PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An environmental group plans to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over delaying protections for the foothill yellow-legged frog.

The Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday filed a notice of intent to sue; it says the federal government is two and half years late in deciding whether to list the frog under the Endangered Species Act.

The center petitioned to protect the frogs in 2012. Earlier this year, Fish and Wildlife made a positive finding on the petition — but hasn’t finished the status review or made a decision on the listing.

Federal officials declined to comment on pending litigation.

The frogs, which have yellow color under their legs, live in Oregon and California streams. Their population has declined due to logging, mining, livestock grazing, dams and other threats.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon county is looking for non-lethal ways to deter wolves after experiencing its first livestock kills in October.

The Herald and News reports that Klamath County will put together toolboxes of deterrents for landowners with a $6,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The county will also contribute $600 to the project.

The county will work with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to create the boxes.

Officials believe a wolf called OR-25 killed on calf and injured two more in the Fort Klamath area in late October and early November.

Klamath County commission chairman Tom Mallams says the $6,600 won’t be used to compensate the livestock owners. That money will come from the wolf depredation compensation fund.

PORTLAND — Hunger in Oregon is leveling off thanks in part to a growing collaboration with the state’s farmers and their donations of surplus fruit and produce, the Oregon Food Bank’s chief executive said,

That’s not to say the problem is solved. Food Bank CEO Susannah Morgan said 800,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington, one-in-five residents, go hungry at times.

“If this was a disease we would call it an epidemic,” Morgan said. “This is a crisis.”

But for now the hunger numbers don’t appear to be increasing, Morgan said in speech this month to the Oregon Board of Agriculture. The board toured the Food Bank’s operations in Portland and helped pack some food for distribution.

In her speech to the board and in a followup interview, Morgan said Oregon’s farmers have greatly increased their contributions of fresh fruit and produce. The Oregon Food Bank and others nationally primarily received and distributed canned and boxed food in the past, but the state organization set a goal of increasing vegetable and fruit distribution by 50 percent over multiple years.

Instead, with farmers pouring in an additional 2 million pounds of potatoes, carrots, onions, pears, apples and other crops, the Food Bank blew that goal out of the water in one year, Morgan said.

The Food Bank takes in produce that is surplus, blemished or otherwise not suitable for commercial markets. Food is distributed through a network of four bank branches and 17 independent regional food banks serving Oregon and Clark County, Washington.

While the food bank can’t afford to pay farmers much for food — or anything in many cases — state and federal legislation now encourage crop donation.

The 2014 Oregon Legislature passed a law giving farmers a 15 percent tax credit on the wholesale price of their donation. As part of a federal spending bill passed in mid-December, Congress permanently extended an enhanced tax deduction for charitable contributions of food by businesses.

Morgan said the possibility of no one in the region missing a meal is “doable in my lifetime.”

“It’s partly in our grasp because of our new and growing relationship with farmers,” she said.

In her talk to the ag board, Morgan said low income is the single biggest reason people ask for food assistance. About 72 percent of recipients live at or below the federal poverty line. More than a third of them are retired or disabled.

“Hunger hurts the most vulnerable,” Morgan told the ag board. She said 52 percent of recipient households have children, 20 percent are elderly and 20 percent have a veteran in the household makeup.

“This is the population that we continue to try and serve,” Morgan said. “Hunger remains a steady, persistent and excruciating large problem in our state and in our region.”

A lawsuit over the effect of water reservoirs on the threatened Oregon spotted frog could result in irrigation disruptions for more than 4,600 farmers.

Growers in two Central Oregon irrigation districts are nervously watching the case, which pits the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency operating the Crane Prairie and Wickiup reservoirs.

The lawsuit alleges the reservoirs have altered natural water flows in the Deschutes River to the point of interfering with the frog’s life cycle. While the complaint asks a federal judge for injunctive relief, it doesn’t specify what form such an order may take.

“We’re just sort of waiting to see what their next move is,” said Shon Rae, communications manager for the Central Oregon Irrigation District, which depends on water from the Wickiup Reservoir.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the frog’s egg masses are flushed out when the water levels in the reservoirs rise rapidly.

When water is later released from the reservoirs for irrigation, other egg masses along their margins are dried up, the complaint alleges.

River flows are reduced as water accumulates in the reservoirs, stranding adult and juvenile frogs on dry land and isolating their populations, resulting in in-breeding, the group claims.

The Center for Biological Diversity contends that the federal government has violated the Endangered Species Act by operating the reservoirs in a harmful manner before it completes a required consultation about the effects on the frog.

An adverse ruling in the case could have a huge impact on nearly 1,000 farmers in the North Unit Irrigation District, which in dry years relies on the Wickiup Reservoir for nearly 100 percent of its water.

Even in years with healthy snowpack and precipitation levels, the district gets roughly half of its water from the reservoir.

“To return it to a natural hydrologic flow is difficult, at best, without harming local farmers and ranchers,” said Mike Britton, the district’s general manager. “How that would be accomplished, we really don’t know.”

The Central Oregon Irrigation District’s 3,650 growers use water from the Crane Prairie Reservoir to supplement their irrigation needs during the early and late parts of the season, depending on river flows.

Oregon spotted frogs have survived in the area even though the reservoirs were created nearly 100 years ago, Rae said. They’ve also developed a large population surrounding the Crane Prairie Reservoir.

“Essentially, we’ve created habitat for them,” she said.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the environmental group, acknowledged that the frog lives on the margins of both reservoirs and benefits from the stored water.

However, the reservoirs have to be managed with fewer major fluctuations, since quick buildups and releases of water are chaotic for the frogs, he said.

“They can still deliver water to the irrigators, they just need to do it in a more careful way,” Greenwald said. “They have to do things more gradually and at different times of the year.”

Such changes in management would inevitably hurt irrigators, said Mike Britton of the North Unit Irrigation District.

More water would be stored in the reservoir during irrigation season, reducing the amount diverted for agriculture, and more water would be allowed to pass through dams during the winter, decreasing storage levels, he said.

“It’s quite a conundrum,” he said, noting that lower river levels in summer would hurt threatened fish. “There are other species to be considered, not just the frog.”

Irrigators want to help the frog by replacing irrigation ditches with pipes, which saves water and makes them less dependent on the reservoirs, said Rae. More efficient irrigation practices will also help in this respect.

Although the irrigation districts aren’t named as defendants in this lawsuit, the Waterwatch of Oregon environmental group has said they’ll be named as defendants in another spotted frog case that will also include the Tumalo Irrigation District.

Such litigation threatens to distract irrigators’ focus and sap resources from such improvements, she said. “It would be great if they wouldn’t sue us so we could just complete the process.”

Farmers who don’t want to remove genetically engineered alfalfa crops in Oregon’s Jackson County must submit their field locations to attorneys representing biotech critics.

They will also have to harvest the alfalfa before it reaches 10 percent bloom, to reduce the cross-pollination risks, and monitor nearby roadways for volunteers.

These terms are part of a settlement deal resolving a lawsuit that challenged the county’s prohibition against genetically engineered crops, which voters passed last year.

On Dec. 22, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke approved the settlement, which allows biotech alfalfa growers to grow their crops for eight years despite the ban.

In exchange, the alfalfa growers who filed the lawsuit, Schulz Family Farms and James and Marilyn Frink, agree not to appeal an earlier ruling that held the ordinance doesn’t violate Oregon’s “right to farm” law. That statute disallows county governments from restricting common farming practices.

The plaintiffs also agreed to stop seeking $4.2 million in compensation for the removal of their alfalfa crops, which are “Roundup Ready” varieties resistant to glyphosate herbicides.

Other growers of genetically engineered alfalfa can “opt in” to the settlement by submitting sworn documents identifying where their crop are grown, either with satellite data or other geographic information, within 30 days of the deal’s approval.

The information would be submitted to attorneys representing biotech critics who intervened in the case and the data would be covered by an “attorneys eyes only” protective order.

Biotech proponents have opposed disclosure requirements, such as a bill proposed during the 2015 legislative session in Oregon, due to fears of vandalism.

In 2013, two fields of genetically engineered sugar beets were destroyed in Jackson County, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation called a crime of “economic sabotage.”

Ron Bjork, president of the Jackson County Farm Bureau, said some farmers may forgo submitting the sworn document and simply phase out their biotech alfalfa fields within the allotted time.

“I don’t know if they will give it to them or not. It’s up to every farmer to make their own decision,” he said.

Bjork noted that Jackson County doesn’t have dedicated agricultural experts or a laboratory to test whether crops are genetically modified organisms.

Before county authorities could even try to verify that a GMO crop is being grown, they’d likely first have to get a complaint and then obtain a search warrant, he said.

“The question is who is going to go out and enforce it,” Bjork said.

Devin Huseby, an attorney for Jackson County, said no decisions have been made about the enforcement about the county’s ordinance.

“It would be total speculation whether people are going to come forward or not,” Huseby said.

The ordinance is now in effect and biotech growers who don’t submit field information would be “flagrantly violating the law,” said George Kimbrell, attorney for the Center For Food Safety, a non-profit that intervened in the case to support the ban.

Kimbrell said the most important aspect of the settlement is that the “right to farm” ruling won’t be challenged, rather than whether farmers will follow the disclosure requirement.

“People don’t follow the law sometimes, but that’s at their own risk,” he said.

Shannon Armstrong, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the deal sought to protect farmers’ privacy as much as possible.

“We’re just thrilled other farmers of Roundup Ready alfalfa will be able to opt in to this settlement agreement,” she said.

Eric Nelson knew it wouldn’t be easy when he decided to go organic on his family’s 900-acre wheat farm north of Pendleton.

Nelson, a fourth-generation farmer, talked it over with his father — former state Sen. David Nelson — who wondered how they would control weeds without herbicide, or how they’d afford organic fertilizer and still turn a profit. But Nelson had faith it would work, and in 2008 Nelson Grade Organics harvested its first organic crop.

“I’m very comfortable with what we have done, what we’re doing and where we’re going,” Nelson said. “For me, I see no need to go back.”

Overall, the number of organic farms has declined in Oregon between 2007 and 2012, yet total organic acres nearly quadrupled over that time, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Organic sales also rose from $88 million to $194 million in Oregon, making up 4 percent of all farms sales statewide. Nationally, the organic food industry made $39 billion in 2015 — an 11 percent increase over the previous year.

Despite the demand, becoming an organic farm takes serious time and money. Fields cannot be sprayed with any prohibited chemicals for at least three years before they are certified organic. Without certification, products won’t fetch the same kind of premium price at the market, which can be as much as double or more depending on the commodity.

Nelson said he had help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture getting started, but even that didn’t help pay all the bills. Organic fertilizer costs up to twice as much as the conventional stuff, and managing weeds can become a real issue without being able to use Roundup.

In order to make it over the hump, Nelson said he had to get creative with his cropping systems. He uses spring grains such as mustard and barley to break up soil-borne diseases and replenish nutrients underground.

“We basically have to create our own nitrogen,” he said.

Wheat is still the big money-maker on the farm, but Nelson recently started selling organic mustard seed to Barhyte Specialty Foods in Pendleton as an additional source of revenue.

“Some years are tough, but we have made a profit. We’re still surviving,” he said.

A portion Nelson’s wheat goes to Hummingbird Wholesale, a company in Eugene that distributes dry organic goods to small independent grocery stores, restaurants and food processors.

General Manager Justin Freeman said most of the products they buy come from western Oregon, but there is a growing interest among Eastern Oregon farmers in going organic. The key hurdle, he said, is supporting growers during that three-year transitional phase in certification.

“It’s about finding solutions for people and getting risk out of the equation as much as possible,” Freeman said.

In the past, Hummingbird Wholesale has purchased rice, beans and cranberries at premium organic prices from farmers who have started the process of certification. The goal is to win over more organic farms to keep up with demand, Freeman said.

A similar initiative for wheat has also been launched by Ardent Mills, of Denver, which hopes to double U.S. organic wheat acres by 2019. Oregon Tilth, a nonprofit organization that helps certify local organic farms, has also signed on as a partner.

Chris Schreiner, executive director of Oregon Tilth, said the growing demand for organic products is being driven in part by a renewed interest in food and earth-friendly practices.

From a grower standpoint, Schreiner said there is a tremendous opportunity for going organic, but recognizes it doesn’t come without risk.

“Their challenge is figuring out a new management system and accessing those new markets,” Schreiner said. “We’re committed to supporting them and helping them seize that opportunity in the marketplace.”

One of Eastern Oregon’s largest irrigated organic growers, Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, now has 7,800 acres in certified organic vegetables. General Manager Marty Myers said they hope to grow that total to 12,000 acres over the next two years.

Threemile Canyon Farms grows organic sweet peas, sweet corn, onions, carrots, potatoes and edamame, which are mostly sent to the farm’s own frozen foods plant in Pasco. Frozen products are sold primarily to Costco under the brand name Organic by Nature.

The farm also developed its first organic dairy earlier this year just east of Hermiston, with about 1,300 cows. Part of the requirement for an organic dairy is to let cows graze in pasture for at least 120 days out of the year.

Myers said Threemile Canyon first dipped its toes in organic farming in 2002, using fertilizer generated from the farm’s dairies. Without that in-house fertilizer source, Myers said they likely couldn’t make the organic operation work.

Organic vegetables yield about 75 percent versus conventional methods, though Myers said premium prices make up for the hit. Growing organic means going back in time about 20 year in terms of production practices, he said. Sometimes, the only way to manage weeds is to pull them by hand.

“There are a lot of farmers who have tried it and didn’t like it, for obvious reasons,” Myers said. “We feel we can be a low-cost producer. That gives us an advantage over a lot of other producers.”

On a much smaller scale, Gus Wahner grows organic produce on about one-third of an acre in Stanfield, including tomatoes, basil, cucumber and garlic.

Wahner has been farming on and off for 30 years at his home, which he’s named Way of Life Farms. Though not certified organic, he said the land hasn’t been sprayed since 1970. He raises produce from the greenhouse to the hoop house, and made $15,000 in profit last year.

Wahner, who serves on the Umatilla County Soil & Water Conservation District, is a longtime advocate of organic farming. He uses an aerobic system to brew his own compost “tea,” which he sprays along with a mix of fish, kelp, molasses and sea minerals to create healthy, organic soils.

“When people talk about organic, it needs to be biological,” he said. “The whole essence of organic is improvement in the soil.”

Wahner said he’s not an environmentalist, but growing organic requires being in tune with nature. Spraying chemicals kills off components in the ground, he said, but organic farming is about working with nature to grow what you need.

The food is also healthier, he said, because it absorbs a greater host micro-nutrients from the ground.

“I don’t do farming to make money, necessarily. I do it for people to experience great food and be healthy,” Wahner said.

Ten years after switching to organic, Nelson said they continue to make a living while preserving the legacy of their land.

“It’s a leap of faith on some levels,” he said. “It’s not without it’s challenges, but it can work.”

Many farmers in Oregon will have to provide employees with paid sick leave beginning on Jan. 1, but farm advocates say the new rules are too vague.

Farmers face uncertainty in determining how much to pay piece-rate workers, such as fruit pickers, who are compensated based on the amount they harvest, according to the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“We didn’t get the clarity we needed,” said Jenny Dresler, director of state public policy for OFB.

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year requiring employers with 10 or more workers to provide paid sick leave and the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries recently completed regulations implementing the statute.

The rules say that piece-rate workers on leave must be compensated at the “regular rate of pay” previously established with the employer, or the minimum wage if no such rate was set.

The problem is that the regulations don’t specify how this “regular rate of pay” must be calculated, Dresler said.

For example, is it based on the weekly average of the employee’s piece-rate earnings before going on leave? Or the piece-rate earned by other workers who are harvesting crops while the employee is sick?

“We needed a clarification and we didn’t get it,” Dresler said. “We just don’t know.”

Each member of a rules advisory committee that helped BOLI interpret the statute had a different opinion of how the “regular rate of pay” should be set, she said.

It’s also ambiguous when such a rate has not been established, allowing farmers to pay workers the minimum wage when on leave, Dresler said.

While BOLI has said it will postpone penalizing employers as it educates them about the new rules, that won’t stop individual workers from filing lawsuits against their employers as permitted by the statute, she said.

Tim Bernasek, an attorney specializing in agricultural and labor issues, said he doesn’t “have a very good answer about how to practically implement this rule” but expects BOLI will help teach farmers how to achieve compliance.

Hopefully, legal aid organizations who have attorneys devoted to farmworker protection will also act reasonably as the rules come into effect, Bernasek said.

At this point, the best advice to growers is simply to try following the rules in good faith, Bernasek said. “I would encourage ag employers to roll up their sleeves and make their best effort to make this work.”

Charlie Burr, a spokesman for BOLI, said the agency will offer a series of low-cost seminars about paid sick leave in 2016 in which compliance experts will answer questions about the rules. Employers can also call BOLI’s hotline — 971-673-0824 — for answers.

However, the agency doesn’t plan any additional rulemaking on the subject, Burr said.

Aside from the confusion over piece-rate workers, Oregon Farm Bureau is disappointed that BOLI considers farmers and labor contractors “joint employers” under the law.

That means farmers and contractors will need to independently track the accumulation of workers’ sick leave hours, which OFB believes is redundant and complicated, since pickers often travel from farm to farm.

Also, the contractors’ workers will count toward a farmers’ employee count, so many growers who normally have fewer than 10 workers would have to comply with the paid sick leave regulations.

BOLI spokesman Burr said the joint liability provisions are guided by federal labor law.

The Oregon Farm Bureau hopes to ask lawmakers to fix the provisions during the 2016 legislative session, Dresler said. “We think the legislative intent did not come across in the rules.”

Despite these problems, OFB did get the agency to clarify two points about which it had concerns.

Employers who work with perishable crops will fall under “undue hardship” provisions under which workers must take sick leave in four-hour increments.

Without this provision, workers could take leave in one-hour increments, which would often hinder farmers in finding timely replacements.

Also, co-owner spouses are not considered employees under the rule, excluding them from the 10-employee threshold that mandates compliance with paid sick leave rules.

Nearly one-third of the massive Boardman Tree Farm has been sold to a local dairy that plans to move operations within the next year.

Willow Creek Dairy purchased 7,288 acres of the tree farm from GreenWood Resources in November. Owner Greg te Velde said the land he purchased runs along the property’s southern boundary — out of view from Interstate 84 — near Finley Buttes Landfill.

Once trees have been removed from the property, te Velde said he will put in a center pivot to grow irrigated wheat, corn and alfalfa. His dairy currently raises about 8,000 cows and provides 70,000 gallons of milk per day to Tillamook Cheese at the Port of Morrow.

Te Velde lives in central California, and established Willow Creek Dairy in 2002 on land leased from Threemile Canyon Farms. The operation employs about 50 people.

“The whole community is great,” te Velde said. “It’s all about agriculture. It’s really easy to do business here.”

Te Velde purchased land, water rights and irrigation equipment from the Boardman Tree Farm for $65 million, according to documents with the Morrow County Assessor’s Office. GreenWood Resources has owned the Boardman Tree Farm since 2007, totaling 25,000 acres of hybrid poplar trees that are grown in rotation and sold for sawlogs, pulp and biofuel. It takes 12 years before the trees fully mature.

Te Velde said he expects a measured transition from tree farm to dairy farm on the newly acquired land. GreenWood Resources did retain some options in the deal, depending on market conditions.

With any luck, te Velde said he could be moved within the next year.

“We’ll have a little more control over our destiny,” he said.

Don Rice, director of North American operations for GreenWood Resources, did not comment on the long-term future of the tree farm. The area spans six miles along Interstate 84 and 13 miles to the south, and stands as a significant landmark for the region.

The tree farm includes roughly 6 million standing trees, and provides lumber to the Collins Companies’ Upper Columbia Mill, which operates in conjunction with the GreenWood Tree Farm Fund. There is also a veneer mill owned by Columbia Forest Products that opened in 2013.

The Tree Farm has also hosted “A Very Poplar Run” since 2011, with 5K and 10K races to benefit the Agape House in Hermiston.

Eastern Washington University meteorologist Robert Quinn said he believes that contrary to most El Nino weather patterns, the Pacific Northwest will see excessive rain this winter.

Speaking at the 75th annual convention of the Oregon Seed Growers League in Salem in December, Quinn noted that an El Nino weather system typically will split into two storm tracks: a southern half, which brings warm, wet conditions to California; and a northern track, which brings with it drought-like conditions to the Pacific Northwest.

Quinn said the southern half will stay true to form and produce “a good, strong flow of warm, wet Pacific storms coming in off the ocean, which is good news for drought-ridden California.”

The northern half, however, will see a deviation from the norm, he said.

“The end result normally in the Pacific Northwest is we end up under a ridge of high pressure and end up with a winter drought. But there is ‘Variation B.’ Sometimes the southern branch of the storm track is so powerful that we (in the Pacific Northwest) get clipped by the northern part of the southern branch. So the end result is … we end up with a warm, wet winter.

“My prediction is we’re going to see the northern part of that California-storm track sweep into Oregon and parts of Washington,” Quinn said, “and we’re actually going to end up with a warm, wet winter.”

The strongest El Nino in modern history was in 1982-83, Quinn said. “It turns out that ’82-’83 was a warm, wet winter in the whole West,” he said. “And this El Nino is as strong probably as the ‘82-’83 El Nino.”

Quinn said El Nino starts as “a warming of the Eastern Equatorial Pacific off the coast of Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru” that occurs every five to seven years.

In concert with the warming, trade winds weaken and, as such, do not drive a typical level of cold water toward the Western Pacific. “So water piles up in the Western Pacific … and it is like a dam,” he said.

“It takes about two months to get to the Peruvian Coast,” Quinn said. “The end result is quite a weather change.”

Quinn said he expects El Nino to fizzle by summer, given that the high sea surface temperatures created in the summer and fall by El Nino typically are destroyed by its winter pattern.

“I think you are still going to see the normal hot, dry summer,” Quinn said.

The drought is losing its grip on Washington, with the “extreme” conditions that reigned over most of the state last summer now completely gone, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported Thursday.

A week earlier, one-third of Washington was in extreme drought, the second-worst drought classification. The area, all or parts of 20 counties east of the Cascades, was downgraded to “severe drought.”

For the first time since the last week of April, a majority of the state, 52 percent, is not suffering any level of drought.

Drought conditions are probably yielding faster than reflected in the weekly reports, Washington State Assistant Climatologist Karin Bumbaco said. “The (drought monitor) map’s a little worse than what’s on the ground,” she said.

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center reaffirmed Thursday that El Nino can be expected to eventually exert influence over the West, making the Northwest warm and California wet.

The prediction center estimated the Northwest has a 60 percent chance of a warmer than average January, February and March, which could reduce the amount of melting snow during the irrigation season.

So far, however, a wave of Pacific storms unrelated to El Nino has softened the West’s drought.

Drought conditions also have improved in Oregon and Idaho, and slightly in California, according to the drought monitor, a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Another wave of precipitation is expected before Christmas.

The Climate Prediction Center on Friday warned that Western Washington and Western Oregon, and portions of Northern and Central California will receive heavy rains at low elevations and heavy snow at higher elevations between Dec. 21 and 24.

Heavy snow is expected in the Idaho Panhandle during the same time period.

Paltry snowpacks triggered Washington’s 2015 drought, which deepened during a record-hot spring and summer.

At the peak in late August, extreme drought enveloped 85 percent of the state,

The drought has gradually weakened since October. The inflow into the five Yakima River Basin reservoirs has been 199 percent of average since the water year began, Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The reservoirs, which provide irrigation water for the state’s most-valuable farm region, were 50 percent full Friday, or 126 percent of normal levels.

Most of the state received 200 to 400 percent as much precipitation as usual during the first 17 days of December, Bumbaco said. “It’s hard for me to say that’s going to change before the end of the month.”

December temperatures statewide have been 3 to 6 degrees above normal so far. Still, early season snowpacks are encouraging. The Olympic Mountains, North Cascades, and Upper Columbia and Lower Yakima basins were all well above normal Friday, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The percentage of Oregon in extreme drought dropped to 46 percent from 59 percent. The percentage of the state in some level of drought declined to 88 percent from 90 percent.

Oregon snowpacks were above average Friday in most basins.

Extreme drought conditions are almost gone in Idaho, dropping to 1 percent from 8 percent the week before, according to the drought monitor. Extreme conditions in Idaho peaked at 29 percent of the state in August and September.

Idaho snowpacks are near or above normal. Snowpacks in Southern Idaho are off to a particularly strong start.

In California, conditions improved in the northwest corner of the state, as the percentage of California in severe drought dropped to 21 percent from 23 percent. Some 97 percent of the state remains in some level of drought, including 45 percent in “exceptional drought,” the worst classification.

California snowpacks are 75 to 80 percent of normal, according to the state Department of Water Resources.

While the technical craft of Charles Lefevre’s job is complex, the purpose is simple: Encouraging the natural symbiosis between trees and fungi.

In Lefevre’s case, the fungi are of the Tuber genus, which produce highly sought-after truffles and colonize the roots of numerous tree species.

Truffles are known for their culinary desirability and high cost, but the primary role of the fungus is as an extension of the tree’s root system, helping it absorb water and nutrients. In exchange, it’s supplied with starches and sugars for growth.

“Mycorrhizal fungi and mycorrhizal trees never live without each other,” Lefevre said. “You don’t have to trick them.”

Even so, inoculating tree roots with the fungus in a nursery setting requires providing the right levels of nutrients, water, air and light.

Lefevre must also conduct genetic testing to ensure that his trees — which are sold to landowners across North America — are colonized with the right species of truffle, rather than some other type of mycorrhizal fungus.

Luckily for aspiring truffle farmers, the fungus will thrive in a “simplified” environment, such as a planted orchard, and doesn’t require the complex ecosystem of an old growth forest.

“They’re exactly the type of organism we can grow. They like living with us,” Lefevre said. “They’re early successional organisms. When you wipe the slate clean, they’re among the first organisms to arrive.”

Aside from providing landowners with trees, Lefevre conducts site evaluations to see if a property has the basic criteria needed for effective truffle production and what can be done to correct deficiencies.

He’s found that the fungus is adaptable to a broader range of soil conditions than traditionally thought to be appropriate, likely because the organism is liberated from its natural competitors.

Truffles prefer well-drained rocky soils, but Lefevre’s first customer planted inoculated trees in an area with a high seasonal water table.

“In spite of that, they’re getting good production,” he said, adding that several productive orchards currently exist in the Northwest.

Lefevre produces inoculated trees at three nurseries in Oregon and one in Florida, though he doesn’t divulge their exact locations to protect his company’s proprietary technology.

New World Truffieres, as the firm is called, is working with nine species of truffle that colonize oak, Douglas fir, hazelnut and pecan trees.

Historically found in the wild, truffles were first grown in orchards of inoculated trees in France in 1977. The method was replicated in California a decade later.

“It proved the concept truffles could be grown elsewhere in the world,” Lefevre said.

The truffle orchard industry is still new and will likely follow the trajectory of the U.S. wine industry, he said, noting that the first vineyards were planted in California 150 years ago.

“It’s not going to be overnight,” Lefevre said.

Aside from producing truffle-inoculated trees, Lefevre and his wife, Leslie Scott, launched the annual Oregon Truffle Festival a decade ago to promote native varieties of the fungus.

Truffles that are indigenous to Oregon’s forests have often been considered inferior to European species, or a less expensive alternative to the real thing, but Lefevre has found they are just as aromatic if harvested correctly.

The practice of raking beneath trees is common among commercial truffle hunters, but this often yields truffles that are unripe, he said.

Specially trained dogs, on the other hand, find truffles that are ready for harvest, offering a measure of quality control, Lefevre said. “If it doesn’t smell, they don’t find it.”

Oregon truffles harvested with the aid of dogs fetched more than $700 per pound last winter, up from $40 to $70 when Lefevre began hunting them as a college student 20 years ago.

“The goal isn’t to make them out of reach for local people, it’s to give local people a chance to make more money,” he said.

When Lefevre entered graduate school at Oregon State University in the mid-1990s, he gathered truffles to supplement his income, but his studies were primarily focused on matsutake mushrooms, which are also mycorrhizal.

Over the course of his studies, he encountered truffle experts and realized he knew enough about the fungus to begin inoculating trees himself.

In 2000, a landowner in Oregon asked him to inoculate domestic hazelnuts with the fungus because importation of the trees from outside the state was prohibited for phytosanitary reasons.

He then met other landowners interested in planting orchards, and soon a new company was born.

“I launched my business before I ever graduated,” Lefevre said. “I never needed to apply for a job when I graduated.”

Charles Lefevre

Occupation: Founder of New World Truffieres, which inoculates trees with the fungus that produces truffles

Age: 50

Hometown: Eugene, Ore.

Education: Bachelor of science in biology from the University of Oregon in 1990, Ph.D. in mycology from Oregon State University in 2002

Family: Wife, Leslie Scott, and two dogs

MOXEE, Wash. — U.S. hop production jumped by 11 percent this year on top of a 3 percent increase in 2014.

Production totaled 78.8 million pounds this year compared with 71 million pounds a year ago, according to a Dec. 17 report by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The preliminary value of the crop is $345.4 million, up 33 percent from the revised value of $260.6 million for the 2014 crop, NASS said. Growers received record high prices as more production shifted from alpha varieties to higher-value aroma varieties in response to aroma demand from craft breweries, the report said.

The average price per pound was $4.38 compared with $3.67 in 2014 and $3.35 in 2013, NASS said.

Washington produced 75 percent of the 2015 crop at 59.4 million pounds. The rest came from Oregon and Idaho. Oregon grew 10.6 million pounds, Idaho 8.7 million pounds. The three states produce about one-third of the world supply. Oil from hop cones is used for flavoring and stabilizing beer.

Production and acreage increased in all three states. Washington had its highest number of acres harvested on record going back to 1915. Idaho also had its highest production and acres harvested on record going back to 1944.

Extreme heat in Washington early in the growing season during crucial cone development and drought from a low winter snowpack in the Cascade Mountains created concern about this year’s crop, said Ann George, executive director of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission in Moxee.

Some aroma varieties yielded poorly because of those factors, but late-season bitter hops were a bright spot with above-average yields, George said.

“Considering those challenges and the amount of first-year plants in the ground which have smaller yield, we are pleased with the final count and looking forward to next year,” she said. Acreage is expected to continue growing, she said.

Meanwhile, European producers, relying almost entirely on rainfall rather than irrigation, had one of their toughest years in more than a decade due to drought, George said. Production is 23.8 percent lower than a year ago, she said. Germany, which produces about one-third of the world crop, is down 26 percent.

While some new and proprietary varieties are expected to be tight due to increased popularity and limited production, it appears most of the 2015 world decrease is in high-alpha bittering hops, which have some carryover in storage, she said.

Growth of small, craft breweries has driven demand for aroma varieties “to a level that has challenged the industry to continue to expand production at an equivalent rate,” George has said.

Craft breweries have projected 20 percent annual growth through 2020, which has resulted in Pacific Northwest hop growers expanding aroma acreage and converting alpha acreage to aroma.

There’s been a 48 percent increase in PNW hop acreage in the past three years, she has said.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Four dozen entities have expressed formal interest in purchasing the Elliott State Forest near Coos Bay.

The Statesman Journal reports that prospective buyers of the 84,000-acre property include timber companies, conservation groups, local governments as well as several individuals. They have until November 2016 to submit an ownership plan.

The forest was designated in 1930 to provide funding for the State School Fund, but has recently lost money with the drop in timber harvests.

The property has not yet had an official appraisal, but is likely valued at up to $400 million.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — While Congress dithers over the Klamath Basin’s water agreements, the parties to the nearly 6-year-old deals are becoming resigned to their likely collapse at the year’s end.

A panel of federal and state officials, tribal members, environmentalists and other participants in the 2010 accords has set a conference call for Dec. 28 to discuss termination of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement — an ominous date for the deals’ proponents and a light at the end of a long tunnel for their detractors.

PacifiCorp, whose plan to remove its four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River sparked much of the controversy, is now resuming its effort to relicense the dams, company spokesman Bob Gravely said.

With the Karuk Tribe — a key water right holder on the Klamath River — already having walked away from the pacts and the Klamath Tribes signaling their intention to do so, some of the irrigation districts that had signed on are also ready to walk away, said Greg Addington, the Klamath Water Users Association’s executive director.

The result could be what many growers and others in the basin have been dreading — a return to drastic irrigation shutoffs and cutbacks and protracted court battles over water rights.

“Our members have made it clear,” said tribal chairman Don Gentry, whose Klamath Tribes have the most senior of water rights in the Upper Klamath Basin. “We’ve been honoring the KBRA since 2010. It’s been five years, and our native fisheries and Lost River and shortnose suckers are in worse condition now than when we signed the agreements.

“We agreed to provide water at certain levels with the idea that legislation would move forward,” he said.

Bills to authorize removal of the dams have languished in Congress since 2011. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., a longtime opponent of dam removal, unveiled an eleventh-hour draft bill on Dec. 3 to move forward on other aspects of the agreements while putting approval of dam removal in the lap of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Walden’s bill won praise from Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who said proposed federal land transfers to the Klamath Tribes in exchange for waiving senior water rights “are ideas I could strongly support in order to move forward.”

However, the bill received a cool reaction from proponents of the Klamath agreements, who have warned that water-sharing components of the pacts could crumble if Congress doesn’t authorize the package — including dam removal — before the end of the year.

So far, no efforts have been made to merge Walden’s bill with one by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., which includes dam removal but has failed to advance beyond the upper chamber’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And lawmakers don’t appear to be in any hurry to get a bill passed.

“We had hoped people would agree to remain at the table” into 2016, Walden spokesman Andrew Malcolm said. “We’re hoping that what will work for people on Dec. 31 will still work on Jan. 1 or Jan. 2.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office did not return a call from the Capital Press seeking comment about a timeline for moving Walden’s bill forward.

The 42 signatories of the pacts that included the dam removals as well as water-sharing and numerous conservation efforts in the basin already renewed the agreements once, in late 2012. However, looming deadlines lend more of a sense of urgency this time, proponents say.

“I think this time is different,” said Glen Spain, northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “We’re a short period of time … from deadlines when this is all supposed to happen. We’ve done everything that’s been required in this, including finding non-federal money for dam removal.”

Already, regulatory agencies are resuming the task of reviewing PacifiCorp’s dam-relicensing application, which the company has estimated would cost at least $300 million and leave the company exposed to other costs from litigation and added water quality regulations. Under the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, the cost to PacifiCorp’s ratepayers would be capped at $200 million.

Trust funds from surcharges to PacifiCorps customers for dam removal have amassed more than $100 million, which will either be refunded or used to meet relicensing conditions if the Klamath agreements die, Gravely said.

The Karuk Tribe and other proponents of removing the dams have vowed to urge the state water boards to deny PacifiCorp’s relicensing applications under the Clean Water Act, which would force the dams to be removed anyway. But such a denial would be unprecedented, Gravely said.

Meanwhile, local opposition to dam removal has become more entrenched in the Klamath Basin as opponents have been elected to majorities on the Klamath County Board of Commissioners and several irrigation district boards.

“I’d like more time,” said Addington, whose KWUA represents irrigation districts in the Klamath Reclamation Project. “I for one and my organization would say we want to salvage this thing, and we’d be ready to have a conversation about that. But the Yurok Tribe has made it clear that it wants to move in a different direction … and the Klamath Tribes have made a similar statement.

“I just think we risk a harder-line element saying collaboration didn’t work” if the parties try to keep the agreements together, he said.

Without the water pacts in place, growers in the Upper Klamath Basin could face another water crisis this spring like the one they encountered in 2013, when a total shutoff of irrigation water prompted landowners to begrudgingly work out their own water-sharing agreement with the tribes that was also contingent on the dams being removed.

While project irrigators have a stipulated settlement with the tribes that will remain even if the KBRA dies, the lack of an agreement could put more pressure on those growers’ water supplies, too, as more water for fish is sought under the Endangered Species Act, Addington said.

As to whether any future agreement could be salvaged from the wreckage, Addington said he’s unsure.

“Either … the KBRA is going to be a footnote in the interesting history of water in the Klamath Basin, or it’ll be the next step to something bigger,” Addington said. “I think it’s too early to say.

“I hate football analogies, but I feel like we got to the goal line and were just not able to punch it in,” he said. “We’ve got a House bill out there and a Senate bill out there … I just wish the folks in Congress would do what all the parties did, which is to lock themselves in a room and get it done. It’s the season of miracles, so who knows?”

PORTLAND — Organic acreage has surged in Oregon even as the number of organic farmers has shrunk in recent years, according to federal data.

The total number of organic farms in the state decreased 18 percent, from 657 to 525, between 2008 and 2014, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Meanwhile, organic acreage nearly doubled in Oregon, from 105,600 to 204,000, the NASS report said.

The agency found a sharp decline in the number of farmers who earn less than $25,000 in annual revenue, while the number of those with sales of more than $250,000 grew, said Dave Losh, Oregon’s state statistician for NASS.

“The smaller folks are having a harder time and the larger operations are getting bigger,” Losh said, noting that the trend is occurring in overall agriculture as well.

In some cases, organic farms may not have gone out of business but opted to drop their organic certification for financial reasons, said Chris Schreiner, executive director of Oregon Tilth, an organic certifier.

At the time of the survey, a USDA cost-share program that helped pay for certification costs had lapsed, so some growers decide the organic label was no longer financially feasible, he said.

That program has since been restored with funding from the 2014 Farm Bill.

Even so, the 2008 survey was conducted shortly before the financial crisis, so some farms might have shut down during the ensuing economic downturn, said Ivan Maluski, policy director of Friends of Family Farmers, a nonprofit group.

“I think the recession during that five-year window had a lot to do with it,” he said.

Oregon’s acreage growth has bucked a national trend, as overall U.S. organic acreage contracted nearly 10 percent, to 3.7 million acres, between 2008 and 2014.

The state has the fifth highest number of organic acres in the country, following California, Montana, Wisconsin and New York.

Oregon is also near the top of the list in sales of organic farm products, with $237 million in 2014.

Nationally, crops represent 60 percent of organic sales, livestock products such as milk and eggs represent 28 percent and livestock represents 12 percent.

PORTLAND — Oregon farm regulators plan to spray more than 8,000 acres in Portland next spring to prevent the establishment of the Asian gypsy moth, a destructive pest found in the area this year.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture plans to first conduct extensive outreach before applying Bacillus thuringiensis, a biological pesticide that destroys the insect’s ability to digest.

“This is a pretty significant deal for us, especially since we will have to apply the Bt aerially around Portland,” said Katy Coba, ODA’s director, during a Dec. 16 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture in Portland.

The treatment is sensitive as it could provoke a negative public reaction in the populated urban area that would interfere with the ability to fight the pest, said Clint Burfitt, manager of OFA’s insect pest prevention program.

“There’s a short opportunity to mitigate the AGM threat before it spreads,” he said.

The cost of spraying will likely involve several aircraft and the Oregon portion of the project is expected to cost $2.5 million, Burfitt said.

Spraying will also occur in southwest Washington at a cost of $3 million, he said.

This year the moths were found on the Washington and Oregon sides of the Columbia River.

In Oregon, eradication will likely begin in mid-April and involve three treatments one week apart, pending an environmental assessment and public outreach, Burfitt said.

Oregon has asked the federal government to fully pay for the spraying, but ODA will also request funding from the state legislature early next year in case the federal funds don’t cover the entire expense, said Coba.

The eradication project is the third largest in Oregon’s history, said Helmuth Rogg, director of Oregon’s plant program area.

Asian gypsy moths have previously been intercepted in Oregon in 1992, 2000 and 2006 along the Columbia River, likely due to Asian imports at the nearby Port of Vancouver, he said.

The Asian gypsy moth is more of a danger to agriculture and the environment than the European gypsy moth, whose females are incapable of flight, Burfitt said.

Asian gypsy moth females can fly and produce up to 1,000 eggs each, so the species can become established more rapidly, he said.

With about 600 host plants, the Asian gypsy moth also has more habitat available, he said.

The pest can greatly defoliate wild-growing plants, negatively affecting stream temperatures, Burfitt said.

For agricultural products, such as nursery stock, the pest’s establishment would cause increased pesticide use and may impede shipments to other states and countries, he said.

In 2000, the Washington State Department of Agriculture sprayed for the insects on 725 acres in the Ballard and Magnolia neighborhoods of Seattle.

In 1992, WSDA sprayed 116,457 acres for the Asian gypsy moths in Pierce and King counties.

BOISE — Weed scientists believe the number of glyphosate-resistant kochia weeds in the Treasure Valley area is small enough that growers can prevent their spread with the right management strategies.

Oregon State University and University of Idaho weed scientists last year confirmed the presence of kochia weeds that are resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the popular weed killer produced by Monsanto Co.

The weeds were found in sugar beet fields in Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon. Virtually all of the 180,000 acres of sugar beets grown in this region are genetically engineered by Monsanto to resist glyphosate.

“If we can convince growers who use Roundup Ready sugar beets and corn to implement some resistance management strategies, our feeling is we can keep these herbicide-resistant weeds at bay,” said UI weed scientist Don Morishita.

OSU weed scientist Joel Felix said weeds don’t develop resistance to an herbicide. Rather, a tiny population of weeds in each plant variety is naturally resistant and the herbicide kills off its competitors and allows them to flourish.

The best way to prevent the spread of glyphosate-resistant kochia, he said, is to use other herbicides along with Roundup.

“We need more than one mode of action so weeds not killed by Roundup will not spread,” he said.

This can be accomplished by using different herbicides either throughout the season or on other crops included in a field’s rotation in following years and also through “tank mixing,” which is mixing one or more modes of action in with glyphosate and applying them at the same time.

Felix said studies, including a recent one by University of Illinois, have shown tank mixing to be more effective than alternating herbicides but some growers are reluctant to do that because they believe it will injure their beets.

Felix and Morishita have conducted studies on tank mixing and Felix said growers can talk to either of them to find the proper rates to use.

According to Felix, glyphosate-resistant kochia has been found in 10 states: Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and Oklahoma.

In the Treasure Valley, it has been found near Ontario, Vale and the Oregon Slope area in Eastern Oregon and near Wilder in Southwestern Idaho.

Morishita and Felix conducted drive-by surveys of sugar beet fields in the region this year and collected seed from any kochia plants that survived initial and follow-up applications of Roundup.

Morishita said they did not detect any spread of resistant weeds beyond the areas where they have already been confirmed. Agronomists thought they found some near sugar beet pilings in Idaho’s Magic Valley area but tests determined they were not resistant.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Another lone wolf recently passed through Central Oregon, following a path similar to the one blazed by OR-7, a wolf made famous by his wandering.

But like OR-7 and three other wolves tracked by collar in the past five years, OR-28 appears to not be interested in establishing a territory in Central Oregon.

Since coming from northeast Oregon last month, she is so far sticking south of Silver Lake — the dry lake, not the town — in Lake County, said Russ Morgan, state wolf coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in La Grande.

Why collared wolves have only passed through Central Oregon so far and not stayed is unknown, he said. “Collar data only tells, ‘The wolf was here at this point in time.”’

And the data is from a small sample size. Oregon has at least 81 wolves, according to a Department of Fish and Wildlife tally from the end of 2014. Most are found in the northeast corner of the state. Less than 20 percent of the wolves have tracking collars, estimated John Stephenson, Oregon wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said people should not read too much into the collar data showing wolves passing up on Central Oregon territories.

“We also know there are other wolves that don’t have (GPS or) radio collars running around, and we don’t know their paths,” he said.

The collar data do show that wolves seem to avoid the population centers of Central Oregon, such as Bend, Redmond and Madras. Drawn on a map, the paths of OR-7 and OR-28 show the wolves turning south when they came close to Pine Mountain, about 30 miles southeast of Bend.

Both wolves were likely dissuaded from staying in Central Oregon by human activity and bright city lights at night, Stephenson said. That’s not to say other wolves might not eventually find a home here, though, particularly in the forested mountains.

“I think the Cascades of Central Oregon are good wolf habitat and they will occupy that area, but they have to get around Bend and Redmond to do that,” he said.

So far, at least one wolf, OR-25, is known to have passed though the Central Oregon Cascades earlier this year, although he kept going south.

Of the collared wolves to disperse, or leave their packs, from northeast Oregon, OR-25 is the only one so far to find trouble. In early November, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed he attacked three calves, killing one and wounding two others, on private land near the Upper Williamson River.

Efforts to keep him away from cattle since have been effective, Stephenson said Wednesday. They include lights and noise boxes as well as electrified fladry — flagging designed to deter wolves from going over a fence line. And state wildlife managers have fired cracker shotgun shells, which make a loud noise designed to spook animals.

OR-25 is spending less time near the pasture. “We’re hoping he’ll move somewhere else entirely, but he hasn’t done that yet,” Stephenson said.

While OR-25 and OR-28’s collars still are sending signals, the collars of OR-3 and OR-7 have blinked out.

Since September 2011, state and federal wildlife managers did not know what had become of OR-3, until a private trail camera captured a photo of him this July in the Cascades of northern Klamath County. The photo shows a wolf in the lower right corner of the frame. The black animal has a tracking color and an ear tag.

State officials used the color and location of the ear tag to determine the identity of the wolf.

“The only wolf that can be (is) OR-3,” Morgan said.

Farther south and west in the Cascades, OR-7 found a mate, a female who also dispersed from northeast Oregon and now is raising his second litter of pups.

Only time will tell whether more wolves follow OR-3 and OR-7 to the southern Cascades or decide to blaze their own paths to Central Oregon. In May 2014, another male wolf, OR-24, wandered into Central Oregon only to turn back and return to northeastern Oregon.

“We just have to be patient and wait for the wolves to tell us where they will be,” Morgan said.

The U.S. Forest Service could finalize its revised land management plans for the Blue Mountains National Forests by early 2017, following a year-long re-engagement process with the public.

The plans will essentially guide management decisions on the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur national forests for the next 10-15 years. While the documents do not approve any site-specific projects, they do set goals and desired conditions on approximately 4.9 million acres of public land.

Forest plans are supposed to be updated every 15 years to reflect changes in the landscape and science, though the current Blue Mountains Forest Plan is from 1990. Forest supervisors unveiled a draft version of the revised plan last year, which was met with criticism.

The negative feedback was so overwhelming that regional forester Jim Peña allowed more time in January to meet with stakeholders and find common ground on issues including road access, wilderness and commercial logging. Since then, the Forest Service has held public workshops across Eastern Oregon to hear new ideas and solutions.

Despite some continued rumblings, the supervisors say the input they’ve gathered has led them in a positive direction.

“Overall, the engagement process has helped us to better understand our public,” said Tom Montoya, supervisor on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. “There’s been folks on all sides of the issue who have provided really good comments to find some balance.”

However, Montoya admitted he was frustrated during a meeting Nov. 2 in La Grande, where nearly 200 people packed the Blue Mountain Conference Center. Tempers flared, and Montoya said he later heard from people who told him they felt threatened.

Norm Cimon, a retired Forest Service employee of 26 years, said the discussion was not closely moderated and broke down into a free-for-all.

“Given the anger that’s built up from the rhetoric that’s been thrown around, there’s going to have to be better management of these meetings,” Cimon said.

Cimon, who serves on the board of directors for Oregon Rural Action, a La Grande-based environmental nonprofit, said the tone was set by a letter from state Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, accusing the Forest Service of “bureaucratic ineptness.”

Re-engaging with the public is absolutely worthwhile, Cimon said, but he felt Barreto’s letter didn’t help the situation.

“I hate that kind of talk. I really do,” Cimon said.

In his letter, Barreto says, “The overreaching heavy hand of government continues to pursue its stranglehold on the rural parts of the state, our way of life and our pursuit of happiness.” He also wrote “The preservationists along with you, the federal government, are teaming up to keep local people from our public lands.”

In a separate interview, Barreto said he was unable to attend the meeting in person and was asked by his constituents in the forest access movement to write a letter. Barreto said he intentionally worded the letter the way he did to make a point about people’s distrust in the current administration.

Barreto did credit the Forest Service for re-engaging with the public, and said people need to speak passionately to make sure they are heard.

“If everyone goes to these meetings and speaks in blasé language, probably nothing comes out of it,” he said. “If there’s no passion in what you’re saying, then what you’re saying falls on deaf ears.”

Montoya said the feedback is heard, and will be used to evaluate potential changes to the proposed forest plans. But, he added, people need to make sure they are providing substantive comments backed by evidence.

“It’s really not a venting process. It’s about addressing issues,” Montoya said. “I think we’re making positive momentum, definitely.”

Montoya said the Nov. 2 meeting was an anomaly, and they could have done a better job facilitating such a large group.

Steve Beverlin, supervisor on the Malheur National Forest, said he has been happy with the turnout at meetings he attended. He said the passion in people’s arguments comes through much stronger in person than just reading them on paper.

“Some people want more wilderness, some people want less; some people want more timber harvest, some people want less; some people want more access, some people want less,” Beverlin said. “The key for me is providing a safe environment for people to voice those opinions.”

After the new year, Beverlin said there will be a meeting of the minds to evaluate what potential changes could be made to the proposed plan. Of course, there are legal sideboards, he said, and not all suggestions will be feasible.

The supervisors said they hope to have a final Environmental Impact Statement completed by the end of September. Barring any other setbacks, a final Record of Decision could be done by April 2017.

Two more public meetings are scheduled from 6-9 p.m., one on Monday, Dec. 14 in Clarkston, Washington, and one on Tuesday, Dec. 15 in North Powder.

“We need the public’s engagement and help for managing the public forests. That’s the bottom line,” Beverlin said.

A Baker County, Ore., cattle ranching couple who helped forge sage grouse habitat conservation agreements was honored during the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association annual conference Dec. 5-6.

Mark and Patti Bennett, of Unity, were given the 2015 Riley Freeman Award, named for a past OCA wildlife committee chairman who saw the need for cooperation between private landowners and the state and federal agencies that regulate wildlife and natural resources.

The award was jointly established and is presented annually by the OCA and ODFW.

In honoring the Bennetts, ODFW Director Curt Melcher praised them as “model stewards” of their cattle ranch. Like many other Eastern Oregon ranchers, the Bennetts signed a voluntary conservation agreement to maintain or improve habitat for greater sage grouse. Mark Bennett served on a rules advisory group that worked to balance the interests of landowners and regulatory officials.

“Bennett pushed for a reasonable approach to protecting sage grouse habitat while also protecting the economic viability of eastern Oregon and working lands,” ODFW said in a news release.

The voluntary agreements in Oregon were a model for other states, and were a key factor in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision in September to keep Greater sage-grouse off the endangered species list.