Baker County Commissioners decided Wednesday to take off one of Jason Yencopal’s hats.

Yencopal, the county’s facilities manager, has also been shepherding the county’s application to build a hydroelectric plant at Mason Dam through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s licensing program.

He’s performed some studies himself, filled out scads of paperwork, met deadlines and otherwise kept the proposed 3-megawatt project afloat as it wends through the regulatory process.

But now he can toss his facility manager’s hat away. He’s going to manage the Mason Dam project full-time.

What gave Baker County Commission Chair Fred Warner Jr. the idea to recommend Yencopal for the job, Warner told his two fellow commissioners Wednesday, was the price tag that four consultants were going to charge the county to do the work that Yencopal has been doing as a part of his job.

The estimates ranged from $750,000 to $1.5 million, Warner said.

Yencopal makes $46,488 annually.

A committee composed of Warner, Yencopal and Randy Joseph, chair of the county’s Power Generation Task Force, unanimously decided that the consultants’ higher-than-expected estimates “weren’t in the interest of Baker County,” Warner said.

Rancher Dan Forsea of Richland replaced Cal Ransom as president of the Baker County Livestock Association at the group’s annual business meeting on Saturday.

Forsea is a third-generation rancher running a cow-calf operation with Hereford-Angus cattle on 9,600 acres of private land between Richland and Halfway.

During the next two weeks the family will move about 3,000 cow-calf pairs from 15,000 acres of BLM allotments to the ranch for the winter.

The story of the Forsea ranch begins in 1909, when Dan’s 16-year-old grandfather, who had immigrated to the United States from Romania, met a beautiful young lady named Blanche who was working

as a ranch cook while he was working for the railroad at Huntington.

The young couple married, purchased a small acreage which Dan Forsea figures was around 40 acres, and founded the family ranch.

Dan Forsea’s father, Walt, now 84, and his brother, Bob, returned from serving in World War II to run the ranch.

In 1957, when Brownlee Dam was built, the family moved the ranch from the original site along the Snake River.

A Baker County man plans to build a 12-turbine wind farm near Huntington that would produce enough electricity to power about 800 homes.

Randy Joseph hopes to install the turbines on public land about two miles north of Huntington and one mile east of the old lime plant.

Joseph, who is chairman of the Baker County Planning Commission and Baker County Renewable Energy Committee, estimates the project will cost $5 million.

His goal is to start generating electricity from the turbines by the end of 2009.

The BLM, which manages the property, today started a 30-day period during which the public can comment. Copies of the BLM’s environmental study of that proposal are available for review at BLM’s Baker City office, 3285 11th St., or by calling 523-1256.

More information is available online at www.blm.gov/or/districts/ vale.

Joseph, who lives in Sumpter Valley, said the turbines he wants to install are considerably shorter — at 145 feet tall — than the ones built last year near North Powder.

Local ranchers heard warnings about potential legislative efforts to weaken or repeal Oregon’s 1909 water rights laws, reports of lawsuits challenging grazing rights, and discussed the politics of endangered species protection of wolves during the Baker County Livestock Associations annual meeting Saturday in Baker City.

Mike Colton, who was elected to replaced Cal Ransom as the Association’s president, said listening sessions on water rights issues orchestrated by westside legislators appear to him to be part of a plan to rewrite Oregon’s almost century-old water rights law.

“It’s huge. It’s beyond huge,” Colton said.

He said it’s important for ranchers to attend the sessions and submit written comments to the House Environment and Energy Committee to make sure the agricultural industry’s perspective is represented in the development of any revisions of the 1909 water rights laws.

Baker City Herald/John Collins

Kari Waldhaus, a business coach with The Entrepreneur’s Source in Baker City, said there’s always opportunities for people with the right combination of skills and ambition to take control of their future through business ownership.

“The unemployment rate has soared within the past several months. Yet there are opportunities that can be pursued in business ownership, particularly in the franchise sector,” Waldhaus said.

“I provide a no-cost coaching service to help people find the right business,” Waldhaus said. “We have over 400 franchise businesses in all shapes and sizes across 80 different industries — everything from fast food and restaurants to service businesses.”

“There is a franchise out there for anyone that will fit their objectives and goals,” Waldhaus said.

Cutters Edge moving global headquarters to Baker City

Cutters Edge gets siding and insulation Tuesday as building construction continues for the company located next to OTEC. Gyllenberg Construction employees are Ron Forester, below, and Mark Sexton with Ty Findley in the lift.

“Construction is scheduled for completion by the end of November and we’ll begin moving in the first week of December,” said Tom Ruzich, who founded Cutters Edge in Julian, Calif., in 1987 during one of the nation’s previous recessions.

Ruzich said he started looking for a new location about three years ago after the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history destroyed three properties he owned. While his Cutters Edge plant in Southern California escaped the fire, he said the ongoing fire threat, a labor shortage and the soaring cost of doing business in a mountain resort and retirement town one hour from San Diego prompted him to make the move to Baker City.

The governor’s economic revitalization team works with city and county officials to site windfarms well and streamline the process

Just because there aren’t any windfarm applications before the Baker County Planning Department doesn’t mean the county can’t plan how wind turbines will be sited in the years to come.

A team sent by Gov. Ted Kulongoski helped county and state officials begin thinking about the process Tuesday.

Kulongoski’s Economic Revitalization Team regional team leader Scott Fairley said Baker County was chosen for the meeting because there could soon be wind turbine construction here and that the planning process can benefit from input from affected state agencies — including the Department of Energy, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Land Conservation and Developmen — early in the process.

While the purpose of the $700 billion federal bailout bill was touted by President Bush and congressional leaders as a rescue of the nation’s financial system, the final bill approved by Congress includes a number of tax benefits added to garner enough support from holdout Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass it.

Those tax benefits include an extension of tax forgiveness on the cancellation of mortgage debt; extended protections preventing middle income families from being subject to the alternative minimum tax; extended tax deductions for residents of states without income taxes; deductions for elementary and secondary school teachers; and continued provisions allowing banks to make tax-free distributions from IRAs for charitable purposes.

Ag practices, weird weather could explain hopper populations

Baker County Extension Agent Cory Parsons points to the epicenter of the 2008 grasshopper infestation: Baker County. Entomologist Helmut Rogg warned things could get worse for Baker County growers next year without an aggressive grasshopper control program next spring. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

Rogg said the grasshopper infestation that exploded across Baker, Union and Wallow counties in 2007 zeroed in on Baker County in 2008, reaching densities as high as 200 grasshoppers per square yard in several locations around Haines, Sparta and Medical Springs.

Cory Parsons, Oregon State University Extension agent for Baker County, pointed to maps on the wall showing how the 2008 grasshopper infestation exploded in Baker County, but tapered off in Union and Wallowa counties, compared to 2007.

In 2007, the grasshopper infestation covered about 6,000 in all three counties, with densities as high as 50 grasshoppers per square yard. By comparison, Parsons said around 7,000 acres in Baker County along were infested with grasshoppers in 2008.

Over the next few weeks, nearly $28 million in payments is being disbursed to Oregon farmers and ranchers participating in conservation programs, according to Larry Frey, state executive director for USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Oregon.

Of that statewide total, about $1.1 million will go to farmers and ranchers in Baker County, said Trent Luschen, Baker County FSA executive director.

Luschen said the program works cooperatively with producers to conserve soil and enhance water quality in streams and rivers, as well as wildlife habitat and air quality.

Nationwide, more than $1.7 billion in conservation payments are being made by FSA on 34.7 million acres across the country.

The payments announced Wednesday are annual rental payments earned on Oregon’s 563,592 acres enrolled in fiscal year 2008 in USDA conservation programs, including the Conservation Reserve Program, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and its predecessor, the Continuous Sign-Up Program.

Luschen said checks mailed out this week went to growers signed up under all three conservation programs administered by the FSA.