NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
A11
UC commissioners approve letter opposing River Democracy Act
ging to reduce fire
hazards,
might
be imposed. This
would
affect
86,000 acres of
Union County land
that would be in
Paul
the buffer zones
Anderes
along the 26 water-
ways proposed for
inclusion in the River Democracy
Act.
“I do not want to put 86,000
acres under federal jurisdiction,”
Beverage said.
The letter noted there are a
number of projects now under-
way where the buffer zones would
be, ones designed to protect and
restore the waterways and their
banks, which could be derailed by
the River Democracy Act.
Beverage wants the process of
selecting additional Oregon water-
ways for inclusion in the Wild and
Scenic Act to be started over in
order to conduct it in a way that
would include greater public input.
She said that if this is not done,
the next best option would be for
officials to delete all of the 26
Union County waterways pro-
posed for inclusion in the River
Democracy Act.
The commissioner noted that
some Oregon counties have suc-
ceeded in getting certain river and
stream sections proposed for Wild
and Scenic designation removed
from the list following a negotiat-
ing process.
Dick Mason is a reporter with
The Observer primarily covering
the communities of North Powder,
Imbler, Island City and Union,
education, Union County veterans
programs and local history. Dick
joined The Observer in 1983, first
working as a sports and outdoors
reporter.
“I do think chaplains are some of
the only people that nurses can talk to
who do understand on at least a level
what they’re dealing with and what
they’re going through,” Hardin said.
“Because we’re there, and we see it.”
She listens in the hallways
and at the nurses stations as the
staff relate the stress of their
job. She said health care work-
ers can often be reluctant to seek
help themselves, so she enjoys
finding them and giving them an
opportunity to talk, even if all
they utter are sarcastic remarks:
“I had one girl tell me, ‘It’s
going to suck for a while, and
then it’s going to get better,’”
she said. “It’s an acknowledge-
ment that we’re just working
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
through this and doing the best A list of precautions adorns the door of a COVID-19 patient Aug. 19 in the critical care unit at St. Anthony Hospital,
we can do, one patient at a time, Pendleton.
one day at a time.”
“She had almost felt like
She called her job a privi- Community College, she felt listened to health care work-
lege, but one that comes with compelled to help health care ers whose patients improve and she had killed the patient,” she
responsibility.
workers through their day-to- decline over weeks of treatment, said. “So I suggested to her that,
“The notion of saying some- day work while hearing stories and always in isolation, away rather than think of it that way,
thing wrong and making some- from her husband, an emergency from their families.
she should think of it as giving
thing worse is terrifying,” she department nurse at St. Anthony.
She told of a nurse whose the gift of a peaceful passing.”
said. “But it is an incredible Now, she works evenings and patient had to go on comfort
And over the past two months,
privilege to help bring a bit of weekends.
care, a stage where a nurse the staff have only grown more
balance and healing into their
“I’m not somebody who likes helps soothe a patient at the tired and anxious, she said.
life.”
end of their life. The nurse had
“The energy level has
to be bored,” she said.
She joined the hospital as
Throughout the pandemic, given the last dose of medica- dropped,” she said. “People are
an on-call chaplain in 2019. A she has stood by as infection tion, and she came to Hardin tired. They’re feeling stressed
math teacher at Blue Mountain has ebbed and flowed. She has struggling to cope.
and there’s a lot of worry right
now because of impending
staff losses and no impending
decrease in patients.”
The hospital, already short
staffed, could lose many of its
workers in the coming weeks
when the state’s vaccine mandate
goes into effect, forcing health
care workers to get the shot or
lose their jobs. That impending
reality has sown a new kind of
division, Hardin said, between
unvaccinated employees worried
about finding new work and vac-
cinated employees fearing what
work will be like without them.
The mandate comes as Uma-
tilla County reported weekly
case counts exceeding 350 for
the 11th straight week, making
the delta crisis the largest the
county has faced by far. And a
recent spike, driven partly by an
outbreak linked to the Pendle-
ton Round-Up, means the hospi-
tal could see yet another surge
in patients.
“There’s some uncertainty,
which leads to worry and con-
cern,” Hardin said.
But for Hardin, she knows
there’s only one thing a chaplain
can do.
“We try to pass it on to God,”
she said. “We’re chaplains. We
try to pass those things on along
to that higher power that can
maybe do something, or at least
take that burden so that we don’t
have to carry it.”
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — The Union
County Board of Commissioners
wants no part of the River Democ-
racy Act.
The trio voted Wednesday,
Oct. 6, to send a letter to Oregon
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden asking him
to remove all of the waterways in
Union County that are included in
the proposed federal River Democ-
racy Act legislation. The letter was
signed by Union County Commis-
sioners Paul Anderes, Donna Bev-
erage and Matt Scarfo.
The bill, co-sponsored by
Wyden and fellow Oregon U.S.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, would add
4,684 miles to the Wild and Scenic
River system in Oregon, including
135 miles in Union County.
The 135 miles would be on 26
waterways, the largest of which
is an 11.6-mile
stretch of Beaver
Creek and a 10.8-
mile stretch of
Five Points Creek.
In the letter to
Wyden the com-
Matt
missioners wrote
Scarfo
they are making
their request based
on a number of criteria. One, the
commissioners claim, is that the
traditional process for consider-
ing waterways for Wild and Scenic
designation, one which includes
extensive public input, has not
been adhered to.
“This failure to follow the
guidelines that have been in place
since 1968 as a well-vetted sys-
tem for designation is resulting in
waterways that do not meet the cri-
teria, spirit, intent or letter of the
Wild and Scenic Act,” states the
letter, which Anderes read at the
Oct. 6 meeting.
The commis-
sioners’ letter also
stated their con-
cern that the fed-
eral government
failed to hold
Donna
pubic meetings in
Beverage
communities that
would be impacted
by the addition of the waterways to
the Wild and Scenic designation.
In lieu of such meetings, at least
one Statewide People’s Town Hall
was conducted virtually, which
was not not a good substitute for
localized community meetings,
according to the letter.
Another concern expressed by
the Union County commissioners
is the half-mile buffer zone each
proposed waterway would have on
both sides of its banks.
Restrictions on activities in
the buffer zones, including log-
Chaplain
Continued from Page A1
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