SALEM — Farmers can pay the minimum wage to piece-rate employees who miss work due to illness under a bill Oregon lawmakers passed Thursday.

Senate Bill 299, approved by the House 38-21 after earlier passing the Senate unanimously, resolves some of the confusion that’s dogged Oregon’s paid sick time law since 2015.

As interpreted by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries, the statute required growers to calculate a “regular rate of pay” to compensate piece-rate workers for sick time.

The problem is workers are often paid varying rates per pound for different crops, which means their hourly wage changes over time.

This fluctuation created a conundrum for farmers, who were uncertain when the “regular rate of pay” was established.

Should a worker be paid based on the previous week’s earnings, during the harvest of a higher-value crop?

Or is the “regular rate of pay” based on average rates earned by other workers when the sick employee was missing, when a lower-value crop was picked?

Although BOLI recommended basing sick time wages on the previous week’s earnings, farmers could still face lawsuits from workers who disagreed with that interpretation.

Under SB 299, the statute clarifies that sick piece-rate employees can be paid the minimum wage unless they have a predetermined hourly, weekly or monthly wage.

Provisions in the bill also help distinguish between farms that must pay workers for sick time and those that can provide it without pay.

Throughout much of the state, 40 hours of sick time must be paid by employers with 10 workers or more, while those with a smaller workforce must still provide those 40 hours but without compensation. In Portland, that threshold is set at six employees.

Business owners and their family members weren’t supposed to contribute to this employee count, but BOLI determined that they still count as workers if they fill out a federal “W-2” form for tax purposes.

The newly passed bill exempts business owners — those who have at least 15 percent ownership in a company — and their spouses and children from the employee count.

The provision is important to multi-generational farms that have family members working on them, said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which supports SB 299.

“They don’t necessarily consider themselves employees, but rather managers of the farm,” said Dresler.

Setting the ownership threshold at 15 percent was necessary to overcome objections from the bill’s critics, who feared that companies would list employees as owners to circumvent the sick pay requirement, she said.

“That was probably one of the most contentious pieces,” Dresler said.

Uncertainty over growers who participate in seasonal farmers’ markets in Portland is also relieved by SB 299.

The worry was that farmers who normally operate outside Portland but regularly sell produce within its borders would become subject to the city’s lower six-employee sick time threshold.

The bill makes clear that such temporary locations don’t count as Portland businesses.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An organization representing U.S. beet and cane sugar farmers says it supports a revised agreement to resolve the illegal dumping of subsidized Mexican sugar onto the U.S. market.

In 2014 Mexico and the U.S. reached an agreement, in lieu of protective tariffs, limiting the amount and type of sugar Mexico could export into the U.S.

Based on U.S. growers’ concerns that the agreement failed to address the glut of Mexican sugar on the market and increase U.S. prices, the countries recently reached a tentative agreement setting higher minimum prices for the sale of Mexican sugar into the U.S. and requiring that a greater percentage of Mexican sugar be shipped in an unrefined form to meet demand at U.S. refineries.

Leaders of the American Sugar Alliance said they liked many aspects of the proposed updated settlement but couldn’t support it. They explained Mexico has the right to supply all U.S. sugar needs when its own production and existing agreements with other countries are insufficient to meet demand. The Alliance argued the original version of the settlement update would open a loophole allowing Mexico to decide the form of sugar to send the U.S. — refined or unrefined — to fill unmet demand.

ASA spokesman Phillip Hayes said in a June 15 press release his organization will now support the agreement because the Department of Commerce has tightened it to address the loophole.

President Donald Trump “has said repeatedly that trade agreements and U.S. trade laws don’t work without strong enforcement,” Hayes said in the press release. “For too long, Mexico has been allowed to sidestep our trade laws, but those days are over.”

Based on price declines following sugar dumping, ASA estimates Mexico cost U.S. sugar producers $2 billion during 2013 and 2014 combined, and another $2 billion since the original agreement was signed.

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Future accidental radiation releases at the largest U.S. site of waste from nuclear weapons production are likely following back-to-back emergency evacuations of workers in May and June because aging infrastructure is breaking down, the top Energy Department official at the site told The Associated Press.

Adding to the likelihood of more nuclear mishaps at the sprawling Hanford Nuclear Reservation is inadequate government funding to quickly clean up the millions of gallons of toxic nuclear waste at the site, said Doug Shoop, who runs the department’s operations office at Hanford.

Hanford has an annual budget of $2.3 billion for cleanup but Shoop said it will cost at least $100 billion to clean up the highly toxic radioactive and chemical wastes on the 580-square mile site which produced up to 70 percent of the plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal since it was established in World War II.

“The infrastructure is not going to last long enough for the cleanup,” Shoop said in an interview this week. “It will be another 50 years before it is all demolished.”

Shoop made the comments after hundreds of Hanford workers were evacuated May 9 when the roof of a 1950s rail tunnel storing a lethal mix of waste from plutonium production collapsed. Tests show no radiation was released.

Then, on June 8, demolition work at a 1940s plutonium plant sent 350 workers seeking cover inside. Radiation was emitted but not deemed at a level harmful to people.

More money would lead to a faster cleanup, Shoop said. But President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for next year includes a $120 million cut for Hanford.

The official deadline for cleaning up Hanford is 2060, but Shoop said so much infrastructure at the site is deteriorating that “some facilities are not going to withstand that time.”

The site’s cleanup began in 1989 and critics have accused regulators of allowing the U.S. government to delay cleanup deadlines by decades, putting lives and the environment at risk.

“Every year that we don’t have an earthquake ... has been just luck,” said Gerry Pollet, a Washington state legislator who represents a liberal Seattle district, about 200 miles from Hanford.

Shoop said about half of the site is free of pollution. And parts of Hanford make up the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park, where visitors can learn about the development of the atomic bomb.

But Hanford’s most dangerous contaminated waste has not been cleaned up, and the two recent evacuation incidents illustrated problems that could become more frequent in the future.

In the May rail tunnel collapse, a huge sinkhole suddenly emerged above the 360-foot long tunnel holding eight railroad cars that transported waste in the 1950s. The earth that fell into the tunnel helped prevent radiation from going into the air because it covered the railroad cars. Workers have since filled in the sinkhole and covered the tunnel with a fabric similar to what is used to cover farmers’ haystacks.

Officials were aware of the risk to the tunnel, Shoop said. He warned other aging facilities at Hanford also pose a risk.

“There are a whole bunch of things analogous to the tunnels,” he said.

In the June incident, radiation warnings sounded as workers removed outdoor equipment from a plant that once churned out disks of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons and is now one of Hanford’s most polluted areas.

The event illustrated how Hanford’s precautions to protect its workers have paid off and how they’ll likely face similar situations in the future, Shoop said.

“We are sending people into environments no one was expected to go to,” Shoop said. “Is there the potential for more alarms? Absolutely.”

Hanford’s has 177 underground tanks made of steel that contain more that 54 million gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes.

In late May, radioactive contamination was also found on robotic equipment surveying the space between the walls of a double-walled underground nuclear waste storage tank, indicating a possible leak. Some radioactivity was discovered on the clothing of the worker who removed the robot from the tank, although no skin contamination was found, Hanford officials said.

In addition, vapors for several years have escaped from underground storage tanks and made dozens of workers sick, most recently on Tuesday. In that event, eight reported smelling vapors and three underwent medical checks.

The tunnel collapse prompted a group of northwestern U.S. lawmakers to press the federal Government Accountability Office to review the Hanford cleanup work, saying they “are concerned that future events could put the safety of workers, the public and environment at risk.”

Shoop defended progress at Hanford, pointing to numerous successes from three decades of cleanup.

He is aware that some people may feel little has been done.

“Some things are not proceeding as fast as we’d all like,” Shoop said. “You can’t do it all at once.”

LANGLOIS -- Coast Community Health Center will be providing Oregon Health Plan assistance from 3-6 p.m. at the Langlois Public Library on Wednesday, June 21. A certified assister will be able to complete new and renewal OHP applications, as well…

AURORA, ORE. — No one will ever mistake Oregon’s minuscule strawberry production for California’s $1.8 billion crop, but for a couple weeks in early summer the state’s berries take center stage to bask in the lore of their supreme flavor.

Hoods, anyone? Case closed, strawberry purists would argue. No hard, white-centered, flavorless pretenders from out of state allowed.

At a strawberry field day earlier this month, growers got a glimpse of some new cultivars that could provide options in what USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates is a $9 million annual agricultural niche in Oregon.

Chad Finn, a USDA berry breeder who works closely with Oregon State University in Corvallis, said Charm and Sweet Sunrise are early, high-quality, June-bearing berries that will be good for processing.

Charm is sweet enough that it could be used in ice cream like Hoods, which have been around since 1965. “It’s got that kind of quality,” Finn said.

It has a tender skin and Finn said he’s always described it as a processing berry, but at farmers’ markets in Corvallis it’s been one of the predominant varieties brought in for sale, he said.

Charm also is a tough, vigorous plant and produces a thick canopy, Finn said. There was concern the canopy was so thick that pickers wouldn’t be able to get at berries efficiently, but anecdotal feedback from picking crew bosses indicate it hasn’t been a problem, he said.

Because of its vigorous nature and reliably high yield, Finn said Charm might be suited for organic production. “If I was an organic guy I would start experimenting,” he said.

Sweet Sunrise, meanwhile, is a full flavor berry, one of the best, Finn said. It’s a bit tart, but a little sugar allows the flavor to come through, he said. It’s a more open plant than Charm, making it easy to pick.

Both cultivars appear to be ones that will hold up longer in the field, providing three years of harvest compared to two years or even one for Tillamook, Totem or Hood strawberries, Finn said.

Another relatively new cultivar, Mary’s Peak, also is a June-bearing berry, with a big canopy and large fruit, he said.

Bringing new strawberry cultivars to commercial production is a slow motion process. Sweet Sunrise was selected in 2000 and Charm in 2001 from crosses made two years earlier in each case. Years of trials and testing are necessary, then the plants have to be reproduced in large numbers by commercial nurseries, which can slow down the process, Finn said. U.S. plant patent applications are pending on both.

Beyond size, flavor and plant vigor, another key factor in strawberry production is the availability of labor. If berries ripen too early in the season, professional picking crews may not be on hand to harvest them, Finn said. If they are too late, crews may have moved on to blueberries, which are easier to pick.

Of Oregon’s strawberry production, roughly one-third goes into ice cream, one-third is sold fresh market, and perhaps one-third is flash frozen and bagged for store sale, Finn estimated.

Sweet Sunrise and Charm were developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in cooperation with the research and experiment arms of the ag schools at OSU and Washington State University. The field day presentation was at OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center near Aurora.

SALEM — A key group of lawmakers has approved a 16 percent fee hike for Oregon water rights transactions while a more controversial proposal has languished.

Fees for numerous water rights transactions administered by the Oregon Water Resources Department would collectively be raised by 15.88 percent under House Bill 2295, which averts the loss of 5.5 full-time staff dedicated to processing such requests.

“People would have to be laid off and transactions would go through slower,” said Rachel Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

“You’ve got to have people at the department who can process those pieces of paper,” Snell said.

The bill is scheduled for a June 16 vote by the Joint Committee on Ways and Means after recently clearing its Natural Resources Subcommittee with a “do pass” recommendation, which bolsters its chances of approval by the full Legislature.

If HB 2295 does become effective, it would mark the third increase to water rights transactions fees since 2009, but if it fails, those fees would revert to 2009 levels.

The OWRD argues the latest hike is necessary due to rising salary, benefit and retirement expenses, and points out that it’s signficantly reduced backlogs of various transaction types in recent years.

The Oregon Farm Bureau does not oppose HB 2295 as long as there are no other new fee increases that would skew funding for water rights transactions more heavily toward irrigators, said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the organization.

Currently, the total cost of such transactions — which covers roughly 35 staff positions — is split evenly between the general fund and irrigator fees.

A proposal to impose a new $100 fee on all existing water rights in Oregon, House Bill 2706, is also before the Joint Ways and Means Committee but it hasn’t been referred to a subcommittee, which is generally a necessary first step toward passage.

While HB 2706 will technically stay alive through the end of the 2017 legislative session, it’s expected to go no further this year, said Snell of OWRC.

A weed control plan for the Azure Farms organic operation is up for discussion by the Sherman County Court June 21 in Moro, Ore.

The plan is under negotiation by Rod Asher, the county’s weed district supervisor, with brothers Nathan Stelzer and David Stelzer, the Azure Farms manager and CEO of Azure Standard, respectively.

Nathan Stelzer said he and the county are close to a weed control agreement but some details remain to be settled. Particularly, he wants the control options “totally spelled out” so the county weed officer doesn’t come on the property and spray.

“We both want the same end result,” he said. “We want to trust each other.”

Azure Farms could lose its organic certification for three years if it uses the sprays commonly used by conventional wheat farmers in the area.

Stelzer said mowing weeds is a method of “control,” for example. County officials and local farmers don’t believe mowing is sufficient.

However, County Commissioner Tom McCoy said the proposal is intended to let Azure Farms select any organic method it chooses to control weed seeds, rather than have the court dictate a method.

“We’ll have them commit to not allowing (weed) seeds to form,” he said. “Let them use any organic technique they want, but they’ve got to conform to the order.”

The pending agreement allows Sherman County weed district employees to monitor Azure’s fields. They may access the fields “by permission and appointment only” and must be accompanied by Azure Farms representatives.

If a weed patch is out of compliance, Azure will have seven days to take care of it. If nothing is done, Sherman County will take action, which could involve spraying.

Azure’s neighbors don’t want seeds from noxious weeds blowing on to their fields, and the pending agreement defines control to that effect. In windy Sherman County, weed seeds can set sail.

The proposed agreement says it may be an option to let some “B” type weeds go to seed when Azure Farms uses various biological controls. Other methods mentioned in previous discussions include deep tillage, over-fertilization, covering with landscape fabric to block light and water, and spraying with substances such as calcium, manganese or boron to make blooms wilt.

Some Sherman County farmers believe Azure Farms should simply spray with an herbicide such as Milestone and endure the loss of organic certification for three years. The farm could then start over with clean fields, the conventional farmers argue.

Farmers, especially those who grow certified seed, are most concerned about Rush Skeleton weed, Canada Thistle, White Top, Knapweed and Morning Glory.

The organic farm’s weed problems have been a local issue since 2006, but came to a head this spring when the county warned it would ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the 1,922-acre farm if it didn’t control rampant noxious weeds that neighboring wheat farmers said were spreading onto their ground. County officials warned they would spray herbicide and bill the farm for the work if the problem was not dealt with.

The uproar that followed jolted the county. Azure Standard, based in Dufur, Ore., and a major distributor of organic products, ignited a social media campaign that flooded county officials with telephone messages and an estimated 59,000 emails from around the world. Critics accused the county of planning to “poison” an organic farm with dangerous chemicals and of somehow doing the bidding of Monsanto. The company is the biggest bogeyman to activists but had no discernible role in Sherman County.

At a county court meeting in May, Sherman County residents let the brothers know they didn’t appreciate being attacked, accused and lied about by strangers with no first-hand knowledge about the issue. The Stelzers apologized, saying they didn’t intend to cause such a response and didn’t know it would spread so widely through social media.

McCoy, the county commissioner, read an additional response into the record when the court met June 7.

“None of the emails or calls that supported Azure Standard came from our constituents,” he said. “I care about Sherman County residents, not residents of Virginia or California who showed in their emails and calls that they were badly misinformed about the situation. The only thing your attack accomplished was to annoy us and make communication more difficult.”

PENDLETON, Ore. — Gusty winds made for a chilly Tuesday morning at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center north of Pendleton, where scientists with Oregon State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted their annual field day for local wheat growers.

The station, located on Tubbs Ranch Road, is home to both OSU and the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Field day provides an annual update of ongoing research projects to help farmers improve the quality of their crop and the bottom line of their business.

Participants rode in buses from one wavy wheat field to the next, where project leaders discussed their latest findings on experiments to battle weeds, plant diseases and soil degradation. Representatives of the National Association of Wheat Growers were also on hand to gather feedback on priorities for the 2018 Farm Bill.

Christina Hagerty, plant pathologist at the station, said this year was a perfect storm for stripe rust across the region, given early seeding of winter wheat followed by a cool, wet spring. Stripe rust is capable of cutting wheat yields by more than half if it goes untreated.

Hagerty passed around samples to show how to identify diseases such as stripe rust, eyespot and crown rot. While OSU has done a good job of developing disease-resistant wheat varieties, Hagerty said options are still lacking for soil-borne mosaic virus, which has been another major focus of her program.

“Our options for genetic resistance are pretty limited,” she said.

Bob Zemetra, a wheat breeder for OSU in Corvallis, said he began screening for soil-borne mosaic virus in 2008. The disease is especially on the rise around the Walla Walla Valley, and can cause severe stunting in plants.

“One of my goals is to release varieties that can fit in across the state, and in these micro-climates,” Zemetra said.

Other issues raised during field day included soil stratification, where the nutrient and pH levels are uneven in the soil profile. Don Wysocki, a soil scientist with OSU Extension Service, said that problem is “like a freight train coming down the line” for farmers.

One possible soil amendment is biochar, a charcoal-like substance made by roasting biomass such as woody debris at high temperatures and low oxygen. Biochar has already been proven to instantly increase organic matter and soil pH in tests conducted at the research station.

Stephen Machado, agronomist for OSU, reviewed his data from early experiments and said he is now looking into how long the residual effects of biochar may last.

“If it does last, I think this is going to be a great thing for farmers,” Machado said.

When he started his project, Machado said biochar cost a whopping $1 per pound. The price has since dropped to 5-10 cents per pound, and he anticipates market demand could make biochar a cost-effective solution in the future.

Later during the lunch break, David Schemm and Chandler Goule with the National Association of Wheat Growers outlined the industry goals for the next farm bill and agriculture appropriations for fiscal year 2018. Schemm, the association’s president, emphasized the importance of crop insurance moving forward.

“It’s a key component to a good risk management program,” said Schemm, a farmer from western Kansas. “It’s about ensuring your program will be there the next year.

Schemm said the association opposes the proposal in President Donald Trump’s budget that calls for a $40,000 hard cap on crop insurance subsidies, which could prevent some larger and mid-size farms from insuring their entire acreages.

“This is something that cannot work,” Schemm said.

As the Trump administration announced its intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the wheat industry is also urging the government not to harm its trade relationships with Canada and Mexico. Exports to Mexico have been especially strong under NAFTA, increasing by as much as 400 percent, according to the association.

A second field day will be held Wednesday at the OSU Sherman County station in Moro.

MOXEE, Wash. — Washington, Oregon and Idaho are forecast to set another record in hop acreage, but it might be the last in a while because hop inventory reports have indicated supply is catching demand.

Hop area strung for harvest in the three states this year is estimated at 54,135 acres, 6 percent more than the 2016 crop of 50,857 acres, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

With 38,921 acres, Washington accounts for 72 percent of the U.S. acreage. Oregon, with 8,045 acres, is 15 percent of the acreage, and Idaho, with 7,169, is 13 percent of the estimate, NASS said.

Idaho had the largest increase at 27 percent, and growers there have been thinking they might overtake Oregon this year.

Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Simcoe and Zeus are the top five hop varieties strung.

In March, U.S. hop stocks were up over the previous March for the second straight year. Growers, dealers and brewers had 140 million pounds on hand March 1 compared to 128 million pounds a year earlier.

That showed the line had been crossed from undersupply to oversupply, industry sources said.

Ann George, executive director of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission in Moxee, said some varieties will have substantial carryover while a few specialty varieties may remain undersupplied.

For years the expansion of small, craft breweries has fueled the need for more aroma hop varieties. Not only has acreage caught up with their needs but big brewers are losing market share worldwide because of increased competition from other beverages, she said.

Prices will remain strong in 2017 but will start to drop in 2018 and probably more dramatically in 2019, Pete Mahony, director of supply chain management and purchasing for John I. Haas, a major processor and grower in Yakima, has said.

Acreage increased 17 percent last year, he said.

LAKESIDE -- A sign in the DVD section states the usual for visitors to the Lakeside Library.

A forestland owner is challenging a prohibition against aerial pesticide spraying in Oregon’s Lincoln County that was recently approved by voters.

Rex Capri has filed a complaint against the county seeking to overturn the ordinance because it’s pre-empted by state laws and violates the Oregon Constitution.

Lincoln County will respond to the lawsuit but it’s still reviewing whether to actively defend the ban, said Bill Hall, a county commissioner.

However, the county does agree with Capri that an injunction should be issued against a provision in the ordinance allowing “direct action” against aerial spraying, Hall said.

The ballot initiative, narrowly approved with 50.2 percent of the vote during a May 16 special election, allows citizens to enforce the law through “direct action” if the county government or court fail to uphold the ordinance.

The provision would free “direct action” enforcers from facing criminal or civil liability for their activities.

Due to the possibility that “direct action” may result in property damage or physical violence, the county believes the provision should be blocked, Hall said.

Proponents of the ordinance claim the concerns over “direct action” vigilantism are overblown.

The provision would only become effective once it becomes clear the county government and courts won’t enforce the ordinance, which would not take place immediately, said Kai Huschke, Northwest organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which helped local supporters draft the measure.

It’s unlikely the extreme scenarios envisioned by the initiative’s opponents would ever transpire, he said. “You can create fear out of anything if you want.”

Lincoln County’s commissioners opposed the ballot initiative so it would be unsurprising if they decided against defending the ordinance, Huschke said.

The CELDF has proposed representing local ordinance supporters as intervenors in the case without charge, but proponents have yet to accept that offer, he said.

Although Oregon law pre-empts local restrictions on pesticide usage, Huschke said the policy undermines constitutional protections for citizens.

“The courts have gotten it wrong,” he said.

While it’s clear that ordinances such as Lincoln County’s are pre-empted, a court challenge is still necessary — particularly in light of the “direct action” provision that could lead to vandalism, said Scott Dahlman, policy director for the Oregonians for Food and Shelter agribusiness group.

“That’s very risky for an applicator,” Dahlman said.

Opponents of the ballot initiative argued that existing regulations disallow pesticide drift and impose other restrictions on aerial spraying, while the ordinance would effectively let people take the law into their own hands.

Dahlman characterized CELDF as a “fairly radical group” that believes all decisions should be made at the local level.

The group initially advocated against “fracking” — a method of oil extraction — but has more recently turned its attention to opposing pesticide use in the Northwest, he said.

“I can only assume it’s because they think it’s a fertile ground for their agenda,” Dahlman said. “I can’t say they’re the entire genesis, but they’re a very active part of it.”

Huschke said CELDF assists local organizers when they reach out for assistance.

“We don’t look at a map and decide we’re going to be somewhere,” he said.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendation Monday to reduce a vast national monument in Utah is part of a review ordered by President Donald Trump of 27 national monuments established or expanded by three other presidents since 1996.

His recommendation on the other monuments is due in late August. The Bears Ears National Monument was given priority in the review, which is why Zinke issued his interim report earlier than the others. A list of the monuments, their location and year of their creation and expanded, as released by the Interior Department:

———

Basin and Range National Monument, Nevada, 2015.

Bears Ears National Monument, Utah, 2016.

Berryessa Snow Mountain, California, 2015.

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado, 2000

Carrizo Plain National Monument, California, 2001.

Cascade Siskiyou, Oregon, established 2000, expanded 2017.

Craters of the Moon, Idaho, established 1924, expanded 2000

Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, 2000.

Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada, 2016.

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Arizona, 2000.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, 1996.

Hanford Reach National Monument, Washington, 2000.

Ironwood Forest National Monument, Arizona, 2000.

Katahdin Wood and Waters, Maine, 2016

Mojave Trails National Monument, California, 2016.

Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico, 2014.

Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, New Mexico, 2013

Sand to Snow National Monument, California, 2016.

San Gabriel Mountains, California, 2014

Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona, 2001.

Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Montana, 2001.

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona, 2000.

———

MARINE MONUMENTS

Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, Pacific Ocean, 2009.

Northeast Canyons & Seamounts Marine National Monument, off the coast of New England, 2016.

Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, Pacific Ocean, established 2009, expanded 2014.

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Pacific Ocean, established 2006, expanded 2016.

Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, Pacific Ocean, 2009.

Source: Interior Department

Tuesdays

ENTERPRISE, Ore. — The owners of a 12,000-acre ranch on northeastern Oregon’s prime bunch grass prairie signed an agreement this spring relinquishing specific development rights into perpetuity while retaining the ability to raise livestock.

The Probert family, with Dan and Suzy Probert as managers of Lightning Creek Ranch, gave up their rights to wind, mineral and housing development as well as tilled agriculture across their entire Zumwalt Prairie ranch in exchange for $2.6 million, making it the largest conservation easement completed by The Nature Conservancy in Oregon.

Dan Probert, whose family moved to Wallowa County in 1967, said he was running his Malheur County ranch when, at the urging of friends, he looked into buying Zumwalt Prairie ranch land. The price was high, so Probert said he started conversations with Nature Conservancy staff about entering into a conservation easement.

“We couldn’t have swung the land purchase without it,” Probert said.

The Nature Conservancy has long had a vested interest in the prairie. In the 2000s it bought 33,000 acres, now known at the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve — a multi-use land leased for cattle grazing, hunting and hiking as well as research. When the 38,000-acre Buckhorn Ranch on the prairie came up for sale, the organization looked into buying it, too.

“They were interested in the prairie because it’s so well taken care of,” Probert said.

Eventually the Buckhorn Ranch was sold off in several large chunks and the Proberts bought approximately one-third in 2014. Knowing it would take a few years to complete the easement, Probert said they secured a bridge loan in order to purchase the ranch while they worked out the details of the agreement.

“That’s where I think Dan was really savvy,” Jeff Fields, Nature Conservancy’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve manager, said. “The property rights that he didn’t want could be turned into a cash payment allowing him to buy the ranch and manage it for agriculture.”

The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service contributed half the price of the easement. Other contributors were Climate Trust, Doris Duke Charitable Trust, The Nature Conservancy and the Proberts donated back a portion of the appraised value.

Because the land was already in farm deferral, Probert said, the tax revenue to the county remained the same.

While the Lightning Creek Ranch gave up a list of rights, it retained flexibility within its management plan designed with neighboring ranchers and The Nature Conservancy. It will be reviewed annually, Probert said, with a major look every five years.

“We knew this easement needed to do two things; be a viable livelihood for the Proberts and have real conservation benefits for all the species that use the prairie,” Fields said.

While the management plan is outcome based, Probert said it doesn’t talk about cattle numbers or about specific tools such as prescribed fire or grazing.

“It’s based on the results we want to see on the landscape, in the riparian areas or the uplands, that’s what we manage to, not by cattle number and time of year,” Probert said.

The ranch will be subdivided into pastures for intensive, 10-day grazing with 13 months recovery.

“One of the unexpected benefits to me for having an easement with Proberts is enriching our understanding of the things we might try and study and learn,” Fields said.

Three and a half years in the making, Probert said, it was important to take the time to work through the details before completing the deal.

“We just thought it was critical we got it right. Time will tell, but we think it can be a tool other landowners on the prairie can use to pass land on to the next generation or help the one before it retire,” Probert said.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Spirits were high at the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association spring quarterly meeting in Pendleton at the beginning of June with hope of rising beef prices and improved trade agreements.

The meeting, held May 31-June 2 at the Wild Horse Casino, had twice the attendance as the Cattlemen’s spring quarterly meeting in Sunriver, said Jerome Rosa, Cattlemen’s executive director, with about 150 in attendance.

“Everyone was really happy with the discussions and the positive tone,” Rosa said.

Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association spoke Thursday night about favorable developments on the federal level.

Rosa said, “There is great optimism going on in D.C. for the cattle industry.”

Much of that optimism centered on trade negotiations the Trump administration began with China in May that could benefit the U.S. cattle industry by opening up a market closed since 2003.

Another rallying point for the cattlemen was the culmination of lengthy conversations surrounding a proposal to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for not completing its environmental assessment to remove endangered species protection of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states. Before the meeting ended a vote was taken to proceed with litigation, Rosa said.

This winter and spring’s precipitation was a boon to Oregon cattlemen, another reason Rosa credited for the meeting’s upbeat tone.

“We’ve had a really good water year, the grass is green and there is a lot of feed out there.”

Hosting the meeting on the east side of the Cascades gave the Cattlemen an opportunity to introduce Alexis Taylor, the recently appointed director of Oregon Department of Agriculture, to the divergent terrain and climate of Eastern Oregon. After she spoke to the Cattlemen Wednesday night, Curtis Martin, a Baker County rancher and chair of the cattlemen’s water resources committee chairman, took Taylor and two of her staff members on a tour of eastern Oregon that included visiting irrigation reservoirs, a solar powered trough system and pressurized pipelines that run without electricity.

Martin said, “We wanted to show her all the complexities of how we manage water on the east side of the state.”

Martin said he showed Taylor and her staff examples of rotational grazing and how cattlemen are taking a holistic approach to sage steppe ecosystem management — such as enhancing the wetter areas of the desert where vegetation stays green longer than the rest of the range to improve sage grouse habitat.

“We wanted her to come and see how different this side of Oregon is, walk the ground and see the natural resource we manage to make ourselves economically viable and sustainable,” Martin said.

One of the wildlife topics discussed at the cattlemen’s meeting that affecting producers around the state is crops and haystack damage caused by deer and elk. Bill Moore lives in southern Baker County and represents the cattlemen in wildlife stakeholder meetings.

Moore said, “We’ve had collaborative meetings with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Hunters Association and we are just a long ways apart.”

He said the hunters want more hunting access on private land while the ranchers endure loss to cattle feed and forage due to burgeoning deer and elk management objective numbers. Moore said when the agriculture community turns to Fish and Wildlife for help they get fencing for haystacks, but not assistance for crops that are growing.

“It’s pretty frustrating,” Moore said. “They want us to provide habitat and feed and they want more and more numbers, but they don’t want to help with any of the problems.”

Moore said he believes some of the conflict stems from the imbalance of management between public and private land.

“One of the things we talked about was getting some active management on the national forest to help hold the elk,” Moore said. “Elk don’t like old, wolfy grass anymore than a cow, they like fresh tender re-growth.”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14

BOARDMAN, Ore. — The owner of a controversial new mega-dairy in Morrow County says his farming practices go above and beyond what’s required to protect the environment, and efforts to halt his operation would cause “tragic” injuries to the cows already on site.

Greg te Velde, a California dairyman with more than 40 years of experience, recently opened Lost Valley Farm on a portion of the former Boardman Tree Farm following an extensive permitting process.

Lost Valley Farm was approved in March by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality, which jointly administer the state’s confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, program. Officials described the permit as the most restrictive of any CAFO to date, ensuring the dairy would properly handle waste from up to 30,000 cows.

Opponents, however, are urging regulators to change their minds. A coalition of groups has filed a petition for reconsideration, arguing the dairy does not go far enough to protect water quality. The petition also asks for a stay of Lost Valley’s CAFO permit.

Members of the coalition include the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Columbia Riverkeeper, Food & Water Watch, Friends of Family Farmers, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Humane Oregon and Oregon Rural Action.

In response, te Velde said the permit “reflects the toughest and most stringent environmental safety standards applicable to a dairy in Oregon.” Lost Valley is required to install 11 groundwater monitoring wells, which is seven more than usual, and will be subject to a minimum of three annual inspections, versus one every 10 months.

Beyond state and federal regulations, te Velde said the dairy feeds its cows “a unique blend of food that includes high-quality starch and additives” to lower emissions, and has built a state-of-the-art lagoon system that rotates water and reduces ammonia emissions.

“I believe that a well-run dairy not only provides for contented cows and produces quality milk, but also proactively implements environmental emissions,” te Velde wrote in a declaration filed June 4 with ODA and DEQ.

For the past 15 years, te Velde has operated his dairy in Oregon on land leased from nearby Threemile Canyon Farms. He decided to relocate in order to expand and increase the amount of milk he sells to Tillamook Cheese, which runs a cheese-making plant at the Port of Morrow.

Lost Valley currently has 17,500 animals, including 8,500 milking cows. The dairy plans to build up to its full 30,000 herd over the next three years. It took several weeks and cost more than $200,000 to get the cows moved, te Velde said, and the idea of staying his permit is causing him to worry.

For starters, te Velde said dairy cows need to be milked twice a day or they will be in pain. Since he does not have anywhere else to go with the animals, te Velde said a stay means he would have to find another dairy to take on the cows, or else they would need to be sold for slaughter.

“In addition, even if any milking cows could be sold, the stress of transferring them to yet another new environment would take its toll, and I would anticipate a significant mortality rate,” te Velde said.

Te Velde said he has invested roughly $100 million into his Oregon dairy business, and leveraged his dairy operations in California to support Lost Valley. If the permit is pulled, he said he would likely face foreclosure.

“The ripple effects of a stay would be significant and devastating,” he said.

Along with his own declaration, te Velde included letters from the Morrow County Board of Commissioners and United Farm Workers, both of which expressed support for the dairy. At full buildout, the dairy is expected to employ somewhere between 125 and 150 people.

Wym Matthews, CAFO program manager for the Department of Agriculture, said the agencies are reviewing the matter and should have a decision about the coalition’s request to stay the permit by the end of the month.

The largest trade mission to visit Oregon — a 25-member team from China — will stop in Portland June 21-22 to check out specialty food, snack products and wine, craft beer and hard cider.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is hosting the group, which will stop on their way back from the annual Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City. It is the Chinese group’s only other stop in the U.S., and the ag department encourages specialty food and beverage producers to make themselves available. Vendors would typically set up a booth, offer samples and provide information. Interpreters are available.

The Chinese buyers are especially interested in healthy snacks such as dried fruit and nuts, said Theresa Yoshioka, an ODA trade development manager.

Healthy snacks are served to guests and are “very, very popular in China,” Yoshioka said.

The country’s expanding middle class provides a market opportunity for Oregon producers, and the state’s reputation for high-quality food and drink products is an advantage, she said.

Chinese consumers in some regions are developing a taste for fine wine, and Yoshioka said she’s been to craft beer pubs in Beijing. With both parents in a household increasingly working and having less time to prepare meals, Chinese families also have a need for convenience foods, Yoshioka said.

The trade mission team is made up of people with the authority to buy products, she said. Oregon producers interested in selling to China may have to scale up production, however, and that’s a jump for some, she said.

Oregon has innovative snack producers, for example, who are making premium products, but are still quite small, Yoshioka said.

“You need to be big enough to have an established co-packer (an existing manufacturing company that may produce items under private label) or have your own facility,” she said. “You need to be at that level to ship to China.”

But she encouraged even small producers to visit with trade mission groups to learn what they’re looking for. “It’s a good market testing opportunity and a chance to get in front of a buyer,” Yoshioka said.

Vendors interested in the Portland event should contact Yelena Nowak, also a department trade official, at ynowak@oda.state.or.us.

Another Chinese trade mission, this time an all-woman team involved in the seafood industry, will visit Astoria and Newport on the Oregon Coast June 26-30.

Buyers from South Korea and Mexico will visit in July; Taiwan teams arrive in August and September; and two more Chinese trade groups will visit in August and October, according to ODA.

China is Oregon agriculture’s fourth largest export market, behind Japan, Canada and South Korea. A minimum of $240 million worth of Oregon ag products is shipped to China annually. The figure is incomplete because it counts only products shipped directly from Oregon ports. In some cases, Oregon goods are shipped from ports in Washington or California, Yoshioka said.

NYSSA, Ore. (AP) — Third-generation farmer Shay Myers thought his onion-packing sheds would be OK through last winter, even as other Malheur County buildings were collapsing under the weight of epic, heavy snow.

The Owyhee Produce buildings were relatively new construction. Myers believed they’d hold even as 3 feet and then nearly 4 feet of snow piled on top of the metal roofs.

He was wrong, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

Owyhee Produce is a family-owned farm operation that specializes in packing onions and asparagus and one of several onion-packing facilities in the small farming town of Nyssa, Oregon.

Nyssa (population 3,000) is in the heart of eastern Oregon onion country, where the locally grown crop is cleaned and packed after spending the winter in tall, airy sheds.

On Jan. 18, the snow came down thick and fast. Shortly before noon, one of Myers’ employees checked the sheds to make sure none were bowing under the weight. At the time, everything looked fine. But soon, an employee came running into Myers’ office, interrupting a family board meeting.

“Shed two collapsed!” she shouted.

Myers and his family rushed outside. A huge portion of the shed was reduced to a pile of wood and metal debris. Thousands of onions spilled out into the snow. That was the first of four buildings Owyhee Produce would lose to the snow.

Reconstruction: Idaho Or Oregon?

This spring, the quiet agricultural community of Nyssa showed few lingering signs of the traumatic winter that damaged or destroyed at least 60 buildings here.

A pile of rubble still needed to be cleared off Main Street — the remains of a local dance studio. A few blocks away, several houses still had plastic tarps stretched over gaping holes in roofs. On the edge of town, a tall metal farm silo had buckled under the snow; it looked like an empty soda can that’s been squeezed at the middle.

But the community was moving forward. Fresh onion starts, the king crop in this part of eastern Oregon, spread lush and green over miles and miles of fields that surround the town.

“This is a resilient, close-knit community,” said Jim Maret, Nyssa’s city manager. “We came together tremendously during the snow storm, and we’re moving forward.”

Owyhee Produce was one of five major onion packing sheds that saw huge losses from winter damage. Myers is one of the lucky ones — his insurance coverage included snow damage, and the cost to rebuild will be covered.

FEMA Rejects Oregon’s Request To Assist Rural Counties Slammed By Winter Storms

But the destruction forced the question of where to rebuild. Ultimately, Myers decided to make the move from Oregon to Idaho. At least one other packing shed and a number of other eastern Oregon businesses are also moving across the border. Their reasons vary business by business, but many cite the increasing cost of doing business in Oregon.

“When somebody has to invest half a million to a million in business, they start going through the details of ‘Well, will this cost my business in the long run?’” said Kit Kamo, executive director of the Snake River Economic Development Alliance.

Myers decided to rebuild his sheds just across the border into Idaho, just a three-minute drive from his Oregon location. The 1-mile move will ultimately add up to huge savings for his business.

“We’re competing with packing facilities and operators that are in Idaho that have a federal minimum wage,” Myers said.

Even though many agricultural businesses in Idaho pay more than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, it’s typically still less than Oregon’s current $9.25 minimum wage, Myers said. Last year, the Oregon Legislature voted to raise that wage to $12.50 in five years for rural communities such as Malheur County.

“When you add that much more to the labor costs, you’re unable to compete with either your neighbor states or with the imports coming from other countries,” Myers said.

Myers said that most of his workers have been with Owyhee Produce for years, and many earn even more than Oregon’s minimum wage. But when he hires someone new, they often start at the bottom. His current workforce will come with him across the border into Idaho.

Small Businesses Wary Of Oregon’s Increased Minimum Wage

“I have no plan on changing their wages,” he said. “I don’t think it’s fair for me to bring an employee across and cut their pay.”

But as the legal minimum wage continues to increase in Oregon over the next few years, he won’t be required to give employee raises at his new location in Idaho. He also won’t be subject to Oregon’s new paid sick-leave law, which mandates employers to provide certain workers with paid days off when they’re ill.

Another bill on the horizon this session in Oregon — one that would require employers to give workers advance notice of scheduling changes — also made Myers nervous. Advocates for the measure say it gives workers a reprieve from the stressful uncertainty of sudden scheduling changes, where they might have to scramble for child care.

In the farming business, sometimes employers have to make unforeseen adjustments to the work tempo.

“Equipment breaks,” Myers said. “We get rain or cold temperatures. There are events like that that are out of our control as an employer.”

Advocates for increasing the minimum wage, the sick leave law and the proposed employee scheduling law say that these protections are vital for low-income workers in a state where housing, day care and other costs are on the rise. Myers said he gets that. But in farming, profit margins are tight.

“An onion goes to the grocery store, we’ll make somewhere between 5 and 8 percent range on that,” he said. “All the margin is on the retail level.”

Kamo noted that the Oregon-versus-Idaho business realities are about more than labor costs. Utilities often cost more in Oregon because of state standards for renewable energy and drinking water.

“There are a lot of little small differences that we’re running across,” she said. “Maybe it would be the cost of permitting in one state versus the other.”

Permits in Oregon tend to cost more, and the process can take longer.

Land Owners, Oregon Want Very Different Things Within Bend’s Borders

But Kamo also pointed to several benefits of doing business in Oregon. As challenging as the urban growth boundary rule can be for small towns trying to attract new industry, the law does provide safeguards for Oregon’s farmland. And the state offers a number of economic incentives for businesses.

Snake River Produce, another onion shed in Nyssa, is hoping to take advantage of some of those incentives. They’re staying in Oregon after six of their buildings collapsed.

“We have applied to be within an enterprise zone, which will allow us to take advantage of not having to pay property taxes for a few years,” said Tiffany Cruickshank, the company’s transportation manager. “We’re also applying for refundable loans through Business Oregon.”

Maret, Nyssa’s city manager, says he appreciates how Oregon regulates the health and safety of its citizens.

“I think it’s a safer state,” he said. “I think we have a better quality of life over here.”

In rural Oregon, the relocation of a business with 20 or 30 jobs is a huge blow to small communities. Kit Kamo equates the loss a 30-worker agricultural processing facility in Nyssa to the closure of a manufacturing plant with 1,000 jobs in Portland.

“It puts a big hole in the tax structure and the tax base of that county,” Kamo said.

Relocation Or Automation

Myers warned lawmakers about the potential effect of the minimum wage increase in 2016, before the bill passed the Oregon Legislature.

“There were really two options,” he said. “We could relocate or we could automate.”

And automation means fewer employees and more robots. That’s what his business did with another arm of Owyhee Produce, an asparagus processing plant in Fruitland, Idaho. When Myers upgraded equipment at the plant last year, the work of robots cut his workforce in half.

Now, workers sort asparagus along a processing line that runs the length of the building. Robot cameras take hundreds of photos of each stalk of asparagus so the machine can sort by size and quality. The sorted asparagus is bunched together and wrapped in a rubber band by a robot claw. All of that work used to be done by human workers.

Myers looks back on his family’s decision to situate this plant in Idaho positively. Investments in new equipment can take years to pay off. And he doesn’t see Idaho making rule changes that could change the outlook for his bottom line.

Snake River Produce, the Nyssa facility that lost six buildings, is adding automation to its production process as it rebuilds, although the company has no plans to reduce its workforce. For their company, it made more sense to stay in Oregon.

“Our facilities are in Oregon, and the majority of our ownership is based in Oregon,” Cruickshank said. “With the short time frame it wasn’t very feasible for us to go looking for land in Idaho. We felt like we needed to move forward quickly with the upcoming onion season upon us.”

A New Start In Idaho

A bill before the Oregon Legislature would address some of the challenges for eastern Oregon’s border towns. House Bill 2012, cosponsored by House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, and Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, would use state lottery dollars to fund economic development in the region for communities within 20 miles of the Idaho border.

“Basically it would give us opportunities to encourage businesses to stay in Oregon and expand,” Kamo said.

But even if HB 2012 passes, it will come too late to help Shay Myers.

At the construction site of the future Owyhee Produce sheds, workers recently poured the cement foundations for the new packing sheds. The site sits on a wide, dusty hill overlooking the Snake River and downtown Nyssa, just footsteps away.

For Myers, the decision to leave his hometown — and the community where his grandfather started the business — was not easy. His family has argued back and forth about the move for years.

“We wanted to support our community, we wanted to be in our hometown,” Myers said.

He felt conflicted about the idea of moving to Idaho until he spoke in front of the Legislature about the minimum wage increase.

“I testified and really pled and poured my heart out about what the net result was going to be, and for the most part was ignored,” Myers said.

Had it not been for the roof collapses, Owyhee Produce might still have made the move from Nyssa to Idaho, but maybe not for another four or five years.

“We had already been headed down that path,” Myers said. “This just very quickly made the decision for us.”

HERMISTON, Ore. — In all his years ranching, Terry Anderson had never received a phone call like the one he got Jan. 15, 2016.

Anderson, who runs Anderson Land & Livestock with his wife, Debby, was tipped off by one of their employees that something was seriously wrong at the winter pasture along Feedville Road near Stanfield. Not only had one of the cows been killed, but body parts were strewn all over the scene.

“The kid was just in complete shock,” Anderson remembers. “It’s more than emotional. Those cattle are family to us.”

What happened was two men — Anthony Haigh of Stanfield and T.J. Kestler of Hermiston — sneaked onto the property the previous night, shot the heifer dead and attempted to butcher the animal right there in the field. Though the cow was skinned out completely, Anderson said most of the meat was left to waste. He suspects the rest of the herd may have spooked Haigh and Kestler to flee before they could finish.

There were 160 cow-calf pairs in the pasture, which were part of a synchronized breeding program, Anderson said. His ranch, which is based outside of Pilot Rock, is a “seedstock” operation, meaning they breed and sell bulls for other producers to build their herds.

Based on the evidence, Anderson said it was clear to him that Haigh and Kestler knew exactly what they were doing.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” Anderson said, shaking his head. “I just can’t imagine someone going out there and doing that.”

Haigh and Kestler, then 21 and 20 years old, were arrested just four days later. They each pleaded guilty to first-degree theft earlier this year. Haigh was sentenced to six months in prison, while Kestler received 24 months probation and 100 hours of community service. Both men were also ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution.

The convictions might not have come without the help of another Hermiston man who decided to alert the authorities.

Grant Woods, 21, was in the room when Haigh and Kestler arrived to visit a mutual friend the same night they killed the cow. The two spoke freely about the crime as they cleaned their gun, according to Woods. The motive was apparently to sell the meat for beer money.

After talking on the phone with his fiancé, Woods decided to call the police.

“It was just completely wrong,” Woods said. “This was about doing the right thing.”

Though Woods did not know at the time, both Anderson and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association were offering reward money for information leading to a conviction in the case. On June 9, Anderson finally met Woods face-to-face for the first time and presented him with a check for $5,000.

Another $1,000 was provided by the cattlemen’s association. Jerome Rosa, OCA executive director, said it is the first time in his three years on the job that they have actually paid the reward for cattle theft.

“OCA is more than willing to be a deterrent out there,” Rosa said.

Anderson said he and his wife appreciate what Woods did for them, and hope the incident will encourage more people to look out for each other in the community.

“Our society has created a mindset that if this type of activity doesn’t affect you directly, there is no need to get involved,” Anderson said. “Thankfully, there are individuals that are still guided by doing the right thing.”