Umatilla Voices - Economy
Well, the people here, most all of them got jobs either at Ice Harbor or one of the other dams, the government
people. And as the construction people finished up they just moved
on to another construction job.
Gloria Lampkin, former McNary
Dam worker, 1999
At that time in Umatilla County we had probably
25 dairies. Today in 1999 there's not one dairy in Umatilla County
still active. . . all of our ground around here used to be 20 acres
or 100 acre places . . . we won't see dairies back in this area unless
it's big corporate dairies with two or three hundred head of cattle
they milk 24 hours a day. . . . I don't know what it takes to make
a strong agricultural base. Potatoes are good, or corn is good, the
onions they come and they go, but as I look on history I can see those
same potato people being in the Idaho area, Oreida, for years, then
they kind of drifted down here. . . a lot of these crops, they rob
the ground, and you don't put the nutrients back in the ground, and
you raise that crop so many years . . . In the old days the philosophy
was you'd put melons in seven years, you'd come back with melons.
In the meantime you'd raise alfalfa hay or you'd raise something to
put the nitrogen back into the ground. Watermelons and potatoes, they
take a lot of nitrogen and you have to get it back into there some
way. And we got so many chemicals now that do it faster. . .
Sam Nobles, Umatilla resident, 1999
I heard life is different, thereˆ¢s a lot
of opportunities for a better life. And I can see it is true, but
we have to watch ourselves too. Because you spend your money, itˆ¢ll
be exactly like in Mexico. . . I have to save for like, during the
winter, for November and December, we donˆ¢t have very much work on
the farms. So I was watching that for myself. Otherwise, I would be
in problems trying to get a job during that time. And sometimes it
is not the winter, but in some parts after pruning, the farms they
donˆ¢t have jobs. They let off almost everybody. They have just the
bosses, the people who have worked with the tractors. . . putting
the chemicals. So we have to wait for a couple weeks or three weeks
and then we can move back. And we do the thinning, thinning the apples.
And then we work for about a month, and then we start harvesting the
cherries, and then the apricots, almost at the same time. They split
the cherry and apple crews. Then after that we go back to thinning
apples for a couple weeks, and then we donˆ¢t have very much work for
another three weeks, until the harvest. And after the harvest everything
slows down. But some places like Simplot, they have a lot of work.
. .
Federico Ramos, Umatilla resident, 1999
>I'm interested in two things really. Not
just the jobs, average forty thousand dollars a year. Those are good
jobs. But I'm interested in people having those jobs, moving into
my community, buying a home there. . . And then they've got a lifetime
job, with a great retirement, you see. . . they become a part of our
civic organizations, our churches, our schools, our city government.
. . And they're the kind of citizens that build strong communities,
because they've got the income for it, they've got the stability,
and they're able to buy a house. . . . I think we've been real wise
in several things. . . the way we have worked with our planning commission
and the council in setting up building regulations. . . To keep this
small town livability. . . we insist on lot sizes that are large enough
to where you're not crowding everything together. . . we have nice
wide streets. . . . I would be tickled to death if they put a Fred
Meyer's in here. . . Any large store that would attract people from
outside in here. . .
Mayor George
Hash, 1999
I would like to. . . one day. . . open up
talks again with the city of Umatilla, to try to come to a mutual
understanding. . . what we're going to have to do is cooperate. So
many times we've been in adversarial positions. . . . Now today with
all the things that's happening, they're building in that area, they've
got the freeway going through there [Umatilla], they've got the prisons
that are going in there. I feel that we may be at a crossroads, we
might be at a unique [time] that we can begin to develop something
that's going to be mutually benficial to the tribe, to the non-Indian
community, to the State, to the County. Because the importance of
that area - first off you've got Umatilla Indians, you've got Umatilla
River, you've got Umatilla County, Umatilla City.
Thomas Morning
Owl, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, 1999
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