Accessible Walkway Clarification

Dear Editor:

The following is a clarification of news reported regarding the Lyons Ferry Accessible Walkway and Fishing Pad in The Times, last Thursday.

Volunteers from around the region contributed time and materials to the project: • Port of Columbia; Project idea and administrative support • Corps of Engineers; Ad- ministrative support and authorizations • Washington Department of

Fish and Wildlife; Project funding • Confederated Tribes of the

Umatilla Indian Reservation: Support and authorizations • Premier Excavation, contractor who constructed fishing pad • Bill Warren; Warren Or- chards – started construction of walkway with his tractor, but was rained out. • Harry Johnson Plumbing

& Excavation – Donation of Dump Truck to haul rock • George Hansen; donated his time to haul rock.

Pick-up & unloading of construction materials to job site. • The work party consisted of Dick Rubenser; F&R

Farms, Starbuck. He supplied a Kubota tractor and his time to help cut the sod and deliver many loads of gravel. • Cliff Tarvin and Ed Shaf- fer; heavy equipment operators and employees of Barker Enterprises in

Dayton. Barker’s employ- ees operated a Bobcattracked vehicle that cut the sod, smoothed the walkway and also delivered many loads of gravel to the pathway. • Dale Polla; Columbia

County Health System

Chief Executive Officer,

Dayton • Anne Walsh; Senior

Communications Manager, Puget Sound Energy,

Dayton • Jim Walsh; laborer and operator of gravel packing machine • Robert Walsh; operator of gravel packing machine • Linda Vannoster; Blue

Mountain RC&D Council, administrative officer • Lisa Naylor; Blue Mountain RC&D Council,

Executive Director • Paul Naylor; Washington

State licensed professional engineer, laborer • Alex Naylor; laborer. • Jim and Angela MacAr- thur; Lyons Ferry Marina

KOA Kampground man- agers; supplied the work crew with lunch during construction day, July 11. • On-site coordination and crew support. • George Touchette: Prepa- ration of bronze plaque and basalt marker at the site.

The Blue Mountain Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D) was a federal-local, non-profit partnership au- thorized in Jan. 2001 by the US Secretary of Agriculture, headquartered in Dayton. In April 2011, as part of a Con- gressional cost-saving measure, the federal partnership was dissolved. The Council moved its office to Waits- burg from Dayton. The 501 c(3) non-profit continues to assist rural communities in the Blue Mountain region with planning, fundraising and implementation of local projects. It exists wholly on grants and fundraising efforts and is governed by a regional Board of Directors. Lisa Naylor Blue Mountain RC&D Waitsburg