NYSSA, Ore. — The Idaho-Oregon onion industry has managed to dispose of virtually all of the estimated 100 million pounds of onions that were lost this winter when dozens of sheds collapsed under the weight of unprecedented snow and ice.

Both states extended their deadlines for disposal of cull onions from March 15 to April 15 this year and most of the onions were properly disposed of before that date, officials in both states said.

With the deadline looming last week and a lot of onions still not disposed of, the state of Oregon gave the Lytle Boulevard landfill in Malheur County emergency permission to build another trench to handle the onslaught of culls.

“They significantly ramped up (the amount of onions they were taking) and pretty much everything is disposed of at this point,” Lindsay Eng, director of certification programs for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said April 20.

The onion maggot, which is frequently found in piles of cull onions, can devastate onion and other vegetable crops. Both states require culls to be properly disposed of by March 15 so they don’t spread to the new crop.

Cull onions can be disposed of in landfills or pits, by discing or plowing them into a field, feeding them to livestock or by chopping or shredding and cultivating them into fields.

The states’ cull onion rules affect growers and packing sheds in Malheur County, Ore., and Ada, Canyon, Gem, Payette, Owyhee and Washington counties in Idaho.

If weather delays disposal, cull onions must be treated with an Environmental Protection Agency-labeled insecticide.

Disposing of 100 million pounds of onions was no easy task, said Casey Prentiss, an ODA field operations manager in Ontario who worked closely with the industry.

“It’s kind of a minor miracle that we were able to get that amount of onions disposed of,” he said. “It’s been quite a feat.”

Across the border, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture has investigators in the field following up with growers and processors to ensure they have properly disposed of their culls, ISDA Communications Director Chanel Tewalt told Capital Press in an email.

“Given the extreme weather this winter, it was important to provide additional time for onion disposal but that flexibility has to be balanced with the recognition that mitigating pest hatches is a significant concern,” she said. “We are working in concert with industry to balance the need for disposal with their ability to dispose of culls due to weather conditions.”

Violators can be fined up to $10,000 but the ISDA’s goal is to work with the industry to address the issue and avoid an onion maggot outbreak, Tewalt said.

“Idaho agriculture has had a very difficult winter and we are looking for mutually agreeable solutions and compliance with the cull onion rule,” she said. “However, enforcement options are available if needed.”

Saturdays

COOS COUNTY — Oregon State University has announced students who have earned honors for winter term 2017. To be included on the honor roll list, students must have carried at least 12 graded hours of course work.

COOS COUNTY — Oregon State University has announced students who have earned honors for winter term 2017. To be included on the honor roll list, students must have carried at least 12 graded hours of course work.

ALBANY, Ore. — The State of Oregon has conceded that a class action lawsuit seeking $1.4 billion for insufficient timber harvests isn’t blocked by the statute of limitations.

The state government has also dropped its argument that county governments and local taxing districts don’t have legal standing to sue Oregon for alleged breach of contract.

Last year, Linn County filed a lawsuit accusing Oregon of violating contracts with 15 counties by reducing logging on about 650,000 acres of forestland the counties had donated to the state.

The lawsuit was certified as a class action by Linn County Circuit Judge Daniel Murphy, which means the 15 counties and roughly 150 taxing districts, such as schools and fire departments, were joined as plaintiffs in the case.

Since then, Clatsop County’s government and Clatsop County Community College have opted out of the lawsuit while other taxing districts within Clatsop County have not.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had asked the judge to eliminate 12 “affirmative defenses” intended to shield the State of Oregon from the class action lawsuit.

During oral arguments on April 20, Oregon’s attorneys agreed to drop several of these defenses, including the expiration of statute of limitations, the plaintiffs’ lack of legal standing and the court’s lack of jurisdiction over the case.

However, Oregon’s attorneys also argued for the validity of remaining defenses, such as the claim that the federal Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act preclude the level of logging sought by the plaintiffs.

Counties turned over the forestlands in the early 20th Century in return for a share of timber revenues, but plaintiffs claim Oregon has curtailed logging due to environmental and recreational considerations.

Even if the Oregon’s contract with the counties did require timber revenues to be maximized, that’s no longer possible because federal laws effectively impose limits on logging, said Scott Kaplan, attorney for the state.

“That purpose, if there was such a purpose, can’t be satisfied,” he said.

This defense isn’t valid because the lawsuit only seeks to recover damages for lost revenues from lawfully harvested timber, argued John DiLorenzo, attorney for the plaintiffs.

Oregon’s reduction in timber harvest goes beyond what’s required by federal law, he said. “Honoring federal requirements is built into the calculation of damages.”

Oregon’s “greatest permanent value” rule for managing state forests, enacted in 1998, is blamed by plaintiffs for causing the harvest reductions.

Attorneys for the state government say the “greatest permanent value” rule conforms with Oregon law and the Oregon Department of Forestry is complying with the rule, which is a valid defense to the breach of contract claim.

DiLorenzo said the plaintiffs agree that ODF is following the rule, but they simply want to recover damages resulting from that compliance.

“We’re not seeking to void the rules,” he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal court has killed a large wind energy project in Oregon over concerns about a declining sage grouse population that needs the area to breed.

The U.S. District Court in Portland vacated plans for the project Tuesday, bringing an end to lengthy litigation over the proposal by Columbia Energy Partners.

The project proposal was for wind energy development on roughly 10,500 acres of private land in Harney County near Steens Mountain.

The project called for 40 to 69 wind turbines and a 230-kilovolt transmission line to bring the energy to the electrical grid.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management had approved the project, and Harney County granted a key permit.

But environmental groups, including the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Audubon Society of Portland, challenged the BLM’s environmental review of the project. It needed the environmental review partly because the transmission line’s right of way would cross public lands.

The groups said the BLM did not conduct surveys to determine how many sage grouse wintered in the area — and last year, an appeals court sided with opponents.

That ruling set the stage for this week’s action by the court, which vacated the Secretary of the Interior’s approval of the large wind project.

Greater sage grouse need sagebrush year-round for mating, nesting and rearing their broods. They also eat pretty much only sagebrush through the winter. Loss of sagebrush habitat has contributed to sage grouse population decline in Oregon.

Columbia Energy Partners did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment Wednesday. A number listed for their Vancouver, Washington office rang busy.

“Steens Mountain never should have been considered for industrial wind development,” said Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland. “We strongly support the transition to renewable energy sources but it needs to be done in a responsible manner.”

A trip to the Eastern Oregon this spring gave two Portland school kids a rare glimpse into raising livestock in the county where half of the state’s wolf population live.

On April 7, their first full day of the 4-H Urban Rural Exchange in Wallowa, County Sylvia Grosveld and Abby Darr of Sunnyside Environmental School accompanied their host to a remote ranch on the upper Imnaha River, well known wolf country for almost 10 years. There they watched as an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist determined a calf had been killed by the recently named Harl Butte Pack.

Todd and Angie Nash live and ranch in Wallowa County and have hosted Sunnyside students six of the last 10 years. In 2012 a student staying with the Nashes helped mark the ears of newborn calves and wrote her name on one of ear tags. In the fall that tag helped identify a calf killed by wolves.

Todd Nash manages the Marr Flat Cattle Ranch and has witnessed dozens of investigations - both of his own cattle and as the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association wolf committee chair. When he got word of the suspected wolf kill on the Imnaha he asked the girls if they wanted to go on an investigation of a dead cow and calf. They agreed, but weren’t sure how they would react.

“I thought I was going to take a look and bolt,” Grosveld said.

Neither girl bolted, though Darr said she got a little woozy. They watched as Pat Matthews, ODFW’s Enterprise field office biologist, skinned the calf, revealing bruising in what little remained of its head, front legs and rib cage.

Nash said he suspected the mother cow had been run to death so Matthews investigated her carcass, as well.

Grosveld said it didn’t appear wolves had fed on the cow, but it’s head was bloody and one eye socket had a broken orb. She and Darr watched as Matthews skinned the cow and pulled out her organs.

“When they rolled the guts out, the girls got inquisitive,” Nash said.

When the lungs and windpipe were removed they were half full of blood. Nash said the organs were sent to Washington State University to determine if there was any evidence to prove the cow had died from being chased.

Even though the investigation was on a ranch an hour outside Joseph, the nearest town with cell phone service and a gas station, the cow and calf were found dead only 250 yards from a ranch house.

“I was surprised that a wolf would attack that close to houses and people.” Darr said. “It’s different to see that in person than to hear about it.”

Before coming face to face with a wolf attack, Grosveld and Darr had only an academic exposure to wolves. Darr said the school had a guest speaker who told the students about how wolves benefit streambanks by thinning out elk herds that have over-browsed shrubs and aspen. The effect of wolves on livestock was also discussed, but it seemed abstract until the trip to the Imnaha ranch.

“When they were talking about it in class it didn’t seem like a real thing,” Darr said.

In 2016 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed 13 wolf-caused deaths and injuries in Wallowa County of the 24 total confirmed incidences in Oregon. Matthews said the newly named Harl Butte Pack is running in much of the same territory as the Imnaha Pack once did. Four of the pack’s members, including the alpha male and female and two yearlings, were killed by ODFW biologists in the spring of 2016 after repeated, confirmed livestock loss and injury. Since July, wolves running in the old Imnaha pack territory were blamed for four incidences of livestock loss or injury close to where the cow and calf were found dead on the Imnaha ranch earlier this month.

Oregon’s wolf management plan is up for public review as the ODFW Commission once again attempts to balance the restoration of an apex predator with the havoc they can cause in rural areas.

The commission will take comments on a draft conservation and management plan during an April 21 meeting in Klamath Falls, and will repeat the process May 19 in Portland. The commission eventually will adopt a five-year management plan; no date is set yet.

Russ Morgan, ODFW’s wolf program manager, said the draft management plan builds on what wildlife biologists have learned over the years. When the first management plan was adopted in 2005, there were no documented wolves in Oregon. The first pups were discovered in 2008, and by the end of 2011 there were 29 confirmed wolves in Oregon. The state documented 64 wolves at the end of 2013, and a minimum of 112 by the end of 2016, including 11 packs and eight breeding pairs.

Morgan said the plan couples state data with “tons of research” that’s been done on wolves in Oregon and elsewhere over the years.

“This plan still maintains a very active conservation approach, it doesn’t change in that regard,” Morgan said.

Oregon classifies wolves as a “special status game animal.” The draft plan allows ODFW to authorize hunters and trappers to kill wolves in two specific “controlled take” situations: Chronic livestock depredation in a localized area, and declines in wild ungulate populations, principally deer and elk. The draft plan does not allow a general hunting season, a prohibition that would hold for five years after the plan is adopted.

“I can’t predict what will happen to wolf management years and years out, but during this planning cycle, absolutely not,” Morgan said of a possible sport hunting season on wolves.

Livestock producers and wildlife activists don’t like aspects of the draft plan.

The Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association said it makes it harder for ranchers to protect their animals because it increases the number of confirmed attacks required before allowing lethal control of wolves.

The draft plan requires three confirmed depredations or one confirmed and four “probable” attacks within a 12 month period. The previous standard was two confirmed depredations or one confirmed and three attempted attacks, with no time period set.

The groups also believe ODFW should continue collaring wolves, and should set a population cap for wolves in Oregon. Without a benchmark, “we will not be able to tell when wolves have reached their natural carrying capacity” in the state, the Farm Bureau said in a statement.

Cattlemen also want local biologists to make the call on lethal control of wolves, not department administrators in Salem. Todd Nash, the association’s wolf policy chair, said ranchers’ views aren’t reflected in the draft plan.

“It doesn’t look like we were even in the room, and that’s really disappointing,” he said.

Some activists, however, believe ODFW is moving too quickly to relax conservation safeguards, including the decision in 2015 to take wolves off the state endangered species list. Among other things, they point to the annual wolf count figures released this past week as proof the population is fragile. The minimum count of 112 wolves at the end of 2016 was only two more than in 2015, after years of sharp growth. Even ODFW described the population gain as “weak.”

The department said a combination of factors probably contributed to the modest increase. At least seven wolves were killed in 2016, including four members of the Imnaha Pack shot by ODFW for repeated livestock attacks. Blood samples taken from captured wolves indicated many animals were exposed to recent or severe parvovirus infections, which can take a toll on pups. Finally, bad winter weather hampered efforts to count wolves. Wildlife officials stress the annual population figure is a minimum number, and believe the state has considerably more wolves.

Nonetheless, Nick Cady, legal director for the Eugene-based group Cascadia Wildlands, said wolves aren’t the “exponentially growing and undefeatable species” that opponents sometimes describe.

“One hard winter and there’s no growth,” he said.

Cady said wolf recovery faces numerous hurdles. Anti-predator bills pop up in the Legislature on a regular basis and ODFW is deferential to hunting interests that provide budget money through license sales, he said. The state appears headed to a wolf management approach that allows hunting while doing “basic level monitoring so they don’t go extinct, which I think wolves are not ready for.”

Cascadia Wildlands opposes killing wolves if deer and elk populations drop. Cady said proper habitat is a greater factor in ungulate populations than wolves. The group also opposes draft plan provisions that allow USDA Wildlife Services to conduct livestock depredation investigations. Cady said the agency is too quick to blame wolves for every attack.

Wildlife Services came under intense criticism this spring when it killed an Oregon wolf with an M-44 cyanide poison trap set to kill coyotes. Soon after, a dog in Idaho died and a teenage boy was injured when they encountered an M-44. Wildlife Service subsequently announced it would not use the devices in six Eastern Oregon counties where the majority of the state’s wolves live.

“Given their track record, they shouldn’t be involved in predator management in Oregon in any capacity,” Cady said.

Past wolf hearings have become displays of the state’s urban-rural divide. Wildlife activists from Portland and Eugene, and from out of state, tend to celebrate the presence of wolves restored to the landscape. Cattle ranchers and other rural residents tend to testify about the expense of defensive measures and the grisly results of livestock attacks.

As the draft wolf plan authors put it, “people with the most positive attitudes about wolves have been those with the least experience with them. People who live in areas with wolves have more negative attitudes toward wolves than the general public, and negative attitudes are further amplified by wolf predation of livestock.

“In Oregon, it is expected that an increasing and expanding population of wolves will result in more, not less, conflict in the future,” the plan concludes.

The plan says the impact of wolves on deer and elk is mixed, and is complicated by the presence and feeding habits of cougars, bears, coyotes and bobcats.

When hunting elk, “wolves continually test prey to identify weak individuals” they can single out for attack. Such “near constant hunting pressure” could change the habitat use, vigilance, movement rates and migration patterns of elk, according to the report. The fitness and reproductive potential of elk could be expected to decline in such cases.

Wolves don’t eat mule deer that often, but their presence could force cougars into steeper terrain where they’d be more likely to encounter mule deer, according to the report.

The second public meeting is Friday, May 19, at the Embassy Suites hotel near the Portland Airport.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin are deeply concerned about a recent call on water by the Klamath Tribes.

The call alerts secondary water users that the Tribes will use its water allocation in the Williamson, Sprague and possibly the Wood rivers for the benefit of fish habitat over irrigation for farming and cattle operations.

Rancher Becky Hyde tells the Herald and News the call is potentially devastating for irrigators, and puts a strain on their relationship with the Tribes.

Area ranchers spent years hammering out an Upper Basin agreement over water use with the Tribes. The agreement remains on the books, but has no funding behind it and is moot.

The agreement would retire some 18,000 acres from use to put water back into the streams. In turn, there would be water security for ranchers.

Tribal Chairman Don Gentry says he understands the agricultural concerns, but there must also be concern for the fisheries.

SALEM — A bill restricting antibiotic usage in Oregon’s livestock industry has died despite objections from critics who claim federal controls insufficiently limit usage of the drugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has worked with pharmaceutical companies to change antibiotic labels to disallow uses aimed at livestock growth promotion.

However, critics such as the Consumers Union have said the approach creates a “loophole” by continuing to permit antibiotic usage for disease prevention in livestock.

Senate Bill 785 would have restricted antibiotics to treat or control the spread of a disease under the supervision of a veterinarian and required confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, to report usage.

Supporters of the bill said it would help slow bacterial resistance to medically important antibiotics, but opponents argued the proposal was too rigid and rendered unnecessary by federal measures.

The Senate Committee on Health Care didn’t take action on SB 785, effectively allowing an April 18 legislative deadline to kill the proposal.

SALEM — Biotech patent holders would be legally responsible for losses caused by their genetically engineered crops in Oregon under a bill that’s survived a crucial legislative deadline.

House Bill 2739 would allow landowners to sue biotech patent holders for the unwanted presence of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, on their land.

The bill has now been referred to the House Rules Committee, which isn’t subject to an April 18 legislative deadline that recently killed other proposals.

The move could effectively allows HB 2739 to stay alive through the end of the 2017 legislative session, scheduled to end in late June.

However, the House Judiciary Committee made the referral without a “do pass” recommendation, and even then, two of its 11 members voted against the action.

It’s unfair to punish biotech developers — who range from small start-ups to major corporations — for what happens with crops they have little control over, said Rep. Rich Vial, R-Scholls, who voted against HB 2739.

The proposal should have been vetted by a committee with experience in agriculture, said Rep. Bill Post, R-Keizer, who also voted against it.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, and Rep. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, expressed similar concerns about the bill, though they voted in favor of the referral.

Even though the bill wasn’t sent to the House Rules Committee “with a bow on top,” recommending passage, it’s nonetheless good news for the Center for Food Safety, a group that supports more GMO regulation, said Amy van Saun, legal fellow with the organization.

“For me, it was a great sign that it wasn’t allowed to die,” said van Saun.

Amendments to the bill are being discussed, but those remain confidential, she said.

Class action lawsuits have already been filed over GMO contamination of non-biotech crops, but HB 2739 would provide farmers with legal recourse in more limited instances of cross-pollination, she said.

“We would be a pioneer in doing something like this,” van Saun said.

Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an agribusiness group, is disappointed that such poorly-written legislation is moving forward in the process, said Scott Dahlman, the group’s policy director.

No states have passed a law that would hold biotech patent holders liable similarly to HB 2739, he said.

Tuesdays

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — When gray wolf OR-7 made his historic and famous trek from northeastern Oregon to find a mate and territory of his own, the lone wolf wandered well over 1,000 miles throughout Southern Oregon and even Northern California before he finally found what he was looking for in remote eastern Jackson County.

These days, he might be thinking the neighborhood is getting a little crowded.

A new draft report on Oregon’s wolves concludes that OR-7, his mate and four offspring remain the only official wolf pack outside of the northeastern corner of the state, but there are plenty of up-and-comers which, under the right conditions, could reach pack status come New Year’s Day.

At least three male wolves fitted with GPS collars have been tracked in southwestern Oregon this past year as well as three uncollared wolves documented in the Keno area, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 2016 draft wolf report, released this week.

Should they find mates or simply hook up with some new running mates, they could join the OR-7’s clan as southwestern Oregon packs.

“We know they’re dispersing and establishing themselves here,” says Mark Vargas, the ODFW’s Rogue District wildlife biologist. “There are a lot of single wolves out there. But right now, all we know of is the Rogue Pack.”

A pack is described as four wolves traveling together in winter, a status OR-7, his mate and their first two pups cracked three years ago.

The pack is currently denning in the same general area of federal forestland in eastern Jackson County they have the past three years, Vargas says. They have produced pups annually, except only one of last year’s pups was confirmed to have survived into January, Vargas says.

Since they did not have two surviving pups, they did not join the ranks of eight breeding pairs counted in 2016 among Oregon’s 11 official packs.

“It’s not alarming,” says Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the ODFW’s wolf program. “It’s just that we didn’t find a second pup at the end of the year.”

OR-7’s GPS collar failed two years ago, but the clan’s images continue to get caught on trail cameras stationed by state and federal biologists tracking these animals federally protected as endangered species in Western Oregon.

Two other collared males — OR-25 and OR-3 — also are in the region.

Three-year-old OR-25 moved into eastern Jackson County earlier this year and has been lurking around the edge of the regular range of OR-7, his cousin with which he shares genes from northeastern Oregon’s Imnaha Pack.

Biologists presume he’s looking to lure a female away from the Rogue Pack.

OR-3 is an 8-year-old male in Lake County’s Silver Lake area and had mated with 3-year-old OR-28, which was also collared. They had at least one confirmed pup, but OR-28 was shot and killed by a poacher and biologists have seen no evidence of the pup, though OR-3 remains in the area.

Another collared wolf, OR-33, also made his way throughout eastern Jackson County, and though his collar failed last year, his image continued to show up on several game cameras until October, so his whereabouts are unknown.

Another set of three uncollared wolves was documented last year in the Keno area near Klamath Falls.

The trio remain the only documented wolves outside of northeastern Oregon in 2016, and likely for a good reason.

“Down here there’s good habitat, without a doubt,” Vargas says.

An ODFW study concludes that 41,256 square miles of Oregon are potential wolf range, of which 27,417 square miles actually lie in Western Oregon, including much of southwestern Oregon.

That research points to five factors wolves prefer when dispersing from their previous packs: forested areas, public land ownership, the availability of elk and other prey, low human presence and low road density, according to the study.

Those five conditions are met in places like eastern Jackson County’s Sky Lakes Wilderness Area, part of which the Rogue Pack calls home, as well as other South Cascades lands.

“Those factors indicate pretty strongly that it’s good wolf land down there,” says Amaroq Weiss, wolf coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Since the first confirmed wolf wandered into Oregon from Idaho in 1999, Oregon now sports a known wolf population of 112 animals, up two from 2016, the report states.

As their numbers expand, various studies found southwestern Oregon and Northern California to be prime candidates for relocation, since Western Oregon contains the bulk of suitable wolf habitat, experts say.

Some studies look at Northern California and Southern Oregon together because “the wolves don’t know there’s a state boundary there,” Weiss says.

The habitat studies put the number of wolves the region is able to support anywhere from 190 to 470, with a new California study suggesting the Golden State alone could one day be home to 500 wolves.

Those that have crossed between the two states have shown an affinity to the land bridge through southeastern Jackson County.

“That’s the area I’ve been calling a little bit of a wolf super-highway,” Weiss says.

But the super highway won’t be nose-to-tail with wolves, Weiss says.

“I don’t think we’re looking at bunches of wolves in Southern Oregon.

“It’s going to be a while before we get anywhere close to those numbers anytime soon,” she says.

SALEM — A proposal to impose a new annual fee on all water rights in Oregon has passed a key legislative committee but the amount is no longer specified.

House Bill 2706 originally sought a $100 yearly fee for every water right, capped at $1,000 for individual irrigators and $2,500 for municipal governments.

The bill is intended to pay for water management conducted by the Oregon Water Resources Department, but opponents say it unfairly targets irrigators who are already under financial strain.

Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, proposed an amendment stripping the specific amounts from HB 2706 to “lower the heat” on the bill and demonstrate that a fee amount is not “pre-ordained,” he said.

The House Energy and Environment Committee approved the amended bill 5-4 during an April 17 work session, referring it to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, which isn’t subject to normal legislative deadlines.

Helm said he’s overseeing a work group that’s discussing a companion bill, House Bill 2705, which requires irrigators to install measuring devices to gauge water use and was previously referred to the House Rules Committee.

During those negotiations, the water rights fee has “diminished in popularity and significance” but may still provide a useful funding source, he said.

Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, said he wouldn’t support the amended version of HB 2706 because leaving the fee amount blank “scares me more.”

The only fee amount acceptable to irrigators in the Klamath basin is zero, said Rep. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls, who likewise opposed the bill.

Finding a new source of funding for water management is a good idea, but the burden shouldn’t fall disproportionately on irrigators, said Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario.

Much of the activities performed by OWRD staff are aimed at protecting in-stream interests, which aren’t subject to any fee under HB 2706, he said.

“The cost of management should not focus on the six to seven percent (of water) that is actually diverted,” Bentz said.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19

Federal wildlife researchers killed 737 invasive barred owls in 2015-16 in an ongoing experiment to determine if removing them will aid the recovery of Northern spotted owls, the bird whose threatened status was at the center of the Pacific Northwest timber wars.

Spotted owl populations have continued to decline rapidly despite environmental lawsuits, protection under the Endangered Species Act and logging restrictions in the old growth timber habitat they favor. Barred owls, which are larger, more aggressive and feed on a wider variety of prey, have taken over spotted owl territory throughout their range in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

Scientists with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and U.S. Geological Survey, partnering with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, agreed to an experiment: Kill hundreds of barred owls in the Cle Elum area of Washington, the Oregon Coast Range and Klamath-Union-Myrtle areas of Oregon and Hoopa Valley tribal land in Northern California.

In Oregon and Washington, field crews shot 642 barred owls using 12 gauge shotguns and captured one owl alive, turning it over to the Oregon High Desert Museum in Bend. In Northern California, where early research by the late Lowell Diller of Humboldt State University documented that spotted owls reclaimed nesting areas after barred owls were removed, researchers killed 95 of the competitors.

Ranchers and farmers in the Pacific Northwest have a stake in Endangered Species Act and wildlife restoration projects undertaken by government agencies. They often referred to the potential rangeland restrictions that might accompany an ESA listing for greater sage grouse as “the spotted owl on steroids.” They’ve also dealt with wolves spreading into the four states and attacking livestock.

Northern spotted owls were listed as threatened under the ESA in 1990, which greatly reduced logging in the Pacific Northwest, especially on federal land. Their continued decline could result in it getting listed as endangered, which might bring even more restrictions on human activities in the woods.

So far, nothing has worked. The Northwest Forest Plan set aside 18.5 million acres of the older forests that spotted owls prefer, “But then the barred owl emerged as a threat capable of sweeping through the entire range of the northern spotted owl,” researcher Diller wrote in a 2013 magazine article.

Barred owls are from the East Coast and appear to have moved west over the decades, following development. They are 15 to 20 percent larger than spotted owls, which Diller called “the human equivalent of a heavyweight going up against a middleweight.”

Working on forest land owned by Green Diamond Resource Co., and with federal permission, Diller and fellow researchers killed dozens of barred owls over five years and documented the return of spotted owls. The work had startling results. Spotted owls “rapidly re-occupied” areas where barred owls were removed, Diller wrote. In one case, a female spotted owl returned to a nesting site seven years after she’d been last seen.

Overall, Diller’s work showed “removal of barred owls in combination with habitat conservation could slow or even reverse population declines at a local scale.”

Researchers don’t know if that success will be repeated.

“It’s way too early to say,” said Davie Wiens, a raptor ecologist with USGS. Diller’s work was “definitive evidence” that spotted owls’ decline was reversed on Green Diamond Resource land, but conditions elsewhere are much different, Wiens said. The Oregon Coast Range, for example, has a much higher density of barred owls, he said.

Even if it does work, land managers might be required to revisit areas and shoot more barred owls to keep them at bay.

Lingering in the background is whether wildlife biologists should be killing barred owls at all.

“It is gut-wrenching,” said Wiens, the USGS raptor ecologist. “It is for all of us.”

He said barred owls are an apex predator that has “completely taken over” spotted owl habitat. “This experiment is a way to get a handle on that.”

Lowell Diller, who died in March, once called it a “Sophie’s Choice” dilemma.

“Shooting a beautiful raptor that is remarkably adaptable and fit for its new environment seems unpalatable and ethically wrong,” he wrote in Wildlife Professional magazine in 2013. “But the choice to do nothing is also unpalatable, and I believe also ethically wrong.”

If human action such as logging caused major alterations to spotted owl habitat, and development paved the way for barred owls to move west, “Don’t we have a societal responsibility to at least give them a fighting chance to survive?” Diller asked.

Online

The owl removal progress report: http://bit.ly/2nMGOKY

The late Lowell Diller’s 2013 article about the ethical dilemma facing wildlife biologists taking part in the barred owl removal project. http://bit.ly/2pLE4Kh

SALEM — Two large dairies in Oregon have forestalled a bill that would impose regulations on air emissions from dairy farms across the state.

State regulators would have been required to draw up rules restricting dairy air emissions under Senate Bill 197, which was opposed by the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association and Oregon Farm Bureau.

Supporters of the bill argued that a 2008 task force recommended that Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission devise new rules aimed at reducing dairy air emissions, such as methane and other “greenhouse gases.”

Opponents countered that Oregon’s air quality is highly rated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and that dairies are voluntarily adopting measures to reduce emissions.

An alternative to SB 197 was made possible by Three Mile Canyon Farms, a large existing dairy near Boardman, and Lost Valley Ranch, a proposed large dairy nearby, which have agreed to devise “best management practices” to control emissions and prevent haze in the Columbia Gorge, said Sen. Mike Dembrow, D-Portland.

Dembrow, chair of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, will participate in a work group setting best management practices, along with representatives of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University.

• Another controversial piece of legislation also failed to pass must during the committee’s April 17 meeting.

A bill imposing new notification requirements for aerial pesticide sprays in Oregon forests was voted down 3-2 despite several changes proposed by its chief sponsor.

Timber industry representatives complained that the original language of Senate Bill 892 would have unreasonably complicated the timing of pesticide applications, which must often be shifted due to weather events.

In the original bill, timber companies would have to conduct spray operations within two days of the scheduled date submitted to a statewide notification system.

In an attempted compromise, Dembrow proposed delegating the length of the notification window to the Oregon Board of Forestry.

Dembrow’s proposed amendment would also have directed the Board of Forestry to exempt uninhabited areas from the spray notification requirement.

Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, said that Oregon’s notification requirements are “lacking” compared to other states.

In light of problems that off-site pesticide sprays have caused for rural residents, Oregon should try to find a solution, Prozanski said.

Even if the bill doesn’t pass, the Oregon Board of Forestry should take these matters into consideration, he said.

Prozanski and Dembrow were the only members of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee to vote in favor of amendments to SB 892.

The deciding vote was cast by Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, who said that he’s uncomfortable with the notification requirements due to the history of sabotage against Oregon’s timber industry.

People who disagree with any logging could seek to disrupt forestry activities, just as they did in the past by spiking trees, potentially causing danger to themselves or other, Roblan said.

With the proposed amendments defeated, Dembrow said the underlying bill was dead because the original language wasn’t acceptable to anyone.

• Finally, the committee allowed Senate Bill 929, which would have restricted the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, to die without comment.

Proponents of the bill argued that homeowners without pesticide training shouldn’t be allowed to buy the chemicals, which have been linked to pollinator die-offs.

However, critics said that classifying neonicotinoids as restricted use pesticides could steer people to more toxic pesticides that are harmful to people as well as insects.

A companion bill, Senate Bill 928, would have required special labels for crops treated with neonicotinoids, but it was previously killed by a legislative deadline.

SALEM — An bill exempting slow-growing counties from Oregon’s land use goals is staying alive this legislative session, though it’s probably headed for revisions.

Local governments would be exempt from statewide goals intended to preserve farmland and contain growth under Senate Bill 432, as long as they have 50,000 or fewer residents and haven’t expanded since the last federal census.

The Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee has unanimously referred SB 432 to the Senate Rules Committee without recommendation.

The action allows the bill to survive an April 18 legislative deadline that doesn’t apply to the Senate Rules Committee.

Lawmakers need time to change SB 432 to ensure it doesn’t have a negative impact on the sage grouse in Eastern Oregon, said Sen. Mike Dembrow, D-Portland.

“This bill needs work,” Dembrow said.

The greater sage grouse was a candidate or federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that listing the bird as threatened was unwarranted.

The agency’s decision was based in part on Oregon land use regulations as well as voluntary conservation efforts by ranchers.

Another proposal to increase housing availability in Oregon, by allowing “accessory dwelling units” in rural areas, has died this legislative session.

House Bill 1024 would permit such dwellings to be built on the same parcels as existing homes in rural residential zones, allowing some new development that would otherwise be restricted under Oregon’s land use laws.

The bill is not ready to move forward this year but will probably be the subject of a work group, said Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, chair of the Senate Committee on Human Services.

With roughly 700,000 acres of land potentially affected by SB 1024, opponents worried the bill could create conflicts with farmland, rural roads and wildfire prevention.

“It was just too broad a brush,” said Mary Kyle McCurdy, deputy director of the 1,000 Friends of Oregon conservation group.

McCurdy said she appreciated efforts by supporters of SB 1024 to develop “sideboards” limiting the bill’s scope, despite the lack of an ultimate compromise.

Two similar bills in the House, which would have allowed accessory dwelling units and the permanent siting of recreational vehicles in rural residential zones, have also died.

SALEM — Local governments would have to notify Oregon irrigation districts of proposed subdivisions under a bill that’s headed for a vote on the House floor.

The notification requirement, which is intended to prevent developments from disrupting irrigation canals and other facilities, was initially opposed by the League of Oregon Cities.

However, the organization has arrived at a compromise with supporters of Senate Bill 865, which was approved with a “do pass” recommendation on April 13 by the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

City governments initially objected to SB 865 because they feared it would slow down the approval of new plats, or maps of subdivision parcels.

An amendment to the bill has soothed that concern by clarifying that local governments will seek input from irrigation districts much earlier in the plat approval process, said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which supports SB 865.

Lack of communication between local governments and irrigation districts has led to breached canals and flooding, endangering public safety and water quality, according to the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

The revised bill provides irrigation districts with 15 days to respond to tentative plans for proposed plats, down from 30 days in the original language, she said.

Local governments aren’t required to act on the input from irrigation districts under the bill, Snell said.

Irrigation districts must also submit their boundary maps to local governments to qualify for notifications, said Erin Doyle, intergovernmental associate with the League of Oregon Cities.

“It’s difficult for us to keep track if there are no maps or listed facilities,” she said.

A companion bill centered on relations between local governments and irrigation districts — Senate Bill 866 — would have required permission for stormwater to be discharged into canals.

City governments said the bill would impracticably have forced them to manage all the rainfall within their boundaries, but supporters argued the bill would protect irrigation districts from pollutants.

A legislative deadline for scheduling work sessions on SB 866 has passed, so the bill has died in committee.

Saturdays