JOHN DAY, Ore. — Oregon’s farm regulators want to overhaul their noxious weed control strategy to focus on invasives that haven’t yet gained a strong foothold in the state.

The current weed control program at the Oregon Department of Agriculture obtains about 40 percent of its funding from federal agencies and thus focuses much of its attention on public lands.

This approach means that ODA’s highly trained weed specialists are often battling lower-priority “B list” weeds that are already abundant in some regions, rather than “A list” weeds that can still be eradicated, said Helmuth Rogg, director of the agency’s plant program area.

The agency would prefer to put more emphasis on an “early detection rapid response” approach to economically damaging “A list” weeds while delegating the fight against “B list” weeds on public land to counties, Rogg said at the June 6 Oregon Board of Agriculture meeting.

“We’re trying to figure out how to best use the limited resources of state and federal funding,” he said.

To make this change, ODA is contemplating a “legislative concept” to bring before Oregon lawmakers in 2017 that would increase funding for state and county noxious weed control programs by $3.3 million.

ODA’s current noxious weed budget of about $2.2 million in the 2015-17 biennium would be increased by $1.5 million, which would strengthen its “early detection rapid response” and biological control efforts, among other activities, and create a new aquatic weed specialist position.

The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board is spending millions of dollars to improve water quality across the state but invasive weeds can undermine those projects, Rogg said.

Weeds like flowering rush, newly discovered in Oregon in 2014, also pose a risk to irrigation canals, so an aquatic weed specialist is needed to concentrate on such threats, he said. “We need to save that investment.”

Only 23 of Oregon’s 36 counties have weed control districts dedicated to fighting invasives, so under the “legislative concept” $1.8 million would fund such programs across the state.

Federal funding of $1.2 million is needed to “keep the lights on” for the state noxious weed program, but under the ODA’s proposal, some of that money would be sub-contracted to county programs as necessary, Rogg said.

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Douglas firs and other trees are dying in Southern Oregon forests, where three years of drought have been taking their toll.

The Mail Tribune reports that experts say even more drought-tolerant trees like Ponderosa pines have lost out in the competition for water. The wet winter couldn’t prevent tree death after years of drought and beetle attacks.

The die-off in Applegate Velley, up the West Cascades and into the Willamette Valley appears to be even worse than those caused by drought in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. The scale of the die-off will be quantified during aerial mapping surveys next month.

Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest plant pathologist Ellen Goheen says there seem to be more dead and dying conifers than at any point during the past 22 years.

HOOD RIVER, Ore. — The Farmers Conservation Alliance was born of destruction, or more precisely, destruction that inspired creativity.

Twenty years ago, rushing floodwaters uprooted trees, knocked out bridges and demolished irrigation equipment in Oregon’s Hood River Valley.

Faced with a clean slate, growers in the Farmers Irrigation District decided to rebuild a more efficient system than the one that had been washed away.

Clogged fish screens were a common problem at the old system’s irrigation diversions. Not only would someone frequently have to remove the debris, but the mechanical devices regularly needed repair.

“Any time you have moving parts, they just wear out,” said Dan Kleinsmith, a former project manager for the district.

Before the flood, the Farmers Irrigation District spent about $90,000 annually to operate and maintain its fish screens, which stop salmon, steelhead and other native fish species from swimming into irrigation lines and pipes while keeping them clear.

Developing their unique replacement “Farmers Screen,” which relies on rushing water instead of machinery to keep the screens clear, turned out to be a heavy investment — roughly $2.5 million over 10 years.

In 2006, the screen concept was licensed to the newly formed Farmers Conservation Alliance with the goal of commercializing the technology so other irrigators could also benefit from it.

Since then, the nonprofit has installed about 40 of the screens, which cost from $15,000 to roughly $1 million, depending on the size of the diversion and level of customization.

Initially, the fish screens were approved by federal authorities on an experimental basis. However, widespread adoption would require proving to the National Marine Fisheries Service that they don’t harm fish protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“To scale our business, we had to become a NMFS-approved technology,” said Julie Davies O’Shea, the alliance’s executive director.

The process was financially taxing, as the nonprofit had to test the screen’s function at various water levels and fish life stages, she said.

The alliance nearly went out of business before finally winning clearance from federal authorities in 2011, but O’Shea said she doesn’t want to “vilify” the government because the process was new for everyone.

Old fish screen designs were “grandfathered in” the federal system, so the alliance had to “face the reality” of having the first new technology to receive more thorough vetting, she said.

O’Shea said she hopes their experience will make it easier to gain approval for future irrigation improvements developed by farmers and others in agriculture.

“How do we transfer that knowledge?” she said.

The basic idea behind the Farmers Screen —— of water moving horizontally over a flat screen — wasn’t new, but it never caught on because it didn’t work correctly, said Kleinsmith, who’s now a project manager for the alliance.

The concept was nonetheless attractive due to the possibility of reduced maintenance costs.

“We liked the idea of water traveling over the top of something rather than slamming into something,” Kleinsmith said.

An important refinement of the Farmers Screen is that water flows into a channel that gradually becomes narrower.

This feature is key because the amount of water in the channel decreases as some of it falls through the screen at the bottom.

If the channel was the same width, the speed of the water would diminish toward the end. However, because the channel is tapered, the water doesn’t lose its velocity.

Because of that, debris is prevented from settling on the screen and causing clogs, Kleinsmith said. “We’re counting on the water to sweep the screen off.”

Aside from installing fish screens, the alliance also helps other irrigation districts to modernize in other ways.

For example, replacing open canals with pipelines reduces water loss from evaporation and seepage, while also creating enough water pressure to generate hydropower.

However, many irrigation systems were built upwards of a century ago, so upgrading them to become more efficient is akin to fitting new parts onto an antique truck, O’Shea said.

The alliance assists irrigation districts with retrofits, including finding partners who can provide funding.

“There’s so much opportunity for environmental improvement,” O’Shea said.

Farmers Conservation Alliance

Organization: Nonprofit group aimed at irrigation system modernization

Founded: 2006

Executive director: Julie Davies O’Shea

Employees: 5

Headquarters: Hood River, Ore.

Annual revenue: $318,000 (in 2014)

Website: http://fcasolutions.org

ONTARIO, Ore. — For the first time since a lingering drought began to grip this area four years ago, Owyhee Irrigation District patrons will receive a full allotment of irrigation water this year.

“It’s really a positive thing for the area,” said Bruce Corn, a farmer and OID board member. “It’s a tremendous change from what we’ve faced the past three years.”

The Owyhee Reservoir provides irrigation water for 1,800 farms and 118,000 acres of ground in Eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho. OID patrons receive 4 acre-feet of water during a good water year.

But due to the effects of a sustained drought, they only received 1.7 acre-feet last year and 1.6 acre-feet in 2014.

Because of good snowpack, farmers in this area anticipated receiving 4 acre-feet this year but the OID board chose to be conservative and not allocate the full amount until the water was actually in the reservoir.

The board set the allotment at a tentative 3 acre-feet in March, raised it to 3.8 acre-feet in April and then 4 acre-feet in late May.

OID Manager Jay Chamberlin said a major storm last month dumped a lot of snow in the valley and snowmelt was also higher than anticipated, which increased in-flows into the reservoir.

“Those two things combined gave us an additional 25,000 to 30,000 acre-feet of water that was somewhat of a surprise to us,” he said. “It really gave us a shot in the arm.”

The focus now shifts to trying to ensure there is a decent amount of carryover water left in the reservoir to provide a buffer heading into the 2017 season, Corn said.

There was only 5,000 acre-feet of carryover water left in the reservoir at the end of the 2015 water season, a drop in the bucket compared to the reservoir’s 715,000 acre-foot capacity.

“The hope now is that we can carry over a little water into next year so we don’t start at zero like we did last year,” Corn said.

That means it’s doubtful that any excess water will be sold this year, he said. In years when there is ample water, OID patrons can purchase excess water above their 4 acre-foot allotment.

“We’ve been operating off of the bottom of the tank here,” Chamberlin said in regard to the fact the system has ended the past two seasons with close to no carryover water. “We want to get to the point where we are operating off the top again. It’s going to take some time to get there.”

The reservoir has about 350,000 acre-feet of carryover water following good water years.

Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen said even 150,000 to 180,000 acre-feet of carryover water would provide farmers some breathing room heading into 2017.

“Going into next season with even 150,000 acre-feet would be a whole lot better than what it has been,” he said.

The Langlois Lions Club would like to thank the following for the wonderful support with donations of time, enthusiasm, great plants and just hard plain work for this year's Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale: Bev Walters, Norma Eikamp, Loretta Hillman,…

Kudos to all of the wonderful World Famous Langlois Villagers, as well as our nearby generous neighbors of Port Orford and Bandon, who helped make our now signature Langlois Lions Club Mary Hildebrand Memorial, held this May, such an outstanding…

Friday, June 10

An Oregon livestock nutrition company has won an injunction against a former employee accused of stealing trade secrets to start his own company in China.

Omnigen Research of Corvallis, Ore., has filed a lawsuit alleging that scientist Yongqiang Wang is trying to sell knock-offs of its feed additives in violation of confidentiality agreements.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane has ordered Wang and his wife, as well as the companies under their control, to stop using any of Omnigen’s copyrighted materials and trade secrets.

The preliminary injunction also instructs them to return all materials pertaining to Omnigen’s technology, and turn over their electronic media, among other provisions.

Omnigen was originally founded in 2002 by Oregon State University professor Neil Forsberg and his graduate student, Steve Puntenney, who developed patented feed additives aimed at counteracting hemmorhagic bowel syndrome in dairy cows.

A decade later, the firm was bought for nearly $23 million by the Phibro Animal Health Corp., a publicly-traded company based in New York.

Roughly 20 percent of the U.S. dairy cow herd is treated with Omnigen products, which are also catching on in several foreign countries and have received regulatory approval to be sold in China, according to Phibro financial documents.

According to Omnigen’s lawsuit, cofounder Forsberg took Wang “under his wing” when Wang was an OSU graduate student and asked him to join the company.

“However, at some point, Wang apparently decided he owed no loyalty to OmniGen Research,” the complaint said. “So, while continuing to work at OmniGen Research, he shirked his contractual and fiduciary obligations to secretly form two businesses, Bioshen and Mirigen, to compete with OmniGen Research with the help of his wife and associates.”

Before he quit in 2013, Wang had access to its confidential “research and experimentation methods” as well as improvements made to Omnigen products, such as ingredient sources and ratios, the complaint said.

Wang allegedly took out a “sham” patent in China for products with similar ingredients as Omnigen’s, but which listed his wife and associates as the inventors, and has obtained a Chinese production license for a feed additive, the complaint said.

Last year, the companies formed by Wang held a symposium on livestock health in China at which he presented Omnigen’s “illegally copied” copyrighted slides, the complaint said.

In response to the complaint, Wang admits obtaining a Chinese patent, launching Bioshen and Mirigen and organizing a scientific conference but denies that he relied on any of Omnigen’s trade secrets or confidential information.

Omnigen’s methods of testing feed additives, as well as its “processes for making additives, sourcing ingredients, mixing ingredients, ingredient ratios and scientific knowledge” do not qualify as trade secrets, according to Wang’s answer.

Wang also claims that he was enticed to quit a faculty position at OSU to work for Omnigen with the promise of receiving a share of the profits if the company was sold.

Forsberg, the co-founder, unjustly enriched himself by breaching that promise when Phibro bought Omnigen, Wang alleges.

“As a foreseeable result of Forsberg’s fraudulent conduct Wang has incurred economic damages consisting of a reasonable share of the proceeds that Forsberg received from the sale of OmniGen and the licensing of its products,” Wang said in a counter-complaint.

Wang has also requested that the judge reconsider the preliminary injunction, arguing it’s “vague, draconian, and outside the scope of a legitimate provisional remedy.”

The defendants had an insufficient opportunity to respond to the injunction request and requiring Wang to surrender his laptop and other electronic devices “effectively limits his ability to work,” according to a court document.

Early forecasts suggest this year’s wildfire season should be closer to normal across Eastern Oregon, though another hot, dry month in June could change that outlook.

Joe Hessel, unit forester for the Oregon Department of Forestry in La Grande, said there is still plenty of green grass in the Blue Mountains, but heavier fuels such as down trees and branches are drier than usual thanks to the effects of drought.

The past couple years have seen ODF declare fire season historically early in northeast Oregon. Hessel said the district was feeling pretty good about bucking that trend in 2016 until April came along and quickly melted the region’s snowpack. Since then, Hessel said the potential for fires — especially at lower elevations — has been rising.

“We’re all waiting to see what happens in June,” Hessel said. “If June is relatively warm or dry, or both, that will reflect through the rest of the fire year.”

Fire season began on June 16 in 2015, and a number of devastating infernos kept firefighters scrambling from one blaze to the next. The Canyon Creek, Windy Ridge and Grizzly Bear complexes all started about the same time in August, and together burned nearly 300,000 acres of rangeland and forests.

Hessel doesn’t know if it will be as bad this year, but he’s keeping a close eye on the conditions. If the weather stays warm and dry, it could start parching some of that grass and make it more likely fires are able to spread. The seasonal trend, Hessel said, is a little ahead of schedule.

“If this trend doesn’t change, we’ll start to have discussions (about entering fire season) this week, I’m sure,” he said.

For now, the fire danger remains low. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise issued a report that says large fires will be more likely in July and August, “but at this point there is no reason to believe that the risk of them is above normal.”

The ODF Northeast Oregon District is responsible for protecting nearly 2 million acres of private forestland in mostly Umatilla, Union, Baker and Wallowa counties. Hessel said they work cooperatively with other agencies and neighboring jurisdictions, including the U.S. Forest Service.

Brian Goff, fire staff officer on the Umatilla National Forest, said they received several good storms at higher elevations in May that have kept things in fairly good shape. Lightning did spark one small wildfire on the North Fork John Day Ranger District about seven miles from Granite, but it was contained.

Even with an average fire season, Goff said that doesn’t mean there won’t be any fires during the summer.

“It dries out in July and August, and we will have fires,” he said. “People being fire safe is just always very important.”

Multiple agencies will send their seasonal firefighters to a week-long fire school beginning June 13 in La Grande for training. ODF will also contract two single-engine air tankers for the district, as well as a Type 2 helicopter that will be stationed in Pendleton.

Meanwhile, members of Congress have their sights set on changing the way the federal government pays for fighting increasingly large and costly wildfires. For the fourth straight year, the House has passed a bill known as the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to transfer disaster funding to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management when they have exhausted their firefighting budgets.

As it stands, the agencies are forced to take additional funding for fighting wildfires from other non-fire programs — a practice known as “fire-borrowing.” The Resilient Federal Forests Act would also expedite thinning projects up to 15,000 acres, if they are the result of collaboration.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, has been a vocal supporter of the bill.

“Our rural forested communities have waited long enough,” Walden said in a recent testimony. “They have choked on smoke summer after summer long enough. They’ve seen their watersheds get destroyed by catastrophic fire. It’s time to fix the problem.”

On the Senate side, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, along with Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Maria Cantwell, D-Washington and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, recently released draft legislation that also targets fire-borrowing and accelerating forest restoration.

“This draft legislation is not an end-all solution to the growing problem of fire borrowing from prevention and restoration funds but it’s a step in the right direction,” Wyden said.

Representatives for both Walden and Wyden said any differences between the bills will be addressed in a conference committee in order to reach a middle ground.

COOS BAY — The South Coast Regional Early Learning Hub has allocated $180,238 to regional schools and programs through Kindergarten Partnership and Innovation grants. The grants will fund various projects that will support children in our community as they prepare…

A new organization plans to help Oregon State University and Cornell University train people to make hard apple cider, an industry that is growing rapidly in the Pacific Northwest and is attracting the same sort of connoisseurs who favor the region’s craft beer and fine wine.

Formation of the Cider Institute of North America (CINA) was announced in late May. Nick Gunn, co-owner of Wandering Aengus Ciderworks in Salem, Ore., is chair of the new group’s board of directors.

Gunn said the new organization sprang to life because English cider guru Peter Mitchell is retiring. Mitchell’s Cider & Perry Academy — “Perry” is hard cider made from pears — is based in the United Kingdom and Mitchell has been teaching cider makers in the U.S. since 2003. Gunn said he took one of the first classes Mitchell taught in the U.S.

“Education at this point in our industry is maybe the most critical thing to maintain cider quality in America,” Gunn said. “Maintaining a high level of quality is the only way to keep moving forward.”

Gunn said CINA will work with instructors at Oregon State’s Fermentation Center, which focuses on such things as beer, wine, cheese and yogurt production. He said foundational laboratory work and “Introduction to Cider Making” classes are necessary.

He envisions students obtaining a certificate that would help them get jobs in the industry.

The organization is applying for non-profit tax status, which Gunn said will provide flexibility in obtaining grants and conveying money to the university programs. CINA hopes to help universities pay for tenured faculty and for research and development costs.

Making and drinking hard cider is particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest. Membership in the Northwest Cider Association grew from 17 to 70 in a three-year span, and cider accounts for 4 percent of alcoholic beverage sales in Portland and Seattle, compared to 1.7 percent nationally. A former Cornell University cider expert estimated that people in Oregon, Washington and California drink about 80 percent of the cider consumed in the U.S.

KIMBERLY, Idaho — A monitoring program has detected the arrival of the first psyllids in commercial potato fields. They were found in Malheur County, Ore., according to an alert from University of Idaho.

Individual psyllids were captured on sticky traps by two separate fields in Malheur County, according to the May 28 alert.

Psyllids can carry the Liberibacter bacterium that spreads zebra chip disease, which creates bands in potato flesh that darken when fried.

The disease first surfaced in the Northwest in 2011. Testing results for Liberibacter from the recently captured insects were not available.

There’s more to FFA than just showing animals. The organization features a broad and diverse range of activities, from diesel mechanics to gardening to cooking.

Members of the Pendleton FFA Chapter presented just a few of the possibilities May 27 to eighth-graders from Sunridge Middle School, giving them an up close and personal look at all FFA has to offer. Students cycled through each of five stations at the chapter’s lamb lab, where they had the chance to plant pumpkins, pet a horse, watch a welding demonstration and even try their hand at flying an agriculture drone.

Jake Szumski, a junior at Pendleton High School and FFA chapter president, said the goal was not only to show what opportunities are available, but how FFA can help students develop new skills for college and careers.

“It really is a learning opportunity for the rest of your life,” Szumski said. “There’s a lot of career development where you can experience things you wouldn’t otherwise do.”

The Pendleton FFA Chapter has approximately 50 active and 80 non-active members, said Hallie Porter, sophomore and chapter secretary.

“To be in FFA, you don’t have to show animals. There’s so many options,” Porter said. “You can really do any competition, and still feel welcome in FFA.”

More than 20 chapter members participated at the State FFA Convention in Corvallis, and Seely Daniels, PHS agriculture teacher and FFA advisor, said she hopes to take their officers to the National Convention and Expo next October in Indianapolis.

Daniels said they welcomed about 200 eighth-graders on Friday.

“The kids just loved it,” she said. “They are so much fun to work with.”

Wolves killed a lamb and probably killed a calf in separate attacks in late May, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife reported.

On the evening of May 20, a herder working on private land along the South Fork of the Walla Walla River near the Umatilla-Wallowa county line noticed a disturbance in the flock and saw four wolves, one with a dead lamb in its mouth. ODFW personnel investigated the next day and confirmed the kill was done by wolves. Investigators found a “drag trail” of bone, blood and wool, but the rest of the lamb apparently had been consumed overnight. Tracking collar data showed that OR-40, of the Walla Walla Pack, was near the sheep bedding ground at 3 a.m. on May 21.

On May 23, a landowner checking cattle on private land in the Mud Creek area of Wallowa County found the remains of a dead calf. There was no clear evidence the 150-pound calf had been attacked by wolves, but marks on the rib, back and leg bones found scattered about the site indicated a predator with large teeth was responsible, according to an ODFW report.

In addition, the calf was consumed in one night, also hallmark of a wolf attack. Nonetheless, ODFW designated the incident a “probable” wolf attack rather than “confirmed.”

Tracking collar GPS coordinates showed two members of the Shamrock Pack, OR-23 and OR-41, were in the area at different times on May 22 and May 23.

Peter and Pam Hayes’ claim about herbicide exposure in the forest of the Oregon Coast Range begins the same way as most from the news in recent years.

On May 17, they and two others were out tending their property. They heard a helicopter in the distance and thought little of it. Then, they say, they began to smell and taste chemicals.

“The helicopter was not over me. It was not droplets. It was just a super strong, strong taste,” Pam said.

Both are familiar with the idea of aerial spraying. Pam and her husband, Peter Hayes, are fifth generation loggers and the owners of Hyla Woods in Washington County, Ore.

Peter is a former member of the Oregon Board of Forestry. He’s also become an advocate for more environmentally friendly logging practices, including the elimination of herbicides.

Hayes uses some herbicide on his property to control invasive plants, but he has a goal of getting to zero herbicide use. He applies them by hand rather than by helicopter, which many timber companies use to cover large swaths of land in the sometimes narrow window when herbicides are most effective at killing vegetation that competes with young trees.

Hayes has said he views profit at the expense of the land as a form of theft.

The Hayes’ complaint comes in the midst of ongoing debate about the practice of aerial spraying.

Last year, multiple bills were introduce to change the rules for the practice. This year, environmental groups and coastal residents introduced a ballot measure aiming to limit and stop the practice altogether.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is investigating Hayes’ claim. That includes reviewing records and taking samples from the property in an attempt to determine if chemical trespass occurred, how and from where.

The helicopter in question was hired by Stimson Lumber Co., whose property is more than a half-mile from Hyla Woods. The application was done by Wilbur-Ellis.

“We welcome the investigation and are cooperating in every way we can,” said Scott Gray, Western resource manager for Stimson Lumber.

Gray said he was “very surprised” to hear from Hayes about drift, given the distance from the application site to the Hyla Woods property, which he said is more than 3,600 feet. 

Gray said the application was in compliance with all the regulations that apply, and that the company used an additive in the herbicide mixture to prevent drift.

“Our job is to manage the timberland, but we also have to protect all the other resources we don’t own. That’s our professional responsibility we have to abide by,” Gray said.

Peter Hayes urged against rushing to judgment in such a case. Stimson and Hyla Woods have been neighbors for years with a good relationship. The case was actually referred to the Oregon Department of Agriculture for an exposure investigation by the Department of Forestry, not because Hayes complained directly.

“I’d call them friends,” Hayes said of Stimson.

But, he said, he is not OK with chemical trespass, and he said Oregon has allowed it to be a problem for too long.

“I think we need to take a hard look at the current practice,” Hayes said, referring to helicopter spraying. “Too often, it degrades the things we have in common: our air and water. Too often it has impact on other people’s lands. We need to take a solid look at it.”

This latest complaint comes as rulings on two other high-profile aerial spray cases are still pending. The first is a lawsuit over a 2013 incident in Gold Beach, Ore. The other is an administrative hearing over whether the state was justified in suspending the license of Applebee Aviation after it allegedly violated worker protection rules. 

Decisions in both cases are expected this summer, which could affect future penalties assessed by state government and the liability of farm and forest companies in such cases.

CORVALLIS — Oregon State University's 147th commencement ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 11, at Reser Stadium, in Corvallis, and some local area students will be receiving their diplomas. Coos County students were listed May 23.

PORT ORFORD — A Tuesday concert by the Port Orford-Langlois School District's student bands will showcase the revitalization of the district's music programs thanks to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation.

BURNS, Ore. — If wildfires erupt in the dry range and timber of southeast Oregon or southwest Idaho again this summer, firefighters will have a ready-made place to rest, shower, eat and stage for suppression work.

Crane Union High School, one of a handful of public boarding schools in the U.S., signed a contract to allow Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service firefighters to use its facilities. Firefighters will be able to sleep in the school’s dorms, shower, eat in the cafeteria and even shoot hoops in the school gym, Crane Union Superintendent Matt Hawley said. Firefighters will be able to park trucks, tanker and dozers on the school grounds, as well. Usually, crews live in tents while staging to fight fires.

The contract pays for use of the facilities for a minimum of 14 days, even if crews don’t stage there, Hawley said. The district will be compensated for any additional days of use beyond the initial two weeks, he said.

Like most small school districts, Crane Union could use the money, Hawley said.

“We’ve lost population out here so this is a partnership that benefits both entities,” he said. “It generates some revenue.”

The school will be available to firefighters from June 10 to Aug. 6, after which the district needs to get ready for the 2016-17 school year.

In a news release, the BLM said the staging area will put teams and equipment in a strategic location to fight fires in Southeast Oregon, Southwest Idaho and Northern Nevada. Public safety remains the top priority, but crews also will be pre-positioned to protect sage grouse habitat in the Burns and Vale BLM districts and nearby communities, BLM Fire Operations Specialist Sam DeLongsaid in a prepared statement.

Crane Union is 30 miles east of Burns. The district has 54 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and 52 students in grades nine through 12. Boarding is available for the high school aged students, and 28 students lived in the dorm this past year. The high school draws from elementary schools in a 10,000 square mile area, Superintendent Hawley said. Of the 28 boarders, 10 come from families in which the parents also were boarding school students, he said.

RICHLAND, Wash. — Washington cherry growers have good opportunity for exports after California fell short of its export norm.

California finished cherry sales over the Memorial Day weekend of a crop cut in half by rain damage. That and a strong dollar diminishing foreign buying power held California cherry exports this season to about 25 percent of the crop, B.J. Thurlby, Northwest Cherry Growers president in Yakima, said at the Five State Cherry Commission meeting in Richland, May 25. In the past, California has exported 50 percent, he said.

“Washington should have good opportunity for exports,” Thurlby said.

Early California districts around Bakersfield usually have a high percentage of exports with the Brooks variety, but rain reduced quality and kept exports down, said Tate Mathison, sales desk director at Stemilt Growers, Wenatchee. The company’s subsidiary, Chinchiolo Stemilt California, in Stockton, picks, packs and markets California cherries.

The Pacific Northwest, chiefly Washington, exported 5.9 million, 20-pound boxes of cherries, 30.7 percent of its crop, in 2015. The estimated gross wholesale value was $284.5 million, according to Northwest Cherry Growers 2015 annual report.

With domestic sales, the crop totaled 19.3 million boxes worth $826.7 million.

Canada was the top export market at 1.9 million boxes valued at $91.7 million. China with Hong Kong was second at 1.7 million boxes for $86.9 million.

Other top markets: South Korea, 761,000 boxes; Taiwan, 406,000; Mexico, 238,000; Japan, 233,000; Australia, 145,000; and United Kingdom, 119,425.

Northwest Cherry Growers budgets $1.7 million on export promotions and the priorities are China, Korea, Southeast Asia and Mexico, said Keith Hu, Northwest Cherry Growers international program director.

Japan, Taiwan, the UK, Europe, Australia and Brazil are not great priorities because of exchange rates, poor economies and the “timing of our product this year,” Hu said.

Taiwan is a “problematic” market because of lack of buying power, minimum residue levels of pesticides and its maturity as a market, he said.

“We have over 3,200 retail stores in the world committed to promoting Northwest cherries,” Hu said.

Roadblocks are strength of the U.S. dollar, global economic slowdown and price pressure from Turkish cherries “overflowing” into Western Europe and China, he said.

“We could have a short window of opportunity in Europe this year. Three shippers have plans to go in. We haven’t finalized European promotions yet,” Hu said.

A federal appeals court has dealt a serious blow to an already-struggling wind energy project in Oregon’s Harney County that would give local ranchers an economic boost.

Though the 100-megawatt wind energy project would have been built on private ranchland, the 12-mile transmission line necessary to connect turbines with the power grid would have to cross public property.

That triggered an environmental analysis that has now been deemed unlawful by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, largely due to a wintertime sighting of sage grouse in the area.

Approval for the project was originally granted by U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2011, but the litigation by environmental groups and the dropping price of renewable energy have delayed installation of the wind turbines indefinitely.

Due to the uncertainty caused by the lawsuit, filed by the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Audubon Society of Portland, a power-buying agreement secured by project developer Columbia Energy Partners was canceled.

The proposal now has another impediment to overcome due to the 9th Circuit ruling, which found that BLM failed to properly examine the impact on sage grouse, a former candidate for Endangered Species Act protection.

Proponents of the wind project initially prevailed in court when U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled in 2013 that BLM had complied with the National Environmental Policy Act in assessing its environmental effects.

The 9th Circuit has reversed that decision, holding that BLM wrongly concluded the wind turbine site wouldn’t be occupied by the sage grouse over winter.

Contrary to BLM’s extrapolation, the “wind-swept character” of the site that “makes it ideal for wind-energy generation” also indicated it can be used by the bird because “snow there may be blown off sagebrush and exposed for grouse to eat,” the ruling said.

A sighting of sage grouse near the site in February undermines the agency’s assumption that the area was too snowy to provide habitat for the bird, the appellate court found.

“And with the impacts on sage grouse not properly established, the BLM did not know what impacts to mitigate, or whether the mitigation proposed would be adequate to offset damage to wintering sage grouse,” the opinion said.