GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
153rd Year • No. 44 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Ronald Bond/EO Media Group
Some of Todd Nash’s cattle graze on the Wade Ranch near Lostine on Oct. 6.
HIGH and DRY
Drought steals pounds from cattle, dollars from ranchers
By JAYSON JACOBY, RONALD BOND and BENNETT HALL
EO Media Group
F
or several weeks, Enterprise cattle
rancher Todd Nash has daily fi lled
a 1,000-gallon tank with water
from his home just outside town
and hauled it to one of his herds,
which currently is feeding on land he is rent-
ing from the Wade Ranch a couple miles south
of Lostine.
A well on the portion of land he is using
dried up after about 2 1/2 weeks, resulting in
the need to drive the narrow, winding dirt road
into the backcountry.
But Nash knows others in the county have
it worse.
“This is fortunate that I’m this close (to
home),” he said, estimating he only has to drive
around 10 miles one way — though the entire
process of fi lling the tank, navigating the roads
once off Highway 82 and emptying its contents
into the well or a 3,000-gallon cistern on the
land itself can take around three hours. “Some
of the guys that are hauling water are quite a lot
further out.”
Other ranchers, he said, are hauling much
more than the 3 1/2 tons he deals with on a
daily basis.
Hauling water to cattle where there is none
may be one of the more visible impacts of the
drought that has severely impacted Northeast-
ern Oregon — and, really, the West — in 2021.
But it is far from the only one.
Because of the early start to the drought —
fueled by a lack of the spring rains that ranch-
ers depend on — many had to adjust on the fl y
to get needed food into their animals.
And with cattle, food means pounds, which
equates to dollars in value.
Nash, who has been a cattle rancher since
1994, said he’s never seen a year to compare
with 2021.
First came an extremely cold April, with a
hard freeze almost every night. That was fol-
lowed by a heatwave, with unusually high
temperatures in May and June leading into a
scorcher of a summer. And through it all, pre-
cipitation was way below normal.
“It set up for the worst grazing season I’ve
ever seen in Northeast Oregon,” Nash said.
“Even talking to the old-timers here, they’ve
never seen such a tough forage year.”
Nash’s operation is relatively small, with
only about 100 head of cattle. But as the presi-
dent-elect of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion, he talks to lots of other producers to stay
Grant County Conservatives speak out
abreast of what’s happening around the state,
and he’ll tell you that things are rough all over
right now.
Throughout the state, extreme weather
conditions this year led to poor forage condi-
tions for livestock. The weather also impacted
irrigators, leading to a poor hay crop. With
hay in short supply and supplemental feed
in high demand, the cost of cattle production
has soared. Many ranchers also found them-
selves in the same plight as Nash, having to
haul water to thirsty herds as ponds and springs
dried up, adding another unanticipated cost to
their operations.
Wallowa rancher Dennis Sheehy was
forced to feed hay to his herds much longer
than usual this spring due to a lack of forage on
the range. He had to use about 80% of the hay
he hoped to hold for this coming winter.
“We weren’t able to turn out on some of our
range land as early as we would (normally),”
he said.
Each move made — even though necessary
— seems to set off a detrimental domino eff ect.
As the year went on, Sheehy for a time had to
See Drought, Page A12
Findley hosts meet-and-greet in John Day
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Roughly
100 people turned out at the
Grant County Fairgrounds on
Saturday, Oct. 30, to air their
grievances with the govern-
ment and rally for change.
Billed as an “urgent call to
action,” the event was orga-
nized by the Grant County
Conservatives and was pro-
moted in fl iers and mailers
distributed by the group as a
JOHN DAY — State Sen.
Lynn Findley, R-Vale, met
with roughly a dozen Grant
County residents Friday, Oct.
29, for a community coff ee at
the Squeeze-In Restaurant and
Deck in John Day.
In a wide-ranging session,
Findley touched on redistrict-
ing, water issues, and where
he comes down on the push
in many rural counties to ditch
Oregon for Idaho.
Findley said he had two dis-
tinct issues with how the Leg-
islature handled redistricting,
the once-a-decade process by
which state governments draw
new congressional and state
legislative district boundaries
after the U.S. census: one had
to do with the congressional
map while the other dealt with
the legislative map.
Findley said politicians
largely left the public out of
the process. Moreover, he said,
the majority Democrats bla-
tantly gerrymandered the polit-
ical boundaries on both maps
to favor their party.
Oregon’s steady population
growth gave the state more
political clout in Congress. The
U.S. Census Bureau’s report,
released in April, showed the
state’s population increased
by 10% over the past decade,
resulting in the need to create a
sixth House district.
Bennett Hall/Blue Mountain Eagle
Gubernatorial candidate Marc Thielman passed out campaign
information and spoke at a Grant County Conservatives rally
in John Day on Saturday, Oct. 30.
way to stand up for personal
liberty in the face of govern-
ment overreach.
Saturday’s fi ve-hour rally
was a follow-up to the Grant
County Conservatives’ kick-
off event, which drew a little
over 200 people to the fair-
grounds on May 9. It was also
a fundraiser for GCC-PAC,
the organization’s fl edgling
political action committee.
While the turnout was
lower the second time around,
that did little to dampen the
enthusiasm of the people in
attendance, who clapped and
cheered for a dozen speakers
who took a turn on the fl ag-
draped stage of the Trow-
bridge Pavilion.
The speakers covered a
wide range of topics, but
there were a number of recur-
ring themes, including:
• The need to stand up for
Christian and conservative
values.
• Opposition to mask and
vaccine mandates imposed in
the eff ort to stem the COVID-
19 pandemic.
• A belief that the danger
posed by the virus is over-
blown and is being used as an
excuse to exert government
control.
• The importance of fi ght-
ing back against a “tyran-
nical” government that is
steadily chipping away at
individual liberty.
Monument-area resident
Bill Newman, who helped
organize the May event,
served as master of ceremo-
nies, introducing the speak-
ers, calling out raffl e winners
and calling for bids on a cou-
ple of auction items.
See Conservatives, Page A16
Ronald Bond/EO Media Group
Wallowa County rancher Todd Nash
turns the valve to begin transferring
water from a tank into a holding cistern
on Oct. 6. Nash, along with some other
ranchers, has had to haul water to his
herd due to a lack of water during the
drought.
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
State Sen. Lynn Findley (left) and John Day resident John Mor-
ris discuss issues on Friday, Oct. 29, during Findley’s meet-and-
greet with constituents at the Squeeze-In Restaurant and Deck
in John Day.
The new map creates four
safely Democratic congres-
sional districts, one solidly
Republican district and one
that tilts slightly left and could
be considered a toss-up.
Findley said the map was
approved after House Speaker
Tina Kotek revoked a deal she
made with GOP lawmakers.
In April, Findley said,
Kotek made “a handshake
deal” that gave House Repub-
licans equal representation on
the redistricting committee in
exchange for their promise to
stop blocking bills with delay-
ing tactics.
However, according to
Findley, Kotek rescinded the
deal on Sept. 20. According
to Findley, Kotek essentially
split the House redistricting
committee in two: a commit-
tee with equal numbers of
Democrats and Republicans to
fi nalize legislative maps and a
committee with a Democratic
majority draw the congressio-
nal map.
Since the issue is now part
of ongoing litigation, Danny
Moran, Kotek’s communica-
tions director, declined to com-
ment in a Monday email.
Findley said the Democrat-
ics also gerrymandered legis-
lative districts, protecting their
majority in both chambers and
giving too much weight to
incumbency.
For example, he noted a
See Findley, Page A16