ONTARIO, Ore. — When the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee cut its checkoff assessment in half last year, it slashed the budget for its promotion committee, from $635,000 a year to $250,000.

The region’s onion industry is still conducting marketing and promotion efforts, only now it’s being done mostly by individual shippers instead of the IEOOC, which administers the federal marketing order that covers onion growers in southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon.

Many people felt the committee’s promotion dollars weren’t being used as effectively as they could and the idea in cutting the assessment was to allow growers and shippers to use the savings to do more of their own marketing, Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen said.

The IEOOC in 2015 cut its assessment from 10 cents to 5 cents per hundredweight. Growers pay 60 percent of that assessment and handlers the rest.

“We streamlined and cut the fat out of the program ... where we didn’t feel like we were getting the right bang for our buck,” said Skeen, a farmer and member of the promotion committee.

The committee trimmed its media campaign but still maintains a visible profile in the industry, said Grant Kitamura, chairman of the promotion committee.

For example, the committee has continued its website and social media efforts and printed 1,000 onion shipper directories that it hands out at trade shows.

“We’re working hard to keep (the budget) down and try to get the most bang for our buck,” Kitamura said. “And hopefully ... shippers are moving forward with their own company promotions and marketing efforts. I think it will be a better return (on investment).”

USDA rules governing federal marketing orders tie the promotion committee’s hands in some areas, he said, For example, the committee can promote and market but can’t actually make sales, “which is kind of the ultimate goal.”

The onion industry’s customer base has also consolidated heavily over the years and its customer lists are much shorter now, so it makes sense for individual shippers to go after a few large chains themselves, Kitamura said.

“It just allows more aggressive marketing and sales,” he said of the assessment cut plan. “We will have more flexibility to go directly after customers and hopefully make that sale. You’re not going after a bunch of mom and pops any more, you’re going after one big chain....”

Early indications are that most shippers are using the savings from the assessment cut to do more marketing and promotion, said Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce in Ontario.

Skeen said the committee will review the assessment cut down the road but for now, “everybody seems pretty happy with it.”

The IEOOC’s research and export budgets were not impacted by the assessment cut.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Onion growers in Malheur County in Eastern Oregon have joined their Idaho counterparts in receiving special permission to apply an important herbicide through drip irrigation systems.

Idaho growers who produce Spanish bulb onions received permission from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture last week to apply the Outlook herbicide through drip systems, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture granted onion growers in Malheur County the same permission April 12.

Outlook, produced by BASF, was already approved for surface application in Idaho and Oregon bulb onion fields but it wasn’t previously approved for use in drip systems in onion fields.

Onion growers in Idaho and Oregon say Outlook is one of their best tools for controlling the yellow nutsedge weed, which is their top weed challenge and can reduce yields by as much as 60 percent.

Two years of field trials by Oregon State University researchers in Malheur County showed Outlook is a lot more effective in controlling the yellow nutsedge weed when applied through a drip system.

About 60 percent of the 20,000 acres of Spanish bulb onions grown in this region are irrigated through drip systems.

Timber industry groups believe the federal Bureau of Land Management’s proposed new forest management plan for Western Oregon is a disaster that locks up 75 percent of the land, will cost jobs and leave forests more vulnerable to fire.

One group called it a “lose, lose, lose” plan for the environment, wildlife, and rural communities.

As it turns out, conservation groups also think the proposed Resource Management Plan is lousy. They say it will increase logging, cut stream buffer zones in half, threaten drinking water quality and harm endangered species.

For its part, the BLM believes it followed legal mandates and successfully split the difference between opposing points of view. In a news release, Acting State Director Jamie Connell said the BLM “achieved an extraordinary balance” between protecting threatened and endangered wildlife and allowing timber harvests that support the economy of rural communities.

Spokeswoman Sarah Levy said the BLM had to follow legal mandates that require the agency to protect threatened species such as salmon and northern spotted owls, protect waterways, provide recreation opportunities and assure sustainable timber harvests on former Oregon & California Railroad (O&C) land it manages.

“It’s really a middle-of-the-road plan,” she said. “I would say both sides can find something in this plan that they like.”

The Resource Management Plan covers about 2.5 million acres that the BLM administers in Western Oregon, including the Coos Bay, Eugene, Medford, Roseburg and Salem Districts, and the Klamath Falls field office of the Lakeview District. It replaces plans that have been in effect since 1995 under the Northwest Forest Plan.

About 75 percent of the 2.5 million acres will be managed as reserves for older, more complex forests and for fish, water, wildlife and other “resource values,” according to the BLM.

Of major concern to many rural residents, the updated plan increases the targeted timber harvest level on BLM land to 278 million board-feet annually. Since 1995, the BLM has administered the region with a goal of annually harvesting 203 million board-feet, Levy said.

The decline of timber harvests on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and BLM is widely blamed for the widespread mill closures and job losses in rural Oregon. Reduced timber harvests also hurt county governments, as they received money from timber sales on O&C land. Since 1989, timber harvests on federal land in Oregon have declined by 90 percent.

Federal agencies manage 60 percent of the forestland in Oregon, but provide only 12 percent of the annual timber harvest, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.

The Portland-based industry group American Forest Resource Council said the BLM had an opportunity to present a “bold, strategic vision” of forest management but instead developed a plan that “regurgitates the failed policies of the past.”

“If the past 20 years provide any indication, this approach is doomed to fail our forests, wildlife and our communities,” group President Travis Joseph said in a prepared statement.

Nick Smith, executive director of the pro-industry group Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, said the BLM “turned its back” on rural residents.

“This is yet another example of an out of touch federal government, fueling the kind of rural frustration that garnered national attention after the Malheur standoff.”

Conservation groups see other problems.

Cascadia Wildlands, based in Eugene, said the plan offers “weakened stream buffers, increased carbon emissions and relaxed standards for salmon and wildlife, all to increase certainty for the logging industry.”

Executive Director Josh Laughlin called it “unthinkable” that the BLM would reduce stream buffer zones, where logging isn’t allowed, by half.

Increased logging ignores the recreation-based economy in the state, the group said in a prepared statement.

John Kober, executive director of Pacific Rivers, said the BLM puts too much value on “subsidizing” county governments with logging revenue.

“The fact is, our public lands produce far more economic and social value by storing carbon, sustaining fisheries, providing recreational opportunities and delivering clean drinking water. Unfortunately, due to rapacious logging of private and state lands all of the burden for conservation is placed on federal lands,” he said in a prepared statement.

Levy, the BLM spokeswoman, said the management plan will be published April 15, which begins a 30-day protest period. An agency team will be appointed to review the protests, and a final decision is expected this summer.

Online

The proposed Resource Management Plan is at http://www.blm.gov/or/plans/rmpswesternoregon/feis/

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Attorneys say two sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and three other men are due to be transferred in custody from Oregon to Nevada to face charges stemming from an armed confrontation with government agents two years ago.

Defense lawyers in Oregon lost a bid Tuesday for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the move.

Lawyers for Ammon Bundy said they’ve been told arraignments will be Friday in U.S. District Court in Nevada.

Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Blaine Cooper and Ryan Payne have been in federal custody in Portland, where they’re accused of leading an occupation of a U.S. wildlife refuge this year.

In Nevada, they’re facing conspiracy, obstruction, weapon and assault charges for a standoff with federal agents rounding up cattle near Bunkerville.

Cattle will be allowed to continue grazing along the Oregon-California border despite their propensity to “drift” into unauthorized national forest areas.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a request by environmental groups to block livestock grazing on 48,000 acres in the ecologically-sensitive Siskiyou Crest.

An earlier ruling by the 9th Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service had violated federal environmental law by insufficiently studying the impacts of “cattle drift” from California’s Klamath National Forest into Oregon’s Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest.

The Forest Service argued that a federal judge was correct in previously dismissing an environmentalist lawsuit because the effects of cattle drift on the region’s environment are minimal and quickly corrected by ranchers.

However, the appellate court agreed with Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Klamath Forest Alliance that forest managers “provided essentially no information” about grazing in unauthorized areas and overturned that earlier decision.

The 9th Circuit ordered the agency to better account for the environmental impacts of cattle drift, which occurs due to the difficulty of fencing remote areas.

While they won this legal point, the environmental plaintiffs nonetheless asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider its opinion because it didn’t prohibit grazing while the government updated its environmental analysis.

The 9th Circuit has refused that motion and amended its previous ruling to clarify that current Forest Service grazing plans for the region should remain in place.

The environmentalists claimed that vacating grazing authorizations for the Siskiyou Crest would effectively stop grazing, but the 9th Circuit took a different view.

Contrary to these claims, the 9th Circuit found that vacating the existing permits would require the “reinstatement of earlier permits on terms less protective of forest resources.”

For this reason, the current grazing plans should stay effective until the Forest Service decides they should be replaced, the ruling said.

Irrigators fighting a lawsuit over the threatened Oregon spotted frog have won a key battle but face new challenges in upcoming settlement negotiations.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken has filed an official opinion denying a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists that would have significantly disrupted the operations of three irrigation reservoirs in Central Oregon.

The Central Oregon, North Unit and Tumalo irrigation districts must now strive to protect their interests during in settlement talks with environmentalists and the federal government.

Growers are generally outmatched in terms of time and money in such litigation, which doesn’t help their position during negotiations, said Karen Budd-Falen, an attorney who represents natural resource industries.

“The farmers are going to be under significant pressure to settle even if they end up with less water,” she said. “It really is like David and Goliath, with two Goliaths instead of one.”

Aiken’s recent ruling was no surprise, since she’d already told the plaintiffs — WaterWatch of Oregon and the Center of Biological Diversity — they’d failed to prove such an injunction was necessary during a court hearing in March.

However, the environmentalists then asked the judge not to issue a written ruling, which would have prevented the opinion from being cited in future legal proceedings.

Aiken has now denied that request and issued a decision stating their proposed injunction would “create certain hardship for farmers and ranchers” while its benefits to the spotted frog would be “questionable.”

The environmentalists argue that the Crane Prairie, Wickiup and Crescent Lake dams have reversed the natural flow patterns of streams to the detriment of the frog in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Their injunction motion sought an order requiring the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to alter reservoir operations to promote higher flows in winter and lower flows in summer.

The government and irrigation districts argued the species had adapted to the system over the past 70 years, so the injunction proposal could hurt the frogs as well as farmers.

In her written opinion, Aiken said she would defer to federal biologists rather than “pick and choose among expert opinions,” particularly since the stream flow options demanded by the environmentalists wouldn’t clearly help the frogs.

Aiken noted the environmentalist proposal was “not based on studies or surveys of the frog and the hydrological conditions of the Upper Deschutes River basin over a meaningful period of time. Rather, plaintiffs’ proposals are based primarily on the limited observations of one individual over the course of several weeks.”

“This fact alone renders the requested relief questionable,” the judge said.

Apart from officially denying the injunction, Aiken’s written opinion directs the parties to enter “judicial settlement proceedings” before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin.

Such three-way negotiations are tricky for farmers and ranchers, since environmentalists have greater financial resources and basically nothing to lose in the litigation, said Budd-Falen.

“Even if the environmental guys get only half of what they requested, they’re still ahead,” she said.

While a co-defendant, the government can “print money” and has its own attorneys, so it similarly doesn’t face the same uncertainty and constraints as the irrigators, she said.

Natural resource defendants have also accused the Obama administration of leaving them out in the cold while reaching “sweetheart” deals with environmentalists as part of a “sue-and-settle” strategy.

In 2013, for example, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a settlement over forest species management between federal agencies and environmentalists because the agreement circumvented public rule-making procedures.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Ray Kopacz shouted over the rumbling of the cement truck one recent morning as workers patched up a break in the Stanfield Branch Furnish Ditch that cost farmers a full day’s worth of irrigation water.

The Stanfield Irrigation District had just started pulling water from the Umatilla River on March 31 and already they were faced with an emergency repair. Fortunately, Kopacz said they were able to catch the leak before it caused serious damage and the system was turned back.

“It’s getting to be that time of year everybody wants water,” said Kopacz, SID manager. “Water is like gold. If you don’t have it, this ground is worthless.”

Irrigation season is underway across the Umatilla Basin, and most districts are feeling better than they did during last year’s brutal, drought-stricken summer. Local snowpack is close to average, and so long as it doesn’t melt too quickly, farms should be able to make their stored water last longer into the season.

Right now, Kopacz said growers are focused on watering their wheat and cattle pastures, while getting a head start on vegetables like potatoes and onions. Corn should be planted in the next week or so, he said.

The SID covers about 10,800 acres of high-value farmland. It is something of a special case, since the district has 34,700 acre-feet of water guaranteed through the Umatilla Basin Project — an acre-foot being the amount of water it takes to cover 1 acre with 1 foot of water.

Once the Umatilla River drops below a certain point, the district switches over to pumping irrigation water from the Columbia River. In exchange, the SID leaves its water right from McKay Reservoir in stream to protect native salmon and steelhead runs during periods of low flow. Kopacz said the program, which was passed by Congress in 1988, has been valuable not only to protect fish, but it has also removed a lot of the guesswork for irrigators.

“Before we had the exchange, growers had to ask whether McKay was going to fill or not,” Kopacz said. “Now, they already know we’re going to have water for next year.”

Not everyone has that luxury. The Westland Irrigation District, which has about 14,750 acres within its boundaries, isn’t on the exchange and still depends entirely on Mother Nature for its water supply. Once it runs out, it’s forced to shut off.

District Manager Mike Wick said this year looks much better than last, with the basin’s snowpack at 98 percent as of April 7. Mountain snow is critical because it acts as a natural storage system for water, gradually replenishing streams and rivers into the summer. The longer they can pull live flows from the Umatilla River, the longer McKay Reservoir has to fill and the later into the season they can irrigate, Wick said.

“At this point, we should have an average to maybe above-average year,” he said. “If we run to the end of September, that’s a pretty good year.”

Last year, Westland was forced to shut off its irrigation by mid-August. The district began irrigating this year in early March, and as of April 8, McKay was 86 percent full. Wick said he’d be disappointed if the reservoir doesn’t fill, but he has learned not to try to predict the weather.

District Watermaster Greg Silbernagel said April and May rainfall will go a long way toward determining how the rest of the water year goes. The state allows irrigation on most of the Umatilla River from March through October, though Silbernagel’s office must continue to meet target flows for fish. The cutoff point for SID on the exchange program is 250 cubic feet per second.

The Hermiston and West Extension irrigation districts are also part of the Columbia exchange program, with HID using its flows out of the Umatilla River to store at Cold Springs Reservoir. The 9,600 acre district is then eligible for credits to draw out of the Columbia, if necessary.

HID Manager Annette Kirkpatrick said Cold Springs is about 70 percent full, which combined with the district’s exchange credits should bring them close to a full water year. Irrigation out of the reservoir started Thursday morning.

“This year is going to be better than last year,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re not filled to capacity, but this year is definitely looking like an improvement.”

Beverly Bridgewater, manager of the West Extension Irrigation District, said they began diverting their irrigation water March 18. She agreed last year was difficult, but said the one positive was it got farmers thinking more about conservation.

“I think we’re going to have a really good season, because we’re all experienced paying attention to our water,” Bridgewater said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture will begin spraying for gypsy moths April 16 in Portland.

The department plans three applications by helicopter in the St. Johns, Forest Park and Hayden Island areas of Portland, about 8,800 acres total.

An area across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash., will be sprayed as well.

Three Asian gypsy moths and two European gypsy moths were found in the area last summer.

Gypsy moths are notoriously destructive, and the concern is they will damage Northwest forests and crops such as Christmas trees if unchecked.

Applicators will use the biological insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, commonly known as Btk. The agriculture department describes it as a natural-occurring bacterium that has been used on gypsy moths in Oregon since 1984.

The second and third application will be done in May, according to the department. Each will begin about 30 minutes before dawn, weather permitting. Most of the areas to be sprayed are non-residential. To ease concerns, the department held public meetings about the spraying plan and mailed notification to postal customers, as well.

Information

Residents may sign up to receive text messages or phone calls to know when spraying will occur by going to http://tinyurl.com/AGMsignup. They can also hear pre-recorded information about the status of the project by dialing 211. ODA will also provide information on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ORagriculture.

TURNER, Ore. — An estimated 20,000 people will visit Nosey’s Neighborhood Petting Zoo during this year’s Oregon Ag Fest.

At the petting zoo, visitors will see and learn more about the species and breeds of farm animals than ever before offered.

The petting zoo, popular with children and adults alike, has expanded this year thanks to Cascade High School FFA seniors Austin and Collin Brill, Cascade FFA adviser Becky Bates and Ag Fest board member and petting zoo chairman Craig Anderson.

The annual event takes place April 23-24 at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem.

“I’ve been teaching at Cascade High School for 10 years and our FFA has taken the lead on the petting zoo every year since I’ve been here,” Bates said. “Austin and Collin Brill led their fellow FFA chapter members and a host of other members from neighboring schools in putting it together and we’ve exceeded our expectations. It is definitely going to be the best petting zoo yet.”

The twin brothers have worked their way up to being principals in the planning process. They also breed and raise market and show pigs, which they will bring to the event.

“We focused on expanding the variety of animals this year and we are pleased with our success,” Collin said.

Growers are will bring bottle lambs, kid goats, rabbits, cow-calf pairs, “and we have meat, milk and fiber animals to show and explain their differences,” he said.

Visitors will also see Hereford, milking short horns, Simmental, Jersey, brown Swiss and Holstein cattle as well Duroc, Yorkshire and Hampshire/Yorkshire-cross pigs.

The sheep breeds will include Montadale, Hampshire, Suffolk, Southdown and blackface crosses rather than the less common ones raised just for fiber.

“In addition to all the people it takes to set up and take down pens, lay down and refresh straw and keep it all policed throughout the two days, we will have FFA students in official dress at every pen ready to help with the petting process, tell people what they are seeing and answer questions,” he said.

The Advanced Agriculture students have written all the information that goes on the pen signs, and other classes have made displays that will be placed around the pavilion, he said.

In addition to the petting zoo, about 25 hands-on activities will be available, plus pony rides, toy tractor races, farm equipment displays, a craft and garden display and family entertainment.

A ranch breakfast will be served 8:30–10:30 a.m. Saturday only, The cost is $6 each; children under 3 years old are free. Proceeds benefit 4-H youth programs.

Anderson, the retired Chemeketa Community College Dean of Agriculture Science, lamented that he would miss this year’s event.

“I’ve been volunteering for Ag Fest every year since 1994, but this year the Hereford Conference in Uruguay is happening at the same time,” Craig said. “I’m looking forward to attending the conference but at the same time it kills me to miss it. In my opinion, Ag Fest is one of the most important events we have.

“My only consolation is, that I’m leaving it in good hands,” he said.

Asked if they had any advice for attending Ag Fest, Austin Brill said, “Wear comfortable shoes, wash your hands at the washing stations before and after you pet the animals and come early because once you get here you will want to stay all day.”

Oregon Ag Fest

When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 23, and 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Sunday, April 24

Where: Oregon State Fairgrounds

Online: www.oragfest.com

Admission: Children 12 and under are free; $9 for ages 13 and up

Parking: Free

Oregon research projects were awarded nine of 37 grants announced April 7 by the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program.

Nearly $2.9 million in grants were awarded for projects in 11 western states and territories, with Oregon proposals awarded $754,721.

The Oregon projects include:

• Extending the winter squash season, Oregon State University, $49,958.

• Evaluating hazelnut orchard cover crops, OSU, $49,997.

• Restoring rangeland soil health, Crooked River Weed Management, $44,450.

• The impact of wheat chaff collection on weed control, OSU, $250,000.

• Soil solarization for weed control, OSU, $247,329.

• Building Integrated Pest Management networks, OSU, $67,802.

• Sustainable grazing in wetland pastures, Coos County Soil and Water Conservation District, $15,237.

• On-farm production costs, farmer Sarah Brown, $9,400.

• Improving water-saving techniques in vineyards and orchards, A to Z Wine Works, $20,548.

Western SARE is funded by USDA and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and is hosted by Utah State University.

Online http://www.westernsare.org/Projects/Funded-Projects-by-Year/2016-Projects

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Refuge occupier Jake Ryan will remain in a Portland jail pending trial despite assurances from a Montana sheriff that he would keep an eye on him if returned to that state.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak said Thursday he might have granted pre-trial release had Ryan surrendered last month after learning that a grand jury had returned an indictment against him. Instead, Ryan became a fugitive until his arrest Tuesday in Clark County, Washington.

“The fact that you went into hiding — into hiding armed — causes me great concern,” Papak said.

Ryan, 27, of Plains, Montana, was one of more than two dozen people charged because of their involvement in the 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The men and women were protesting U.S. land restrictions and the imprisonment of two ranchers who started fires.

Ryan traveled to Oregon in January with four firearms and served as a guard.

His attorney, Jesse Merrithew, asked the judge to let Ryan return to Montana pending trial. He stressed that Ryan has no criminal record, and Sheriff Tom Rummel of Sanders County fully supported having Ryan return to Plains, something he wouldn’t want if Ryan were a problem.

Merrithew said the sheriff told him that if Ryan ran, “he would track him down himself.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel countered that Rummel is a friend of Ryan’s family, failed to find him during the month he went into hiding and is not entirely cooperative with federal law enforcement. “If he’s released, law enforcement is unlikely to find him again,” Gabriel said.

Ryan was arrested after a landowner called to report a trespasser in rural Clark County, Washington. An officer found the young man sleeping in a shed, a loaded gun nearby.

Merrithew said Ryan ran because of fear, because others were giving him bad advice and because he wasn’t getting clear information about what he was facing. “He is motivated to fight this case and does not want to run,” Merrithew said.

Ryan has pleaded not guilty to charges of with federal conspiracy to impede officers, possession of a firearm or dangerous weapon in a federal facility and degradation of government property.

The prosecutor told the judge that Ryan could be a danger to federal law enforcement if released because he has anti-government views.

According to Gabriel, Ryan filed a stolen property report against the FBI after learning agents confiscated three weapons he had hidden in a trailer at the refuge. Moreover, after Tuesday’s arrest, he told agents transporting him to Portland that he couldn’t believe they agreed to work for such a tyrannical agency.

They called him OR-4, and by some accounts he was Oregon’s biggest and baddest wolf, 97 pounds of cunning in his prime and the longtime alpha male of Wallowa County’s influential Imnaha Pack.

But OR-4 was nearly 10, old for a wolf in the wild. And his mate limped with a bad back leg. Accompanied by two yearlings, they apparently separated from the rest of the Imnaha Pack or were forced out. In March, they attacked and devoured or injured calves and sheep five times in private pastures.

So on March 31, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff boarded a helicopter, rose up and shot all four.

The decisive action by ODFW may have marked a somber turning point in the state’s work to restore wolves to the landscape. It comes on the heels of the ODFW Commission’s decision in November 2015 to take gray wolves off the state endangered species list, and just as the commission is beginning a review of the Oregon Wolf Plan, the document that governs wolf conservation and management.

Oregon Wild, the Portland-based conservation group with long involvement in the state’s wolf issue, said shooting wolves should be an “absolute last resort.”

“While the wolf plan is out of date and under review, we shouldn’t be taking the most drastic action we can take in wolf management,” Executive Director Sean Stevens said in an email.

The commission should not have taken wolves off the state endangered species list in the first place, but it isn’t likely to revisit that decision, Stevens said.

The commission should call upon the department to not shoot more wolves until the plan review is finished, he said.

“But, more importantly, they should recognize that de-listing does not mean that we should suddenly swing open the doors to more aggressive management,” Stevens said.

The ongoing wolf plan review, which may take nine months, should include science that wasn’t considered in the delisting decision, and the public’s will, he said. It also should create more clarity on non-lethal measures to deter wolves, he said.

Publicly, at least, no one is celebrating the shootings.

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, long on the opposite side of the argument from Oregon Wild, said ODFW’s action was authorized by Phase II of the state’s wolf plan.

“The problem needed addressed and ODFW handled it correctly,” spokeswoman Kayli Hanley said in an email. “We acknowledge that while this decision was necessary for the sake of species coexistence, it was a difficult decision.”

Michael Finley, chair of the ODFW Commission, said the department handled the situation properly.

“I feel that the department acted in total good faith,” Finley said. “They followed the letter and the spirit of the wolf plan.”

Another conservation group, Defenders of Wildlife, called the shootings “a very sad day for us” but also said it appeared ODFW followed the wolf plan.

“The final plan is a compromise, but it is among the best of all the state plans in that it emphasizes the value of wolves on the landscape, and requires landowners to try non-lethal methods of deterring wolves before killing them is ever considered,” the group said in a prepared statement.

Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Imnaha Pack shootings may lead to more poaching, because killing wolves decreases tolerance of them and leads to a belief that “you have to kill wolves in order to preserve them.”

Weiss agreed that coming across a calf or sheep that’s been torn apart and consumed — the skull and hide was all that was left of one calf after the OR-4 group fed on it — must be gut-wrenching for producers. But she said those animals are raised to be killed and eaten. “They don’t die any more a humane death in a slaughterhouse than being killed by a wild animal,” she said. “It’s a hard discussion to find a common place of agreement.”

She said such losses are the reason Oregon established the compensation program: to pay for livestock losses and to help with the cost of defensive measures that scare wolves away.

Weiss said Oregon rushed to move to Phase II of its wolf conservation and management plan in the eastern part of the state, which was prompted by reaching a population goal of four breeding pairs for three consecutive years. That also prompted the ODFW Commission to take wolves off the state endangered species list in 2015, although they remain on the federal endangered list in the western two-thirds of the state.

Like others, Weiss believes the state should have held off on such changes until it finished the mandated review of the wolf plan.

“Under Phase I, Oregon was the state we could all point to” for successfully managing wolves, Weiss said. “I would hope they look at what parts of the wolf plan are working, and look at the parts that are not working.”

Politics and policy aside, the shooting of OR-4 gave people pause. He was a bigger-than-life character; he’d evaded a previous ODFW kill order and had to be re-collared a couple times as he somehow shook off the state’s effort to track him.

OR-4’s Imnaha Pack was the state’s second oldest, designated in 2009, and it produced generations of successful dispersers. OR-4’s many progeny included Oregon’s best-known wanderer, OR-7, who left the Imnaha Pack in 2011 and zig-zagged his way southwest into California before settling in the Southern Oregon Cascades.

OR-25, which killed a calf in Klamath County and now is in Northern California, dispersed from the Imnaha Pack. The alpha female of the Shasta Pack, California’s first, is from the Imnaha Pack as well.

Rob Klavins, who lives in Wallowa County and is Oregon Wild’s field representative in the area, ran across OR-4’s tracks a couple times and saw him once.

Despite his fearsome reputation, the wolf tucked his tail between his legs, ran behind a nearby tree and barked at Klavins and his hiking group until they left.

“Killing animals four or five times your size is a tough way to make a living,” Klavins said. “Some people appreciate OR-4 as a symbol of the tenacity of wolves, even a lot of folks who dislike wolves have sort of a begrudging respect for him.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal authorities have arrested a Montana man accused of taking part in the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge.

Jake Ryan was booked into a Portland jail Tuesday on charges of depredation of government property, conspiracy to impede officers and possession of weapons in a federal facility.

Ryan was to have a federal public defender assigned to him at his initial court appearance.

He is one of more than two dozen people arrested in connection with the 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The men and women were protesting U.S. land restrictions and the imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers who started fires.

The federal judge overseeing the case has scheduled jury selection to start Sept. 7.

Sheriff Tom Rummel of Montana’s Sanders County said he believes Ryan’s arrest will ease the tension that had been building while FBI agents were in talks with Ryan’s family about his whereabouts.

Rummel, worried that a new conflict could emerge in Ryan’s hometown between federal agents and supporters of the Malheur refuge occupiers, had issued statements warning outsiders to stay away.

KLAMATH, Calif. — Top state and federal officials made their latest Klamath River dam removal pact official April 6, as proponents vowed to keep pushing for water-sharing agreements that would benefit Klamath Basin farmers.

California Gov. Jerry Brown and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown were joined by U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and other dignitaries at a resort on the Yurok Tribe’s reservation, where they inked the final version of the dam-removal plan they announced in February.

The plan calls for a nonprofit organization to take control of the four dams from owner PacifiCorp and seek a go-ahead for their removal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

It’s a day to reaffirm our shared commitment to restore and heal the Klamath Basin,” Jewell said, “and to acknowledge the incredible and brave partners and leaders who, despite setbacks, stayed at the table.”

California’s Jerry Brown said the agreement is a testament to “non-extremism and non-polarization,” as people from different backgrounds worked to put it together.

“What we’re doing today in healing this river has implications not only for the United States but all over the world,” he said.

In addition, the parties signaled a plan to revive the companion Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, including water-sharing agreements between farmers, tribes and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and various fisheries improvements around the basin.

The side agreement includes support for federal legislation that would provide money to operate two diversion dams within the basin that PacifiCorp would turn over to Reclamation so irrigators wouldn’t have to pick up the cost, said Craig Tucker, the Karuk Tribe’s natural resources policy advocate.

“It’s really a promise to ag that we’re going to stay at the table with them and continue to support the things they need,” Tucker told the Capital Press before the ceremony.

Oregon’s Kate Brown said the agreements will heal divisions in the Klamath Basin, providing fisheries improvements for tribes and “a sustainable and predictable source of water” for ranchers and farmers.

“It’s about the future we want to leave for our children and our children’s children,” she said.

The governors and Jewell were joined in the morning ceremony by Pacific Power President and CEO Stefan Bird, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Kathryn Sullivan, Yurok Tribe Chairman Thomas O’Rourke, Karuk Tribe Chairman Russell Attebery and representatives of nongovernmental and water users’ groups.

The ceremony was to sign off on a final version of the 133-page agreement announced Feb. 2 by PacifiCorp, the states of Oregon and California and the federal Departments of the Interior and Commerce. The new agreement was reached after Congress failed to authorize the original Klamath Basin water-sharing pacts by the end of 2015.

The officials stood near the mouth of the Klamath River and signed the agreements atop a fish-cleaning table. The event was streamed online by the Yurok Tribe.

The amended Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement will maintain the timeline for dam removal in 2020 and use the same funding as before — $200 million from PacifiCorp ratepayers and $250 million from California’s Proposition 1 water bond, which voters passed in 2014.

The separate agreement — called the 2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement — aims to help Klamath Basin irrigators avoid any adverse impacts from the return of fish runs to the Upper Klamath Basin after dam removal, proponents said.

Removing dam removal from the equation could make it more politically palatable for lawmakers to support other aspects of the agreements. In December, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., introduced a bill to move forward on other aspects of the agreements.

Another bill by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has so far languished in the upper chamber’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Most of the 42 original signatories have been working for the past two months to iron out details of the new pact, and the parties held a public meeting March 16 in Sacramento to gather input. The process has drawn criticism from dam removal opponents, who in recent weeks have accused proponents of meeting in secret and claimed the private entity created under the new plan would still need congressional approval.

One of the most vocal critics has been Lawrence Kogan, a New York-based water-rights attorney hired by the Klamath Irrigation District. Kogan alleges the government agencies are violating the original agreements by not giving the district enough time to study the new proposal and failing to disclose key elements of the pact, including an economic impact study he said Oregon and California utilities regulators will rely on in considering dam-removal permits.

Kogan sent an email April 4 urging Klamath Basin Coordinating Council facilitator Ed Sheets to postpone the signing ceremony until the irrigation district’s questions are resolved. He said he didn’t receive a response.

“We are objecting to the process that they violated and continue to violate,” Kogan told the Capital Press, adding that the district may sue to block the agreement.

At the ceremony, Jewell said the district’s meet-and-confer request has put the Upper Basin agreement into question, but “we are as committed” to the agreement “as we were on the day we first signed.”

The Karuk Tribe’s Tucker said in an interview the tribes and environmental groups were going to push for the dams’ removal to save beleaguered salmon runs regardless of whether an agreement was in place. He said it would be better for Klamath Basin irrigators if a water-rights settlement could be put in place.

Among the signing ceremony’s attendees was U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who said beforehand that the state and federal governments are “working toward one of the greatest restoration projects in history.”

Tucker agreed, arguing the dams’ removal would be “the greatest act of salmon restoration ever undertaken in America.”

“Dam removal hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “We still have hoops to jump through. I believe … we cannot fix this without working with ag. We still have to come to terms on water-sharing with ag. Whether the dams stay or go doesn’t change that commitment to work with people in good faith to find solutions to water-sharing.”

Oregon’s snowpack and summer water supply outlook remain much improved over last year, according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland.

Snow survey supervisor Scott Oviatt said a couple of hot days — temperatures on April 6 and 7 were forecast to reach the low 80s — shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. A lengthy stretch of warm days, however, would be a different matter.

As of April 6, every river basin in the state was above average for precipitation, with measurements running 106 percent to 128 percent of normal for this time of year.

The amount of water contained in the snow hasn’t quite kept pace, with snow water equivalents ranging from 74 percent to 107 percent of normal.

But Oviatt said that’s where perspective comes in. The Willamette Basin’s snow water equivalent is 81 percent of normal now, he said, but last year at this time it was 8 percent.

Timely March precipitation has helped increase reservoir storage across the state, he said, and stream flow forecasts are at or above normal in most cases.

“There will be water available in many locations where we didn’t have water to deliver (last year) to irrigation systems and reservoirs,” Oviatt said. “Overall it’s a pretty good picture.”

Michael Finley, chair of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission, knows wolves, that’s fair to say.

He was superintendent of Yellowstone National Park when they were re-introduced in 1995-96. It was controversial, as anyone following wolf management issues in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California can imagine.

The March 31 action by ODFW, in which department staff shot four Imnaha Pack wolves from a helicopter for repeated livestock attacks in northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County, carries similar emotional freight.

“No one took any joy in this action,” said Finley, who retired from the National Park Service in 2001 and moved back to Medford, Ore., where he grew up.

“No one I know on the commission or on the professional staff wants to see wolves killed, period,” Finley said. “There are just places wolves can’t be and times they can’t be there. It’s a simple fact of wolf management.”

Everyone on the commission is working to see wolves recover within their historic Oregon range, Finley said. “We know they probably can’t be in the Willamette Valley; there are certain places they can’t be, the conflict is too great.”

But the problems or concern they cause constituents such as ranchers and hunters have to be addressed, he said. It’s a difficult issue to balance when there are groups on opposite sides — ranchers and farmers on one, conservationists and their urban supporters on the other — who see it differently.

“They read the (wolf plan) language differently and want to interpret it their way,” he said.

“I feel that the department acted in total good faith,” Finley said. “They followed the letter and the spirit of the wolf plan.”

Department staff “bent over backwards to benefit wolves” but also recognized, in fairness, that they had to take action on behalf of the ranchers, Finley said.

The issues and staked-out positions were much the same in Yellowstone 20 years ago when gray wolves, Canis lupus, were brought to the park from Canada.

To throw off potential troublemakers, Finley said wildlife officials moved the wolves in two convoys of horse trailers, one dummy, one with the wolves. He said he carried the first wolf into the park, where they were kept in acclimation pens for a couple months and fed roadkill. Armed guards were stationed at the pens.

The idea of reintroducing an apex predator to Yellowstone came from the “trophic cascade” theory of wildlife management. Oregon State University researchers William Ripple and Robert Beschta are among the principle’s leading experts and studied the outcome at Yellowstone.

Wolves had been missing for about 70 years from Yellowstone, where management practices included park staff drowning pups, Finley said. Over decades, elk over-grazed the park. Restoring wolves not only reduced the elk population but kept elk on the move. Aspens and willows came back, meadows and wetlands rebounded and beavers and waterfowl returned in a “cascade” of ecological reaction. Wolves also chewed up coyotes — “with prejudice,” Finley said — that had decimated the park’s pronghorns.

“Yellowstone was greatly benefited by bringing back the wolves,” said Finley, who also was superintendent of Yosemite and the Everglades national parks during his 32-year career.

In 2011, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed him to the ODFW Commission. As chair, Finley led the commission through the controversial decision in November 2015 to take gray wolves off the state’s endangered species list, and to move on this year with a required review of the Oregon Wolf Plan.

Online

http://www.cof.orst.edu/leopold/papers/RippleBeschtaYellowstone_BioConserv.pdf

Farm regulators are investigating a flurry of complaints about water quality problems from agricultural activities in Oregon’s Polk County.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture received 26 complaints about alleged violations of water regulations in the county over the winter, which is a high volume over a relatively short time period in one area, said John Byers, manager of the agency’s agricultural water quality program.

“That’s certainly not the norm,” he said.

The situation is also unusual because all of the complaints were filed by a farmer who serves as a director of the Polk Soil & Water Conservation District, which aims to mitigate water quality problems, Byers said during a recent meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

“As a private citizen, he has the ability to do that,” Byers said.

However, the concern is that Polk County residents may think the complaints were brought on behalf of the district, which could dissuade them from inquiring about water quality questions due to a fear of enforcement, he said.

Creating that perception wasn’t the intent of the farmer, who was concerned about prospective violations in his area, Byers said.

“I don’t think it was malicious,” he said.

The goal of ODA’s agricultural water quality program is to ensure compliance with the rules, rather than take enforcement actions such as issuing penalties, Byers said.

Landowners who have water quality violations are assisted by the local soil and water conservation district, so the recent complaints in Polk County raised questions about straining that district’s capacity, he said.

“It becomes a bigger burden on them,” Byers said.

Even so, the complaints have invigorated discussions about water quality in the region, which may ultimately help further the program’s goals, he said.

Investigations of the complaints are ongoing, though some have been closed without finding any violations, he said.

The vast majority of the complaints pertain to erosion from a lack of vegetation or crops being planted up and down a slope, though several relate to livestock and manure piles.

Kelly Gordon, a farmer from Monmouth and director of the Polk S&WCD, said he was prompted to file the complaints due to worries about the effect of heavy rains, which likely caught farmers off guard.

Gordon said he did not file the complaints as a representative of the district and doesn’t believe water quality problems have gotten worse in the county.

The district’s manager and another director suggested that Gordon first approach the Polk S&WCD before filing a complaint with ODA, which he plans to do in the future, he said.

“I don’t think it’s a pervasive thing. It just pops up now and again,” Gordon said.

A cheesemaker in Central Oregon faces the revocation of several licenses for his dairy because state farm regulators have accused him of threatening inspectors.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking to revoke the licenses of Patrick Sullivan, who runs Cada Dia Cheese in Prineville. The Licenses are necessary to operate a fluid milk facility, a dairy products plant, a confined animal feeding operation and a commercial scale.

The agency claims the revocations are warranted because Sullivan has repeatedly barred inspectors from coming onto his property and has subjected ODA employees to “hostile, abusive, and threatening communications.”

ODA has also filed a petition for a restraining order to block Sullivan from “harassing or menacing” its employees or entering the agency’s offices.

Sullivan said he plans to contest both actions by ODA.

“I want to be heard in a court of law,” he said.

Inspectors must access Sullivan’s dairy and cheese-making facility to ensure he’s following laws pertaining to food safety and water pollution control, according to ODA’s revocation order.

Sullivan first refused to allow inspectors to collect necessary samples in 2010 and has since been uncooperative and intimidating on several occasions, including sending emails to ODA about his hatred of government officials, the document said.

His conduct, as well as statements that allude to defending himself with a firearm, “are reasonably perceived as written threats to inflict serious physical injury on ODA employees,” the agency said.

In October 2015, the agency obtained a warrant to enter Sullivan’s property to perform inspections and requested help from the Oregon State Police, the document said.

However, OSP declined because it was unable to get assistance from additional law enforcement officials, preventing the ODA from taking necessary samples, the agency said.

In 2016, Sullivan has told ODA that he will be implementing “anti-terrorist procedures” at his farm and said he’d travel to the agency’s headquarters in Salem to discuss these “terrorist concerns,” according to the revocation order.

Sullivan told Capital Press his problems with ODA are part of a broader conflict with neighbors and law enforcement officials.

“These things don’t happen in a vacuum,” he said.

Sullivan said he encountered complaints shortly after buying the farm in 2009, when neighbors and county officials claimed that visitors to his dairy were causing traffic.

He said a dispute with a neighbor who was formerly a police officer has resulted in harassment from law enforcement agencies.

Sullivan said his relationship with ODA also soured early on, when an inspector tried to make his dairy license contingent on county inspections of his family’s living quarters.

Since then, Sullivan said he protested several actions by ODA, such as an inspector waiting to chill his milk samples instead of putting them on ice immediately and attempting to hang a milk sampling device on an unsanitary sink.

Most recently, Sullivan said he objected to the frequency of water tests and to an ODA inspector entering his property unannounced to take water samples.

Sullivan said he believes the U.S. is “descending into a police state” and wanted to implement similar procedures for government officials as people must follow before boarding an airplane.

“Why shouldn’t I do that to them when they come onto my property?” he said.

Oregon’s best known wandering wolf, OR-7, was photographed by a remote trail camera in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in late February after not being heard from since his tracking collar failed last June.

The wolf’s dispersal from the Imnaha Pack in September 2011 attracted international attention as GPS collar data points shared by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife allowed the public to follow his travels.

After leaving Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County, OR-7 cut through Oregon on a diagonal route, traveling southwest through Baker, Grant, Harney, Crook, Deschutes, Lake, Klamath, Douglas and Jackson counties. On Dec. 28, 2011, he entered California, becoming the first known wolf in the state since 1924. By then, wildlife biologists estimated he’d traveled 1,062 zig-zag miles.

He spent most of 2012 in California, then returned to Oregon in 2013. In 2014, ODFW announced he’d found a mate, an uncollared and unknown female. They’ve produced two litters of pups in what is now called the Rogue Pack.

OR-7 was most likely sired by OR-4, the longtime alpha male of the Imnaha Pack who was among four wolves shot by ODFW March 31 for repeated livestock attacks.

Unlike others from his home Imnaha Pack, OR-7 apparently hasn’t bothered cattle or sheep since taking up residence in Southwest Oregon.

“He’s behaving himself, I’m happy to report,” said John Stephenson, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who tracks wolves in the western part of the state, where the federal Endangered Species Act listing of gray wolves still is in effect.

Stephenson said the trail camera photo was the first direct evidence since last year that OR-7, now about 7-years-old, is alive and well.

He said OR-7 has produced two generations of pups, and said he saw tracks of six or perhaps seven wolves in the snow this past winter.

OR-7 still has a hold on people’s imagination. Stephenson said. He knows of three books being written about the wolf, two of them children’s books. At least one of the authors refers to the wolf as “Journey,” the name given him by conservation groups as they publicized his wanderings.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Oregon, California, the federal government and others have agreed to go forward with a plan to remove four hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest without approval from a reluctant Congress, a spokesman for dam owner PacifiCorp said Monday.

The dam removal is part of an announcement planned Wednesday in Klamath, California, by the governors of both states and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

Tearing down the dams would be a major victory for tribes that have fought for years to restore the river for salmon they rely on for subsistence and ceremony.

The move also could breathe new life into a struggling effort to allocate more water for farmers and ranchers in the drought-stricken Klamath Basin.

Under the deal, a nonprofit corporation recently formed in California would take ownership of the hydroelectric dams and assume liability for any damage that stems from their removal, said Bob Gravely, a spokesman for Portland-based PacifiCorp.

The plan, which aims to remove the dams in 2020, still needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Going through FERC avoids the need for congressional approval for dam removal, which was required in earlier Klamath plans but met opposition from Republican lawmakers concerned about setting a precedent.

A water settlement agreement expired at the end of 2015 when Congress failed to approve the dam removal. Going around Congress on dams could make it more politically palatable for lawmakers to back other elements of the water agreements.

Dams thwart salmon migration, degrade water quality, alter water flows, and contribute to fish diseases and algae bloom problems. Three tribes depend on the fish for subsistence and ceremonial needs, and a fourth hopes fish will return once the dams are removed.

One of the tribes already has obtained water rights through the courts, limiting water available for farmers and ranchers, and the others could pursue that process. Klamath Basin agriculture is valued at about $670 million annually.

Thomas O’Rourke Sr., chairman of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, said the Klamath River can begin to heal if the dams come down.

“That’s our livelihood,” O’Rourke said. “If the river’s sick, our fish are sick, the animals that live around it become sick, and the people become sick.”

PacifiCorp has supported a dam-removal agreement because it offers the utility liability protections and caps the costs to its customers. Several studies have shown that dam upgrades likely to be required would significantly reduce electricity generation and would cost millions more than dam removal and replacement of hydropower with other sources.

Funding for the $450 million project would come from PacifiCorp customers in California and Oregon, along with a water bond approved by California voters in 2014.