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lone band named Fourth
of
July
grand
marshal
Band to lead parade in honor of Bob Baker
paper l ibrar>
HEPPNER
azette
imes
Fire infringes on Heppner
city limits
VOL. 133
NO. 22
8 Pages
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Burns nearly 1,000 acres of grass but with
little property damage
The lone Community Pep Band is this year's collective grand marshal for lone’s Red, White
and Blues Fourth of July parade. -Contributedphoto
-See full story PAGE FOUR
Port in line for $6
million for warehouse,
rail project
Grant provides nearly half of
funding for rail spur, facility
’
..........■'S 5 Ü - S .
Reprinted from Northeast
Oregon Now.
The Port of Morrow
is in line to receive $6
million in funding for a
cold storage and rail
transload facility from the
Oregon Department of
Transportation Connect
Oregon V funding.
The funding’s final
approval depends on the
Oregon Transportation
Commission’s decision.
The port will provide
$6.1 million in matching
funds to construct a
2,500-foot rail spur,
including switches and
a 100,000-square foot
w arehouse. The cold
storage area will include
75,000 square feet of frozen
storage space and the
remaining 25,000 square
feet will be refrigerated
space.
A n n a A y 1 e 11 ,
communications specialist
for the Port of Morrow, said
the port’s food processing
tenants, including
Tillam ook, Boardman
i
~7
»
L
Foods, C albee N orth
America, ConAgra Watts
Brothers and others, will
benefit from the facility
that will create or retain
385 jobs with an anticipated
outcome of 150-200 million
pounds of product in and
out in the first year.
The project will include
paved truck access, lighting
and fencing in the port’s
East Beach Industrial
Park. Aylett said the East
Beach park has experienced
significant growth since
2006 with $50 million
invested in infrastructure
i m p r o v e m e n t s and
hundreds of millions in
private investment. Since
that time, the port's annual
economic output has grown
by 88 percent to $1.6 billion
annually.
Aylett said the rail and
warehousing project has
been in the Morrow County
Transportation System
Plan since 2005 and is also
identified as a priority in
the port's strategic business
plan.
New area of wolf
Bv Andrea Di Salvo
The fire began off the
“I started calling for Boardman sent one engine
A fire that burned end of Canyon Drive in help after 1 got there and and an adm inistrative activity identified in
hundreds of acres of Heppner, and appears to saw how big it was getting,” person to help coordinate. Umatilla County
grassland last Thursday have started from a bird said Estes.
The U.S. Forest Service
was kept from doing major on an electric transformer.
Aside from Heppner's was in town and contributed
Top: A volunteer firefighter holds the line against the brush fire that threatened Heppner last week. Above left: A commu
nity member is barely visible through the heavy smoke as she drags along a garden hose to help tight the fire. Above right: A
volunteer evacuates some ducks w hen their pen is threatened by the fire. -Photos by Kurt Johnson
property damage due to
the diligence of local
fire departments and an
outpouring of community
volunteers.
Heppner Fire Chief Rusty
Estes said the Heppner
Fire Department was paged
out shortly after 2 p.m. on
June 19.
One down, two to go
engines and team of
volunteer firefighters,
Estes said lone contributed
two engines. Station 7 on
Butter Creek sent two, and
three engines, while
Columbia Basin Electric
put several crew members
on the ground fighting the
fire by hand. Estes said
he had difficulty guessing
the total number of crew
members but estimated it
at close to 30 volunteer
firefighters.
“It was magnificent,”
he said. “It (the turnout)
ended up being really nice.”
In addition to the
volunteer firefighters, Estes
said Heppner townspeople
turned out in force to protect
their town.
“I told someone later,
that’s why I live here,” he
said. “I came up a back
street and there were six
ladies running up the street
with garden hoses over
OR26 is setting down roots
A 100-lb. adult male wolf wax GPS radio-collared in the Mt.
Emily unit on May 25, 2014. -Photo courtesy of ODFW
A new area of known
w olf activity had been
identified by Oregon
Dept, of Fish and Wildlife
(ODFW) in the southern
portion of the Mt. Emily
-See FIRE THREATENS Unit in Umatilla County,
HEPPNERJPAGE FIVE the agency announced this
month.
OR26 is a male wolf
that was recently captured
by ODFW biologists and
fitted with a GPS collar.
Initial data from this wolf
-See OR26 PUTS DOWN
ROOTS/PAGE TWO
AT MCGG GREEN FEED & SEED IN HEPPNER
A house located next to the Morrow County Courthouse is now just a pile of rubble. As
Tuesday morning, workmen had finished tearing down one of the three houses that will be
demolished in the coming days to make way for construction of the new county administration
building. The new 10,000-square-foot facility will be built to house the Morrow County Health
Department and some other county agencies. The new building is being built right next to the
existing courthouse, which will still have many county services located there. -Photo by David
Sykes
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