan Haney Jessica Madden Jolynn Swartzendruber Katrina Randleas Lisa Weigum Logan Randleas Megan Cameron Rhiannon Bauman Samantha Floyd Sophie Madden Soren Caudill Tucker Wright Tracey Blood Valeen Madden 12 th Annual….. • 168 kids played on the infl atables • 35 bike helmets were distributed • 152 Hot Dogs and 240 Hamburgers were enjoyed 121904
