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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (May 20, 2020)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 HermistonHerald.com EasternOregonMarketplace.com UPDATES EOMG off ering Community Marketing Grant Program As businesses reopen, EO Media Group wants to help them spread the word. The Oregon family-owned multimedia company has established a Community Marketing Grant Program to assist businesses aff ected by COVID-19 restrictions in the markets served by the company’s 12 newspapers, including the Hermiston Her- ald and East Oregonian. Up to $1 million in match- ing advertising dollars will be available. Recipients of the Community Marketing Grant Program will be awarded a dollar-for-dollar match for print or digital adver- tising in EO Media Group publications. Community organizations and locally owned and oper- ated businesses are encour- aged to apply to extend their marketing to local residents during this challenging time. Grants are available for a minimum of $250 and maxi- mum of $10,000 in matching funds each month, and will be awarded between May 15 and July 31. Applications will be accepted starting May 15 and must be submit- ted online at eomediagroup. com/marketing-grant. Grants will be reviewed and replied to within one to two days of application. For more information, contact Kathryn Brown at 541-278- 2667 or kbbrown@eastore- gonian.com. — Hermiston Herald Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Toni Edmisten wipes down chairs, tables, and condiments between diners at Nookie’s Restaurant and Bar in Hermiston on Tuesday afternoon. Restaurant rebound Local restaurants begin reopening process By BEN LONERGAN STAFF WRITER or the fi rst time in nearly two months, diners were able to sit down to eat at restau- rants on Friday as Umatilla County entered phase one of Gov. Kate Brown’s reopen- ing plan. Nookie’s Restaurant and Brewery was among several Hermiston restaurants to close entirely for the duration of the stay home order, a period of time that owner Mitch Myers said he used to recondition his restaurant and complete a few long term maintenance proj- ects, such as upgrading light- ing and replacing the aging fl ooring in the kitchen. Myers said that he spent a lot of time thinking about what he would need in terms F Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Kitchen staff wear masks while prepping meals at Nookie’s Restaurant and Brewery in Hermiston on Tuesday afternoon. of staffi ng and product once the restaurant was able to reopen. He said that when they closed, the business had to donate nearly $30,000 in perishable inventory and clear out stock, leaving the restau- rant mostly devoid of food by the time he began thinking about reopening. “We knew that we needed to get the kitchen back retooled up and function- ing, even if it was at a smaller level,” Myers said. “Once we got all of our remodeling done and everything ready to go, we went ahead and opened for takeout for eight or nine days.” Despite Myers’ worries about how to reopen, he said he was overwhelmed with how well the fi rst weekend went. The restaurant did three days of record sales over the weekend when compared to the same days in years past. “It makes me so optimistic — as a business person — to see the fact that it rebounded not only to previous numbers, but better than pre-COVID closure numbers every single day for the fi rst three days that we opened,” he said. See Restaurants, Page A8 Long-awaited West Project fi nally complete By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR Area farmers have cause for celebration after completion of a major water supply project known as the West Project. The project, which the Colum- bia Improvement District suc- cessfully tested on May 5, will add about 30,000 acres of irri- gated cropland near Boardman to the Columbia Basin’s agricul- tural region. It is one of a pack- age of three pipeline projects that together could add billions of dol- lars to the area’s economy. The win for Eastern Oregon has been decades in the making. J.R. Cook, president of the North- east Oregon Water Association, said after 19 years working on water issues in the area he’s “still a rookie” compared to many of the growers, politicians and organiza- tions who have all worked together to make the West Project happen. “We get to see the fruits of past generations’ labors,” he said. The difference in value between an acre of dryland wheat and an acre of a high-value irrigated crop is a difference of thousands of dol- lars. But large swaths of farmland between Boardman and Hermiston were reduced to dryland farming or INSIDE Contributed photo by NOWA Irrigation water pumped from the Columbia River fl ows through a canal during a test of the new West Project. Contributed photo by NOWA An aerial view shows the recently completed West Project near Boardman. taken out of production altogether in the 1980s and 1990s as the Ore- gon Water Resources Department A3 Essential workers plan counterprotest to Reopen Hermiston rally designated critical groundwater areas, which came with restric- tions on how much water could be A6 New Vietnamese restaurant to open mid-June pumped out of the ground. Growers’ other option for water — the Columbia River — would let the aquifers recharge, but incredibly strict restrictions on tak- ing water from the river made the three pipelines they wanted to see built seem like, well, a pipe dream. Now, the West Project is a real- ity, and the East Project and Ord- nance Project are in progress. Jake Madison of Madison Ranches is a board member of the Columbia Improvement Dis- A7 Bealls parent company declares bankruptcy trict, which will own and operate the project in partnership with the Port of Morrow. Madison said in a statement that the West Project took “a great deal of team effort and persistence to pull off.” In addition to putting 30,000 acres back into production as irri- gated farmland, the project also generates signifi cant energy sav- ings over the district’s old system. “In all, this project is a huge win for the energy goals of the state of Oregon, our rural econ- omy and drought resiliency for our future generations,” he said. “It took several generations, three locally developed plans, and mul- tiple relationships forged across the state and nation to get here. We could not have done it without the legislative and executive lead- ership of Oregon who stepped in from day one to ensure these proj- ects got constructed.” Tom Byler, director of the Ore- gon Water Resources Depart- ment, said the project is a “signif- icant step forward to address the basin’s water needs now and in the future.” According to a press release put out by the Northeast Ore- gon Water Association, the West See Water project, Page A8 A9 Most Umatilla County Fair events canceled
