TODAY

LANGLOIS — The Langlois Lions Club will host a spaghetti feed benefit event at 6 p.m. March 7, at the Langlois Lions Club, 48136 Flora Lake Loop. Dinner will begin at 5 p.m. A dessert auction …

TUESDAY, MARCH 3

THURSDAY, MARCH 5

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THURSDAY, FEB. 26

BANDON — Bandon resident and journalist Art Spinella, national auto industry sales forecaster and analyst, author and classic car and Harley Davidson aficionado, died Feb. 20 of congestive hea…

BANDON – The setting is in the town of New Safe Haven, in the Foote mansion. The staging of the play and action will move between the various rooms in the Foote mansion – study, dining room, s…

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TUESDAY, FEB. 24

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Negotiators reached a tentative contract covering West Coast dockworkers on Friday evening, likely ending a protracted labor dispute that snarled international trade at seaports handling about $1 trillion worth of cargo annually.

The breakthrough came after nine months of negotiations that turned contentious in the fall, when dockworkers and their employers began blaming each other for problems getting imports to consumers and exports overseas.

The five-year deal still must be approved by the 13,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s rank-and-file. They work 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle that handle about one-quarter of all U.S. international trade, much of it with Asia.

Negotiators for the union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents ocean-going shipping lines and the companies that load and unload cargo at port terminals, began talking formally in May. Their prior six-year contract expired July 1.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said that both the dockworkers’ union and their employers agreed to resume work Saturday evening. In recent weeks, employers cut most weekend work, saying they would not pay extra wages.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that is good for workers and for the industry,” said maritime association President James McKenna and union President Bob McEllrath said in a joint written statement. “We are also pleased that our ports can now resume full operations.”

After initial signs of progress, in the fall employers publicly charged dockworkers with creating a congestion crisis to gain bargaining leverage by slowing their work rate and withholding the most skilled workers. The union responded that its members were working safely and blamed the jam on broader dysfunction at West Coast ports that predated contract talks, notably a lack of truck beds to tow containers from dockside yards to distribution warehouses.

By January, the maritime association’s members stopped ordering night work crews to load and unload ships, saying that smaller groups would focus on clearing the thicket of containers already on the docks. Union members called it an attempt to hurt workers in their pocketbooks; their negotiators soon agreed to the involvement of a federal mediator.

The slowdown-vs.-lockout dynamic was the kind of brinksmanship familiar to past negotiations between two sides with a history of conflict, dating to the killing of dockworkers during the Great Depression. How much responsibility for the congestion each side bears may never be determined, but their animosity magnified the crisis.

In early February, the CEO of the maritime association publicly warned that if no agreement could be reached, employers would stop calling workers and shut down the ports within days. Weekend and holiday lockouts of many longshoremen followed, though major ports were not fully closed.

Instead, cargo trickled through. Massive ocean-going ships anchored off the coast of Los Angeles and near the ports of Oakland and Seattle, waiting for berths they anticipated occupying after the long haul across the Pacific that instead were taken by ships whose unloading was itself far behind schedule. By mid-February, about 30 ships clustered outside the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, with similar scenes in San Francisco Bay and Washington’s Puget Sound. The scenes were reminiscent of a 2002 worker lockout that shuttered West Coast ports for 10 days.

Though negotiations between the two sides typically involve public theatrics, U.S. businesses grew increasingly antsy as talks ground on. Groups representing retailers warned that some holiday goods might be delayed; thanks to advanced planning, trouble on the waterfront didn’t steal Christmas.

Still, there were broader economic repercussions.

Farm exports suffered. McDonald’s in Japan, for example, began rationing fries because of a potato shortage. Apple, walnut and hay producers all said they were losing out to foreign competitors. The meat industry tallied its losses in the tens of millions of dollars. Importers of furniture, books, clothing — even Mardi Gras beads — said their products were stuck on the docks. Honda Motor Co. cut production because of a parts shortage. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. warned that Easter goodies could be affected.

After a federal mediator couldn’t broker an agreement, the Obama administration dispatched Labor Secretary Perez to oversee talks this week in San Francisco, where both the union and maritime association are based. After a few days, he warned negotiators that if they didn’t seal a deal by midnight Friday, he’d haul them back to Washington, where a parade of elected leaders had been imploring resolution.

With so much at stake, outsiders puzzled over why the talks took so long. A summer deal on health-care benefits — longshoremen enjoy complete coverage, and the cost of it was expected to be a big sticking point — seemed to portend quick progress. But negotiations stalled on issues that included what future jobs would fall under the control of the union, which worries that automation at the ports will erode its membership.

In the end, the disagreement boiled down to the system for resolving allegations of work slowdowns, discrimination and other conflicts at the ports. The union wanted to get rid of the man who arbitrates disputes in Southern California and proposed changes to the arbitration systems that would accomplish that; the maritime association rejected those suggestions — though eventually the two sides found a compromise.

The unpredictability that preceded Friday’s agreement could have long-term implications for West Coast ports and their reputation for reliability. With the widening of the Panama Canal and with ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coast investing to attract more ships, some retailers have said they will think hard before depending on ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach for the smooth flow of cargo.

Contact Justin Pritchard at http://twitter.com/lalanewsman

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Southern Oregon farmers growing marijuana for medicine don’t want fields of pot’s prosaic cousin, industrial hemp, growing nearby.

They say cross-pollination could turn their high-grade buds into throwback, seedy marijuana, something out of the 1960s that takes forever to get a user high.

Southern Oregon is part of the Emerald Triangle pot-growing region that extends into Northern California.

Pot growers there say they were caught by surprise when a medical marijuana grower from the town of Eagle Point, Edgar Winters, got the first state permit to grow hemp, The Oregonian reported.

Historically, hemp has been used to fashion rope, but now it is a component of clothing, food and cosmetics. Although it’s related to marijuana, it has negligible levels of the ingredient known as THC that makes marijuana intoxicating.

The Oregon Legislature legalized hemp farming in 2009, but the state didn’t write rules until it was clear the federal government wouldn’t interfere. Hemp is still illegal under federal law.

In the meantime, a public vote to legalize recreational marijuana also affirmed the legality of hemp.

Medical marijuana farmers have been raising crops openly and outdoors for years. They are protected by a provision in state law that allows patients to designate growers.

The southern Oregon farmers fear hemp pollen would find its way to their unpollinated female cannabis flowers, slowing their growth and leading to seeds. The result: weak pot.

“No one will buy seeded flowers, period,” said grower Cedar Grey of Williams. “The flower market is so competitive these days. You have to have world-class flowers. Anything that is seeded is reminiscent of the 1960s or pot from Mexico. No one is interested in that at all.”

Growers have suggested confining industrial hemp to the dry eastern part of Oregon.

Winters said he doesn’t see a major problem. The growing cycle for hemp is shorter than the one for outdoor marijuana, and an earlier harvest means no threat to cannabis, he said.

“It’s been doable all over the world,” Winters said.

But hemp advocate Anndrea Hermann says it’s a “hard pill to swallow” and acknowledges that the medical marijuana growers have reason to be concerned.

“Is there a risk? Yes, there is a risk to the marijuana growers,” Hermann said.

Hermann, who lives in Canada, teaches a course on the crop at Oregon State University, serves as president of the Hemp Industries Association and owns a hemp products company.

The state Agriculture Department’s program manager on hemp, Ron Pence, says it can regulate the location of some crops, but not industrial hemp.

Democratic Rep. Peter Buckley of Ashland says growers peppered his office with emails once Winters’ plans became public. He said lawmakers are exploring potential solutions to protect both crops.

“Nobody wants one crop to endanger another crop,” he said.

Proposed restrictions on “rabbit scrambles” and similar contests that award live animals as prizes have alarmed the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, which fears impacts on rodeo events.

House Bill 2641 is intended to prevent injuries to animals during “scramble” competitions, in which young children try to catch rabbits or other small animals to keep as pets.

Such contests also cause problems after the event, when the prize animals are given to shelters after people decide they don’t want to care for them, said Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, who introduced the legislation.

The bill was inspired by the controversy over a rabbit scramble in Lane County but Gomberg said he did not want to limit the provisions to that species or region.

Under HB 2641, animals could not be “chased, kicked or otherwise subjected to offensive physical contact” during the contest.

The event’s organizer would also have to allow contestants to return the animals for six months after the competition.

Violating the statute by “unlawfully awarding an animal as a prize” would be a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is in “protective mode” regarding the bill because the group does not want it to infringe on rodeo events, said Jim Welsh, its political advocate, during a Feb. 19 hearing of the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources.

While the OCA does not support the legislation as currently written, it would favor a “work group” to improve the language, he said.

Glenn Kolb, executive director of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association, said his group was also uneasy about provisions in the bill.

Specifically, the bill requires that “minimum care” be provided to animals before the contest, but veterinarians can only attest to the condition of an animal during the time of examination, so this provision is impractical for event organizers, he said.

Also, the OVMA dislikes the provision allowing the prize winners to return animals for six months, as this would let them shirk responsibility, Kolb said.

Gomber told the committee that he’d be willing to amend the legislation, such as exempting fish from the bill or creating a minimum weight for animal prizes so that “greased pig” contests are not banned.

Marijuana legalization in Oregon has farm regulators pondering how cultivation of the psychoactive crop will square with existing rules for agriculture.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission has primary jurisdiction over recreational marijuana, which was legalized in Oregon last year with voter approval of Measure 91.

However, some aspects of regulating the crop may come under the authority of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and other state agencies, experts say.

Officials from OLCC are scrambling to write rules for overseeing marijuana production, processing and sales but currently “have no idea” what role other regulators will play, said Steve Marks, OLCC’s executive director, during a Feb. 18 Oregon Board of Agriculture meeting.

Possessing and growing limited quantities of marijuana for personal use will become legal in July and OLCC will begin issuing business licenses for commercial growing and processing in early 2016, he said.

Regulating these commercial processes may bear on subjects with which ODA already has expertise — for example, pesticide rules for farmers are enforced by the agency, said Tom Burns, director of OLCC’s marijuana programs.

No chemicals are registered for marijuana by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which raises the question of whether ODA would be expected to test the crop for pesticides, he said.

“Who is going to enforce that, if in fact we are going to enforce it?” Burns said.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture may offer some guidance, as the agency compiled a list of 273 pesticides that can be used on recreational marijuana. Voters in that state legalized the crop in 2012.

Marijuana is smoked and extracts from the plant are eaten, which complicates the question of pesticide safety, said Erik Johansen, the agency’s policy assistant for registration services.

Also, the EPA is “adamant” there are no allowable tolerances of registered pesticide residues on the crop, which remains illegal under federal law, he said.

For these reasons, WSDA examined chemicals that EPA classifies as organic, biopesticide or “minimal risk” and are thus exempt from tolerance levels or federal registration, Johansen said.

The state agency narrowed that list by identifying pesticides that can be applied to a wide range of crops, he said. “If it’s fairly broadly written, it could be interpreted as allowing other uses.”

While WSDA can offer advice and guidance to the Washington State Liquor Control Board — which oversees recreational marijuana — farm regulators are not responsible for testing or enforcement of pesticide rules for that crop, Johansen said.

Oregon plans to learn from the experience of regulators in Washington and Colorado, where marijuana was legalized earlier, said Marks.

With alcohol, though, no two states have the same regulations, so Oregon can expect to develop a unique program for marijuana, he said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is happy to let OLCC take the lead in setting regulations but hopes to avoid duplicative rules, said Katy Coba, the agency’s director.

Commercial kitchens and plant nurseries are already licensed by ODA, but it must still be decided whether the agency will be responsible for licensing marijuana plant producers and manufacturers of edible marijuana products, she said.

OLCC’s recreational marijuana rules may also intersect with existing regulations for water quality, overseen by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, as well as irrigation, which is under the Oregon Water Resources Department’s jurisdiction, said Burns.

Experts say marijuana legalization raises numerous other questions.

Will growing the crop allow landowners to qualify for farm property tax deferrals?

Is marijuana cultivation protected under Oregon’s “right to farm” law, which shields growers from certain lawsuits and local ordinances against farming practices?

Another uncertainty is how marijuana operations fit under Oregon’s land use rules, said Marks.

Processing facilities, farm stands and promotional events are permitted in exclusive farm use zones, though it’s unclear if such uses will be allowable for marijuana, he said.

LANGLOIS — The Langlois Lions will host its famous spaghetti feed on Saturday, March 7, at the Lions Club on Floras Lake Loop.

The Langlois Library Friends will hold its annual book sale from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at the Langlois Lions Hall on Floras Lake Loop Road, just west of U.S. Highway 101.

Feb. 4

THURSDAY, FEB. 19

USDA exemption, change in Oregon law opens doors for poultry slaughterhouses

By Eric Mortenson

Capital Press

BORING, ORE. — Fernando the rooster is doomed, no way around it. Owner Leslie Standen says the “Latin lover” has been bothering the ladies in her backyard flock and bossing around her other rooster, Henry, who has tenure.

“So my hand-fed rooster is going to be dinner,” she said.

Which is how she and Fernando ended up at Harrington’s Poultry Processing, 25 miles east of Portland.

Harrington’s is one of the old guard in a rapidly growing sector of ag services: Small-scale slaughterhouses either operated by or catering to small farmers. Some also find themselves doing the dirty work for urban hipsters who raise backyard flocks.

A 2011 change in Oregon law freed poultry processors from state licensing if they handle no more than 1,000 birds per year, raise the birds themselves and process them on site. The legislation changed Oregon law to line up with the federal standard, which says producers are exempt from mandatory USDA inspection and can sell uncooked poultry on the farm and at farmers’ markets if they stay below the 1,000-bird threshhold.

“It was the first olive branch to small farmers from the Oregon Legislature,” said Will Fargo, a food safety specialist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture who works with small-scale processors. “It’s one of the greatest success stories for small farmers. It’s allowed a lot of small farmers to get their products to market.”

The ag department now lists more than 30 small on-farm, stand-alone and mobile poultry processors.

The state legislation was intended to provide new economic opportunities for small farms and to increase consumer access to locally produced meat, said Ivan Maluski, director of Friends of Family Farmers, which backed the bill along with the Oregon Farmers’ Market Association.

“I think there is a recognition by ODA and the Legislature that local food, direct-to-consumer sales and small farms are important parts of agriculture in Oregon, and that market demand for this is growing,” Maluski said in an email. “We think that will only increase as time goes on.”

There’s a bigger commercial aspect blossoming as well. Processors such as Harrington’s and Mineral Springs Poultry, in Willamina, Ore., can take advantage of a “small enterprise” USDA exemption that allows them to process up to 20,000 birds annually without having to have an on-site USDA inspector.

Under the exemption, people who have their birds processed at facilities such as Harrington’s or Mineral Springs can then sell them not only at farmers’ markets, but to grocery stores and restaurants as well.

“When I started to do that, that blew the doors wide open,” said Nels Youngberg, owner of Mineral Springs Poultry. “Anybody who raised a few chickens, they could take their birds and go out and sell them. That changed the game plan for a lot of folks.”

Youngberg said about six years ago he increasingly began doing business with new farmers, usually young people with a couple acres, who would bring him a dozen, 20 or 100 chickens at a time for processing. Some are primarily entrepreneurs, looking to create income on the side, while others are deeply concerned about how grocery store food is raised and processed.

“That creates a lot of fear,” Youngberg said. “They find out it’s better to raise their own meat, grow their own vegetables — that’s been a major thrust on it.

“I’ve seen a lot of them come and go, but every year we get somebody new,” he said.

Fargo, of the ODA, agrees. “I think it’s partially the local food movement,” he said. “People are skeptical about raising chickens in a confined environment, they’re concerned about all the things involved with that.”

So far, Oregon’s small processors have operated without food safety problems, he said.

Fargo said he’s received inquiries from four or five other states that are looking for ways to accommodate small farmers and small processors. “It’s absolutely a national thing,” he said.

Proof of that may be the Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network, which shares information among affiliates in 40 states. Lauren Gwin, a small farms and community food systems specialist with Oregon State University Extension, is co-coordinator of the network.

Consumers are interested in pasture-raised poultry, sustainable production methods and humane treatment of farm animals, Gwin said. In addition, occasional salmonella outbreaks at large-scale processing facilities have “given some people pause.”

Despite that, small processors may struggle to transition beyond niche status, she said.

“Let’s be frank, conventional, mainstream meat production is enormous,” Gwin said. “This type of alternative meat … is very, very small. How do you mainstream some of this into more conventional channels?”

But she said some small producers will accomplish that.

“They’re very entrepreneurial,” she said. “These people will figure out where they fit in the market.”

Back at Harrington’s Poultry Processing, owner Scott Ogle makes quick work of Fernando the rooster. Ogle, a wise-cracking third-generation “chicken killer,” places the bird upside down in a “kill cone” and swiftly cuts its throat to bleed him out.

Ogle said he gets a mix of customers, including one who brings him a couple hundred chickens every other week and sells to restaurants.

“I get a lot from in town,” he said. “People bring me roosters because they can’t crow in town.”

A brief soak in hot water, followed by a tumble in a metal drum lined with rubber knobs, removes Fernando’s feathers. The rooster’s head and feet come off with quick chops, and Ogle slides the carcass to assistant Stephanie Morse for final cleaning. Then it’s off to a chilling bath.

By the time owner Leslie Standen returns, Fernando is bagged and ready to go.

“You want your liver, gizzard and heart?” Ogle asks. Standen says she does, and accepts her bagged rooster with mixed feelings.

“Oh,” she says, “I should take him home and bury him instead of eat him.”