Senator Ted Ferrioli Visits Malheur County

Senator Ted Ferrioli, Oregon Senate Minority Leader from John Day, toured rural Malheur County and held a Friday evening Town Hall meeting with a crowd of several hundred people representing Ontario, Vale, Nyssa, Adrian, Baker City, Durkee, and Parma.

Above, left to right, Retiring Vale Mayor Bill Lawrence, Malheur County Commissioner Lou Wettstein, and Oregon State Senator Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day

Senator Ferrioli is observant and a quick study and was able to give us some practical and valuable advice on what direction to take in our efforts. He listened to dozens of personal stories at our meeting at the Boulevard Grange. Ferrioli promised to do what he could in Salem to address legislation that would preserve farmland for farming rather than siting utilities, and place human beings on a par with sage grouse.

Stay tuned, I'll be updating this story soon.

Surprise Visit by Senator Wyden

Bruce Corn reports that Wednesday, Dec. 17th, Senator Ron Wyden made a surprise stop in Ontario. Jay Chamberlain of the Owyhee Irrigation District asked him about our transmission line problem, and he said he was behind us and would do whatever he could to help our efforts. Jay says the Irrigation District is a local government agency in standing, and that the Bureau of Reclamation must sign off on any transmission lines crossing canals.

Bruce also quoted Ron Kiester of the Owyhee Irrigation South Board as saying that if you're anywhere near headgates under transmission lines along the Homedale PP&L, during a storm, your hair will stand on end. At the transmission line scoping meeting in Marsing, only about ten people showed up, and they thought the line was going to be somewhere off in the desert. I hope they start reading this blog soon.

We sent a packet of documents and maps as requested, to Matt Lawrence, senior policy analyst to Oregon State Senator Ted Ferrioli. Senator Ferrioli plans on a town hall meeting in Ontario early next year, so be watching for it.

This from Pat Trenkel: ". . . (Stacy Captein) says she lived by the huge transmission lines in California. It doesn't happen often, according to her, but in 1988 or 1989 they experienced a power surge in the lines which blew out everyone's electrical equipment. The power company had to replace her coffee pot, TV, and computer monitor. It knocked things off the wall in the barn, and could have killed the cows, had they been milking. Apparently, a lot of people were impacted. I think once would be too many times...what would happen to a person who happened to be touching the wrong thing during a power surge?"

Good question.

Wayne Kinney, aide to Senator Ron Wyden

Several of us had an illuminating lunch Wednesday with Wayne Kinney, a former Argus reporter and aide to Senator Wyden. Wayne was very interested in what we are doing and although Sen. Wyden doesn't have jurisdiction over state matters, he certainly has clout and promises to use his influence in our behalf. We sent a notebook of materials back with Wayne.

Wayne looked at the maps and wondered why Idaho Power didn't want to use any of the alternate utility corridors, especially the ones through Idaho. Using an alternate corridor seems the prudent thing to do in order to avoid dealing with Oregon's energy regulatory agencies, which do not have a trouble-free history with Idaho Power in eastern Oregon counties.

We told Wayne that we are hoping to encourage Idaho Power to diligently consider alternate corridors, since Oregon's BLM has gone through the work of designating a corridor for the very purpose of transmission lines, unless, of course, Idaho's public utilities can preferably be sited on Idaho's own public lands.

Jeff Merkley's Oregon address

Jeff Merkley's current address can be found at http://www.leg.state.or.us/house/hsedem.htm, where there is an email link. Since he is Speaker of the Oregon House until he goes to the U.S. Senate in January, you can send mail to him while the Oregon legislature is still in session:

Session Address:
Jeff Merkley
900 Court St. NE, 269
Salem, OR 97301
Session Phone:503-986-1200
rep.jeffmerkley@state.or.us