OFF PAGE ONE
A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
“I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS
DIFFICULT FOR TENANTS. ALL
I’M DOING RIGHT NOW IS TAKING
THE TEMPERATURE.”
Manor:
Continued from Page A1
“Two-thousand
dol-
lars will cover most secu-
rity deposits in this area and
moving costs, but it won’t
help with those families
who are in need of afford-
able housing but don’t quite
make the margin for low-in-
come housing,” he said.
Another tenant, who
would not identity herself,
said she lived there for three
years and also expressed
worry for others. She said
she knows of tenants who
have lived at the apartments
for more than 30 years.
“There is nothing to rent
here (in Hermiston),” she
said. “We are all wonder-
ing what to do. I am beside
myself as I am retired on
fixed income and work three
days at a little store just to
afford my meds.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022
Mike Atkinson, owner of Clover Housing
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Residents at Highland Manor, 1205 W. Highland Ave., Hermiston, received notices Feb. 2,
2022, that new owner, Clover Housing Group LLC will be vacating the complex to allow for
renovations.
Mike Atkinson, owner
of Clover Housing, said he
sympathizes with his ten-
ants, but he has big plans for
the apartments.
“They’re old apart-
ments,” he said. “They need
a facelift.”
Renovations
include
upgrades to heating, venti-
lation and air conditioning,
he said, and new carpeting.
Atkinson said the apart-
ments are far from condem-
nable, even without the ren-
ovations. Still, he said, he
was only able to find one
insurance company to insure
the apartments as they are
now.
He said his plan is to
give people opportunities to
leave. In an ideal situation,
he said, all or most tenants
would leave and then reno-
vations would begin. Reno-
vating an empty complex, he
said, would be smoother and
more cost-effective.
Atkinson added he had
no timetable on reopen-
ing the apartments follow-
ing their renovation. Once
he did open them, though,
he said he intends to charge
rents that are a bit below
market value.
“I understand that this is
difficult for tenants,” Atkin-
son said. “All I’m doing
right now is taking the
temperature.”
He added he is waiting
to see the response from his
tenants. It is possible, he
said, they would “regroup”
if the tenants decided to not
leave the apartments.
“On March 1, I’m going
to look back and see how
that was received by the ten-
ants and what happened, and
develop a plan at that time,”
he said.
Power:
Continued from Page A1
Idaho Power claims surveys
necessary
Sven Berg is Idaho Pow-
er’s communications spe-
cialist. He said permitting
on the project will conclude
sometime this year, and geo-
technical, cultural and bio-
logical surveys are under-
way now. These surveys
will reveal important infor-
mation, he said, such as area
wildlife and archaeological
sites.
“We’re working with
landowners along the route
to try to negotiate rights of
entry to their property and
easements,” he said.
These easements would
give Idaho Power and its
partner on B2H, PacifiCorp,
rights to land use on proper-
ties where they may some-
day build a structure, Berg
explained.
He said there are 98 par-
cels that 47 landowners own
where the companies need
right of entry. These include
not just properties on the
route, but ones that need to be
crossed to access other lands,
public and private, he said.
There will be hundreds
of towers, and the entire line
will be over ground, Berg
said. He described them as
steel lattice and H-frame
structures. The steel lat-
tice structures average 140
feet tall with a 40-foot-by-
40-foot footprint. The steel
H-frame towers are, on aver-
age, 100 feet tall, he said.
These are large struc-
tures, he said, but landown-
ers will be able to farm under
and around them. He added
there are no safety concerns
from electromagnetic fre-
quencies, as long as you are
not “right up on them.”
The power companies
would make one-time pay-
ments to the landowners as
compensation, Berg said.
Importance of the project
“From our perspective,
we see this as absolutely cru-
cial to what we call the future
and maintaining our tradi-
tion of reliable and affordable
energy,” he said.
He said the country will
require “greater and more
robust” transmission connec-
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Richard Hemphill opens the gate to Parker Road on Feb. 2, 2022, to access a 1,000-acre parcel
of his family’s property where the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line will pass near
Pilot Rock.
tions between regions and
intra-regionally. He said this
will be necessary if we are to
increase the amount of clean
energy moving from produc-
ers to users.
Power, he said, will con-
nect to other grids, extending
as far as Arizona.
“That energy can move far
and wide, and it can go the
other way, too,” Berg said.
And B2H could be the
transmission line that allows
power from Phoenix, Ari-
zona, on a sunny day, to reach
Portland when it is needed.
The line will take roughly
three years to build, Berg said.
Construction could start in
2023, and will bring new jobs
and business to areas all along
the route. He added it will
increase cash property revenue
to counties on the route.
needing it, and there’s a shorter
and shorter supply down here
all the while,” Doherty said.
He could get behind the
project, he said, if the route
could be altered to do less
harm to local landowners.
“We’re taking one for the
team, and those cattle ranchers
on the century farms that built
Morrow County, they’re really
taking one for the team,” the
commissioner said.
He said the county board,
at this point, lacks leverage in
this situation. He said he would
like to see the route changed or
landowners receive a larger
payout for easements, but the
county does not have power
over this. He said a previ-
ous Morrow County Board
of Commissioners may have
been able to do something, but
the opportunity has passed.
Feeling powerless in face of
power line
On the land Idaho Power
soon will survey for the trans-
mission line, the Hemphills
farm wheat. That property
alone is 1,000 acres, they said.
Jean Hemphill said her family
Jean Hemphill flips through a folder of her information on
the Boardman to Hemingway transmission line Feb. 2, 2022,
at her home near Pilot Rock.
has owned that particular piece
of land since 1917.
One family member died
of the flu epidemic of the early
20th century, she recalled, and
others lived on the land with-
out indoor plumbing. This
is a land that has a lot of his-
tory, she said. Some of the his-
tory even predates her family’s
ownership. One landmark on
the property is a stone struc-
ture, which may have been
made during conflicts with
Native Americans, she said.
And though the Hemphills
have many more acres in the
area, they said they are far
from royalty. Just as the land
has a history of people strug-
gling, the Hemphills said they
have their own concerns. Ris-
ing costs for seed, fuel and
chemicals have made business
difficult, they said.
Planned construction of
B2H adds to their worries.
They said they are upset about
work disrupting their farming.
Also, they are bothered by the
possibilities that towers will
trouble farming and wildlife,
long after they receive their
one-time payment.
She believes the line
is inevitable, and she and
her husband are powerless
compared to more power-
ful groups that are set on the
line.
B2H affects ranchers but
helps data centers
Jim Doherty, chair of the
Morrow County Board of
Commissioners,
expressed
mixed feelings about the line.
He said he has spoken with
landowners, including cattle
ranchers, to hear their anger.
For himself, he said, he also
has negative feelings.
“Generally, I’m kind of
opposed to it,” he said.
Adding tons of steel and
wires across Mother Earth is
not ideal, he said, but the con-
struction of the Longhorn sub-
station, starting point for the
line, is an $80-$100 million
project and would make possi-
ble new area businesses.
“There are a lot of things
looking for that power and
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