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Cost of refuge occupation estimated at $3.3 million Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Feb. 24, 2016 at 11:34 AM Posted Feb. 24, 2016 at 11:34 AM » Social News The 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge cost taxpayers at least $3.3 million to cover the massive police response, a week of shuttered schools and a long list of supplies ranging from food to flashlight batteries, according to an Oregonian/OregonLive analysis of public and tribal budgets. The amount doesn’t include any figures from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which operates the 187,700-acre bird sanctuary seized Jan. 2 by armed militants. The agency is still waiting to assess the damage that dozens of interlopers caused after they moved into the refuge headquarters compound. They used backhoes, government trucks and computers and left piles of garbage and feces in their wake, federal investigators said. Much of the estimate reflects the expense of having scores of police officers from across the state converge on Harney County for more than a month for around-the-clock work. The cost to Oregon State Police alone stands at more than $1.2 million, the analysis found. Another $788,500 paid for help from other police and government agencies that responded from outside the county – mostly sheriff’s offices that sent deputies to help patrol, but also police officers from cities including Portland and Eugene and 911 dispatchers from places including Hood River. The overall figure also includes money to pay the wages of employees who couldn’t go to work – for instance, $425,000 for about 120 workers at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management who stayed home while their offices were closed. While some federal employees were able to do certain work from home, most couldn’t do their regular jobs, their bosses said. The number doesn’t include the cost of putting off projects, said land bureau spokesman Michael Campbell. “We haven’t even begun to think about how we could do an evaluation ... to get at the question of lost time in the field, or projects we didn’t get to, or projects that were temporarily delayed,” Campbell said. The Bureau of Land Management and Fish & Wildlife Service weren’t the only federal agencies paying their workers to stay home. The U.S. Forest Service oversees the Malheur National Forest, which spans Harney, Grant, Baker and Malheur counties. The agency mainly administers the forest out of John Day, but about 36 employees also work at the Emigrant Creek Ranger District office in Hines, said spokesman Mike Stearly. Their salaries total about $31,000 per week, Stearly said. Most of the workers, he said, were able to take laptops home and work from there. Still, Stearly said, “some of the field work was not completed and folks weren’t able to provide services such as wood permits and stuff like that to the public.” The Oregonian/OregonLive included Forest Service employees’ costs in its calculation because of the lost productivity. Two other federal agencies – the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service – also employ a handful of workers in Hines and were closed during the occupation, said Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Tara Thissell. Those agencies didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking budget figures. Harney County, its schools and the cities of Burns and Hines shouldered a cost of nearly $522,000 throughout the occupation, the analysis found. The expense of closing schools for a week – for safety concerns in the days immediately after the takeover – cost $143,600 alone in wages to staff on leave, according to figures obtained from Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, whose role is akin to that of a county chairman. Other ongoing costs incurred by the schools include heightened security on campus. The county paid $6,400 a month to Laura Cleland, director of communications with the Association of Oregon Counties, who acted as public information officer and dealt with the onslaught of regional, national and international media. Cleland continues to work on Harney County’s behalf. The county of just over 7,100 people also spent more than $90,000 on materials, including meals and the setup of joint command and information centers where agencies coordinated response and outreach. The county had to reprogram its own radios and those of other agencies so officials “could talk to each other,” Grasty said. “At one point, we were buying almost 200 double-A batteries a day for flashlights that were working all night long,” he said. The county is still adding up expenses and expects the materials figure to grow far beyond $90,000, he said. The Burns Paiute Tribe, meanwhile, spent about $60,000 on additional law enforcement and $90,000 related to taking an inventory of artifacts at the refuge and keeping tabs on the occupation, tribal chair Charlotte Roderique estimated. The tribe expects to incur more costs, on top of the knowledge that militants might have disturbed precious burial sites and tribal artifacts, she said. The tribe’s operations are funded in part by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, she said. The cost of the occupation will loom over budget discussions in Salem as the short legislative session begins to draw to a close. Gov. Kate Brown has talked with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., about the prospect of federal money to offset some of the state’s expenses, said Kristen Grainger, spokeswoman for Brown. And, in the event any occupiers are ever convicted of crimes, Brown wants Oregon to seek restitution to further reduce its costs. “If there’s an opportunity for the state to do that,” Grainger said, “we absolutely will.” — Associated Press U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced legislation earlier this month that would require the U.S. Department of Justice to reimburse state and local agencies for their occupation-related costs up front. The bill also would allow the U.S. attorney general to seek reimbursement through civil action against the militants. MailTribune.com Writer Posted Feb. 24, 2016 at 11:34 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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