22 / FAMILY HEALTH GUIDE / FEBRUARY 2021
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BLUE MOUNTAIN EAGLE FAMILY HEALTH GUIDE | I INSIDE
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Wednesday, February 12, 2020
152nd Year • No. 7 • 18 Pages • $1.50
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“WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST MOTHER NATURE, AND NONE OF US WANT
ANT TO G
GET BEAT.”
— Toby Gangler, ODOT transportation maintenance coordinator
Keeping drivers on the road and taking snow to the curb
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By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
O
n Feb. 5, a snow storm engulfed
Grant County and covered roads and
highways with layers of gorgeous,
yet potentially dangerous, snow for
drivers.
At 5 a.m., Toby Gangler, a trans-
portation maintenance coor-
dinator for the Ore-
gon Department of
Tr a n s p o r t a -
The man, the snow and the rig
tion, began his 12-hour shift in ODOT’s
This is Gangler’s fourth winter
24-hour effort to clear off highways
plowing the highways, and he is no
and keep drivers safe.
stranger to the area, having grown
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up in Prairie City. He is one of four
Junction, the shop was covered with
families that live near the Austin
enough snow to stop any passen-
compound.
ger-size vehicle without four-wheel
“There are four families that live
drive. Gangler arrived in a 2017 Volvo
Toby Gangler
up here (near the compound) so there
dump truck with a 60-gallon tank and
are four hands that work here,” Gangler said.
a large plow mounted on the front.
Gangler pulled the snow plow onto the high- “We have the old town of Austin with a small
ZD\ WRZDUG 3UDLULH &LW\ DQG WKH ¿JKW DJDLQVW community, and there’s a handful of people who
Mother Nature began.
live on the Middle Fork (John Day River) so we
are not by ourselves, but it is fairly remote.”
His team maintains several highways, includ-
ing Highway 26 from Ironside, east of Unity, to
the western edge of Prairie City at Dixie Creek.
They also maintain Highway 7 from the com-
pound to Sumpter and Highway 245. During the
day of the storm, three drivers worked together
to clear the roads while snow continuously fell.
The plow pushed an abundant amount of
snow to the right side of the Volvo, while the
vehicle lightly shook and traveled about 30
mph, which is about as fast as a snow plow
driver would want to go, Gangler said.
See Plow, Page A18
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The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
ODOT snow plow driver Toby Gangler heads out to plow the highway.
Timber Unity rallies against cap and trade
By Sierra Dawn McClain
EO Media Group
Thousands of Oregonians
from across the state lined the
streets and converged on the
steps of the Oregon Capitol
Thursday to protest legislation
they say would decimate the
rural economy.
Sign-waving protesters met
with Gov. Kate Brown and
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rooms with their testimonies.
More than 1,000 trucks,
tractors and other large vehicles
circled the Capitol for hours,
their horns blaring. They had
come to protest cap-and-trade
climate legislation, Senate Bill
1530, which they say could
crush their jobs and livelihoods.
The
protesters,
work-
ing-class Oregonians who
are part of a movement called
Timber Unity, were gathered
to stand against SB 1530, also
known as cap and trade, a bill
to cut carbon emissions in an
effort to slow climate change.
Protesters say they fear the bill
will lead to higher fuel prices,
which would hurt truckers, log-
gers, farmers and others who
live and work in rural parts of
the state.
“I don’t like division
between rural and urban areas,”
said Rachel Abbott, 27, who
works in the hospitality indus-
try and was raised on a farm
near Sheridan, Ore. “This
should not be a rural-versus-ur-
ban issue. It would put my fam-
ily farm out of business, but it
hurts all Oregonians.”
The big turnout for the
event surprised even its orga-
Grant County resident joins
convoy to cap and trade protest
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Oregon Capital Bureau photo
Former state Rep. Julie Parrish speaks at the Timber Unity
event Thursday on the Capitol steps.
nizers. Lines of trucks paraded
around the Capitol from 6 a.m.
to 1 p.m.
Timber Unity spokesperson
Angelita Sanchez said people
from Sweet Home, her home-
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to last year’s protest but brought
more than 40 this morning.
Some convoys formed
across the state as early as
1 a.m., said Jenny Dressler of
the Oregon Farm Bureau.
Timber Unity was birthed
out of the 2019 legislative ses-
sion in protest of House Bill
2020, the name for last year’s
cap-and-trade bill. The legisla-
tion was intended to slash car-
bon emissions but faced oppo-
sition from many Oregonians,
who said high fuel costs would
hurt their businesses.
The movement resembles
the “yellow vests” in France,
a grassroots citizens’ cam-
paign that began in protest to
fuel taxes and ballooned into
a nationwide anti-government
movement seeking economic
justice for the working class.
Last year’s bill passed the
House but failed in the Senate.
The session ended in legisla-
tive chaos; Senate Republicans
walked out to deny Democrats
a quorum.
This year’s bill is similar to
See Timber, Page A18
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ÀHGJOLQJORJJLQJEXVLQHVVZRXOGEHREVROHWHVKRXOGODZPDN-
ers in Salem push through a
carbon cap and trade bill,
Bryan Cates realized that he
could no longer sit quietly.
The Mt. Vernon business
owner came across Timber
Unity, a group of truckers,
loggers and farmers state-
wide that had helped derail
a similar cap and trade bill’s
passage last spring.
“I feel like Timber Unity
LV ¿QDOO\ JLYLQJ XV D YRLFH
Contributed photo/Bryan Cates
in Salem,” Cates said.
So when he heard Dem- A Timber Unity pickup truck
ocrats were planning to sits in front of the State
EULQJ EDFN D PRGL¿HG FDS Capitol building Thursday
and trade bill that would roll ahead of the rally in Salem.
out in cities and then gradu- Cates joined roughly 1,000
ally extend into rural areas, farmers, loggers and rural
the Grant County native did business owners to make his
not hesitate to make the trek voice heard on proposed cap
and trade legislation.
to Salem.
Cates and a like-minded
friend from Powell Butte piled into a hay truck and joined the
1,000-truck convoy to the State Capitol.
See Cates, Page A18
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