ONTARIO, Ore. — USDA will prepare an environmental impact statement that evaluates a petition to deregulate a genetically engineered creeping bentgrass plant that escaped field trials in 2003 and has taken root in two Oregon counties.

A notice of intent to prepare the EIS was published in the Federal Register Aug. 3, and USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will accept public comments through Sept. 2.

The bentgrass, which is resistant to applications of the glyphosate herbicide, was developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. and Monsanto Corp. for use mainly on golf courses.

It escaped field trials in 2003 and has spread throughout parts of Malheur and Jefferson counties.

Farmers and water managers in those areas worry that because the bentgrass is resistant to glyphosate and is hard to kill, it could clog irrigation ditches and affect shipments of crops to other nations that don’t accept traces of genetically modified organisms.

Some farmers in the affected counties have criticized a 10-year agreement USDA reached with Scott’s in October that lays out Scott’s responsibilities to help control the bentgrass.

They believe it essentially allows Scott’s to walk away from its responsibility to control the grass after two years, a claim the company and USDA officials deny.

Malheur County farmer Jerry Erstrom, one of the most vocal opponents of the agreement, said it’s critical that growers comment on the petition because the bentgrass could have a major impact on them.

“It’s very important to comment because the people from APHIS have no concept of the impact it could potentially have on Malheur County and other counties downstream,” he said. “We’re looking at the possibility of a major economic and ecological impact....”

By law, USDA is required to conduct either an environmental impact statement or a less rigorous environmental assessment of the petition.

Because of the degree of controversy involved, “We thought it was in the best interest of everybody to do an environmental impact statement,” Sid Abel, assistant deputy director of APHIS’ Biotechnology Regulatory Services, told Capital Press.

The agreement USDA reached with Scott’s last fall is “distinct and separate from the request for deregulation” and will not be impacted by it, Abel said.

However, he added, the information included in the agreement will have an impact on the EIS and will be the basis for how it’s written.

Federal law requires USDA to determine whether the creeping bentgrass is a plant pest and the agency will look at whether it poses a risk to other plants, agricultural production systems and biological resources.

According to the Federal Register, the petition for deregulation by Scott’s and Monsanto states the plant is “unlikely to pose a plant pest risk and, therefore, should not be (regulated).”

A preliminary review has determined the bentgrass likely isn’t a plant pest, Abel said.

In its review, USDA will also be looking at the agronomic consequences of the bentgrass out-crossing to weedy species, including the possible impact on crop rotation practices, herbicide use and tillage. It will also examine the possible impact on farm exports.

Oregon’s Clackamas County canceled a meeting this week on its bid to redesignate farmland following critical remarks from communities, a conservation district and a key state land-use agency.

That doesn’t mean the idea is dead, however. A majority of county commissioners want to review the status of 1,625 acres now designated “rural reserves.” The land, three parcels south and southeast of Portland, was designated to remain farmland for 50 years under a 2010 agreement signed by Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah counties and Metro, the Portland area’s land-use planning agency.

The Clackamas commissioners now want to review that decision. They believe their county needs more “employment land” that can be developed for industrial or commercial use and jobs. This summer, they announced a plan to review the status of 800 acres south of Wilsonville, 400 acres adjacent to the urban growth boundary of the city of Canby; and 425 acres south of the Clackamas River along Springwater Road. County officials believe the land should revert to “undesignated” rather than rural reserves.

The proposal caught the attention of groups such of Friends of French Prairie, which opposes development spilling over from the Portland area into the northern Willamette Valley.

The Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District, which usually steers clear of political arguments, took the unusual step of expressing its concern in a letter to the commissioners. The district’s board said the county’s plan “may not adequately consider the long-term value of high-value farmland,” which it called an “irreplaceable natural resource.”

Officials in Wilsonville and Canby, which might have to provide services such as water, sewer and police and fire protection to new development, said their cities have already designated other areas for development, and don’t favor adding land that is outside their city limits and urban growth boundaries.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Land Conservation and Development said the county’s intended review goes beyond the narrow issues detailed in a court-ordered remand of the rural reserves issue.

In a letter to the county, regional representative Jennifer Donnelly said DLCD “encourages the county to maintain the rural designations of the three study areas and focus on completing the reserves process.”

Oregon State University’s hazelnut research program was awarded a $3.1 million in a round of USDA grants announced Aug. 2.

The five-year grant will be used to continue hazelnut research at OSU, where breeder Shawn Mehlenbacher is credited with saving the industry by developing varieties resistant to Eastern filbert blight. Mehlenbacher, who submitted the grant application, could not be immediately reached for comment.

OSU’s grant proposal indicated the money would be used to expand commercial hazelnut production in the U.S. The work will focus on the Pacific Northwest, where Oregon accounts for nearly all of U.S. production and growers have added 3,000 acres since 2009; the temperate “fruit belt” region of the eastern U.S., where new blight-resistant cultivars are expected to be released in three to four years; and the Midwest and Great Plains, where new hybrids are being identified that have superior nut quality, yield, and adaptation to demanding climates, according to a news release.

OSU’s application describes hazelnuts as a “profitable, high-value, low input, sustainable crop for which steadily increasing world demand now exceeds supply.”

Producers and consumers are enthusiastic about increased U.S. production, the grant application says, but susceptibility to Eastern filbert blight remains a problem. In addition, existing cultivars lack climatic adaptability, which severely limits production in the East and Midwest and threatens the sustainability of production in Oregon, according to the application.

OSU’s grant application said there is a $3.26 billion national and international market for hazelnuts and “powerful environmental and economic benefits” would be generated by large-scale production of hazelnut hybrids.

“Hazelnuts are an ideal choice to integrate into profitable, sustainable agricultural or agro-forestry production systems, and are family-friendly for small producers focused on local food issues,” the application states. Hazelnuts could become a third crop in the Midwest and Great Plains, joining corn and soybeans, and would have considerable value as a specialty crop in the Eastern states, according to the application.

Hazelnuts require relatively few inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides, can be grown without irrigation in many areas and don’t require honeybees for pollination, according to OSU. Hazelnut kernels are a healthy food, have a long storage life and open up “robust local-to-international markets” for a variety of value-added products, according to OSU.

The grant money comes from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative that was authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. The grant program is coordinated by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. OSU’s hazelnut grant was one of 19 nationally, worth a total of $36.5 million.

Farmer Kevin Hobbs realized that inducing consumers to drive out to his property near Turner, Ore., just to buy eggs would be a tough sell.

Agritourism operations usually offer numerous other products and attractions, so Hobbs decided to find a retail establishment to buy his eggs.

To do so, however, he needed an egg handler’s license from the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Obtaining the license involves fees and regulations, but Hobbs said the process paid off when he found a retail buyer in Portland.

“They’re taking everything we produce,” Hobbs said. “We can’t produce enough pastured eggs.”

Other egg producers across Oregon are taking a similar approach as Hobbs.

Between 2005 and 2015, the number of licensed egg handlers in Oregon more than doubled, from 81 to 189, according to ODA records.

Though growers don’t need a license to sell eggs directly from a farm stand or at a farmers’ market, many want to be able to supply grocery stores and restaurants, said Carl Buchholz, who raises eggs near Mount Angel.

“You see a lot of restaurants where a selling point for them is they buy local,” he said.

Buchholz said he obtained his license to sell to the Bon Appetit Management Company, which provides food service to corporations and institutions, as well as a food retailer in Portland.

The license also allowed him to sell eggs on behalf of a neighbor who also raises chickens on pasture. Several other producers wanted to supply Buchholz with eggs, but he was concerned with maintaining consistency and quality control.

“When you’re selling at a higher price point, people are picky, and rightly so,” he said.

Though he’s now taken a full-time job and sells eggs directly to the public, Buchholz has elected not to let his handler’s license lapse, in part because ODA’s $25 annual fee and other requirements are reasonable.

“I was really impressed,” he said of working with the agency.

Licensed handlers can sell eggs produced by other farmers as long as the product undergoes the same grading, sanitation and packaging procedures, said Sarah Schwab, operations and automations specialist with ODA’s food safety program.

For example, eggs must be free of dirt, cracks and similar defects, and they must be held up to a candling light to inspect the air cell — which indicates freshness — and to ensure they contain no internal blood spots or signs of bacterial infection, she said.

Packages must also be labeled with the handler’s permit number to allow for traceability, Schwab said.

Large producers are inspected by ODA quarterly, while smaller ones are inspected every other year, she said. The agency also inspects eggs at the retail level to check that handlers are complying with regulations.

In some cases, farmers’ markets are requiring that egg producers obtain licenses, even though it’s not mandated by law, she said.

“They want to ensure someone is overseeing their process,” Schwab said.

Demand for local eggs among grocery stores and restaurants is strong despite competition among the growing number of egg handlers, particularly for eggs raised on pasture, said Buchholz.

Apart from the marketing angle, Buchholz said he’s been able to save money on feed by allowing his chickens to forage freely.

Hobbs, who started raising chickens last year, plans to increase his flock from 250 to 1,000 birds and invest in mechanized equipment for washing and grading.

Maintaining the egg handler’s license involves additional steps for his operation, but the expanded marketing opportunities it offers are valuable, he said. “It’s worth it.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Arizona man who took part in a pair of armed standoffs over federal land policy has pleaded guilty to a charge in Oregon and is expected to do the same in Nevada.

Joseph O’Shaughnessy, 44, acknowledged in court Monday that he conspired to prevent U.S. Interior Department employees from doing their jobs after ranchers and others took over a national wildlife refuge this winter near Burns, Oregon.

O’Shaughnessy said he didn’t participate in the occupation led by Ammon Bundy but felt a duty to provide security for those protesting federal control of public lands and the imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers.

“I did support their message,” he said, becoming the 10th of 26 defendants to plead guilty in Oregon.

Prosecutors will recommend a prison sentence on the low end of a 12- to 18-month range, and it will be served at the same time as the term he could receive for his role in a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents at a Nevada ranch owned by Ammon Bundy’s father, Cliven Bundy, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said.

Portland defense attorney Amy Baggio confirmed that O’Shaughnessy has a plea deal with prosecutors in Nevada and that resolving the Oregon case was part of the agreement.

O’Shaughnessy’s attorney in Nevada, Andrea Luem, did not return a phone message seeking details about the plea there.

Prosecutors in Nevada have described O’Shaughnessy as a midlevel organizer of the confrontation at Cliven Bundy’s ranch. The defendants there are accused of conspiring to assault federal officials who were rounding up Bundy’s cattle over unpaid grazing fees.

In Oregon, the 16 defendants who have not pleaded guilty are awaiting their day in court. Half of them, including brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, are scheduled to stand trial starting Sept. 7. The rest were granted a trial delay until Feb. 14, 2017.

SILVERTON, Ore. — As the Willamette Valley Pie Co. grows at its new location, sales manager Jeff Dunn said it wants family farms to grow with it.

The pie-making company has been in its new 67,000-square-foot production home in Silverton, Ore., for six months. Owner Jeff Roth decided to move the production arm of the company after outgrowing its previous space, which it shared with the pie retail store and the Willamette Valley Fruit processing facility.

Willamette Valley Pie makes all-natural handmade pies with local ingredients that are sold in the bakery and frozen sections of grocery stores such as Whole Foods, Roth’s, Albertsons, New Seasons, Market of Choice and Safeway.

Gerald Dunn started the company in 1999 as a processing operation. In 2001, the Roths purchased a pie company from LaSuisse Specialty Foods and it became Willamette Valley Pie Co.

The company primarily distributes to grocery stores on the West Coast but Dunn said the increased production at the new facility has given the company room and space to think about growing into new regions.

Jeff Dunn expects to move into the Midwest and East Coast starting in 2017, increasing sales, production and the amount of fruit the company buys from growers.

Willamette Valley Pie Co. buys 3 million pounds of fruit from Northwest growers every year and Dunn said that number is getting bigger.

“As we grow and use more fruit, it will help the fruit market,” Dunn said. “Anything we can do to help support the local agriculture market is all the better.”

The company contacted CD Redding Construction to explore its expansion options. After considering several options, the company decided to convert a grass seed warehouse on Eska Way into the production headquarters.

Project manager Jeremy Kuenzi said the facility was built with expansion in mind. Willamette Valley Pie is currently only using two-thirds of the building and has 20,000 square feet available for lease.

CD Redding worked for nine months to turn the empty warehouse into office space, a large kitchen, an 8,500-square-foot storage freezer and loading and packaging areas.

Dunn said the kitchen is four times bigger than what the company had at its old location and the freezer is three times bigger.

Bakery production manager Marlene Ganderson said production has changed tremendously since moving to the new facility.

Ganderson said the 68 bakery employees were cramped at the old location.

When Dunn started working in sales in 2005, the company was grossing $500,000 in sales per year. He said he expects close to $10 million in sales by the end of 2016.

Dunn said the company held back while it was getting used to the new facility but he expects 2017 to be a big year in regard to expansion.

As the company expands, Dunn said key considerations will be maintaining handmade quality products and continuing to support local agriculture.

“Our story starts with the growers, where we get our fruit.” Dunn said. “Our entire goal is to support local farm families.”

MEACHAM, Ore. (AP) — About 20 homes in Eastern Oregon have been evacuated, and officials on Sunday told residents in the nearby small town of Meacham to be ready to leave because of a wildfire.

Also on Sunday, authorities reopened the eastbound and westbound lanes of Interstate 84 that had closed overnight due to the fire.

Fire spokeswoman Jamie Knight said the 1-square-mile fire burning grass, brush and ponderosa pine stands is being fought by about 280 firefighters. Two helicopters and a small aircraft are also trying to slow the blaze.

A Type 3 Incident Command Team has taken over managing the fire.

The team is assessing when it’s safe for evacuated residents to return home. The American Red Cross has set up shelters for the evacuees at the Sunrise Middle School in Pendleton.

The fire is burning on lands protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry. Thirteen fire engines and two bulldozers are assigned to the blaze.

Knight advised caution for motorists on the interstate because of firefighting equipment in the area.

Once a captivating landmark along Interstate 84 in Eastern Oregon, the Boardman Tree Farm is quickly disappearing to make way for more conventional crops and cows.

GreenWood Resources, headquartered in Portland, sold the land earlier this year and already large swaths of poplars have been cut down and replaced with irrigation pivots. Approximately one-third of the 25,000-acre property is slated to become a dairy farm — permit pending — while the rest was purchased by AgriNorthwest, based in the Tri-Cities.

Will Evans, division controller for AgriNorthwest, said the plan is to convert all acreage into cropland as the remaining trees are harvested. Evans said the transition has gone better than expected since the company took over in February.

“It’s a beautiful piece of property,” he said. “This is a great place to farm.”

Terms of the deal, which included both the land and water rights from the Columbia River, were not disclosed. AgriNorthwest grows a variety of local staples, including potatoes, corn, wheat and carrots.

Don Rice, director of North American operations for GreenWood Resources, said it will likely be a few years before all the trees are gone. Part of the wait, he said, is to allow younger trees to finish growing before they are ready to be processed. Another part is based on what the markets will bear.

The Collins Companies informed Morrow County officials they will permanently shut down the Upper Columbia Mill by the end of October, with most of the facilities’ 67 employees laid off by Sept. 19. However, Rice said the Columbia Forest Products veneer mill is still open, and GreenWood will continue to sell wood chips to pulp and paper mills.

The Boardman Tree Farm has been around since 1990, and has become a popular attraction for visitors to the community. Residents will have one more chance to bid farewell to the tree farm during the final “Very Poplar Run,” a charity 5K, 10K and 15K race that benefits the Agape House in Hermiston.

Rice said they are planning to make this year’s event extra special.

“The idea is to do it up real nice for the last event,” he said.

More than 7,000 acres of the tree farm also sold to Lost Valley Ranch, formerly Willow Creek Dairy, which is proposing to bring in 30,000 cows on ground east of where Homestead Lane intersects with Poleline Road. The dairy, owned by Greg te Velde, is in the process of obtaining a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, permit with the state. If approved, it would become the second-largest dairy in Oregon behind only nearby Threemile Canyon Farms.

The permit regulates how Lost Valley Ranch would handle wastewater and manure generated on site to protect surface water and groundwater. A public hearing on the permit was held Thursday at the Port of Morrow in Boardman, with the majority of comments in favor of the proposal.

Wayne Downey, of Hermiston, managed the design of the facility, which he said uses the best management practices and latest technology. The design calls for open top lagoons capable of holding 260 acre-feet of liquid manure, which is then recycled and applied onto farmland for growing animal feed.

Lagoons are to be built with a synthetic liner and leak detection system to protect groundwater. The farm will conduct annual soil monitoring and quarterly sampling of monitoring wells, according to its application.

Marty Myers, general manager of Threemile Canyon Farms, also supported the proposal. For 15 years, Willow Creek Dairy has leased land from Threemile Canyon, and Myers described te Velde as a good tenant.

“Sustainable agriculture is really what we’re talking about here,” Myers said. “This whole operation is really a recycling venture, where the cows are the main benefit.”

Morrow County Planning Director Carla McLane presented comments on behalf of the county court, which were not necessarily in opposition of the project, but did pose some concerns. McLane said the dairy would be located within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area as well as three different critical groundwater areas, which raises questions about water use and contamination.

“We’re not unfamiliar with (land application) here in Morrow County, but we have to find a way to balance that with historical impacts of high nitrogen levels in the groundwater,” McLane said.

Written public comments will be accepted through Thursday, Aug. 4 on the project. There is no timetable for a decision to issue the permit, which is done jointly by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality.

Evacuation notices for the area around Deadman Pass were lowered Sunday afternoon from Level 3 to Level 2 as crews continued to battle the Weigh Station Fire east of Pendleton.

A Level 2 evacuation means residents can return home, but should be ready to leave again at a moment’s notice if necessary. Jamie Knight, spokesperson with the Oregon Department of Forestry, said 20 structures have been threatened by the fire, but it’s not certain how many of those are primary residences.

Columns of smoke could still be seen rising over the blaze Sunday, which has scorched roughly 500 acres of grass and timber along Interstate 84 up Emigrant Hill. The total number of acres burned had been estimated as high as 800, but that figure changed based on more accurate mapping, Knight said.

The fire is 25 percent contained as of Sunday evening. Evacuation warnings for the nearby town of Meacham also have been lifted entirely.

“The winds didn’t come up like they did (Saturday),” Knight said. “That really helped a lot.”

The freeway, which had been closed for nearly 24 hours, also reopened Sunday after firefighters finished removing hazard trees from along the road.

The fire started Saturday at about 12:30 p.m., with residents and Emigrant Springs State Park evacuated later that evening. More than a dozen people wound up at the Oregon Trail Store & Deli in Meacham where they planned what to do next.

“We’re kind of at the center of town,” said store owner Dixie Earle. “We had people load up here and regroup, and figure out where they were going.”

Earle said the store’s phone lines were knocked out earlier in the day, and a nearly two-hour power failure in Union County may have also been attributed to the fire damaging power lines. Though the fire never came too close to Meacham, Earle said they could see plenty of smoke hovering in the distance.

A temporary shelter for residents was established up at Sunridge Middle School in Pendleton, though Rebecca Vaughn with the American Red Cross said nobody had arrived by Sunday morning. That likely means those families found assistance elsewhere, Vaughn said, though the shelter will remain available until evacuation orders are lifted.

“We’re ready to stand down when we get the word,” Vaughn said.

The Blue Mountain Type 3 Interagency Incident Management Team took command of the fire Sunday morning, and will continue to work strengthening fire lines in the coming days. There are approximately 285 firefighters on scene, with fire camp established on private property at Poverty Flats.

As many as nine single-engine air tankers, one heavy air tanker, two helicopters, one air attack and one lead plane have been called in to provide air support, along with three bulldozers and more than a dozen fire engines on the ground.

NEW YORK (AP) — Miah-Marie Langlois scored 13 points to help Canada beat France 71-63 on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in an exhibition game.

JORDAN VALLEY, Ore. — A TV ad aired on MSNBC in the Portland region during the Democratic National Convention is encouraging people to oppose a proposed national monument in Malheur County.

The ad is paid for by the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition, which was formed by a group of ranchers and other Malheur County residents this year to oppose a proposed national monument on 2.5 million acres in an area of the county known as the Owyhee Canyonlands.

That would represent 40 percent of the county’s total land and opponents worry it would restrict grazing and other economic opportunities.

Rancher and coalition member Mark Mackenzie said the majority of East Oregon residents are aware of the proposal and oppose it and the coalition is trying to ensure people in the rest of the state know about it.

The OBSC has also had “No Monument” billboard signs along the Interstate 5 corridor for about six weeks, he said.

“We’re trying to broaden the coalition base to get people in Portland and the Willamette Valley to stand up and say ‘no,” he said.

“We’re trying to spread the message to folks who may not even know what’s going on in our part of the state,” said rancher and OBSC member Elias Eiguren.

The ad asks Oregonians to let Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, all Democrats, know they are opposed to a monument designation without a vote of Congress.

The proposed monument designation is being pushed by the Oregon Natural Desert Association, an environmental group based in Bend, and Portland’s Keen Footwear.

Supporters say they’re not trying to eliminate grazing, but instead want to prevent mining, transmission lines and oil and gas development. They tout a poll they commissioned that showed 70 percent of Oregon residents supported permanent protections for the Owyhee Canyonlands, including 66 percent in Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District where the national monument would be located.

Opponents believe monument supporters will ask the Obama administration to use the Antiquities Act to create a national monument. They oppose a monument designation through executive order.

Monument opponents respondwith their own poll results, which show 73 percent of Oregonians believe that national monument designations should be approved by Congress rather than the president.

In a news release. OBSC Chairman Steve Russell, a rancher, said East Oregon families “are searching for a leader in the Democratic party who will stand up for rural Oregon. We face strong opposition from well-funded special interests and Portland-based corporations, and our community needs a champion.”

Mackenzie said the message of not designating a national monument without local input and a vote of Congress is one that resonates across party lines and the coalition believes it will enlist more support as that message reaches a larger audience.

“I don’t view this as a Democrat or Republican thing,” he said. “This is about the health of the land and not about any political party.”

Formed in March, the coalition has raised $370,000, most of it from Malheur County, Mackenzie said.

OBSC now includes more than 6,000 members, a dozen organizations and more than three dozen elected leaders from across Oregon, according to the news release.

“We formed this coalition to have a voice in the process,” Mackenzie said. “This has unified the county and the people here.”

ALBANY, Ore. — Crews hired by USDA are being extra careful this year as they collect data from hazelnut orchards across Oregon for the annual crop forecast.

Last year, the agency’s National Agricultural Statistics Service overestimated Oregon’s hazelnut production by more than 25 percent, catching farmers and packers off guard when the harvest came up short.

While NASS hasn’t pinpointed exactly what went wrong in 2015, the rapidly changing landscape of Oregon’s hazelnut industry combined with an early maturing crop likely contributed to the skewed results, said Dave Losh, the agency’s state statistician.

“It was an abnormal year for a lot of reasons,” Losh said, noting that the early spring caused nuts to develop more quickly last year.

Farmers are planting new acreage of cultivars resistant to eastern filbert blight while older orchards are gradually succumbing to the fungal disease, he said.

These new orchards are being planted in various densities while older trees have been heavily pruned to slow the disease’s progression, further complicating the scenario, he said.

Until the mid-2000s, the main change that NASS had to track was the hazelnut industry’s declining acreage, said Gene Pierce, an agricultural statistician with the agency.

With new growers and trees now coming online, it’s more challenging for NASS to determine the size of the “universe” it uses for statistical analysis, Pierce said.

For now, however, NASS is focused on ensuring its crews are accurately following the model for collecting data, rather than trying to change the model itself, said Chris Mertz, the agency’s regional director for the Northwest.

“Before we make any huge tweaks, we want to make sure we’re covering all of our bases,” he said.

The annual forecast is conducted by NASS but the Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board covers the $93,000 cost.

Although NASS forecast that Oregon would produce 39,000 tons of hazelnuts last year — 8,000 tons more than were actually harvested — many farmers considered the estimate conservative at the time, said Larry George, president of the George Packing Co.

A survey of farmers conducted by George Packing last year pegged their average forecast at 41,000 tons, with one estimate of 35,000 tons considered a far outlier, he said.

“The trees looked loaded last year. It looked like a good crop,” George said.

Trees may have appeared to be brimming with hazenuts, but many had literally shrunk in size as eastern filbert blight killed their upper branches, he said.

The impact of blight is difficult to account for, since the roughly hazelnut 700 farmers in Oregon have 700 unique methods of fighting the disease, George said.

“How do you poll something that has no consistency?” he said.

Growers are reluctant to remove blight-infested orchards due to high prices in recent years, but the old orchards are nonetheless quickly losing productivity, said Mike McDaniel, proprietor of Pacific Agricultural Survey, a geographical data firm that’s assisting NASS.

“The new wave coming online is not quite compensating for the loss of mature production,” McDaniel said.

Confidence about the size of the hazelnut crop is necessary for hazelnut packers who need to know how much product they’ll be able to offer buyers, said Jeff Fox, CEO of the Hazelnut Growers of Oregon cooperative.

“It’s absolutely essential for the marketing of this crop,” he said.

Uncertainty can lead to disruption, as occurred last year when the hazelnut industry realized it had a short crop, Fox said.

Packers weren’t able to send as many in-shell hazelnuts to China — a major consumer — as expected because they didn’t want to disappoint their kernel customers, he said.

“We had to pump the brakes pretty hard once we figured out the crop wasn’t there,” he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Organic farm is seeking $210,000 from a neighboring dairy after cows escaped and defecated on the farm’s crops.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that a lawsuit filed by Simington Gardens claims they had to throw out contaminated winter squash and leafy greens and to shut down the field for four months because of the cows from Rock Ridge Farms. Both farms are in Aurora, south of Portland.

According to court documents, cows from Rock Ridge escaped their gated enclosure in April 2014. After several hours they were wrangled back to the dairy, but Simington Gardens says the damage was already done.

Oregon Tilth organic policies prohibit the use of raw manure on plants intended for eating.

Officials with Rock Ridge Farm declined to comment but said they work to be good neighbors.

Discovering the Portland presence of a wasp that kills the eggs of the dreaded brown marmorated stinkbug might be cause for more head scratching than fist bumps, but researchers will take good breaks where they find them.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture announced that one of its entomologists discovered a cluster of stinkbug eggs in Portland that had been obliterated by a tiny, parasitic wasp called Trissolcus japonicus. The finding may speed up control of brown marmorated stinkbug.

Like the stinkbug, referred to as BMSB, the wasp isn’t native to Oregon. The female wasp lays its eggs inside the eggs of stinkbugs. The developing wasp larvae essentially eat their way out as they grow, destroying the host.

That trait caught they eye of researchers at ODA, Oregon State University and elsewhere, because BMSB will eat nearly anything and are considered a major threat to fruit, berry, vegetable and nut crops. Its discovery in southeast Portland’s venerable Ladd’s Addition neighborhood in 2004 touched off a program, funded by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Services, to find a method of biocontrol, as bug-on-bug predation is called.

The state ag department leases space at OSU, which cooperates in the research, to raise the wasps in quarantine and sic them on BMSB in the laboratory.

One of the key questions is whether the wasps might harm beneficial native bugs as well. Entomologists have been working on it since 2011; the idea is to gather enough data to petition USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service for permission to release the predator wasps. Researchers in New York, Delaware, Florida, Michigan and California are doing similar work.

In 2014, things began to go sideways. The wasp was found in a mid-Atlantic state, and researchers immediately suspected wasps had escaped from quarantine. But DNA analysis showed it wasn’t from any of the colonies that researchers around the country keep in quarantine.

Last summer, the same thing happened in Vancouver, Wash. A wasp was recovered by Washington State University, but it also wasn’t from any of the quarantined populations. What’s more, it wasn’t from the same group as the wasp caught in the mid-Atlantic state.

This summer, entomologist Chris Hedstrom of ODA was checking a private property site near Oregon Health & Science University in Portland when he came across a cluster of BMSB eggs by accident.

The eggs had been wiped out, and it was clear wasp larvae were to blame. Wasps roughly chew their way out, while stinkbugs emerge through a neat hole, Hedstrom said.

“Oh, we have something here,” Hedstrom described his reaction.

Recognizing the potential importance of the find, Hedstrom returned within 15 hours and set what are called “sentinel” traps baited with BMSB eggs collected in ODA’s laboratory in Salem.

Two days later, he found wasps had struck again. He collected the eggs and adult “guardian” wasps that hang to protect the cluster from other parasitoids after they’ve deposited their young into the BMSB eggs. A single female can parasitize an entire egg cluster, Hedstrom said.

In July, the wasp larvae emerged in captivity and have since been identified as Trissolcus japonicus.

Additional study by the Smithsonian’s Systematic Entomology Lab will determine the lineage of the Portland wasps. Hedstrom believes they are part of the Vancouver group, given the relative proximity.

He said the wasps probably arrived in the Pacific Northwest the same way BMSB did — by hitching a ride into the Port of Portland or Port of Vancouver.

Hedstrom said the findings may speed up the process of gaining APHIS approval to release wasps as a biocontrol agent.

Hedstroms said the development is encouraging after years of telling growers it will take more time before biocontrols gain approval.

“We still have to error on the side of caution,” he said.

BOARDMAN, Ore. — Morrow County could soon be home to another giant dairy farm with tens of thousands of milking cows near Boardman.

Willow Creek Dairy, run by Greg te Velde of California, was established in 2002 on land leased from nearby Threemile Canyon Farms. Now, te Velde is looking to relocate and expand his operation onto 7,288 acres purchased last year from the former Boardman Tree Farm.

If permitted, the dairy — renamed Lost Valley Ranch — would house 30,000 cows, making it the second-largest in the state behind only Threemile Canyon. But before that can happen, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality must sign off on an application to register the farm as a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO.

The application includes an animal waste management plan and water pollution permit that details how Lost Valley will handle the 187 million gallons of manure it will generate annually.

“It regulates all of the manure and process wastewater,” said Wyn Matthews, who manages the CAFO program for ODA. “The permit is protective of both surface water and groundwater.”

A public hearing is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at the Port of Morrow Riverfront Center to ask questions and submit comments. Written comments will also be accepted through 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4.

Don Butcher, wastewater permitting manager for DEQ in Pendleton, said there has been some concern about Lost Valley’s location within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, which was designated by the agency in 1990 due to high levels of nitrates that exceeded federal safe drinking water standards.

Animal waste has the potential to load even more nitrates in groundwater, if it isn’t dealt with properly. However, Butcher said the dairy’s plan might just prove to be a template for permitting future facilities.

“We were pretty satisfied with how the permit finally came out for public comment,” Butcher said.

Details in the application were ironed out over a period of months, according to te Velde. They include designs for a wastewater lagoon, land application and extensive groundwater and soil monitoring. Overall, te Velde said he is relatively confident they have everything covered.

“We’re abiding by the CAFO rules provided by the state,” he said.

Lost Valley Ranch would be about a mile and a half east of where Homestead Lane meets Poleline Road. About 5,900 acres of the property would be used to grow feed for the cows, such as corn silage, alfalfa and triticale.

Currently, the dairy produces roughly 70,000 gallons of milk every day for Tillamook Cheese, which operates a plant just down Interstate 84 at the Port of Morrow. The location is great, te Velde said, and will keep Lost Valley sustainable in the long run.

“We like it here. It’s a great area to farm,” he said.

Others, including Morrow County, have their concerns. Planning Director Carla McLane said that while she did sign the project’s land use compatibility, she did so with trepidation. That is based in part on the location within the Groundwater Management Area.

“The fact that there are already two dairies and a beef CAFO within a three- or four-mile radius, with some significantly closer, only increases the concerns about the development of another much larger dairy,” McLane wrote in comments submitted to ODA.

The dairy would also span three other critical groundwater areas, McLane wrote, which in some cases have completely restricted the use of groundwater for agriculture. McLane requested the hearing Thursday so their issues can be fully discussed.

The Riverfront Center is located at 2 Marine Drive in Boardman. Written comments can be submitted to Matthews at the ODA’s CAFO program, 635 Capitol Street NE, Salem, OR 97301, or emailed to wmatthews@oda.state.or.us.

A pig breeder is challenging the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s order to build a confinement facility for his hogs, arguing it would hurt their health.

Luther Clevenger and his wife, Julie, raise Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs and other livestock on their 15-acre property near Aumsville, Ore., which has experienced water drainage problems during heavy winter rains.

ODA inspected the operation repeatedly this year after receiving several complaints that Clevenger’s 200 pigs were “creating a huge mess and affecting the property values of all the adjacent property owners” and that water was flowing onto neighbors’ lots.

The agency ultimately concluded that Clevenger’s farm was violating water quality standards and ordered a multi-pronged “plan of correction,” requiring him to construct a “swine confinement facility” to prevent pollutant discharges to the “surface water of Oregon,” according to ODA.

Currently, the pigs are raised on pasture but have access to portable shelters.

The plan also requires Clevenger to store manure and wastewater from the facility so that none is discharged into waterways, apply manure to the soil at agronomic rates and maintain grassed filter strips, among other measures.

Clevenger recently filed a petition in Marion County Circuit Court asking for the “plan of correction” to be overturned, arguing he hasn’t polluted state waters.

Water had collected on a neighbor’s property during winter, but that’s because the previous property owner filled a natural drain to expand his lawn. Clevenger said.

While he’s not opposed to reducing his number of pigs or working with the Marion County Soil & Water Conservation District to improve drainage issues, Clevenger said the confinement facility isn’t feasible for his rare hogs.

“This breed can’t be confined. They don’t work in confinement,” he said.

When Clevenger has confined the pigs in the past, even for relatively short periods of time, they’ve lost weight and some have even died, he said.

“If you have them out on pasture, they do fine,” he said.

People who buy from Clevenger generally raise the hogs organically or without antibiotics, and sell the meat through a “Community Supported Agriculture” model or other specialty markets, and they “prize pastured pigs,” according to his petition.

Clevenger has invested substantial amount of money in acquiring Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs from “all available genetic lines,” which has involved flying them from other locations and importing frozen semen from Ireland, the petition said.

Bruce Pokarney, communications director for ODA, said the agency can’t discuss the litigation but could “talk about all the details once the issue is settled.”

ALBANY, Ore. — SnoTemp Cold Storage opened a new warehouse in July, marking the company’s eighth expansion since it began business in Albany in 1974.

The company, founded in Eugene, Ore., in 1957 and with its headquarters still there, now has a total of 725,000 square feet of food storage space between its two facilities.

SnoTemp freezes and stores bulk vegetables and ingredients for repackers such as NORPAC Foods Inc., the farmers’ cooperative, and for other customers ranging from craft breweries to ice cream and dessert makers. The company has the capability to store food at temperatures ranging from minus-20 degrees to 70 degrees.

The new warehouse includes 8,500 square feet of processing space that gives customers room for value-added work such as repacking, wet packing and fresh fruit handling. In a news release, company CEO Jason Lafferty said that including processing space with the warehouse gives SnoTemp “distinct logistical and economic efficiencies that are critical to sustaining success in today’s market.” The company expanded its Albany plant by 100,000 square feet just six years ago, and has doubled the combined employment at its Albany and Eugene facilities during that time.

The expansion illustrates the economic vitality of Oregon’s food processing sector, which grew even during the depth of the recession. A labor trends report issued by the state Employment Department in 2014 showed that Oregon’s manufacturing sector lost nearly 16 percent of its jobs from 2007 to 2012. But food manufacturing jobs increased nearly 8 percent during that same period.

SnoTemp is a third-generation family business.

On-line: www.SnoTemp.com

Burnt River School’s invitation to Portland students paid off, and the rural Eastern Oregon school will host up to eight urban kids when classes begin next fall, and eight more in the spring,

“It’s happening,” Superintendent Lorrie Andrews said. The district is arranging places for the students to stay while in school.

The school, which had a total of 34 students in 2015-16, offers the Burnt River Integrated Agriculture/Science Research Ranch program, or BRIARR, a dip into the ag and natural resource issues common to the area. The K-12 public charter school is in Unity, Ore., about 50 miles east of John Day.

Students will learn about animal production science, sustainable rangeland science and forest restoration studies, and do water quality monitoring with the Powder Basin Watershed Council.

The invitation to Portland students was intended to help bridge the urban-rural divide, but it could help the district financially, as well. The state provides districts about $7,100 per student, and that funding follows the student during their time in the rural district.

Portland Public Schools sent an email to its high school families last spring, telling them of the opportunity, and Andrews received about two dozen email queries within a couple days.

After clearing interviews and securing placement with host families, eight girls will attend the school fall semester, and eight boys will attend in spring.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27

WILSONVILLE, Ore. — Clackamas County’s bid to review the status of three land parcels now set aside for agriculture is a concern to farm groups, and the cities that would have to service new development aren’t hot for the idea either.

Charlotte Lehan, a former county commissioner, former Wilsonville mayor and now member of the city council, said it would be “very difficult and very expensive” for the city to provide water and sewer to new development south of the Willamette River.

She said development in the area Clackamas County seeks to review would increase congestion on the Boone Bridge, which carries north-south Interstate 5 traffic across the river. She said a clogged bridge would be “disastrous” for the city.

“I-5 is Wilsonville’s lifeline,” she said. “When the Boone Bridge isn’t working, nothing works. We have to protect the functionality of Interstate 5.”

The arguments back and forth are part of a long-running disconnect over Oregon’s unusual statewide land-use planning system, which was designed to protect farm and forest land from urban sprawl. Under the system, cities are held in check by urban growth boundaries that can be amended in a controlled manner. But development pressure at the edges of cities remains a continuing issue all over the state.

In the Portland area, land-use planning for Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties is done by Metro, which has an elected board. Seeking to end ceaseless arguments, the counties and Metro agreed to a system of urban and rural reserves that was intended to set growth patterns for 50 years.

Clackamas County’s Board of Commissioners now wants to know whether three areas south and southeast of the Portland urban center, previously set aside as rural reserves and thus open to farming, would be more beneficial as “employment lands.”

The county commissioners cite a study by a consulting firm, Johnson Economics and Mackenzie, that said the county is short between 329 and 934 acres of industrial land and up to 246 acres of commercial land, an overall shortage of up to 1,180 acres over the next 20 years.

A majority of the commissioners want to review the status of 800 acres south of the city of Wilsonville; 400 acres adjacent to the urban growth boundary of the city of Canby; and 425 acres south of the Clackamas River along Springwater Road, outside Estacada. County officials believe the land should revert to “undesignated” rather than rural reserves.

County officials have dismissed concerns as overwrought. They point out that any land-use change would take years to accomplish and would be subject to legal review or appeal.

Nonetheless, the proposal has reopened a can of worms. Friends of French Prairie, a farming advocacy group, maintains that allowing development to jump across the Willamette River south of Wilsonville would crack open the state’s prime agricultural areas.

In a guest editorial written for the Capital Press, Friends of French Prairie President Ben Williams questioned the validity of the county’s employment lands report and some of the land is owned by people who have contributed heavily to commissioners’ election campaigns.

Board members of the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District took the unusual step of publicly warning against a land-use change. “The District believes the County’s current initiative to create employment lands may not adequately consider the long-term value of high-value farmland,” the district said in a letter to Clackamas commissioners. “A significant amount of the land proposed for reconsideration as employment land is high-value farmland, an irreplaceable natural resource.”

Lehan, the Wilsonville council member critical of the land-use review, said her fast-growing city has planned for additional industrial growth in its Coffee Creek and Salt Creek areas, and for residential development in an area called Frog Pond. The city doesn’t need more “employment land,” she said.

“I know how development works and what it takes for a city to support it,” Lehan said. “I’m not anti-growth by any means.”

Lehan was Clackamas County board chair until defeated in 2012 by the current board chair, Commissioner John Ludlow, who is often critical of Metro and of Portland’s influence on its suburban neighbors.

Canby City Administrator Rick Robinson made a point similar to Lehan’s: the city has an existing industrial park that isn’t full. The 400 acres Clackamas County wants to revert to undesignated status is outside the city limits and outside the city’s urban growth boundary, he said. Some of it is farmed now, and much of it is Class 1 agricultural soil, he said. Robinson said the Canby City Council hasn’t taken a position on the Clackamas review proposal.

The third area considered by Clackamas County is outside the city of Estacada. The mayor and city manager were unavailable to discuss the issue.