A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Weeds
Continued from Page A1
clusters of yarrow, a native plant with a
similar white ﬂ ower that grows in simi-
lar areas to the hoary alyssum, like ﬁ elds,
rangelands and pastures.
Pettingill applied for a state grant
through the Oregon Watershed Enhance-
ment Board to help identify where the
weed had spread. He was awarded
$9,500 in July of 2021, paid for by Ore-
gon lottery dollars, which supported
on-foot surveys that conﬁ rmed hoary
alyssum’s spread in Baker County.
He also sent a letter to 82 landown-
ers informing them about the new weed.
Although 2020 was the ﬁ rst sight-
ing, Pettingill said he didn’t know when
the weed actually arrived in the county
and how long it went unnoticed — its
modest appearance might have allowed
it to spend years growing and spreading
under the radar in Baker County.
According to the state’s noxious
weed proﬁ le, hoary alyssum was already
widespread in the Northeastern United
States by the 1890s after it was origi-
nally transported to North America from
Europe as a seed contaminant. It’s listed
as a noxious weed in several other West-
ern states.
But hoary alyssum isn’t wide-
spread in Oregon. Other than the recent
Baker County infestation, two isolated
patches of the plant exist: one in Wal-
lowa County near the town of Wallowa
and a dense infestation near Sisters in
Deschutes County.
Pettingill said he doesn’t know
exactly how the weed spread into Baker
County, and that he initially underesti-
mated its local prevalence.
“We didn’t know how vast it was,”
Pettingill said.
He discovered that the weed wasn’t
only in pastures near Haines, but also in
higher elevations in the foothills of the
Elkhorn Mountains. Pettengill said he
wasn’t aware last summer that the weed
had also spread to the pastures near
South Rock Creek Road.
He said he believes the weed started
in the hills and then moved into the pas-
tures. Pettingill applied for another state
grant of the same amount to continue
ﬁ ghting the weed in 2021 and 2022.
Over a third of the grant went to buying
herbicides, enough to treat 300 acres of
hoary alyssum.
He said he’s already sprayed that
amount this year.
He said the amount of the grant
is “unfortunate, based on how many
Hospital
Continued from Page A1
hardly unique. The Oregon
Association of Hospitals and
Health Systems, a nonproﬁ t
trade association, reported that
the bleak hospital ﬁ nancial pic-
ture from 2021 only worsened
in the ﬁ rst quarter of 2022.
A surge in COVID-19 hos-
pitalizations from the omicron
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
acres we found. We need to try to write
another one this winter to supplement
somehow.”
Since the state has classiﬁ ed hoary
alyssum as “noxious,” property owners
who ﬁ nd it on their land are required to
take some kind of action — either them-
selves or through Pettingill’s program —
to control it.
Landowners can also participate in
a cost share program, separate from the
hoary alyssum grants, where the county
will reimburse owners for half the cost
of herbicide and then train the owners
Clayton Franke/Baker City Herald
with weed-spraying practice.
Pettingill said he needs as much help Pettingill’s spraying system — which is attached to the back of an ATV — allows
as he can get from landowners because him to spray weeds on uneven terrain.
he’s had trouble hiring a weed control
staﬀ to help him with spraying projects. containment possible.”
to build proteins, essentially starving the
The Baker County Weed Control team is
Along with the landowners, that con- weed’s growth.
made up of Pettingill and his black Lab, tainment is largely up to Pettingill.
However, the eﬀ ectiveness of Pettin-
Jack, who is probably more likely to
gill’s herbicidal mixture also depends on
Chemical warfare
spread weeds than control them.
timing — to catch hoary alyssum in the
Although Pettingill has a degree in right stage of its life cycle — and a weak-
“We’re deﬁ nitely outnumbered by
biology, sometimes his job requires him ness of the herbicide itself: hot weather.
weeds,” Pettingill said.
to become a chemist.
Like other annuals, hoary alyssum
A threat to hay
Some noxious weeds can be fought drops its seeds into the soil in late fall,
Pettengill peers out the window of with biocontrol, by introducing bugs or where they overwinter and then sprout
his truck at a hay pasture west of Haines. plants to combat the weed. That’s not the in the spring. It’s a proliﬁ c seeder, some-
It’s recently been cut.
case with hoary alyssum — herbicides times producing up to 2,600 seeds per
“Now I’ve gotta track down that are the best bet.
plant.
hay,” he said.
And for his new enemy, Pettingill
Pettingill said the ideal time to spray
Last time he saw the ﬁ eld, bunches of has a particularly potent concoction. Just the weeds is when they ﬁ rst bust through
white hoary alyssum ﬂ owers were stick- 1 ounce of Telar, the herbicide used for the soil in the spring or early summer.
ing out among the grass. He suspects the hoary alyssum, can treat an acre of weeds. Too much sunlight and the herbicide will
weeds were cut, baled and shipped out
“It’s like spraying a shot glass over a degrade quickly and lose potency, while
with the rest of the hay. The weeds could football ﬁ eld,” Pettingill said.
hot soils culture natural bacteria that also
be on their way to Pendleton or Hermis-
Pettengill mixes the Telar — a brown, degrade the herbicide.
ton, or anywhere, for that matter.
granular substance that’s as “safe as table
Once the yellow ﬂ owers fully bloom
On a local level, it’s most common salt for humans” — with water in an old at the top of the plant above the cluster of
for the weeds to spread on tractors and Powerade bottle, leaving the herbicide small, oval seeds, it’s probably too late to
equipment, Pettingill said. But it can suspended in a mixture that looks a lot spray, Pettingill said.
travel greater distances when buried in like chocolate milk. In this state, he said,
But it was another herbicidal weak-
a hay bale.
water droplets and herbicide droplets ness that prevented Pettingill from
Not only that, but the weed lowers exist separately.
attacking hoary alyssum at the optimum
the nutritional value and productivity —
“When it’s suspended, you might time this year.
and ultimately the proﬁ tability — of hay have ﬁ ve droplets that are just water and
An unusually damp spring left excess
crops it grows in.
one droplet with the herbicide in it,” Pet- water on the weeds, which can dilute the
Hoary alyssum contains toxic chem- tengill said.
herbicide, preventing Pettengill from
icals. Pettingill said animals will gener-
This mixture would work to a certain spraying. That left time for the sprouts to
ally eat around it, but once it’s in hay, extent, but just one addition drastically grow into full-size weeds and take over
they aren’t so picky. Cows that eat hoary changes its eﬀ ectiveness.
pastures and rangelands, leaving little
alyssum-ﬁ lled hay are usually OK, but
It’s at this point in the process that room for native plants on properties like
when consumed by horses it can cause Pettengill’s truck bed looks something the one Pettingill visited near the Elk-
fever and depression.
like a high school chemistry classroom. horns on Tuesday.
In 2020, hay production value for all He adds a third element to the mixture
He said a herbicide application now
of Oregon totaled $569,160,000, accord- — professional-grade ammonium — could still make the seeds less viable,
ing to the Oregon Agricultural Statistics that turns the bottle translucent brown, but he prefers to wait until the fall for a
and Directory.
dissolving the herbicide, essentially more eﬀ ective spray, as he’ll do with this
According to the Oregon State Weed spreading it out through the mixture.
property. That way, the oﬀ spring of these
Board, hoary alyssum is classiﬁ ed as a
He also adds a surfactant, which helps plants will encounter the herbicide in the
target species, and as an “A list” species the herbicide soak into the plant faster.
spring.
because it’s “of known economic impor-
Now, “everything that touches the
“All the seeds that are gonna try to
tance and occurs in the state in small leaf has herbicide in it,” he said.
germinate will germinate, but they’ll
enough numbers to make eradication or
The herbicide limits the plants ability die,” Pettingill said.
wave and rising labor and other
costs combined to produce a
dismal ﬁ scal quarter that saw
58 percent of Oregon’s hospi-
tals post a negative margin.
Additionally, according to
the ﬁ rst quarter report, Ore-
gon hospitals’ median operat-
ing margin saw a 2.5% decline.
However, the report noted, the
drop was below those seen
in the earliest stages of the
pandemic.
In a nutshell, the report
noted that hospital revenue in
Oregon is not covering the cost
of patient care.
Nonetheless, Price empha-
sized that Blue Mountain Hos-
pital is not looking to reduce
staﬃ ng or services. The only
cuts to labor costs, he said,
will come from eliminating
— where it is possible — con-
tracted clinical labor. In addi-
tion, he said this year’s bud-
get includes more funding to
recruit talent into the area and
retain those who are here.
He said the hospital district
has set aside $22 million for
labor costs that includes money
for recruitment and retention
bonuses.
“Those dollars will help the
local economy rather than con-
tinue to invest in travelers who
may spend a little bit while
they’re here, but mainly goes
back to wherever their home-
front is,” he said.
In the interim, Price said,
the hospital is watching for fed-
eral grant opportunities to help
ease the current ﬁ nancial strain.
“Nothing is deﬁ nitive,” he
said, “and we are continuing to
work on things.”
In addition to Blue Moun-
tain Hospital, the district oper-
ates the Strawberry Wilder-
ness Community Clinic, Blue
Mountain Care Center and a
hospice and home health ser-
vice. It employs around 250
people.
Pool
Continued from Page A1
bonds fail their ﬁ rst time on
the ballot and that voting for a
bond measure more than once
isn’t abnormal.
Both also said that the
opposition’s “redo not brand
new” campaign in the previous
election was inaccurate and
that the phrase cannot be used
in November because there
is nothing to redo this time
around.
JDCC Parks and Recre-
ation District Chair Zach Wil-
liams said previous state-
ments that Parks and Rec had
no plans to put the pool bond
back on the ballot were accu-
rate when they were made in
the runup to the primary elec-
tion, but eﬀ orts by the PAC as
well as the tie in May forced
the board to look at putting the
measure up for a vote again.
“None of us envisioned
going through the process
again,” Williams said. “I don’t
think anyone thought about
an actual tie in the voting.
Another thing we as a board
discussed was that many part-
ners had worked very hard
on this and we needed to get
together with them and look
at next steps. The PAC’s per-
sistence was also a part of
relooking.”
Williams also expressed
the hope that the city would
be a better partner to Parks and
Rec if the bond makes it onto
the ballot again. Both Williams
and the board made it clear that
while Parks and Rec would
potentially put forward the
bond measure, the city would
also have a stake in the out-
come and should provide sup-
port for the measure.
The city has received a $2
million state grant to go toward
construction of the $6 million
aquatic center project, but the
grant will expire if the money
isn’t spent by a certain date.
Another concern is the
potential for competition from
a long-rumored law-enforce-
ment bond, although the Grant
County Court has not yet dis-
cussed putting such a measure
on the November ballot. Wil-
liams said he isn’t sure a law
enforcement bond would nega-
tively aﬀ ect the pool bond, but
he imagines it could play into
people’s minds when they vote
on Nov. 8.
Parks and Rec is slated to
have a joint meeting with John
Day City Council on Tuesday,
Aug. 9, to discuss putting the
bond measure on the ballot for
the November election. The
meeting will be held at 6 p.m.
at the John Day Fire Hall, 316
S. Canyon Blvd.
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