A14 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
FARMERS
Continued from Page A1
“Here,
everything
works,” he said. “In Brazil,
you have to work a lot to do
a little.”
He said he was interested
in seeing how the pump sta-
tions used here are differ-
ent than in Brazil, and he
wanted to study the system
further to see if it could be
adapted well in the region
where he grows crops.
Before the group set out
for a second day of tours on
Wednesday, Ziari hosted an
informal question-and-an-
swer session with one of the
bilingual group members
translating.
One grower asked how
much of the world was using
the advanced precision irri-
PROJECT
Continued from Page A1
provide a safer route to
school for students who
walk along First Place to get
to Hermiston High School
and Rocky Heights Elemen-
tary School.
The city won’t get the
funds for the project until
2022. Revenue for the trans-
portation package will come
in over time, so the state had
to spread the earmarks. Mor-
gan said it would be pru-
dent to lay some ground-
work now, however, on the
off chance Hermiston has a
chance to move up the list.
The agreement with ODOT
puts some “meat on the
bones” for what was a sin-
gle line in the legislative
package.
He said he knew some
people in town would prob-
ably have opinions about
where they thought the
money should be spent
instead, but the city pitched
$39 million in projects to
the legislature’s transporta-
tion committee and this is
the one the legislature chose
to fund.
Drotzmann said he was
a little disappointed that the
earmark in the legislation
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2018
FROM A1
gation technology that they
had seen at Herb Stahl’s
farm during their tour. Ziari
said worldwide, irrigation
is at about 30 percent effi-
ciency, but Stahl’s farm
achieves about 90 percent
efficiency.
“I think that it is a global
model for efficiency, but we
have large areas, many hect-
ares in the United States that
are not that efficient, that
need to be brought up. But
we are progressing fast,” he
said.
Other questions were
about the growth of agricul-
ture in the United States, and
whether the Eastern Oregon
region could support more
crops. Ziari said growth is
limited in the United States
not so much by land avail-
ability but by political issues.
In 1900, 50 percent of Amer-
icans were involved in farm-
ing, he said, and now it’s less
than three percent due to the
technological advances that
have made farming more
efficient, and large corpora-
tions who are now operating
many of them..
“Because we are now 2
percent of the population,
politicians are ignoring the
needs of agriculture,” he
said.
He told the group that
investment in new projects
was needed for Brazil’s agri-
cultural economy to grow,
and the investment commu-
nity was interested.
Olivira said Brazil was
ready. And if the govern-
ment stabilized, the coun-
try’s agriculture could reach
the level of technology used
in the United States “very
fast.”
specifically said North First
Place, when the example he
had given the transporta-
tion committee was the need
to redesign the intersection
of South First Place and
Orchard Avenue, where cars
get backed up and block fire
trucks and ambulances from
getting through. Since the
line in the legislation speci-
fies North, the city can’t use
any of the money for proj-
ects south of Hermiston Ave-
nue, including the Orchard
intersection. However, he
said the city was still very
grateful for the money and it
would be helpful in clearing
up Highway 395 congestion
when complete.
“Any time the state wants
to give us $4.5 million, it’s a
good project,” he said.
Hermiston
Energy
Services
Before its regular meet-
ing Monday, the council
participated in a work ses-
sion with Nate Rivera, gen-
eral manager of Hermiston
Energy Services.
Rivera said HES, the
city-owned utility that
serves 63 percent of Herm-
iston, recently completed a
full inventory of its infra-
structure. They found a
few issues — including
six miles of outdated con-
centric neutral distribution
cables underground that
need replaced with newer
technology — and 134 util-
ity poles that need replaced
soon.
“Any time the state
wants to give us
$4.5 million,
it’s a good project.”
David Drotzmann,
Hermiston Mayor
Eighty-nine of the poles
are roadside, but 45 are
in back yards, where they
are more expensive and
time-consuming to replace.
That brings up a third issue,
which Rivera said was back-
yard overhead distribution
of power that often brings
lines through yards with
trees and has a “high pro-
pensity for outages.”
To address all of those
problems, Rivera said he
was looking at a two-year
construction plan that would
include replacing some lines
around town, replacing poles
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY FRED ZIARI
Herb Stahl from the Stanfield Hutterian Brethren farm shows the FieldNet Wireless pivot
control to a group of farmers visiting from Brazil.
and doing a 67-lot pilot proj-
ect near Hermiston High
School to bring some distri-
bution lines underground.
The work plan Rivera
presented would include
$536,750 for pole replace-
ment, $615,000 to replace
underground
cable,
$325,000 to “re-conductor”
some lines and $335,000
for the pilot project, in addi-
tion to the utility’s regular
yearly maintenance sched-
ule, for a total of $3,321,750
during 2018-2020. He said
the city had budgeted about
$812,000 for HES for the
upcoming fiscal year and he
assumed it would be a simi-
lar rate for 2019-2020. That,
combined with $1.5 million
that HES was able to save
during recent construction
projects such as replacing
meters, would leave HES
about $200,000 short.
The city would likely
need to have a conversation
about raising rates to cover
that, Rivera said. But in
return, customers would get
increased reliability, which
HES has “struggled a little
bit with” this year.
Rivera said he had
wanted to get feedback from
the council before coming
back with a completed, offi-
cial proposal for a vote later.
First large grassfire sparks
HERMISTON HERALD
A fire in Stanfield burned
for several hours Monday
afternoon on some property
near the Hinkle Railyard.
Umatilla County Fire
District 1 Battalion Chief
J.W. Roberts said the cause
of the fire was unknown,
but it started shortly after
1:30 p.m. on Hoosier Lane,
near a composting area
where people can drop off
yard debris. He said other
than a few fence posts, no
structures were affected.
Roberts said the wind was
making the fire hard to
extinguish, but there was
no threat to any buildings
nearby.
On Tuesday afternoon
a brush fire also swept
through the Joy Lane and
Alpine Drive area behind
Wal-Mart. Structures were
threatened but the fire dis-
trict managed to keep the
nearby buildings safe.
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McKay Creek Estates
We need to talk
about your driving.
Fire season has begun,
and the fire department
reminded people that out-
door burning is closed
until October 1. Residents
can have confined cooking
fires and small fires in burn
pits, but yard debris burn-
ing is off limits. Residents
of Hermiston can go to city
hall and get a yard trash
permit, which allows them
to dump debris at no cost so
they do not have to burn it
themselves.
Your Ears. Your Brain.
Your Hearing.
LIVING WELL WITH
CHRONIC CONDITIONS
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• How will they react?
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talks you’ll have with your loved one.
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Visit TheyDeserveTheBest.com to learn more about transitioning
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1601 Southgate Pl.
Pendleton, OR 97801
(541) 704-7146
www.PrestigeCare.com