KWSO News for Wed., Aug. 5, 2020

The Warm Springs Branch of Public Utilities begins work to make repairs to the Water Main break adjacent to the Shitike Creek Crossing.  They ask that all residents of the Agency Water System conserve as much water as possible from today through the weekend to facilitate a system shutdown that will occur this Saturday (8/8/20).  The goal is to conserve enough water within our reservoirs to maintain pressures and flow for more critical demands like fire suppression through the scheduled shut down.  It is anticipated that the water system will be back up and running by the end of the day on Saturday barring any significant unforeseen events.  Affected residents should also take measures to protect their hot water tanks by shutting off the power to the tank until the water system is back up and running.

There was one additional positive case of Covid-19 reported yesterday in the Community Covid-19 UPDATE provided by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

• There have been 193 total positive cases of Covid-19 in since the pandemic began
• 2061 tests have been done
• 14 test results are pending
• 18 people have been hospitalized with 14 discharged
• 3 people have died from Covid-19 in Warm Springs

Tribal Council this week has worked on ensuring a location is available for positive cases of Covid-19 to move into if they are not able to isolated and quarantine themselves.   Council also helped refine the process dealing with noncomplying individuals that test positive. Ordinance 101 was passed to keep non-complying individuals, that test positive for Corona Virus-19 away from the community.  Ordinance 101 allows Tribal Court and Warm Springs PD to detain a person if they are positive for Covid-19 but not complying with isolation and quarantine requirement.

There have been changes made to August Acceleration Programs for the Jefferson County 509J school district.  The Kindergarten program will continue as scheduled August 10^th thru the 21^st.  Madras High School Summer Bridge for incoming 9^th grade students has changed to a hybrid learning opportunity both with on site visitation and on line learning opportunities.  Students for both those programs are scheduled to be contacted by their schools today.  The 6^th grade STEM camp that was planned this month has been cancelled.

You may have noticed work being done on teacher row this summer.  509J received a grant from the state of Oregon to update 5 of the 8 houses and add two manufactured units. The District budgeted funds to update the other three houses.  While the project was delayed for several months, it is moving forward full steam at this time and should be completed over the next few weeks.  In the process of prepping for those renovations, several cottonwood trees were removed.  There is still some blocks of that cottonwood at the west end of the old school field for folks to pick up if you are interested.