Saturdays

SALEM — A couple of items emerged June 8 when the citizen commission that sets Oregon’s wildlife policy sat down once again to gnaw on the state’s plan for managing wolves.

Among them: There’s a question about who should investigate when Oregon wolves devour livestock. A “depredation,” as it’s called in wildlife management-speak. The Oregon Department of Fish Wildlife says it could use some help. Cattle ranchers would like to see properly certified local groups involved, to speed up the process. Depredation investigations are important because wolves involved in enough of them can end up dead. “Lethal control,” is the polite term.

Oregon State Police say no thanks. The OSP Wildlife Division head, Capt. Jeff Samuels, said his game officers would need eight hours of training each, about 1,000 hours total. That’s expensive.

“I don’t think it fits into our mission,” Samuels told the commission members. “Depredations are not a law enforcement issue.”

He said OSP is happy to help ODFW biologists, but making the call on whether wolves were responsible for killing livestock is not its responsibility.

While Samuels was handy, ODFW Commissioner Bruce Buckmaster said the commission has heard allegations that wolf poaching has increased.

“There certainly is poaching of wolves,” Samuels responded. He didn’t provide more details and the commission didn’t ask for any. Groups such as Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands and Center for Biological Diversity maintain wolf poaching is on the rise.

Another issue: Does the burden of Oregon’s wolf management approach weigh too heavily on private landowners? People in Northeast Oregon, especially in Wallowa County and especially cattle ranchers, would say of course. Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf program manager, said 74 percent of confirmed wolf depredations occur on private land.

Michael Finley, the ODFW Commission chair, raised the question. He said it’s a dichotomy: Private land with private expectations, and a public resource — wolves — is doing damage and costing owners money.

He wondered out loud whether wolves on private or property ought to be managed differently. For example, require only two confirmed depredations on private land instead of three, the uniform private-public standard.

It’s complicated because Oregon land is about 50-50 public and private, often butting up against each other. Wolves go where they want and ranchers use both, because grazing is a permitted activity on land managed by the BLM and Forest Service.

Todd Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner who is wolf committee chair for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, agreed property lines are intermixed and sometimes unfenced. But he said cattle are private property, and ranchers wouldn’t allow someone to rustle their cattle, for instance, no matter where they were grazing. Insert eat for rustle and the point is made.

The ODFW Commission wasn’t taking public testimony during the meeting, but Nash, like Capt. Samuels of OSP, was present and the commission asked him a question.

The discussion came as the commission gathers its thoughts on a draft five-year wolf management plan. The commission has held three public hearings and will adopt a plan later this year.

The overriding issue may be local control. Some people who follow the process believe the rules should be loosened in Northeast Oregon, where most wolves live.

Jim Akenson, conservation director for the Oregon Hunters Association, said hunting and ag groups favor “active management” in the northeast corner of the state. Akenson, whose wife, Holly, is an ODFW commissioner, lives in Wallowa County. He said wolves should be managed more like cougars and bears, with “less caution” on lethal removal, more consideration for the impact of wolves on ag and hunting, and management decisions made at the local or district level rather than pushed up the chain to the ODFW director’s office in Salem.

“The whole process is one of normalization,” Akenson said. “That animal is still not normal; it has special game status. They’re not kidding when they say it’s special — it’s up on a pedestal.”

Akenson agreed with Nash and others who say some livestock producers no longer notify ODFW when they find dead cattle.

Jim Bittle, the newest ODFW commissioner, said some angry landowners in northeast Oregon might take matters into their own hands. He said a wolf attacking livestock on private land is similar to living in town and having a pit bull jump the fence and kill your dog.

Another tidbit: Oregon has a moose herd of about 50 animals in northeast Oregon, again in Wallowa County, in the Wenaha Wildlife Management Unit. It isn’t doing well. Biologists haven’t yet seen sign that wolves are wiping them out, but they are keeping watch.

Kathy Fry-Trommald, executive director of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Committee, is retiring after 17 years.

Her last day is June 29.

“I feel very privileged to have been in this position to work with the industry and to promote the Walla Walla sweet onion,” Fry-Trommald said. “It’s been an awesome job.”

Michael J. Locati, chairman of the marketing committee, said Fry-Trommald has worked to maintain the federal marketing order that protects the variety and designated geographic growing area, preventing copycat onion producers from selling their crop as Walla Walla sweets.

“(She’s) really supported our efforts,” he said, noting his appreciation for Fry-Trommald’s dedication during her tenure.

Michael F. Locati, the uncle of Michael J. Locati, served as chairman of the marketing committee for 13 years, working with Fry-Trommald.

Fry-Trommald began as the committee’s bookkeeper, Michael F. Locati said.

“She took the whole industry very personally and did a very good job representing the Walla Walla sweet onions over the years,” Michael F. Locati said. “She’s done a real fine job. She’s defended our industry from day one and worked with the growers and packers very well. It’s been a very good relationship.”

The position is being split up. Administration of the federal marketing order will be taken over by Ag Association Management.

As executive director, Fry-Trommald also organized the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival, now in its 33rd year. The event will be run through the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation.

“The sweet onion festival has been near and dear to my heart,” Fry-Trommald said. “It’s going out much bigger than it was when I came in.”

The downtown foundation is best-suited to take over the festival, Michael J. Locati said.

“It really is a community event,” he said.

Walla Walla sweet onion farmers will begin harvest the week of June 12.

“We had a long spring, it was kind of wet,” said Michael J. Locati, chairman of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Committee. “Things didn’t really want to grow real fast, so we didn’t start as early as we did last year, but this is more of a normal year for us.”

Walla Walla sweets are a specialty onion protected by a federal marketing order, which designates them as a unique variety and establishes a federally protected growing area, the Walla Walla Valley of southeast Washington and northeast Oregon.

The onions are noted for their low pyruvic acid content — pyruvic acid is what makes onions pungent — and high water content, which makes for a juicy, flavorful product.

Harvest typically lasts from mid-June to mid-August.

“There should be a steady flow that entire time,” Locati said.

Twenty farmers raise Walla Walla sweet onions on 500 acres, according to the marketing committee. Yields average 650 50-pound units per acre.

Fall-planted onions look good, Locati said, and he expects an easy transition into harvesting spring-planted onions.

Roughly 40 percent of the onions are usually jumbo-sized, about 3 to 4 inches in diameter, with 10 percent colossal-sized, at 4 inches in diameter or larger. The rest are medium-sized.

Locati expects an average crop, although some of the onions may be on the smaller side.

Farmers didn’t have to put up with a lot of disease and insect pressure thanks to the cold winter, Locati said.

“We didn’t see nearly the amount of thrips we usually see,” he said. “I think pest pressure was down. And then it didn’t get real hot. ... Hopefully everything comes out OK.”

Just as farmers are getting into their onion fields, the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival begins in downtown Walla Walla at 9 a.m. June 17.

Highlights include chef demonstrations, music, several dance companies and a Seattle Seahawks tour bus, said Kathy Fry-Trommald, executive director of the marketing committee.

The event is held in conjunction with the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation. She estimates the festival drew 5,000 people previously.

Walla Walla sweet onions are the Washington state vegetable, Fry-Trommald said. The festival promotes awareness of the onions and the history of the industry.

“We’ll be having an onion-eating contest, and I don’t know how much history those folks are going to be focusing on, but they’re going to have a good time,” she said with a laugh. “We usually have some pretty good people sitting up there willing to eat a raw onion.”

Several growers will sell onions at the festival, Locati said.

He hopes to be able to attend the event.

“We’re probably going to be in the thick of harvest,” he said. “Sometimes it’s tough, but there’s definitely a farmer presence there. There’ll be sweet onions there, for sure.”

Federal environmental laws do no preclude a class action lawsuit against Oregon by local governments seeking $1.4 billion for insufficient logging.

The lawsuit, on behalf of 14 counties and numerous taxing districts within them, argues that Oregon’s forest management policies have deprived local governments of logging revenues from forests they donated to the state.

Attorneys for Oregon claimed that federal environmental statutes, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, effectively prohibited state forest managers from maximizing timber harvests on that land.

Linn County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Murphy has now ruled those defenses are not valid, since the plaintiffs allege Oregon’s forest protections surpassed the requirements of federal law.

The state government also argued it properly formulated the 1998 “greatest permanent value” regulations, which the plaintiffs claim impermissibly reduced logging levels.

Murphy has ruled this defense is invalid because the regulations could have resulted in a breach of Oregon’s contract with local governments, even though the rules were lawfully enacted “through legitimate process.”

The judge disagreed with Oregon’s argument that local government can’t sue over the contract while continuing to benefit from timber revenues, since a lawsuit “for partial damages is allowed.”

He struck several other defenses offered by Oregon’s attorneys, such as arguments the lawsuit was time-barred or was outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Capital Press was unable to reach Oregon’s attorneys and the Oregon Department of Forestry to comment on the ruling Thursday.

The judge’s decision removes significant obstacles in bringing the lawsuit to trial, said John DiLorenzo, attorney for the plaintiffs.

“I have no doubt this case is going to be tried to a jury,” he said. “They tried to blow us out of the sky but we’re still flying.”

DiLorenzo said he expects the parties will now focus on gathering evidence in preparation for a trial that would likely take place during the summer of 2018.

The judge’s findings regarding the federal environmental statutes “really cleared the decks,” resolving complications in the case, he said.

Oregon’s forest managers have gone beyond what is required by federal law, which requires protection for endangered and threatened species but does not mandate that the state government create new habitat for them, DiLorenzo said.

“If they’ve done that, they’ve breached the contract,” he said.

The lawsuit’s philosophy is not to change Oregon’s forest policy, but simply to alleviate a burden that’s currently borne solely by rural communities, DiLorenzo said.

“They should spread the costs among everyone,” he said.

The “burden of proof” is now squarely on DiLorenzo to prove that Oregon could have actually logged more without violating federal law, said Ralph Bloemers, an environmental attorney with the Crag Law Center who has followed the case.

“This will be very challenging, if not impossible, for him to do for a number of reasons,” Bloemers said in an email.

Federal agencies have in the past found that Oregon has failed to adequately protect waterways and fish species, he said.

“The historical record from these expert agencies amply demonstrates that, if anything, the Department of Forestry should have adopted more protections and logged less, not more, to protect the salmon fishery and restore rivers and streams to a functioning condition for our salmon fishery,” Bloemers said. “The same can be said for those forests with terrestrial species that have been harmed by past logging practices.”

Bellevue, a sprawling satellite city of Seattle, is an unlikely place for agricultural milestones. But it’s where the National Farmers Union will have its 2019 national convention, and it’s where the Northwest division hopes to re-establish itself as a full partner in the 115-year-old organization.

“Our goal is to have a strong contingent at that event,” said the fledgling division’s president, sixth-generation rancher Kent Wright. “I will feel disappointed if we don’t have at least the most people.”

The National Farmers Union’s history in the Northwest goes back to 1907, the year a Washington division was formed. In recent years, though, the group has been mostly dormant in the region.

The rebirth of a Northwest division — Washington, Oregon and Idaho — and the national group’s decision to hold its convention in Bellevue are unrelated. The group meets each year in urban areas. This year, the convention was in San Diego and next year it will be in Kansas City.

But the 2019 convention will be an opportunity for the Northwest division to make a showing. This year’s national convention had two Northwest representatives, Wright and his wife, Tiffany, the division’s secretary.

Wright, 30, grew up on his family’s ranch near St. John in Eastern Washington and works there part-time. He said he expects to run the ranch full-time someday, but for now he lives in Vancouver, where Tiffany is a hospital nurse, and he pursues his other career as a baseball scout.

Wright played baseball at Walla Walla Community College and West Texas A&M University. For several summers after college, he played in independent professional leagues stocked with players, like Wright, striving to impress a Major League team.

Primarily a catcher, he played for clubs such as the Kalamazoo Kings, Fort Worth Cats, Rockford Riverhawks, Amarillo Dillas and Witchita Wingnuts. He wasn’t signed by a Major League organization, but he made a connection that led to a job as international scouting director for the Doosan Bears, a team in South Korea’s top baseball league. Wright scouts and signs the three foreign-born players allowed on the team’s roster.

Although he grew up on a ranch, Wright said that he had never heard of the National Farmers Union until he was picked in 2012 for the organization’s young farmer program. He soon was president of the Washington division, which had about 40 lifetime members, but few active ones. About two years later, the Washington, Oregon and Idaho divisions combined to create a Northwest division.

Wright, his wife and his mother, Peggy, are three of the division’s seven board members. Wright said the Northwest has about 180 members. It will need at least 1,250 members to have a vote in how the national organization is run.

Moses Lake cattleman Mark Ellis said that under Wright’s leadership the Northwest division has provided livestock producers with another avenue for speaking out on issues.

“Kent’s a very bright guy,” Ellis said. “I don’t know if there’s a better national organization than the Farmers Union as far as getting young people into farming.”

Wright said most of the division’s members are under 40, a generation younger than most farmers. Tiffany Wright started a division at Walla Walla Community College and has twice been honored at the national level for recruiting members.

Kent Wright said the group has history and clout, but it’s small enough for individuals to influence. “Your voice does matter if you work a little bit and show up,” he said.

The Farmers Union nationwide has almost 200,000 members, with 24 divisions in 33 states, the national membership director, Tom Bryant, said.

North Dakota and Oklahoma have the largest memberships, while the organization has no presence in many Southeast states. Membership tends to be steady, though it picks up when the farm economy slumps, Bryant said. “When things aren’t going so well, people realize it’s important to speak collectively,” he said.

The group is a little older, but much smaller, than the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has affiliates in 50 states and nearly 6 million member families.

Other differences between the two organizations are rooted in their histories. The Farmers Union was formed in 1902 in a time of agrarian populism. The Farm Bureau became a national organization in 1920, a period of conservative ascendancy.

The Farmers Union holds more liberal views on issues such as health care and climate change, and is more critical of trade deals.

“It’s all relative,” Farmers Union spokesman Andrew Jerome said. “A little more liberal than the Farm Bureau? Maybe yes. But a liberal group? Certainly not.”

Wright agreed that the Farmers Union is generally viewed as more liberal than the Farm Bureau on the national level. “Here in the Northwest, I say we probably fight that a little. We tend to be a pretty conservative group,” he said.

The National Farmers Union was founded in Texas by men concerned about the price farmers were paid for cotton.

By 1907, the Farmers Union was growing into a nationwide organization. The Evening Statesman, a Walla Walla newspaper, reported the formation of a Washington division under the headline, “Farmers Meet to Form Trust to Boost Prices.”

The goal was to make wheat farmers price-setters, not price-takers.

“The greatest product of the country is wheat and to fix the price of this cereal is now the great object of the union,” an organizer told The Evening Statesman.

Today, the Farmers Union still stresses the farmers’ share. Its website charts the relatively small amount farmers receive compared to the retail cost of staples such as potatoes, eggs and flour.

While the Washington Farm Bureau has a steady and influential presence in Olympia, the Farmers Union does not. Its main venture into state policy so far has been to oppose raising the fee on cattle transactions that ranchers pay to support the Washington Beef Commission. The position aligned with the Cattle Producers of Washington and was at odds with the Washington Farm Bureau and other cattle industry groups such as the Washington Cattlemen’s Association and the Washington Cattle Feeders Association.

Wright said the Northwest division has no plans to hire a lobbyist. “We don’t feel at this time it’s the best approach for a young, regrowing group to get its point across,” he said.

That, however, could change someday, he said.

Kent Wright

Age: 30

Residence: Vancouver, Wash.

Position: President of the Northwest division of the National Farmers Union

Occupation: Sixth-generation rancher from St. John, Wash. Owns Wright Way Angus with his mother, Peggy Wright.

Non-farm job: International scouting director for the Doosan Bears, a team in South Korea’s top baseball league

Education: Walla Walla Community College; bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology, West Texas A&M University; master’s degree in science, Western Kentucky University.

Family: Wife, Tiffany; son, Maverick, 4.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Wednesday he is ordering a review of federal efforts to conserve the imperiled sage grouse to ensure that officials in 11 Western states where the bird lives are fully consulted.

While the federal government has a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to protect the ground-dwelling bird, “we also have a responsibility to be a good neighbor and a good partner,” Zinke said.

Zinke made the comments Wednesday as he announced a 60-day review of a sweeping 2015 conservation plan put in place by the Obama administration. The plan set land-use policies across the popular game bird’s 11-state range that were intended to keep it off the endangered species list.

The plan was backed by more than $750 million in commitments from the government and outside groups to conserve land and restore the bird’s range, which extends from California to the Dakotas.

Even so, the plan drew criticism from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Environmental groups complained it was riddled with loopholes and would not do enough to protect the bird from extinction, while mining companies, ranchers and officials in Utah, Idaho and Nevada argued that the Obama administration’s actions would impede oil and gas drilling and other economic development.

The ground-dwelling sage grouse, known for its elaborate mating ritual, range across a 257,000-square-mile region spanning 11 states.

The grouse population once was estimated at 16 million birds across North America. It’s lost roughly half its habitat to development, livestock grazing and an invasive grass that encourages wildfires in the Great Basin of Nevada and adjoining states. There are now an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 greater sage grouse.

Zinke said in a conference call with reporters that “state agencies are really at the forefront of efforts to maintain healthy fish and wildlife populations,” and the government needs to make sure state voices are being heard.

In particular, Zinke said he has received complaints from several Western governors that the Obama administration ignored or minimized their concerns as the plan was developed. Republican governors in Idaho, Utah and Nevada all would prefer that the plan give them more flexibility and rely less on habitat preservation “and more on numbers” of birds in a particular state, Zinke said.

“That’s exactly what this secretarial order does — it provides more flexibility than the one-size-fits-all solution” ordered by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Zinke said.

On other side, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Republican Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming told Zinke they opposed any changes that would move “from a habitat-management model to one that sets population objectives for the states.”

“This is not the right decision,” they wrote in a May 26 letter. Hickenlooper and Mead co-chair a federal-state sage grouse task force that worked to develop the 2015 plan.

Zinke’s order calls for officials to evaluate both the federal sage grouse plan and state plans and programs to ensure they are complementary. A report is due in early August.

Nada Culver of The Wilderness Society called Zinke’s order “disruptive” and said “it undermines carefully balanced and negotiated plans against the advice of the stakeholders involved. The plans do not need to be revised — they need to be supported and implemented in good faith by Interior.”

Jim Lyons, a former Obama administration official who helped develop the 2015 plan, called the review “a thinly-veiled and unnecessary attempt to open up important habitat to oil and gas drilling, jeopardizing the important balance and flexibility offered in the existing plans.”

Capital Press

NAMPA, Idaho — Record winter snowfall followed by a steady string of spring rainstorms delayed by several weeks the planting of many crops in the Treasure Valley that straddles the Idaho-Oregon border.

It’s also pushed field work back significantly.

“Everything is behind,” said Meridian, Idaho, farmer Richard Durrant. “A lot of spraying, fertilization and other things that still need to be done hasn’t happened yet.”

Many farmers told Capital Press they are not overly concerned by the late start and expect their crops to turn out OK with a normal summer.

But they also say the late start means a repeat of last year’s record yields for many crops is unlikely.

“Without a doubt, it will make a little difference in yields,” said Eastern Oregon farmer Craig Froerer.

While yields for sugar beets grown in Idaho and Malheur County, Ore., set a record in 2016, he said, “I don’t think you can expect that this year with how late in the game we are.”

Many farmers in the area were late getting in their fields because record or near-record amounts of snowfall left fields saturated when it melted. That was exacerbated by persistent spring rainstorms that have only recently broken.

During the past 10 days the Treasure Valley has had much warmer and drier weather.

Many crops started slowly but are responding to the more favorable growing conditions, said Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

Skeen planted the majority of his onions two to three weeks later than usual.

“But with this hot weather we’ve had (recently), they are really starting to jump,” he said. “Sugar beets are a little bit behind but they’re also really coming on.”

Skeen agrees the late start will have an impact on yields.

“We have a good crop coming but yields, in my opinion, are going to be below average because of the lateness,” he said.

According to Stuart Reitz, an Oregon State University Extension cropping systems agent in Malheur County, as of June 1 the area had 16 fewer heat degree days than last year and 12 fewer than in 2015. Heat degree days are calculated by subtracting a reference temperature, which varies by crop, from the daily mean temperature. The higher the mean temperature, the more heat degree days are recorded.

Reitz agreed that yields will depend on how the summer plays out.

“If we get some good, warm but not too hot conditions, things should finish off OK,” he said. “But if it stays cool and rainy, some of those late-planted crops may not turn out too well.”

Across Idaho and Eastern Oregon, sugar beets were on average planted two weeks later than during recent years, said Clark Alder, an area agronomist for grower-owned Amalgamated Sugar Co.

“But the crop is progressing nicely, especially with the nicer weather we have had” recently, he said. “I don’t think we’ll have the same type of bumper crop like we had last year but we will have a nice crop if we get a summer like we had last year.”

The Langlois Lions Club would like to thank the following for the wonderful support with donations of time, enthusiasm, wonderful plants and hard work for our Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale: Loretta Hillman, Janet Hubel, Lori Kent, Catherine Kadlubowski, Polly…

LANGLOIS — Oregonians love the wild beauty of the state's 363 miles of coastline, but finding truly local seafood can be hard, even on the coast. The U.S. imports approximately 90 percent of its seafood and ships out nearly as…

BANDON – South Coast fifth grade students received a valuable lesson this spring when they learned where their food comes from, what affects its growth and how it gets to their tables.

BANDON – South Coast fifth grade students received a valuable lesson this spring when they learned where their food comes from, what affects its growth and how it gets to their tables.

Capital Bureau

SALEM — Boosted by healthy snowpack and the unlikely prospect of drought, Oregon is facing an average or lower-than-average fire season, according to the state’s forestry department.

Nick Yonker, a smoke management meteorology manager at the Department of Forestry, told the Board of Forestry Wednesday that various indicators appear to show that the state can expect a fairly tame fire season.

From Oregon’s high desert sagebrush to coastal rainforests, the official start of fire season varies and is declared locally, but typically gets underway in June.

Showing the board a map of likely drought spots in the continental United States, Yonker said it was “probably the best looking slide I’ve seen in years.”

“Basically, throughout the entire United States, there is almost no drought whatsoever,” Yonker said. “And the areas where there is drought, it looks like it’s going to be improving, so this is pretty phenomenal, to see this throughout the United States, let alone the west and the state of Oregon.”

In the summer months, there are equal chances that precipitation could be below or above normal, and so the state can probably expect a normal dry period in summer, Yonker said, but the department is also getting “mixed signals” on whether summer temperatures will be higher or lower than usual.

Additionally, the state is in a good position with respect to snowpack, as it did not melt early, Yonker said. While the dry rangelands east of the Cascades could pose a risk, in terms of forestland that’s protected by ODF, the risk of a major fire is normal or below normal.

Although there could be a below-normal amount of rainfall in June, Yonker said some rain and “pretty chilly conditions” in the coming week could change that expectation, as well. There’s also a lower risk of dry lightning, which can cause fires.

With about a month to go before the Legislature adjourns, state lawmakers are busy hammering out budgets for state agencies, including the Department of Forestry.

Fire protection costs take up a significant chunk of the agency’s spending. A combination of public and private funding from various sources, ranging from private landowners to FEMA , sustains fire protection in the state.

Industry groups have voiced concerns because, according to board meeting materials, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown proposed a spending plan in December that would have cut more than 30 seasonal firefighters and reduced state General Fund dollars for fire prevention and suppression efforts.

Overall, the governor recommended a 35 percent decrease in the agency’s fire protection budget, which her office attributed to one-time reductions due to large wildfires in the 2015-17 budget cycle.

The governor has also proposed a 9 percent reduction in the budget of the agency’s private forests division.

Amy Patrick, director of fire protection for the Oregon Forest Industries Council, told the Board of Forestry that the amount proposed by the governor was inadequate, but was hopeful that the Legislature would not approve the reductions.

State agencies like the forestry department typically defer to the governor’s recommended budget as part of the budget process. But while the governor makes recommendations, the legislature has the final say in what gets funded.

Although a catastrophic fire season seems unlikely, officials are concerned that an unusual extraterrestrial event could create complications for fire protection efforts.

An Aug. 21 solar eclipse could bring over a million visitors to areas within the so-called “path of totality” — the geographic area where the eclipse is expected to be most dramatic. It crosses through seven ODF districts.

Ron Graham, deputy chief of the agency’s fire protection division, said the state typically sees about 20 fires in that path of totality during the week of Aug. 16 to Aug. 23.

The agency brought an assistant district forester from John Day to Salem to coordinate solar eclipse operational planning efforts.

“His job has become extremely busy,” Graham said.

That said, Graham says the department is preparing to handle what the eclipse brings.

“We feel we are ready to meet the needs, as we know now,” Graham said. “There are still a lot of unknowns in this, and a lot of contingencies to try to plan for it, but nevertheless we have a very focused planning effort toward this.”

Nobody’s out there counting them, but anecdotally this summer is shaping up as a bad one for ticks.

That could mean additional expense for cattle producers, who fight the blood suckers with insecticide-loaded ear tags, sprays, powders and dips. It should make recreationalists and dog owners wary as well, because they could come back from outdoor rambles carrying some unwelcome hitchhikers. Emilio DeBess, public health veterinarian with the Oregon Health Authority, said ticks engage in what entomologists call “questing behavior” when it’s time to feed. They climb to the top of a blade of grass or hang from a branch, extend their front legs and wait for a human or animal to pass by. They grab on, climb up, stick their needle-like mouth organ into your skin and start sucking blood.

The biting and sucking doesn’t do much damage, but ticks can carry diseases. In humans, lyme disease is a leading tick-borne illness, and the number of reported cases in Oregon has steadily increased over the past decade.

Rancher Jon Elliott, of Eagle Point, Ore., in Jackson County, said he lives in “tick heaven.” He treats his dogs with Frontline insecticide every month; if he didn’t, they’d quickly have a dozen or more ticks on them.

For his cattle, he uses insecticide-loaded ear tags that repel or kill insects. “The conventional wisdom is you change the chemical every few years so they don’t get resistance,” he said.

He also uses fabric tubes coated with insecticide and a carrying agent. He places them in a way that cattle have to brush against them to get to feed. He’s tried dust bags in the past as well.

In addition to carrying diseases that make people sick, ticks can weaken cattle and in some areas of the country pass along diseases that kill livestock.

Elliott, who has been ranching about 50 years, is chair of the beef improvement committee for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

RICHLAND, Wash. — Pacific Northwest canola growers are forming a new association that will represent them on the state and local levels.

Farmers and industry representatives met June 6 in Richland, Wash., to discuss the next steps in creating the organization, such as setting up a board of directors. The organization, which will be operational by the end of the year, will serve growers in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

Organizers are incorporating the organization and finishing the bylaws, said Karen Sowers, outreach specialist for oilseeds with Washington State University Extension. The organization will also hire an executive director.

The Washington Oilseeds Commission collects assessments, but can’t lobby in the state legislature, Sowers said. The new organization will be able to lobby legislatures in any of the four states.

Dale Thorenson, assistant director of U.S. Canola Association in Washington, D.C., said his organization works with Congress and the federal government on farm and regulatory policies. The regional association would do that on the state and local levels, he said.

Interest in canola is growing due to low wheat prices and a saturated cover crop market, said Anna Scharf, a grower in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. She is a board member of the U.S. Canola Association and president of the Willamette Valley Oilseed Producers Association.

In Oregon, only 500 acres can be grown under state restrictions until 2019. Craig Parker, of Willamette Biomass Processors in Rickreall, Ore., hopes the new association would help fight such restrictions.

“Valley growers really need help in the legislature, and it’s an expensive process, so being part of an association would help,” he said.

The valley is one of the best places in the world to raise the crop, which yields nearly 5,000 pounds an acre, Parker said.

In Washington, farmers average 1,500 to 3,000 pounds per acre, he said.

Priced at 18 to 20 cents per pound, canola is profitable for farmers, Sowers said. It also benefits other crops in a rotation.

Paul Walker raises canola in Grant County in Washington. Not many farmers are trying the crop in his area, and he said more outreach is needed to help them understand how canola fits into their crop rotations.

“I feel like I have seen disease pressures getting worse, so we need to be looking into crops to break up that,” he said.

Dues for farmers would be $75 per year, $25 of which would go to the U.S. association. Agency member dues would be $100 per year. Industry membership would be $250 and up.

Sowers would like to see 100 farmers from across the four states participate.

For additional information, contact Sowers at ksowers@wsu.edu and Scharf at Anna.scharffarms@gmail.com

Oregon heads into the summer showing no sign of drought for the first time since 2011, according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The agency’s monthly water outlook report for June said the state will have adequate water for irrigation and recreation this summer even though May was drier than normal. Since the “water year” began Oct. 1, a heavy winter snowpack and a cold, rainy spring combined to fill reservoirs and restore streamflows to normal or better throughout the state.

Even the snowmelt is going better than usual. Most of the snow below 5,000 feet elevation is gone, but at many monitored sites the snow melted slower than usual — up to three weeks late in some areas, according to NRCS.

The NRCS report is at http://bit.ly/2rBudu9

Meanwhile, research climatologist and professor Gregory Jones of Southern Oregon University said the weather into mid-June will remain unsettled, with lower temperatures and rain returning to the West Coast. The warm spell that marked the start of the month brought a “flush of growth” to vineyards, but it will give way to weather that’s more like early- to mid-spring instead of summer, said Jones, who specializes in the impact of climate variability on grapevine growth and wine production.

Despite the cool down, the forecast is that June will end up warmer than normal from the Pacific Northwest into California, Jones said in a climate update he circulates by email.

BANDON -- The weather was great and the mood was light at Bandon City Park on Saturday morning as several dozen "superheroes" gathered for the first-ever Family Health Day.

PENDLETON, Ore. — The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association announced this week its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to complete an environmental study that would remove gray wolves from the endangered species list in the lower 48 states.

Citing the agency’s lack of decision-making following the publication of its 2013 proposed rule in the Federal Register to remove the gray wolves from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Species, Jerome Rosa, executive director of Oregon Cattlemen, said the membership voted to file a 60-day letter of intent to sue U.S. Fish and Wildlife at its Pendleton spring quarterly meeting June 2.

Rosa said the Cattlemen will be represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation of Sacramento, Calif.

“One comment we’ve gotten through the years is that the cattle industry often tends to be playing defense,” Rosa said. “Many of our members feel by moving forward with this we are being on the offensive side of things instead of trying to defend what we do.”

Todd Nash, the Cattlemen’s wolf committee chairman, said the absence of a completed analysis three years after U.S. Fish and Wildlife closed its public comment period regarding its environmental policy analysis to delist gray wolves from the endangered species list was one reason for the suit.

“They are legally bound to do that within one year and that’s the preface pressing forward with lawsuit,” Nash said.

The lack of manpower Fish and Wildlife dedicates to managing wolves was the other frustration that led to litigation, Nash said.

In Oregon, like Washington and Utah, managing wolves is complicated.

Through an appropriations bill Congress removed gray wolves from the Endangered Species List in Montana, Idaho and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah in April 2011. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife then took over sole management of wolves living east of U.S. Highway 395, Oregon Highway 78 and U.S. Highway 95.

In November 2015 wolves were removed from the state endangered species list, but west of that line wolves remain protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

In the vastly larger landscape of the western portion of the state under federal jurisdiction, Nash said the agency is woefully understaffed.

“This is no discredit to John (Stephenson, wolf biologist),” Nash said, “but he is one guy.”

Nash said the Cattlemen believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife needs to increase its staffing to better capture, collar and monitor wolves and complete its effort to delist gray wolves through the National Environmental Policy Act.

A vote was taken to sue the federal government at the Cattlemen’s November annual meeting in Bend as well, Nash said, but the members were waiting to see if the Washington Cattlemen were interested in taking legal action along with them. While a contingency of Washington Cattlemen members were in attendance at the Oregon Cattlemen’s Pendleton last week and participated in lengthy discussions regarding the intent to sue, Nash said they are not yet on board.

“Washington is going to take it back to their board and discuss it and

California will likely throw in with us,” Nash said.