An Oregon agricultural aviation company has agreed to stop spraying pesticides for the next month while it turns over application records to farm regulations.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture sought an injunction against Applebee Aviation of Banks, Ore., because the company allegedly continued to spray pesticides despite a suspension of its applicator’s license.

Applebee Aviation also faces a $40,000 fine and a yearlong revocation of its license for these alleged actions.

Rob Ireland, the company’s attorney, said he could not yet speak about the allegations but said Applebee Aviation agreed to a stipulated injunction on Oct. 19 not to spray pesticides for 30 days.

The company is cooperating with ODA and is still performing non-pesticide services, such as Christmas tree harvesting and fertilizer applications, he said.

“The other agricultural support activities are still going on,” said Ireland.

Pesticide regulators at ODA spoke with Applebee Aviation about its safety concerns over the spring and summer but suspended the company’s applicator license on Sept. 25 after learning “these pesticide-related worker safety deficiencies were continuing,” according to an agency document.

Workers did not wear all the protective gear required to apply several herbicides and weren’t properly trained, among other problems, according to ODA.

Despite this suspension, the company sprayed pesticides four times on timber tracts in Clatsop County and on 800 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management property near Christmas Valley, Ore., with each violation warranting a $10,000 penalty, according to ODA.

“Applebee Aviation demonstrated that it will ignore or fail to comply with any or all pesticide application requirements if compliance will cost it money,” the agency said in a civil penalty order.

The ODA claims that the company’s owner, Michael Applebee, asked the agency for an exception to the license suspension because the BLM contract was worth $3 million but was told such exceptions aren’t possible.

By disregarding the suspension order, Applebee Aviation has undermined the “level playing field” for pesticide applicators who follow the rules, which justifies “immediate and severe consequences,” ODA said in a court filing.

“Defendants’ actions threaten to cause irreparable harm by sending a message to the pesticide industry that pesticide operators may continue to operate even when they intentionally and blatantly violate the law,” the filing said.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — People living in a small city north of Eugene saw a funnel cloud.

National Weather Service meteorologists in Portland posted video and photos of the funnel cloud on Facebook. The images were provided by Harrisburg residents who spotted it late Monday afternoon.

The difference between a funnel cloud and a tornado is a tornado touches the ground and typically causes damage. Meteorologist Colby Neuman tells The Register-Guard there were no reports of the Harrisburg funnel cloud touching the ground.

Neuman says funnel clouds in the Willamette Valley generally happen in the late afternoon, usually in the spring or fall, after a front of rain passes through and is followed by showers. Another predictor is a change in wind patterns.

A Grant County resident in Eastern Oregon reported to Oregon State Police Oct. 6 that he shot a wolf while hunting coyotes on private property south of Prairie City.

Wolves are protected throughout Oregon under the state endangered species law and under federal regulation in the western two-thirds of the state. Killing them is not allowed except in defense of human life and, for authorized livestock owners, when wolves are caught in act of attacking livestock or herd dogs.

State police investigated, recovered the wolf’s carcass and submitted a report to the Grant County district attorney’s office for review, according to an OSP news release.

However, the Grant County DA’s office said the case has been transferred to Harney County prosecutor’s office. District Attorney Tim Colahan said his cohort in Grant County has a conflict of interest because he knows the hunter’s family, and asked Colahan to handle the review as a courtesy. Colahan said he is just now receiving case information from OSP and has not made a charging decision.

District attorneys in Oregon can present cases to a grand jury for possible indictment, bring charges themselves or decide the facts don’t warrant prosecution. The man who shot the wolf was not identified.

The wolf, designated OR-22 by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, is at least the third to die in Oregon since late August, when the Sled Springs pair in Wallowa County were found dead of an unknown cause. State police suspended their investigation in that case, saying they didn’t have probable cause to say the deaths were due to human action and that the cause of death couldn’t be determined because the carcasses had deteriorated.

State police said the wolf shot in Grant County was a male that dispersed from the Umatilla Pack. Young or sub-dominant wolves often leave their home packs to establish their own territory and find mates.

According to ODFW, OR-22 has worn a GPS tracking collar since October 2013 and dispersed from the Umatilla Pack in February 2015. He was in Malheur County for awhile, then traveled into Grant County. He did not have a mate or pups, according to ODFW.

Online

ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehey said information about distinguishing wolves from coyotes is available at

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/docs/Wolf_Mngmt_Flyer_2011.pdf

A radio-collared wolf that dispersed from Northeast Oregon and hadn’t been heard from for four years has turned up the Cascade Mountains in northern Klamath County.

OR-3, as the wolf is designated, was identified from a photograph taken this summer by a trail camera set up by a private individual.

Like OR-7, Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-3 dispersed from the Imnaha Pack, leaving that group in May 2011. He appears to have cut a diagonal south by southwest across the state to the Cascades, also like OR-7 did.

OR-3’s radio signal was picked up in the Fossil wildlife management unit in the summer of 2011 and near Prineville in September that year. He hadn’t been located since.

Some Oregon wolves wear GPS collars that emit location information at set periods and are picked up computer. OR-3 wore a VHF radio collar, which requires wildlife biologists to locate it in the field with telemetry equipment, according to ODFW. The wolf’s radio collar probably isn’t working at this point, the department said in a news release.

The department had no other information about OR-3. The unidentified person whose trail camera took the photo asked ODFW not to share it with the public. It’s not yet known whether OR-3 is part of a pack. OR-7, which wandered into Northern California before returning to Southwest Oregon’s Cascades, is paired with a female and has produced pups.

Locating OR-3 bolsters the department’s findings that Oregon’s wolf population is increasing in number and range distribution. Wolves migrated into Oregon from Idaho, where they were released as part of a national wolf recovery program, and biologists have long expected they would spread from Northeastern Oregon to the Cascades.

The first Oregon pack was detected and designated in 2008, and the state now has a minimum of 83 wolves. The minimum total stood at 85 until the Sled Springs pair were found dead of an unknown cause the week of Aug. 24. Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf program coordinator, has estimated Oregon has 90 to 100 wolves; the minimum population is based on confirmed counts.

ODFW biologists will attempt to gather more information about OR-3.

Online

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/wolf_program_updates.asp

COOS BAY — Report cards are in, giving school districts across Oregon a look at where they succeeded and faltered last school year.

COOS BAY — Report cards are in, giving school districts across Oregon a look at where they succeeded and faltered last school year.

As Oregon’s marijuana industry emerges from the legal shadows, growers are being confronted with regulatory hurdles regarding irrigation, experts say.

When cultivation of the psychoactive crop was criminal under state law, compliance with water rules was not the top-of-mind worry for growers.

Those who now want to participate in the legal marketplace for recreational marijuana, however, are finding that irrigation can pose an unexpected complication.

To qualify for commercial marijuana-growing licenses, growers will face the same issues with water rights as conventional farmers as well as problems that are unique to the crop, which remains illegal under federal law.

Earlier this year, aspiring hemp and marijuana producer Andrew Anderson of Bend, Ore., was notified by his local irrigation district that federal authorities refused to allow their facilities to be used to deliver water for cannabis production.

Anderson said he hopes the matter will be resolved over time, but in the mean time he’s drilling a agricultural well to ensure he can irrigate his crop.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get a chance to be part of an industry that goes from nothing to a giant conglomerate in a lifetime,” he said.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates some water projects in the West, has said it doesn’t intend to become an “enforcer” of federal cannabis prohibitions, but it remains to be seen how marijuana and hemp production is treated by the agency, said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

Each irrigation district in Oregon is likely to have a different perspective on cannabis production, particularly depending on how reliant they are on federal facilities, Snell said at a recent cannabis workshop in Salem, Ore.

“They are like snowflakes. From a distance they may look the same but up close they all have their own characteristics,” she said.

Cannabis growers can apply for their own water right to divert surface water for irrigation or use land with an existing water right — just like other farmers, they’re subject to shut offs due to water calls from senior water rights holders, said Doug Woodcock, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department’s field services division.

“Know your water rights,” Woodcock said, noting that the right is specific as to the place and type of use.

Drilling a well also requires a water rights permit for agriculture in Oregon, though exemptions apply for domestic, industrial and commercial uses.

However, those “exempt” uses do not apply to growing a crop, such as marijuana, for profit, Woodcock said. “Irrigation is not part of the commercial exemption.”

Medical marijuana growers often don’t face such restrictions on groundwater because they produce the crop for personal use or cultivate it for others without an intent to profit, he said.

Commercial cannabis growers who want to cultivate the crop inside a warehouse or another property within a city can also buy water from the municipality, he said.

At this point, though, 29 cities and 10 counties in Oregon have decided not to allow marijuana production within their boundaries, while others remain undecided, said Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, who is a land use attorney.

People who want to grow marijuana in those undecided areas should become involved in the conversation with their local governments, he said. “The best place to start is the local planning department.”

In counties that do allow marijuana production, only “exclusive farm use” zones allow the crop to be grown outright, said Katherine Daniels, farm and forest lands specialist for the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.

Whether the crop can be commercially grown without restriction in industrial, commercial and residential zones will likely vary county-by-county, she said.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Thousands of fish were rescued in Oregon after a low-flowing river left them stranded in shrinking pools.

The Bend Bulletin reports that volunteers joined state and federal workers Wednesday to pull trout, sculpin and whitefish out of the pools alongside the Deschutes River upstream from Bend.

Fish biologist Erik Moberly of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says they collected 3,650 trout, hundreds of sculpin and a hundred whitefish.

Since last weekend, at least 500 trout died after becoming stranded.

It is the third consecutive autumn that fish had to be rescued along the stretch of the Deschutes near Lava Island Falls. The low flows in the Deschutes River are caused by trying to fill a nearby reservoir as much as possible for the next year’s irrigation season.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal agency has released a road map for the recovery of threatened Oregon Coast coho salmon.

The draft plan from the National Marine Fisheries Service focuses on protecting and restoring freshwater and habitats that have a mixture of freshwater and saltwater, including streams, lakes and wetlands.

The plan also calls on the state to strengthen regulations on activities such as agriculture and logging to protect water quality and habitat.

The Oregon Coast coho was first listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1998. It was later taken off that list, but litigation forced the government to grant it federal protection again in 2008.

The listing was retained in 2011, and in 2015 a federal review found that while aspects of the species’ status have improved, the species still needs protection.

In July, two environmental groups sued the federal agency over its failure to write the recovery plan in a timely manner.

Between 1 million and 2 million coho salmon once returned annually to Oregon’s coast, but the number plummeted to about 20,000 in the 1990s because of over-fishing, the loss of habitat and the effects of hatchery fish, among other factors.

In recent years, improvements have led to increased coho numbers: annual returns now range from 100,000 to 350,000 fish.

But federal biologists say poor ocean conditions and climate change could pose a challenge to the coho. The main threats to overcoming that challenge, according to the plan, are degraded habitat and inadequate state rules.

The loss of stream habitat for the rearing of juvenile coho salmon is a big concern. This habitat, according to the plan, is critical to produce enough surviving juveniles to sustain the coho population, especially during poor ocean conditions. Stream habitat includes large wood, pools, connections to side channels and off-channel alcoves, wetlands and backwater areas.

A large part of the land with critical coho habitat lies on private land, including farmland and timber land. Because the plan is only a blueprint, its implementation will rely on the efforts of local jurisdictions, farmers, timber companies and other private citizens.

State agencies such as the Board of Forestry, which regulates logging buffers near streams, and the Department of Agriculture, which regulates pesticide spraying, will also play a large role, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the two groups that sued this summer.

“We need bigger buffers around streams where chemicals aren’t sprayed. We need larger logging buffers,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald praised the plan for its focus on habitat restoration and strengthening laws to protect that habitat. The big concern, he said, is “whether the state of Oregon will step up and do what’s necessary to have healthy salmon.”

NOAA Fisheries estimates the cost of recovery at about $55 million over the next five years and about $110 million to achieve full recovery, depending on the effectiveness of improvements to the coho salmon’s habitat and the strength of laws protecting that habitat.

The draft plan is open to public comment for 60 days. The agency plans to issue a final recovery plan in 2016.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Greg Walden said he is close to drafting a bill in the House that will focus on resolving the water issues for the Klamath Basin.

It will likely include the removal of the four dams on the Klamath River and have been a source of dispute among parties who have not signed on to the water agreement.

Walden has been adamant about not removing the dams, but has softened that stance in the last few years.

In an interview with the Herald and News, Walden, a Republican from Hood River, said, “Personally, I’m not a dam removal support guy. But the facts that have been agreed to (in the pact) require (dam removal) and there are really no alternatives unless you want to blow the whole agreement apart and give up on water certainty for agriculture and all the other components that go with the agreement.”

The agreement is called the Klamath Water Recovery and Economic Restoration Act. It was hammered out by irrigators, the Klamath Tribes, environmental groups, state and local officials as a compromise to provide consistent water to farmers and ranchers, as well as keep enough water in Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River for protection of endangered fish species.

Senate Bill 133 was introduced in January in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, but has yet to move forward. It must pass the House and Senate and be signed by the president before it can become law. SB 133 was about to be heard in committee prior to the August recess, but more pressing energy matters took the stage.

Now, Walden plans to sponsor a similar bill in the House, but he was not ready to talk specifics.

“We’ve been working pretty aggressively in the last year reviewing all the issues surrounding the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement; the liability, sediment issues, dam removal, the whole thing,” he said. “And, we’ve been working closely with the tribes, the water users in the lower basin, PacifiCorp (the dam owners) and the state and governor’s office. So there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.”

Once drafted, Walden said he wants to confer with the agreement parties before releasing it in the House.

Once drafted, it will have to go before the House Natural Resources committee which includes California Republican Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Tom McClintock. In September at the Tulelake fair, LaMalfa said he remains adamantly opposed to dam removal. Three of the four dams are in his district.

“I don’t know if LaMalfa will support my bill or not. I respect him and he’s a good man, but we may wind up in different places on this,” Walden said.

BOISE — Idaho ranchers claim that better grazing management would have reduced the size and severity of the Soda fire that scorched 279,000 acres of land in Owyhee County and part of Eastern Oregon in August.

Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project, however, claims that livestock grazing contributed to the severity of the Soda fire and other wildfires that burned millions of acres of land across the West this year.

Ranchers affected by the Soda fire, which impacted 41 Bureau of Land Management grazing allotments, reacted incredulously to WWP’s claim.

“I don’t know how they can even say anything like that and I don’t know how anyone can be stupid enough to believe it,” said Marsing area rancher Ed Wilsey, who lost 70 head of cattle in the fire and all of his summer and spring range.

Wilsey said several of his neighbors also lost all their summer and spring range and some larger cattle operations have had to travel as far as Wyoming to find suitable pasture.

“It burned so hot it burned (the range) down to nothing. There are no fences. It’s just dirt now,” said sheep rancher Kim Mackenzie.

The fire took a terrible toll on ranchers and others in the area and cattlemen bristle at the claim that grazing contributed to the size of the fire, Wilsey said.

If anything, he said, limitations on grazing resulting from lawsuits by groups like WWP contributed to the severity of the fire by causing fuel loads to increase.

He said there are numerous examples where the fire stopped burning when it came to land that had been grazed recently and he sent the Capital Press photos of some of these examples.

“Grazing isn’t going to stop fires 100 percent but it sure as heck can cut down on the fuel load,” Wilsey said.

In an editorial that appeared in the Times-News, WWP Executive Director Travis Bruner said livestock grazing in southwestern Idaho and across the West “contributed significantly to intensity, severity and enormity of fires this summer. Despite the livestock industry’s claims to the contrary, the Idaho fires are burning hotter and faster because of the impacts of cows and sheep on our arid Western lands.”

Bruner said livestock removed the “native grasses that burn at a lower intensity than fire-prone invasive species that dominate many areas of Owyhee County.”

“Combined with drought, high winds and low humidity, the impacts of livestock grazing are a root cause of the West’s intense wildfires,” Bruner stated.

Idaho Cattle Association executive vice president Wyatt Prescott said wildfires require three things: Heat (lightning), fuel and oxygen (wind).

“You can’t control the ignition and you can’t control the wind but what you can control is the fuel,” he said. “Our response to that editorial is simple: It’s basic fire knowledge.”

Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for Idaho BLM, said “the jury is still out” on grazing’s overall impact on wildfire behavior but some studies have shown that grazing can diminish fire danger where certain fuels, such as invasive cheatgrass, dominate.

“It just has to be used the right way,” she said.

LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) — A Subway customer says he found a dead mouse in a sandwich at a restaurant on the Oregon coast.

Matt Jones says spotting the mouse at the Lincoln City restaurant last week was the funniest thing he ever saw — and the most disgusting.

He tells Portland’s KGW-TV his friend Jay ordered an Italian sub and wanted spinach. The employee scraped some from the bottom of a bin and plopped it on the bread. There was shock on both sides of the counter.

“I laughed because I was like, there is no way this just happened,” Jones said.

Cheryl Connell, director of Lincoln County Health and Human Services, said a health inspector quickly went to the restaurant. The investigator studied the dead rodent and the bin from which it came before searching the entire restaurant for any sign of contamination or droppings.

“The investigation determined that the rodent problem did not come from inside the facility,” Connell said. “It was probably in a bag of the bagged spinach product,” Connell said.

Subway declined to identify the spinach supplier, saying it is proprietary information. In a statement, the company said the restaurant was thoroughly cleaned and the customer given a refund.

Connell said health inspectors consulted with doctors and decided that, though unappetizing, the dead mouse was unlikely to have sickened anyone who had spinach from the same bag.

TOKYO — Bob’s Red Mill Natural Food, a certified organic grain products producer, exports to China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam — but not Japan.

“I want to be in Japan,” company vice president of international sales Jan Chernus said.

To study how she could access the market here, Chernus was among nine agribusiness and Oregon Department of Agriculture participants in a 35-person state trade mission to Asia led by Gov. Kate Brown.

The tour includes visits to Tokyo (Oct. 11-15), Beijing (Oct. 15-17) and Hanoi (Oct. 17-21).

Chernus said when markets are tough, she tends to focus on those that allow easier access.

“The regulations in Japan are pretty tight on packaged foods,” she said. Bob’s Red Mill is in Milwaukie, Ore.

ODA market access and certification programs director Lindsay Benson said governor-led trade missions provide a lot more media coverage, market access and leverage with officials.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to ship to the countries the mission is visiting, Benson said.

“The importers and governments have high standards,” she said.

Bryan Ostlund, representing Oregon’s grass seed, Christmas tree and blueberry industries, said mission participants can meet people with whom it is ordinarily difficult to have talks, such as the Vietnam minister of agriculture.

Ostlund said some major retailers such as Ikea Japan would like to buy more Christmas trees from Oregon.

“By coming here, we can get a better understanding of pest issues and requirements,” he said.

Markets here do need what Oregon producers have to offer. China, in particular, requires a lot of grass seed, Ostlund said.

“China feeds grass to carp, pork and chicken,” he said.

Hillsboro’s Oregon Berry Packing has exported fresh blueberries and strawberries here since 1995, and frozen berries since 1998, with Häagen-Dazs Japan its biggest customer.

“Without Japan, I don’t think we would be packing strawberries,” company president Jeff Malensky said.

Oregon Berry Packing has managed limited sales to China. Since the country already grows blueberries, a market for the berry already exists, Malensky said.

“I’m going there to find out more about that market,” he said.

As for Vietnam, U.S. exporters cannot presently ship fresh blueberries there, Malensky said.

“It’s an introductory trip,” he said.

Oregon Wine Board past president Bill Sweat operates Winderlea vineyard and winery in Dundee with his wife, producing 7,500 cases a year.

The couple wants to export here, so Sweat came only for the Japan leg of the trip.

“I have meetings Wednesday and Thursday with three importers,” he said.

DePaul Industries’ food and packaging division presently does not ship to Japan and Vietnam.

But the Portland company has a couple of potential customers in Vietnam, president and CEO Travis Pearson said.

“I would like to talk to them, and (U.S.) embassy and (Vietnam) government officials, to understand what it would be like to export to Vietnam,” Pearson said.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — State officials have denied allegations in a petition filed by Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams contesting an irrigation shut-off notice.

The Herald and News reports the Oregon Water Resources Department filed its response Friday, claiming that Mallams doesn’t have legal grounds to support his call for a judgment against the notice.

Mallams had asked for judicial review of the shut-off notices on Aug. 31. The notices issued by the department in July and August ordered Mallams to stop pumping groundwater to irrigate his upper Basin farm.

Other water users in the Upper Klamath Basin were also given orders after the Klamath Project made a claim to the water based on its priority water right.

Mallams says his water permit supersedes claims of the Klamath Project, which the department denies.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Department of Agriculture has received a temporary restraining order to stop a company from conducting aerial pesticide spraying on private timberlands.

The order was issued by Washington County Circuit Court on Monday. It comes after the state last month suspended Applebee Aviation’s pesticide operator license over worker protection violations. Despite the suspension, Applebee Aviation performed aerial applications.

According to court documents, owner Mike Applebee told regulators his company continued spraying without a license because he had a $3 million contract with the Bureau of Land Management and “felt pressure to get the job done.”

The restraining order means Applebee must cease all pesticide applications until its operator’s license is reinstated. The company must also pay a $1,100 fine and implement new worker safety procedures and training.

A cooperative of Oregon hazelnut farmers is accused of violating a pricing contract with a deceased aviation and agricultural entrepreneur.

The estate of Delford Smith, founder of the bankrupt Evergreen Aviation and Evergreen Agricultural Enterprises, filed a lawsuit against the Hazelnut Growers of Oregon cooperative seeking $150,000 in additional payments for hazelnuts delivered in 2013.

The complaint alleges that Smith, who died in 2014, agreed to sell 1 million pounds of hazelnuts to the cooperative at a per-pound price that was 35 cents above the rate established by the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, which negotiates prices between farmers and major processors.

The initial field price was set at $1.15 per pound in 2013, resulting in a payment of $1.50 to Smith, the lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, said.

However, favorable market conditions led to the price increasing to $1.30 per pound in March 2014, which means Smith should have received $1.65 per pound, according to the complaint.

The cooperative’s CEO, Jeff Fox, said he could not discuss the matter and referred questions to attorney Brandy Sargent, who told Capital Press she expects the dispute to be resolved soon.

“This matter is pending settlement right now,” Sargent said, declining to provide specifics about possible terms.

Even if the controversy between the cooperative and Smith is straightened out, the lawsuit has nonetheless raised questions about the cooperative’s pricing deal with the entrepreneur.

Processors who enter into deals with the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association are prohibited from paying certain farmers a more favorable rate than the established price, said Bruce Chapin, chairman of the Oregon Hazelnut Commission.

“They don’t make special deals, so everybody is paid the same,” he said.

Not every processor is bound by the agreement, but most of the major ones agree to the contract, Chapin said.

If a processor who contracts with the bargaining association is later found to provide a certain grower with special terms, the company would be required to compensate other farmers, said Doug Olsen, the group’s president.

“If they end up paying more than what we agreed on, then they owe growers in the association the same amount,” he said.

Given the contract dispute, however, it’s unclear what HGO’s actual payment to Smith’s estate will ultimately be.

There’s also uncertainty about HGO’s obligations to growers who belong to the association, since only the cooperative’s Westnut division is a signatory to the contract.

SUNRIVER, Ore. — U.S. Rep. Greg Walden spoke of frustration with the U.S. Senate’s unwillingness to address forest policy, and fielded questions on the uncertainty surrounding the House speakership during a presentation at the Oregon Forest Industries Council’s annual meeting here Oct. 12.

Asked who is going to be the next Speaker of the House, Walden, R-Ore., said: “I hope it is Paul Ryan, but I don’t know if he’ll do it.”

Walden said he talked to Ryan, R-Wis., on Oct. 9 about replacing Speaker John Boehner, who has announced he plans to leave his seat Oct. 29.

“There is a lot of pressure being put on Paul Ryan to step into this vacuum or void, and it is the last thing he wants to do. He is a policy guy,” Walden said.

“He’s always wanted to chair Ways and Means and rewrite the country’s tax code and deal with trade issues. He doesn’t want to do management, especially big ego management. And there is a lot of that in (Washington) D.C. right now,” Walden said.

“I don’t know if he’ll do it,” Walden said. “If he doesn’t I don’t know who can bridge the gap.”

“Why don’t you do it?” a participant asked.

“You need 218 votes,” he said. “I’m supporting Paul Ryan.”

Outside the questions on the House speakership, Walden focused on forest policy during his luncheon presentation, specifically on the unwillingness of the Senate to revise federal forest management.

“Three years in a row, in the U.S. House, bipartisan legislation has been passed to try and give us active management of federal forests to improve their health, to protect their watersheds,” Walden said.

“It provides larger categorical exclusions to move quickly on projects that reduce fuel loads,” he said. “And when there is a fire, there is really no funding stream to replant after these fires on federal lands.

“This legislation, through expediting recovery operations, would require 75 percent of burn lands to be reforested and paid for with salvage,” he said.

“Also, just like you are affected in our rural communities, every time a forest project is halted, the outside groups that sue on forest projects should have to have a little skin in the game,” he said. “So under this bill, they would be required to post a bond before litigating on collaborative, or community, wildfire protection plans.”

The bill also includes language pertaining to Oregon and California Railroad lands, directing the Bureau of Land Management, which manages O&C lands, to revise management plans in consideration of Walden described as “the clear, statutory mandate to manage these lands for sustainable timber production and revenue for the counties.”

“All of those provisions were in the bill that we passed in July,” Walden said.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chair of Senate Agriculture Committee, has agreed to hold a hearing on the bill, Walden said.

“I don’t know how far we will get them to go, but we have to ramp up the pressure on the Senate, Republican and Democrat, so we can move forward to at least get a bill out of the Senate side and into conference,” he said.

“If you are concerned about the environment. If you are concerned about global warming and reducing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, then there is nothing better than healthy forests to help with that goal,” Walden said.

“Oregon forests sequester 34 million tons of carbon equivalents per year,” he said. “That is 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in our state. And yet one-third of the federal forest lands in Oregon are subject to not only hazardous fire, but catastrophic fire.

“We all witnessed that this summer. And in case you were asleep for the last 20 years, we’ve witnessed it almost every summer. And yet very little gets done,” Walden said.

“We need to fix the forest management piece,” Walden said. “We have to change this.”

SUNRIVER, Ore. — Oregon has a public perception problem when it comes to water quality, said Richard Whitman, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s natural resources policy director.

Addressing foresters at the Oregon Forest Industries Council’s annual meeting here Oct. 12, Whitman said: “The public perception out there is that water quality is bad and it is getting worse.

“That is not true,” Whitman said.

“In actuality, since the passage of the (Estuaries and) Clean Water Act in 2000 … we’ve been pretty much stable. We haven’t gotten worse. In some places, it is getting a bit better. In some places it’s not. But there is this perception out there in the public that we have an enormous water quality problem in the state, and it is simply not the case,” Whitman said.

“The Northwest is also a breeding ground for litigators, unfortunately,” he said, “and that litigation also feeds this perception that we are not in good shape in terms of water quality.”

Whitman said the state also has a perception problem when it comes to water quantity.

“The problem in the land of water quantity is that we have plenty of water in Oregon and that we are not California,” Whitman said. “That is not really the reality, either.

“These public perceptions about where we are at as a state are in and of themselves a problem,” he said. “They make it difficult to build collaborative lasting solutions to real problems and, in order to work through that, we need to be thinking not just how to work through the substantive issues, but also how to bring the public along, so the public understands where we are truly at in terms of resource issues and can be part of the solution, rather than creating additional problems in terms of solutions.”

Whitman said that while water quality in Oregon is good, it could be better.

“It is not necessarily good enough for all the things that we want water to do,” he said. “It is not good enough in some places for our fisheries. In some places, we have issues with our drinking water.

“So there is still some progress to be made on water quality, even though we have made an enormous amount of progress already,” he said.

“Also, with warming temperature and less snowpack, we are facing water-quality challenges,” he said. “We saw that this year with a need for fish advisories on many of our streams in Oregon because of low flow and unusually high temperature.

“On the water quantity side, Oregon is blessed with abundant water, but with less snow and warmer temperatures, we have several problems. We have a storage problem,” he said. “Without the snowpack, we are losing that storage.”

Whitman said Brown was instrumental in advocating for passage of the $54 million package that lawmakers passed in the 2015 Legislature to fund water storage projects.

“The governor has followed that up with an executive order on drought, making sure that our Oregon agencies lead by example in terms of reducing their water use, and also putting in place a new Oregon drought plan so we are better prepared in the future for the type of summer we saw this past year,” Whitman said.

In an interview after his presentation, Whitman said he hopes to have some water-storage-project news in the near future.

Oregon’s hazelnut crop isn’t living up to expectations in terms of quantity, but high quality and strong demand are providing farmers with an upside.

The state was initially forecast to produce about 39,000 tons of hazelnuts in 2015, but with the harvest winding down, it looks as if the crop may come in below 37,000 tons, said Mike Klein, executive director of the Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board.

“It looks to be short,” he said.

Multiple factors contribute to hazelnut yields, such as weather during the winter pollination season, Klein said.

This past winter was mild, which may have caused flowers to bloom either too early or too late for optimum pollination, he said.

When new orchards are planted, farmers now use more than one “pollenizer” variety to hedge against such an outcome, but older orchards often depend on a single variety for pollination, Klein said.

Eastern filbert blight, a fungal pathogen that affects hazelnuts, has also taken a toll on older orchards that aren’t resistant to the disease, said Tim Newkirk, CEO of Willamette Hazelnut Growers.

Increased prevalence of the disease also causes farmers to prune trees more aggressively, which decreases their capacity to produce nuts, he said. “I think it’s a combination of a lot of things.”

Newkirk said it was unlikely that this summer’s dry conditions contributed much to the reduced crop, since there isn’t a large amount of nut shrinkage that’s usually associated with drought stress.

“Hazelnuts are a pretty hardy tree,” he said. “The quality looks really, really good.”

The dry weather has sped up the maturation of hazelnuts, with the harvest occurring several weeks ahead of the normal schedule.

While the harvest typically ends in November, this year it’s expected to be done by mid-October, said Newkirk. “Usually, that’s the heart of the battle there.”

Due to the lack of rain, hazelnuts are also coming in drier than average, which saves growers from paying as much for drying services when they bring their crop to receiving stations, said Klein.

Hazelnuts that have been rained upon generally consist of 20 percent moisture at harvest, but this year they’re in the low teens, or even the 10-11 percent moisture range, said Newkirk.

Drier nuts provide a food safety benefit, as bacteria and mold are likely to fester in moist conditions, said Jonathan Thompson, CEO of the Northwest Hazelnut Co.

“They’re harvested off the ground, so the drier, the better,” he said.

The initial field price that processors are paying farmers for hazelnuts is set at $1.22 per pound, which is the second-highest on record, said Klein.

Last year’s initial field price of $1.81 per pound was an anomaly caused by significantly lower yields in Turkey, the foremost hazelnut producer, he said. “That was the result of the extreme shortage of hazelnuts on the world market.”

Hazelnuts are a good long-term investment due to the strong, stable market for the crop, said Larry George, who owns George Packing Co. and the Northwest Hazelnut Co.

Oregon is the largest hazelnut-growing state in the U.S., but produces roughly 5 percent of the global crop, he said.

Meanwhile, global consumption of hazelnuts is rising six percent annually, George said. “The consumption is going up by the size of an Oregon crop every year.”

A U.S. Bureau of Land Management computer was apparently used to impersonate a former agency employee and disparage two Oregon ranchers recently sentenced to prison for arson.

The incident occurred after the Capital Press posted an online article about the five-year prison terms received by Dwight Lincoln Hammond, 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, for fires set on BLM property near Diamond, Ore., in 2001 and 2006.

A person who identified as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable rangeland.

Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, soon called Capital Press to complain that he had not made those comments and request that they be taken down from the website. Capital Press has since removed the comments.

A search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments revealed it is owned by the BLM’s office in Denver, Colo.

Allum, who continues to build livestock watering systems in Eastern Oregon, said he is friends with the Hammonds and was alerted to the comments by neighbors who know he wouldn’t have written them.

“I feel bad for them. They lost a lot and they’re going to lose more,” Allum said of the ranchers.

He said employees of the BLM in the area have long had a contentious relationship with the Hammonds.

One of those employees likely chose to use Allum’s name to post the comments because he is known to disagree with the characterization of the Hammonds as villains, he said.

“They’re not terrorists. There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” Allum said.

Allum said he wants any BLM employees involved in the incident punished not because they impersonated him, but because they wasted government resources during work hours.

“It was done by a federal employee getting paid,” he said.

The BLM’s computer servers are maintained in Denver but the comments could have been posted from anywhere, said Jody Weil, deputy state director for communications at BLM’s Oregon office.

The BLM is investigating the incident, and if the comments were posted by an agency employee, any disciplinary action could not be disclosed due to privacy protections, said Weil.

“We don’t give out any personnel or disciplinary action publicly,” she said.