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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityheralckcom
May 6, 2015
iN mis aomoN:Local • Business @AgLife • Go! magazine QUICIC HITS
EXAMINlNG MARIJUANA BILLSALL 25 OF THEM — IN THE LEGISLATURE
MountainSnowpacKNear Recordlow ForEarly May
Good Day Wish To A Subscriber
Musical debuts Thursday
A special good day to Herald subscriber Judy Thomas of Baker City.
Results from our website poll:
IS
The most recent question on our website poll at www.bakercityherald. com. was: "Should Baker City ban the use of certain herbicides in parks and other public spaces?
a oun By Joshua Dillen ldlllen©bakercltyherald.com
• YES: 115 • NO: 83 The current question is: "Should Oregon allow limited self-serve gas in counties with fewer than 40,000 people?
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BRIEFING
Off road group to clean up forest May 16, and public invited The Locked trt Loaded OffRoad 4x4 group in Baker City will participate in the eighthannual AIIThings Jeep National Go Topless Day May 16 by taking the tops off their Jeeps and heading to the forest to clean up trash. Everyone is invited to join the effort. The group will leave the Baker Truck Corral at 8 a.m. on May16 and drive to the Sumpter area. The group will provide gloves, trash bags and a lunch after the cleanup.
Mail carriers collecting food this Saturday Letter carriers and other U.S. Postal Service employees and volunteers from throughout Oregon will participate in America's largest single day of giving this Saturday, May 9 — the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. It's conducted in partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, Feeding America and others. Just leave a non-perishable food donation in a bag by the mailbox, and the postal carriers will do the rest. In 2014, through the generosity of postal customers nationwide, 72.5 million pounds of food was collected by postal carriers, feeding an estimated 30 million people.
WEATHER
Today
56/33 Mostly sunny and breezy
Thursday
63/35 Mostly sunny and breezy
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III. Kathy Orr /Baker City Herald
The Elkhorn Mountains, except at the highest elevations, are snow-free, a sight more typical of mid June than of early May.
By Jayson Jacoby jacoby©bakercityherald.com
To understand how historically low the snowpack is this spring in the Elkhorn Mountains you have to cast a long look back. To a time when there was only one World War. To 1936, to be precise. That's the first year snow surveyors trudgedto a m eadow severalhundred yards east of Anthony Lake. That year they measured the snowpack only once, on March 23. The next two years, 1937 and 1938, surveyors also made a single trip to the site, on April 6 and March 28, respectively. In 1940 they added three other monthly measurements — around the first of January, February and March. And then in 1954 the surveyors added a May 1 visit, creating the same five-month schedule that continues today. Over the pastsix decades the snowpack in that meadow, elevation 7,125 feet, peaks most years around the first of May. Not this year. The snowpack, as measured by its water content, reached its maximum this year, at 18.5 inches, around the first of March.
SNOWPACK SHORTAGE WATER CONTENT INSNOWPACK AT ANTHONY LAKE MEADOW, MEASURED AROUND MAY 1
AVERAGE (1954-PRESENT) THIS YEAR LOWEST (1977) HIGHEST (1993) AVERAGE (PAST 10YEARS) In the two months since, an abundance of warm days, especially in March, and scarcity of rainfall30 percent below averageforthe March-April period — has eroded the already scanty snowpack to a nearrecord level. The water content measured at the Anthony Lake meadow May 1 was 11 inches. In only one year was the water content lower on that day. That was 1977 — one of the most severe drought years of the 20th centuryin Oregon — and the water
29.6" 11.0" 94
44.0" 27.9"
content on May 1 that year was 9.4 inches. The average for May1is 29.6 inches. And although surveyors didn't start the May 1 measurement until 1954, based on themnnis forApril 1 it's likely that in none of the years between 1936 and 1953 was the water content on May 1 as low as it was this year. The most meager water content forApril1during thatperiod was 19 inches.
State Rep. Cliff Bentz isn't trying to reverse more than half a century of Oregon's quirky approach to pumping gas into cars. Not completely, anyway. Even if the state Senate follows the House's lead and passes Bentz's House Bill 3011, Oregon will remain, along with New Jersey, the only states where drivers, in
T ODAY Issue153,30 pages
most cases, can't fuel their vehicles. But the bill, for which Baker County's other representative in Salem, Sen. B en t z Ted Ferrioli, is a co-sponsor, would carve out a minor exemption to Oregon's 64-year-old ban on self-serve gas. HB 3011, which the
House passed unanimously, would allow people to pump gas,but italso hasa couple of significant limitations. First, the bill would apply only to counties with populations of 40,000 or less. That includes 18 of Oregon's 36 counties, among them Baker County, with an estimated population of 16,325. Second, the bill, at least
Defense
bill could block sage grouse ESA listing Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is touting a provision in a defense bill that would prohibit the federal government from adding the sage grouse to the endangeredspecieslistfora
decade. See Snowpack/Page8A
imite se -serve ascomin ~ By Jayson Jacoby
SeePot Bills/PageGA
//
legislationSponsoredmyRep.ClimBentz, Sen.IedFerrioli
llacoby©bakercityherald.com
In spite of its name, the only things the Oregon Legislature's Joint Committee on the Implementation of Measure 91 is passing around are ways to regulate marijuana. The committee — made up of10 representatives and 10 senators — is tasked with sorting out how the voterapproved measure, which legalizes recreational use of marijuana starting July 1, will be enforced by examining,amending and moving 25 current bills through the legislative process. Some bills also involve changes to Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act iOMMAl — including its dispensary program legislated lastyear which took effect Jan. 1 — as well. Senate Bill 844 is getting much of the media attention. The bill is an example of "gut and stuff," which is legislative nomenclature for a bill that has had its text completely changed from its originalversion.Theprocess is allowed as long as the subjectmatter isgenerall y the same as the original text.
in its current form, allows self-serve only"during hours that no owner, operatororemployee ispresent." Bentz, a Republican from Ontario, said the Senate might change the bill. He pointed out that the bill doesn't specifically state that stations must be officially closed to allow self-serve.
The House Armed Services i Committee approved the provision. Walden expects Wa l den the full House to vote on the bill later this month. "A federal listing of the sage grouse could shut down countless ranches and rural communities throughout Eastern Oregon. The impacts on our economy could make the spotted owl look like child's play. And it could also severely harm our military readiness and national security,"Walden said.
See Self-Serve/Page 8A
See GrouselPage 8A
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Full forecast on the baCk Of the B SeCtiOn. 8
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