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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityheralckcom
June 17, 2015
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>N >H>saDn'>oN: Local • Business @AgLife • Go! magazine $< 46-~
QUICIC HITS
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Fire Season OutlooK
Good Day Wish To A Subscriber
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A special good day to Herald subscriber Aubrey Miller of Baker City.
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Oregon, 5A SALEM — House Speaker Tina Kotek unveiled a proposal Monday to gradually raise Oregon's statewide minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2018 and give local governments the right to go higher if they choose. The change would give Oregon the nation's highest minimum wage Jan. 1, when all workers would have to be paid at least $11 an hour, up from the current $9.25.
INSIDETODAY 32-page special section takes a look at the agriculture industry in Northeastern Oregon
BRIEFING
Family program planned 3une 29 at Baker County Library Baker County Library District will host a special family program from the Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History on Monday, June 29 at 6:30 p.m. at the library, 2400 Resort St. "Be a Hero for the Environment" focuses on the sustainable practices that have been developed and used by Oregon's Native American cultures for thousand of years. The program is an interactive, one-hour family experience that includes a short presentation, a series of activity tables, and plenty of touchable artifacts. The program is presented by a professional museum educator from the Museum of Natural and Cultural History in collaboration with Libraries of Eastern Oregon. Learn more about MNCH at http//naturalhistory.uoregon.edu/.
Kathy Orr /Baker City Herald
May rains greened the sagebrush rangelands of Baker County, but with dry weather prevailing the past two weeks, grass is beginning to cure.
By Jayson Jacoby llacoby©bakercityherald.com
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Jason Simmons is a firefighter and so youmight figurehewould never complain about too much rain. But there's more to the relationship between rainfall and fire than pointing out that the former can dousethelatter. Indeed, an abundance of rain can exacerbate rather than quell the fire risk, said Simmons, who's the fire management officer for the BLM's Vale District, which includes all the land the agency oversees in Northeastern Oregon. The culprit is grass. At the start of May there wasn't much grass growing in the rangelands that constitute the bulk of the Vale District. But the wet spell that started the second week of May did for those wild grasses what regular sprinkling does for a suburban lawn.
second heart transplant surgery that finished early this morning at Sier r a Lucile Packard Bin gham Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, California. Sierra's younger sister, Lindsey, who suffers from the same rare heart ailment, had heart transplant surgery on Feb. 14, 2013, at the same hospital.
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See Sierra/Fbge 8A v
Kathy Orr /Baker City Herald
Parts of Baker County, including this scene along the Powder River near Haines, remain green. But cheatgrass, in the lower right corner of the photo, is turning purple as it dries into tinder.
See FireRisk/Page 8A
City seeks volunteers for parks, tree boards Baker City is seeking volunteers to fill three vacancies on the parks and recreation board, and two openings on the tree board. The three parks board positions are two-year terms that continue until July 2017. The two tree board positions are three-year terms that continue until July 2018. Applications are available at www.bakercity. com. More information is available by calling Luke Yeaton at 541-5242033 or by email at lyeaton@bakercity.com
Sierra Bingham, the 15-year-old North Powder girl who received a heart transplant in
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630acresin Hells Canyon /
The Little Basin fire, reported Monday morning near the Dug Bar Road in Hells Canyon, has grown to about 630 acres. The cause of the fire hasn't been determined, but it's likely that people rather than lightning are responsible, said Matt Burks, a spokesman for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. The fire is burning mainly in grass on steep slopes. Five fire engines, three helicopters, a single-engine air tanker, one hand crew and the Hot Shot crews from Union and La Grande have been working to extinguish the fire, which is about 10 percent contained.
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WEATHER
Today
U S Forest Service photo
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The Little Basin fire has burned about 630 acres of grassland near the Dug Bar Road in Hells Canyon northeast of Joseph.
Water test: No
crypto A water sample taken June 1 from the home of a Baker City woman who told city officials she had tested positive forcryptospordiosis did not contain the microscopicparasite,City Manager Mike Kee said Monday A lab in Grants Pass tested the water sample and found no crypto oocysts,theprotective shell that makes the parasite resistant tochlorine, which the city adds to its water to disinfect against giardia and other possible contaminants. The woman called the city on May 29 and told officials her doctor had diagnosed her with crypto infection. No other cases of crypto have been reported, according to the Baker County Health Department. See Crypto/Page 2A
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Issue 17, 62 pages
Business... ........1B & 2B Comics.......................3B DearAbby..... ..........10B News of Record........2A Senior Menus...........2A Calendar....................2A C o m m u nity News ....3A Hor o scope........BB & 7B O b i t uaries..................2A Sp o r ts ........................7A Classified............. 4B-9B C r o ssword........6B & 7B Lo t t ery Results.......... 2A O p i n ion......................4A We a t her ................... 10B
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