NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Sewer
Continued from Page A1
in funding from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
The USDA money will be
a mix of grants and loans,
with the proportion yet to be
determined.
The loan package is
expected to carry a 1.5%
interest rate, to be repaid
over 40 years, Green said. It
will also include some con-
solidation of existing loans
on the treatment plant that
could bring the total project
cost down to as low as $15.5
million, he added.
“Our goal is to get our
wastewater rates down so
we can make it more aff ord-
able for our residents,”
Green said. “USDA has
been very willing to work
with us to try and get our
rates down.”
Right now, the resi-
dential sewer rate is $60 a
month — comparable to
the rate in Portland. Based
on a widely used economic
index, Green said, an aff ord-
able rate for John Day res-
idents would be more like
$35 a month.
As with so many of the
city’s fi nancial woes, Green
said, one way to address the
high sewer rates is to rebuild
the community’s declining
population base.
“Widening the customer
base by adding new resi-
dents and housing could
bring it down signifi cantly,”
he said.
In conjunction with the
new sewage treatment plant,
the city plans to build a rec-
lamation system that would
allow much of the treated
wastewater — approxi-
mately 80 million gallons a
year — to be reused rather
than simply discharged into
the ground to percolate into
the John Day River.
The wastewater will be
treated to Class A standards,
the highest level of treat-
ment. While it can’t be used
for drinking, it can be used
for almost anything else.
“It’s bottled water qual-
ity,” Green said.
Plans call for a “pur-
ple pipe” distribution sys-
tem that would run from the
treatment plant to carry the
water to end-users. Potential
uses for the reclaimed water,
according to Green, include
a fi ll-up station for fi re ten-
ders; irrigation for agricul-
ture, parks and water fea-
tures; log deck cooling for
Malheur Lumber; and even
data center cooling, should
the city be able to attract that
type of tenant to the Innova-
tion Gateway.
Any treated wastewa-
ter left over would be dis-
charged into underground
basins, from which it would
fi lter into the aquifer. That
means the city will no lon-
ger need the percolation
ponds north of the river
that hold treated wastewa-
ter from the current sewage
plant — another benefi t of
the project.
“The current site will be
graded,” Green said. “That’s
about a 30-acre redevelop-
ment zone that will be avail-
able on the riverfront.”
The water reclamation
project will be paid for by
a $3 million grant from the
Oregon Water Resources
Department.
“If you look at that as
part of the total project …
the combined package puts
us at about $18.5 million
in total investment,” Green
said.
“But because that’s
100% grant-funded, any
revenue from reclaimed
water sales helps buy
down our wastewater
rates.”
Once the purple pipe
system is fully operational,
the city estimates it could
generate around $60,000
a year in reclaimed water
sales, which could be used
to subsidize sewer rates.
Another potential ele-
ment of the project that is
still under consideration is a
solar array. The city is work-
ing with Oregon Trail Elec-
tric Cooperative to deter-
mine whether the idea is
feasible.
The goal of that proj-
ect would be to generate
enough electricity to power
new public infrastructure
improvements such as the
wastewater treatment plant
and the proposed aquatic
center and use net metering
to sell surplus electricity to
OTEC.
The cost of the solar
array would depend on its
size, which is still being
worked out, but Green
thinks most if not all of the
expense could be covered
by grant funding.
“There’s a host of
sources that provide grants
for publicly owned renew-
able energy costs,” he
said.
Expansion
Continued from Page A1
longer in use, but Bradley said any struc-
ture over 50 years old falls into the cate-
gory of a historic building.
“We’ve heard the Gleason Pool is prob-
ably the second-oldest pool in Oregon,”
Bradley added.
There are things that can be done to
mitigate the preservation offi ce’s concerns,
including putting up an interpretive panel
that explains the history of the pool and
shows what it looked like.
Closing on the Gleason Park and Glea-
son Pool properties is critical to the expan-
sion of the site. Current plans have the new
interpretive center’s location overlapping
with where the pool currently sits. Accord-
ing to museum curator Don Merritt, the
3-acre Gleason Park site will remain
largely unchanged for the time being.
More artifacts, virtual tours
The Kam Wah Chung State Heritage
Site’s current facilities, park managers say,
are just too small.
Limited space in the interpretive cen-
ter means it can only display roughly half
of the artifacts in its collection. The size
of the facility also restricts the number of
virtual tours that can be conducted — an
important way of reducing foot traffi c in
the original Kam Wah Chung building,
which is showing signs of age and wear.
The expansion will add around 2,000
square feet to the 8,600 square feet the her-
itage site occupies now.
A new 500-square-foot theater will
double the number of virtual reality tours
the site can off er. Virtual tours are popu-
lar at the site, but there’s only enough space
for 10 tours at a time. The new theater room
will be able to conduct 20 virtual tours at
one time once completed.
In a feasibility study released in May, the
state unveiled two proposed designs for the
new interpretive center. The fi rst is a single,
large structure inspired by Chinese architec-
ture of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The
key characteristic of the building would be
a sweeping roof design and gable framing
similar to traditional Chuan-Dou framing.
The building would be located where the
community pool currently sits and would
have visitor access and parking off North-
west Canton Street.
The second design incorporates tradi-
tional Eastern Oregon architectural features.
Instead of a single building, the interpretive
center would consist of two buildings with
roofs at diff erent heights. The goal with this
design is to break down the scale of the
interpretive center to better match the exist-
ing scale of the historic Chinese buildings
on-site. The design would feature a dou-
ble-sloped roof in two diff erent sections.
This design would allow for a separate
entrance for staff into the area and break up
the mass of the building.
With this design, the interpretive cen-
ter would also sit where the community
pool is currently located, but visitor access
and parking would be behind the building
as opposed to Canton Street. This design
Tilly
Continued from Page A1
Justice about how remains
were stored in the lighthouse
and issues with refunds. Some
families told the New York
Times in 2007 that they felt
misled by promises made by
Morissette’s company, Eter-
nity at Sea Inc. In the 1990s,
vandals reportedly broke into
the lighthouse and made off
with two urns.
Morissette said when Eter-
nity at Sea started selling
spaces in the columbarium,
they hadn’t realized the metal
they were using to house urns
could not withstand a mari-
time environment. Then there
was the issue with the state
license that dragged on for
years. Morissette said she
S285996-1
Celebrate our
Local Nurse
Practitioners
this
Mendy
Sharpe
FNP
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Pinnacle Architecture/Contributed Image
This conceptual drawing shows one of two possible designs, called Option 1, for the
new interpretive center at the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.
would also leave an existing archeological
site free for research purposes.
A fi nal decision regarding the design of
the new heritage site hasn’t been made yet,
but Merritt says they are “heavily leaning”
toward the second, two-building layout.
The money is already there
Funding for the expansion was provided
by the 2021 Oregon Legislature through
Senate Bill 5506, which authorized $50
million in general obligation bonds to fund
park projects throughout the state.
“Kam Wah Chung was fortunate
enough to receive some of that funding, so
that’s where the funds are coming from,”
said Bradley.
The cost of the project is estimated at
$4.5 million.
In conjunction with the Kam Wah
Chung project, the city of John Day
plans on sprucing up the downtown busi-
ness district and strengthening the con-
nection between downtown and the ren-
ovated heritage site. The city received a
$1 million state grant for infrastructure
improvements.
At a John Day City Council meeting
on Feb. 8, City Manager Nick Green out-
lined a detailed proposal regarding how
the money will be spent. Half of the $1
million grant will be spent on improving
sidewalks, parking, signs and wayfi nding
markers along Canton and Main streets.
Another $250,00 would be used for
landscaping and site beautifi cation, while
$200,000 would be spent on aesthetic
improvements to Main Street businesses
that could include fresh paint, new signs,
facade improvements, upgraded street-
lights and murals.
Another $50,000 would go toward
demolishing Gleason Pool and compact-
ing the soil there. The city has set aside
$22,000 from the sale of the park and pool
properties to cover the remainder of the
estimated cost of demolition.
The city has also applied for an Oregon
pushed pause to regroup.
Whoever buys Terrible
Tilly will be taking on a dif-
fi cult-to-reach island prop-
erty that — besides acting as
a home to the dead — shelters
seabirds like cormorants and
common murres on its basalt
crags. Sea lions are known to
haul out on the rocks below. In
fact, the last time Morissette
tried to visit the island, she
couldn’t leave the helicopter
because there were too many
sea lions blocking the way.
Terrible Tilly, built in the
1880s, became notorious for
being dangerous as well as
expensive to operate. It was
decommissioned in 1957.
Today, the lighthouse
exerts a strong pull on ama-
teur and professional artists
and photographers and can be
seen from various viewpoints
within the popular Ecola State
Park.
The lighthouse is a pri-
vately owned part of the fed-
eral Oregon Coast National
Wildlife Refuge Complex,
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service holds a conservation
Main Street grant worth up to $200,000.
If approved, the grant would double the
size of the city’s investment into upgrades
along Main Street.
Economic impact
The economic impact the facility
already has on the county is eye-opening.
According to the results of a survey
conducted by the Kam Wah Chung State
Heritage Site, the facility had 9,382 visi-
tors in the year before the COVID-19 pan-
demic started in 2020. More than 5,400 of
those visitors were from out of the county,
and 145 of them were international visitors.
Those numbers mean an economic
impact on the community that is hard to
ignore. On average, non-residents spend a
little over $111 within the community after
touring the Kam Wah Chung site, accord-
ing to the survey.
Those numbers added up to almost
$605,000 a year in revenue for the com-
munity prior to the renovation, but the ren-
ovated and expanded site will undoubt-
edly bring more tourists to the area, which
should translate into more revenue for
local merchants — especially when com-
bined with the projects slated to begin on
Main Street.
Merritt says the number of visitors con-
tinues to grow every year, and the trend will
only continue following completion of the
project. “We estimate 10-12,000 visitors
the fi rst year after the expansion, and those
numbers will probably continue to go up
every year.”
The Kam Wah Chung project is sched-
uled to be completed by November 2023,
according to the feasibility report, but
Bradley says the project is behind sched-
ule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We haven’t closed on the Gleason
Pool project yet,” he said. “We have time,
but the schedule is going to be a little fl ex-
ible. Kam Wah Chung is in good shape.”
Merritt expects the project to break
ground early next year.
easement over the property.
According to Brent Lawrence,
a spokesman for the Fish and
Wildlife Service, Morissette
has agreed to only visit the
island at certain times of the
year to avoid disturbing birds
during the breeding season.
While cormorants and
common murres roost at
the property, they no longer
appear to nest there like they
once did historically. Black
oystercatchers,
however,
have been documented breed-
ing there. The oystercatch-
er’s global population is small
and citizen scientist volunteers
closely monitor nesting activ-
ity near Cannon Beach.
‘Something that we all
have to face’
Morissette said she was
raised around lighthouses and
her fi rst priority for Terrible
Tilly has been to ensure its
preservation. If the lighthouse
sells, she is dedicating $1.5
million of the proceeds to put
back into repairs and cleanup
at the property. Morissette
plans to retain a 3% royalty on
future urn niche sales.
Though her plans for a
columbarium were not as
lucrative or straightforward
as she had hoped, Morissette
does not regret her purchase
all those decades ago.
The lighthouse is an
important part of American
history, she said, and she’s
proud to have had a hand in
keeping it standing.
Then there are the 31 urns.
The families of the people
whose ashes are stored inside
Terrible Tilly cannot visit
them.
But this is how Morissette
sees it: You can ride a horse
down the beach. You can
throw a fl ower to the waves.
You can hike to viewpoints in
Ecola State Park, maybe hold
a family reunion at the park.
You can go salmon fi shing
nearby and take time to say
“hello” to the loved one in the
lighthouse.
“So in other words,”
Morissette said, “I’ve been
able to take something that
we all have to face and sort of
take the macabre out of it.”
Recognizing our
Local Dentists on
Jessica
Winegar
FNP
Grant County Health Department
Virginia McMillan, DDS, PC
150 Ogilvie Dr.
John Day
541-575-0550
Make an appointment to see Mendy or Jessica
for all of your family’s health care needs.
528 E. Main, John Day
541-575-0429 or 888-443-9104
Open Monday-Friday 8am-5pm
We cater to cowards!
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www.johndaysmiles.com
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