Wednesdays

By CRAIG REED

For the Capital Press

ROSEBURG, Ore. — Katherine Ritchie was up to the challenge when it was implied that shearing sheep was a man’s job.

Several months later, the young woman from the Roseburg area attended a shearing school at Washington State University in Pullman. She has now been shearing for six years.

“It is very physically demanding work, very mentally demanding,” she said during a break at a four-day shearing school on the Dawson Ranch. She was an instructor at the school that attracted four teenagers, one being a female, and one adult.

“You have to convince yourself to grab another sheep,” said the 25-year-old Ritchie. “When you are standing around feeling tired, no sheep are getting shorn.”

Because of the physicality of holding a 150-pound ewe or a slightly lighter lamb between your knees and feet while working electric blades over the animal’s skin to remove the wool fleece, shearing is not a job that attracts many women.

Ritchie was inspired to learn how to handle sheep and the clippers back when she was helping push her family’s sheep through a chute and into a shearing trailer. She said it was a 100-degree day so she had stepped inside the trailer for some shade when a guy on the shearing crew made a sexist comment, insinuating that since she was a girl, she couldn’t handle shearing.

Ritchie has since advanced to where she is not only a full-time shearer, but also an instructor. She has also earned the respect of that person who inspired her and they are now friends. In addition to instructing five students at the recent Dawson Ranch school, she was an instructor at a week-long school at Washington State University in April.

“You really have to want to do this,” she said of shearing. “You have to want to learn. You have to learn how to hold them (sheep) and to have the proper footwork.”

Wendy Wyatt Valentine of Langlois, Ore., and Diane Isenhart of Coquille, Ore., are both long-time shearers. They both got into it because shearing is in their family’s history, dating back several generations. Their fathers, Fred Wyatt and Hank Isenhart, were on some shearing crews together.

Wendy Valentine, who is 53, and Diane Isenhart, 42, agree that there aren’t many women in the profession. They admit it is hard work, but add that women can do it and that there is a need for more shearers.

“It’s a tough world, it’s a man’s world, it really is,” Isenhart said of shearing. “But I’m not saying a woman can’t do it. You just need to learn the physics of it, how to do it the easiest way because we’re not built like men and we’re not as strong as men. If you learn to do it right, if you learn how to control the animal, then you can still get that big sheep sheared.”

Valentine said she is happy to see anybody get into the shearing business because many older shearers, like herself, are easing up on the number of sheep they are shearing and there is a need for younger people in the profession.

“It’s a male-dominated profession, but even though we’re built different, we can still shear sheep,” she said of women.

When she was 20, Isenhart traveled to New Zealand and sheared 250 lambs in a nine-hour day. On that same trip, she did 204 ewes in an eight-hour day.

Valentine, when she was in her early 20s, sheared 208 sheep in just under eight hours. She stopped because there were no more sheep.

Isenhart said that now she just does small flocks of sheep, but she still loves working with the animals.

“You don’t do something for 28 years and not like it,” she said. “Anybody can shear sheep, it is just a matter of whether you’re going to shear the second one and then the 10th one when your body begins to hurt.”

Valentine said the only women she knows in western Oregon who have been shearing full-time are Isenhart and Ritchie.

While Valentine and Isenhart are shearing less, Ritchie has been working on some bigger jobs that have ranged up to a few thousand animals. In addition to Oregon, she has sheared in Washington, Montana, California and North Dakota. She was planning to attend an advanced shearing school in South Dakota this month.

“There’s always more to be learned,” she said of shearing. “There’s always little things you can learn to be better.”

Ritchie doesn’t mind sharing those details with students at shearing schools because she has seen first-hand that there is a need for more shearers. She explained that if a veteran shearer is injured and can’t continue, that’s up to 200 animals a day that aren’t being sheared, putting a shearing crew behind and there’s only a few spring months to get the job done.

At the Dawson Ranch school, 19-year-old Chloe Fink was learning how to shear under the guidance of Ritchie. Fink had learned how to clip lambs for show during her 4-H years, but now she was learning shearing techniques.

“I think we’re just as capable,” Fink said. “Men are stronger, they have natural-born strength, so sometimes we (women) just have to work smarter than harder.”

Tuesdays

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Hundreds of citizen scientists have begun buzzing through locations across the Pacific Northwest seeking a better understanding about nearly 30 bumblebee species.

Bumblebees, experts say, are important pollinators for both wild and agricultural plants, but some species have disappeared from places where they were once common, possibly because of the same factors that have been killing honeybees.

“It’s really important for us as humans to study these species systems for animals that are the little guys that make the world go around,” said Ann Potter of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, one of the entities in three states — Oregon and Idaho are the others — participating in the three-year Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas project.

Researchers hope to accumulate enough information to recommend ways to conserve bumblebees and their habitat.

“There’s more and more interest in restoring habitat for pollinators,” said Rich Hatfield of the conservation group, the Xerces Society.

Citizen scientists are being dispatched to selected 2.5-acre sites with insect nets, plant and bee guides, and an app for smartphones so findings can be recorded, photographed, mapped and sent to a central database. Researchers say just more than 200 have signed on to visit 400 sites through the end of August. More volunteers are needed, Hatfield said, especially to work in more remote areas.

Bees are captured and put in a chilled cooler so they go into a state of lethargy. Diagnostic photos are taken, and the bees are released unharmed when they warm up.

Bumblebees, unlike honeybees, don’t overwinter in a hive. Bumblebees build nests, typically in holes in the ground, and generally only number a few hundred individuals by the time fall arrives. Any honey they produce they consume.

With the arrival of winter, all bumblebees die except a few fertilized queen bees that in the spring head out alone to start a new nest and produce worker bees, beginning the cycle over.

“Here’s a species that spends a big part of its life as a vulnerable queen,” said Andony Melathopoulos of Oregon State University. Bumblebees have “this really fascinating solitary phase.”

Honeybees are imports from Europe brought in as agricultural workers to pollinate crops. Native bumblebees also help pollinate crops. But when it comes to native North American plants and some crops, the more robust bumblebee with its ability to “buzz” pollinate by grabbing onto an entire flower and shaking the pollen loose is for some plant species the only insect up to the task.

The Western bumblebee, once considered common and widespread, has disappeared from much of its former range. Clues as to why Western bumblebee populations have plummeted are being sought in the current study.

“We really don’t know a lot about them,” said Ross Winton of Idaho Fish and Game. “The more we learn, the more concerned we get.”

The Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas could ultimately be an example for other states interested in learning more about how bumblebees are doing.

“It is a model for other states,” Melathopoulos said. “I think everyone is looking at the Pacific Northwest and this initiative as a test case.”

The study is being paid for by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Idaho and Washington, and in Oregon by another government entity called the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.

Collaborators include the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Idaho Fish and Game, Oregon State University, The Oregon Bee Project, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Xerces Society, an environmental group that works to conserve invertebrates.

A trio of South Coast athletes won events in the TrackTown Youth League finals at Hayward Field in Eugene last weekend.

TrackTown Youth League finals

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by county commissioners in a prime marijuana-growing part of the state to put back in place their restrictions on commercial pot production.

The appeals court’s dismissal without comment Wednesday of the Josephine County commissioners’ case marks the latest step in the struggle between the county’s political leaders to tamp down the proliferating marijuana business, and growers trying to protect their businesses and investments.

In December, the county commission passed an ordinance banning commercial pot farming on smaller rural residential lots and reducing larger grow sites.

Ross Day, attorney for the marijuana farmers, said the county’s appeal to the court was frivolous.

“Hopefully the county gets the message that it acted illegally when it adopted the ordinance,” Day said after the Oregon Court of Appeals made its ruling.

The commissioners were appealing a ruling by the state Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, that put their restrictions on marijuana production on hold. LUBA said the county had failed to properly notify land owners.

Wally Hicks, attorney for the county, said the ruling is both a setback for the county’s effort to protect property owners.

“Some participants in the marijuana industry have been abundantly clear that they will challenge any meaningful regulation the county introduces. Thus, regardless of which way the Court of Appeals ruled, the matter has always been destined for a return trip to LUBA,” Hicks said in an email.

Members of the commission in the southern Oregon county have called pot farms a nuisance. Voters in the state legalized marijuana with a 2014 ballot measure, prompting a “green rush” as pot entrepreneurs set up shop in the fertile, rainy mountainous area.

Pete Gendron, a marijuana grower in Josephine County and president of the Oregon SunGrowers’ Guild advocacy group, has pointed out that growers have invested large sums to start operations and said they were shocked when the county tried to restrict them.

One grower had a letter from the county dating back a year or more stating that cannabis cultivation was farm use and was allowed, and he invested a half-million dollars because of those assurances, Gendron said.

In a sign of how bitter the dispute has become, the county commission filed a lawsuit in federal court, contending that the state cannot dictate marijuana regulations over county restrictions because weed remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The pending lawsuit calls on the federal court in Medford to declare that two ballot measures in 1998 and 2014 that legalized medical and recreational marijuana, respectively, are pre-empted by federal law.

Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Carla Scott has argued the lawsuit should be dismissed.

“A political subdivision of a state such as Josephine County lacks standing to challenge a state law in federal court on supremacy grounds,” Scott recently wrote in a filing in the case, the Daily Courier newspaper of Grants Pass reported.

HERMISTON, Ore. — As Val Tachenko smiled and handed over a carton of just-ripe strawberries to a customer on a recent Thursday afternoon, one person was not happy.

Her young grandson pokds his head over the edge of the table and frowns at the remaining boxes.

“He took my best one!”

It’s hard to say what looks best. The table in the Nixyaawii Governance Center groans with baskets of fresh greens, onions, cherries and strawberries, which Tachenko, owner of Val’s Veggies, sells alongside the CSA boxes that she’s brought to deliver to weekly customers.

A CSA, or Community-Supported Agriculture, allows people to pay a fee at the beginning of a season and then get a box of fresh vegetables delivered to them each week from a local or regional farm. As of this week, Tachenko has expanded her delivery service to customers in Pendleton and Hermiston.

Tachenko said she’s seen a lot more awareness about local eating since she first started her CSA in 2009 at her Baker City farm, where she raises cattle, chickens and grows vegetables in a 16-acre garden. Before that she sold wholesale produce, operated farm stands and sold at farmer’s markets.

“I’ve always been very passionate about people eating local,” she said.

Tachenko has been one of the only consistent growers in the region to maintain a CSA. She has 48 customers, and usually caps the service at about 60.

Tachenko sells at farmer’s markets in La Grande, and has a fruit stand in Baker City. Each Thursday, she sells produce at a table in the Nixyaawii Governance Center in Mission.

With so many opportunities to buy local produce, Tachenko said many people don’t understand why a CSA box is a good option.

The service relies on seasonal vegetables, which means that you won’t find peppers in early June.

“People struggle to eat seasonally,” Tachenko said. “The first few weeks it’s mostly greens. (People) want tomatoes, corn. Those aren’t available yet.”

But the boxes allow people to get vegetables that may not be available at the market.

“The CSA boxes come first,” she said, opening up one of the boxes awaiting pickup. It’s stuffed with kale, rainbow chard, spinach, bok choi and green onions.

“Today they got zucchini and broccoli. I don’t have enough of that to sell at the table, but the boxes got that. They get the first pick of what’s available.”

They also allow people to get vegetables delivered to them, instead of having to go to the store or market. Mirroring the process of online services, Tachenko said, has been crucial for small farms trying to keep up.

“The thing that has hurt CSAs is online delivery,” she said. “People just want to order stuff off their phones.”

Tachenko said while growers can’t ignore potential online customers, she likes the social and educational aspects of farmer’s markets.

“People don’t know what a kohlrabi is,” she said. “Maybe I can show them. There’s a lot you miss out on when you get deliveries to your door.”

CSAs aren’t for everyone — farmers or customers. John Finley of 3rd Gen Farms in Hermiston ran one for several years, but eventually decided to focus his efforts on selling at markets.

“We generally got two complaints,” he said. “One, people were getting too much. Two, they were getting things they didn’t really want.”

He said when they were doing the CSA, customers could get between three and 10 items per week, depending on how much they paid.

Tachenko acknowledged those challenges with her own customers.

“It’s a tough fit for some people in our society,” Tachenko said. At the end of each season, she sends out a survey to customers asking them, among other things, how many meals they cook a week.

“I was surprised that a lot of people only cook two to three meals a week,” she said. She said some people split the cost of a box with another family, or share produce.

While her retention rate year-to-year is about 54 percent, Tachenko said she’s had seven customers that have been with her since the beginning.

Kristi Gartland, the wellness coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said employees have been glad to have Tachenko in the building.

“The idea was to provide fresh, locally grown food for our employees right here,” Gartland said. “This community has had a longstanding concern about not having locally grown food available. A lot of people live far from town, and it’s hard for them to get fresh produce.”

Dallas Bolen is one of Tachenko’s Hermiston customers.

“You get totally different vegetables than you would just buy at the store,” Bolen said. “I’ve tried a lot of things I never would have.”

Bolen buys a half-share, and said it’s more than enough for two people. She added that while the up-front costs seem a bit high, it measures out to about $25 per week.

“It starts adding up, and you spend way more than that at the store,” she said.

Prices vary depending on the size of the box. A full share, which feeds a family, is $700 for 20 weeks, and a half-share is $450. There are several other options as well, including a fruit share and a salad share.

For more information, visit www.valsveggies.com.

It’s a lovely June day and Nora and Mary Hawkins along with employee Laurie Waters are busy processing 40 Cornish cross chickens in preparation for the upcoming Joseph Saturday Market. Another 20 or so capons are being prepared for Portland customers.

This, says Mary Hawkins, is how they like to spend their weekends in Wallowa County. She’s not joking.

“It’s a good workout, and I love that part of it,” said Mary. “That’s been like ‘all on’ what I wanted to do. Every other job I have is a ton of thinking and responding and communicating. This is ‘how fast can I do the same thing over and over again’ –– and I like that. Probably wouldn’t like it for 60 hours a week.”

But the sisters don’t spend 60 hours a week as poultry processors. Like many farmers and ranchers, they have day jobs.

Mary is office manager for Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, host of the Tamkaliks celebration in Wallowa; Nora is a state-licensed midwife. The sisters spend mornings, nights and weekends on the agricultural business with the help of employees Laurie Waters, Landra Scovlin and Michaela Shane. Raising and processing birds is a six-months-of the-year job.

It’s successful in many ways but not necessarily financially, they contend. The Hawkins Sisters Ranch is a snapshot of the real cost of raising quality meat.

It is one of two Oregon Department of Agriculture small poultry licensed processing facilities in Eastern Oregon, taking advantage of new rules that allow small-enterprise farms that process 20,000 or fewer birds per year to meet sanitary and other rules without having to be USDA inspected. The chickens can only be marketed in Oregon.

Their facility is housed in a new 13x40-foot “Old Hickory Shed” that has been fitted to meet state sanitation requirements. They’re serious about sanitation. Mary will not even touch a turkey chick if she’s been working with chickens or vice versa. The interior of the facility is spotless, even in the midst of processing birds.

The operation is on their father Merel Hawkins’ 300-acre farm on Bear Creek Road in Wallowa. Merel is retired, and most of the land is leased for cattle grazing, so the sisters are getting the use of the little space required for the chicken business free.

In this facility, on this land, the sisters will butcher approximately 6,000 chickens over the next six months.

Other families who bring in birds from their own flocks for processing will have raised 60 percent of those birds. The sisters charge approximately $5 per bird for processing. They sell their own birds for $5 per pound, predominantly to Wallowa County customers who have spoken for them well in advance. Approximately 400 birds are sold to Portland customers through Carman Ranch Direct.

Yet, even with no mortgage and selling chicken at $5 per pound, raising chickens humanely on naturally sourced custom-designed feed doesn’t pencil out.

“On paper it’s ‘Ah, I shouldn’t be doing this.’” Mary said. “The correct choice, on paper, is ‘do not do this.’”

Mary took a business course a few years ago that required rigorous number-crunching and proved that financial reality.

And yet the Hawkins Sisters are still in the chicken business. Their employees earn wages.

“I’ve analyzed, and I think it’s just me being stubborn,” Mary said. “I think: ‘surely there’s a way to raise chickens on a small scale!’ I think I do it because it’s a puzzle (how to make it pay).”

And it’s hard to quit when you’re successful on so many other levels.

“It’s an amazing product that people really want, and there’s a huge demand,” Mary said. “Flavor and texture are wonderful, people remark on it all the time.”

They’ve already met and bested many challenges. First challenge, growing a healthy bird. The Cornish cross bird is the most economical to grow because it has been developed to grow fast and huge.

Other chicken breeds may take up to six months to reach butcher weight and years to reach maturity – the factory-fed Cornish cross can weigh as much as 10 pounds live weight in 56 days and yield a six pound roaster.

Feeding a fast-growing chicken up to that weight that quickly can lead to a high mortality rate. Birds can die of heart failure, leg deformities from too much weight to leg strength, infections from lying down full-time. The butchered bird can have an enlarged heart and a flaccid pale liver that must be discarded.

The Hawkins Sisters have solved these problems through their growing and feeding philosophy. They feed their own custom blend with no corn or soy, and they don’t confine and overfeed to make what Mary calls a “Frankenstein Bird.”

Their chickens are vigorous, docile and seem happy. The sisters reckon the average weight of their eight- to 10-week old bird, when processed, is about four pounds.

Right now, the third week of June, there are 325 new arrivals in the Hawkins brooder barn. The chick brooder space is a large, clean and roomy shed with both fresh air and six warming lamps. The sisters will order a new batch of chicks every four weeks through September.

A few hundred feet away in the hay pasture are the “outdoor” growing houses; homemade arched chicken structures that allow the growing birds plenty of protected space but provide freedom to come and go into the attached grassy yard. Although not free range, they have access to grass and bugs and are fed the Hawkins locally grown custom blend feed.

The operation will go dormant by Thanksgiving. The turkeys, a new endeavor, are expected to yield a few dollars over the financial break-even point.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A proposal in Congress to ease the U.S. ban on marijuana could encourage more banks to do business with cannabis companies, but it appears to fall short of a cure-all for an industry that must operate mainly as a cash business in a credit card world.

Marijuana is legal in some form in about 30 states, but companies that grow or sell it often are locked out at banks. Their money isn’t wanted because the drug is illegal under federal law and transactions tied to pot proceeds could expose financial institutions to money-laundering charges.

The bipartisan measure — which received tentative support from President Donald Trump — would ensure states have the right to determine the best approach to marijuana, without federal interference. It also includes language intended to address the banking gap caused by the federal ban.

The legislation has been praised as a strong step, but “standing alone, it’s likely not a silver bullet for the banking problem,” said California pot industry attorney Nicole Howell Neubert, a member of a state task force that studied the banking stalemate.

“Most financial institutions will be looking for even more affirmative direction from (Washington) to feel comfortable with banking cannabis companies,” she said in a statement.

The shortage of banking services has been a major obstacle to the industry, often forcing businesses to conduct sales and pay vendors and taxes in cash, sometimes in vast amounts that can become targets for criminals.

The number of financial institutions working with marijuana companies has been growing, but it’s still a small fraction overall.

The Mountain West Credit Union Association and the Maine Credit Union League said in a joint statement that the legislation would “provide the certainty we need ... to service this growing industry.”

The measure, which faces an uncertain future in Congress, does not legalize marijuana nationally. But it takes steps to allow banks to handle marijuana funds without the risk of federal prosecution.

For example, it says money from marijuana businesses in states where the drug is legal would no longer be considered illegal proceeds, and it would allow banks to accept those funds without breaking money-laundering laws.

Even then, risk remains as banks face a range of compliance rules by accepting marijuana-linked money. The Bank Secrecy Act requires that banks know their customers well enough to ensure they are not engaging in money laundering, said Julie A. Hill, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law.

“This likely means that a bank accepting marijuana money would have to do enough research to know that their customers are complying with state law regarding the sale of marijuana,” Hill said. “The bank would likely have to confirm that the marijuana is not sold to minors or sold for transport to states where it is illegal.”

Banks could face penalties if they don’t meet such requirements.

They also are urged to watch for warning signs of possible illegal activity, such as financial statements provided by a business not squaring with account activity.

Because the cost of doing such research would be high, some banks might choose to stay away from marijuana money, Hill said in an email.

If the legislation passes, it’s likely marijuana will stay illegal in some conservative-leaning states, such as South Dakota and Kansas. Some banks in those states might then be uneasy about handling marijuana dollars coming from places where the drug is legal.

“I don’t imagine the ... financial institution would take that risk to take in funds from a business considered illegal in that state,” said Beth Mills of the Western Bankers Association.

Another uncertainty that could give banks pause: The conflict between Trump, who signaled his support for the legislation, and his own Justice Department.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions staunchly opposes marijuana and lifted an Obama administration policy in order to allow federal prosecutors to more aggressively pursue cases in states that have legalized marijuana.

Colorado tried to set up a credit union in 2015 to serve the pot industry but the Federal Reserve blocked it. In Oregon, the state Department of Revenue built a fortress-like office for dropping off and counting cash.

Some pot businesses have tried to open bank accounts by setting up management companies or nonprofit organizations with ambiguous names — basically, by misleading the banks. But those accounts can be shut down if a bank realizes where the money is coming from.

Other proposals in Congress also are intended to open the way for more banks to handle marijuana dollars, but it’s not clear if any have enough support to reach Trump’s desk.

After a House committee rejected one such measure Wednesday, Kevin Sabet, head of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a nonpartisan group opposed to marijuana legalization, said it would have “opened up direct access to Wall Street investment into the sales and marketing of pot candies, cookies and ice creams.”

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The federal government is considering another attempt to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday told The Associated Press it has begun a science-based review of the status of the wolf, which presently is covered by the Endangered Species Act in most of the nation and cannot be killed unless threatening human life.

If the agency decides to begin the process of removing of the wolf from the endangered species list, it will publish a proposal by the end of the year.

“Any proposal will follow a robust, transparent and open public process that will provide opportunity for public comment,” the service said in a statement to the AP.

The government first proposed revoking the wolf’s protected status in 2013, but backed off after federal courts struck down its plan for “delisting” the species in the western Great Lakes region.

Long despised by farmers and ranchers, wolves were shot, trapped and poisoned out of existence in most of the U.S. by the mid-20th century. Since securing protection in the 1970s, they have bounced back in parts of the country.

They total about 3,800 in the western Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Other established populations are in the Northern Rockies, where they are no longer listed as endangered, and the Pacific Northwest.

Federal regulators contend they’ve recovered sufficiently for their designation as endangered to be removed and management responsibilities handed over to the states. Environmental groups say it’s too early for that, as wolves still haven’t returned to most of their historical range.

“Time and again the courts have told the service that wolves need further recovery before their protections can be removed,” said Collette Adkins, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “But the agency is dead set on appeasing special interests who want to kill these amazing animals.”

Members of Congress have tried numerous times to strip wolves of legal protection. Another bill to do so is pending in the U.S. House.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday argues the Oregon Department of Forestry’s logging practices are hurting protected coho salmon and violating the Endangered Species Act.

Five conservation and fishing groups are making the case in U.S. District Court that logging on steep slopes and road-building in the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests of northwest Oregon are damaging salmon habitat by causing landslides and erosion.

Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity said dumping harmful sediment onto coho spawning grounds is a violation of the Endangered Species Act because the state doesn’t have a Habitat Conservation Plan for the fish.

“Oregon Department of Forestry has been promising they’re going to do more to take care of streams and coho salmon for a long time, and they’ve just really not come through,” he said. “They continue to do a lot of logging on steep steep, landslide-prone slopes that lead to serious sediment problems in streams for coho salmon.”

The state started working on a Habitat Conservation Plan for threatened coastal coho in the late 1990s, but the plan was never finished.

The five groups — including the Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources and Cascadia Wildlands — are asking the court to prohibit certain logging practices until the state has a protection plan.

“We’re not saying they have to stop all logging,” Greenwald said. “They need to fix their road system and they need to scale back their logging on steep slopes.”

Logging on the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests is a key source of funding for area counties. Some counties have sued the state for not logging enough and denying them millions of dollars in revenue.

The Oregon Department of Forestry did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The latest federal recovery plan for coastal coho lists habitat loss and degradation as a key factor in rebuilding their population, which has dwindled to less than 100,000 fish in recent years.

A subsidiary of the Tillamook County Creamery Association has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop accepting milk from a troubled Oregon dairy in bankruptcy proceedings.

Lost Valley Farm of Boardman, Ore., began supplying Columbia River Processing, the subsidary, when the dairy opened last year. It has since run into serious regulatory and financial problems.

The company’s owner, Greg te Velde, owes about $67 million to Rabobank, a major agricultural lender that sought to foreclose on Lost Valley Farm’s cattle herd.

A liquidation auction of the cattle was halted in April by te Velde’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which protects the company from actions by creditors while it’s restructuring.

However, the dairy’s ability to sell milk to Columbia River Processing has been a major point of contention in the bankruptcy proceedings, with the Tillamook cooperative vowing to stop accepting deliveries at the end of May.

Tillamook CEO Patrick Criteser argued that his company has terminated its contract with Lost Valley Farm, but te Velde maintains the contract is valid and threatened to sue.

Columbia River Processing has filed an adversary case — a complaint related to the bankruptcy proceedings — asking a bankruptcy judge to declare that the contract was terminated before the Chapter 11 case was filed.

The company submitted a letter terminating its contract with te Velde in late February, citing the dairy’s failure to pay debts and the appointment of a receiver to oversee its operations.

Reputational damage to the Tillamook cooperative and high bacteria levels in Lost Valley Farm’s milk have also been cited by CRP in ending the milk-buying agreement.

When Columbia River Processing offered to negotiated a reinstatement of the contract, te Velde did not respond, according to the complaint.

If the judge isn’t willing to declare the contract invalid or allow CRP to terminate the agreement, the complaint seeks a judgment that would cause the dairy to its lose bankruptcy protections for any further contract violations.

The issue of CRP’s continued acceptance of milk is key to Lost Valley Farm’s ability to restructure and remain operational.

Rabobank cited the impending end of milk sales to CRP as a reason to lift the dairy’s bankruptcy protections, which would allow the cattle auction to move forward.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Fredrick Clement denied that request during a hearing last month, but may revisit the matter.

“Frankly, I think this issue is going to resolve itself one way or the other,” he said. “If Columbia River refuses to accept milk and the debtor is unable to force them to do so, undoubtedly this issue will ... rise to the top of the matters under consideration and will be addressed again by this court.”

The other major factor affecting Lost Valley Farm is its settlement of a lawsuit with Oregon farm regulators over improper wastewater disposal.

In court documents, te Velde acknowledged he was facing a contempt hearing because ODA claimed the dairy was out of compliance with the deal.

The judge declined to lift the dairy’s bankruptcy protections on these grounds, though he could reconsider if the ODA actually shuts down its operations.

“My guess is the Oregon Department of Agriculture has its remedies without seeking stay relief,” Clement said.

Oregon hazelnut growers hope their shared affinity for agriculture with a top Chinese diplomat will create some goodwill in high-stakes trade negotiations.

Luo Linquan, China’s consul general in San Francisco, met June 8 with about 15 farmers in Silverton, Ore., to learn about the hazelnut industry and how it’s affected by turbulent trade relations between the U.S. and China.

“The farmers who were there really made a connection with the consul general because he grew up on a farm,” said Larry George, president of hazelnut processor George Packing. “He realized he had a lot of connection with them and told his story of growing up on a farm.”

Linquan heads one of five Consulate General offices in the U.S. His diplomatic jurisdiction includes Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Nevada and Alaska.

At a time of trade tensions between the two countries, the meeting will hopefully prove to be a “huge coup” in putting a human face to the local hazelnut industry, George said.

“It’s really important to have someone who has visited with growers directly,” said George. “He is a very high-ranking official who is involved in these discussions with Beijing.”

Even before the recent strain in trade relations between the U.S. and China, Oregon hazelnut farmers weren’t in a competitive position to export directly to that country. China imposed a 25 percent tariff on in-shell hazelnuts from the U.S. as well as a 14.5 percent value-added tax.

To compare, in-shell U.S. pistachios are subject to a 5 percent tariff and in-shell hazelnuts from Chile face no tariff.

As a result, the domestic hazelnut industry has long shipped the crop to Hong Kong and other neighboring countries, such as Vietnam, where it’s trans-shipped to China.

In April, China raised the tariff on in-shell U.S. hazelnuts by 15 percentage points in addition to raising duties on other agricultural goods from the U.S.

The change prompted more U.S. exporters to attempt trans-shipments into China rather than selling directly into that market, bringing increased scrutiny from Chinese officials who want to prevent products from side-stepping its tax structure.

The effect is a smaller export pipeline for Oregon hazelnuts, roughly half of which are exported, George said.

“Long term, this conversation had to happen, but short term, it could have a very negative impact on the 2018 crop,” he said.

Before the recent tariff hike, the hazelnut industry had no direct contact with the Chinese government, said Terry Ross, executive director of the Hazelnut Industry Bargaining Association.

Since the increase, hazelnut industry representatives have attended a meeting at the Consulate General’s office in San Francisco and Ross has been invited to speak at the China International Tree Nut Conference in August.

“The Chinese government is engaged, the U.S. government is engaged and we hope something will come to fruition prior to harvest,” said Ross. “It’s been a blessing in disguise at this point.”

Removing the steep tariffs on Oregon hazelnuts would allow them to be shipped directly to China, but any change must occur fairly soon to avoid depressing the market for 2018’s crop.

Hazelnut consumption peaks during the Chinese New Year in early 2019, but the crop must be shipped by October or November of this year to make the market, said George, who has recently traveled to Washington, D.C., twice to meet with the Trump administration about the issue.

“Those markets are time-sensitive,” he said. “The problem is trade issues move slowly but the crop doesn’t change its speed.”

MOITA DA GUERRA, Portugal (AP) — Unaware that time is short, more than 200 brown-and-white goats slowly munch their way through the thick undergrowth that covers the hills of southern Portugal.

Squinting against the sun’s glare, Daniel Fernandes, a 61-year-old goatherd, whistles and makes clicking noises to direct his animals across the ridges where they can fill their bellies on the dense vegetation.

Yet this is not just a pretty pastoral scene. These hungry goats are on the front lines of Portugal’s fight against deadly summer wildfires.

The government is hiring this herd, and dozens of others nationwide, as part of its race against the clock to guard rugged parts of the Iberian nation against a repeat of last year’s catastrophic wildfires. That includes trying to clean up as much woodland as possible before temperatures rise and the land becomes a tinderbox.

Blazes routinely blacken large areas of forest every year in Portugal. But last year they killed 106 people in what was by far the deadliest summer fire season on record. It was also a wake-up call for authorities, who were slow to react to social trends and a changing climate.

“Last year was when it became patently clear to us that something different had to be done,” says Miguel Joao de Freitas, the government’s junior minister for forests and rural development. “Prevention is the most urgent requirement, and it has to be done as soon as possible.”

It’s a mammoth task, and one that has at times been slowed by red tape. But one of the tactics being adopted is a proven winner: Deploying goats as an environmentally-friendly way to prevent wildfires has been done for decades in the United States, especially California and the Pacific Northwest.

With Portugal’s peak July 1-Sept. 30 wildfire period just around the corner, the government is enacting a raft of preventive measures. They include using goats and bulldozers to clear woodland 33 feet either side of country roads. Property owners must clear a 164-foot radius around an isolated house, and 328 feet around a hamlet.

Emergency shelters and evacuation routes are being established in villages, and their church bells will now toll when a wildfire approaches.

The government is also upgrading firefighters’ response capabilities, hiring 12 water-dumping planes and 41 helicopters. In the peak wildfire period, it promises that more than 10,700 firefighters will be on standby — 1,000 more than last year.

But even as Portugal rushes to get ready, experts warn it will likely take years to correct the trends that make the country especially vulnerable.

In recent decades, people have deserted the countryside in droves to pursue a better life in bigger towns and cities. That has left care of the forests in the hands of mostly elderly people who often lack financial resources.

Portuguese farmers often plant long, unbroken stretches of eucalyptus, a fast-growing tree that offers a quick financial return from the country’s important paper pulp industry. But eucalyptus also burns like a fire torch. The government is introducing legislation to encourage the planting of more slow-growing native species, such as cork trees, holm oaks or chestnut trees, which are more resilient to flames and can slow the advance of wildfires.

Climate change isn’t helping. In the 1980s, Portugal saw its annual average of charred forest come in at less than 185,325 acres. Since 2000, that number has grown to more than 370,660 acres a year, with experts attributing the rise to hotter, drier summers.

The hamlet of Moita da Guerra, in the heart of the Serra do Caldeirao hill range, 150 miles south of the capital Lisbon, illustrates some of the challenges. It lies in a thinly populated area only a few miles from the famous beaches that make this Algarve region one of Europe’s top vacation destinations.

“There used to be lots of herds around here,” Fernandes, the goatherd, says, leaning on his thick walking stick. “Some people have died, some gave up, and young people aren’t interested in this.”

Fanned by the summer “Nortada” — north wind — the abundant, waist-high brush here fuels wildfires that race across the hills.

Fernandes and his wife Anita — the only two residents left in Moita da Guerra — vividly recall a major blaze in 2004 that almost engulfed them. In the end, the flames leapt over them between the treetops and kept going. Their goats were crucial to the family’s survival, because they had eaten and trampled down the undergrowth that surrounded their home, starving the flames.

His latest herd is busy on a government-financed mission this year to carve out firebreaks in the Algarve before the hot days of summer arrive.

Still, a lot remains to be done to fend off the threat of wildfires in Portugal — a project that experts say will take years.

“Unfortunately, there is no single, game-changing fix to the dilemma Portugal now finds itself in regarding the threat of catastrophic fire,” a report published by fire experts in April commented. “Rather, the solution will demand dozens of strategic improvements made in the next several years and possibly over the next decade.”

Mandatory testing of cannabis in Oregon has revealed several biopesticides contaminated with more highly regulated chemicals, prompting regulators to halt sales of the products.

The problem has led the Oregon Department of Agriculture to believe such contamination probably is not limited to marijuana, this state or a certain pesticide product.

“In a way, this kind of tipped us off that we could be seeing this in other crops,” said Rose Kachadoorian, ODA’s pesticide registration and certification leader. “These pesticides are marketed nationally.”

To complicate the situation, such contamination renders the pesticides adulterated and misbranded under Oregon law but it’s allowable under a federal policy adopted two decades ago by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Before 1996, the EPA considered any level of impurity “toxicologically significant,” but then the agency changed its policy to allow up to 1,000 parts per million of contamination by certain other pesticides.

The federal policy recognizes that low-level contamination may occur at large facilities that aren’t dedicated to one chemical and it’s primarily concerned with toxicity to plants, Kachadoorian said.

Oregon and other states are urging the EPA to reconsider this “pesticide regulation notice,” or PR notice, to potentially exclude organic biopesticides from the policy, or herbicides sprayed over the top of genetically engineered crops, she said.

Contamination with an herbicide to which a crop isn’t resistant could damage the plant, while prohibited residues could result in rejection by domestic or foreign buyers, Kachadoorian said.

“It happens all the time that retailers are testing,” she said.

If a grower sprays a pesticide that’s labeled to have a short duration but the product is contaminated with a longer-lasting chemical, then the crop could exceed “tolerance” levels for the latter substance, Kachadoorian said. In other cases, the product may have no “tolerance” level for the contaminant.

“We’re concerned about truth in labeling,” she said.

Recreational and medical marijuana must undergo testing in Oregon.

The biopesticide issue came to light when a cannabis grower was adamant that he hadn’t used a permethrin pesticide for which his marijuana had tested positive.

It turned out the neem oil he’d applied as a biopesticide was contaminated. ODA conducted additional tests of other containers to confirm the impurity.

When contacted about the problem, the pesticide manufacturer pointed to EPA’s policy, Kachadoorian said. “We had never heard of that and none of the other states we are dealing with had heard about this.”

Over the past year, ODA has issued “stop sale” orders for six biopesticide products due to contamination discovered during cannabis testing. Four of the products were derived from neem seeds and one was a pyrethrum concentrate.

The contaminants included permethrin, bifenthrin, cypermethrin, cyfluthrin, chlorpyrifos, fenpropathrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, piperonyl butoxide and MGK-264, none of which were listed on the labels.

In the past, companies have spiked biopesticides with more powerful synthetic chemicals, Kachadoorian said. “That was certainly one of the things we looked at, because we’ve seen it before.”

However, manufacturers involved in the six “stop sale” orders were established firms that weren’t considered likely to purposely adulterate their products, she said.

The ODA hopes that companies continue to thoroughly follow their equipment clean-out procedures despite the EPA’s pesticide regulation policy, she said. “Are they using this PR notice as intended or are they using it a little more broadly?”

The six products that ODA found to be contaminated remain listed for organic production by the Organic Materials Review Institute, which is prevented by confidentiality from disclosing whether they’re under investigation.

Testing of additional products by ODA could mean this “will continue to be an issue in part because of our contaminated environment,” said Peggy Miars, the institute’s CEO, in an email.

“The testing program could also identify potential fraud, which is a serious violation,” she said. “OMRI continues to improve our investigative procedures in order to quickly and effectively respond to reports of potential contamination.”

GILLIAN FLACCUS

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s top federal prosecutor has charged nine people with financial and drug crimes in a scheme that involved defrauding banks and using the money to start illegal marijuana grow houses and fund an interstate pot distribution ring, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

The case is the first involving marijuana-related charges prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Billy Williams since he issued a memo criticizing Oregon’s pot surplus and called on state regulators to get a better handle on the amount of the drug flowing across state lines.

Williams was the first U.S. attorney to publicly outline his strategy for federal marijuana enforcement after Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back Obama-era protections for states with legal pot. Oregon is one of about 30 states that have legalized marijuana in some form, creating a two-tier enforcement system at the state and federal levels.

The current case began as a major fraud investigation and grew into a drug probe that stretched into California and Illinois, federal prosecutors said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene. Three of the defendants have been arrested and the rest are at large.

The money also funded a state-licensed marijuana store in Corvallis, Oregon, where excess pot was surreptitiously packed, vacuum-sealed and shipped out of state in suitcases and by mail, prosecutors alleged. That store, Corvallis Cannabis Club, was raided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency on Tuesday. No one answered the phone at the store on Tuesday.

Those arrested will make a first court appearance Wednesday in Eugene, Oregon. Defense attorneys were not listed in court filings and it was not immediately known if they had retained private attorneys or will be assigned a federal public defender.

According to a probable cause affidavit from FBI Special Agent Jeff Schiltz, federal authorities began investigating a credit card fraud scheme in 2016.

The scheme involved getting Armenians in Hollywood, California, who were struggling financially to provide the defendants with their personal information in exchange for payment. The defendants would then open credit cards in their name.

The defendants used the cards and made initial payments on the balances using fraudulent bank accounts, but then told the banks the accounts were bogus.

The credit card companies then repaid the banks and the cards weren’t used again.

At one point, some defendants drove 60 pounds of marijuana to Chicago and sold it on the black market. Other marijuana was sold and sent to California and still more was sent to Peoria, Illinois, where state authorities were already conducting an undercover investigation, court papers say.

The defendants deposited tens of thousands in cash from the out-of-state marijuana sales in many different bank accounts in Oregon and California, prosecutors said.

SALEM, Ore. — EO Media Events LLC has reached an agreement with Harvest Capital Company to be title sponsor of the 2019 Northwest Ag Show taking place Jan. 16-18, 2019, at the Oregon State Fair & Exposition Center.

The Northwest Ag Show presented by Harvest Capital Company will showcase the best from the agriculture industry and its associated businesses and organizations to provide useful information to attendees regarding equipment, best practices, job training, state-sanctioned certifications, updates on the local ag economy, and legal, tax and other financial issues facing all farmers.

“We are pleased to be a part of the 2019 NW Ag Show and to celebrate all aspects of agriculture,” said Brian L. Field, president of Harvest Capital Company. “Our company goal is to help strengthen the ag industry in the Northwest and we are excited to partner with EO Media Events and with the show’s other sponsors and exhibitors to highlight this important element of the local economy.”

In addition to partnerships with Harvest Capital Company, the show has also confirmed participation by Kubota Tractor Corporation and Coastal Farm and Ranch as major show sponsors. Additional sponsorships are being finalized and will be announced over the next few weeks.

“Response to next year’s ag show has been enthusiastic across the West Coast,” said Michael Keith, the show’s director. “We are thankful to have Harvest Capital Company as title sponsor and look forward to working with them to provide unique programing at the show to benefit the local ag community.”

The show will coincide with the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce’s SAIF Agri-Business Banquet on Friday, Jan. 18 to form the foundation of an Ag Week celebration for the Salem area. The week will also include educational and career workshops from the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, a fund-raising partnership with Oregon FFA and the Oregon Aglink annual Board of Directors meeting.

More information about the show can be found at NorthwestAgShow.com. Additional information about Harvest Capital Company is at Harvcap.com.

Harvest Capital Company is one of the Northwest’s premier agricultural real estate lenders, crafting long-term financing solutions that allow farmers and ranchers to be successful today and prepared for tomorrow’s opportunities.

EO Media Events, LLC is a subsidiary of EO Media Group, a private, family-owned company with deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. EO Media Events took over management of the show in 2017. The show is powered by Capital Press, the West’s leading source for agriculture news and advertising information.

Wednesdays

But this isn’t the first time local farmers have been in the crossfire over a dispute with Mexico. Back in 2009, the U.S. government found itself unable to reach an agreement with Mexico over international trucking. Eventually, Mexico fired back with tariffs on some agricultural goods, including Christmas trees.

Rick Schaefer is the manager of Holiday Specialtrees, a Christmas tree farm in Clackamas County. He told OPB “Weekend Edition” host John Notarianni that the tariffs caught him and other tree growers in Oregon completely off guard.

“It just blindsides you,” Schaefer said. “You’ve been doing business for years and it just slams you. You just have to brace for it and move on.”

Schaefer estimates a third of his business is exporting trees to other countries, mostly Mexico. He had no choice but to lower his prices by 20 percent for his Mexican customers rather than risk losing a year’s worth of sales.

“Most people don’t know it, but Christmas trees are like strawberries — you can’t just keep them in the ground,” he said. “When they’re ripe you need to cut them.”

Holiday Specialtrees was able to survive the hit, and the tariffs were rolled back the following year. Still, he said the tariff had long lasting effects on the Oregon Christmas tree industry.

“A lot of the Christmas tree growers went out of business. Mexico takes about a million trees from Oregon and we ship roughly 5 million so that’s 20 percent,” Schaefer said. “A lot of growers quit growing and a lot of them just simply went bankrupt.”

With another trade war brewing, Schaefer is worried that his business could be swept up in the conflict again.

“If there was a 20 percent tariff on us, say it’s a $20 tree now, that’s a $4 hit. That’s a big chunk,” he said. “That would hurt us, I’m definitely concerned about that.”