The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current, January 20, 2021, Image 14

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The Blue Mountain eagle., January 20, 2021, Page 14, Image 14

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Newspaper Page TextA14 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Vaccines COVID-19 vaccine. Grant Union High School baseball coach and teacher Doug Sharp said, if getting the vaccine means he can see peo- ple smile again, then why not. “I just want things to go back to normal,” Sharp said. Continued from Page A1 anyone 65 or older. She told the Eagle that the health department would con- tact anyone who gets turned away to follow up with them when their sequencing cate- gory comes around. Lindsay said the state sent an email Friday asking pub- lic health administrators if they would like to do a mass vaccine event, and if so, how many would they need and what demographic would they immunize. She said she replied 65 and older and 500 doses. Lindsay said she had not heard back from the state as of Monday afternoon. She said other counties have not vaccinated everyone in Phase 1a and do not have vaccine doses to give. Wednesday, January 20, 2021 Warning week The Eagle/Steven Mitchell From left, Jenelle Moulton, Blue Mountain Hospital employ- ee, gives Doug Sharp, Grant Union High School baseball coach, the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine Friday at the Grant County Fair- grounds pavillion. She said it would not sur- prise her if the state did not send more shots until the rest of the state vaccinates everyone in their respective Phase 1a groups. Grant County educators said Friday they were not hesitant to get the Moderna Grant County has seen 13 more positive COVID-19 cases since Jan. 13, accord- ing to the health department. Lindsay said she believes the county is likely to be moved into the moderate risk cate- gory beginning Jan. 29. According to the Ore- gon Health Authority’s web page, in the moderate cate- gory, at-home social gathering restrictions would move from 10 to eight people. Indoor din- ing would still be allowed; however, the state would man- date restaurants and bars close at 11 p.m. instead of midnight. Restaurants and bars would also go from a maximum of eight to six per table. Lindsay said each county gets a “warning week.” She said the state typically publishes the “warning week” on Tuesdays. “If your numbers do not drop, then you get notice a week later that you are going to go up (or down). It takes effect that Friday,” she said. She said, if the county does not see a drop in positive COVID- 19 cases, she will receive notice of the county moving to the mod- erate risk category on Jan. 25 that would take effect Jan. 29. Data discrepancies Lindsay said the state reported 31 cases Friday because staff had to manually enter the health department’s positive cases that the state had just gotten around to reporting. She said positive COVID- 19 cases usually get uploaded to OHA’s system automati- cally. However, Lindsay said, that had not been happening, so staff had to override them manually to report the health department’s positive cases. As of Monday, the county has seen 211 positive COVID- 19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. OHA reported 666 new con- ﬁ rmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 Monday. Oregon’s total number of cases is 133,851. The total number of COVID-19- related deaths since the start of the pandemic is 1,803. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention, the total number of cases nationwide is just over 23 million. Store Dollar General has broken ground on its planned store in John Day, slated for grand opening in the summer of 2021. Continued from Page A1 in 1993, the DGLF has awarded more than $186 million in grants to nonproﬁ t organizations, help- ing more than 12 million individ- uals take their ﬁ rst steps toward literacy or continued education.” Petkovic added that DGLF supports individuals learning how to read, speak English or prepare for the high school equiv- alency test. The Type III site design review application states that the project plans to include one freestand- ing sign, parking and landscape improvements with 36 park- ing spaces, including two ADA spaces, and a 36-foot-wide drive- way with a new access approach to U.S. Highway 26. Guidelines Continued from Page A1 ager to limit the cutting of old and late-growth timber, the summary states, “the guideline need not be followed precisely” in situations where there is a better way to fulﬁ ll the guide- line’s intentions when conduct- ing a site-speciﬁ c analysis on projects. Billie Jo George, secre- tary of Grant County’s Natural Resource Advisory Commit- tee, said the new guidelines would open more forest resto- ration opportunities and “help clean up the forest.” Tim Rude of Rude Logging in Grant County said remov- ing restrictions to allow him to cut healthy trees over 21 inches is a beneﬁ t because a stable pine tree over 21 inches is worth a lot more than a 7-inch pine tree. “From my point of view, I feel it would go a long way towards turning these timber sales into a positive for the public versus a deﬁ cit,” Rude said. The executive summary states, in the spirit of building trust, teamwork and learning, the Forest Service created an “adaptive management” con- cept into the decision. Shane Jeffries, the Ochoco National Forest supervisor, said the agency will require managers to monitor the amount of old and large trees. Adaptive management consists of monitoring large trees with a measurable The Eagle/ Rudy Diaz threshold for action and a pro- vision to return to a standard if the landscape is not moving in the right direction. “We’re going to be look- ing at whether or not that, in fact, is actually happening as a result of this work,” Jeffries said, “and if it’s not, when it’s not, we make adjustments.” He said having a “hard standard” did not allow the Forest Service to adapt to on-the-ground circumstances. Now, Jeffries said, the new direction will allow the Forest Service managers to look at a group of trees in a project area in a national forest and assess whether it is appropriate to remove larger, younger trees. “In the past, if we thought that was the right thing, we would have to do a site-spe- ciﬁ c amendment to our forest plans every single time,” he said. “It takes time and takes taxpayer money to do that.” Projects will still go through the public pro- cess they have always gone through. Platt said a regional adap- tive management group would also meet once a year, open to the public, to review monitor- ing data that the Forest Ser- vice will collect. She said there would not be a limit on the number of people that can be a part of it, and there would be no appli- cation process. Platt said she does not know who would be assigned to coordinate the process, but she said the For- est Service would set up a system for people who want to be more engaged. Frayed public trust Environmental groups argue the Forest Service acted on pol- itics, kept the public out of the decision-making process and had the decision signed by a “political appointee in Wash- ington, D.C.” in the Trump administration’s waning days. Rob Klavins, Northeast Ore- gon ﬁ eld coordinator for Oregon Wild, said they are concerned about the ecological impact of replacing the 21-inch standard on the national forests. How- ever, from a “good governance” standpoint, he said the way the Forest Service went about push- ing the decision through was “really disappointing.” Klavins said there were other ways to ﬁ x the Eastside Screens. The route the Forest Service took was not one of them. He said this way creates winners and losers, rather than working together to see if they can ﬁ nd a solution. As “kumbaya” as that sounds, Klavins said, there was once a time when the two sides could come together. In 2008, he said the timber industry and conservation com- munity were close to agreeing on a bill from Sen. Ron Wyden that allowed cutting large trees in some areas where it “made sense, but also ensured they were not cut down where it did not.” Klavins said there is a “real” difference between a legally enforceable standard to a non-enforceable guideline. “We’ve seen those (guide- lines) be abused,” he said. Klavins, a Wallowa County resident, said removing the 21-inch standard will make it nearly impossible for the forest collaborative groups — which bring industry and environmen- tal stakeholders to the table to foster agreement — to agree on future projects. Klavins said one of the cru- cial components of success- ful collaboratives is they have agreed-upon rules and side- boards. The 21-inch rule, he said, was one of the most important. Klavins said, with the rule potentially gone or weakened, there is now a real possibility that they will be ﬁ ghting over things they stopped ﬁ ghting over 25 years ago. He said the Northern Blues Forest Collaborative’s support of amending the 21-inch rule “drove a wedge” and put pres- sure in an area where they dis- agreed, instead of focusing on areas where they did. In June, both Oregon Wild and the Greater Hells Canyon Council left the Northern Blues Forest Collaborative. Klavins said Oregon Wild aspired for the success the Blue Mountains Forest Partners col- laborative has had in Grant County over the years. “In addition to that trust in government and our agencies,” he said, “this has the potential to do a lot of damage to the admit- tedly fragile trust that we’ve been trying to build with one another, and with the agency for the last 20 or so years.” In August, King Williams, Shawna Clark, DNP, FNP Accepting new Patients! Go to: www.canyoncreekclinic.com S225937-1 S223737-1 541-575-1263 235 S. Canyon Blvd. John Day, Oregon 97845 a consultant with Iron Trian- gle Logging, said forest manag- ers should use the best available science when working toward maintaining old and large trees with visual characteristics that suggest an age of 150 years. He told the Eagle that the Malheur National Forest has been doing so through project-speciﬁ c for- est plan amendments. Williams said he supported moving from a standard to a guideline, but said the pro- posal in his opinion appeared to be “ambiguous” and could be contentious. Williams said getting the environmentalists, timber industry and counties to agree on applying the guidelines could lead to the same “conun- drum” they have been in for the last 25 years. “I’m not real conﬁ dent that we’re going to get there,” he said. “I think this is going to be litigated.” Objection period Klavins said the Forest Ser- vice cut out an entire part of the public process. He said there should have been an objec- tion period in which the pub- lic would get an opportunity to weigh in and try to work with the Forest Service. He said that would have included not just environmental groups but the timber industry, county com- missioners and residents. Stephen Baker, a Forest Ser- vice spokesman, said the agency held a 30-day public comment period that began Aug. 11. He said they extended the period an additional 30 days, and the For- est Service announced the ﬁ nal decision on Jan. 15. Baker said the agency’s planning regulations allow for decisions at different levels. He said James Hubbard, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, decided to sign the amendment. “When the Under Secretary signs a decision, it is the ﬁ nal agency action, so no objection period applies to such a deci- sion. Finalizing and implement- ing this decision will help us restore forests and better pre- pare for wildﬁ res,” Baker said. He said years of scientiﬁ c learning and on-the-ground experience informed the envi- ronmental analysis. He said public and stake- holder engagement has been and will continue to be a prior- ity. Baker said, in addition to the public comment period, they conducted formal and infor- mal meetings and conversations with stakeholders and local groups. He said they would continue to collaborate with everyone who has engaged with them on this issue. “This decision amends for- est plans for six national for- ests but does not authorize any work on the ground,” he said. “Individual projects will still be subject to established planning processes and opportunities for public engagement.” David Mildrexler, an ecolo- gist from Eastern Oregon Legacy Lands, who analyzed tree inven- tory from the six national forests, found that an average of 3% of the trees are over 21 inches but contain roughly 42% of the car- bon stored in the forests. He said, despite the analysis, not much changed in the last stage of the process and that it was “tragic” that the Forest Ser- vice shut the public out of the objection period. “This was a contradiction of what was promised,” he said. “People should not be shut out like that.” Irene Jerome, Grant County Firewise coordinator and a member of the American Forest Resource Council, said she’s not sure much will be gained from the new guidelines because forest plan amendments were working “fairly well.” “The Forest Service agency analysis indicated that the adap- tive management alternative would have provided the best out- comes for the forest to maintain the late and old structure,” she said. “In reality, that still requires a lot of analysis and a lot of work.” TOM CHRISTENSEN CHRISTENSEN TOM S222305-1 CONSTRUCTION 137 E. Main St., John Day • 541-575-1637 (541) 410-0557 • (541) 575-0192 CCB# 106077 Debbie Ausmus 245 South Canyon Blvd. John Day, OR 97845 OPEN WED. & THUR. 9 am - 5 pm 541-575-1113 24 hrs/7 days wk REMODELS • NEW CONSTRUCTION • POLE BUILDINGS CONCRETE EXCAVATION • SHEET ROCK • SIDING ROOFING • FENCES • DECKS • TELESCOPING FORKLIFT SERVICES S222301-1 debbie.ausmus@ countryfinancial.com S222295-1