GILLIAN FLACCUS

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Traffic is already a headache in central Oregon as thousands of people arrive before Monday’s total solar eclipse.

Traffic was backed up about 15 miles at one point on Thursday on U.S. Highway 26 near of Prineville, the last town before the turnoff for an eclipse-themed festival that’s expected to attract 35,000 people in a remote area with narrow, one-lane roads. Drivers then had to contend with another 14 miles of traffic on local roads to the venue.

A handful of gas stations in Bend and Prineville also ran out of fuel Wednesday before getting restocked.

The scene echoed one on Wednesday night, when eclipse traffic first began to swell. Traffic backed up for 12 miles on the same stretch of road, doubling the drive time between the towns of Redmond and Prineville as an estimated 8,000 cars passed through.

“The numbers of people who were coming in, we are beyond capacity really on that highway. Traffic is moving — it’s not stopped — but it’s taking a long time,” said Peter Murphy, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation in central Oregon.

Traffic officials reprogramed traffic lights to provide more time on green lights on east-west routes. The Prineville police also closed the eastbound lane of the highway for a time Thursday and diverted traffic onto local roads so the crush could clear.

In Madras, to the north, traffic also picked up Thursday. Gas stations were still stocked, said Joe Krenowicz, executive director of the Jefferson County-Madras Chamber of Commerce.

The town of about 6,000 is considered one of the best viewing locations in the nation and is expecting at least 100,000 people over the next four days.

“We know that we will run out of gas at some times, but they will refuel. There will be some inconveniences,” he said.

“We’re encouraging people to come into Madras with a full tank of gas if they possibly can.”

Traffic elsewhere in the state was still normal, officials said, but more visitors were expected into the weekend.

“When it comes, it will come as a rush,” said Dave Thompson, chief ODOT spokesman.

About 1 million people are expected to visit Oregon in the coming days — and up to 200,000 to Central Oregon — in the coming days to see the rare celestial event. It’s the first total, coast-to-coast solar eclipse in the U.S. in 99 years and totality — when the moon’s shadow blocks the sun and casts a shadow on Earth — first makes landfall in Oregon, making the state a top destination for eclipse watchers.

State officials are urging travelers to log onto www.TripCheck.com before they leave or call 211, an information number about the eclipse set up for the public.

SISTERS, Ore. (AP) — With the solar eclipse just days away, a wildfire raging within Oregon’s path of totality threatened more than 650 structures Thursday and led officials to issue evacuation warnings.

Gov. Kate Brown invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act so the Oregon fire marshal can mobilize resources from around the state to protect homes.

“State agencies are already working around the clock and across the state, and as we get closer to the total solar eclipse, we’ll need all resources available to keep communities, visitors, and property safe,” Brown said in a statement.

The wildfire was burning in the center of the state near the town of Sisters in the Three Sisters Wilderness Area. The blaze started last week and stayed relatively small and tame for days. It expanded Wednesday to more than 5 square miles, charring dead timber in the scar of a 2006 wildfire.

More than 200 firefighters were working to establish containment lines.

The homes where people were told to prepare to evacuate lie west of Sisters, the Western-themed town where eclipse observers will see 34 seconds of totality on Monday. The Red Cross has opened a shelter at Sisters Middle School for those who choose to leave.

Late Thursday, Oregon Department of Transportation officials closed McKenzie Pass Highway, also known as Highway 242, west of Sisters. Campers and hikers were being escorted from the area, the agency said.

Other wildfires are burning in what is typically Oregon’s busiest month for wildland firefighters. The state after a very wet winter and spring has so far been spared the kind of wildfire that destroys neighborhoods and burns areas the size of Rhode Island.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A month-old wildfire flared up in western Montana, forcing the evacuation of hundreds more homes and devouring another large chunk of forest as the drought-stricken state struggles with one of its worst wildfire seasons in years.

Fires burning across the west include one threatening 400 homes near an Oregon town within the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse and another near Yosemite National Park.

The glow from the flare-up Wednesday night and early Thursday near the community of Lolo in western Montana was visible from the airport in Missoula, about 20 miles north of the blaze, said fire information officer Jordan Koppen.

Just over 500 homes had been evacuated by Thursday morning, but additional evacuations were ordered in Missoula and Ravalli counties at noon. Officials did not know how many homes the mid-day evacuation order affected.

Ravalli County deputies were going door-to-door and asking people to leave on Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Steve Holton told KGVO-AM.

Hundreds of other residents in areas along U.S. Highway 93 and U.S. Highway 12 had been warned to prepare for evacuation.

The Lolo Peak Fire has burned 23.5 square miles of timber. No homes have been reported burned. A Hot Shot firefighter working on the fire — 29-year-old Brent Witham of California — died on Aug. 2 when he was hit by a falling tree.

A report released Thursday shows drought across the entire state of Montana, with two-thirds of the state in “severe” drought conditions — or worse. Drought conditions in an area around Fort Peck Reservoir of northeastern Montana are rated as exceptional, with crops and livestock languishing under parched conditions.

The 13 largest active fires in Montana have burned nearly 182 square miles of land.

Elsewhere, a fire that started last week near Sisters, Oregon, expanded Wednesday to more than 5 square miles and led officials to issue evacuation warnings.

Gov. Kate Brown invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act so the Oregon fire marshal can mobilize resources from around the state to protect homes.

“State agencies are already working around the clock and across the state, and as we get closer to the total solar eclipse, we’ll need all resources available to keep communities, visitors, and property safe,” Brown said in a statement.

In California, crews fighting a fire in Yosemite National Park are trying to guide the flames away from the small town of Wawona and into the wilderness. The fire has closed campgrounds and trails in the park but authorities have not ordered anyone to leave. No structures have been damaged.

A fire in Glacier National Park in Montana has closed a trail that provides access to a popular backcountry chalet. The Sperry Chalet has been closed for the season.

Oregon’s water regulators are proposing to devote more of the money in the state’s $20 million water supply development fund to loans.

During the first round of funding last year, nearly $9 million was disbursed from the fund entirely in the form of grants.

After those disbursements, there was $5 million remaining in the fund, to which Oregon lawmakers appropriated another $15 million this year.

The Oregon Water Resources Department, which administers the fund, plans to spend that $20 million over the next three years.

Of the 32 applications for funds in 2017, only three sought money in the form of loans — and those were to provide “matching funds” for their grant proposals, said Kim Ogren, the agency’s senior water resources development advisor.

To “incentivize” more loan applications, OWRD is contemplating setting aside roughly half the funds available for the 2018 and 2019 funding for loans, Ogren said.

About $6 million of the fund is expected to be spent during 2017, leaving $14 million for the remaining two years unless more money is appropriated by lawmakers.

In 2015, the Oregon Legislature authorized $30 million to a separate water development loan fund, but nobody applied for the money.

It’s possible the lack of interest was due to a requirement that borrowers compensate OWRD for the cost of administering the loan program, which would result in a higher interest rate, said Racquel Rancier, the agency’s senior policy coordinator.

That requirement doesn’t exist for the $20 million water supply development fund, which could make such loans more attractive, she said. “There’s more flexibility and the cost to the borrow could be less.”

Members of the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees the agency, appeared to have a lukewarm reaction to the proposal during an Aug. 17 meeting.

Commissioners questioned whether OWRD wanted to take on the added responsibility involved in issuing loans and overseeing their repayment.

“We’re going to be very risk averse as we practice these loan reviews,” said Tom Byler, the agency’s director.

The agency would be better off not assigning a specific proportion of the fund to loans, said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

The commission should “flesh out” the idea of dedicating a specific amount to loans, considering the amount of funding is already limited and there hasn’t been much enthusiasm for loans, she said.

Commissioners concluded the conversation without making a decision on the matter.

“It will be an ongoing discussion,” said Rancier.

YAKIMA, Wash. — The Pacific Northwest is closing in on the end of a sweet cherry harvest memorable for record volume, great weather and quality and likely one of the longest.

Picking began June 6 in Mattawa, Wash., and will finish about the end of August in high-elevation orchards near Hood River, Ore., and Wenatchee, Chelan and Brewster, Wash. It will be an 80- to 90-day season.

Through Aug. 3, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Montana shipped 25.5 million, 20-pound boxes of cherries, eclipsing the previous record of 23.2 million in 2014, according to Northwest Cherry Growers, the industry’s promotions arm in Yakima.

Washington typically grows 80 to 85 percent of the five-state crop and more than 60 percent of the national crop. Washington’s crop value was $471 million in 2016, according to USDA.

An Aug. 11 NCG email newsletter indicates the Northwest could finish at 27.5 million boxes since 2.4 million had been picked in August with likely another 2 million to go. A record 15.2 million boxes were shipped in July. Shipments averaged 500,000 boxes or more per day for more than 30 days.

NCG’s promotions and retail ads were big going into the Fourth of July and have continued through summer, which has been important to compete with heavy volumes of other fruits, said James Michael, NCG vice president of promotions.

“It was critical for us to have the volume and the No. 1 advertised item in fruit for about a month,” Michael said.

“It’s been an interesting year. Phenomenal volume, which caused a lot of price pressure, but that’s how to build new markets. We went deeper into a lot of export markets in Asia, making investments on price to grow those markets,” said Tim Evans, general sales manager of Chelan Fresh Marketing in Chelan, a large cherry sales desk.

“A lot of people around the globe don’t buy fresh cherries so there’s a lot of room for growth,” he said.

The large crop also led to fruit size not being as large as last year. Many packers decided not to pack 11.5-row cherries and smaller. Size is the number of cherries in one row of a 20-pound box.

“This year was heavy to 10 and 10.5-row and last year 55 percent of our fruit was 9.5-row and larger,” Evans said.

Wholesale prices sagged into the mid to upper $20s per box in July from the heavy volume, which was “very tough on growers,” Evans said. Prices rebounded “quite well” to $35 to $50 in August, he said.

Chelan Fruit Cooperative, which markets through Chelan Fresh, was one of few packers in the state still packing cherries on Aug. 16. Evans said the industry still shipped 112,838 boxes on Aug. 15 and would wind down to finish around Aug. 26.

Cherries were still on ad in more than 16,000 stores in the U.S. and with 400 demos set for the weekend of Aug. 12-13, Northwest Cherry Growers said. That’s unusual for that time of year.

Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers, Wenatchee, finished its harvest at the 3,400-foot elevation Halverson Ranch Orchard south of Wenatchee on Aug. 14.

It’s one of the highest elevation orchards in the state but matured earlier than expected due to warm weather, said Scott Marboe, Oneonta marketing director.

He said the season surpassed his highest expectations and that several of Oneonta’s retail customers hit record sales in volume and dollars.

“The cherries were very well received and retail displays were fantastic,” Marboe said, adding that export demand also was strong.

He also credited high-tech optical sizing and sorting equipment, now prevalent throughout the industry, for improving packing speed and product quality.

Critics claim an Oregon Court of Appeals ruling will undermine farmland protections by allowing developers to pay off farmers rather than avoid disrupting agricultural practices.

The State of Oregon is joined by the Oregon Farm Bureau and the 1,000 Friends of Oregon conservation group in asking the Oregon Supreme Court to overturn that decision.

The dispute emanates from a lawsuit over the planned expansion of the Riverbend Landfill onto farmland, which was permitted by Yamhill County over the protests of neighboring landowners.

Earlier this year, the Oregon Court of Appeals decided that Yamhill County didn’t violate land use law by requiring Waste Management, the landfill’s owner, to compensate farmers for impacts to their operations.

For example, Waste Management must either pay a farmer for cleaning up trash blown onto his property from the landfill, or hire a third party to perform the service.

The company must also pay another nearby farmer for orchard crops that are destroyed by waste from birds that are attracted to the landfill.

Critics argue this type of compensation isn’t allowed under Oregon’s land use law, which aims to preserve farmland and avoid disruption to agricultural practices.

“I don’t want to be paid off. I just want them not to affect my farm,” said Ramsey McPhillips, the landowner who would be compensated for trash clean-up.

Such compensation should not be a condition of county permits allowing non-farm uses, since farming operations could be rendered unfeasible even if the growers receive money, critics argue.

Such pay-offs would make it easier to site other “conditional use” developments on farmland, such as mines, golf courses, large transmission towers and power facilities, according to critics.

“Now, all they need is to force the farmer to be paid off for the loss, and they can have their development. Where does that end?” said McPhillips.

Under Oregon law, counties can issue such “conditional use” permits for non-farm uses as long as they don’t significantly change or drive up the cost of farm practices on surrounding land.

Conditions imposed on such permits should prevent such impacts, instead of allowing the disruption as long as farmers are compensated, said Tim Bernasek, attorney for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which weighed in on the case.

“That’s not how it’s supposed work,” Bernasek said of the payment requirement.

The landfill dispute is noteworthy because it’s poised to define what is a significant impact to farmland, which has been vague up until now, he said.

“This is really the first time the Supreme Court is taking a broad look at the farm impacts test,” Bernasek said.

Opponents of the Oregon Court of Appeals’ interpretation recently filed their opening briefs with the Oregon Supreme Court, to which Yamhill County and Waste Management must respond by the end of September. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for mid-November.

Tim Sadlo, general counsel for Yamhill County, said the planned landfill expansion has been greatly reduced in size but other requirements were imposed on Waste Management to prevent potential adverse effects.

“I don’t think we tried to buy anybody off,” Sadlo said. “We can fix it with conditions, and that’s what we tried to do.”

The county set the compensation requirement despite there being limited evidence of birds defecating on fruit and garbage drifting onto neighboring property, he said.

Sadlo said he’s surprised the Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to review the case and disappointed that Oregon’s state government wants the previous ruling reversed.

“I think it’s regrettable they’ve decided to pile on,” he said.

High level executives from the major wheat purchasing and flour producing operations of Wilmar International, and its operations in Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, toured the region Aug. 9-16. Wilmar is Asia’s leading agribusiness group.

The tour included meeting with farmers, grain elevators, traders and researchers in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Genesee, Idaho, farmer Joe Anderson, a board member of the Idaho Wheat Commission, said he hoped to show the team the quality of the region’s wheat crop.

“Every time we bring (existing and potential customers) out here on a tour, it helps us educate them as to the production and transportation system that feeds their market,” Anderson said. “I think we show them a pretty impressive distribution and marketing chain that helps them realize there’s a lot of quality product to be had out here.”

During a summary session, Wilmar executives told U.S. Wheat Associates representatives the area’s wheat breeding programs and facilities are impressive, including the farmer investment in developing new wheat varieties.

“They said, ‘Now we understand how and why you have high-quality wheat,’” said Steve Wirsching, director of the West Coast office for U.S. Wheat in Portland. “It’s not just a slogan and it doesn’t happen by accident.”

Southeast Asia represents 40 percent of the market for wheat exports produced in the Pacific Northwest, Wirsching said.

“We see good economic growth overall, and solid population growth — two factors that lead on to some positive growth for wheat imports,” Wirsching said. “Ten to 20 years from now, they’ll be the big markets for our products.”

Anderson learned from tour members that Vietnam is not able to directly import wheat from the U.S., but can import flour. They must run the wheat through a flour mill in China, Indonesia or other locations, he said.

“There’s a real good chance that will change shortly,” he said. “This may help them be more efficient and cost-effective in their marketplace, if they can bring in our wheat directly.”

Wirsching said recent problems related to fumigation and trade have occurred in Vietnam, but are close to being resolved. Teams and groups like the Wilmar tour raise awareness and create internal pressure to resolve problems in a business-like manner, he said.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for us, and I appreciate the fact that the farmers, during their harvest, during their busy time, went out to meet them,” Wirsching said of the tour.

Members of the tour rode a combine on Anderson’s farm. He saved a field for harvest for the visit.

Anderson also joined the tour for several dinners during their time visiting Idaho.

“I think it’s easier to do business with people that we’re comfortable with on a social level, as well as on the business side,” Anderson said.

Thirteen trade teams are scheduled to visit in 2017, and 11 have or will go through one or more of the Pacific Northwest states, according to U.S. Wheat Associates. Teams are typically in the U.S. for one to two weeks, and visit two to five states.

Oregon State University Extension Cereals Specialist and Assistant Professor Mike Flowers has announced that he is leaving the university to take a position with Limagrain Cereal Seeds.

Flowers announced his departure on Aug. 8, after signing an offer letter to become new products supply manager for Limagrain Cereal Seeds. He will depart in mid-September and be based in Fort Collins, Colo.

“It is a good opportunity for me,” Flowers said. “I am going to get to do something a little bit different, but I still get to be involved with the industry. I’ll be a little bit more ‘behind the doors,’ but I’ll be working with all of their varieties and breeders, and bringing new products to market, so that is really exciting. It is just a good opportunity to do a lot of the things that I like and also learn a few new skills.”

Flowers described Limagrain as “an exciting group to go work for.”

“One of the attractive things about them is that they are interested in working with the land grant institutions across the nation,” Flowers said. “They do breeding exchanges with them, and as they bring new traits to market, they show the ability to work with the land grants to get those traits put into institutional grant and private breeding programs.”

Flowers leaves behind an acclaimed cereals program at Oregon State University that includes wheat breeder Bob Zemetra, plant pathologist Chris Mundt, field staff and extension personnel, who work closely with university-based researchers on field trials.

Mundt received the Oregon Wheat Commission’s 2017 Distinguished Service Award. Flowers received the same award in 2015.

Flowers said he plans to complete his 2017 trial work by the time he departs and hopes the university will continue to conduct variety trials that he ran point on for several years.

“I am working with the university and the Oregon Wheat Commission to figure out who is going to take over those variety trials, so they can continue,” he said. “My technical staff is still in place and the funding is there to continue with the work, so I am hoping that the university will continue on those trials for the short term, and, for the long term, replace my position so the industry has that voice there for them.”

Flowers said he will miss working with growers.

“Working with the growers, and working on practical problems was the most fun part of my job,” he said. “I will definitely miss that.”

Flowers holds a Ph.D. in crop science from North Carolina State University, a master’s degree in soil science from Ohio State University and a bachelor of agricultural science from the University of Tennessee. Before joining OSU in 2005, Flowers worked for the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Plant Sciences Research Unit in Raleigh, N.C.

Limagrain is an international agricultural cooperative based in France specializing in field seeds, vegetable seeds and cereal products.

Stoller Family Estate, a Dayton vineyard and winery, is the latest Oregon agricultural operation to gain “B Corp” certification for meeting social and environmental standards.

Companies granted the certification are part of an international movement that seeks to redefine business success and to follow business practices that make them a “force for good.” To that end, they are judged on the way they treat their employees, engage with their communities and protect the environment.

Worldwide there are 2,221 Benevolent Corporations in more than 50 countries and involving 130 industries. Oregon agriculture is well represented, with companies such as Glory Bee Honey and Rogue Creamery already certified.

Several Willamette Valley wineries also have gone through the certification process. In addition to Stoller, A to Z, Sokol Blosser, Winderlea and Patton Valley are certified. Oregon Wine Board President Tom Danowski said Oregon has more B Corp certified wineries than any other state.

Stoller founder and owner Bill Stoller explained his thinking in a news release.

“I wanted to build a company that could last at least 200 years,” he said, “and to do this, we must take care of our land and community.”

Patton Valley, which gained B Corp certification in June, explained the decision on its website: “We became a B Corp because we believe that doing business goes beyond the financial performance of a company, and is the natural extension of what we do in the vineyard, in the winery, and beyond.”

Glory Bee Honey, a Eugene, Ore., company, made a similar decision three years ago. Senior Executive Vice President Rae Jean Wilson, whose parents Richard and Pat Turanski founded the business and are still active, said certification was an opportunity for the company to “walk the talk.”

“We’re not trying to be anything we’re not already,” she said. “We’re a faith-based and values-based organization — but for profit, of course. The combination is always interesting.”

The family went through “angst and anxiety” about whether certification would be too controlling of their business, but decided it aligned with their values. In addition to her parents, the discussions included her brother, Alan Turanski, who is company president, and their sister, Carole Walls, who is a board member.

They had to create some paperwork to document what they were doing in terms of worker wages and how decisions are made, made a more complete list of unacceptable product ingredients and wrote a code of conduct for their suppliers, some of which are international. Among other things, suppliers have to state they don’t use slave labor and aren’t involved in such things as sex trafficking.

“You’re somewhat on the honor system when you do business with people internationally, but we let them know the dos and don’ts,” Wilson said.

As a B Corp, the company would have been excluded from a business tax increase proposed by the Legislature a couple years ago. But Wilson said the company opposed the tax anyway because it would have put the state at a disadvantage.

“My brother and I are aligned on fact that our job is to be a company that our employees can feel proud to work at,” she said. “All in all, we carry the torch of using our business to make our community be a better place.”

Wolves from the Harl Butte pack are suspected to have killed a calf Aug. 16 in northeast Oregon.

Wallowa County rancher Todd Nash said his calf was grazing on a private pasture he leases when the attack occurred.

He said the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is investigating, and he expects the depredation will be confirmed.

The department planned to conclude its investigation by the afternoon of Aug. 16.

The department shot two of the pack’s adult wolves after a series of attacks on cattle.

Nash and other ranchers have called for the entire pack to be killed. He said the pack goes after cattle every day and has not changed its behavior as ODFW hoped.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Over 100 Oregon National Guard members are deploying to southern Oregon to fight a fire near Crater Lake as the state endures peak wildfire season, less than a week before the eclipse.

Lt. Col. Martin Balakas said on Tuesday as the soldiers took refresher training on fighting wilderness fires that they will take a bus Wednesday to battle a blaze near Oregon’s iconic Crater Lake.

They are among about 375 Oregon National Guard members who were activated in 2015 to fight fires, including the Canyon Creek Fire near John Day that destroyed 43 homes and nearly 100 barns, workshops and other structures.

The part-time soldiers were wearing yellow hardhats Tuesday as they used tools to cut and move brush into piles where they were doused with a hose.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — In a dramatic end to a contentious trial, defense attorneys declined Tuesday to make closing arguments on behalf of four men accused of wielding assault weapons against federal agents in a 2014 standoff near Nevada anti-government figure Cliven Bundy’s ranch.

The move left defendants Eric Parker, Steven Stewart and Ricky Lovelien of Montana and Oklahoma essentially mute in answer to 10 felony charges including conspiracy, weapon possession and assault on a federal officer.

Defendant Scott Drexler of Idaho testified in his defense on Monday.

Parker testified last week, but Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro ordered him off the witness stand and struck his testimony from the record for what she said was a deliberate failure to keep his testimony within bounds of rules she set to keep the focus on what the defendants saw and did during the confrontation, not what they felt or why they acted.

The judge said Monday she thought Parker tried to improperly invite jury nullification of charges.

Navarro also rejected testimony from five other prospective defense witnesses after hearing previews of what four planned to say and reviewing previous testimony from the fifth.

Acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre was left Tuesday with nothing to rebut, so he abandoned his plan to have the last word before the jury of eight women and eight men began deliberations.

The panel heard five weeks of prosecution testimony. They resume deliberations on Wednesday. Each defendant could face decades in prison if convicted.

Myhre and attorneys for Drexler, Parker and Stewart, all of Idaho, each declined outside court to comment.

Attorney Shawn Perez, representing Ricky Lovelien of Montana and Oklahoma, said he didn’t think the government proved its case, so he felt no closing argument was needed.

Defense teams balking at summarizing their cases echoed the refusal in April 2016 of two of Bundy’s adult sons and three other defendants to enter pleas following their arrests in the case. They said they didn’t recognize authority of the government to prosecute them. A magistrate judge entered not-guilty pleas for them.

A first trial for the four current defendants ended with a hung jury in April. That jury found two other defendants guilty of some charges.

The jury on Tuesday heard a three-hour recitation by prosecutor Nadia Ahmed of the charges, retrial evidence and instructions from the judge.

Ahmed relied heavily on photos and videos showing each defendant carrying an assault-style weapon during the protest to stop a roundup of Bundy family cattle from public rangeland in a vast Gold Butte area that has since been made a national monument.

One photo showed the four men standing in a row atop a freeway overpass next to a sign declaring the West had been won.

Parker and Drexler were each photographed earlier, prone on the pavement of the Interstate 15 overpass, sighting their rifles through seams in a concrete roadside barrier toward the federal agents in a dry riverbed below.

“They did it. They helped each other do it. They agreed with each other to do it,” Ahmed said, accusing the defendants of conspiring with Cliven Bundy, his sons and other alleged organizers to thwart agents’ efforts to carry out lawful federal court orders.

Proving conspiracy is crucial for prosecutors ahead of a next trial, expected later this year, for the Bundy family patriarch, his two eldest sons and two other defendants. They each face 15 charges.

Six other defendants, including two other Bundy sons, are slated for trial next year.

Cliven Bundy says he doesn’t recognize federal authority over public lands — a position with roots in the anti-government Sagebrush Rebellion 40 years ago. Ranchers and supporters called then for state and local control of vast tracts of federally owned land in the West.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Agricultural researchers in the Treasure Valley of Oregon and Idaho still haven’t discovered what’s causing an onion disease that damages the inside of bulbs, reducing their marketability.

However, they haven’t seen the onion disease so far this year and some people hope the so-called “onion bulb rot” issue was only a brief problem caused by a rare occurrence of various environmental factors.

The disease, which is not a human health issue, is caused by a plant pathogen known as fusarium proliferatum and can damage the inside of onion bulbs, making them look fine on the outside but not desirable to consumers when they are cut open.

That type of fusarium fungi has caused a few cases of onion bulb rot over the years but it became a major issue in 2014 and 2015.

Both those years had unusually hot summers. Researchers believe the condition could be related to high temperatures.

“One of the ideas is that the hot summers we’ve had are causing that,” said Erik Feibert, a senior research assistant at Oregon State University’s Malheur County agricultural experiment station near Ontario.

That theory supposes that high temperatures facilitates a condition known as dry scale, which is when the top of the onion doesn’t completely close.

“That seems to provide the pathogen an opportunity to infect the top of the bulb,” said Stuart Reitz, an OSU cropping systems extension agent.

But, he added, researchers don’t know for sure that heat is causing the problem and field trials are being conducted at OSU’s Ontario station as well as the University of Idaho‘s experiment station in Parma to try to determine the exact cause.

“We really don’t know what combination of factors is causing it,” said Clint Shock, director of OSU’s Malheur County experiment station. “We don’t know when it’s happening and we don’t know why it’s happening.”

OSU researchers are using heat strips to add artificial heat to one plot of onions and straw mulch and kaolinite clay to reduce the heat load on another plot “to see if we observe any differences there,” Shock said.

For whatever reason, researchers have not detected the condition so far this year.

“I’m hoping that it was a fluke deal: two years and then it’s gone,” said farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association. “But I don’t know that. It’s too early to tell.”

Reitz said it’s possible that “it may just have been that those environmental conditions were just right (in 2014 and 2015). That would be good if we don’t see those conditions again.”

But, he added, “It’s hard to prove a negative,” and researchers will keep working on the problem.

Separate field trials in Parma and Ontario are looking at different fungicides to see if they are effective in controlling that fusarium pathogen.

SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. Geological Survey has awarded $4.9 million to six universities and a nonprofit to help advance an early warning system for earthquakes along the West Coast.

The federal agency says the ShakeAlert system could give people seconds or up to a minute of warning before strong shaking begins.

The University of Washington, Central Washington University and University of Oregon are among those receiving grants.

Congress provided $10.2 million in money to the USGS earthquake hazards program earlier this year.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer pushed for funding, saying such the early warning system is critical for Washington state.

The grants will help scientists thoroughly test the system and improve its performance. New seismic stations also will be installed to boost speed and reliability of warnings.

The U.S. cranberry industry will ask the USDA to order farmers and processors to cut production for the 2017 and 2018 harvests, forcing growers to take a short-term hit, but with the hope that prices will rebound in the long run.

The Cranberry Marketing Committee, made up of growers, voted unanimously this month to seek volume reductions of 15 percent this year and 25 percent next year.

“We’ve got to do something because we just keep adding and adding (to the surplus) and it gets worse and worse,” said Malcolm McPhail, a cranberry grower on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. “It’s just impossible to grow demand as fast as the fruit is coming.”

Record-busting crops in the U.S. and the emergence of a cranberry industry in Quebec, Canada, over the past decade have built up a cranberry inventory that now slightly exceeds one year’s demand.

Even if Canada continues to produce cranberries, volume controls in the U.S. could be effective in halting the slide of prices, said Tom Lochner, executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to get fruit out of the inventory,” Lochner said. “It’s a pretty powerful tool to manage supply.”

Lochner said volume reductions will provide only short-term relief. In the long run, the industry will need to sell more cranberries to such countries as China, India, South Korea and Australia, he said.

A USDA spokesman said Aug. 14 he couldn’t speculate on whether the agency can respond to the request before this fall’s harvest.

The cranberry industry last used volume controls to reduce a surplus in 2000. The marketing committee again requested volume controls in 2014, but the USDA declined, saying it suspected the U.S. cranberry industry was conspiring with growers in Quebec to control the supply.

Ocean Spray, a cooperative with more than 700 members, said it supported volume reduction.

“With record crops in recent years, the cranberry industry’s oversupply continues to grow and the scope of the oversupply is now at a point that the industry needed to take action,” according to an Ocean Spray statement.

Farmers received an average of 30.6 cents per pound for cranberries in 2016, according to the USDA. The price has been decreasing since peaking at 58.1 cents a pound in 2008.

The cranberry surplus was already high before U.S. farmers produced a record 962 million pounds in 2016. The USDA predicted last week the 2017 crop will be down 6 percent to 905 million pounds, primarily because of an expected decrease in Wisconsin, which accounts for two-thirds of U.S. cranberries.

The USDA forecast last year underestimated the U.S. crop by 100 million pounds. Lochner said he expected Wisconsin’s crop to be similar to last year’s.

Oregon cranberry production is expected to rebound from a subpar 2016. USDA predicts a 48 million-pound crop, up 16 percent from last year.

For Washington, USDA forecasts an 18 million-pound crop, up 3 percent from 2016.

The other two states with commercial cranberry industries, Massachusetts and New Jersey, are expected to be down slightly from last year.

CALDWELL, Idaho — Dry bean industry leaders believe a newly released yellow bean variety could eventually become a common sight in many fields across the state once it proves itself.

The bean, called Patron, was developed by Oregon State University bean breeder Jim Myers at the urging of the Idaho Bean Commission, which helped fund the project.

Idaho is the nation’s leader in dry bean seed production. About 70 percent of the beans grown in the state are for seed.

Currently, only about 2 percent of the dry beans grown in Idaho are yellow varieties, but that could change with the introduction of Patron, said IBC board member Don Tolmie, production manager for Treasure Valley Seed Co.

Patron is the only yellow bean variety with “off-the-charts” resistance to bean common mosaic virus, Tolmie said.

“I’ve got pretty high hopes that this Patron will become a pretty universal dry bean in the state of Idaho,” he said.

Idaho’s dry bean industry pushed for the new bean because of the growing popularity of yellow beans in the U.S. But the industry also hopes to sell yellow bean seed in Latin America, where yellows, also called peruano beans, are popular and fetch a premium.

The yellow bean varieties grown in Mexico and other Latin American nations have no mosaic virus resistance, Myers said.

“Compared to the traditional Mexican varieties, this is a quantum leap,” he said.

OSU has issued an invitation for bean dealers in Idaho to negotiate for an exclusive license to produce the new variety.

Myers said the bean has resistance to all pathogens of mosaic virus and was developed to grow well in this part of the country.

“It’s very well adapted to this region (and) the yield’s been excellent with this variety,” he said.

Myers also said Patron is an earlier season variety compared with other yellows.

Tolmie, who has grown Patron for OSU, said the new variety still has to prove itself, but so far it has performed well in southwestern Idaho.

It’s still a little early to make hard claims about how well the bean grows, “but we’ve had some pretty good luck with it agronomically,” Tolmie said.

“It’s got to get into the market and circulate so people can make sure it fits the needs they require,” he said. “But right now we’re pretty optimistic.”

Caldwell farmer Lynn Whitteg started growing Patron for Treasure Valley Seed Co. this year. He echoed Tolmie’s comments about being too early to say for certain how it performs.

But, he said, “I think (it’s) going to be a pretty good bean.”

John Dean, president of Idaho Seed Bean Co., which grew a few Patron seed plots for OSU two years ago, said it appears to grow well in southcentral Idaho.

“It’s an earlier variety than the standard yellow varieties we’ve had,” he said. “It yields well for a shorter season variety and the color seems to be good. I’m glad they released it.”

The bison meat industry has been steadily growing as consumer demand has increased and producers all over the country have shown interest in expanding or starting herds.

“More and more people are discovering that (bison) is sustainably raised and it’s pretty darn delicious,” Dave Carter, executive director of the National Bison Association, said. “We’re at the point now where demand has exceeded supply.”

According to the association, the bison business grew from $340 million to $350 million in sales over the last year.

Carter attributed the increase to rising prices. According to the monthly bison report from the USDA, young bison bull carcasses are sold at an average of $4.83 a pound, and grass fed filet mignon is sold at an average of $44 a pound.

Although most bison production is in the Midwest, 14 Oregon ranches are registered with the Northwest Bison Association. Washington has nine members and Idaho has five.

One Oregon ranch, Green Fields Bison Ranch near Dallas, is getting more involved.

Lori and Rick Hedlund are going into their fifth year of operating Green Fields and their second year of marketing bison meat. At the moment they have 60 head of bison.

Lori Hedlund said that while getting the infrastructure set up has been a challenge, they have learned a lot from their experience — and their animals.

“They are amazing creatures, though — it’s a real privilege,” she said. “We’ve learned from them and the way they live; they’ll run, eat (and) rest, and that lifestyle is probably a pretty healthy one.”

While the Hedlunds have noticed a decline of bison producers in their area, they believe it’s due to retirement because the industry is “very time-consuming,” Lori Hedlund said.

Despite the few inactive ranches, more producers have been getting involved in the Northwest bison industry, said Alan Douglass, Region 1 director of National Bison Association and president of the Western Bison Association.

“We’re starting to see more activity and interest, but on a smaller level,” he said. Producers who want a larger herd are more likely to move to an environment more conducive for the bigger herds of animals.

Originally from South Dakota, Rick Hedlund said the bison there thrive because it’s their natural habitat; he compared it to raising a deer in the forest. Raising them in the Willamette Valley, however, is more challenging — especially in the winter because of the mud.

“We don’t have that real sod-forming grass, or frozen ground,” Rick Hedlund said. “The Midwest doesn’t get torn up as bad. If those million bison were out here in Western Oregon, they would have ripped this place up.”

Historically, bison didn’t migrate toward the West Coast, and that creates a disadvantage for bison ranchers, Douglass said. With the warmer climates near the coast, the animals will be much smaller than in the Midwest or by the Canadian border where it’s colder and they need to be more robust.

However, Green Fields is taking advantage of the local market. While not certified organic, the Hedlunds use organic practices. They also pride themselves on grass-finishing their bison.

“Our meat has a lot of variety in the way it looks, but that’s OK,” Lori Hedlund said. “We go with what’s healthier.”

Bison in general is a highly nutritious product, and Carter said that it’s lining up with consumers’ diet and health considerations because the meat is low in fat and high in iron and protein.

“What is more sustainable than food from an animal that’s been part of the ecosystem for thousands of years?” he asked.

Going forward, the NBA hopes to grow the herd size from 399,000 to 1 million, Carter said. The association has also launched “Bison Hump Day,” to keep up with the trends of “Meatless Mondays” and “Taco Tuesdays.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Well before Oregon legalized marijuana, its verdant, wet forests made it an ideal place for growing the drug, which often ended up being funneled out of the state for big money. Now, officials suspect pot grown legally in Oregon and other states is also being smuggled out, and the trafficking is putting America’s multibillion-dollar marijuana industry at risk.

In response, pot-legal states are trying to clamp down on “diversion” even as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions presses for enforcement of federal laws against marijuana.

Tracking legal weed from the fields and greenhouses where it’s grown to the shops where it’s sold under names like Blueberry Kush and Chernobyl is their main protective measure so far.

In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown recently signed into law a requirement that state regulators track from seed to store all marijuana grown for sale in Oregon’s legal market. So far, only recreational marijuana has been comprehensively tracked. Tina Kotek, speaker of the Oregon House, said lawmakers wanted to ensure “we’re protecting the new industry that we’re supporting here.”

“There was a real recognition that things could be changing in D.C.,” she said.

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board says it’s replacing its current tracking Nov. 1 with a “highly secure, reliable, scalable and flexible system.”

California voters approved using a tracking system run by Lakeland, Florida-based Franwell for its recreational pot market. Sales become legal Jan. 1.

Franwell also tracks marijuana, using bar-code and radio frequency identification labels on packaging and plants, in Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, Alaska and Michigan.

“The tracking system is the most important tool a state has,” said Michael Crabtree, who runs Denver-based Nationwide Compliance Specialists Inc., which helps tax collectors track elusive, cash-heavy industries like the marijuana business.

But the systems aren’t fool-proof. They rely on the users’ honesty, he said.

“We have seen numerous examples of people ‘forgetting’ to tag plants,” Crabtree said. Colorado’s tracking also doesn’t apply to home-grown plants and many noncommercial marijuana caregivers.

In California, implementing a “fully operational, legal market” could take years, said state Sen. Mike McGuire, who represents the “Emerald Triangle” region that’s estimated to produce 60 percent of America’s marijuana. But he’s confident tracking will help.

“In the first 24 months, we’re going to have a good idea who is in the regulated market and who is in black market,” McGuire said.

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize personal possession, in 1973. It legalized medical marijuana in 1998, and recreational use in 2014.

Before that, Anthony Taylor hid his large cannabis crop from aerial surveillance under a forest canopy east of Portland, and tended it when there was barely enough light to see.

“In those days, marijuana was REALLY illegal,” said Taylor, now a licensed marijuana processor and lobbyist. “If you got caught growing the amounts we were growing, you were going to go to prison for a number of years.”

Taylor believes it’s easier to grow illegally now because authorities lack the resources to sniff out every operation. And growers who sell outside the state can earn thousands of dollars per pound, he said.

Still, it’s hard to say if pot smuggling has gotten worse in Oregon, or how much of the marijuana leaving the state filters out from the legal side.

Chris Gibson, executive director of the federally funded Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, said the distinction matters less than the fact that marijuana continues to leave Oregon on planes, trains and automobiles, and through the mail.

“None is supposed to leave, so it’s an issue,” Gibson told The Associated Press. “That should be a primary concern to state leadership.”

On a recent morning, Billy Williams, the U.S. attorney in Oregon, sat at his desk in his office overlooking downtown Portland, a draft Oregon State Police report in front of him. Oregon produces between 132 tons and 900 tons more marijuana than what Oregonians can conceivably consume, the report said, using statistics from the legal industry and estimates of illicit grows. It identified Oregon as an “epicenter of cannabis production” and quoted an academic as saying three to five times the amount of pot that’s consumed in Oregon leaves the state.

Sessions himself cited the report in a July 24 letter to Oregon’s governor. In it, Sessions asked Brown to explain how Oregon would address the report’s “serious findings.”

Pete Gendron, a licensed marijuana grower who advised state regulators on compliance and enforcement, said the reports’ numbers are guesswork, and furthermore are outdated because they don’t take into account the marijuana now being sold in Oregon’s legal recreational market.

A U.S. Justice Department task force recently said the Cole Memorandum , which restricts federal marijuana law enforcement in states where pot is legal, should be reevaluated to see if it should be changed.

The governors of Oregon, Colorado, Washington and Alaska — where both medical and recreational marijuana are legal — wrote to Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in April, warning altering the memorandum “would divert existing marijuana product into the black market and increase dangerous activity in both our states and our neighboring states.”

But less than a month later, Sessions wrote to congressional leaders criticizing the federal government’s hands-off approach to medical marijuana, and citing a Colorado case in which a medical marijuana licensee shipped pot out of state.

In his letter, Sessions opposed an amendment by Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer and California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher that prevents the Justice Department from interfering with states’ medical marijuana. Congress is weighing renewing the amendment for the next fiscal year.

In a phone interview from Washington, Blumenauer said the attorney general is “out of step” with most members of Congress, who have become more supportive “of ending the failed prohibition on marijuana.”

“Marijuana has left Oregon for decades,” Blumenauer said. “What’s different is that now we have better mechanisms to try to control it.”

Taylor believes pot smuggling will continue because of the profit incentive, which will end only if the drug is legalized across America. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, introduced a bill in Congress on Aug. 1 to do just that.

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Associated Press writer Kristen Wyatt in Denver contributed to this report.