CTUIR, divers pull 3 vehicles from Johnley Pond
Published 7:58 am Thursday, April 17, 2025
Volunteer divers from Oregon Dive and Rescue look on as Eastern Oregon Towing pulls a 1979 Ford F-150 out of Johnley Pond on April 12, 2025,, near the Cayuse community on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Planning Department had scheduled the pickup's removal, but divers found two other vehicles in the water. (Lee Gavin/Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation)
A mid-2000s Dodge Cummins diesel pickup sits on the bank of Johnley Pond after its removal April 12, 2025, near the Cayuse community on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The pickup was one of three pulled from the pond. (CTUIR Planning Department/Contributed Photo)
MISSION — Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Planning Department employees, volunteer divers and others pulled three vehicles from Johnley Pond on April 12 near the Cayuse community.
But the crew went there expecting to remove only one.
According to a press release from the CTUIR, Brian Fullen, the tribes’ environmental health and safety specialist, said he knew of a 1979 Ford F-150 pickup in the pond and had scheduled the dive to remove it. However, once divers got in the water they found a mid-2000s Dodge Cummins diesel pickup and 1984 Camaro Iroc, which the team also removed.
He said there have been “lots of rumors” of vehicles in the bottom of the pond, and the divers were in the water for two minutes and found the first of the two other vehicles “that we weren’t even planning on.”
Fullen said this project involved “lots of meetings, lots of water testing and talks with different federal agencies on cleanup processes.” He said the volunteer divers were part of Oregon Dive and Rescue from the Bend and Lincoln City areas. Other groups helping pull the vehicles from the pond were Eastern Oregon Towing and the tribe’s fire, police, emergency management, public safety and natural resources departments.
Johnley Pond is along Johnley Road north of the Umatilla River. The 30-foot-deep pond is a former rock quarry that during the years became an illegal dump, shooting range and party spot, Fullen said.
The CTUIR Planning Department initiated the cleanup of the pond and its surrounding area in the fall of 2024 after learning of the Ford pickup going into the pond. Since then the department along with the CTUIR’s legal counsel and police, natural resources and public works departments have worked to clean the pond and its surrounding area.
Fullen said the property being split among several owners has made the pond’s cleanup difficult.
“That being said, it is moving forward, it’s just slowly,” he said in the press release. “But surely we’ll have the (Environmental Protection Agency) out here in the next month or so that are going to be doing soil sampling for the shooting range as lead is a hard metal. It’s interesting as the pond’s come back to life. It’s full of perch, bass, saw some baby catfish, about a 20- or 30-pound goldfish and screaming bullfrogs. … It’s very lively, very alive pond.”
