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