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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (July 24, 2019)
A18 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Investigation Continued from Page A1 The Oregon Department of Jus- tice has been assigned as lead prosecution for the case, Palmer said. “We are not able to divulge fur- ther information about this case as we do not want to compromise what work has been done,” Palmer said. Social couple Terry and Sharon Smith were known to let people stay on the 80- to 100-acre property in the Laycock Creek area between Mt. Vernon and John Day that the couple bought in the mid-1990s, according to Sha- ron’s sister Cathy Hinshaw, who lives in Hawaii. Terry and Sharon first met in Forest Continued from Page A1 attention to local communi- ties, Trulock said. Admin- istrators receive so much direction, policy and regula- tions that incorporating local interests becomes difficult, he said. Trulock has been with the Forest Service for more than 28 years. His early career included positions in silvi- culture, timber and plan- ning in Idaho, Montana and Alaska. He has extensive fire experience and has served as an advanced agency admin- istrator, where he was the responsible official for all personnel involved on a wildland fire. Trulock served as the Pinedale district ranger on the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming begin- ning in 2002. He was the Lochsa-Powell dis- trict ranger on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest in Idaho from 2007-2014. While in Alaska, Tru- lock also served as a plan- ning staff officer, a National Environmental Protection Act coordinator and a for- ester/silviculturist. The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest increased its timber target by 50% with extensive use of stewardship contracts. In southwest Oregon, Trulock prioritized strength- ening the collaborative part- nership between the forest, community leaders, partners and stakeholders. Forest plan After 15 years of work and 120 public meetings, the revised Malheur National Forest Plan was withdrawn in March. Casamassa has said he will not make a deci- sion on a path forward for the revision process until junior high school in Springfield, Hinshaw said. He was 13, and Sha- ron was 12. Even at 13, Terry was a “go-getter,” Hinshaw said. He found a job as a bus boy at a restaurant at a large hotel in Eugene and one month later was the assistant manager, she said. “His goal at the time was to have a career in hotel management,” she said. The Smiths never had children. They were always working and keep- ing busy — Terry with his various business interests along with hunt- ing and fishing, and Sharon garden- ing and reupholstering furniture or working for senior homes and Hos- pice. Hinshaw recalled them serving food at homeless shelters on Thanks- giving and Christmas. “Terry would give you the shirt off his back,” she said. this fall, Trulock said. Casamassa wants Forest Service personnel to use the time talking to stakehold- ers who helped develop the revised plan and objectors to develop a consensus on how to move forward, Tru- lock said. Casamassa is also consid- ering options such as chang- ing from the 1982 planning rules to more streamlined 2012 rules for the revision, Trulock said. The definitions and data standards are dif- ferent, with the 1982 rules being too “data heavy.” One explanation for what went wrong with the Forest Plan Revision was that plan- ners met with special inter- est groups one at a time and then made changes, Trulock said. When the draft plan was put together with all the changes, many interest groups were not happy with the changes. It would have been bet- ter for all these groups to work together to incorporate all the proposed changes, he said. The Forest Service also needed to “tell the story” about how the plan changed so the public could track all the changes. Wildfire strategy Trulock said he spoke with all three members of the Grant County Court about the recent Blue Ridge Fire southwest of John Day. While the fire was light- ning-caused, still weather allowed the Forest Service to expand the burn area to 667 acres in order to reduce wildfire fuels. The Blue Ridge Fire pro- vided a good test for the new leadership at the Mal- heur National Forest. Tru- lock is the new forest super- visor, Lisa Cook is the new deputy supervisor, Robert Foxworth is the new Blue Mountain district ranger and Wednesday, July 24, 2019 Contributed photo Terry and Sharon Smith went missing following a fire at their remote cabin in the Laycock Creek Road area on July 17-18, 2018. Josh Giles is the new Emi- grant district ranger. While they all have wild- fire experience, they hadn’t worked together as a group, Trulock said. Establish- ing lines of communication with each other and with the county court and the sher- iff’s office ahead of time is better than waiting until the fire is coming over the hill, he said. Trulock noted that Forest Service employees helped county crews deal with this year’s spring flood. Some of the employees have 30 years experience here and came back with “high praise” for the county’s organization. Coordination Trulock noted that he’s not an attorney and didn’t know all the legal nuances of “coordination” in natural resource planning, but that the Forest Service supports engaging on projects such as the Bark Project in the Mur- derers Creek area and the Austin Project east of Prairie City where they have shared priorities around strengthen- ing local economies, reduc- ing wildfire risk, ensur- ing access and supporting healthier watersheds. “We’re committed to working with the counties as early as possible, preferably before we even do our pub- lic scoping,” he said. Creat- ing a Grant County Natural Resource Committee would be “a bump in their capacity to participate in these plan- ning efforts,” he said. Forest Service planners would welcome committee members to early planning meetings, when brainstorm- ing was taking place before a single polygon had been placed on a GIS map, Tru- lock said. That kind of participa- tion would help shape how a project might move for- Annual Wellness Exam will include a OSAA Sports Physical Grant Union Jr/Sr High July 25, 2019 • 7am - 6pm All Grant County Junior High and High School Stu- dents including those who have just graduated in 2019 are encouraged to attend. Best Practice recommends a full annual wellness exam be completed each year instead of just a sports physical. All junior high and high school students regardless of their intentions of playing sports are encouraged to attend. Event will include: musculoskeletal movement evaluations, behav- ioral health screenings, recommended immunizations, dental and vision screenings, age appropriate reproductive health and rela- tionship safety counseling along with a full exam by a provider. Students under the age of 15 will be required to have a parent or guardian present at registration or to send a signed consent to treat with the student. Please be prepared to fill out demographic, insurance and health history information. Insurance will be billed, however if insurance does not cover the event, or a copay is required, the fee will be waived. For questions please contact the Grant County Health Department at 541-575-0429. Contributed photo The cabin owned by Terry and Sharon Smith on Nan’s Rock Road burned July 17-18 and the case was later declared a homicide. ward, the issues to consider and the alternatives to com- pare during the NEPA analy- sis. Forest Service guidance calls for a reasonable range of alternatives, he said. Pointing to a binder on a shelf in his office contain- ing a Harney County com- prehensive plan, Trulock explained that county man- agement plans inform the Forest Service “here are our values, here are the things we’re looking for on the landscape.” Trulock said it would be “fantastic” if Grant County would craft an alternative for the Austin Project. Fuel reduction is the driver for the project, but road closures will be considered to pro- vide elk security in order to get elk to move from private land to forest land. He said he would love to see more alternatives during analysis. Grazing rules Grazing regulations on the north side of the Mal- heur National Forest are heavily influenced by fish habitat concerns, Trulock said. Portions of the for- est are governed by a fed- eral biological opinion that makes grazing regulations seem overly complicated. “When I got here, I felt like we as a forest were not speaking with one voice regarding range manage- ment,” he said. The position of range program manager had been vacant for a year but is now filled. Trulock felt insuf- ficient transparency and “multiple conversations” affected Forest Service communication with graz- ing allotment holders. The ultimate goal for federal agencies is to get endangered fish delisted, he said, and anything the Forest Service can do to attain that goal will reduce the complexity of managing public lands, he said. Trulock cited recent train- ing Forest Service personnel and local ranchers under- went to understand monitor- ing protocols. Many national forests have gone to cooper- ative permittee monitoring programs, he said. The data is needed to defend forest policies, he said. The Forest Service wants to work with allot- ment holders as partners and to help them be suc- cessful, Trulock said. Ranching is also a tradi- tional and cultural practice that should be allowed to continue. “By and large, we as a forest are in an upward trend in our grazing and our rangeland health,” he said. Timber harvest Critics of the 21-inch regulation limiting the har- vest of large trees say rev- enue from the sale of mer- chantable timber could help pay for stewardship projects that improve forest health. Trulock said large trees are being harvested in cur- rent projects, including dead or dying trees impacted by western pine beetle out- breaks, but a lengthy For- est Plan amendment pro- cess was needed. In those cases, large trees were har- vested for landscape res- toration purposes, such as fuel reduction or aspen res- toration, but revenue from the timber sale also helped the forest. “Every time we can ratchet up the economics that way, we get more acres treated of that non-com- mercial component, that understory of small trees that we’re trying to get off the landscape from a fuels standpoint, so making the economics better means we get more done out there,” he said. About three more years remain for Iron Triangle’s 10-year stewardship con- tract. Trulock said the For- est Service is generally happy with the results and will want another stew- ardship contract. Improve- ments in the language need to be made based on what’s been learned, and the con- tract needs to be put out to public bid, he said. Travel management With 9,600 miles of roads on the Malheur National Forest, a proposed Travel Management Plan became a major issue during the For- est Plan Revision, Trulock said. Some people believed land-use designations, stan- dards and guidelines in the Forest Plan Revision were acting as de facto travel management planning, he said. Casamassa has posed the question of whether the Travel Management Plan should be completed before the Forest Plan Revi- sion, Trulock said. Under a travel plan, any road that is not designated open is by default closed. “We’re one of only a couple forests that have not done travel management yet,” he said. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently told state Sen. Cliff Bentz the Forest Service hasn’t yet had time to consider a peti- tion by the Eastern Ore- gon Counties Association to exempt the Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman national forests from the travel man- agement rule, but the peti- tion was still in review. In some cases, the Forest Service can’t just let roads “grow closed,” Trulock said, especially in steep coun- try where a plugged culvert could blow out, damaging another road lower down or impacting a nearby stream with sediment. On the other hand, road maintenance is expensive. Trulock hoped some kind of middle ground could be found between closing roads with berms or install- ing gates that could be opened during emergencies. “If people would stop pulling out gates or dam- aging gates, then the road would be available for fire suppression, search and res- cue, administrative use or permittees,” he said.
