News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 1 - 15 of 15
Winter hit higher elevations last week, making for hazardous driving conditions. As much as a foot-and-a-half of snow fell on the Santiam Pass by Saturday night, October 19, compounding danger on the already treacherous stretch of the Santiam Highway from Sisters to the Santiam Junction, one of the 10 deadliest roadways in the state. With the onset of snowy weather, state police and the Oregon Department of Transportation began enforcing winter driving regulations. Senior Trooper Mike Decker of the Oregon State Police... Full story
Mark Goddard, the former president and current International Service Director of the Rotary Club of Sisters, returned to Sisters last week from his seventh trip to the Talamaca Valley in the tropical forests of mountainous southeastern Costa Rica. Goddard has been working to establish the Rotary Medical Clinic in the remote village of Shiroles. The clinic is dedicated to providing better and more accessible health care to the people of southeastern Costa Rica. The program has introduced medical care, dental care and... Full story
The Santiam corridor salvage timber sale was auctioned at $3,158,787 to Bugaboo Timber Co. of Mill City last Tuesday, September 17. A total of 1,022 acres in the Santiam corridor are slated for logging in this sale. Seven hundred acres will be tractor-logged while 322 acres in sensitive or steep areas will be hauled out by helicopter. Two timber companies bid for the salvage sale, which is intended to reduce fire fuels and improve scenic quality in the Santiam corridor. Bugaboo outbid D.R. Johnson and laid down $128.50 per... Full story
After hearing public comment, the Sisters Ranger District will implement a salvage logging project that aims to reduce the risk of fire in the Santiam Corridor near Suttle and Blue Lakes. The auction of 19 million board feet of timber from the Santiam treatment project is slated for September 17. The Santiam Corridor Vegetation Management Project involves a commercial timber harvest of 1,830 acres as well as 2,400 acres of noncommercial treatments such as underburning, firewood and post sales, planting, and riparian... Full story
A 35-foot cellular phone antenna tower and equipment shelter will soon spike the toe of McKinney Butte in the Wild Horse Ridge subdivision east of Sisters. At a public hearing Tuesday, September 3, County Hearings Officer Karen Green conditionally accepted CellularOne's application for use of a 10-foot-by-20-foot lease area at 68893 Bay Place to construct the tower. For the tower to go up, Raymond and Doris Hart, the owners of 68893 Bay Place, must remedy a county code violation involving an unauthorized dwelling in a garage... Full story
Firefighters contained the 700-acre Park Meadow blaze 13 miles southwest of Sisters on Saturday, August 31. The 500 troops from Fort Carson, Colorado who were called in to help battle the Three Sisters Wilderness wildfire were redeployed to the Summit fire in the Umatilla National Forest early Saturday morning. Two crews remain to mop up and watch hot spots. Base camp was moved from the lower sno-park on Three Creeks Road to Allingham Guard Station where firefighters are also stationed to keep an eye on the Jefferson Fire tha... Full story
Smoke choked the air in and around Sisters last weekend as a 590-acre lightning-caused blaze flared up in the wilderness near Park Meadow 13 miles south of town. Three firefighting crews and a helicopter were at work Monday morning laying hose line and building a lane around the fire. They were preparing for the arrival of 500 troops from a Fort Carson, Colorado military team which deployed periodically throughout Monday, August 26, from Redding, California, where they had been battling forest fires. The Park Meadow blaze was... Full story
Tempers flared and accusations flew among Tollgate residents at the annual meeting of the Tollgate Property Owners Association Saturday, August 17. Several property owners vigorously objected to proposed changes in association bylaws and board of directors' policies and procedures. Board members and other homeowners defended the board and its policies. The proposed bylaws would have given the association board of directors power to levy fines on property owners for violations of the association's bylaws, its Conditions,... Full story
All it takes is a lightning strike, or a carelessly tossed cigarette, and a handful of brave individuals must lay their lives on the line to save acres of forests or to keep a blaze from engulfing campgrounds and homes. After nearly a month of dirty, exhausting and dangerous work, the 3,648-acre Jefferson blaze was contained on August 2 by fire crews from the Sisters Fire District and surrounding areas. The stubborn blaze tested the mettle of the men and women who have been battling it since it was started by an errant... Full story
Water from the City of Sisters will flow into commercial and residential developments on Pine Meadow Ranch development unless opponents of the project succeed in shutting off the spigot. The Sisters City Council approved PMR Development's application for city water service at their Thursday, August 8, meeting. Steve McGhehey of PMR Development submitted the application and noted that PMR needs to know what its water source will be so it can proceed with plans to develop its commercial- and residential-zoned property. PMR... Full story
A brush fire scorched about half an a acre of wilderness near Indian Ford Campground northwest of Sisters Friday, August 9. Three crews from the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire District, two from the Sisters Ranger District, and two from the Oregon Department of Forestry responded to a call from the Black Butte firetower at about 2 p.m. It took crews about four hours to extinguish the blaze just north of the campground using water and a fire line for containment. Firefighters did not evacuate the campground. The official... Full story
The Sisters Ranger District has proposed a precommercial forest-thinning project in the Green Ridge area. The precommercial thin, proposed for nine locations geographically from Green Ridge to Bluegrass Butte, will improve forest health, Forest Service officials say. The 1,316-acre project area is located within numerous "plantations," where trees were replanted at older timber sale sites in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, tree densities in the new ponderosa pine stands have become too great to provide good... Full story
County residents without plans to build a house can again build storage sheds and garages for recreational vehicles, according to a decision by the Deschutes County Planning Commission. A previous amendment to Title 18, adopted last December, had restricted people from putting secondary-type buildings, such as garages and sheds, on their property unless the property's "primary use" was established. This law was proposed to stem the ongoing problem of landowners converting garages into dwellings without a permit. In a public... Full story
The views from the Santiam Highway near Suttle Lake will soon be considerably altered. The Sisters Ranger District has approved a project that will thin the forest along Highway 20 in the Suttle Lake area, removing many of the dead and dying trees that are clearly visible from the highway. The salvage logging slated for the Santiam Corridor between the Santiam Pass and the Suttle Lake curve on Highway 20, is an effort modify what the Forest Service fears is extreme fire danger and to restore the overgrown, blighted forest... Full story
Firefighters have contained a blaze that swept over 1,100 acres of the Jefferson Wilderness last week and filled the air northwest of Sisters with a haze of smoke. It may be a long time before the flames are completely out. Up to 704 firefighters from the Sisters Ranger District and other Central Oregon agencies battled to contain the blaze which fire officials believe was touched off by a carlessly discarded cigarette Monday, July 8. Crews threw fire lines around the fire's perimeter to halt the fire's spread.. Helicopters w... Full story
