Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune, March 26, 2015

Page 1

CHARLEY LONG SHOT BY THE

DONKEY BASKETBALL

OKANOGAN KID

Oroville Booster Club presents Donkey Basketball on Saturday, March 28 at OHS

See Pages 33

SERVING WASHINGTON’S

OKANOGAN VALLEY

SINCE 1905

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Water and sewer rates going up in Oroville area

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Need a name for proposed new park BY GARY A. DE VON EDITOR@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

Katie Teachout/staff photos

Friends join Churchill Clark in carrying his latest carve, a dugout canoe called Crazy Mary, for a first launch at Chief Tonasket Park Sunday, March 22.

SHAKEDOWN CRUISE Churchill Clark, descendent of the famous explorer, takes his dugout ‘Crazy Mary’ on it’s maiden voyage

SEE RATES | PG A2

Property owners worry about future flooding

BY KATIE TEACHOUT KATHERINE@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

TONASKET - Crazy Mary entered the waters of the Okanogan River for her christening voyage Sunday, March 22, at Chief Tonasket Park. Steering her was her creator, William Clark’s great great great great grandson Churchill. Clark found the tree a couple years ago after a windstorm in Republic took her down. She may have thought her life was over, but it was just about to get good. A Ponderosa Pine, Mary was hauled to the Okananogan Highlands by Dave Konz. “We slabbed it in two, loaded her into a dump truck and dropped her off at the Barter Faire site,” said Clark. Her emergence from the trunk began in October, 2013 on Artist Row at the Barter Faire, with Clark as the featured artist and hundreds of volunteers chipping in with an adze over the four-day event. Named after a Pearl Jam cover of a song by Victoria Williams, Clark said the canoe’s name came to him “very late” in the process, just this past December. The making of the canoe can be viewed in a video called “The Unveiling of Mary the Dugout Canoe” on Clark’s website, Dugout Canoe Love.com. Her true transformation, however, happened with Clark paddling her upriver for a short spin on the Okanogan before returning to friends and spectators gathered onshore. “It’s official. Crazy Mary is now a canoe,” announced Clark jubilantly. “I love it. I am so ready for this.” Clark himself seems transformed, with a wide smile shooting across his face now that he’s on the water with a beloved boat. He’s headed to the Columbia River in her, but not before stopping in Omak, where he said he’s looking forward to a visit from Paschal Sherman Indian

OROVILLE – It’s been the topic for the last few council meetings, but the city council is on the verge of increasing the base water and sewer rates in order to try and meet future repairs and improvements. At their Tuesday, March 17 meeting the council reviewed a draft ordinance that would increase the base rate by one dollar for water and by two dollars for sewer, according to City Clerk JoAnn Denney. That would mean the rate would go from $21.50 a month inside the city limits to $22.50 outside and sewer would go up from $26 a month to $28. While the increase only affects the base rate, outside the city limits the monthly charge would be higher because their base rate is already higher. “There hasn’t been a rate increase since 2012,” said Denney. “The increase will be approved at the April 7 meeting to be effective April 1.” AMBULANCE DISCUSSION Oroville still doesn’t know what to do for ambulance service – continue with

the current crew or contract with a private company. Mayor Chuck Spieth asked city attorney Mick Howe about the legality of using levy funds to pay to contract services. Howe said the city would have to show good faith in finding the funds were used appropriately and not a “gift of public funds.” He discussed transferring service to a private company if Oroville were to dissolve the current volunteer service. He said most communities were moving toward services like those provided by private ambulance companies. Amy Morris, a commissioner with the Rural EMS District, asked how such a transfer would apply to the Rural EMS. Howe said while he represents the city, he felt it would apply the same way. While the city studies whether to contract with a private company, members of the current volunteer ambulance crew approached the city at the last council meeting with a proposal to contract for services. The council indicated they would study this option as well in making their final decision. ZONING TEXT CHANGES The council meeting was also advertised as a public hearing to discuss a zoning text amendment. Oroville Reman and Reload has requested the Zoning

Want to do work in Tonasket Creek bed to lessen property damage Clark spins Crazy Mary to head downstream after taking her out for a quick test ride upriver. Below, Clark rests for a moment at Janis Bridge. School students. “She’s about the people. These trees bring people together and put a smile on their face,” Clark said. “The canoe brings people out of the woodwork,” said Ephraim Brown, enlisted to drive Clark’s truck from the launch site. “His journey is magical.” Descended seven generations away from Clark’s firstborn son William Meriwether Lewis Clark, Clark was privy to reading his relative’s journals during preparation for a two-anda-half-year-long bicentennial reenactment of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery trip. Asked what stood out the most for him from the journals, Churchill shrugs. Perhaps the inkings were simple log notes, devoid of the musings of the descendant to follow. “People are capable of amazing things. This is truth. We are not helpless,” Clark says on a video posted on his website. “We do not need to be saved. We don’t need someone to take care of us. We need to live, and live strongly with our hearts. Roll with it. Learn to do it.” Clark can certainly lay claim to “learning to roll with it.” An accident left him blinded for three years before surgery restored his sight. Rather than laying

OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 111 No. 13

down his life and waiting patiently to take it back up again, he took on a Cottonwood and started digging her out. Knotty the Dugout Canoe was born, and Clark paddled her, still blind, following the Platte River across Nebraska. “I tell you...from my experience...that your life will change forever and so will so many of the lives around you,” Clark states. Brown recalled first meeting Clark after his sight was partially restored. “He’s blind in one eye, he’s got metal in his legs, and still he’s carving on a canoe. To see someone that dedicated, it’s pretty hard not to get inspired,” said Brown. “You see this magical thing come into your life, and to be able to help...how can you not?” Clark called to say he was approaching Omak at 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, March 24. “I got out before sunrise—I still haven’t seen the sun because it’s raining—but I’m coming into Omak.” He pulled Crazy Mary up to shore around 9 a.m. at the Omak Stampede grounds, just across the river from the Suicide Race. “I had a great float today,” he announced happily. “I just broke my tent down when the rain started. I wasn’t waiting for the sun to come up, because I wanted to get out. I don’t usually paddle in the dark unless there’s a full moon— especially on a river I don’t know, but I wanted to be sure and be here in time for the kids.” He was expecting the students to arrive around 12:45 p.m.

SEE VOYAGE | PG A2

BY GARY A. DE VON EDITOR@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

OROVILLE – After last month’s flooding of Tonasket Creek, several area property owners are trying to find out just what they can do to prevent future damage to their orchards and businesses. Jeff Bunnell, who owns Oroville Mini Storage, got together with like-minded people, as well as agency representatives to discuss the matter. They met on East Oroville Road, near where a small bridge crosses over the creek. Those who suffered property damage wanted to know if they could deepen and widen the creek bed, as well as building higher berms along the sides to try and contain any future flooding events. “If you dig down about three feet you are down to the glacial till. When you get an event like we had it just washes all the top soil away and exposes the glacial till,” said Bunnell. On the west side of East Lake Road the group could see the Bunnell property where much of that topsoil was laid out where his wife’s garden used to be. He said he had already dug down more than a foot before he hit where the garden was. It took, he said more than an hour, just to expose even a small portion of his lot that borders the creek. Rod Noel, Oroville’s superintendent of public works said, “The start of where the creek actually left its banks is above the second (Molson) grade. This is a bad spot down here, the actual streamline is way above this area. “With the velocity of the water, no matter what, it’s going to eat away at the bank.” Bunnell pointed out that the bridges, the one where the group was gathered, and another on Sawtell Road, act as choke points as they fill with debris

SEE FLOODING | PG A2

INSIDE THIS EDITION

CONTACT US Newsroom and Advertising (509) 476-3602 gdevon@gazette-tribune.com

underneath. “We have a lot of trouble with bridge debris as it stops the flow and the water goes over the sides,” agreed Noel. Although the vast majority of the damage occurred outside of the city limits, Oroville’s Bud Clark Ballfields along the Chesaw Road were covered with material washed up in the flood. “It took out fences, my wife’s garden... we were just lucky we have the berm which protected the storage units,” said Bunnell, who adds he experienced similar property damage two years ago and five years ago. “You get a huge amount of water at times, but most of the time it is bone dry,” said Noel. Chris Fisher, a fisheries biologist with the Colville Fish and Wildlife Department, took measurements in the creek bed below the bridge. He said while the creek had water year around further up the creek, the stretch in question, only had water in the spring. The water was important, however to allow adult fish to reach spawning grounds and juvenile fish to leave them. He indicated that his agency would not be adverse to work being done during the dry period to improve the habitat and help prevent or lessen future flooding events. “Down here it not a much of a fish issue, further up yes – we have some tagged fish that show they leave the stream this way,” Fisher said. “For this reach it is for access in and out in the spring.” Fisher called it access to some limited, but quality habitat, but said there were no plans to return it to historic levels where water flowed year around. He added that it would be the land owners responsibility to try and get the permits required from the state Department of Ecology to work in the stream bed. “Do we all agree that something needs to be done?,” Bunnell asked his fellow property owners. “If not it is just going to happen again.”

News A2-3 Cops & Courts A4 Letters/Opinion A5

Community A6-7 Classifieds/Legals A8-9 Real Estate A9

Sports Schools Obituaries

A10 A11 A12


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