SALEM — An incident of prejudice against pigs near the state capital has Oregon lawmakers contemplating a broader prohibition against livestock discrimination.

A landowner in West Salem is facing a prohibition against raising pigs on properties smaller than 10 acres due to a species-specific regulation by Polk County’s government.

The dispute has caught the attention of Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, and Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, who have proposed a bill that would ban county ordinances that generally allow livestock but forbid certain animals.

“It’s weird to exclude one particular species,” Evans said during a March 23 hearing on House Bill 3016.

Evans drew a parallel to George Orwell’s classic book, “Animal Farm,” in which all animals are equal but then some become more equal than others.

Species-specific livestock restrictions seem to run counter to the philosophy of Oregon’s “right to farm” law, which disallows local restrictions against common farming practices, he said.

Such prohibitions are also at odds with the growing movement toward local foods, which requires that farms be located close to urban areas, Evans said.

“It was curious to me that swine were called out,” he said.

In the case that spurred the proposal, though, the situation is complicated because the property is located within the “urban growth boundary” for Salem, but isn’t actually within the city limits, Evans said.

The “right to farm” law only applies to land zoned for farming and forestry uses, said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which supports HB 3016.

The West Salem property in question is within a suburban residential zone, though the county may rezone the property to resolve the conflict, said Mark Nystrom, policy manager of the Association of Oregon Counties.

The Association of Oregon Counties opposes HB 3016 due to its “all or nothing” approach to local livestock regulations, he said.

It’s possible that some county governments will simply decide to ban all livestock in certain zones if they’re not allowed to have species-specific ordinances, he said.

Nystrom also pointed out that in “Animal Farm,” it was the pigs that ended up taking over the property and becoming the oppressors.

The exchange elicited a comment from Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scapoose, who was waiting to testify on other legislation related to shellfish, but said she was grateful the committee was considering the swine-related bill.

“I’ve spent countless nights worried about porcine presence in populated areas,” she said.

SALEM — A proposed $100 annual fee on all Oregon water rights has met with criticism from irrigators who say it would contribute to already mounting financial burdens.

Farmers overwhelmingly testified against House Bill 2706, which aims to raise money for water management, during a March 22 hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Environment.

Members of the Klamath Water Users Association, for example, are already paying steep costs to comply with the Endangered Species Act and engage in water rights adjudication in the region, said Dave Jensen, a farmer and representative of the group.

“Would $100 break a bunch of farmers out there? Probably not, but there is always the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Jensen said.

For irrigators with multiple water rights, the bill would cap total fees at $1,000 a year, while municipalities could pay up to $2,500 a year.

The money raised would pay for the administrative, technical and field duties performed by the Oregon Water Resources Department, which oversees 89,000 water rights in the state.

The bill would effectively impose a discriminatory tax on irrigators and other water users, said Curtis Martin, a rancher and chair of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s water resources committee.

“There is no additional service being delivered to the users of the resource,” Martin said.

Opponents also argue that electricity costs have continued rising, adding to the cost of pumping water, and irrigators would have to pay the management fee even if they didn’t fully use their water rights.

“When they shut you off, you still have to pay that bill,” said Tom Mallams, a rancher and Klamath County commissioner.

House Bill 2705, a companion proposal requiring the installation of water measurement devices at irrigation diversions, also drew objections from irrigators at the hearing.

Complying with the requirement would be expensive and the Oregon Water Resources Department doesn’t have enough staff to analyze the new information anyway, said John O’Keeffe, president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

“Additional data for the sake of data does not solve any problem,” O’Keeffe said.

It would be more realistic to ensure that watermasters — who can already order water measurements when necessary — are properly equipped to do their jobs, he said.

Installing water measurement devices also isn’t practical for farmers who rely on flood irrigation and divert water directly from streams onto fields, according to opponents.

Some opponents also questioned the fairness and wisdom of exempting domestic well users from the bill.

“If you’re going to manage water, I don’t know how you’re going to do that without looking at private wells,” said Irene Gilbert of La Grande, Ore.

Water conservation groups argued that a new funding source is needed because OWRD’s cost of administering water rights is largely borne by state taxpayers.

The private interests who primarily benefit from the system, meanwhile, only pay a one-time application fee to establish water rights, said Kimberley Priestley, senior policy analyst with WaterWatch of Oregon.

“This is the public’s water. The public is currently paying through the general fund for the management of its water,” said Priestley.

An annual management fee has already been identified as a stable source of funding by the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees OWRD, she said.

As for measurement devices, the requirement is needed because “what gets measured gets managed,” Priestley said.

Proponents claim that only 20 percent of Oregon’s water rights holders currently measure and report their usage, since this is a requirement for irrigation districts, governments and those with rights issued since 1993.

Despite recognition by the Oregon Water Resources Commission as a key management tool, there has been limited progress in expanding water measurement, according to bill supporters.

“We can no longer afford to put our heads in the sand and pretend water management issues will just go away,” said Joe Furia, general counsel for the Freshwater Trust nonprofit.

The committee’s chair, Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, said the bills were “conversation starters” and would likely change in response to input from a “broad stakeholder group” he’s convened, which includes agriculture and environmental groups.

SALEM — A proposed tax credit to compensate farmers for half the operational costs of providing worker housing has made some headway in the Oregon Legislature.

Senate Bill 1, which is supported by a coalition of agriculture and housing groups, has moved out of the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue. The impacts to Oregon’s revenues and budget from SB 1 have yet to be determined.

While the bill will now move to the Joint Committee on Tax Credits, which includes members of both the House and Senate, it was referred out of the committee without recommendation as to its passage.

It’s common for the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue to move bills without a recommendation at this stage, since various tax credit proposals must still be prioritized, said Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, the committee’s chair.

“We don’t want to bias the situation,” he said.

The Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue initially voted to move the bill directly to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, but that recommendation was overridden by Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, who referred it to the Joint Committee on Tax Credits.

If approved by that committee, the bill would move directly to the House floor for a vote.

Bills that reduce state revenues — whether due to expenditures or tax credits — face a particularly tough road during the 2017 legislative session, as Oregon faces a $1.6 billion budget deficit in the upcoming biennium.

Under Senate Bill 1, farmers would be able to obtain tax credits for half the amount of repairs, maintenance, insurance and other costs associated with farmworker housing during the year.

Utility expenses are also included in these operational costs unless they’re paid by workers.

Oregon already has a tax credit for half the costs of actually building farmworker housing, with an annual cap of $7.25 million.

ONTARIO, Ore. — The Owyhee River basin is expected to provide the Owyhee Reservoir so much water this year that water supply managers are now focusing much of their attention on flood control efforts.

The reservoir, which provides water for 1,800 farms and 118,000 acres in Eastern Oregon and part of southwestern Idaho, is 90 percent full and would completely fill within nine days at the current pace.

However, Owyhee Irrigation District board members have opted to increase the already high rate of release below the dam to keep a 50,000 acre-foot buffer in the reservoir for the next several weeks in case warm temperatures or a significant rain event result in a rush of water toward the reservoir.

If that happened, reservoir outflows would have to be increased dramatically, which could result in major flooding of farm fields along the Owyhee River.

“The basin is just saturated; there’s water everywhere out there,” OID Manager Jay Chamberlin said March 21 during the district’s annual meeting. “We’re running out of room (in the reservoir). We’re going to have to pick up the releases below the dam ... and slow the rate of fill.”

For now, there is minor flooding occurring at the bottom ends of some farm fields but water managers want to ensure major flooding doesn’t occur, said Malheur County farmer and OID board member Bruce Corn.

“Barring a major rain event, I don’t think we’ll have any major flooding on the Owyhee this year,” he said. But in order to ensure that doesn’t happen, “we’re trying to save about 50,000 acre-feet of storage to be able to absorb any short-term, rapid increase in flows.”

Even with the increased releases, filling the reservoir to its 715,000 acre-foot storage capacity, which hasn’t happened since 2011, won’t be a problem this year.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation forecasts that hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water is still headed toward the reservoir, which can hold a two-year supply of water.

That’s great news for local farmers, who had their normal 4-acre-foot allotment of water significantly reduced from 2012-2015 due to drought conditions.

“That means we will have two adequate water years,” Corn said. “That sits well for next year already and it takes one big worry out of farming.”

As expected, the OID board set this year’s allotment at 4-acre-feet March 21 and it also decided to allow the sale of excess water, which hasn’t occurred on this system since 2011.

In a typical year when excess water is available, about 30,000 acre-feet is purchased by irrigators, depending on weather conditions and crop rotations.

Due to warmer than normal temperatures, snowmelt and runoff in the basin is occurring earlier than normal, “but we have lots of it,” said Brian Sauer, water operations manager for the Bureau of Reclamation’s middle Snake River field office.

“Everything looks pretty good in most of East Oregon,” he said. In fact, he added, “The whole northwest is looking pretty good this spring.”

Federal funding is available to help Washington County farmers and other landowners improve water quality and fish habitat by planting trees, putting up fences to keep livestock out of streams and updating irrigation systems.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is partnering on the program with Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District, with an assist from Clean Water Services, the regional sewage agency. The work is intended to improve the Dairy Creek and McKay Creek watersheds. The creeks are tributaries of the Tualatin River, and the system hosts a run of steelhead trout and is home to a native cuthroat trout population, said Dean Moberg, regional conservationist with NRCS.

Agricultural producers can apply for cost-share funding. The application deadline for 2017 funding is May 19; producers who apply after that might be eligible for funding in 2018. To apply, visit the USDA Hillsboro Service Center, 1080 SW Baseline Road, Suite B-2, or contact Moberg at Dean.Moberg@or.nrcs.usda.gov.

The funding builds on 10 years of work by the Tualatin SWCD to improve 39 miles of streams in the area. Moberg, of NRCS, said conservation efforts are aimed at reducing phosphorous and bacteria levels in the Tualatin River. Fertilizer use and livestock waste contribute to both. Planting trees along streams also can shade and cool the water, which is better for fish, he said.

Washington County, which borders Portland and Multnomah County on the west, is Oregon’s second most populous with more than 583,000 people. It’s also home to two of the state’s biggest companies: Intel, the high-tech firm, and Nike, the sportswear giant.

Despite that, the county remains surprisingly rural outside its major cities of Hillsboro and Beaverton, and is consistently within the top six agricultural counties in the state. The county’s producers grow hazelnuts, grass seed, wine grapes and berries, among other things.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has upheld a $1.5 million judgment against Land O’Lakes Purina Feed for selling defective feed to an Oregon dairy.

Neal and Nancy Kaste, who own a dairy farm near Tillamook, Ore., won $750,000 in a lawsuit that accused the manufacturer of supplying feed containing hazardous levels of proteins, phosphorous and copper.

The plaintiffs claimed the defective feed sickened or killed many of their cows, causing the dairy to spend money on veterinary treatments and sustain financial losses for which Land O’Lakes was liable.

After a jury found in favor of the dairy, Tillamook County Circuit Court Judge Jonathan Hill ordered the feed manufacturer to pay $750,000 in compensation for damages and another $760,000 in attorney fees.

Land O’Lakes challenged the decision before the Oregon Court of Appeals, which has now rejected the manufacturer’s arguments that the judge should have issued a “directed verdict” in its favor.

The judge could have issued a directed verdict if the evidence was legally insufficient for the dairy to win the lawsuit, but the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled this action wasn’t required.

The dairy presented adequate evidence of suffering direct damages from the breach of contract, for which the judge awarded it about $89,000, the ruling said.

“From that evidence, the jury permissibly could find that plaintiffs had been damaged in an amount equal to the purchase price of the feed: Plaintiffs paid for feed with a value of the contract price, but received feed with no value, given its toxicity,” the appellate court said.

Aside from the $89,000 in compensation for breach of contract, the judge also awarded the dairy $661,000 for tort claims, which alleged a wrongful act causing a loss.

Land O’Lakes argued that its contract with the dairy precluded such tort damages, but the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled the contract language was ambiguous and didn’t entitle the manufacturer to a directed verdict.

The appellate court also rejected the company’s argument against paying the dairy’s attorney fees, ruling that it had properly amended its lawsuit to seek such a remedy.

ONTARIO, Ore. — East Oregon’s farming industry is supporting a bill that would create a special economic development region in Eastern Oregon with the goal of helping the area compete on a more level playing field with Idaho.

House Bill 2012, co-sponsored by House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, and Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, would provide $10 million to invest in economic and workforce development in Eastern Oregon.

During a March 20 public hearing on the legislation, East Oregon farm industry representatives and elected officials testified in favor of it via video conference.

Farmers and others in the area have long felt separated from and forgotten by the western part of Oregon.

During the hearing, Nyssa onion farmer Paul Skeen tossed his scripted testimony and just spoke from the heart.

“This is a breath of fresh air,” he said. “We have gone from feeling like we were the ugly stepchild in the Cinderella story to, well, maybe there actually is a shoe that’s going to fit. This is huge.”

The bill would create a seven-member Eastern Oregon Border Economic Development Board that would be tasked with recommending changes to rules and regulations that could help Eastern Oregon businesses compete better with their Idaho counterparts.

Besides having a much lower minimum wage, Idahoans enjoy a more favorable business climate when it comes to land-use and other regulations, Bentz told Capital Press.

“Oregon has a lot of rules and regulations that make competing with Idaho challenging,” he said. The board would identify rules that should be changed “to make that area function better in light of its adjacency with Idaho.”

The board would use the $10 million to invest in grants or loans to encourage workforce development and economic development in the region.

Bentz said a major focus of that investment would be to create more value-added agricultural jobs.

“The nature of our economy is agriculture so we need some more value-added activities,” he said.

Bentz said the board would assist with an ongoing effort to lure a rail transloading facility to the area with the goal of making it cheaper to ship freight, including farm commodities such as onions, which underpin the region’s economy.

Such a facility would be a great benefit to the onion industry, said Kay Riley, marketing order chairman for the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee.

Onions produced in the area that are headed to the East Coast must be trucked to a transloading facility near Pasco, Wash., and then shipped by rail.

Having a transloading facility here would save local shippers a significant amount of money in transportation costs, Riley said.

“It would be absolutely tremendous,” he said.

Kotek, who visited the area last July at the request of Bentz, said she learned a lot about the plight East Oregon businesses face when competing with Idaho.

“This bill is an attempt to say, ‘What can we do to help the communities right on that border be more competitive,’” she said.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Accelerated restoration is coming to the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, including an increase in logging and burning.

The U.S. Forest Service has approved a massive proposal to treat more than 100,000 acres on the Wallowa Valley Ranger District north of Enterprise, part of a broader regional effort to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration across Eastern Oregon and Washington.

Tom Montoya, supervisor for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, signed a record of decision for the Lower Joseph Creek Restoration Project on Friday. Activities will include more than 16,500 acres of commercial logging and fuels reduction, and up to 90,000 acres of prescribed burning over the next decade.

It is the first major project to be completed by the Blue Mountains Restoration Strategy Team, a group of local Forest Service employees that formed in 2013 to step up restoration, make landscapes healthier and lower the risk of devastating wildfires.

But the plan isn’t without controversy, as stakeholders continue to wrestle with the environmental and economic impacts of such a large effort. The project garnered input from Wallowa County, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Wallowa-Whitman Forest Collaborative, consisting of both environmental and timber industry representatives.

Montoya admits the parties did not reach a perfect consensus, but said he is pleased with the result.

“This project, safe to say, is a priority not only for this forest, but for the region,” Montoya said.

The Lower Joseph Creek Restoration Project began with a 2014 watershed assessment by the Wallowa County Natural Resources Advisory Committee, which identified 20,000 acres of forestland at very high risk due to heavy fuel loads and overstocking of trees that could be commercially logged.

Another 21,370 acres were recommended for thinning smaller trees, for a combined estimated value of more than $67 million.

The Blue Mountains Restoration Strategy Team decided to take up Lower Joseph Creek under the umbrella of accelerated restoration, making forests more resilient to things like fire and disease while also protecting natural resources and supporting the local economy by boosting timber production.

The project area is on the northern boundary of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and includes portions of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. Joseph Creek provides critical habitat to Snake River steelhead, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Ten different groups and individuals filed objections with the Forest Service after the agency released its draft decision for Lower Joseph Creek last year. Montoya said they were able to work through some of their disagreements — such as roadless-area conservation and limiting the size of trees that can be harvested — but not everything.

“My goal was to see if we could move a little closer to meeting everyone’s thoughts and concerns out there,” Montoya said.

Neil McCusker, a silviculturist with the Blue Mountains Restoration Strategy Team, said the natural condition of local forests has changed over time.

As fire suppression has improved, McCusker said the forest is becoming increasingly dense — as much as 10 to 20 times in some areas of the Lower Joseph Creek watershed. Higher density means more fuels for fires to become large infernos, and has even changed the composition of tree species, allowing shade-tolerant firs to expand significantly.

The Lower Joseph Creek Restoration Project will involve cutting trees across roughly 17,000 acres and using prescribed fire on up to 90,000 acres to bring the forest back in line with historical conditions, McCusker said.

“Really, the focus is on thinning all age classes out on the landscape and retaining old trees wherever they may be,” he said.

The final project also calls for improving or replacing six culverts to boost fish passage, and closes 12 miles of roads to address resource concerns while opening 23 miles of roads to provide public access.

Paul Boehne, fisheries biologist for the restoration team, said they primarily looked at treatments around streams that do not contain any fish populations. These riparian areas are mostly at higher elevations, he said, and make up 20-25 percent of any given watershed.

But even though the streams do not host fish, Boehne said they serve an important ecological function, providing cold water and filtering sediment where fish do swim.

“That’s the value of those large trees standing in the riparian habitat conservation area,” he said. “We want to protect those.”

Boehne said the Lower Joseph Creek project will not touch old growth trees in riparian zones, and foresters will work to maintain a minimum level of canopy to ensure the water doesn’t get too warm, and snow doesn’t melt too fast.

More controversially, the project aims to treat 31 acres around Swamp Creek, a tributary of Joseph Creek that does support steelhead. Boehne, however, argues the work is justified, citing lodgepole pine trees that have encroached on the area.

“They shouldn’t be there,” he said. “It should be a wet meadow that stores water like a sponge.”

Instead, Boehne said those trees are sucking up water that would otherwise filter back into the stream for fish. Ultimately, Montoya agreed in his decision.

“I felt, based on specialists, that we needed to do a little bit of work in Swamp Creek,” Montoya said.

Several environmental groups have expressed concerns with the plan, though they are continuing to review the details of the final proposal before determining the next steps.

Rob Klavins, Eastern Oregon field coordinator for Oregon Wild, said the organization has spent hundreds of hours over several years to find common ground on the project. The Forest Service, he said, continues to use restoration to treat symptoms in the forest, rather than addressing the underlying management issues.

“Given the politics and special interests behind it, it’s been clear for some time that come hell or high water, this project was going to go forward, push boundaries and test the limits of public trust,” Klavins said.

Brian Kelly, restoration director for the Hells Canyon Preservation Council, said the organization remains concerned about logging in remote forests.

“Joseph Canyon is a magnificent place,” Kelly said. “Hells Canyon Preservation Council has worked incredibly hard through the Wallowa-Whitman Forest Collaborative to find solutions for this project. We are extremely disappointed that those efforts apparently did not succeed.”

Darren Williams, a staff attorney for the Nez Perce Tribe, said they are still reviewing the final decision and were not ready to comment.

Lindsay Warness, forest policy analyst for Boise Cascade, said the company was disappointed that the Forest Service removed an amendment that would have allowed the company to cut 21-inch trees under certain circumstances, but overall feels it is a good project.

“We’re happy to see it finally come out,” Warness said. “It’s been under consideration for a very long time.”

Boise Cascade will bid on timber sales, the first of which is expected to be prepared by the end of 2018, according to Montoya. In all, the Lower Joseph Creek Restoration Project is expected to make up to 7.5 million board feet available for harvest and support 50 jobs.

Of Boise Cascade’s five Eastern Oregon plants, only the plywood facility in Elgin is operating at full capacity. As it stands, Warness said the company imports wood from up to 250 miles away. The Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman forests would need to triple its allowable harvest for Boise Cascade to maintain current mill infrastructure, she added.

“We need a sustainable supply of material from these national forests,” she said. “We need to have more of these projects going at the same time across the northern Blue Mountains.”

Moving forward, the Blue Mountains Restoration Strategy Team is now working toward an even bigger project that would target 1.2 million acres on the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman and Ochoco national forests. If approved, the proposal would be 13 times as big as Lower Joseph Creek, spanning 13 counties in Eastern Oregon and Washington.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon found four men guilty Tuesday of misdemeanor counts of trespassing and tampering with government vehicles and equipment during last year’s high-profile takeover of a wildlife refuge after a bench trial that was overshadowed by the conviction of the same men by a jury on more serious felony charges.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown found defendants Jason Patrick, Darryl Thorn, Duane Ehmer and Jake Ryan guilty of the lesser crimes 11 days after the men were convicted by a Portland jury of charges ranging from conspiracy to possession of firearms in a federal facility. Patrick was also found guilty of destruction and removal of property on Tuesday.

Early in the trial proceedings, Brown separated the misdemeanors from the felonies and pegged them for a bench trial over the objections of the defense, who felt allowing the jury — and not the judge — to consider the lesser charges would have helped their clients.

Patrick, who was part of the initial group that seized the refuge in remote southeastern Oregon, has said he will appeal the case.

They all face years in prison at a sentencing hearing set for next month.

Thorn, Ehmer and Ryan remain free while awaiting sentencing but Patrick chose to turn himself in Tuesday.

The outcome for these four men is sharply different from their fellow occupiers, who were tried in the same court last fall.

Brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five others were acquitted of conspiracy charges by a different jury in a verdict that was seen as a major upset of the prosecution.

But the U.S. attorney’s office refused to dismiss charges against the second round of lesser-known defendants.

Dozens of people occupied the refuge from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11, 2016, to show support for two Oregon ranchers who were imprisoned for setting fires on federal rangeland.

The defendants said their takeover was a constitutionally protected protest against federal control of public lands in the Western U.S.

The armed crowd was allowed to come and go for several weeks as authorities tried to avoid bloodshed seen in past standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

Prosecutors argued in both cases that the defendants had conspired to overrun the refuge and occupy it — and in doing so, they had prevented federal workers from doing their jobs there.

The Bundys and other key figures were arrested in a Jan. 26, 2016 traffic stop outside the refuge that ended when police fatally shot occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. Most occupiers of the refuge left shortly after Finicum’s death, including the four defendants in the current trial, but a few holdouts remained for a few more weeks before surrendering.

A total of 26 people were indicted on the conspiracy charge.

In addition to the 11 who appeared in the two trials, 14 pleaded guilty and charges were dropped against one man.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Dead cattle floating in a reservoir just west of the Oregon-Idaho border are causing trouble for tourists.

The Idaho Statesman reports about 10 to 15 cattle carcasses were discovered floating in Owyhee Reservoir in Malheur County, Oree, on Sunday. The cattle died as a result of heavy snow burying their winter forage and ranchers’ inability to reach the livestock with food.

Malheur Sheriff Brian Wolfe says the carcasses are alarming to recreationists, who don’t know what caused their deaths. The carcasses are also spread out, making them hard to avoid.

Wolfe says he wants to assure the public that the livestock didn’t die of neglect or abuse. He says he’s going to send his marine deputy out this week to assess the situation and hopefully devise a plan for removal.

SALEM — The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality expects to lose more than 30 people in the agency’s core programs protecting air and water quality because of President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget, according to an internal DEQ memo.

If the preliminary numbers hold true, those cuts would further weaken an agency already struggling with staff and funding shortages. The DEQ’s water and air quality programs have been criticized for lengthy permit backlogs and heavy metals pollution in Portland that went undetected for years.

According to DEQ’s analysis, which assumes a 45 percent reduction in funding to states based on the Trump administration’s budget proposals, starting in 2018 the state agency could lose:

• 14 employees who study and regulate water quality.

• 11 employees who monitor air quality and issue permits.

• Four employees in agency management.

• Three employees who oversee hazardous waste handling.

The Trump administration’s budget blueprint would reduce funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent — the biggest percentage drop of any agency in the discretionary budget. That includes funding for state programs and grants that flow through states to nonprofits and local governments.

Trump’s budget is both preliminary and scarce on details. Funding for the EPA and other environmental programs ultimately depends on Congress.

DEQ has asked the Oregon Legislature for a small amount of money, “but this reduction would probably make things worse,” agency director Richard Whitman said.

“Resources on the state side are in bad shape in this particular budget cycle. There’s not an expectation that general fund money will be available,” he said.

The loss of 11 air quality employees would be significant for an agency that in recent years has come under criticism for conducting too little air monitoring, failing to respond to citizen complaints and taking too few steps to reduce the public’s risk from air toxics.

Whitman said there is adequate state funding to continue the work of Cleaner Air Oregon, an initiative in response to the scare over toxic air in Portland that aims to create health-based regulations for air pollution.

Clean air advocate Mary Peveto said she worries those rules will be ineffective without enough staff to make sure polluters abide by them.

“We already knew without these cuts that enforcement by our agency was problematic,” said Peveto, director of the Portland-based Neighbors for Clean Air. “These cuts are just doubling down on that reality.”

Oregon’s water quality program, which would lose more than a dozen people, currently has one of the country’s worst backlogs of expired water quality permits, which means wastewater plants and other facilities are allowed to pollute at levels that may violate current protections for the state’s waterways.

Whitman expects Trump administration cuts elsewhere would worsen this and other aspects of water quality.

A significant reason for the backlog, besides staff resources, is DEQ’s reluctance to demand costly wastewater infrastructure upgrades from small cities and towns without the funds to pay for them. Despite campaign promises to improve the nation’s infrastructure, Trump’s budget blueprint keeps EPA funding for wastewater infrastructure relatively stable while eliminating a $500 million Department of Agriculture loan program for rural water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades.

“There’s a clear, obvious, very callous disregard for the weakest and the poorest among us in those figures,” said Mark Riskedahl of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center said about the Trump administration budget. NEDC is one of two groups currently suing to force an update of old water quality permits in Oregon.

“So many environmental problems and environmental issues, the burdens of those are disproportionately felt by people who are in low income communities and communities of color,” Riskedahl said. Trump has also proposed cutting the EPA’s environmental justice program.

The DEQ analysis also projects reductions for programs that deal with runoff pollution and with farm and forest lands along Oregon’s coast.

Oregon has been out of compliance with federal standards to protect coastal water quality in recent years.

The EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oversee a program to control coastal water pollution and protect endangered marine species like salmon. In 2015, they pulled $2 million in annual federal funding from Oregon after deciding the state’s coastal water pollution rules didn’t adequately protect fish from logging impacts.

Trump’s budget blueprint calls for cutting that coastal program so much that Oregon’s noncompliance with it would essentially become moot, Whitman said.

The proposed reductions would also lead to likely slowdowns for the Portland Harbor superfund cleanup. Trump’s budget blueprint would cut EPA’s superfund program by $330 million.

While the cleanup itself is to be paid for by dozens of parties that are legally responsible, the process relies on EPA oversight. Without staff at the federal level to approve and implement the cleanup, Whitman said many of the steps could stall. A greater burden is expected to fall to states, but DEQ currently lacks the staff to take on that workload without slowing the cleanup.

Other states are also taking stock of what staff and programs they might lose because of the proposed EPA budget.

“We’re still lacking details from the federal administration on what exactly this means for Washington,” Washington Ecology Spokeswoman Sandi Peck said. “But we are doing assessments in all of our environmental programs on what it could mean and preparing for budget drills.”

Ecology receives about $48 million per year from the EPA, most of which is passed on to communities.

“Our own employees are very interested in knowing what this means also,” Peck said.

PENDLETON, Ore. — The northernmost agricultural pad at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport is open for business.

Members of the Pendleton Airport Commission held a special meeting Monday to resolve safety concerns between the pad and nearby drone operations. The city recently purchased two 40-foot shipping containers that will act as a blast wall to protect sensitive equipment. The containers are expected to arrive at the airport by Wednesday.

Darryl Abling, who manages the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range, previously recommended the airport temporarily close the ag pad while UAS activities are relocated to the north end of the airfield. The concern, Abling said, was planes kicking up rocks and debris that could possibly damage drones or injure flight crews.

After meeting with stakeholders last week, Abling agreed a barrier would be an effective solution in the short term. Crop dusting pilots stressed the need to settle the issue quickly, since farmers are already applying fertilizer to their fields and the window for work is finite.

Two pilots had expressed interest in using the disputed ag pad — Andrew Kilgore, of K2 Aerial Application, and Brad Wahl, of Wildhorse Helicopters. Kilgore hired an attorney after he was denied use of the pad, but never got to the point of litigation.

There was some discussion about making the pad open to the public under a pay-as-you-go system, though that raised questions about who would manage the pad and whether it would open the city to liability. As it is, the airport leases its ag pads to single operators.

The airport commission ultimately agreed it would lease the pad to Wahl, who would share use with Kilgore.

“I don’t think it has to be complicated,” Wahl said. “I think I can work with him, he can work with me and that would be fine.”

Kilgore’s attorney, Michael Schultz, said he felt the agreement was a step in the right direction.

“I am heartened that we are in the position today where we are cooperating,” Schultz said.

Robb Corbett, Pendleton city manager, questioned whether the airport commission and city council should consider changes in how the ag pads are managed and leased to ensure a pilot is not excluded in the future.

“I understand there’s cooperation going on now, but there may be times when there isn’t,” Corbett said.

Alan Gronewold, airport commission chairman, said that is a subject they will visit at a future meeting.

SALEM — Critics of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of livestock antibiotics want the state of Oregon to do it instead.

Over several years, the FDA has phased out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion and feed efficiency in livestock with the voluntary cooperation of pharmaceutical companies.

However, this approach hasn’t satisfied critics who say that antibiotics can still be used excessively by livestock producers for the prevention — rather than treatment — of disease.

“The loophole is they’re still allowing these drugs to be used on healthy animals,” said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist with the Consumers Union, during a recent legislative hearing.

Under House Bill 785, Oregon livestock producers would only be able to provide a “medically important antibiotic” to their animals if a veterinarian determines it’s necessary to treat or control the spread of a disease or infection, or due to a medical procedure.

Farms that are considered “concentrated animal feeding operations” — such as many dairies and feedlots — would have to submit information about their antibiotic usage to the state government, with those records subject to disclosure as public documents.

Opponents argue the bill’s provisions unnecessarily infringe on a solution devised by the FDA at a federal level, creating state-specific restrictions that will leave Oregon’s livestock industry at a competitive disadvantage.

“They unfairly single out livestock producers,” said Nathan Jackson, president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

The record-keeping requirements contained in HB 785 have also perturbed agriculture groups, who say they’re overly burdensome without being useful.

Chad Allen, president of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, said he already tracks antibiotic usage at his dairy near Tillamook, Ore., but objected to submitting records to state authorities.

“It doesn’t serve the public any good for me to hand that over and bring a spotlight into my business,” Allen said.

Supporters of HB 785 said the FDA’s approach is ineffective because growth promotion accounted for less than one-fourth of antibiotic usage in livestock production.

Roughly two-thirds of livestock antibiotic usage has been devoted to disease prevention, which isn’t affected by the FDA policy and allows animals to be kept in “crowded, factory farm conditions,” said Hansen.

It’s also “blatantly false” and a “mischaracterization” to claim that FDA’s strategy is binding on the livestock industry, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit activist group that supports HB 785.

The FDA has issued guidance recommending certain actions to pharmaceutical manufacturers but these suggestions are not enforceable, Kimbrell said.

“What the FDA has done here does not have the force of law,” he said.

Opponents of HB 785 argue it’s a misconception that FDA’s policy is merely voluntary.

As of early 2017, all animal drug manufacturers have committed to change the labeled uses of antibiotics, so veterinarians cannot prescribe the drugs for growth promotion or similar uses, according to opponents.

“I am highly scrutinized and it is law,” said Chuck Meyer, a veterinarian and past president of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association.

Veterinarians can’t rely on vague possibilities and must provide specific reasons to prescribe antibiotics, such as the illness of some herd members, said Mark Wustenberg, a veterinarian and vice president of producer relations for the Tillamook County Creamery Association.

“You have to have some strong justification to say there’s a disease entity you’re targeting in that population,” he said.

Veterinarians know when livestock immune systems are likely to be suppressed — due to weather events, for example — which makes disease outbreaks more likely, said Meyer.

“The difference between prevention and treatment is usually 24 hours,” he said.

At least two Willamette Valley vineyards are building new wineries to produce white and sparkling wines, perhaps indicating an expanding market in a region best known for red Pinot noir.

Domaine Serene, of Dundee Hills, has begun construction of an 8,000-square-foot winery dedicated to producing Chardonnay, sparkling wine and a white version of Pinot noir, the wine that made the Willamette Valley a player in the international wine scene.

The facility is expected to be ready in time for the 2018 harvest. Domaine Serene also has planted 25 acres of Chardonnay grapes over the past three years.

“We’re doubling down on it,” company spokesman Matthew Thompson said. “We feel very good about the high quality of Oregon Chardonnay.”

Reviewers appear to agree. Wine Spectator magazine rated Domaine Serene’s 2014 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay second among the 10 best wines of 2016, and the top-rated white.

Instead of producing white wine elsewhere, Domaine Serene’s new winery will have dedicated facilities for Chardonnay and sparkling wines, plus cold storage capability. Construction began March 1.

Meanwhile, Willamette Valley Vineyards, based near Salem, added seven acres of Chardonnay grapes and is working with architects on a planned sparkling wine facility in the Dundee region as well.

Company Winery Director Christine Collier said consumer demand for lighter, crisp whites is driving the changes. Rosé wines also are increasingly popular.

“We’re definitely seeing a trend in Oregon wine to expand Chardonnay programs,” she said. “The demand is high right now.”

Michelle Kaufmann, newly appointed communications director at Stoller Family Estate, said Chardonnay is “absolutely on the rise” in Oregon.

“Many people believe that it will overtake Pinot gris as Oregon’s number one white wine, though I’m not sure there’s enough data yet to make that claim,” Kaufmann said by email.

She said the nuances of producing exceptional white and sparkling wines are different than making red wines, so wineries’ decision to have facilities dedicated to that production makes sense.

But Pinot noir isn’t fading by any means.

The Oregon Wine Board’s 2015 report showed Pinot noir accounted for 62 percent of the 24,742 acres planted to wine grapes in Oregon. A pair of whites were a distant second and third: Pinot gris with 3,403 acres, and Chardonnay with 1,181 acres.

“I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch at all that Oregon is entering the next chapter in our wine history,” Kaufmann said.

Kaufmann previously was communications director for the Oregon Wine Board. She and vineyard manager Jason Tosch are recent hires at Stoller, in Dayton. Also at the company, Ben Howe was promoted to winemaker and Austin Raz to digital brand manager.

An Oregon ranch is challenging federal management plans for a 63.5-mile stretch of the Rogue river, arguing they’ll impede stabilization of the volatile river channel.

The Double R Ranch of Eagle Point, Ore., filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for adopting plans to protectively manage the segment, which is eligible for designation as a “Wild and Scenic River.”

Aside from hindering permits needed to fortify the river, BLM’s decision will complicate changes to irrigation diversions and the development of water rights, the complaint said.

The lawsuit is joined by the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, which worries other ranchers will encounter such problems, as well as the Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association, which fears barriers to erosion control efforts.

Capital Press was unable to reach a representative of BLM as of press time.

In 2016, BLM determined the 63.5-mile segment is “suitable” for protection as a Wild and Scenic River, which is the final administrative step before Congress can make that designation.

However, this particular stretch has a long history of human manipulation, disqualifying it from designation because it’s not “free-flowing” as required by federal law, the complaint said.

“Throughout the proposed segment, streambanks have been extensively modified, armored, and engineered to stabilize the river channel,” the complaint said.

This segment of the Rogue river is prone to “extreme flood events” and channel migration, so further work will be needed to reinforce its streambanks with rip-rap rock and otherwise avoid undesirable upland impacts, the complaint said.

Gravel pits near the channel are susceptible to being inundated or “captured” by the river, which has occurred in the past, polluting the water with massive amounts of sediment, according to plaintiffs.

A coalition of landowners, government agencies and conservationists has rectified past problems, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would “almost certainly deny” future permits for such projects due to restrictions associated with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the complaint said.

“Thus designation of the proposed segment would effectively halt future bank and channel protection activities,” the lawsuit said. “That could result in further pit captures, severely degrading downstream fish habitat and frustrating the very purposes and policies the WSR Act was created to protect.”

The plaintiffs claim BLM’s own analysis found that state and county governments are already protecting the river, so leaving the segment undesignated wouldn’t threaten its wild and scenic values.

“Designation would duplicate local management and could easily undermine it,” the complaint said.

Upper and lower reaches of the Rogue river are already designated under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, but those sections flow mostly through public land, according to the plaintiffs.

“In contrast, the proposed segment comprises almost entirely private property, with insignificant land ownership by federal agencies,” the complaint said.

NYSSA, Ore. — The onion growing industry in Eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho has revamped how it promotes the 1.5 billion pounds of Spanish big bulb onions grown here each year.

Promotion and marketing of those onions has traditionally fallen mostly to the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee, which administers the federal marketing order that covers this region.

But the committee in 2015 opted to cut the region’s onion assessment in half, sharply reduce its promotions budget and let onion shippers use the resulting savings, if they chose, to do more of their own direct promotions and marketing.

The assessment was trimmed from 10 cents for each 100 pounds of onions produced to 5 cents. Growers pay 60 percent of that assessment and handlers the rest.

The assessment fee cut did not impact the committee’s research and export budgets.

But the IEOOC slashed the budget for its promotion committee from $635,000 to $250,000.

The 300 growers and 30 onion shippers in the region were left with the option of using the savings realized from the assessment reduction to do their own marketing.

The industry’s customer base has consolidated heavily over the years and because customer lists are much shorter now, it makes sense for individual shippers to more aggressively go after customers themselves, said promotions committee board member Grant Kitamura.

“This gives people more money to promote their own business,” said Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce in Ontario, Ore.

At the same time, the IEOCC still maintains a strong industry presence, including at trade shows and industry events, and continues to promote the famous Spanish bulb onions grown here as a regional brand.

The committee spent $61,000 on advertising last year, as well as $7,000 to print 1,000 glossy shippers directories.

“We think we’ve been successful in maintaining our visibility in the industry (even) with the reduced budget,” Kitamura said.

The promotions committee has also turned to the internet and social media more, a tactic designed to reach millennials.

“We are trying to reach out to the next generation of consumers and customers,” Kitamura said.

Malheur County farmer Paul Skeen, a member of the promotions committee board, believes reducing the committee’s budget and allowing shippers and growers to use the savings to do more of their own marketing was a wise move.

“I think we’re still getting the bang for our buck,” he said of the committee’s reduced budget. “We just cut the frills out and went with what’s working.”

Other industry members contacted by Capital Press agreed.

“We’re in favor of that decision and feel it’s working well for our company and our growers,” said John Wong, president of Champion Produce in Parma, Idaho.

Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, Ore., was skeptical of the move at first because he worried having shippers do their own promotions and marketing could fragment the industry.

But he has since changed his mind and now believes the new direction is working well.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission issued its first recall of recreational marijuana after testing of a brand sold at a Mapleton, Ore., store showed it contained a level of pesticide residue that exceeds the state limit.

The OLCC , which oversees retail sales of recreational cannabis, said samples of Blue Magoo marijuana failed a test for pyrethin levels. Pyrethins are a mixture of six chemicals that are toxic to insects, according to the National Pesticide Information Center based at Oregon State University. Pyrethins are found in some chrysanthemum flowers, and in some cases can be used on organic products.

The recall points out some of the complications that accompany the legalization of recreational cannabis. Growers, like all other agricultural producers, now face a regulatory structure they may not have dealt with before.

Pesticide use has been particularly thorny, because the federal government still considers cannabis illegal and has not established allowable tolerances of pesticides in pot. As a result, states that have legalized cannabis are figuring it out themselves. Oregon tests cannabis for 59 active ingredients.

“It’s a big struggle, for sure,” said Sunny Jones, cannabis policy coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

The Oregon Health Authority oversees medical marijuana, OLCC oversees recreational marijuana, and ODA regulates aspects that range from food safety regarding cannabis edibles to pesticides, water quality issues and commercial scales used to weigh the product. The recalled pot was grown by Emerald Wave Estate, based in Creswell, Ore., and sold at Buds 4 U in Mapleton, a small town west of Eugene. The OLCC said people who bought the pot should dispose of it or return it to the retailer.

Mark Pettinger, spokesman for OLCC, said the retailer has fully cooperated in the recall. It sold 82.5 grams of Blue Magoo to 31 customers from March 8 through March 10. The store noticed the failed pesticide reading in the state’s Cannabis Tracking System on March 10 and immediately notified OLCC, Pettinger said.

“The retailer was great,” he said. “They get the gold star.”

Pesticide application would have been done at the grower level, which is the province of ODA. Pettinger said the distribution system breakdown occurred when a wholesaler, Cascade Cannabis Distributing, of Eugene, shipped the pot to the Mapleton store before pesticide test results were entered in the state’s tracking system. The testing was done by GreenHaus Analytical Labs, of Portland, which is certified by the state to test cannabis for potency, water content and pesticide residue.

The mistake might qualify as a violation under Oregon administrative rules, Pettinger said. Failure to keep proper records is a Class III violation; the first offense is punishable by up to 10 days of business closure and a $1,650 fine. Four violations within a two-year period can lead to license revocation.

The rest of the grower’s nine-pound batch of Blue Magoo marijuana flower has been placed on administrative hold, meaning it cannot be lawfully sold pending the outcome of additional pesticide testing. Pettinger said the pot is in the grower’s possession.

HALSEY, Ore. — The entire 350-member Central Linn Elementary School student body and their teachers participated in the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom 10th Annual Agricultural Literacy Project Kick Off on March 16.

The assembly included shouting out answers to agriculture questions fielded by 2017 Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador Kiara Single, listening to AITC volunteer Carolyn Jackson read from the book “Allison Investigates: Does Chocolate Milk Come From Brown Cows?” and cheering on fellow classmates running in a dairy relay race.

The book helps young readers understand how milk gets from cows to them.

The program concluded with hands-on butter- and ice cream-making activities in the classrooms.

The AITC Literacy Project goal is to improve both the reading and agricultural literacy of Oregon students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Among the sponsors are the Oregon Dairy and Nutrition Council, Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, NORPAC, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and Oregon State University College of Agricultural Sciences.

Ag in the Classroom began in 2008 with 130 volunteers reaching 312 classrooms. Last year, more than 902 classrooms and 21,000 students were visited.

The 2017 Project, which includes giving each classroom a free book, will continue through June 9.

Each year, AITC staff recommends several agriculturally themed books to the AITC board of directors for approval. Once a book is selected, staff and volunteers develop a lesson plan to reinforce the message. Trained volunteers then take the book into classrooms.

“We know agriculture must be taught today because too many people are too far removed from the farm,” Jackson said. “We have to get the word out to contradict the people who say, ‘Why should I worry about farms when I can get my food from the store?’”

As a way of extending the life of the literacy project, past literacy project books, activities and supplies for a classroom, can be checked out through AITC’s free loan library, said Jessica Jansen, executive director of AITC.

AITC was founded in 1981 by a group of volunteers and hired its first full-time director in 1999. It is funded solely by the agriculture community.

Online

Visit www.oregonaitc.org

SALEM — With the help of a specialty crop block grant and the expertise of agriculture professionals and volunteers, the state Department of Agriculture is launching a pilot Oregon Bee Project to help improve and ensure the health of 500-plus native species of bees that help pollinate many crops.

Project goals include field research, public outreach and education, and the creation of an Oregon Bee Farm Certification to reward farmers who adopt bee-friendly practices.

“We’re fortunate to have such a wealth of human capital standing by to help us with this project,” Sarah Kincaid, an entomologist with ODA, said. “We will be holding a series of meetings around to state to get input from farmers, conservationists and other agencies and organizations who would like to contribute to the project. We recently held our first advisory meeting in Portland, and plan to hold others in Myrtle Point, Central Point, The Dalles, Hermiston and the Willamette Valley.”

In addition to the meetings, she will be working with six flagship farms across the state operated by farmers already providing for pollinators, she said.

In Kincaid’s illustrated ODA Guide on Common Bee Pollinators, she details the preferred crops and nesting habits of Oregon’s most common of bees. Unlike social honeybees, which need many individual bees to maintain the hive and care for the young, most native bees are solitary, meaning only a single female builds a nest (or nests) and lays eggs. The native species are remarkably different in their size, appearance, habitat, life cycle, flowers visited and overall behavior.

The social ground-nesting bumble bee, she points out, prefers crops such as blueberries, cranberries and red clover grown for seed, while the solitary leafcutter bee that nests in cracks and crevices of wood or rock, in beetle holes and occasionally on the ground, prefers alfalfa, onions, carrots and sunflowers.

“We decided to launch this program because we don’t know enough about our native bees,” Kincaid said. “We will be looking at bee habitat including over-winter nesting sites and the value of planting pollinator hedgerows along edges of fields to provide wind breaks and wintering habitat.

“The program begins doing the research we need to begin filling our knowledge gaps. We are looking forward to working with growers who are already providing native bee habitat as well as with new people who are eager to learn. The last component of the program is to develop a logo and a bee friendly farm certification that could help growers market their products.”

Online

For more information about meeting dates for the project, email oregonbeeproject@oda.state.or.us

SALEM — New lawsuits over trespass by genetically engineered crops would be authorized in Oregon under proposed legislation that would hold biotech patent holders liable for damages.

Supporters of House Bill 2739 say it’s a common sense strategy to remedy problems caused by genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, similar to consumer lawsuits over defective products.

“This is not a wild legal grab. We will not be compensated for our angst. We will only be compensated for provable legal damages,” said Sandra Bishop of the Our Family Farms Coalition, which supports HB 2739.

Jerry Erstrom, a Malheur County farmer, said he supports the bill even though he’s planted genetically engineered corn on his property.

“If you do something that messes up my livelihood, you should be held accountable for it,” Erstrom said at a March 16 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Creeping bentgrass that’s genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate herbicides escaped control in Eastern Oregon, and the crop’s patent holder should be responsible for control costs as it spreads, he said.

“It’s coming to the Willamette Valley. Say what you want, it’s going to be here,” Erstrom said.

Proponents of HB 2739 say there’s nothing new about holding companies liable for their products hurting people or property, but organic and conventional farmers must currently bear the financial burden from GMO crop contamination alone.

“We’re not coming to you from a level playing field. Harm is only coming one way,” said Amy van Saun, legal fellow with the Center for Food Safety, which supports the bill.

Supports say the legal mechanism of HB 2739 is simple and fair because the liability rests with companies that profit from GMO patents.

Complicated searches for a culprit won’t be necessary, since biotech traits can be determined with genetic tests, said Elise Higley, director of the Our Family Farms Coalition.

“It’s super easy to track it back to who is responsible,” Higley said.

Opponents of the bill argue that pollination among related crops isn’t limited to GMOs, but neighboring farmers have long found practical ways to avoid unwanted crosses.

“It’s one of the greatest risks I face, but it’s a manageable risk,” said Kevin Richards, who grows seeds and other crops near Madras, Ore.

Under a provision in HB 2739, plaintiffs are entitled to triple the amount of economic damages caused by the unwanted presence of GMOs, which is clearly meant to be punitive, according to the bill’s detractors.

“It would single out and stigmatize biotech patents,” said Barry Bushue, president of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Critics also questioned the logic of making patent holders liable for unauthorized GMOs, since the problem may be caused by irresponsible practices of neighboring landowners or factors beyond human control, like birds.

“They sell the seed but they have no control once that happens,” said Roger Beyer, a lobbyist for the Oregon Seed Council and other crop groups.

Apart from the immediate impacts of the bill, imposing new liability on patent holders may discourage seed companies from offering innovative products in Oregon, said Scott Dahlman, policy director of the Oregonians for Food and Shelter agribusiness group.

If companies face the threat of additional lawsuits, “they will reconsider whether they sell things here,” Dahlman said.

Pete Postlewait, a farmer near Canby, Ore., said he’s disturbed by the precedent of punishing patent holders for the actions of end users, since that logic could be extended to non-GMO cross-pollination.

“By weakening plant patent laws in this way, it will surely stifle innovation in plant breeding,” he said.

The bill’s language also encompasses new methods, such as gene editing, that are used by university breeders who often hold their own patents, said Steve Strauss, a professor who studies biotechnology at Oregon State University.

“Wheat breeders and others would love to use this gene editing technology,” he said.