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The Forest Service may move employees out of the Rager Ranger Station, 72 miles east of Prineville.
The Bulletin file photo
Ranger station may close, leaving Paulina an uncertain future
By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin
Published: July 09. 2009 4:00AM PSTThe Ochoco National Forest is considering stopping full-time operations at Rager Ranger Station — the most remote ranger station in the Pacific Northwest — where U.S. Forest Service employees have lived and worked for more than a century.
The potential closure is designed to help improve the efficiency of the Ochoco National Forest, officials say.
“The whole thing is to stay viable,” Jeff Walter, supervisor of the Ochoco National Forest, said. “We want to stay viable, and stay here in Prineville.”
But the possibility of moving full-time employees out of the remote Rager Ranger Station in Paulina — population about 120 — has some in the community concerned about the impacts to the town, including the area’s one ambulance traditionally staffed by Forest Service volunteers.
“The ambulance has typically been staffed largely by Rager personnel, Forest Service personnel, so without Rager, we potentially don’t have a viable ambulance crew,” said Jim Wood, a rancher in Post.
The Crook County Sheriff’s Office responds to calls in the Post and Paulina area, said Cmdr. Russ Wright, but the Rager ambulance can get to accidents, health emergencies, and search and rescue situations much quicker.
“They know the area, and they’ve been trained in regards to what to initially do,” he said. “It’s 75 miles from Prineville to Paulina, and it takes a while to get there. … And we’re lucky to have them because I don’t know of any others around.”
If the staff at Rager is relocated to Prineville, the impact could spread through the community in other ways as well, Wood said.
“Typically, and currently, one of the teachers (at Paulina Elementary School) is the spouse of a Rager employee,” he said, noting that Rager attracts new people to the area.
And having Rager’s staffers living and working in the community also helps improve the relationship between the Forest Service and its neighbors, he said.
“It gives a face to the Forest Service, and you begin to understand each other,” he said. “It fosters a feeling of cooperation rather than adversaries.”
Helen Schnabele, who’s lived in the area since she married in 1942, said it would be a shame to lose full-time staffers at Rager.
“We don’t want to see that happen, no,” she said. “It’ll take people out of our communities.”
A difficult choice
The Forest Service is holding a meeting in Prineville later this month to discuss the potential change.
It’s part of a bigger plan for the Ochoco National Forest to change its internal boundaries, shifting from three ranger districts to two. The question facing Forest Service officials is whether one of the new districts will be housed in Prineville, with the rest of the Ochoco National Forest staff, or in Paulina at the Rager Ranger Station.
“We see a declining trend in the amount of money that we have available to us, and we also have had some challenges with filling and keeping positions and people out at Rager Ranger Station,” said Virginia Gibbons, spokeswoman with the Ochoco National Forest.
But whether to close the ranger station isn’t an easy question, Walter said.
“I don’t want to pretend its a slam dunk either way,” he said, “because there’s people for it and people against it.”
Walter will ultimately send a recommendation to the regional Forest Service office, where the regional forester will send her decision to the Washington, D.C., office for a final decision.
A remote location
One problem with operating the Rager Ranger Station is the high rate of turnover at the remote site, Walter said.
Currently, the cluster of buildings in the middle of the forest houses 10 employees who live and work at the facility, but there are five vacant positions as well.
“People don’t want the remote districts anymore,” Walter said. “With kids in soccer, you can’t drive 72 miles after work.”
Moving those employees to the Prineville headquarters could be more efficient, Gibbons said, noting that the Crooked River National Grassland headquarters is moving from Madras to Prineville as well.
“When you have two units that are remote, you’ve got additional travel times and coordination on projects that can be easier if folks are in the same place,” she said.
The Forest Service did not have cost-saving estimates for moving employees from the Rager Ranger District, she said.
The ranger station wouldn’t shutter completely, Walter said. It would instead be used as a work station — employees who have projects in the area might drive out and stay a few nights while they work on the rangelands or in the forests, or crews might bunk there during wildfire season.
But there are concerns with moving operations to Prineville as well, he said. It would increase the commute time for people who do work on the land around Paulina, he said, and staffers won’t have the constant contact with the forest that they do now.
“The more you’re out there, the more you see what’s on the ground,” Walter said. “When it’s 72 miles away, you probably won’t get out there as often as when it’s close.”
Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.
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