Cliff Thomason’s goal is to be growing 10,000 acres of industrial hemp in five years. But right now he’s dealing with opposition from medical marijuana growers and Oregon legislators.

Thomason is among the first growers licensed by the state to raise hemp, which lacks the THC levels that gets pot smokers high but is valued because it can be used to make a wide variety of food, health and fiber products.

Thomason’s Oregon Hemp Co. has grow operations in Murphy and near Grants Pass, in Southwest Oregon, and he is negotiating to sharecrop space on an organic farm near Scio, in the Willamette Valley.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has issued 13 hemp licenses, but it’s unclear how many growers have a crop in the ground this summer.

Thomason said growers are hampered by infrastructure and political problems. First, it’s difficult to obtain seed, although Thomason said he has seed from China, Lithuania, Slovakia and Germany. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.

The Oregon Legislature is another matter. Medical marijuana growers in Southern Oregon believe pollen from industrial hemp will contaminate their potent pot and reduce THC levels. A bill in the Legislature would force a 5-mile separation between hemp and pot growers.

Hemp growers say that would essentially prohibit them from growing, because so many pot plots fill the area.

Thomason said he’s trying to be a good neighbor by keeping pollen-bearing male hemp plants in greenhouses and transplanting only females outdoors.

“I keep saying that with responsible farming practices, it will regulate itself,” he said.

Thomason described himself as “truly an accidental farmer” who was asked to help find seed and land for the hemp industry because of his real estate background.

“When I did, we formed a company to move the project forward,” he said.

He said his plants are growing rapidly and are intended for the medical market. The German seeds seem to do the best, perhaps because its climate is similar to Oregon’s, he said.

The other licenses issued so far are:

27B Stroke6 Farm, Corvallis; American Hemp Seed Genetics, Salem; Cannalive Organics, Yamhill County; Central Coast Enterprises, Seal Rock; Genesis Media Works, Baker County; Hemp for Victory Gardens, Wilsonville; Hughes Farms LLC, Bend; Integrative Health Source, Corvallis; Mark McKay Farms, St. Paul; Oregon Agriculture Food and Rural Consortium, Eagle Point; Went to Seed LLC., Bend; and Wildhorse Creek Hacienda, Adams.

Wheat yields are projected to take such a hit this summer that some Eastern Oregon growers may not even harvest their crop, a senior grain merchandiser said.

Sparse rainfall and diminished snowpack is the story for producers all across the West, but an unseasonable heat wave in late May and early June hit developing wheat plants at exactly the wrong time, said Dan Steiner of Pendleton Grain Growers.

Dryland wheat growers, who farm without irrigation, were hit especially hard as the National Weather Service recorded temperatures of 90, 96 and 102 degrees in the Pendleton area from May 29 to June 10.

“Production will be down significantly,” Steiner said. He estimated a 20 percent yield drop overall from the statewide average of about 60 bushels an acre.

“Some of the dryland areas are going to have zero,” he said. “Some (fields) will be abandoned.”

Steiner said the heat wave came as wheat plants were in the stage of filling out their grain kernels. Evaporation stole what little water was left for plant development, he said.

“It came at a very, very bad time,” he said. “A lot of moisture that could have gone to the kernel was simply lost.”

If temperatures had been in the 70s or 80s during that time, there would have been a chance to have an average crop, Steiner said.

As things stand, some dryland growers in parts of Morrow, Wasco, Sherman, Umatilla and Gilliam counties may decide it’s not worth the expense of running a combine over their ground, Steiner said. Some Eastern Washington growers may be in similar situations, he said.

Steiner said growers need to harvest seven or eight bushels an acre simply to pay for the cost of operating a combine. Growers may be cushioned from some of the loss by revenue guarantees of their insurance, he said.

Steiner said he’s been in Oregon since 1988, including the past 15 years with Pendleton Grain Growers. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”

The same problems have hit wheat growers before, of course. Steiner said El Nino weather patterns always bring hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters, neither of which is good for dryland wheat.

Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said hot weather also raises the protein level of soft white wheat above what Asian buyers prefer. It won’t drive customers away, but they will be aware of it, he said. Most of the wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is exported to Japan, Korea and elsewhere, where it’s used to make crackers, cakes and other products.

Steiner, of Pendleton Grain Growers, said the bad weather this year isn’t likely to change how farmers operate. Dryland growers don’t have many options, he pointed out,

“I would imagine they’ll plant like always do, and try to be optimistic,” he said. “The timing of that rain is absolutely critical. We can’t have 100 degree days at the end of May and the first of June.”

A ruling that faulted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for not permitting sufficient logging in Western Oregon was overturned by a federal appeals court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has dismissed the earlier decision on jurisdictional grounds, finding that timber companies lacked legal standing to file their lawsuit.

The ruling held that the sawmills and industry groups who sued BLM had not proven they were directly harmed by the agency’s failure to fulfill legally-required harvest levels in BLM’s Medford and Roseburg districts.

The American Forest Resource Council, one of the plaintiffs, is disappointed by the outcome because the BLM must clearly allow a larger volume of harvest under a federal statute that governs the land, said Ann Forest Burns, the group’s vice president.

“Selling a quarter of what they’re growing is not sustainable,” she said.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon found that BLM hadn’t lived up to its obligations under the Oregon and California Lands Act of 1937, which requires a “sustained yield” of annual timber production in the region.

As a remedy, the judge ordered BLM to sell the full volume of timber available in future years.

The ruling’s impact was discernable the following year, when the agency increased timber sales by 90 percent, to 47.1 million board feet, in the Medford district and by 30 percent, to 41.5 million board feet, in the Roseburg district, Forest Burns said.

It’s unclear whether the BLM will now decrease logging levels due to the D.C. Circuit’s dismissal of the lawsuit, since the ruling wasn’t overturned based on the merits of their case, she said. “The court never got there.”

The plaintiffs haven’t given up the fight yet, however.

Timber companies are pursuing a similar lawsuit against BLM over logging in the Salem, Eugene, Coos Bay and Lakeview districts, and may decide to amend their complaint to encompass the Medford and Roseburg districts, Forest Burns said.

Capital Press was unable to reach a representative of BLM for comment as of press time.

The D.C. Circuit’s ruling also means that timber industry lawyers must figure out how to establish legal standing in that jurisdiction, effectively convincing the court they’re “starving to death near a refrigerator of food,” Forest Burns said.

The question of standing had seemed pretty clear, given that one of the plaintiffs — Rough & Ready Lumber — actually closed for a year due to the dearth of timber coming from federal lands, she said.

Environmental groups that intervened in the case based their objections on the legal arguments made by timber interests, rather than legal standing, but they’re not surprised by the D.C. Circuit’s decision, said Susan Jane McKibben Brown, an attorney for the groups.

Brown said she’s not convinced the previous ruling prompted BLM to increase logging, since planning for harvest usually takes several years.

“I don’t think you can attribute increasing numbers to the lawsuit,” she said.

By the same token, the reversal of Leon’s ruling doesn’t mean that logging will now decrease, since the BLM seems inclined to increase harvest levels under resource management plans currently being considered, Brown said.

Whether any increase in logging passes muster with other federal regulators — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association — is another matter, she said.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will present its plan to restore and preserve fresh water wetlands for salmon and waterfowl at a public meeting Thursday.

The plan would protect, enhance and restore wildlife habitats, according to ODFW. The department would also build and maintain facilities on the land.

Stuart Love, a biologist with ODFW and manager of the Coquille Wildlife area, said the plan would help juvenile coho salmon make their way to sea.

“There’s a time period when they aren’t ready to go into the ocean yet,” Love said. “And they need to be able to find places where they can get out of the heavy currents and spend the winter.”

He said the proposed area would be open to the public and would provide education and recreation activities. The site would have bird watching, hunting and fishing. Love said that schools would be able to tour the property and learn about wetland enhancement and development.

Wetland restoration on the property has been an ongoing discussion in the county. In 2012, the Coos-Curry Farm Bureau presented their concerns about having agriculture land taken away for restoration. Farmers in the area wanted to keep the land in agricultural production, rather than using it as protected wetlands.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Coquille. The plan will be submitted to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission in August.

Love described the proposed area as  “very important for the overall well being of fish and wildlife resources in the valley.”

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — After weeks of stalemate, a state legislative committee has advanced a bill setting up Oregon’s legal marijuana system.

The approval of the joint House-Senate committee on Monday sends the bill to the full House, which can take it up as soon as this week.

The measure includes a compromise on local control, an issue that has stymied previous attempts to pass marijuana bills. The compromise would allow local governments to ban recreational and medical marijuana businesses in counties that voted overwhelmingly against Measure 91 in last year’s election. Elsewhere, voters would have to approve a ban on marijuana sales.

Lawmakers did not take up a separate bill that would create a sales tax on pot in place of the harvest tax in Measure 91.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Hop fields in Washington, Oregon and Idaho will increase 16 percent this year to 43,987 acres, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Hop acreage has been growing for a number of years, driven by demand from growth in small, craft breweries.

The NASS forecast, released June 10, shows Washington at 32,205 acres up 3,347 from last year. Oregon is 6,807 up 1,397 from last year and Idaho is 4,975 up 1,232.

Those are acres strung for harvest. If those numbers are realized it will be the third-highest total harvested acreage on record, NASS said.

Washington accounts for 73 percent of the national crop, Oregon 16 percent and Idaho 11 percent.

The 2015 crop is reportedly very good with normal pest and disease pressure, NASS said.

In Washington’s Yakima Valley growers are using efficient drip irrigation to conserve water and are supplementing normal irrigation supplies with groundwater, NASS said. Oregon and Idaho have adequate water in hop growing areas, the agency said.

The forecast is very close to the 5,600-acre-increase for the three states predicted by growers two months ago.

Researchers are now certain that kochia weeds found growing in two sugar beet fields in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho last year were resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup.

The kochia weed is widespread in the region. Researchers are determining how widespread the resistant weeds are and developing ways to help sugar beet growers in the region deal with them.

That includes field trials designed to show growers the benefit of using multiple herbicides, in addition to Roundup, to prevent or control the development of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Virtually all of the 180,000 acres of sugar beets grown in Eastern Oregon and Idaho are genetically modified by Monsanto Co. to resist glyphosate.

A field trial at Oregon State University’s Ontario research station set up to determine the best treatment method to control resistant kochia weeds is being coordinated by OSU weed scientist Joel Felix and University of Idaho weed scientist Don Morishita.

It was Morishita and Felix who first alerted sugar beet growers last year they had found kochia weeds that could be resistant to glyphosate. Lab tests have since confirmed that they are.

Both said weeds don’t mutate to develop resistance to a herbicide such as glyphosate. Rather, the product allows a very small population of the weeds that are naturally resistant to thrive because it kills off their competition.

That’s why it’s important for growers to use other herbicides, in addition to Roundup, Felix said.

Roundup might not control a very small number of resistant weeds, he said, but the use of multiple chemistries will. Crop rotation is an important part of that approach because it allows farmers to use different chemistries, he added.

“People who are using (Roundup Ready crops) need to manage that technology by rotating their chemistries,” said Greg Dean, manager of agricultural services for Amalgamated Sugar Co., which purchases the sugar beets grown by farmers in the region

Some farmers in the area are still relying on glyphosate alone to control weeds, Morishita said.

“Any farmer who is just relying on glyphosate is really setting themselves and their neighbors up for some problems in the future,” he said.

The decision on what herbicides to use is an economic one and it comes down to the grower’s call, Felix said.

But, he added, “We are stressing ... both crop rotation and the use of chemistries other than just glyphosate. As you rotate, you use different modes of action and you control weeds in all crops. By the time you get into sugar beets, you may be free of kochia if you do a good job.”

Felix and Morishita are collecting weeds from different areas and will spray them with Roundup to try to determine how widespread glyphosate-resistant kochia weeds are in the region.

“It’s really important for ... sugar beet growers to know if they have glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm,” Morishita said. “I think we’ll have a better idea of the level of resistance later this year.”

Fire officials in Bend warned that some residents should be ready to evacuate as the Shevlin Fire quickly spread Thursday.

The brush fire near Shevlin Park started as a small blaze in the Tumalo Creek canyon, but grew to about 10 acres in about an hour before firefighters started to gain the upper hand.

“We threw a lot of resources at it all at once,” said Dave Howe, battalion chief with Bend Fire and Rescue. “We were able to shut down the highway, notify the neighbors, get water on the fire and hold the extent of the fire to about 8 to 10 acres.”   He estimates 50 to 60 firefighters responded, along with bulldozers, a helicopter to dump water, and air tankers to drop retardant.

After the blaze took off, fire officials quickly issued a Level 1 pre-evacuation notice, which asks residents in the area to leave if they need extra time for evacuation or have health conditions that could be worsened by the smoke, such as respiratory conditions. The evacuation warning covered the Three Pines and Shevlin subdivisions on both sides of Shevlin Park, west of McClain.

“Evacuations are voluntary, but residents are encouraged to leave if concerned,” said a release from Deschutes County spokesperson Anna Johnson.

Shevlin Commons resident Christina Pollard lives in one of the three neighborhoods in the pre-evacuation area. She turned on her sprinklers full blast, and watched the smoke rise from the canyon below her home.

“I think the whole neighborhood is pretty nervous,” said Pollard.

The cause of the fire is unknown, but the Oregon Department of Forestry is conducting an investigation.

Firefighters from 19 units worked quickly to contain the blaze, and by 5 p.m. fire managers said growth of the fire had stopped. 

Howe says he and his fire crews are gearing up for a busy summer. “This is just a preview of this season. If we don’t get much rain this summer we’re going to be doing this on a very continuous basis.”

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Forests Service is gearing up in anticipation of a major battle with a wildfire apparently ignited by lightning in a remote part of southwestern Oregon burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire.

Spokeswoman Virginia Gibbons said Friday that five hotshot crews, two heavy helicopters and one air tanker are assigned to the Buckskin fire, which so far has grown to about 100 acres on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, about 10 miles southwest of Cave Junction.

Gibbons says a Type II fire management team has been called in, due to expectations that drought conditions, rugged terrain and the remote location will make this a difficult fire to contain.

The Biscuit fire grew to half a million acres — 781 square miles — making it the nation’s biggest in 2002.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Two Josephine County commissioners who sent a letter to the Oregon Legislature opposing a bill that would restrict hemp production have revealed they are partners in a consortium that is growing hemp near Murphy.

The Daily Courier reports that following threats of an ethics investigation against Commissioner Cherryl Walker, Commissioner Simon Hare announced Wednesday that he also is an industrial hemp production.

Walker has been fending off claims by critics that she has a conflict of interest by advocating against House Bill 2668, which would place restrictions on hemp production and specifically would affect industrial hemp production in Josephine, Jackson and Douglas counties.

Marijuana growers have opposed hemp farms because they fear cross-pollination.

Oregon Ethics Commission officials say they have not received a formal complaint against Walker.

MORO, Ore. — The latest developments on soil problems, diseases and varietal options attracted about five dozen wheat growers and others to Oregon State University’s Sherman County field day.

Stephen Machado, a crop physiology and agronomy professor assigned to the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center in Pendleton, explained ways to increase soil pH and reduce acidity.

While lime application is the usual fix, biochar shows promise, Machado said. Biochar, a charcoal-like substance produced by heating woody biomass such as logging slash, carries a pH of about 10, Machado said. Trials have shown wheat yield increases ranging from 26 to 34 percent, and biochar may need to be applied only once, compared to every couple years with lime, he said.

“It’s still new, but it’s something we are considering,” Machado said. He acknowledged biochar production would have to be increased to establish a dependable supply and bring down the price.

Soil scientist Don Wysocki, also at OSU’s Pendleton station, delivered the news that black leg disease was found in Eastern Oregon canola. An outbreak in the Willamette Valley last year was a concern to specialty seed growers and became part of the unresolved argument about allowing canola in the valley.

After the discovery, Wysocki examined last year’s canola stubble and found it there, too.

“That tells me it was fairly wide spread in 2014,” he said.

He said growers shouldn’t panic.

“You manage it,” Wysocki said. “We have the disease. We just don’t know how severe it’s going to be or what the effect will be.”

Mike Flowers, an OSU wheat breeder, walked growers through the characteristics of multiple new varieties under development.

Richard Smiley, an OSU expert in soil-borne pathogens, held forth on root lesion nematodes and fusarium crown rot. All types of wheat are vulnerable to the pathogens, which interfere with plants’ ability to extract water and nutrients from the soil, he said.

In one Iranian study, the combination of root and crown diseases reduced yield 68 percent, Smiley said.

A common weed in wheat fields, jointed goat grass, is a good host of nematodes, but spraying for the weed may cause the nematodes to migrate to moist wheat roots, Smiley said.

He said barley is much less sensitive, and wheat following barley in rotation does well.

“There’s something magical about barley’s resistance to these root lesion nematodes,” Smiley said.

Smiley, who is retiring, spoke briefly at a lunch following the field presentations. He thanked local growers “for the 30 years of a good ride I’ve had here at the Sherman station.”

The field day coincided with a visit from a Chinese trade team representing several grain and oil companies. Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said he’s hoping to convince Chinese companies to buy Oregon wheat instead of Australian and Canadian products.

LA GRANDE, Ore. (AP) — Investigators with the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division are trying to solve a poaching case outside of La Grande, and it wants the public’s help.

Sgt. Chris Hawkins says a buck in the Starkey Unit was shot twice in the head with a .17-caliber rifle. The shooting happened around June 3, a time when deer hunting is not in season.

Hawkins says a citizen found the buck only a couple miles off Interstate 84 in Union County.

A reward is being offered by the Oregon Hunters Association through the Turn-in-Poachers program for any information leading to a conviction.

The program number is 1-800-452-7888.

SALEM — The Oregon Senate rejected a last-ditch effort to exclude farms from a bill that requires employers to provide workers with paid sick leave.

Senate Bill 454 was approved by the Senate 17-13 on June 10 despite requests by several lawmakers to send the proposal back to committee for an amendment to exempt agricultural businesses.

“I don’t care what anybody else says in this room, you’re going to hurt ag,” said Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River, who raises pears.

The bill was approved largely along partisan lines, with all Democrats except Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, voting in favor and all Republicans voting against it.

Under the legislation, employers with more than 10 workers must provide them with 40 hours of paid sick time per year. Those with fewer workers must provide unpaid sick leave.

During a floor debate on SB 454, Thomsen argued that farmers should be exempted because many hire large numbers of workers to pick perishable crops, with prices dictated by global supply and demand.

“We don’t have the ability to recoup costs,” he said.

The bill could theoretically allow an entire picking crew to take paid sick leave at once, leaving the farmer with an unharvested crop while they go harvest for another grower, Thomsen said.

Agricultural employers say the bill is a “job killer and a business killer,” not only for fruit growers but also cattle and wheat producers who have year-round workers, said Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

Opponents of SB 454 claim that it amounts to an unfunded mandate that will cost Oregon companies about $1 billion a year.

“This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Ferrioli.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said the bill has undergone multiple changes to accommodate employers and he denied that agriculture’s unique needs were ignored.

“When someone came to us with a problem, we tried to solve it whenever possible,” he said.

Specifically, workers can only use their paid sick leave after completing a 90-day probation period, so many seasonal workers will never even qualify for the benefit, Dembrow said.

It’s also unlikely that workers will pretend to be sick and forgo picking fruit at piece rate wages, which are usually higher than the minimum wage they’d get under paid sick leave, he said.

The bill is necessary because higher-paid workers in Oregon generally get paid sick leave but most low-wage workers do not, Dembrow said.

Such workers risk getting fired or losing significant income by not showing up for work when ill, he said. “This is one of the most striking examples of economic inequity that we face.”

The 90-day probation period won’t actually stop many farm workers from qualifying for paid sick leave, since growers plant multiple varieties of crops, such as blueberries, to mature over a longer period of time, said Roger Beyer, lobbyist for the Oregon Blueberry Commission and other farm groups.

“Their picking season lasts 100 days or more,” he said.

Also, workers who return to a farm to prune or perform other duties within 180 days will continue to accrue time toward the 90 day probation period, said Jenny Dresler, government affairs associate at the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Growers will need to contend with a complicated formula to determine whether they average 10 workers per year, and track workers who leave and return to the farm, she said.

While SB 454 has yet to be approved by the House, it’s proponents likely don’t expect significant obstacles, Dresler said. “I doubt they would be moving forward if they didn’t think the votes were there.”

Sundays

With drought and changing precipitation patterns on the minds of farmers and ranchers, an ongoing study of the Willamette River Basin’s dams and reservoirs is taking on a new urgency.

One of the key issues to be answered in the Willamette Basin Review is how much water agriculture really needs — or wants.

“That is indeed the question,” said Jim Johnson, land use and water planning coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

The study is a joint project of the Oregon Water Resources Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it could ultimately result in Congress being asked to re-allocate water stored behind 13 dams in the Willamette River drainage system.

The Corps of Engineers owns and operates the dams and reservoirs. The projects were built for flood control, irrigation, power production, navigation, wildlife and other purposes, but it’s water for agricultural use that is getting close attention.

Another federal agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, holds the water rights certificates for the entire conservation storage available in the Willamette system. The certificates authorize 1.64 million acre-feet of stored water for irrigation annually, but less than 5 percent of it is used. Meanwhile, growing cities and industrial users can’t get at the remainder. The Willamette Basin, running roughly 120 miles south from Portland to Cottage Grove, holds about 75 percent of the state’s population and is growing rapidly.

But agriculture is big in the Willamette Valley as well, growing about 170 crops and accounting for more than 40 percent of the state’s gross farm sales, according to a 2013 Water Resources Department draft report.

Johnson and others point out that a significant amount of farmland in the valley isn’t irrigated and potentially could be used to grow higher-value crops if farmers could turn on the sprinklers. That capability should be taken into consideration when deciding future water allocations, Johnson said in an email.

“We have a great deal of acreage in the Valley that has greater potential if water could be made available,” he said.

Climate change is a big part of the discussion. In the Pacific Northwest in recent years, winter precipitation has arrived as rain rather than snow. This year, meager mountain snowpacks have already melted, according to federal hydrologists.

The WRD draft report says that may be the new normal. Scientific models indicate the Willamette Basin is headed for warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. The average temperature is projected to increase by 2 to 7 degrees Celsius over the next century, and the Cascades snowpack will decrease by 60 percent, according to the report.

Melting snow traditionally provides up to 80 percent of the Willamette River’s flow in late summer, but that flow is expected to decrease by 20 to 50 percent as the mountain snowpacks diminish, according to the report.

“The area’s reliance on high-elevation water during summer months highlights the vulnerability of the Willamette Basin to the influences of a warming climate,” the report concludes. “Water stored in the Willamette Basin Corps Reservoirs is viewed as the last remaining supply of water for meeting future needs, both in-stream and out-of-stream needs.”

The changing patterns already play havoc with reservoir operators. This year, despite near normal precipitation in some areas, water levels in the Willamette Basin reservoirs are 51 percent of normal because the peak snow melt runoff occurred before operators began refilling reservoirs.

Corps of Engineers spokesman Scott Clemans said he’s heard some people question why the Corps doesn’t begin refill operations in December or January instead of waiting until February.

The reason is that the dams were built primarily for flood control, Clemans said, and the risk from flooding must be accounted for throughout the winter months.

Clemans said there are likely to be “wilder and wider swings” in refill operations as climate change takes hold.

The Corps and state Water Resources Department are expected to finish a report to Congress in three years.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Wildlife officials are tracking a wolf they say has made its way into southwest Oregon’s Klamath County.

The Herald and News reports the 2-year-old male gray wolf is one of two to make its way into the county from a dispersed Imnaha Pack in northeastern Oregon.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife official John Muir called the wolf that was captured and collared in 2014 a “wandering teenager.”

He said the wolf has made its way through a large swath of eastern Oregon and most recently sent signals near a cattle ranch.

Wildlife officials notified Yamsi Ranch partners John and Jerri Hyde of the wolf’s presence, who said they’ve had wolves on the property before, but never any problems.

They said they hope it moves on.

Local lakes: Anglers fishing Empire Lakes in Coos Bay last weekend reported good catches of recently stocked trophy-size trout. The number one bait has been Power Bait fished off the bottom. A…

The U.S. Forest Service doesn’t have to study the impact of logging on wolves before proceeding with a thinning project in Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, a federal judge ruled.

The agency plans to treat about 3,200 acres as part of the Bybee project, which is aimed at reducing the risk of wildfire in overstocked forest stands.

Oregon Wild, an environmental group, filed a legal complaint claiming the Forest Service should have supplemented its environmental assessment of the project due to the presence of wolves in the area.

A male radio-collared wolf originally from Northeast Oregon, known as OR-7, sired two pups with a mate in the area last year. Gray wolves are protected as an endangered species in that part of the state.

The Forest Service conducted a “new information review” to see if logging would affect the wolves, but concluded it would not since their den was at least 15 miles away from the project site.

U.S. District Judge Owen Panner found that the agency took a sufficiently “hard look” at the issue, given the wolves’ distance and the lack of designated critical wolf habitat in the area.

Panner reached a similar conclusion in regard to the northern spotted owl, a threatened species, because the Bybee project doesn’t remove any of critical habitat or “take” any birds.

The Forest Service also postponed thinning some areas to preserve high value wildlife habitat, he said.

Oregon Wild claimed that the agency should have undertaken a more comprehensive “environmental impact statement” of the project because it contains potential federally designated areas and due to its proximity to the Crater Lake National Park.

The judge rejected these arguments because the project only has a small amount of acreage eligible for wilderness designation, the strictest form of federal land protection.

Panner said the Forest Service addressed concerns about Crater Lake National Park by scaling back the project near the park’s border, and he agreed that thinning will help protect the area from fire.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — In less than a month, Oregonians over age 21 will be able to legally grow, own and consume their own small amounts of recreational marijuana.

Legislators, however, are still working on the regulations that will govern the legal marijuana industry. After months of talks, they’re getting closer.

Oregon and Alaska both approved measures to legalize recreational marijuana last fall, following Washington state and Colorado, whose markets are up and running. Consumption of recreational pot becomes legal in Oregon on July 1.

As they hammer out the details of the larger retail marijuana industry, lawmakers are hoping to build a strong new economic sector for the state.

“The goal is to give everyone a fair shot at competing in this new marijuana market,” said Rep. Ann Lininger, D- Lake Oswebo, co-chair of the joint committee developing guidelines for the regulations. “We are welcoming people who want to invest in or come to Oregon and help us create a strong sector.”

Growers said they are excited by the prospect of coming into the mainstream.

“We are witnessing the surfacing of an old industry that’s 78 years in the making,” since Congress outlawed marijuana in 1937, said Richard Reames, a member of the board of directors of the Oregon SunGrown Growers Association. The group has hired a lobbyist to make sure its interests are protected in the Legislature.

Oregon already had a thriving medical marijuana program. Based on surveys of growers, Oregon consumes 160,000 pounds of marijuana a year, with up to 80,000 pounds consumed by the state’s 70,000 medical marijuana patients, said Seth Crawford, who teaches a class in marijuana policy at Oregon State University.

Based on interviews with Oregon lawmakers, state officials and industry representatives, there is strong support to let medical marijuana dispensaries, approved by the Legislature in 2013, also sell recreational marijuana.

However, it doesn’t look like retail operations will be able to sell recreational marijuana until late 2016, to allow time for setting up an orderly system for granting permits to growers, processors, wholesalers and dispensaries, and tracking pot from seedling to retail sales to keep it out of the black market.

Another issue has been how to satisfy indoor and as well as outdoor growers. Outdoor growers tend to be in southern Oregon, in the so-called Emerald Triangle, where there’s more sunshine. A lot of indoor growers are in the Portland area.

“I think that it is important for them to strike some sort of balance between the north and the south, the outdoor and the indoor,” said Donald Morse, a medical marijuana dispensary owner and director of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council. “It’s not just economics. It’s making sure that there’s enough supply, but not too much supply and the supply comes on a regular basis, and is not always just a land rush of marijuana in the fall from the outdoor harvest, while the rest of the year, people are starving.”

It looks likely that grower permits will give indoor growers and outdoor growers equal access to the market.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which has authority over recreational sales, could award grower permits based on the canopy area — the horizontal area covered by branches and leaves. Individual outdoor growers would have up to four times the canopy area because they only produce one crop a year, while indoor growers can produce up to four crops a year under artificial lights.

Oregonians seem eager to get started. The city of Vancouver — just across the Columbia River from Portland — has become one of the hottest cannabis markets in Washington state. Four stores have reported sales totaling more than $18 million — better than 12 percent of all retail marijuana sales in Washington.