100 years ago

A miniature cyclone that twisted big cottonwood trees out of the ground by the roots and snapped others off 10 feet from the ground swept across the reservation last night as a part of the electrical storm and waterspout.

Comparatively little monetary loss was caused individuals by the ravages of the storm, but the “twister” worked some pranks unusual to this section.

At the Elmer Turner ranch the young cyclone covered a path of about 100 yards. Cottonwood trees were pulled up promiscuous in his hog lot, he reported this morning. An 80-foot shed was not damaged, however, and a big self-feeder was missed by a falling tree by inches.

On the F. H. Mytinger dairy farm a number of big trees were topped by the force of the wind. The storm came from across the Thompson land from the Spring Hollow vicinity. One stretch of road is said to have been scalped by the suction of the tornado.

50 years ago

The City of Pendleton cracked down hard Tuesday on Marda Inc., the Riverside-Mission sewer line contractor.

“Shape up or ship out. The free lunch is over,” said City Attorney John Walker.

A penalty of $150 a day is being imposed on Marda starting today because it hadn’t finished clean-up and testing of the five-mile sewer line.

The council retroactively granted a 32-day extension of the 180-day contract – the extended time period ended Tuesday. The extension was granted on recommendation of project engineer Victor Byerly of the Indian Health Service because unexpected rock was encountered in excavation.

Byerly said all of the line from agency headquarters and the new housing development on the Umatilla Indian Reservation to 42nd and Riverside had passed an air test. About 5,000 feet of line remains to be air-tested.

He said none of the required television testing of the line had been done, however.

25 years ago

After 20 years of studies, it’s official: The Boardman Coal-Fired Generating Plant isn’t producing toxic phytoplankton in Carty Reservoir.

The plant, owned by Portland General Electric, uses the nearby reservoir as a heatsink – a repository for the excess heat the plant generates. Two decades ago, the Oregon Department of Energy worried that the heated waters might spawn toxic plankton which could work its way up the food chain, potentially killing the migratory birds which enjoy the reservoir’s warm waters.

So when a site permit was issued to PGE to build the plant, the state DOE stipulated that a study was needed to see if such phytoplankton — small, plant-like organisms — were being produced in the reservoir.

Now, some two decades later, no traces of such plankton have been found, and the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council unanimously moved Friday morning to discontinue the study.