Could a revival of Oregon’s timber industry reduce the fuel load in public forests and ease the blistering wildfires that choked much of the state in smoke the past few weeks?

At this point it’s an intriguing question without a simple answer. But it arises as university researchers and industry officials explore advanced wood products such as cross-laminated timbers — called CLT — and mass plywood panels, which can support multi-story wooden buildings, even modest high-rises. Only two Western Oregon mills and a handful of others nationally make the products, but they appear to hold promise.

For one thing, the massive beams and panels can be made with small-diameter logs, the very type crowding forests and contributing to the explosive growth of the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and the much larger Chetco Bar Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the southwest corner of the state.

A recent report by Oregon BEST, a quasi-public entity that funds clean technology startups and links entrepreneurs to university researchers, said CLT and related mass timber manufacturing could create 2,000 to 6,100 direct jobs in Oregon. Income generated from those jobs would range from $124 million to $371 million a year, according to the report. The estimate came from an analysis by Business Oregon, the state department.

Oregon BEST said Oregon and Southwest Washington are “poised as a manufacturing hub for the emerging Cross Laminated Timber market in the United States.” Pacific Northwest forests could easily and sustainably supply the wood needed for production, the report said.

People working in the field issue a cautionary, “Yes, but.…”

“In theory, it makes a lot of sense, but it requires for the forests to be actively managed in that way, and an outlet for that wood to be taken up,” said Timm Locke, director of forest products for the Oregon Forest Research Institute, an organization founded by the Oregon Legislature to enhance collaboration and inform the public about responsible forest management.

Locke said the public forests most in need of restoration and thinning work are east of the Cascades, where much of the milling infrastructure has “disappeared.” It doesn’t make economic sense to move poor quality trees from Eastern Oregon to mills in Western Oregon, he said.

“We need to be thinking about what’s stopping us at this stage,” Locke said. “What are the issues there?”

One of them, he said, is a lack of trust between industry and the public land agencies — principally the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Mills that once depended on logs from public forests were “burned” when the timber harvest was drastically reduced due to lawsuits and policy and regulatory changes over threatened species, wildlife habitat and watersheds. An often-cited statistic shows the Forest Service manages 60 percent of the timberland in Oregon but that land produces only 15 percent of the annual harvest.

“It’s difficult for government agencies to make significant changes quickly,” Locke said. “There’s a lot of process that has to happen.”

Locke believes the Forest Service is on the right track, but noted that conservation groups often oppose increased logging on public land.

“It’s a tricky subject, no question about it,” he said. “Public discussion about public land management — I think we’re ripe for that conversation.”

A Forest Service official said the agency makes 600 million board-feet of timber available for sale annually in Oregon and Washington, and the perspective that it is holding up an industry revival is “dated.”

Debbie Hollen, director of state and private forestry for the Forest Service in Portland, said the agency hopes tall wood buildings provide the market for restoration logging and thinning.

The agency’s Wood Innovation Grant Program provides funding to help create a market for fuel that needs to be removed from the forests.

“Our hope is that it will be the value-add that makes it worthwhile,” Hollen said. “Industry is not there yet.”

The research infrastructure is swinging into place. Oregon State University’s colleges of forestry and engineering have teamed with the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture to form the TallWood Design Institute at OSU. It is the nation’s first research center to focus exclusively on advanced structural wood products.

At this point, the one constant is fire.

John Bailey, a professor of silviculture and fire management at OSU, said the amount of biomass accumulated on forested hillsides is greater than ever before. Whether people see the biomass as scenery, recreation site, wildlife habitat or timber, it’s going to “exit the system” one way or the other, he said.

Humans remove less of the biomass through logging and thinning than in the past, which contributes to the fierce, explosive, “climate driven fire” that has gotten our attention. With more forested acreage closely connected, and with hot, dry, windy conditions prevailing, fires quickly grow large, he said.

Bailey said the Forest Service is doing all the management that society allows it to do, and it’s time to “rethink what we do with the hillsides in light of fuel accumulation” and climate conditions.

“They are going to burn,” he said.

Online

Oregon BEST CLT report: http://bit.ly/2fhpFTd

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Police say a man from Salt Lake City, Utah, has been accused of intentionally starting three wildland fires in central Oregon.

The Bulletin reports 37-year-old Christopher Glen Wilson was indicted Friday by a Deschutes County grand jury on three counts of arson and reckless endangerment.

Court records say the indictment involves three fires started in August; two along U.S. 97, and one east of La Pine, Oregon.

Oregon State Police Capt. Bill Fugate says authorities believe Wilson, of Salt Lake City, is also responsible for a fourth fire in south central Oregon.

Fugate says state troopers arrested Wilson Sept. 3 as he entered Oregon on Interstate 84 driving a stolen car.

Wilson was booked into jail on suspicion of unauthorized use of a vehicle and will be transferred to Bend, Oregon for arraignment.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Wilson had an attorney.

Oregon’s wolf management plan is supposed to be updated this year but that hasn’t happened yet. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission was to get a briefing on that process during its Sept. 15 meeting in Welches, Ore.

The pause in the process comes as ODFW has moved to kill five wolves for livestock attacks this summer and approved the shooting of a sixth. Four wolves from the Harl Butte pack were shot by ODFW staff after a series of depredations in Wallowa County. A Umatilla County livestock producer or an employee – ODFW has not clarified the details – legally shot a Meacham Pack wolf under authorization from the department.

Conservation groups are highly critical of ODFW’s actions, saying it shouldn’t be killing wolves while the management plan review is pending. A coalition of 18 groups asked Gov. Kate Brown to intervene, so far without success.

Meanwhile, a significant change is coming. Russ Morgan, ODFW’s longtime wolf program coordinator, is retiring in October. Morgan said he had planned to retire when the management plan was approved, but decided not to wait.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday directed all land managers and park superintendents to be more aggressive in cutting down small trees and underbrush to prevent wildfires as this year is on track to be among the worst fire seasons in a decade.

In a memo, Zinke said the Trump administration will take a new approach and work proactively to prevent fires “through aggressive and scientific fuels reduction management” to save lives, homes and wildlife habitat.

Wildfires are chewing across dried-out Western forests and grassland. To date, 47,700 wildfires have burned more than 8 million acres across the country, with much of the devastation in California and Montana, Zinke said.

As of Tuesday, 62 large fires were burning across nine Western states, with 20 fires in Montana and 17 in Oregon, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Nearly half the large fires in the West reported zero acreage gains on Monday, helping firefighters across the West make progress toward containing them, the agency said.

The Forest Service and Interior Department have spent more $2.1 billion so far this year fighting fires — about the same as they spent in all of 2015, the most expensive wildfire season on record.

Those figures do not include individual state spending. In Montana, where more than 90 percent of the state is in drought, the state has spent more than $50 million on fire suppression since June, with fires likely to burn well into the fall.

Oregon has spent $28 million, but the state expects to be reimbursed for part of that by the federal government and others.

Exacerbated by drought and thick vegetation, wildfires are “more damaging, more costly and threaten the safety and security of both the public and firefighters,” Zinke said. “I have heard this described as ‘a new normal.’ It is unacceptable that we should be satisfied with the status quo.”

Zinke’s memo did not call for new spending, but he said federal officials “must be innovative” and use all tools available to prevent and fight fires. “Where new authorities are needed,” he added, “we will work with our colleagues in Congress to craft management solutions that will benefit our public lands for generations to come.”

The Interior Department oversees more than 500 million acres supervised by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies. The Forest Service, a unit of the Agriculture Department, is the nation’s largest firefighting agency, with more than half its budget devoted to wildfires.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Western lawmakers have long complained that the current funding mechanism makes it hard to budget for and fight wildfires, even as fires burn longer and hotter each year.

“I believe that we have the right processes and the right procedures of attacking and fighting fires,” Perdue said in a speech last week. “But if you don’t have the resources and the means of dependable funding, that’s an issue.”

Perdue called on Congress “to fix the fire-borrowing problem once and for all” so that officials are not forced to tap prevention programs to fight wildfires.

“Fires will always be with us. But when we leave a fuel load out there because we have not been able to get to it because of a lack of funding, or dependable funding, we’re asking for trouble,” Perdue said.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. ­— No matter the season, the fish are always jumping.

That’s because Ron Barnes and Tracey Liskey are tossing handfuls of fish food into one of their several fish ponds where they’re raising 2-pound tilapia that are live-trucked to fish markets in Seattle and San Francisco. Some remains local, often sold to Klamath Basin residents who especially enjoy the tasty, white fish.

For the past six-plus years Barnes, with Liskey’s help, has been experimenting with the best of speedily raising tilapias from tiny hatchlings until they’re large enough to be fresh-shipped to commercial markets. Before the year is out, Barnes said he expects his business, Gone Fishing, will ship about 50,000 pounds.

“We’re starting small, but deliberately so,” Barnes said, noting a commercial tilapia farm in Northern California’s Modoc County ships up to 20,000 pounds a week. His goal is raising 2-pound tilapias, admitting, “It was difficult to raise them to that size. We’ve overcome that.”

“We work together and get things done,” said Liskey. “I can fix things. I’m the mechanic, the engineer.”

He and Barnes believe the years of experimenting with feed, water temperatures and other variables have paid off. Barnes said his 80-acre operation south of Klamath Falls and adjacent to Liskey Farms, is “extremely efficient. My water use is a tiny, tiny fraction of what most fish farmers use,” noting the tilapias reach market size in about 90 days.

“There was learning curve learning how to grow them to size,” agrees Liskey. “It’s kind of like raising a beef cow to a size in the shortest amount of time.”

Liskey makes the cattle reference because he manages the family’s 1,500-acre ranch, which is 99 percent leased to others. At age 63, he calls himself semi-retired — “But I haven’t seen the ‘retired’ part yet” — because he remains active in many of the ranch’s day-to-day operations.

He said ranch operations are equally divided between cattle, hay and grain. A smaller area includes geothermal-reliant businesses that which have drawn his interest. Because of plentiful supplies of geothermal water — tests indicate flows of 5,000 gallons of 195- to 199-degree water a minute — he sees fish farming as one arm of a potentially broader operation.

“My main goal here is trying to develop a geothermal park ... to get something in here to make agriculture more productive,” Liskey said.

He envisions “cascading uses,” first using the extremely hot water to generate power. While that hasn’t yet happened, Liskey said he continues to work with power companies. Less hot, re-circulated geothermal water is already being used for three commercial greenhouses while the third tier of cooler, 84-degree “tail water” is used for raising tilapia, which require warm water.

Barnes breeds his own tilapia because, “When you do your own breeding you don’t inherit somebody else’s problems,” such as various diseases. While some believe commercially raised fish aren’t as healthy as wild fish, Barnes said the geothermal water negates the need for chemicals, insisting, “If it’s done correctly it’s better,” noting wild fish are often subject to fouled waters.

While tilapia is their current endeavor, Liskey and Barnes believe the Gone Fishing ponds could be expanded to raise other fish, including shrimp, catfish and sturgeon.

“Oregon has a lot of possibilities in the aqua industry and it’s just being done,” insists Barnes.

While Barnes focuses on tilapia, Liskey also monitors other geothermally related operations, including a trio of 200-foot greenhouses operated the last several years by Rick Walsh of Fresh Green. Certified organic produce — micro-greens, tomatoes, squash and more — grown in the greenhouses is sold regionally, with some going to Whole Foods.

Another adjacent geothermally heated section is used to grow medical marijuana. Medical and recreational marijuana is legal to grow and sell in Oregon, but recreational marijuana is not legal in some counties, including Klamath County.

Although Liskey voted against legalizing recreational marijuana, he believes the county should rescind the ban because, “We’re letting everybody else grow it and saturate the market. Let us grow it, too.”

“Without geothermal you couldn’t afford to have greenhouses or fish ponds,” Liskey said, noting the Klamath Basin typically sees below freezing temperatures and snow during the winter. As he explained while standing alongside the tilapia ponds, “It’s the cheap heat from the water that makes all this possible.”

Keeping young beef heifers penned over winter tends to delay puberty compared to letting them out on pasture, according to a new study.

Slowing a cow’s reproductive maturity may impair her ability to get pregnant in the first breeding season, which is economically undesirable for ranchers.

Only 32 percent of heifers kept in pens over winter reached puberty by late spring, compared to 67 percent that remained on pasture, the Oregon State University study found.

Among the cows that did reach puberty, those in pens achieved maturity 33 days later than those on pasture and they were 100 pounds heavier on average.

The stress of being kept penned was likely the reason that fewer heifers timely reached puberty and their maturity was delayed, said Reinaldo Cooke, who co-wrote the study.

“That may be taking a toll on the reproductive development of those females,” he said. “They like to walk around and graze and they don’t have that in the pen.”

Cows kept on pasture got more physical activity, averaging 20,000 steps a week, compared to 3,100 steps for penned heifers. Their hair also had lower levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress in cattle.

Pens probably make young heifers uncomfortable because they’ve spent their early lives on rangeland before weaning and are unaccustomed to being confined, said Cooke.

“That abrupt change in environment is pretty stressful,” he said.

Ranchers often keep young heifers in pens over winter because they’re easier to feed and check on, Cooke said. In some cases, cattle producers may not have enough property available to keep them on pasture.

“I’m not saying confinement is bad,” he said. “Many times it’s necessary. It’s the only option.”

However, ranchers should keep in mind that pens may prevent timely puberty, so they can try to reduce negative effects by avoiding overcrowding.

The half-year study compared 30 Angus and Hereford cows kept in pens with 30 heifers of the same breeds left out on pasture, with all the animals being fed the same diet.

Cooke was an animal scientist at OSU when the research was conducted in late 2015 and early 2016 but was recently hired as an associate professor of beef cattle production at Texas A&M University.

Researchers decided to conduct the study after noticing that penned heifers generally had poorer reproductive performance compared to those on pasture, Cooke said.

“Wow, maybe there’s something going on here,” he said.

An Oregon attorney known for advocating on behalf of farmers, John Albert, passed away last month at the age of 66.

Albert died suddenly in Salem, Ore., on Aug. 27 from what’s believed to be a massive heart attack. A memorial service was held Sept. 8.

After graduating from law school in 1976, Albert initially took a job with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and then held positions in Klamath Falls and The Dalles.

His became acquainted with the financial challenges faced by farmers upon joining the Churchill Leonard law firm in 1981, where he specialized in agricultural liens and bankruptcy law.

“Ag law was not his only area of expertise, but it was a primary area of expertise,” said Stephen Tweet, Albert’s friend and longtime law partner.

Among his most notable cases was the bankruptcy of the seed company AgriBioTech in 2000, which threatened to leave many grass seed farmers unpaid for their crops.

While his farmer clients initially feared huge losses, Albert was able to recover a “fair hunk” of what they were owed, Tweet said. “There were still losses but I believe a fair percentage of the growers’ claims were paid.”

Agricultural liens are a crucial tool for farmers who deliver crops to companies that go bankrupt, since they secure collateral in the buyer’s assets that can be used to compensate growers.

In such cases, Albert would often battle with banks that claimed to have the top priority for repayment, said Tweet. “The bank is competing with the farmer over who gets paid first, so that was a huge fight.”

After a decade at Churchill Leonard, Albert struck out on his own, forming two law firms with Tweet in the 1990s. He joined the firm of Sherman, Sherman, Johnnie & Hoyt after Tweet retired in 2014.

Aside from courtroom disputes, Albert also fought for farmers in the Oregon Legislature, where he was instrumental in the passage of a law strengthening their contract protections in 2011.

Among other provisions, House Bill 2159 established a mandatory payment date for delivered grass seed and a mechanism for resolving disagreements over price.

When he wasn’t delving into legal issues, Albert led an active lifestyle in his free time as a soccer referee, gardener and marathon runner.

“I couldn’t have been more shocked,” Tweet said of his friend’s death.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Hunters Association has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service, claiming its plan to build more than 130 miles of off-highway vehicle trails in the Ochoco National Forest could hurt elk habitat.

The Bend Bulletin reported last week that the association, which has more than 10,000 members, filed the lawsuit in the Pendleton Division of the United States District Court on Aug. 31. The association claims that the decision to approve the trails is not supported by scientific wildlife research and is in violation of the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Patrick Lair, a spokesman for the Ochoco National Forest, said the Forest Service will continue moving forward with planning the trail project.

Washington State University officials are recommending Northwest farmers be cautious after reports that some pollinator seed mixes elsewhere were found to be contaminated with the weed Palmer amaranth.

“As far as we know, we don’t have Palmer amaranth, and that’s the fear, that these packets of seed will bring it here,” said Drew Lyon, weed science professor at WSU.

A Weed Science Society of America survey has labeled Palmer amaranth “the most troublesome weed in the U.S.” According to the society, some native seed mixes designed to foster habitat for honeybees and other pollinators in the Midwest were found to contain the weed. Seed mixes should be tested to make sure they are free of the weed.

“There’s a big push for pollinator health, and so a lot of people want to plant these things,” Lyon said. “It doesn’t sound like maybe quality control on the end of these companies is great. And that seed is really tiny. It’d be an easy mistake to make, but it could be a costly mistake to make.”

The weed is common in fields across the South and the Southeast, and has been traveling north for several decades. Its small seeds are easily spread by birds and farm equipment, and in birdseed, livestock feed and manure.

Lyon said it’s possible someone could unknowingly order contaminated seed mix online.

The warm-season, broadleaf weed could pose the most risk for irrigated production in the Columbia Basin. The crops growing in July and August would be most affected, Lyon said.

“It’s a very prolific seed producer,” he said. “It’s glyphosate resistant, and ... we use a lot of glyphosate in our ag systems. If we have a weed like Palmer amaranth that’s so prolific and can spread so quickly, and we can’t use Roundup to help us control it, it’s going to become a bit problematic.”

Lyon also advises growers to keep an eye out and be aware of what Palmer amaranth looks like.

“If you see it, pull it before it can set any seed,” he said.

Growers should also alert the university. Researchers would try to confirm the weed and the source of the seed mix and spread the word, Lyon said.

WSU researchers will wait and see if any Palmer amaranth is reported.

“I don’t know if it’s inevitable that it will get here some day, but it seems like things move pretty good,” Lyon said. “As far as I know, we don’t have it in the state right now. And that’s the best situation to be in.”

Online

http://bit.ly/2y25xw5

A bubble in Oregon’s revered craft beer industry? Sales have slowed and some breweries have closed, but the state Office of Economic Analysis isn’t going on a bender about it.

Senior Economist Josh Lehner, who has written extensively about the economic impact of the state’s “alcohol cluster,” said it’s likely the industry is maturing. Some shakeout is not unexpected.

In a post on the department website, Lehner said making good local beer, as breweries and brewpubs around the state do, is no longer enough to assure success.

“In a mature market, good business decisions and strategies matter more,” Lehner wrote.

The Economist reported that U.S. craft beer sales in a three-month period ending June 17 declined 0.7 percent compared to the same period in 2016.

“It may be that craft beer has reached its natural limit,” the magazine opined on its website. Competition for shelf space, buyouts by big brewers and consumers’ turn to wine, hard cider and spirits are cited as additional possibilities.

Lehner said in-state beer sales have slowed or declined at many of Oregon’s breweries. Some have closed, including Medford’s Southern Oregon Brewing in 2016 and The Commons this year in Portland. Others sold to larger companies.

But Lehner said four or five Oregon breweries fold per year, a failure rate of about 2 percent. That’s compared to an 8 percent failure rate for all Oregon industries combined. Leisure and hospitality closures nationally are about 9 percent, Lehner said.

As craft beer sales slow, however, more breweries will struggle to retain market share, he said.

“I do think the brewery closure rate will increase in the coming years,” Lehner reported. “It is likely to converge toward the rates seen in other industries.

“Currently, the growing and largely successful beer industry is enticing even more breweries to enter,” he said. “Eventually this will lead to (over)saturation and for closures to rise as a result.”

ODFW said a wolf from the Meacham Pack was legally shot to death Sept. 7 in Umatilla County, the fifth wolf killed in Oregon since August.

The wildlife agency authorized killing two adult wolves after depredation investigations confirmed the pack attacked cattle four times in August. All of the attacks involved the same herd grazing on a 4,000 acre private, forested pasture in the Sheep Creek area.

The lethal control permit allowed either ODFW staff or the producer or an employee to kill two adult wolves. Department spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said an adult, non-breeding female was shot by the livestock owner or an employee.

In August, ODFW killed four wolves from the Harl Butte Pack in Wallowa County, which had attacked livestock eight times in the past year.

In issuing the Meacham Pack kill permit, ODFW said the producer had taken proper action to deter attacks. The producer removed livestock carcasses the same day they were discovered, removed cattle that were weak and might be targeted by wolves, monitored and removed animals that were weak or could be a target of wolves and employed a range rider five days a week to monitor wolves and maintain a human presence on the range. The producer also delayed pasture turnout for 30 days so the calves grazing there would be bigger and perhaps better able to fend off wolves.

The closure of I-84 through the Columbia Gorge because of the Eagle Creek fire could cause delays in the delivery of the Sept. 8 edition of the Capital Press.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes readers and advertisers.

EUGENE, Ore. — A bank accused of interfering with radish seed sales is asking a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit filed against it by Oregon farmers.

A group of Oregon radish seed growers filed a complaint earlier this year against Northwest Bank of Warren, Pa., seeking $6.7 million in lost seed value and additional storage costs.

The farmers had grown the radish seed in 2014 for Cover Crop Solutions, but the company became financially defunct before paying them for the crop.

To make matters worse for the growers, Northwest Bank filed a lawsuit against them seeking to seize the radish seed as collateral for a $7 million loan it issued to Cover Crop Solutions.

The farmers prevailed against the Northwest Bank last year, when a judge dismissed the case, and then filed their own lawsuit accusing the bank of unlawfully filing meritless liens and threatening potential buyers to prevent them from selling the radish seed.

During oral arguments in Eugene, Ore., on Sept. 7, Northwest Bank asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie Russo to dismiss the lawsuit by the Radish Seed Growers’ Association and two independent farms.

The growers can’t plausibly claim the bank engaged in bad faith or improper means by trying to recover the crop, according to its motion to dismiss.

The bank has an “absolute litigation privilege” to try to collect on its loan, even if the lawsuit was unsuccessful, said Peter Hawkes, its attorney.

“It’s clear the bank had a good faith basis to assert a security interest in the seed,” Hawkes said. “They had a right to go to court and have that adjudicated.”

A federal judge held a trial to determine whether the bank held collateral in the seed and said it was not an “easy call,” he said.

While the judge ultimately ruled that farmers had a higher priority security interest in the seed, “that does not mean the bank’s argument was frivolous,” Hawkes said.

Paul Conable, attorney for the farmers, said the bank doesn’t need to be a “mustache-twisting villain” to be held liable for damages to the growers.

Rather, the bank behaved recklessly by filing invalid liens on the radish seed without conducting a rudimentary investigation of Oregon laws governing a farmer’s priority security interest in crops, Conable said.

“It didn’t bother to look before it filed those liens,” he said.

The bank admits it failed to conduct a reasonable analysis of Oregon law in a malpractice complaint it has filed against attorneys who advised on the loan, Conable said.

Even if it was the attorneys who made the mistake, that doesn’t excuse the bank from liability, he said.

“They’re responsible for the actions of their lawyers,” he said.

Similarly, people cannot avoid punishment for stealing property or committing assault because the actions were advised by a lawyer, Conable said.

“It’s a remarkable argument and also an argument that has no support in law,” he said.

The bank isn’t protected by the “absolute litigation privilege” because it hindered seed sales regardless of its lawsuit, he said.

“The interference was accomplished by filing an improper lien and sending letters to known customers,” Conable said.

Those threats and liens were not legitimized because the bank went to court against the growers, he said.

“You don’t immunize yourself from the effects of your actions by later filing a lawsuit,” he said. “There is no support for extending litigation privilege that far.”

A disease that infects Christmas trees erupted in some Pacific Northwest tree plantations last year, leading to tree loss and triggering a renewed round of research into better understanding the disease.

The disease, web blight, has been a sporadic, but relatively minor problem in Christmas trees since it was first identified in the Northwest in the late 1990s.

“I suspect that one of the reasons it was so severe this past year was because of all of the wet weather that we’ve had,” said Washington State University plant pathologist Gary Chastagner. “That provides an environment that is super conducive for spread of the pathogen.

“You need cool, moist conditions for it to spread from needle to needle,” he said.

The web blight pathogen is a type of Rhizoctonia, Chastagner said, but not the one that causes root rot or damping-off of seedlings. The disease primarily infects Douglas-fir, but this past year also showed up on noble, grand, Nordmann and Turkish fir.

Outside of some research into web blight in forest situations conducted through Oregon State University, little research has been done on the disease since preliminary studies on Christmas trees were conducted at Washington State University in the late 1990s. Chastagner said he now is revisiting that work.

“We are looking at the optimum temperature for the growth of the pathogen and development of the disease and, in collaboration with (OSU Extension Christmas Tree Specialist) Chal Landgren, we are looking at the ability of the pathogen to survive over the summer and cause problems again in the fall,” he said. “We don’t know whether those same trees that are damaged in a planting are likely to be damaged the next year, or whether new infections from the spread of inoculum from other sources, such as nearby forest trees, result in new infections.

“We don’t fully understand the sources of inoculum, what the types of inoculum are and the optimal conditions for the development of the problem,” Chastagner said. “Nor do we fully understand the extent of the susceptibility of some of the species of Christmas trees that we are growing.”

According to the Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook, web blight first appears on trees as a browning of outer foliage in roughly circular areas. Chastagner described a typical symptom as volleyball- or basketball-sized patches of brown needles, often connected by a web that can hold infected needles in place.

“What happens is this pathogen is basically growing as a web of mycelia that you can see over the surface of the needle, and it just kind of spreads from one needle to the next,” he said.

According to the handbook, under moist conditions, the fine fungal webbing may be visible. The disease, which can spread to affect as much as half the side of a tree, can be distinguished from Botrytis, or gray mold, in that the latter affects only current-year needles and shoots, and symptoms initially appear on the new growth in the spring.

In cases where trees are marginally infected, new shoots the next year will likely cover up the damage, and trees can still be brought to market. In more severe cases, growers tend to cut out trees.

“This past year there were some Douglas-fir where I would say half the tree didn’t have any needles on it anymore,” Chastagner said. The infection tended to be directional, he added. “In other words, infection was most severe on sides of the tree that were up against a forested area, or the north sides of the trees, where you might expect it to be cooler and moist longer.”

Among questions Chastagner is hoping to answer in his research is how the disease is spreading from tree to tree. “It could be doing so by spores, but that has not been demonstrated. There is a spore stage to this pathogen, but it is not clear what role that stage plays in the development of the disease, and we don’t know when the pathogen would actually be producing those spores. It could be a limited time period, or a long period of time,” he said.

“But there are other ways it can spread,” he said. “If I have trees that have the disease and I was doing culture work on the trees, I could have some of those colonized needles transferred from one tree to the next on, let’s say, a shearing knife. Or, just by walking through a planting, sometimes the needles can fall off and get on your clothes, and the next time you walk by a tree, maybe you transfer the colonized needles to another tree.

“We don’t have a good sense on how it is spreading, but there are a number of ways it could potentially spread, including the wind. If you had a windstorm, it could possibly blow needles from nearby timber into the edges of a Christmas tree planting,” he said.

Researchers also don’t know whether the pathogen survives over the summer on needles on the ground and produces a spore stage that re-enters trees, or whether it is the needles that get hung up in the tree that are able to cause infections the following year.

Chastagner and his team have collected foliage samples from several fields and are looking at the survival of the pathogen on several different types of trees, including Douglas-fir, Turkish fir, Nordmann fir, grand fir and noble fir.

“We want to see whether there is any difference (in survival of the pathogen on different hosts), so we are monitoring those (samples),” he said. “But this is the first year that we’ve done some of those types of studies.”

Among past findings from research Chastagner conducted in the late 1990s, it was shown the pathogen is sensitive to some fungicides, including Bravo, or chlorothalonil. But, Chastagner said, sprays applied in the spring to control a disease such as Swiss needle cast are unlikely to affect web blight, which appears in the fall.

Among cultural control methods identified by Chastagner and the Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook are to avoid planting trees in low-lying areas with poor air drainage and avoid planting near native stands of Douglas-fir that appear to have the disease.

Azure Farms, the organic operation that was at the center of a weed control argument in Sherman County this spring, is responding quickly to complaints and generally living up to its side of an agreement with county officials, Commissioner Tom McCoy said.

“So far, so good,” McCoy said in an email update. “I explained that I considered the weed agreement like a farm lease — not so important as a legal document, but important as a written statement of what each party should expect of the other.”

Neighboring wheat farmers, especially those who grow certified seed, have complained for years about weeds blowing onto their ground from Azure Farms, which as an organic operation would not use conventional chemical herbicides to deal with the problem. County officials said they would ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the farm’s production and warned they would spray herbicide and bill the 1,922-acre farm for the work if the weeds weren’t controlled.

Azure Farms and its parent company, Azure Standard, of Dufur, Ore., appealed to supporters on social media. County officials were flooded with anguished, angry telephone calls and nearly 60,000 emails from around the country and even internationally.

The issue came to a head at a county court meeting in May, held at the local high school gym because the crowd was so large. Brothers David and Nathan Stelzer, who head the farm and product distribution company, apologized for the social media response. They ultimately agreed to keep weeds in check using methods that won’t cause them to lose organic certification.

McCoy, the commissioner, said the county has received several complaints about noxious weeds flowering at Azure Farms and being close to producing seeds.

“When we contacted the Stelzers, they responded quickly — usually by mowing down the weeds,” McCoy said by email. “They have always seemed to accept their responsibility to keep noxious weed seeds from blowing into their neighbor’s fields.”

Portland’s downtown disappeared from view this week as thick smoke from wildfires settled in for an uncomfortable stay.

And that made it a problem, even though forest fires have been burning elsewhere in the West for several weeks.

All told, there were 65 active fires in nine Western states as of mid-day Sept. 6, including 19 in Oregon. The active fires have burned 1.4 million acres.

The biggest fire in Oregon, by far, is the Chetco Bar Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness northeast of Brookings on the Southern Oregon coast. As of mid-day Sept. 6 if had burned nearly 177,000 acres, destroyed six homes, damaged another and threatened 8,523 more.

As multiple rural residents said in effect on social media: Welcome to our world, Portland.

Some Oregonians who work in or support the state’s stagnant timber industry had another response: We told you so.

What got Portland’s attention was the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area east of the city, a spectacular 80-mile stretch of river, timber, basalt formations and waterfalls that attracts legions of climbers, hikers and scads of tourists. The chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners mourned the damage to what she called “our playground.”

The Eagle Creek Fire lit up the Gorge like a vision from hell. It began Sept. 2, jumped to 10,000 acres by mid-week and merged with the Indian Creek Fire to cover 20,000 acres.

It filled Portland with dense smoke that obliterated all scenic views. It dusted cars and porches with tiny bits of ash, forced evacuations, closed I-84 from Troutdale east to Hood River and threatened the 92-year-old lodge at Multnomah Falls, the state’s most popular natural site with 2.5 million annual visitors.

Oregon State Police said fireworks started the fire. They’ve interviewed a 15-year-old Vancouver, Wash., boy and described him as a “suspect.”

Pushed by hot, boisterous east winds, the Eagle Creek Fire hurled flaming debris up to three-quarters of a mile and even jumped the Columbia to start a fire on the Washington side. About 150 hikers on the Eagle Creek trail system had to retreat, stop in place overnight or hike out to Wahtum Lake, but were successfully evacuated.

Citing smoke and heat, Portland public schools sent students home two hours early Sept. 5 and canceled soccer games and sports practices. Many of the city’s hardcore bicycle commuters wore handkerchiefs to cover their noses and mouths. The sun and moon took turns glowing orange in the smoke filled sky. The Oregon Department of Agriculture expressed concern that farmworkers might be breathing smoke while working outside in orchards and vineyards.

If Portlanders were stunned by the wildfire’s leaping fury, many rural Oregonians and people who work in natural resource industries said the state, and much of the West, is paying the price of paralyzed forest management policy.

Critics say the state’s publicly-managed forests are primed for disastrous fires. They believe timberland agencies, especially the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, are shackled by decades of lawsuits and continued argument over endangered species, wildlife habitat, logging roads and water quality.

A stark statistic illustrates the state of affairs: Federal agencies manage 60 percent of Oregon’s forestland, nearly 18 million acres, but that land accounts for just 15 percent of the annual timber harvest, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.

The institute was created by the Oregon Legislature to enhance collaboration and to provide information about responsible forest management. One of its more recent reports estimated more than 350 million individual trees are standing dead on national forestland, providing ready fuel for catastrophic fires.

Nick Smith, executive director of a group called Healthy Forests Healthy Communities, said many urban and suburban residents in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere “don’t understand the grave conditions on the ground in our federally-owned forests.” Much of the forested landscape is at risk to fire, disease and insects due to dense and overgrown conditions, he said.

“What we’re seeing right now is just how outdated and unresponsive our current federal management policies are to conditions on the ground,” Smith said.

His group and others believe federal forest agencies lack the funding and legal and policy tools to increase logging and thinning. In particular, they believe fire suppression costs should be treated as other forms of disaster relief, like hurricanes. The Forest Service spends half its budget on wildfire suppression, Smith said.

Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden agree, but haven’t been able to bring about change. In a statement issued Sept. 6, Merkley said the fires “reinforce how important it is to get a long-term fix that would fund fighting huge wildfires the way that we fund other natural disasters.”

“Many of us are frustrated with current forest management practices,” Merkley said. “I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers to find collaborative solutions and funding to return our forests to health.”

Meanwhile, Oregon State Police want to speak with anyone who heard fireworks in the Eagle Creek Trail or Punch Bowl Falls area between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 2. The state police phone number is 503-375-3555.

Environmental Protection Agency officials reacted to the wrath of federal lawmakers over What’s Upstream by going into “damage-control mode,” simultaneously saying they couldn’t have controlled the anti-agriculture campaign but nevertheless promising to fix it, according to newly released EPA records.

The records, mostly emails between EPA employees, show an agency caught between looking impotent or complicit in an advertising and lobbying campaign waged at taxpayer expense by a Puget Sound tribe to mandate 100-foot buffers between farm fields and waterways in Washington.

In response to criticism from a U.S. senator, Liz Purchia, then EPA’s head of communications, urged colleagues to “acknowledge” that “we are not associated with it.”

“Anytime EPA and ‘campaign’ is used together it is not helpful,” she wrote in an email April 5, 2016.

The email, made public Aug. 31, is among the final batch of records released by the EPA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Save Family Farming, a group formed to counter What’s Upstream.

The group filed its FOIA request 16 months ago and has received more than 1,000 documents, detailing EPA’s part in funding and monitoring the half-million-dollar lobbying campaign.

Since the group asked for the records, the EPA’s inspector general, the Washington Public Disclosure Commission and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson have cleared the EPA, tribe and Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission of any illegal lobbying.

“Much has been accomplished by simply exposing this activity,” Save Family Farming Executive Director Gerald Baron said Tuesday. “It would have gone on. That’s the lesson. If farmers don’t stand up for themselves, they’ll get run over.”

Dennis McLerran, EPA Northwest’s administrator during the five years the agency funded What’s Upstream, said Tuesday that he tried to tone down the campaign, but didn’t have the authority to dictate its contents.

“I do recall the lawyers at the very top level of the EPA didn’t consider it lobbying and a violation of any federal requirement,” he said. “Like I said all along, this is an unfortunate situation. I tried to get the tribe to take down the billboards and change the content of the website, but it was not something under EPA control.”

Gov. Jay Inslee recently appointed McLerran to serve in an unpaid position on the Puget Sound Leadership Council, a state agency that coordinates environmental projects.

In response to criticism from U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, about the campaign, McLerran wrote a statement April 4, 2016, that for the first time said EPA funds should not have used for What’s Upstream. “We are in the process of correcting that,” he wrote.

Purchia suggested editing the statement to say the campaign “was not approved by the agency.” The statement was released saying the campaign didn’t reflect EPA’s views.

“Let’s add the word ‘outside’ before ‘campaign’ and get this out,” McLerran wrote April 5.

The statement didn’t disclose that the tribe and its hired lobbying firm, Strategies 360, had regularly submitted written updates and yearly work plans for EPA’s approval since 2011.

As criticism of the campaign increased, EPA adopted a policy of not answering questions.

McLerran, however, was sending emails to other public officials seeking to explain his side of the controversy. “We are clearly in damage-control mode,” he wrote to Washington State Conservation Commission officials.

Said McLerran: “From my perspective, I wanted for them to know facts, as I knew them.”

The newly released emails reinforce that the tribe’s environmental director, Larry Wasserman, was forthright about his goal to pass a state law and eager to get approval to spend EPA money on billboards and radio ads to rally grass-roots support during the 2016 legislative session, capping years of preparation and collaboration with environmental groups.

“I am concerned that additional delays will make our effort less effective because we have a short legislative session and we are hoping for some impact while the legislators are in Olympia,” Wasserman wrote Jan. 26, 2016, to a manager in the Puget Sound recovery program.

The records also affirm that mid-level EPA officials had misgivings about the campaign, but their concerns were rejected as having no legal grounding.

A few weeks before the agency disavowed the campaign under congressional criticism, EPA Puget Sound program specialist Gina Bonifacino wrote an email to a colleague referring to an EPA document prohibiting spending funds on political activities, including raising public support to introduce state-level legislation.

“Hi, I did not mean for you to have to spend more time on this and I know I am sticking my neck in where I don’t belong :) it just seemed so clear to me when I read this again that this website is lobbying,” Bonifacino wrote in an email Feb. 4, 2016.

The colleague, Lisa Chang, who expressed reservations about how the tribe was spending EPA money as earlier as 2012, cited EPA attorney Garth Wright in answering Bonifacino.

“I will have to go back and look at Garth’s most recent analysis, but my understanding is that since there is no specific piece of legislation — they are just asking for stronger protection of water quality — that the lobbying restrictions are not violated. That is my layperson’s understanding,” Chang wrote.

McLerran said Tuesday that he was unaware of Bonifacino’s concern. “This is the first time I have heard of that,” he said.

The EPA redacted emails from Wright, citing an attorney-client exemption. EPA’s legal advice was upheld in an audit by the inspector general.

Media reports about EPA’s funding of What’s Upstream in March 2016 provoked a strong reaction from some federal lawmakers, which brought the campaign to the attention of top-level EPA officials in Washington, D.C.

“Holy smokes this needs attention. Do we have someone on this?” EPA Deputy Chief of Staff John Reeder wrote in an email April 20, 2016, the day one-third of the U.S. House signed a letter demanding to know why the EPA funded an “anti-farmer campaign in Washington state.”

Matthew Fritz, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s chief of staff, replied: “We do. I have been talking to the (Northwest) Region about this. Long story.”

An Oregon judge has rejected claims by several Klamath Basin irrigators that state regulators wrongly shut down their groundwater wells based on faulty scientific analysis.

Marion County Circuit Court Judge Channing Bennett has ruled the Oregon Water Resources Department properly relied on “substantial evidence” to halt pumping from the four wells because they were interfering with surface water rights in the Sprague River.

Attorneys for the groundwater irrigators say the case is troubling because the OWRD’s reasoning — which was approved by the judge — effectively expands the agency’s jurisdiction over wells not only in the Klamath Basin but elsewhere in Oregon.

The dispute also pits groundwater irrigators against Klamath Basin farmers who use surface water and who support the actions of water regulators.

“We think this is the best result to protect senior water users,” said Richard Deitchman, attorney for the Tulelake Irrigation District, which intervened in the case.

The four groundwater wells in question are within less than one mile of the Sprague River, which opens them up to regulatory scrutiny for potentially affecting surface water.

After OWRD ordered pumping from the wells to stop in 2015 and 2016, a lawsuit against the agency was brought by their owners, Stanley and Dolores Stonier and Larry and Joan Sees, as well as Garrett and Cameron Duncan, who lease property from the Sees.

The plaintiffs argued their wells were drilled into a confined aquifer that’s separated from the Sprague river by layers of rock and clay, as well as a shallower alluvial aquifer.

Shutting down the wells isn’t allowed because OWRD only has jurisdiction over wells drilled into an aquifer “adjacent” to the surface water, the plaintiffs argued.

However, the judge said he couldn’t determine that those layers were of such low permeability as to hinder water flowing from the confined aquifer into the Sprague River.

Effectively, the decision accepts OWRD’s argument that it can regulate a broader “aquifer system,” even if a well isn’t drilled into an aquifer directly adjacent to a river, said Laura Schroeder, an attorney representing the groundwater irrigators.

“There’s nothing to stop Oregon Water Resources from regulating every aquifer in a basin (within a mile of surface waters) and calling it an aquifer system,” she said.

The groundwater irrigators fault OWRD for wrongly concluding that groundwater contributes to surface water flows along the portion of the Sprague River in question.

The agency improperly applied a scientific model by overestimating the ability of groundwater from the confined aquifer to eventually flow into the river, they claimed.

If used correctly, the model would have showed that water from the confined aquifer didn’t affect the surface water to a degree that would warrant regulation, according to the plaintiffs.

The judge’s decision is disappointing because he sided with OWRD without explaining how the trial evidence affected his rationale, said Sarah Liljefelt, an attorney for the groundwater irrigators.

“He really didn’t make any decision about the science,” she said. “You’re in a difficult position in which there’s a ruling against you without any real reason why.”

Richard Deitchman, attorney for the Tulelake Irrigation District, disagreed with this characterization of the ruling.

The judge must decide whether the OWRD’s actions were reasonable based on the evidence, rather than choose whose scientific theories were more convincing, he said.

“You have experts on both sides,” Deithcman said. “The judge’s role isn’t to play hydrogeologist himself. It’s to determine if there’s substantial evidence for the decision, which is what he determined here.”

The groundwater irrigators have until Sept. 25 to decide whether to appeal the judge’s opinion. They also have another case pending against OWRD related to its 2017 decision to shut down the wells.

A spokesperson for OWRD did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

GLIDE, Ore. — The front acreage of the French Creek Ranch made a transition almost overnight on Aug. 9 and 10.

When lightning strikes started multiple fires in the Umpqua National Forest about 30 miles east of this small community, officials were quick to call ranch owner Phil Strader about turning his livestock pasture and hay ground into the Umpqua North Fire Complex Fire Camp.

Strader gave his permission. The cattle that had been grazing in the field were quickly moved to another pasture on the ranch and the next day personnel began to arrive to set up a camp that would provide for a management team, hundreds of front line firefighters, a helicopter base and its pilots, a support staff and supplies, vehicles and equipment for all.

The mission of the fire camp is to contain the complex of fires that had reached almost 32,000 acres as of Tuesday, Sept. 5.

There’s close to 100 acres in the two-level pasture camp that is the temporary home of about 1,000 people, most of them firefighters with the rest being management and support staff.

Setting up a fire camp on the ranch is nothing new. Strader said in the last 15 years, this is the eighth or ninth time a fire camp has been set up on the ranch that has been in his family for 95 years.

The ground is leased to the U.S. Forest Service so there is reimbursement for the ranch, but Strader said he also gives permission for the fire camp because it benefits many of his neighbors and their businesses in nearby Glide.

“If they were to set up the camp farther up into the forest, there would be no economic benefit for this small community,” Strader said. “They’re spending a good deal of money fighting these fires so I’d like to see a benefit for the community. It’s just a guess, but the local restaurants, stores, gas stations may do more like a month’s worth of business in just a week with the influx of personnel.”

On the camp’s lower level, there are large tents for sleeping and smaller tents, each with a different purpose, including operations, planning, logistics, human resources, air operations, finance, and medical and safety. There is also a kitchen that runs the inside length of a semi trailer, a large portable barbecue, a dining area, three or four trailers that offer wash basins and soap to clean up, a couple trailers that offer showers, a laundry service, port-a-potties and stacks of supplies such as bottled water, energy drinks, fire retardant pants and shirts, and numerous other items.

The upper level is a helicopter base.

Spread out under the oak trees on both levels are a couple hundred colorful popup tents that provide individual private resting places.

“It’s right alongside a road (Highway 138), it’s near a community, it’s close to a (Forest Service) district office,” Cheryl Caplan, a spokeswoman for the Umpqua National Forest, said of the benefits of the ranch as a fire camp. “The amenities are really great with electricity and the internet available. Having the two fields allows us to put a type 1 heli base next to a type 1 incident management team and the firefighters. It’s unusual to find all that packaged together so close to a national forest.”

Kyle Reed, a public information officer with the Douglas Forest Protective Association in Roseburg, said it is of great benefit to know in advance that a landowner will be cooperative and give permission to use his land when a fire camp needs to be established.

“Everything you would need is there or close by and it is easily accessible,” Reed said of the ranch.

Strader said fire management officials have expressed their appreciation of his cooperation. He said before any changes have been made to the camp that impacts the ground, officials have checked with him first.

He explained that with vehicles, heavy equipment and hundreds of people using the camp, the ground is impacted.

“Generally they are good about reimbursing the cost for rehabbing the fields,” Strader said of the disking and reseeding that must be done after the camp is taken down. Typically, it gets done and there is grass there the next spring.”

The ranch is home to 400 mother cows. The ranch’s latest crop of calves has been shipped.

While smoke from the fires is hanging low over the area, Strader said he hasn’t seen any negative effects on the ranch’s cows that are in early gestation of their pregnancies.

“This is probably going to continue until some season ending rain storms in late September or early October,” said Strader.

Until those rains, part of his ranch is a fire camp that has the look of a mini city.

Current staff member Mallory Phelan has been appointed interim executive director of Oregon Aglink, the non-profit organization that attempts to help urban Oregonians better understand agriculture.

Phelan, who turns 30 in September, confirmed she has applied to replace Geoff Horning, who left to become CEO of Oregon Hazelnut Industries. Phelan, who has worked for Oregon Aglink four years, is vice president of operations.

The stated mission of Oregon Aglink is to bridge the gap between urban and rural Oregonians by helping people better understand where their food and fiber come from.

The organization’s activities include placing roadside crop identification signs, which it does in partnership with Oregon Women for Agriculture. Phelan said she is especially proud of Oregon Aglink’s “Adopt a Farmer” program, in which schools link up with producers for field trips and presentations. The program has grown from 18 schools and farms a few years ago to 50 this fall.

Phelan grew up working on her family’s grass seed farm between Albany and Lebanon in the mid-Willamette Valley. She earned a business administration degree at the University of Portland and at first had “no intention of working in agriculture,” as she put it. She taught English in Peru for eight months before returning to the U.S. and taking what initially was intended as a six-month position at Oregon Aglink.

“It was kind of like coming home,” she said. “I didn’t realize what I was missing.”

Phelan said she most enjoys working with producers and helping them tell their stories