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NEWS MyEagleNews.com Wednesday, January 5, 2022 A3 County allots federal COVID relief dollars By STEVEN MITCHELL Blue Mountain Eagle EO Media Group Emergency room personnel hustle to care for patients at St. Charles Bend in August. St. Charles gears up for surge BEND — St. Charles Health System is preparing for yet another surge in COVID-19 cases, as snow and cold weather force people indoors. The number of COVID- 19 cases is expected to rise, according to recent forecasting models. On Tuesday, Dec. 28, the Oregon Health Authority reported 182 cases of COVID- 19 in Deschutes County and one death. Statewide, 1,900 new cases were reported. “We’re deep into this pan- demic and we’re anticipating another surge from the omicron (variant) and its spread through- out the country,” said Dr. Jeff Absalon, St. Charles Health Sys- tem chief physician executive. “We are anticipating that we will have an increase of patients in our hospitals. The big challenge remains staffi ng.” St. Charles Bend, the one hospital in the region that cares for COVID-19 patients, is expe- riencing a plateau of patients at the moment, but the next seven to 10 days could see an increase. The question is how steeply that will rise and how long it will last, said Michael Johnson, St. Charles Health System senior data scientist. The challenge for St. Charles, which operates four hospitals in Central Oregon, is the hospital system has 911 open positions at the moment. About 250 peo- ple are in the process of being hired, leaving the hospital with 661 positions unfi lled. The hospital does have the help of about 140 traveling nurses that the state funded and distributed to St. Charles, but a contingent of Oregon National Guard personnel recently ended an assignment to help with non- patient work that lasted several months, Abasalon said. “Every day we work to source additional caregivers to join our staff ,” Absalon said. “The positions are across the continuum of care.” How bad it will get, depends on how many children get vac- cinated, adults receive their booster shots and the transmis- sion of the variant, which is highly contagious, Johnson said. Only two variables can be con- trolled by the public: behavior and the booster rate, he said. “I think we’re doing pretty well behavior wise, compared to other places,” Johnson said. “The one thing that makes a huge diff erence is how the peak will go, and that’s aff ected by our booster rate. If we can dou- ble the number of booster shots between now and the second week of January, we can signifi - cantly bring down that curve on the order of 20 to 30 patients a day.” The Center for Disease Con- trol and Prevention has said the booster shot provides a high degree of protection from the variant. The CDC also recom- mends that everyone 18 and older get the booster shot to pro- tect against COVID-19 and the variants that are circulating. During past surges, particu- larly this past summer when the delta variant was circulating in the community, the hospital was forced to delay surgeries that required an overnight stay. In the wake of the waning case counts since the peak this summer, St. Charles has been racing to ease the backlog of nonemergency surgeries it had postponed due to a lack of staff and beds. The hospital had been delaying these kind of surgeries since the start of the pandemic, Absalon said. St. Charles serves as the regional hospital for eight coun- ties. According to the state’s health data website, 35% of its intensive care unit beds and 22% of its nonintensive care beds were available. At times during the peak of the last surge this summer, there were one or two intensive care beds available. Abasalon urged community members to get a vaccination, if they haven’t yet, or get a booster shot. The Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, 3800 SE Air- port Way in Redmond will hold a drive-thru clinic starting Jan. 4 from noon to 7 p.m. daily. It closed Dec. 23. Information about additional clinics can be found on the Deschutes County Health Services website. “It’s incredibly diffi cult to estimate it right now,” John- son said. “There are indicators that are concerning: Case rates are going up, positivity rates are going up and that’s confi rming what we expected.” WHAT’S HAPPENING Saturday, Jan. 8 Christine Drazan • 11:30 a.m-1 p.m., Squeeze-In Restaurant and Deck, 423 W. Main St., John Day State Rep. Christine Drazan of Canby, one of more than a dozen candi- dates seeking the Republi- can nomination for gover- nor in this year’s election, will meet with local resi- dents and talk about her bid for higher offi ce. W HAT’S HAPPENING The Grant County Court distributed more than $150,000 in American Res- cue Plan Act funding during the court’s regular session on Dec. 22 but still has more than twice that much left to spend. ARPA is a federal stimulus program designed to speed economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The court approved a $7,000 allo- cation for the 911 dispatch center. County Judge Scott Myers told Airport $ 3,033.00 Fairgrounds $ 12,919.88 Broadband $ 96,000.00 Sheriff’s Dept $ 29,898.00 911 $ 7,000.00 Remaining $ (389,025.46) the court that the county’s legal counsel recommended the alloca- tion to the dispatch center, and it Cattle, calves rescued from deep NE Oregon snows By BILL BRADSHAW Wallowa County Chieftain volunteers with the Wallowa County Humane Society. IMNAHA — Rescue eff orts are still underway to save doz- ens of cattle stranded in up to 7 feet of snow on a Northeastern Oregon grazing allotment. The cattle — many of which had young calves — were mired in deep snow on U.S. Forest Service land in the Upper Imnaha area, Wal- lowa County Sheriff Joel Fish confi rmed on Friday, Dec. 31. Fish said the sheriff ’s offi ce is investigating and “assisting with the retrieval of the cattle on the Forest Service grazing permits on the Marr Flat C&H Allot- ment. We have had deputies on snowmobiles assisting.” Numerous volunteers were helping in the rescue eff orts, according to Todd Nash, chair of the Wallowa County Commission, and One of the fi rst wide- spread alerts came in a Face- book post by Craig Stock- dale, who was one of the fi rst to discover the cattle on the 200 Road south of Salt Creek. “I just came upon them snowmobiling,” Stockdale said Jan. 1. He said his social media post mobilized rescuers — both those out fi nding the cat- tle and those with facilities to care for the rescued livestock. On Dec. 29, Kathy Gisler Reynolds, a volunteer with the Humane Society, also shared a post of the cattle. Photos posted on Facebook showed a cow up to its neck in snow and unable to move. “I was alerted to it yester- day by the ranchers who have been out there trying to save Social media alert them,” Reynolds said Dec. 30. “Some were too weak to even move,” she said of the cattle, adding that although rescuers were able to retrieve calves, some of the adult cows had to be euthanized. Stockdale and Anna But- terfi eld, who with her hus- band, Mark, ranches northeast of Joseph, confi rmed the cattle are on the Bob Dean Oregon Ranch managed by B.J. War- nock. Dean lives out of town and Warnock was unavailable for comment Jan. 1. County involved Nash — who is a rancher and president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association — said Dec. 30 information on the situation was limited. “The things we do know is that this was a Forest Ser- vice permit for the Upper Big Sheep Creek and the Upper Imnaha. It takes in a large area — 72,000 acres — known as the Marr Flat Grazing Allot- ment. They had a viable per- mit to go on sometime in the spring. They were supposed to have all cattle removed, according to the Forest Ser- vice permit,” Nash said. “There is a rescue eff ort being made right now to try and rescue as many as possi- ble. We’ve committed county resources to it. There’ve been a number of people who have volunteered or have contrib- uted time,” he said. “There have been helicopters that have fl own feed into some that were extremely isolated, and the rescue continues. Those are the basic facts that I do know.” Compounding the heavy snowfall that came all at once, rain and heavy snow brought down trees across a lot of the access roads in the area, Nash added. OSU research forest plans advance By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN Capital Press CORVALLIS — Oregon State University, after hosting a recent public budget meet- ing, is a step closer to poten- tially managing a 91,000-acre research forest in Oregon’s southern coastal range, span- ning Coos and Douglas counties. The budget is another milestone in the years-long eff ort to transform the Elliott State Forest into a publicly owned state research forest. The research vision is also becoming clearer. Last December, Oregon’s State Land Board voted for OSU to further explore how the forest might be used as a research hub. A year later, OSU has a clearer outline for what kinds of research will take place in the forest. The research forest, experts say, could bene- fi t OSU researchers and stu- dents, foresters, small wood- land owners and scientists worldwide. “This is a very rare oppor- tunity to start a research for- est of this size,” said Kathleen “Katy” Kavanaugh, associate dean for research in OSU’s College of Forestry. “This would be one of the largest research forests in the world.” Research would include experiments on the role ripar- ian areas play in the recovery of endangered species, explo- ration of potential new tim- ber harvest systems and the study of steep forest terrains, including geological hazards. Thomas DeLuca, dean of forestry at OSU, said exper- imental plots — diff erent sec- tions of forest organized by watershed — will be man- aged diff erently. When a nat- ural fi re occurs in the region, researchers will then study which treatments were most fi re-resilient. Shannon Murray, Elliott State Research Forest direc- tor, said the project pro- posal includes construction of research and laboratory spaces, offi ces, classrooms and living quarters for researchers living in the for- est on a temporary or long- term basis. “It’s exciting thinking about the future of research there,” said Murray. But the project still has a long way to go. 2024 is the proposed research start date, but several pieces of the puzzle must snap into place before that can happen. The biggest piece is ownership. Initially, the plan was for OSU to both own and manage the forest, but earlier this fall OSU backed out of its plan to take ownership, saying the fi nancial risk was too high. The forest is supposed to be fi nancially supported pri- marily by timber harvests. According to OSU’s mod- els and data from Mason, Bruce & Girard, a consulting fi rm, harvests are expected to start at a maximum of 1,300 acres per year for the fi rst fi ve years, later dropping as low as 500 acres per year after most major thinning is completed. Although OSU offi cials predict profi table timber har- vests, there are too many uncertainties, including poten- tial logging limitations because the Elliott provides prime hab- itat for federally protected spe- cies. OSU has decided not to shoulder the risks. The committee advis- ing OSU and the Depart- ment of State Lands about the forest is now exploring an alternative plan: having OSU manage the forest but another entity own it. One possible option is establishing a stand-alone entity, such as a public cor- poration or independent pub- lic agency, to own the forest. This would require legisla- tion. Development of a for- mal legislative concept for the 2022 legislative session is underway. Showing Movies Since 1940! 1809 1st Street • Baker City January 7-13 AMERICAN UNDERDOG (PG) Friday Sat & Sun Mon-Thurs 4:20, 7:20 1:20, 4:20, 7:20 7:20 SING 2 (PG) Friday Sat &Sun Mon-Thurs 4:10, 7:10 1:10, 4:10, 7:10 7:10 SPIDER-MAN NO WAY HOME Friday Sat & Sun Mon-Thurs (PG-13) 4:00, 7:00 1:00, 4:00, 7:00 7:00 **SHOWTIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE. VISIT OUR WEBSITE OR CALL AHEAD TO VERIFY** S275594-1 www.eltrym.com (541) 523-2522 SPORTS SCHEDULE FRIDAY, JAN. 7 Prairie City Basketball @ Four Rivers, 6, 7:30 p.m. (MST) Grant Union Basketball @ Enterprise 6, 7:30 p.m. Grant Union Wrestling @ Joseph Invite, noon SATURDAY, JAN. 8 Grant Union Basketball @ Heppner, 4, 5:30 p.m. Prairie City Basketball @ Jordan Valley, noon, 1:30 p.m. TUESDAY, JAN. 11 Prairie City Basketball @ Long Creek/Ukiah 5 p.m. Sponsor: Wednesday, Jan. 12 met the U.S. Treasury Department’s guidance. Meanwhile, according to a spread- sheet that details ARPA allocations, the $96,000 the county approved to bring high-speed internet access to the courthouse from Humbolt Elementary School is pending documentation for costs from the county’s broadband coalition. According to the spreadsheet, the county’s remaining balance is $389,025.46. As of Dec. 22, the court has allocated $161,274.16 as the county’s public health entity. Bud Pierce • 11 a.m.-1 p.m., main conference room, Grant County Regional Airport, 72000 Airport Road, John Day Dr. Bud Pierce, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, will meet with area residents to discuss their ideas for Oregon’s future. Pierce, a Salem physician, was the GOP nominee for governor in 2016. Anyone interested in attending is asked to RSVP via email to info@budpierce.org. Do you have a community event in Grant County you’d like to publicize? Email information to editor@bmeagle.com. The dead- line is noon Friday for publication the following Wednesday. THANK YOU I want to thank my church family and all my friends for the cards, telephone calls and donations. Especially Terry & Billy Jo George for their year-round help. Only in Grant County can we get such help and compassion. I also want to thank my son Dan & Karla for being my rock through their own grief. The death of my son Tom has been made easier because of you all. Thank you again, Rosalie Averett Dan & Karla Averett S276239-1 S275526-1 TOM CHRISTENSEN CHRISTENSEN TOM CONSTRUCTION (541) 410-0557 • (541) 575-0192 CCB# 106077 S275583-1 REMODELS • NEW CONSTRUCTION • POLE BUILDINGS CONCRETE EXCAVATION • SHEET ROCK • SIDING ROOFING • FENCES • DECKS • TELESCOPING FORKLIFT SERVICES S275613-1 Serving Eastern Oregon since 1959! Pharmacy • Hallmark Cards • Gifts • Liquor Store Heppner Condon Boardman (541) 676-9158 (541) 256-1200 (541) 481-9474 www.MurraysDrug.com S273979-1 By SUZANNE ROIG The Bulletin COUNTY ARPA ALLOCATIONS