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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 2021)
Making way for the new 50¢ VOL. 140 NO. 16 8 Pages Wednesday, April 21, 2021 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Ray Papineau selected 2021 Lexington May Day parade Grand Marshal Ray Papineau has been selected as the 2021 Lex- ington May Day Parade Grand Marshal. He has been a citizen of the town of Lexington for 80 years. As a young man he attended the Lexington School that still stands on Main Street. In high school Ray played for the Lexington Jackrab- bits in basketball, football, track, and baseball. While in school, Ray worked on a ranch to earn money for his first homestead. He traded two cows and hand pitched hay with his mother to earn the remaining $100 for the 32-acre homestead. At 19, Ray married the love of his life, Gloria Orwick, who he had met when he was just six years old. Together they built their home in 1952 on this ranch with lumber from the Heppner sawmill where Ray worked. They chose to raise their family of seven children in this home while adding several other prop- erties as the years went by. Four of the seven children also chose to make Lexing- ton their home. At 90, Ray says he feels very blessed to have been able to be a part of a community that values family, friendship, and happy memories. Everyone is invited to celebrate a “great man Ray Papineau, long time Lexington resident has been selected as the grand marshal of the May Day parade. -Contributed photos. and long-time Lexington community member” on Saturday, May 1, beginning at 11 a.m. on Arcade Street in Lexington. According to Lexing- ton mayor Juli Kennedy, lineup for the parade will begin at 10:20 at the town hall. The parade will go down Arcade St and back again. Signup sheets for pa- rade entries are available at Murray’s Drug in Heppner and at the Sinclair station and town hall in Lexington. The old Monahan residence on Chase Street, now owned by Jason and Amy Patterson, was burned on Saturday by the Tacos Hometown will Heppner Firefighters to make way for a new home. be on site to provide food. Other activities include a raffle for a kid’s bike, a pie social, pictures with the fire department, kids crafts and the Hermiston Classic Car Club showing their cars. New MCSO patrol deputy sworn in Lexington looks at water system study Anderson and Perry rep visits with council By David Sykes The Town of Lexing- ton is considering having a water system study done, and find out what kind of condition its infrastructure is in. The council met with a representative of Anderson and Perry Engineers at last week’s council meeting who told them his firm could do the study and help find grant money to pay for both the study and the work that needs to be done. Brad Baird, Presi- dent/Senior Engineer with Anderson Perry told the council it is best to get a complete water study done so the town knows exactly what condition and the needs are for the town’s wa- ter system as a whole. “It’s a good idea to take a look at the whole system,” Baird said. He said the study is needed before any grant applications can be made for upgrades or repairs to the system. He said the last study done was Lexington’s water system plan which is 16 years old. Baird said if the city wants to move forward, the first step would be for Anderson and Perry to ap- ply for a technical assis- tance grant to have the study done. He said a basic water system study costs in the range of $25-$30 thousand and will tell the council what work needs to be done. He said once the study is completed, and work identified, his firm can help the town apply for grants to get the actual work done. “Do the study and work with an engineer if you want to replace the pipes. We are familiar with funding issues. Then we can develop a package and if you agree to move forward, put together a package and see what funding there is,” Baird told the council in laying out a plan. “We can see what the best deal is for you.” In addition to possible grants to pay for the study, Lexington also received $200,000 this year from the Columbia River Enterprise Zone II (CREZII) that can be used for infrastructure studies and work. When making the grant to Lexing- ton, as well as the other four cities in the county, CREZ II did not specifically ear- mark the money for infra- structure but had hoped the cities would use this extra funding to begin addressing infrastructure work needed in all the five cities through- out the county. In addition to a water study, Baird and the council also talked about sewers. Lexington is currently on an individual septic system for each property and switching to a central type of septic system is both difficult and expensive Baird said. “It’s very hard to pull off a new sewer system,” Baird said. He said the last conversion from septic to sewer his firm was involved with was when the city of Spray did it in 2007. He said Spray was able to do it because they had low per capita income for the town and were eligi- ble for significant grants to pay for it. Baird added that both Lexington and Ione, which is looking now at converting to a sewer sys- tem, have higher incomes which makes grants less available. The problem Ione is running into, and maybe Lexington too, is there are small lots in town that can- not get approved for septic drain fields and therefore are unbuildable for homes. “It’s hard to get these proj- ects (sewer).” Baird said. “It’s a lot of money to build one of those projects from scratch. You almost have to have special funding.” But he did say there may be some special infrastructure money coming up on the federal level which may make this a good time to go for a new sewer system. He said the town could do a sewer system study in addi- tion to the water if the town wants to “find out what’s out there.” Baird said there many different ways to build a treatment system, some expensive and some not as much. “The standard wastewater system collects the waste, runs it downhill, stores it in a lagoon and then irrigates it on an alfal- fa field,.” Baird says this works pretty well when you have a cooperative farmer who wants the irrigation and might even donate the land for the lagoon but can become more expensive if the town has to buy land for a lagoon. “Some farmers will give you the ground if they get the water,” he said. Baird also added that a full- blown treatment system, such as Heppner’s, is “re- ally expensive”. Heppner is currently in the processes of pulling away from a treat- ment plant to a lagoon sys- tem if it can find the land. He said other solutions are packaged treatment systems that come in “pods” where different sections of town can be converted. “There are all these different ways, and a study looks at all of these and tries to find the best fit for your town relative to what they cost,” Baird said. He pointed out that a new system will see sewer rates likely in the $50 per month range. He said a new system is good for people looking at putting in a new septic system, but not so good for those who just put in a system. “But the study will look at all those options and you can decide which way you want to go,” Baird said, adding that the town would be able to get -See LEXINGTON WATER/ PAGE EIGHT Andrew Martin was sworn in as a patrol deputy with the Morrow County Sheriff’s Office on April 13. “We are happy to welcome Andrew and his family to the Sheriff’s Office family,” said Undersheriff John A. Bowles. “Join us in congratulating Deputy Martin and welcoming his family to Morrow County. Do You Have Something to Share? 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