According to court documents, Farmers Grain, which opened in January 2013 and is headquartered in Nyssa, Ore., has $14 million in assets but as much as $23.8 million in liabilities.

That means some farmers and other ag-related businesses won’t be paid the full amount they are owed by Farmers Grain, which had gross revenues of $31.2 million in 2016 and $30.6 million in 2015.

The company’s financial struggles came as startling news to many of its creditors, including Payette, Idaho, farmer Bruce Cruickshank, who found out about them only after receiving a notice from bankruptcy court.

He was owed $137,000 on the date of the bankruptcy filing but has been paid all except $30,000.

Cruickshank said he’ll make it, as will most of the farmers who are also owed money. But the loss still hurts.

“We’ll survive, but it’s just like (anybody): if you take a $30,000 hit, it sure as hell ain’t going to make you feel very good,” he said.

He’s not sure how much of the remaining $30,000 that he’s owed he will actually see. “We’ll get something but it might be 10 cents on the dollar.”

Some Farmers Grain creditors are owed a lot more than Cruickshank. Court filings show many are owed several hundred thousand dollars and a few more than $1 million.

“A lot of my friends and neighbors have been hung out pretty bad,” said Ontario, Ore., farmer Bruce Corn, who sold corn to Farmers Grain but is not owed money by the company. “There are some people out there who are owed a lot of money.”

Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen, who hauled a small amount of wheat to the company this year but is not owed money, said two of his neighbors are owed $850,000 between them.

“It’s terrible,” he said of the company’s collapse. “It’s devastating.”

Jensen Farms in Vale, Ore., was owed $176,000 at the time of the original bankruptcy filing but was fortunate in that it delivered 1,000 tons of corn to Farmers Grain the day before the company declared bankruptcy and ended up getting paid the full amount it was owed.

“We were lucky, you could say that,” said co-owner Sheri Jensen.

However, the Jensen farm, like many others in the region, face a looming problem related to the bankruptcy that could end up costing them a significant amount of money.

Farmers Grain had contracted for tens of thousands of corn acres with local farmers, but those contracts are now void.

With harvest coming within the next few months, much of that corn has no place to go and no one to market it.

“There are a ton of farmers in the area scrambling trying to find out what to do with their corn,” Jensen said. “It’s not a pretty picture.”

The Jensens have on-site storage for their corn, but other farmers don’t, and Farmers Grain had the largest storage capacity in the region by far.

“The sheer volume of the corn means it will be hard for everyone to find a place to go with it,” Corn said. “Finding the storage and a place to market the corn is going to be a real problem this fall.”

Because the corn contracts are no longer valid, those farmers stand to lose a lot of money because prices have dropped more than $30 a ton since the contracts were signed, Cruickshank said.

He said a friend had 400 acres of corn contracted with Farmers Grain and if that corn is sold at today’s prices, he will lose about $280 an acre and more than $100,000 total.

Cruickshank had 130 acres of corn under contract with the company and would lose a similar amount per acre.

“That’s the tip of the iceberg with what (happened) with everybody,” he said.

Growers in the area said Farmers Grain was an excellent company to work with and many of them knew and liked Galen Jantz, 47, who managed the company and had a 40 percent interest in it, according to court documents.

Court documents show the company sought Chapter 11 protection after Rabo AgriFinance declared a default on a revolving line of credit to Farmers Grain and called the entire $8 million balance due.

The company asked the court for relief from “Rabo’s continued pursuit of the Jantz loans and property owned by (the) Jantz family.”

“This action by Rabo was one of the precipitating events leading to Farmers Grain filing its bankruptcy petition,” Farmers Grain stated in a court document. “Continued pursuit of the Jantz loans and collateral will severely impact the Chapter 11 proceedings and frustrate debtor’s ability to successfully reorganize.”

A June 15 letter from Farmers Grain authored by Jantz and sent to growers expressed hope the company could regain its financial stability and continue doing business.

But the court converted the Chapter 11 bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 liquidation filing on Aug. 15 after Rabo AgriFinance, in an Aug. 3 court filing, argued that Farmers Grain was losing too much money to recover.

An auction of the businesses’ assets has been scheduled for Oct. 27 beginning at 10 a.m. at the Farmers Grain facility in Nyssa.

In the Aug. 3 filing, Rabo attorneys said Farmers Grain assets “that secure repayment of (the company’s) loan appear to have diminished by almost $1.5 million in the two weeks after the bankruptcy filing.”

The company’s monthly operating report for the period ending May 31 showed further financial decline, Rabo added. In the six weeks that Farmers Grain had been protected by Chapter 11, Rabo said, its assets decreased by $3 million while its liabilities only decreased by $514,000.

While Farmers Grain claimed its total assets could generate about $20 million, a Rabo appraisal placed that value closer to $9 million, according to court records.

Rabo spokeswoman Sarah Kolell said the company does not anticipate being paid back in full from the liquidation of Farmers Grain’s assets.

“While Rabo does anticipate receiving some value from the liquidation of its collateral, we also anticipate that there will be a substantial deficiency remaining once the Farmers Grain case is concluded,” she told Capital Press in an email.

Complicating matters, Jantz suffered what Rabo, in court filings, said it was told was a mental breakdown and had left town, abandoning his farming and personal operations, as well as Farmers Grain.

As a result, the court appointed Steve Neighbors as a conservator to handle Jantz’s financial affairs. He is certified as a business turnaround specialist by the Turnaround Management Association.

Neighbors told Capital Press that according to Jantz’s family, he began having coherence problems in the past year and there is a history of early onset dementia in the family.

“He would be talking and babbling at times,” Neighbors said. “He was making a lot of irrational statements and decisions in his last year at Farmers Grain is what his family told me.”

Neighbors said Jantz became depressed as a result of the mental strain he was under. “He felt he had to get away from everything to prevent himself from being suicidal,” Neighbors said.

Jantz and his family of four are currently staying with a relative in another state, Neighbors said. “He had to get distance. He went away to get healthy.”

The Capital Press attempted to contact Jantz by leaving messages at several phone numbers connected with him, including at Farmers Grain’s main telephone number at its headquarters in Nyssa. None of the calls were returned. Other numbers, including his home number in Vale, Ore., were disconnected.

Neighbors said Jantz feels he let his community down and voluntarily turned over $8 million in personal assets to the court and asked Neighbors to make sure creditors are made as whole as possible and that no one creditor seizes everything.

“He asked me to make it as right as I can to all of his creditors,” Neighbors said. “I’m trying to make everything as transparent as I can to all the creditors so they have their fair shot at whatever” is owed them.

Neighbors said he has authorized $3,000 a month for eight months for Jantz to take care of his family during the bankruptcy proceeding.

“That’s all Mr. Jantz wanted,” he said. “He wanted everything else to go to his creditors.”

Neighbors said he believes a couple of main factors led to Farmers Grain’s financial collapse, including that some accounting and record-keeping that should have been done, wasn’t.

“I think those complexities went beyond his ... training,” he said.

“He didn’t understand his costs fully and didn’t understand the full implications of cash flow,” Neighbors added.

Some important business decisions that should have been made in the past year weren’t because of the mental strain Jantz was under, he said.

For many farmers affected by the company’s bankruptcy, their hope now is that another business will step in and take its place.

Corn, the farmer, said Farmers Grain was a good business for area farmers while it was running “but when it went bad, it went bad in a hurry. My hope is someone will buy it and make it work.”

Kolell, the Rabo spokeswoman, said what the liquidation of the Farmers Grain assets will look like is an open question.

“If someone wanted to step in and purchase all real and personal property assets and reopen the business, Rabo would be supportive of that,” she said.

A legal settlement intended to upgrade conditions for the Oregon spotted frog is having uneven impacts on the threatened species’ habitat, according to federal biologists.

The agreement was struck last year to resolve a lawsuit between environmental groups, irrigation districts and the federal government over the operation of several dams in the region.

While conditions for the spotted frog improved in portions of the basin during certain seasons, they were degraded in other locations and times under the deal, according to a recent “biological opinion” from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We call this the push-down, pop-up system,” said Bridget Moran, field supervisor of the agency’s office in Bend, Ore.

In other words, when problems are suppressed in some areas they are aggravated in others due to the complexity of the irrigation system, which relies on water from the Crane Prairie, Wickiup and Crescent Lake reservoirs.

Under the settlement, the amount of water is reduced for growers in five irrigation districts to make more available to the frog, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

As reservoirs are drawn down, the water level falls below vegetation that spotted frogs rely upon for breeding and shelter from predators, said Moran.

“It’s really about whether the level of flow allows the frogs to access their habitat,” she said.

However, retaining water in one part of the system means that it’s reduced somewhere else, she said. For example, filling a reservoir requires reducing downstream river flows.

Nonetheless, the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in its biological opinion that the water regime mandated by the settlement won’t jeopardize the frog’s continued existence or destroy its habitat.

“On the balance, there is slight improvement, most notably at the Crane Prairie reservoir,” which is important because it contains a healthy population of frogs, Moran said.

Moran characterized the legal settlement as the “bridge” to a more comprehensive “habitat conservation plan,” or HCP, for the spotted frog that’s due in 2019. At that point, the current deal is expected to expire.

“It will be many different features but they all build around increasing winter flows over time,” which provides frogs with the opportunity to reach overwinter habitat, she said.

Increased flows will be supplemented with habitat restoration work aimed at returning the system’s rivers to a more natural state.

Over the 70 years of reservoir operations, heavy water flows released from reservoirs during summer have “scarred” river beds, making channels deeper, said Moran. As a result, water doesn’t reach adjacent wetland vegetation, cutting off spotted frogs from habitat.

Meanwhile, what vegetation does grow along river banks is flooded, she said. “It comes up so high, everything gets inundated.”

Habitat restoration work aims to reconnect the river flows with nearby habitat. The HCP will also include control of bull frogs, which predate on spotted frogs and compete for habitat, and treatment of reed canary grass, an invasive species.

Due to a healthy snowpack last winter, the settlement wasn’t seriously damaging to irrigators in 2017, said Ken Rieck, general manager of the Tumalo Irrigation District, a defendant in the case.

On average, the district stands to lose about half the stored water that would usually be available for irrigation due to the agreement, he said. This year, it only lost about 20 percent, but in a “bad year,” the loss could reach 80 percent.

“We really didn’t get the full effect we could have,” Rieck said.

Under the settlement, water that would normally be stored in Crescent Lake for the district’s irrigation system is being redirected into winter stream flows for the spotted frog.

Traditionally, the district lost roughly half of available irrigation water to seepage in unlined canals, Rieck said. Now, it’s installing piping to stop the leakage, allowing more water to be devoted to frog habitat without reducing irrigation supplies as sharply.

“The more pipe we put in the ground, the more of that water we’ll be able to recover,” he said. “Our goal is to be as close to 100 percent efficient in our delivery system as possible and that will be our defense.”

THURSDAY, OCT. 5

The Harl Butte wolf pack killed a calf and injured another in attacks investigated by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Sept. 29 and Oct. 1.

ODFW shot four pack members in August in what it described as an incremental response to repeated depredations.

Cattle ranchers in the area predicted the department’s response wouldn’t work and now are likely to renew their call to have the entire pack killed. ODFW has confirmed 10 attacks on cattle by the pack since July 2016, all within nine miles of each other. As of Oct. 4, ODFW had not announced how it will respond to the latest attacks. Even with four killed in August, the pack is thought to consist of six adults and three pups, according to ODFW reports.

On the morning of Sept. 29, a volunteer range rider found a dead 425-pound calf on private grazing land in the Marr Flat area of Wallowa County. An estimated 40 percent of the carcass had been consumed, according to an ODFW report. Tracking collar data showed a wolf designated OR-50, the only pack member wearing a collar, was at the carcass about 90 minutes before the range rider found it.

The injured calf found Oct. 1 had a large open wound on the inside of its upper left rear leg, according to ODFW, which estimated it had been attacked Sept. 25. The calf weighed 570 pounds.

The attack also happened on private land in the Marr Flat area. OR-50 was in the area Sept. 23-25, according to ODFW.

ODFW wolf attack investigation reports are online:

Several irrigators in Oregon’s Klamath Basin have appealed a ruling that upheld the shutdown of their wells for interfering with surface water rights.

According to the state judge, the Oregon Water Resources Department had “substantial evidence” that flows in the Sprague River were affected by pumping from the four wells.

Several people who own or lease the wells — Stanley and Dolores Stonier, Larry and Joan Sees and Garrett and Cameron Duncan — are now challenging that decision before the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Instead of relying on the full evidentiary record from trial, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Channing Bennett based his ruling on OWRD’s information from the time when the wells were shut down, said Sarah Liljefelt, attorney for the irrigators.

“The judge has applied the incorrect standard of review in the decision,” she said.

Layers of rock and clay divide the Sprague River from the confined aquifer into which the wells were drilled, but OWRD wrongly concluded the aquifer was sufficiently permeable to transmit water to the river, according to the irrigators.

Apart from wrongly applying a scientific model, the agency also interpreted its authority too broadly by regulating an expansive “aquifer system” — rather than just the “adjacent aquifer” to the river, as permitted by law, the plaintiffs claimed.

The irrigators asked the judge for special findings explaining his decision, but he failed to buttress his legal conclusions with adequate evidence, said Liljefelt.

“Some legal conclusions have no legal findings to support them whatsoever,” she said. “My opinion is there were a lot of errors in this decision.”

Any ruling from the Oregon Court of Appeals would have a long-reaching effect, since OWRD is likely also misapplying its authority and scientific model in similar irrigation cases, Liljefelt said.

“They’re regulating beyond their jurisdiction,” she said.

The OWRD will be working with its attorneys at the Oregon Department of Justice in responding to the appeal, as it does with all litigation, said an agency spokesperson.

Judge Bennett’s ruling was properly based on significant evidence developed at trial, said Richard Deitchman, an attorney for the Tulelake Irrigation District, which sided with OWRD in the lawsuit.

Tulelake Irrigation District will participate in the appeal process but it’s still too early to comment on the plaintiff’s specific allegations, which have yet to be officially filed, he said.

“We have to wait and see what the grounds for the appeal are,” Deitchman said.

CRESWELL, Ore. (AP) — Protesters staged a rush-hour demonstration against a pro-marijuana measure that’s on the ballot next month in Creswell, Oregon.

If approved, marijuana retailers would be allowed in the small town south of Eugene. The Register-Guard reports about 80 protesters stationed themselves at the Interstate 5 exit on Monday, urging passing motorists to keep the prohibition in place.

Creswell voters have already banned marijuana retailers once — 53 percent to 47 percent. But a company seeking to open a shop said the decision was close enough to warrant another vote. The company gathered enough signatures to put the question on the November ballot.

“Nobody thought we’d be out here and have to vote again,” said Kevin Prociw, a protest organizer.

In addition to being near a heavily traveled road, the protest location was outside the office of One Gro Investment Group. The company co-founded by Mike Arnold, a high-profile Eugene defense attorney, is spearheading the drive to allow retailers.

If the measure passes, the company plans to put a marijuana shop on Oregon Avenue, said One Gro Chief Executive Dan Isaacson. One Gro already has two marijuana farms in Lane County, he said, and intends to have its headquarters in Creswell.

Prociw said he commutes daily by bus to Eugene from Creswell and started talking with fellow commuters about the issue of retail marijuana. He now serves as campaign manager for a pair of political action committees — “Keep It Creswell” and “No to One Gro.”

“I said if we don’t want this happening in Creswell, we’ll have to do something,” he said.

One Gro has its own political action committee, called “Jobs and Freedom,” which has raised more than $30,000, according to state records. Opponents have raised less than $5,000.

Isaacson said the bulk of the money spent by One Gro went to staff and signature gathering. He and fellow One Gro workers delivered bottles of water to protesters Monday, saying the company supports conversation about marijuana sales.

“Anytime more people get out, the better,” Isaacson said.

A new report from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shows that despite previous protections, the marbled murrelet is still in trouble.

And now, the state is considering whether to list the sea bird as “endangered” under the state’s endangered species act.

“Overall, it’s an imperiled species, but ultimately the question of whether to up-list or not, that’s a commission decision,” says Christina Donehower of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to make that decision in February.

The murrelet was listed as “threatened” federally and by Oregon in the 1990s. Environmental groups are now asking for the change in status.

Donehower says changing the status would force the state to develop an official plan to protect the bird.

“Really the most direct effects of listing would be for state owned or leased lands,” she says.

Private forest lands could be affected as well. Changes in management of murrelet habitat could curtail timber harvest.

Marbled murrelets nest in mature coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest. Over the past 25 years, they’ve lost habitat on state and private lands at a much higher rate than on federally managed land.

TUESDAY, OCT. 3

A highly anticipated study on the impacts of canola production in Oregon’s Willamette Valley will soon be released after three years of research.

The report from Oregon State University is expected to frame negotiations over canola’s future in the valley, where most cultivation of the crop is banned until 2019.

Controversy over canola in the region erupted in 2013, when the Oregon Department of Agriculture broke with longstanding precedent and decided to allow 2,500 acres of the crop to be grown along the valley’s edges.

Specialty seed producers opposed the rule change, fearing that canola will disrupt production of related brassica crops grown for seed.

Farmers who want to grow canola, on the other hand, see it as a valuable rotation crop that can be sold on the commodity market — offering flexibility compared to most seed crops, which are grown under contract.

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill that year prohibiting most canola production but allowing 500 acres a year to be grown as part of the OSU study.

With OSU’s report due Nov. 1, both canola growers and seed companies hope the issue will now be less divisive as ODA begins developing recommendations for the crop based on the study’s conclusions.

“We know coexistence is possible, it’s just a matter of convincing people,” said Anna Scharf, whose family farms near Perrydale, Ore.

Scharf said her family has successfully been growing canola near fields dedicated to radish seed, a related crop.

Hopefully, OSU’s study will show there’s a capacity in the Willamette Valley to grow multiple types of brassica, she said.

“I don’t want this turning into a fight again,” Scharf said.

The Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association, which filed a lawsuit against ODA’s canola regulation in 2013 and supported the production moratorium, appears to be taking a more conciliatory approach to the crop.

“We expect the need to coexist in the future with some level of canola,” said Greg Loberg, the group’s public relations chair and manager of the West Coast Beet Seed Co.

Specialty seed growers are anticipating the report will result in concessions to canola growers, such as reduced limits on the crop’s production, Loberg said.

The association will be talking with canola growers and ODA to retain some protections for specialty seeds, such as production area sanitation requirements to prevent canola volunteers from becoming widespread, he said.

In return, canola producers will likely want to participate in WVSSA’s system for maintaining isolation distances among brassica crops to avoid cross-pollination and other issues, Loberg said.

The goal is to arrive at a solution without reliving the previous conflict, he said.

“We don’t want to continue to have legislation directing the production of any crop,” Loberg said. “It’s really not the best solution, it’s just the solution that happened.”

As part of the OSU study, roughly 500 acres of canola a year were compared with 500 acres of radish and 500 acres of turnip and forage rapeseed.

By the end of the three-year period, OSU was monitoring about 1,500 acres of each crop type for disease, insect and volunteer weeds, said Carol Mallory-Smith, the weed science professor leading the research.

The study examined residue breakdown of the different crops — which has implications for disease management — under various tillage methods, she said.

The report will include a map identifying acreage available for brassica seed production, which will help guide where canola can be planted in relation to other crops, Mallory-Smith said.

Based on the report’s findings, ODA is expected to deliver its recommendations for canola cultivation to the legislature by mid-November 2018.

Kathy Hadley, who grows canola and other crops near Rickreall, Ore., said she’s hopeful the OSU study will lead to cooperation among canola and specialty seed producers, both of whom contributed data to Mallory-Smith.

“They’ve had as much opportunity as anybody to influence what she presents,” Hadley said.

LANGLOIS - The Langlois Public Library offers events throughout the month, some ongoing:

Oregon’s vineyard and winery operators are a famously optimistic bunch — even a terrible year for grapes would be described as “challenging” instead of bad. But with harvest in various stages determined by variety and geography, people in the industry acknowledge 2017 threw weather curves all season.

“That’s agriculture,” said Melissa Burr, director of winemaking at Stoller Family Estate in Dayton, Ore. “That’s what we farm all year for. We’ll be OK.”

The winter and spring brought heavy rain, snow and even freezing temperatures to much of the state. Then came an usually hot and dry summer; even Portland went 57 consecutive days without rain. September brought a week of cold rain, followed by a glow of warm days, followed by clouds and drizzle or downpour again as the month faded. October? A little sun, a little rain...

Despite weather fluctuations, the season was marked by healthy vines, a good fruit set and moderate sugar levels in the grapes, said Burr, who is in her 14th harvest year at Stoller.

“There’s a lot of balance out there,” she said.

Pinot noir vines produced heavier clusters this year, she said. Pinot vines usually average about 150 berries per cluster, but this year range up to 250 berries per cluster, Burr said.

Some vineyards had a bit of sunburn during the long hot spell this past summer. At Forest Edge Vineyard south of Oregon City, on the east side of the Willamette Valley in the Cascade foothills, grower and winemaker Ron Webb said he had to cut and drop some Pinot clusters due to sun damage. He and his wife, Jan Wallinder, also reported a heavier than usual fruit set this year,

In the Columbia River Gorge, grower and producer Brian McCormick noted another potential twist of 2017: Heavy, lingering smoke from wildfires, especially the Eagle Creek Fire in the Gorge.

McCormick, whose wines include the Memaloose and Idiot’s Grace labels, said he hasn’t noticed an acute flavor impact in early fermentations, but grapes have their own minds about such things.

The heavy smoke was like having cloudy skies during the last two weeks of ripening, he said, and judging ripeness can get tricky in such conditions.

“We’re not going to know for awhile,” McCormick said.

A roundup of vineyard and winery reports provided by the Oregon Wine Board indicates color and flavor are good, accompanied by generally lower sugar levels. Hot and dry weather meant that some regions, including the Willamette Valley, “needed some more time for the vines and fruit to recover and regain balance,” OWB spokeswoman Sally Murdoch said by email. Southern Oregon vineyards began picking early because of heat spikes.

Murdoch based her report on vineyard websites and blogs, conversations and other communications.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska marijuana grower Mike Emers has been losing sleep with a vote fast approaching that he says could shutter his family’s business and financially ruin them.

The statewide initiative that legalized recreational marijuana in 2014 allows local governments to ban pot businesses within their borders. And on Tuesday, voters in two of Alaska’s major marijuana-growing areas - including the Fairbanks area, where Emers operates Rosie Creek Farm - will decide whether to do so.

If the proposed bans on marijuana growing, manufacturing, selling and testing are successful, several dozen businesses would be forced to close. And, some in the industry worry, besides creating a bottleneck in the cannabis supply chain, it could embolden other communities to pursue bans or cause state lawmakers to look at whether to roll back legalization.

“I think this is a pivotal moment for the course we’re setting here,” said Cary Carrigan, executive director of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association. Carrigan said he felt good about the work the industry has put in to fight the bans but wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how the votes might go.

Emers, who turned to growing cannabis after financially struggling as an organic fruit and vegetable farmer, understood the risks when he poured his life savings into the business. While the vote is legally allowed, “on a moral basis, it’s disingenuous,” he said.

“To have the rug pulled out from under us once the ball is rolling seems incredibly unfair,” he said.

The opt-out provision for local governments isn’t unique to Alaska, but it’s unusual to see it exercised so long after a legalization vote, said Chris Lindsey, senior legislative counsel with the national, pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project.

Following Oregon’s 2014 legalization vote, there was a rush by rural communities in the eastern part of that state to enact bans, he said.

In Colorado, at least 69 communities have embraced marijuana businesses, most along the heavily populated Front Range, in Rocky Mountain resort areas or near borders with neighboring states. More than twice as many have opted out, according to the Colorado Municipal League.

However, some communities that banned the drug in legal pot states have revisited the decision in light of tax revenues from sales. For example, the City Council in Yakima, Washington, last year lifted a ban on recreational pot businesses.

Supporters of the proposed bans in and around Fairbanks, the largest city in Alaska’s Interior with about 32,000 people, and in rural parts of the Kenai Peninsula Borough initially hoped to bring the issue to voters last fall but failed to meet deadlines to do so.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough is about 65 air miles southwest of Anchorage.

Ban supporters contend it is one thing to support legalization statewide but another to support it in your community.

“The voters have a right to decide important questions like this, and when they get ignored and the neighborhoods aren’t being protected by their local government, whose job it is to do that, someone needs to step up and say, ‘Listen, this is wrong, and we need to fix it,”’ said James Ostlind, chairman of the initiative group supporting bans in Fairbanks and surrounding unincorporated communities.

Ostlind and others cite frustration with local zoning rules they see as too lax and allowing marijuana businesses near homes.

Christine Nelson, director of community planning for the Fairbanks North Star Borough, which encompasses the city and nearby communities, said much of the borough is zoned as general use, allowing for nearly any type of use. Many subdivisions and neighborhoods have gone up in these zones, creating a rub when other types of property owners want to come in, she said.

Local officials have encouraged homeowners in general use areas who don’t want legal pot farms or retail shops nearby to petition to have their areas rezoned as residential, a designation that restricts cannabis businesses. The trick, though, is getting enough homeowners to sign on, since some may have bought their property because they could use it for a range of purposes and don’t want to lose that, Nelson said.

Lance Roberts, a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough assembly who supports the Fairbanks-area bans, expects a large voter turnout and a tight vote.

Many of the communities that have barred or limited pot businesses in Alaska so far are smaller or fairly conservative, such as North Pole, just outside Fairbanks, and Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla.

Blaine Gilman, a leading voice in the effort to bar marijuana businesses in parts of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, does not believe the commercialization of pot has been good for the community. He cites health concerns and fears it could lead to use of harder drugs, issues the industry has challenged.

Gilman, a former borough assembly member, said that during the debate over legalization, marijuana advocates, as part of their pitch, made clear that communities would have the right to opt out. But, “when people try to opt out, there is a huge reaction,” he said.

Leif Abel, whose Greatland Ganja growing operation based in the peninsula town of Kasilof would be affected, said if the measures succeed, they could have a chilling effect on the industry and “embolden the prohibitionist stance.”

He feels confident in the industry’s efforts to defeat the measure on the peninsula and said he’s as calm as he can be about it.

“This is the last dying throes of prohibition,” he said, adding later: “Even if some of these folks don’t admit it to themselves ... the real reason that they still want to prohibit marijuana is they don’t want to accept a certain segment of society in the mainstream.”

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Cool, damp weather has brought relief from wildfires in the northwestern U.S., northern Idaho and western Montana, but the fall fire season is getting underway in Southern California, forecasters said Sunday.

The risk of big wildfires will be above average for Southern California through December, the National Interagency Fire Center said in its monthly forecast .

The risk is also elevated in central and northeastern Montana through the end of October because of a severe and prolonged drought.

The forecast calls for average risk of big wildfires over much of the nation through the end of the year, although parts of the Midwest and South could face elevated danger.

Wildfires have burned more than 13,200 square miles nationwide this year, putting 2017 on pace to be one of the worst in a decade.

The U.S. Forest Service, the nation’s primary wildfire-fighting agency, has spent more than $2 billion on fire suppression this year, a record.

The West has been vulnerable because a wet winter produced a dense crop of grass and small trees and a hot spring dried them out, fire managers said. Summer storms brought fire-starting lightning but little rain or even humidity.

By Sunday, 13 large fires were burning on 980 square miles. Oregon had seven large fires, California four, and Idaho and Montana had one each.

Southern California was unusually cool and humid in mid-September, which reduced the fire danger at a time when it’s usually high, the National Interagency Fire Center said. But seasonal offshore winds could dry out the vegetation and raise the fire threat again.

The center said two wet weather systems in mid-September dampened forests and grasslands in Idaho and western Montana.

“The recent precipitation coupled with prolonged cooling over the past 10 days has essentially ended the fire season over north Idaho and western Montana,” the center said.

But 40 percent of Montana, mostly in the northeastern corner, remains under extreme or exceptional drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Big wildfires could erupt there under warm, dry and windy weather, the fire center said.

MONDAY, OCT. 2

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — While fights over water have come to define the region over the years, at least one idea unites growers and others throughout the Klamath Basin: a desire to pass on local agriculture to future generations.

That desire is front and center at Klamath Community College, whose agricultural sciences program offers classes that can go toward a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University. The 21-year-old campus also offers support for students who are finishing their degrees at OSU online.

“Studies have shown there’s a probability of kids staying in the community if they graduate (from college) in that community,” said Keith Duren, who leads KCC’s ag program. “We’re going to die if we don’t have that next generation.”

To entice high school graduates to stay in town, Duren has amassed high-tech equipment one might find in a university’s master’s degree program. His chemistry and biology labs have such equipment as a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) device for identifying different substances within a test sample.

He has an atomic absorption monitor and obtained a DNA synthesizer two years before Washington State University did, he said.

“This is how we make the next generation of agriculturalists,” Duren said. “It’s pretty amazing to have this stuff at a two-year school. I’ve got sophomores doing gene transformation in chemistry lab.”

A tour of KCC’s facilities kicked off an all-day field trip on Sept. 28 highlighting Klamath Basin agriculture. Hosted by the Klamath Water Users Association, the Fall Harvest Tour of area farms and processing facilities is aimed at teaching local businesspeople and political leaders about the industry that contributes nearly $300 million to the region’s economy.

Stops on the tour included Holland’s Dairy in Klamath Falls, a potato farm, the Gold Dust Potato Processors and Walker Farms potato shed in Malin, Ore., and a farming and wetlands restoration project on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in far Northern California.

This year’s theme centered around making ag attractive to the area’s young people, and keeping the industry viable and sustainable for future farmers.

“There’s been a concern for years about kids who go off to college not coming home,” said Scott White, the KWUA’s executive director. “But there’s been a change. Some of the kids are wanting to stay ... It’s a pretty exciting thing.”

Among the attendees this year were FFA students from Henley High School in Klamath Falls, who said they found the tour valuable.

“I think these stops are helping us see the opportunities in the basin and see new things that we haven’t seen in the basin,” said Wyatt Quinowski, a senior. “If I had the opportunity to just go in and farm ... I’d like to stay in the basin.”

Bob Hamlin earned a degree from OSU and returned to the area to help his uncle at Holland’s Dairy, where he manages about 700 cows.

“Hopefully we can continue this lifestyle in the basin,” he said, noting the frequent water shortages that have been the source of controversy and settlement talks for decades.

Growing potatoes — a key crop in the basin — has its challenges, farmer Luke Robison warned. One has to put lots of capital into potato farming, which most young people can’t afford to do, he said. And proper water management in the height of summer is critical, as water stress can alter a potato’s sugar levels, he said.

But the industry is in need of workers, Robison said.

“On the production side, there’s lots of opportunities out here on the farm,” he told the FFA students. “It’s the experience (that’s important) ... It’d be very difficult to get into this business, but there’s a lot of opportunity to get your feet wet. And this isn’t something you can learn from a book.”

The Hoop Group program returns this weekend and will run on Sundays throughout October and the first two Sundays in November.

SALEM — Oregon grown specialty crops will share the spotlight as part of Oregon’s Bounty: A Celebration of the Harvest, held at the State Capitol Saturday, Oct. 7.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University will once again team up to offer a taste of locally grown food and an opportunity to purchase from local vendors.

The “Crop Up Luncheon and Market Showcase,” held at Salem’s State Capitol State Park, climaxes a series of similar events held around the state this summer. In addition to the luncheon and market showcase, ODA will present a Farm to School Producer Award to Rickreall Dairy for its dedication to providing nutritious food to schools and educating kids in the process.

The event is designed to increase awareness of the bountiful diversity of Oregon specialty crops including fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, and nursery crops.

The buffet-style luncheon will be available between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. for attendees to enjoy at the event or package up and enjoy as they go, and includes a variety of local ingredients offered in unique recipes developed by OSU.

The market showcase provides an opportunity to learn more about specialty crops through a visit to our vendor tables with educational materials available.

Tickets to the luncheon and market showcase cost $10 per person and includes a coupon that can be used like cash at the Salem Saturday Market located two blocks from the event. Tickets must be purchased by October 6 at http://bit.do/CropUp .

For more information about the Oregon’s Bounty event, please contact Visitor Services at the Oregon State Capitol, 503-986-1388 or visit www.oregoncapitol.com.

Oregon’s farm regulators aim to increase the impact of their agricultural water quality program by shifting how grant money is allocated, among other changes.

Ensuring that farmers comply with water quality standards is within the purview of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which traditionally focused its attention on waterways subject to complaints.

In recent years, ODA has moved beyond the complaint-driven process to determine for itself which streams and rivers should be scrutinized for water quality problems.

Based on aerial photos and other data, the agency each year selects several “strategic implementation areas,” or SIAs, where waterways are examined more closely.

During the 2015-2017 biennium, roughly $1 million from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board was spent on compliance projects in the SIAs, such as planting vegetation near denuded streams or moving manure piles away from waterways.

Under the agency’s new “coordinated streamside management partnership,” this funding will be dedicated to planning rather than on-the-ground work.

In the 2017-2019 biennium, another $1.2 million in OWEB money will be available, but now the funds will be directed toward technical assistance for local soil and water conservation districts and watershed councils.

The change is expected to help smaller districts and councils — some of which only have a single employee — with tasks such as grant-writing and paying for engineering plans, said John Byers, manager of ODA’s agricultural water quality program.

Aside from rectifying specific problems so landowners comply with water quality standards, the program will also identify additional measures to “uplift” water quality, Byers said.

Paying for the projects themselves will require separate OWEB grants, he said. “We feel they’re going to be as competitive or more competitive because of that uplift.”

Once it annually chooses six “strategic implementation areas,” ODA will consult with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife about the best methods for improving water quality.

“Let’s make sure we’re looking at this from a coordinated perspective,” said Byers.

Historically, efforts to improve agricultural water quality were akin to “random acts of conservation,” said Lisa Hanson, ODA’s deputy director.

Now, ODA will provide local groups with information from DEQ and ODFW up front, helping them to understand where projects will be most effective for fish and environmental health, Hanson said.

“If we work with these 10 landowners, we can have a big impact,” said Meta Loftsgaarden, OWEB’s executive director.

The agency will also be monitoring aspects of water quality, such as sedimentation and temperature, to see whether its efforts are proving effective.

Monitoring has already occurred in some Oregon waterways, but systematically analyzing SIAs will provide state agencies will a more expansive perspective, said Loftsgaarden.

“We’re able to get a very different story for agriculture than we’ve had in the past,” she said. “It tells a broader, more statewide story.”

Rather than focus on individual landowners, the monitoring component will encompass the larger waterway.

“The monitoring is going to be at the watershed scale and it’s going to be in-stream,” she said.

While ODA ultimately has the authority to issue civil penalties to landowners, so far it hasn’t been necessary under the SIA approach, Byers said.

Landowners have been responsive to warning letters informing them that water quality problems need to be fixed, he said.

TILLAMOOK, Ore. — An Oregon judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges state environmental regulators allow pollution from dairies to harm oyster harvests in Tillamook Bay.

Attorneys for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality argued the agency cannot be held liable for the adverse effects suffered by oysterman Jesse Hayes, president of the Hayes Oyster Co.

According to Hayes’ lawsuit, the DEQ incorrectly assumes that local dairies aren’t discharging fecal coliform bacteria into rivers that flow into Tillamook Bay.

Nonetheless, bacteria levels in the bay are so high that Hayes is entirely prohibited from harvesting oysters from 250 acres of his plats and faces frequent shutdowns on 350 acres, according to his complaint.

Hayes argues that insufficient regulation by DEQ constitutes a public nuisance and an unjust taking of his property due to lost profits and reduced plat values.

The complaint seeks $100,000 in damages and an order requiring DEQ to strengthen its pollution regulations in the area.

Without deciding the merits of the case, Tillamook County Circuit Judge Mari Garric Trevino denied DEQ’s motion to throw out the lawsuit and ordered the agency to answer Hayes’ allegations.

The ruling means that Hayes has cleared an important first hurdle and may proceed with the litigation.

“We get to prove what’s in our complaint,” said Thomas Benke, his attorney.

During oral arguments on Sept. 29, DEQ claimed that Hayes incorrectly targeted the agency rather than the dairy farmers who are alleged to be the underlying source of the problem.

Hayes makes the “erroneous assumption” that Oregon unjustly deprived him of property by failing to regulate his neighbors strictly enough, but inadequate regulation isn’t recognized as a government “taking” under legal precedents, according to DEQ.

“The government is not responsible for inaction,” said Christina Beatty-Walters, DEQ’s attorney. “That’s not a situation the government is responsible for.”

The lawsuit also attempts an impermissible “collateral attack” against state regulations, which can only be challenged through an administrative process, said Beatty-Walters.

The state’s “total maximum daily load” order for fecal coliform bacteria in the region was enacted in 2001, so Hayes missed a deadline to challenge the action by 16 years, Beatty-Walters said.

“They’re way too late,” she said.

According to Hayes, the complaint against DEQ is valid because it’s challenging the adverse impacts that insufficient TMDL rules have imposed on his oyster operation, rather than attacking the validity of the regulations themselves.

“The agency made the decision to take away the use of 250 acres of tideland from the Hayes Oyster Company perpetually,” said Benke.

Hayes argues that DEQ has unlawfully sanctioned pollution, which is a form of government taking.

The agency could restrict pollution from dairies with confined animal feeding operations or from municipal wastewater, but it’s the act of allowing excessive pollution that Hayes is challenging in court, Benke said.

While polluters received notice of the agency’s TMDL regulation 16 years ago, Hayes did not and should still be allowed to seek a legal remedy, he said.

“It flies in the face of fundamental due process,” he said.

The Oregon Dairy Farmers Association is watching the case closely because it involves TMDL regulations affecting farmers, said Tami Kerr, the group’s executive director.

The lawsuit also implies that dairies are polluters, she said. “I’m frankly tired of that.”

Oregon is a national leader in manure management, with dairy farmers being regularly inspected by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Kerr said.

Faulty septic tanks, municipal wastewater and wildlife feces all contribute to fecal coliform bacteria in water, which has been confirmed by DEQ, she said.

“Dairy is always the first thought when people talk about pollution but DNA testing has shown it’s broader than that,” Kerr said. “There’s a large human influence in that.”

PENDLETON, Ore. — Inside the livestock lab at Blue Mountain Community College’s new Facility for Agricultural Resource Management, or FARM, instructor Nick Nelson beamed as he showcased the high-tech Silencer hydraulic cattle chute.

Not only is the latest piece of equipment better for animal welfare and handling, but it is more likely what students can expect to find working on a large ranch operation, Nelson said during the FARM grand opening ceremony Sept. 29.

“It means easier employment when they know how to operate these things safely,” Nelson explained.

FARM is the third and final construction project to be completed after voters in Umatilla and Morrow counties passed a $23 million capital bond for BMCC in 2015. Earlier this year, the college also debuted its new Workforce Training Center in Boardman and Precision Irrigated Agriculture Center in Hermiston.

The two-story FARM building in Pendleton combines classroom and lab space under one roof for the agriculture department, replacing an older, smaller shop building. It is surrounded by a 100-acre working farm where BMCC students learn hands-on how to manage cattle and grow prominent local crops — such as alfalfa to feed those hungry cows.

“We essentially buy very little feed for the livestock here,” Nelson said.

Though classes officially began Monday, guests gathered Thursday afternoon for a ribbon cutting and dedication by school leaders. BMCC President Cam Preus said it was a long road building the facility, and thanked voters for their support on the bond.

“This is a wonderful way to celebrate BMCC’s nationally recognized agriculture program,” Preus said.

Chris Brown, chairman of the BMCC Board of Education, said the school has fulfilled its promise to voters after completing all three bond projects.

“This is certainly a special day,” Brown said. “Today, we really unveil a facility that matches the caliber of our program.”

Preston Winn, chairman of the BMCC agriculture department, choked up as he talked about how the building will help instructors better educate the next generation of farmers, ranchers and agriculture professionals.

“I’m overwhelmed because of thanksgiving,” Winn said. “Community college means just that: community.”

FARM cost $6.3 million to build, including $2.1 million of state match and lottery funds. State Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena) was unable to attend Thursday’s event, but sent a letter praising BMCC as a leader in innovative programs.

While FARM is less than a week old, BMCC is already thinking expansion. The school has partnered with the Pendleton Round-Up Association and city of Pendleton on FARM Phase II, which would expand animal science and veterinary classes and provide a new arena for the BMCC rodeo team. Together, they are working to raise money for the $10 million proposal.

In addition, BMCC timed the grand opening of FARM to coincide with the opening reception for the annual “Art About Agriculture” exhibit, organized by the Oregon State University College of Agricultural Sciences and hosted this year by the Betty Feves Memorial Gallery.

Nine Northwest artists are featured in the exhibit, with pieces inspired by this year’s theme, “Places to Thrive.” Lori Sams, gallery director, said the timing between the two events was intentional.

“I definitely wanted the gallery to have a show related to agriculture,” Sams said. “I think it is interesting to draw that connection between art and agriculture.”

The exhibit runs through Oct. 26. The gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., or by appointment.