Catholic Daughters to award scholarships

A Northeast Oregon wolf died after it bit a spring-loaded cyanide powder trap set by USDA Wildlife Services in an apparent violation of an informal agreement it had with state officials not to use the devices in areas frequented by wolves.

OR-48, a 100-pound male from the Shamrock Pack, died Feb. 26 after it bit an M-44 device, which fires cyanide powder into a predator’s mouth when it tugs on a baited or scented capsule holder. Wildlife Services set the trap on private land in an attempt to kill coyotes. The federal agency kills predators or other wildlife that damage or pose a threat to property, livestock or humans. The agency’s website describes the M-44 as an “effective and environmentally sound wildlife damage management tool.”

It’s primarily used to kill coyotes, wild dogs and foxes. The agency’s website said animals that trigger the device fall unconscious and die within one to five minutes. Sodium cyanide powder in the capsule reacts with saliva in the animal’s mouth, producing deadly hydrogen cyanide gas.

Use of the device was prohibited in areas of known wolf activity when wolves were listed as endangered under Oregon law. After wolves were taken off the state endangered species list in 2015, U.S. Wildlife Services said it would continue to avoid using M-44s, ODFW spokesman Rick Hargrave said.

He said Wildlife Services held an Incidental Take Permit that allowed it to conduct wildlife control operations in protected wolf areas but prohibited M-44s. The Incidental Take Permit expired when wolves were de-listed, but Wildlife Services indicated it would continue following the permit rules, Hargrave said.

“We discussed our concerns specifically regarding M-44s,” he said. “We didn’t want those devices in those areas.”

“We believed it was clear what our concerns were,” Hargrave said.

“The death of this wolf shows the risk involved when wolves are in areas where Wildlife Services conducts these types of operations,” said Doug Cottam, ODFW Wildlife Division administrator. “This is a situation we take seriously and we’ll be working with Wildlife Services with the goal of preventing it from happening again.”

Dave Williams, state director for Wildlife Services in Oregon, said the agency has begun an internal review to “see if any changes to our procedures are necessary.”

OR-48, the wolf that died, was believed to be almost two years old. Hargrave said he was not the Shamrock Pack’s breeding male, and may have been in the process of dispersing from the pack and establishing its own territory, as young adults do. The incident site was on the edge of the Shamrock Pack’s territory.

OR-48 had been captured and fitted with a tracking collar Feb. 10, according to ODFW.

SALEM — Sewage sludge already serves as fertilizer on Oregon farms but a proposed bill would also permit processing the waste within farm zones.

It’s common for biosolids, also called human manure, to be treated at wastewater plants then applied to fields that aren’t producing crops meant for human consumption.

Wayne Buma, who operates AAA Advanced Septic Cleaning in Southern Oregon, wanted to use waste from septic tanks in the same way but ran into troubles with Jackson County’s government.

The county’s objection wasn’t based on sanitary issues, but rather Oregon’s land use laws: It wasn’t clear that sewage treatment is allowed on land zoned for “exclusive farm use.”

“There is nothing new going on as far as the safety. All that has been approved,” Buma told members of the House Agriculture Committee at a March 2 hearing.

Under House Bill 2179, the statute would clarify that on-farm biosolids treatment is allowed in farm zones as long as it’s conducted with mobile units.

If on-farm biosolids treatment isn’t allowed, Buma said he’d have to separately process the waste at the location of each septic tank, rather than collectively treat the material in a large tank at the site of application.

“Right now, it’s bottle-necked,” he said.

The treatment process described by Buma, which is permitted by Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality, is fairly straightforward.

Biosolids are filtered to remove plastic and other debris, then agriculture lime is mixed with the waste to make it alkaline and kill pathogens. The sterilized biosolids are then spread across a field with truck.

“It’s a stable product, it’s not a haz-mat material,” Buma said of the lime that’s integral to the process.

Legislators seemed amenable to HB 2179, with the committee’s chair, Brian Clem, D-Salem, actually testifying in favor of the bill as a “no-brainer.”

While Oregon’s land use laws generally confine processing activities within “urban growth boundaries,” that often involves increasing the “truck miles” required to transport materials, Clem said.

In this case, there is no construction of a permanent facility that would taken farmland out of production, he said.

“If it’s not displacing farmland, I think it’s good to have processing as close to the source of the material as possible,” Clem said.

Dec. 4, 1953 - Feb. 21, 2017

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — President Trump is mentioned so many times in the workshop leaflets for this weekend’s University of Oregon Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, you’d think the president was going to make a personal appearance.

But Trump isn’t a guest at the 35th annual conference put on by Oregon Law students; he’s just casting a long shadow over the proceedings.

“We’re fearing the worst,” said Jeremy Nichols, who directs the climate and energy program at the Golden, Colo., offices of WildEarth Guardians. “We’ve been working for years to steadily limit the supply of coal available so that clean energy can take hold.”

Nichols fears Trump may reverse that trend.

In mid-February, Trump rescinded an Obama-era regulation aimed at limiting the amount of coal mine wastes that can be dumped in streams.

The Trump administration also stopped defending federal rules in a lawsuit brought by coal companies. The rules required the companies to pay higher royalties on coal mined from public lands that’s often shipped overseas.

“Those are a couple of examples,” Nichols said, “and mind you, we’re only a little over a month into this administration.”

Environmentalists also fret about Trump’s pick for secretary of the Interior, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who won U.S. Senate confirmation Wednesday.

Zinke received large campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, including from fracking giant Oasis Petroleum, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

He is a former board member and a current stock owner of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based oil company QS Energy, according to the nonprofit campaign finance organization.

“One of Trump’s big selling points,” Oakland-based Sierra Club attorney Nathaniel Schoaff said, “is we should trust him because he has so much money he doesn’t have to listen to special interests.

“That resonated with a lot of people. The problem is he put special interests in charge — or people who are very sympathetic (to) — of some of the most important agencies that the federal government has.”

Conservative groups say Trump’s moves will boost the economy, create jobs and accelerate economic growth.

Nichols and Schoaff are scheduled to appear together at the UO law conference at a panel titled “Still Saving the Climate: Confronting Public Lands & Coal Mining Under a Trump Administration.”

Other conference panels are addressing “Fighting for Safe and Sustainable Food and Farming under Trump,” “Border Insecurity: How Walls and Militarization Harm People and Wildlife in the Borderlands” and “Criminal Defense and Environmental Activism.”

A pamphlet for the latter warns, “With Trump administration ... many are expecting particularly harsh repression of these activists.”

Conference participants will discuss legal strategies, learn from Third World tactics — and find strength with like-minded activists.

The conference theme is “One Cause, One Voice.”

“The environmental movement sometimes is plagued by infighting by people who disagree where the lines of compromise should be drawn. That’s not the sign of an unhealthy movement. It’s a robust discourse,” Nichols said.

“But we’re at moment where, really, should we be spending the energy having those fights? Or should we say we all bring strength and power to this broad moment and work to advance the higher good?” he added.

The “Many Faces of Forest Law” workshop material urges, “As we move through the uncharted territory of a Trump administration, it is increasingly important for the environmental community to come together and cultivate new relationships.”

The ELAW global environmental nonprofit organization has gathered 100 lawyers from 50 countries from around the globe in Eugene — and they’ll attend and present at the law conference. ELAW is based in Eugene.

A panel on “Challenging Coal Around the World,” will include ELAW speakers from India, Kenya, Australia and Pakistan.

“Coal mining is fundamentally about climate change, and climate change is a global issue. It’s good to have that context,” Nichols said.

Lawyer panelists urge their colleagues at the conference to redouble their watchdog efforts.

“There is a big risk that this administration will start entering into sweetheart settlements with industry groups, particularly fossil fuel groups,” Schoaff said.

Environmental groups can seek to intervene in court cases in order to have a say in the outcomes.

“Now is not the time to settle for one or two key legal arguments,” Nichols said. “We need to put it all on the table and be as creative and unrelenting as possible in trying to create uncertainty, generate crisis, and make the coal industry and this administration feel some pain for every rollback and every giveaway that they may even contemplate.

“It’s not so much about identifying the, quote, winning legal argument. It’s really about getting behind every argument and coming in with energy and commitment and passion to follow it through, and, in many cases, take a risk. We have so much to lose right now.”

SALEM — Danny Grimm shares many of the concerns familiar to producers throughout the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. Start with federal regulatory overreach, because the recent, undefined rumblings out of the Trump administration about “greater enforcement” are enough to give anyone pause.

Throw in questions about water quality and nutrient inputs, plus a complicated infrastructure of pumps, water lines and electrical controls that Grimm and his employees must maintain. And don’t forget pests. Like many producers he’d rather not use chemical insecticides, and so far he’s protecting his crop with battalions of predator mites, ladybugs and beneficial nematodes.

“Once you’re having problems, if you don’t know how to fix it, bugs will eat you alive,” Grimm said.

The biggest issue is market uncertainty. Farmers are always looking for the next big thing, and a lot of people are jumping in to meet the demand. But what looks like a gold rush now could go south if over-supply drops the price.

Grimm said scaling up production will be the biggest challenge for small producers.

“It goes like any other industry,” he said. “There will be people who fail and people who make it — people who are able to scale up and keep the quality.”

Grimm, 31, grows cannabis. He’s the owner of Uplifted Farm, and his crop land is a dilapidated warehouse in an industrial area off Salem’s Portland Road. He’s scrapped, made-do and scrambled to succeed. By at least one measure, he’s an excellent grower. This past summer, the first time the Oregon State Fair accepted cannabis plants for judging, he won blue ribbons for his Granddaddy Purple, an Indica variety, and his Super Sour Diesel, a more psychoactive Sativa variety.

This spring, Grimm will move Uplifted Farm into a massive old concrete building that used to be a slaughterhouse. He and his partner, Nathan Martinez, will have 30,000 square feet of growing space in what Grimm estimates is a $5 million renovation.

“I’m all in,” Grimm said.

Don’t tell him he’s not a farmer, or that cannabis is not an agricultural crop.

“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s no different.”

The guidelines, growing and cropping techniques involved in raising marijuana could be applied to grapes, tomatoes or anything else, he said.

Individual producers may not favor pot farming, but the Oregon Department of Agriculture has given its official approval. After voters legalized adult recreational production, possession and use in 2014, then-department Director Katy Coba famously declared, “Welcome to the family.” Since then, the department has taken growers in hand to help them through the regulatory network.

“It may not look the same as what we’re used to, but it’s definitely agriculture,” said Sunny Jones, a pesticide expert who was picked as the department’s cannabis policy coordinator. “That’s definitely been ODA’s take on the situation; it’s one more crop in the many crops that Oregon grows.”

Jones said pot growers demonstrate a work ethic and problem-solving ability that traditional agriculturists would admire.

“When many of us think of farmers, we think of someone creative, someone who can keep the equipment running with baling wire and duct tape,” she said. “That is abundant in the cannabis industry.”

What’s also abundant is the money and economic spin-off that accompanies legalization. Cannabis activists have long maintained pot is Oregon’s most valuable crop. While there aren’t official farm gate numbers available to back that up, a former Oregon State University professor estimated in 2015 that the state’s pot crop was worth $948 million annually, or more than the combined value of hazelnuts, pears, wine grapes, Christmas trees and blueberries.

The 17 percent tax on recreational pot sales is an open spigot. The Oregon Department of Revenue received $5.3 million in tax payments in January 2017, and said it has received $65.4 million in cannabis tax collections since January 2016. After the department’s administrative costs are met, 40 percent of the tax revenue goes to the Common School Fund, 20 percent to mental health, alcohol and drug services, and 15 percent to the Oregon State Police. Cities, counties and other services split the remainder.

Advocacy groups say pot legalization creates jobs. New Frontier Data, a Washington, D.C., analytics firm that specializes in cannabis issues, estimated the sector would create more than 280,000 jobs by 2020. Adult cannabis use is now legal in eight states and in D.C., areas with a combined population of 69 million, the group said.

Producers thinking about growing cannabis, however, should realize major questions have not yet been answered.

Most critically, it is still illegal under federal law. On the books, marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. Cannabis activists say the ranking is ludicrous because it puts pot in the same category as heroin and LSD, while methamphetamine and cocaine are Schedule 2 drugs, a notch below.

Current state-level legalization is based on a shoulder-shrug interpretation of the August 2013 “Cole Memorandum,” named for James Cole, an assistant U.S. attorney general who wrote it.

In the memo, the Obama administration essentially said it wouldn’t interfere so long as states legalizing cannabis had “strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems” in place. The administration didn’t want pot available to minors, crossing into states that hadn’t legalized it and funding the operations of cartels and gangs.

Growers, processors and retailers in Washington, Oregon, California and elsewhere took that as a sign to get busy.

“Why did everyone just start blowing through this risk factor like they couldn’t care less?” a lawyer-blogger with Portland’s Emerge Law Group wrote. One reason was “the fact that so many people are involved in the industry now that there’s a feeling of safety in sheer numbers. ‘What are they going to do? Arrest everyone?’”

Probably not, the blogger concluded, but Trump and conservative Attorney General Jeff Sessions could deliver a “big chill” if they decided to change course.

On Feb. 24, Trump press secretary Sean Spicer said the Justice Department would pursue “greater enforcement” of laws regarding recreational-use marijuana. The off-hand remark confused the situation.

“Trump seems insistent on throwing the marijuana market back into the hands of criminals, wiping out tax-paying jobs and eliminating billions of dollars in taxes,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. The group is a Washington, D.C., based lobbying group that favors marijuana and other drug policies “grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.”

New Approach Oregon, the Portland group that backed and works to implement Oregon’s 2014 legalization of adult recreational cannabis use, called Spicer’s remarks “concerning.”

But New Approach Director Anthony Johnson said Trump and Sessions hadn’t been heard from.

“Greater enforcement by the Justice Department, if it does occur, could mean that the federal government may just monitor state-regulated businesses more closely,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. “Potentially, federal charges could be brought if cannabis businesses violate state law and regulations, such as selling marijuana to minors under the age of 21.”

The availability of capital and banking services also are major questions for cannabis producers, processors and retailers, because federally regulated banks aren’t supposed to handle money from illegal businesses.

Garrett Rudolph, editor of Marijuana Venture magazine, said banks’ relationship to the cannabis industry is “basically a giant gray area.”

The federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCen, issued a 2014 guideline that allowed banks to work with state-legal cannabis businesses that were following the Cole Memorandum rules. But FinCen “put the onus of due diligence on the banks,” Rudolph said by email, and many financial institutions are unwilling to take that risk.

Nonetheless, the economic buzz of cannabis legalization escalates.

At the annual Cannabis Collaborative Conference in Portland in February, vendors of all types displayed the technology, products and services that have sprung up in step with legalization.

At one booth, a company called Root Sciences, with an office in Belfair, Wash., showed German-made distillation equipment that produces 99 percent pure cannabinoid oil concentrates for use in medical products or recreational edibles. One model sells for $159,000, which includes shipping, installation and training.

Down another aisle at the convention, 69-year-old electrical contractor Gregory Fuller showed his mobile growing unit. Fuller, of Federal Way, Wash., retrofitted a shipping container with LED grow lights and insulation. The unit’s electrical requirement is small enough that it can operate on 200-amp residential service. Plug and play, as it were.

“This is agriculture,” Fuller said. “I can grow 2,000 pounds of lettuce in here a year.”

But it’s pot growers he’s marketing to, and the units sell for $110,000. Fuller laughs as he tells of dealing with old counter-culture types who peel off $100 bills but provide little detail about who they are, what they want and what they’re doing.

“You have to have the patience of Job to work with these guys,” he said.

At another booth, veteran grower Joe Pietri promoted his “Grow Like Joe” methods and his book, “The 15-Ounce Pound,” in which he predicts “Big Pharma” will patent cannabis and use the IRS and DEA to control other growers.

He said pot growers need to match the efficiency of commercial nurseries.

“If you can’t grow cannabis like they do chrysanthemums, they will wipe you out,” Pietri told a couple people who stopped at his booth. “You won’t survive in this industry.”

Representatives of a Colorado “Hemp Temps” company said they offer growers trained and temporary bud tenders, trimmers and harvesters. The company expects to open an Oregon branch this spring.

Jenny Argie, from Brooklyn, New York, demonstrated products she offers through her company, Baked At Home. Argie is a cancer survivor, and used cannabis as an alternative to pharmaceuticals to manage pain and nausea. She sells legal cookie, cake and brownie mixes that allow buyers to add their own cannabis oil at home. That gives users control over their dosage, Argie said.

Argie joked that she’s become the Betty Crocker of cannabis baking.

“The interest and enthusiasm is so big,” she said.

Argie also sells lotions infused with CBD, or cannabidiol, which along with THC is one of the primary elements of pot. CBD doesn’t get users high, however, and is primarily used for pain relief.

Danny Grimm, the Salem grower who is expanding his business, was at the Portland conference with the blue ribbons he won at the Oregon State Fair.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” he said.

The action of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who detained multiple people after stopping a pair of worker transport vans near Woodburn, Ore., last week may have been a routine operation, but it happened in an acrimonious political atmosphere that had civil rights groups blaming it on the Trump administration’s belligerence toward immigrants.

An ICE spokeswoman said agents initially were after two people, both of whom had multiple prior arrests and one of whom had a prior conviction, when they stopped the vehicles on a highway outside Woodburn on Feb. 24. Agents detained 11 people on allegations they were in the country illegally; seven of them remained in custody Feb. 28. Four were let go because an immigration judge had previously released them on bond pending removal proceedings, the ICE spokeswoman said.

As far as ICE was concerned, the action was routine. People who are in the country illegally and have criminal records are among the highest priority for apprehension and removal, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Deportation officers conduct enforcement actions every day around the country and in Oregon as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to uphold public safety and border security,” an ICE spokeswoman said in a prepared statement. “Our operations are targeted and lead driven, prioritizing individuals who pose a risk to our communities.”

But the action comes amid heightened political tension over border security and illegal immigration. Pacific Northwest agriculture has a major stake in the outcome, as many sectors rely on pruning, harvest or processing crews that are heavily immigrant, legal or not.

ICE provided a link to a Homeland Security memorandum that implements Trump’s executive order on immigration enforcement. The memo calls for hiring 10,000 more ICE agents and prioritizes enforcement action against aliens who have been convicted of any crime, charged with a crime but not resolved, committed fraud or “willful misrepresentation” with a government agency or abused any program to receive public benefits. It also authorizes removal of anyone who “in the judgment of an immigration officer” poses a risk to public safety or national security.

But the Portland office of American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, and the farmworker and forestry labor union Pineros y Compesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) criticized the action.

Pedro Sosa, spokesman for the American Friends group, said in his opinion ICE has increased its activity and is acting more aggressively since President Trump signed the order. Sosa said that’s created “more fear in our community.”

The immigrant advocacy groups said they were “deeply concerned” about such stops and arrests and their impact on schools, the local economy and security. The groups denounced the “racist policies” of Trump that “criminalize and scapegoat hardworking immigrants and divide Americans.”

Details provided by ICE and by the immigrant advocacy groups varied somewhat.

American Friends and PCUN said 19 people were detained in the operation and 10 were released. They said the workers were on their way to forest jobs picking baby’s breath, a decorative plant used in arrangements, when they were stopped.

Rhetoric aside, it’s too early to know how the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement numbers will stack up against the Obama administration’s.

The Department of Homeland Security apprehended 530,250 people in the 2016 fiscal year, President Obama’s last year in office. That was about 60,000 more than during the 2015 fiscal year. The figures include apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol and by ICE.

A former Pacific Northwest business consultant who has studied the issue said the Obama administration targeted known criminals for arrest and deportation and didn’t bother with others that might get caught up in raids. “Trump just told ICE to go after criminals, but if there are others there, take them too,” the former consultant said.

“Familial considerations,” such as having children in the country, no longer apply in detention and deportation decisions, he said.

“There are agricultural workers in Idaho who are afraid to go to the grocery store or go see their kids play in an athletic event,” he said. “It is a shame.”

The former consultant asked not to be identified because he is not authorized by his current employer to make public statements on the issue. However, he has experience in immigration and agricultural issues.

Based on a description of the ICE traffic stops in Oregon and the type of job the workers were headed to, he said the people taken into custody were probably day workers who may not have been in the country long.

“Often times they’re more likely to have a criminal record or something that would show up in a background check” and keep them from more regular employment, he said.

The consultant acknowledged that the Trump administration can accurately point out that the people detained were in the country illegally and had no right to be here.

“From that point of view, yes,” the source said. “However, when there is no guest worker program for ag or forestry, for nurseries, what choice do employers have and what choice do employees have?” he asked.

The source said various groups have tried since 2007 to institute a guest worker program that allowed people to legally enter the U.S. on a temporary basis. President George W. Bush proposed a plan that would have worked, he said, but was rejected by Congress. Now neither political party wants the other party to get credit for solving the problem, he said.

SALEM — Intense opposition by Oregon’s farmers, ranchers and forestland owners has apparently convinced lawmakers to back away from altering key property tax provisions affecting agriculture and forestry.

Machinery used for agriculture and forestry is exempt from property tax assessments while property dedicated to producing crops, livestock and timber is less heavily taxed than other real estate.

Under the original language of House Bill 2859, the property tax exemption for equipment and the farm use assessment for land would expire in 2024 unless renewed by lawmakers.

The proposal evoked alarm in Oregon’s natural resource community, which turned out in full force at a March 1 hearing to argue that creating a “sunset” for these provisions would financially destabilize farming, ranching and forestry.

By the end of the hearing, the overwhelmingly negative testimony against HB 2859 seemed to have the desired effect on members of the House Revenue Committee.

“I’m pretty convinced putting a sunset on these things that are very long-term assets doesn’t make any sense,” said Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, the committee’s chair.

At the beginning of the hearing, Barnhart said the bill was drafted in response to an audit from Oregon’s Secretary of State’s Office, which called for periodic review of existing property tax exemptions and tax credits.

In light of the objections to HB 2859, though, Barnhart said he thought the sunset provisions related to natural resources should be eliminated from the bill.

The suggestion drew no objections from other committee members, so Barnhart said they would only consider the remaining provisions of HB 2859 related to economic development and other issues.

“I think you should consider all of what I just said means that you win,” Barnhart told the audience, to enthusiastic applause.

Farmers, ranchers and forestland owners at the hearing emphasized that natural resource industries were already highly uncertain due to the weather and volatile markets.

Landowners said they shouldn’t also have to contend with the possibility their property taxes may rise dramatically every six years, which is the period of sunset review established under HB 2859.

“In the orchard business, we need to plan long term,” said Bruce Chapin, a hazelnut producer near Keizer, Ore.

Marsha Carr, a forestland owner near Monroe, Ore., said her annual property taxes would rise from about $1,000 to more than $25,000 under HB 2859.

Carr said her family harvests timber in small patches of five to seven acres, which preserves habitat for wildlife and songbirds.

“That would have to change to pay the taxes,” she said. “We would have to cut larger areas.”

Farmers rely on specialized equipment but they often operate it for only a month or less per year, unlike other industries where machinery creates revenues year-round, said Roger Beyer, a lobbyist for the Western Equipment Dealers Association and several crop organizations.

If property taxes were imposed on farm machinery, it would destroy demand for machinery, he said. “It would simply dry up and go away.”

Landowners also testified that property would unfairly be taxed at the maximum assessed value if the farm use assessment was allowed to expire.

Oregon’s land use system would still prevent landowners in farm zones from building homes or other high-value structures on their property, even if it was taxed as if such construction was possible, opponents said.

Mark Simmons, a rancher from Elgin, Ore., said the farm use assessment is part of a “grand bargain” between land use restrictions and property taxes.

While it’s currently tough to raise cattle on Simmons’ property, it could be a “gold mine” for development, he said.

“It’s mostly rocks and cheatgrass,” he said. “Some of those rocky hills with cheat grass have a view.”

SALEM — Oregon Ag Fest is soliciting applications for its fifth annual Agricultural Education Award.

The purpose of the award is to reward student organizations, nonprofit groups or classrooms that promote and educate Oregonians about agriculture and extend the Oregon Ag Fest mission beyond its annual, two-day, interactive event.

Applications are due March 15 and can be downloaded from the Oregon Ag Fest website: http://oragfest.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/AgEducationAwardForm_2017.pdf.

Cash prizes totaling up to $2,000 may be awarded to as many as three winners annually. Awards will be presented on stage during Oregon Ag Fest on April 30. Award prizes will depend on quality of applications submitted.

“As Oregon Ag Fest celebrates 30 years of growing awareness for the importance of agriculture in our communities, we are proud to continue to support the agricultural education outreach efforts of nonprofit and student organizations this year,” said Tami Kerr, Oregon Ag Fest Chair, in a press release. “Oregon Ag Fest is dedicated to educating the public about the importance of agriculture, and we see this award as a way to encourage and support student groups that have programs and activities aimed to accomplish the same thing.”

Oregon Ag Fest attracts over 19,000 people who experience the world of Oregon agriculture in a fun-filled, festive environment. For more information go to www.oragfest.com.

Farmers can boost agritourism revenues by banding together to create high-profile events that attract far-flung visitors to their region, according to a tourism expert.

Agritourism is a growing source of income for U.S. growers but the industry isn’t as mature as in Italy, France and other European countries, said Lisa Chase, a natural resources specialist who studies agritourism at the University of Vermont.

While U.S. farmers have made significant progress in direct sales to consumers through farmers’ markets and similar venues, they’re lagging behind in “immersive” experiences, such as offering on-farm lodgings, she said.

“There are tremendous opportunities we’re just starting to touch on,” said Chase.

To entice tourists, growers can partner with other agritourism operations to develop a “bigger package” of multiple events and destinations, she said.

“Maybe that’s going to make people come all the way to Oregon,” Chase said during a recent “agritourism summit” organized by Oregon State University.

Emphasizing the unique agricultural traits of a region can also forestall acrimony from surrounding farmers, who may otherwise feel irritated by events that are disconnected from production agriculture, she said.

“That can cause some friction in the agricultural community,” Chase said.

Bauman Farms near Gervais, Ore., is well-acquainted with the need to create a destination for tourists.

The operation is “on the way to nowhere” and must lure visitors on its own merits, rather than rely on passersby, said Brian Bauman, its general manager.

“It’s about creating that festive atmosphere,” he said.

The farm has pumpkins for Halloween and pies for Thanksgiving, but it’s also found reasons for people to visit after the holidays. For example, speeches by local experts, including authors, gardeners and cooks, are paired with a traditional “high tea” in the farm house.

“It’s turned into this really great experience they’re almost fighting to get into,” Bauman said, noting that painting classes at the farm are also proving popular.

Agritourism brings in the most revenues for farmers along the West Coast and New England, while growers in areas like southern Texas benefit from allowing hunters onto their land, said Chase, citing USDA statistics.

Farmers tend to focus on agritourism related to crops and livestock, but many also own woodlots that can serve as sources of entertainment, she said. “Those are often overlooked opportunities.”

Across the U.S., sales from agritourism and direct marketing doubled between 2002 and 2012, from about $1 billion to $2 billion, according to the agency’s Census of Agriculture.

The trend is reflected in Oregon, where agritourism and direct marketing revenues grew from $24 million in 2002 to $55 million in 2012.

Despite the overall upward trajectory, these revenues were actually higher in Oregon in 2007, when they hit $63 million.

“I really think it’s a reflection of the global recession,” said Mary Stewart, an applied economics and agritourism faculty member with OSU’s extension service.

Direct marketing and agritourism revenues likely dipped between 2007 and 2012 in Oregon due to the decline in leisure spending by consumers as well as wariness among farmers to invest in such ventures, she said.

“I feel very positive we will see a rebound when the next census comes out,” Stewart said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Ammon Bundy, who was recently acquitted in the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon, testified Tuesday that he felt “driven” to protest federal control of Western lands after learning that two Oregon ranchers were imprisoned for setting fires on public rangeland.

Bundy was brought to the federal courtroom in Portland from Las Vegas, where he is in custody awaiting trial on charges he led armed gunmen to block a federal cattle roundup near his father’s Nevada ranch in 2014.

A defense attorney for Bundy’s fellow occupier Jason Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, walked Bundy through the series of events that led him and others to seize the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, 2016. Bundy, his brother Ryan and five others were acquitted in the Oregon case last fall.

Duane Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon; Darryl Thorn of Marysville, Washington; and Jake Ryan of Plains, Montana, are on trial.

In response to questions from defense attorney Andrew Kohlmetz, Bundy said that the seeds for the refuge takeover were planted in October 2015, when he first heard about Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers from rural Oregon who were about to report to prison for a five-year sentence after being convicted of setting fires on public rangeland.

He was lying in bed when he read an article about their case and “when I read that article, it was like I was pushed out of that bed and I needed to learn more,” he said. “I felt driven and I don’t know how to quite explain it. ...I felt a drive, an urge, to find out all I can and to get myself familiar with what was going on.”

He spent all night reading about the case online, wrote a blog post and wrote a letter that was eventually sent to 28,000 people by email, he testified.

Shackled and wearing a blue prison outfit, Bundy testified that he identified with the Oregon ranchers because he felt his own family had been targeted in a similar fashion by federal Bureau of Land Management agents who were trying to seize his father’s cattle in a decades-long dispute over grazing rules and unpaid fees.

In April 2014, Bundy backers pointed weapons at BLM agents and contract cowboys who were rounding up cattle near the Bundy ranch outside Bunkerville, Nevada, according to federal prosecutors. Bundy, his brother Ryan and his father, Cliven, are all scheduled for trial later this year on charges including conspiracy, firearms offenses and assault of a federal officer in the Nevada standoff.

“My conclusion was what was happening to them was very similar to what had happened to my family,” Bundy said of the Hammonds.

He decided to drive to Burns, Oregon from his home in Idaho because he wanted to learn “why families like ours and the Hammonds ... are in the situation we’re in where we’re losing our heritage,” he said.

Bundy met with the Hammonds and also with the Harney County sheriff in the hopes he would “bring light and stand for the Hammonds” by pushing back against federal authorities and convening a county-run investigation, he said.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward testified during Bundy’s trial last year that he met with Bundy four times but ultimately disagreed that it was his role to intervene on behalf of the Hammonds. He felt Bundy was making ultimatums and warned him that the community wouldn’t tolerate the kind of actions Bundy’s family had taken at the Nevada ranch, he has said.

The Bundys were arrested in a Jan. 26 traffic stop away from the refuge that ended with police fatally shooting Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, an occupation spokesman. Most occupiers left the refuge after Finicum’s death, but a few holdouts remained until Feb. 11, 2016.

The acquittal of the Bundy brothers and the five others in what had seemed to be an open-and-shut case was a stunning blow for federal prosecutors last October.

Like the defendants in the first trial, the primary charge facing the men is conspiracy to impede Interior Department employees from doing their jobs at the refuge through the use of force, threats or intimidation.

This time, prosecutors hired an outside consultant to help them with jury selection and hedged their bets by adding misdemeanors such as trespassing to the mix of charges against the four men. The misdemeanor charges will be heard in a non-jury trial after the felony trial ends.

A calf found dead on private land in Southern Oregon’s Jackson County was killed by a wolf, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The three-day-old calf was found by a ranch employee Feb. 25. ODFW investigated that day and found wolf tracks in the snow around the carcass. The entrails and internal organs had been eaten. Bite marks on the carcass were wider and deeper than coyote bites, according to an ODFW report.

Data from a GPS radio collar showed a wolf designated OR-25 was at the kill site at 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Feb. 25. OR-25 is a male that dispersed from the Imnaha Pack in northeast Oregon in March 2015 and traveled through the Columbia Basin, southern Blue Mountains and the northern and central Cascades.

The attack happened in the Red Blanket Creek area.

Tuesdays

CB Library hosts a birthday party for Dr. Seuss

Oregon’s grass seed farmers will harvest slightly fewer acres this year due to a combination of freezing weather, heavy rain and damage from the usual suspects: slugs, voles, cut worms, geese and mice, according to a survey by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In some cases, fields were so wet last fall that farmers weren’t able to plant, said Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council. He said grass seed prices have been fairly strong and sales brisk, however.

Regarding pests, Beyer said growers are hopeful Oregon State University’s new slug expert, Rory McDonnell, will “make some dents” in the problem. McDonnell was hired in 2016.

The annual NASS survey said some Washington County growers reported slow regrowth of established fields and that some newly-planted fields froze this winter. On a brighter note, the heavy winter snowpack means there will be adequate moisture this spring.

The NASS survey indicated annual ryegrass acreage available for harvest this summer will increase by one percent to 119,000 acres. Perennial ryegrass acreage, however, dropped from 87,000 acres harvested last year to 75,000 acres available this summer.

Plantings of turf type tall fescue also dropped, from 101,000 acres harvested last summer to 93,000 available for harvest in 2017. Plantings of forage type tall fescue and K-31 tall fescue increased by about 1,000 acres each, according to the survey.

Grass seed, used worldwide for parks, lawns, sports fields and pastures, is perennially among Oregon’s most valuable crops. NASS listed it fifth in 2015, with a value of nearly $384 million.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Community activists and union leaders say federal immigration officers stopped two vans carrying workers headed to a forest to pick an ornamental shrub, detained 19 of them and then took 10 of them away.

Pedro Sosa, who works with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said 10 of the Latino workers were taken away after the traffic stop on a highway just outside the town of Woodburn in the predawn hours Friday. He said most of the workers are Guatemalan and at least one is Mexican.

Sosa said Tuesday four or five of the workers remain in detention, and may have been taken to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington.

Rose Richeson, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the Pacific Northwest, said she is gathering information on the matter.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Openly defying President Donald Trump’s plans to step up deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, several hundred of them and their supporters staged a rally Monday right next to a building of the federal immigration agency.

“We are undocumented, and we are unafraid,” protesters chanted at the rally, held in bone-chilling rain near downtown Portland. Uniformed guards at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building kept an eye from behind windows on the peaceful protest, but they did not intervene. Some motorists driving by tooted their horns and gave thumbs-up in a show of support.

Speakers at the rally gave their names to the crowd and the media. Some said that while they are worried that this could bring them to the attention of ICE agents, they felt they had to speak out to dispel the climate of fear that has gripped the immigrant community in Oregon, where a few towns have a majority Latino population, and in much of the rest of the nation.

“I am very afraid,” Juan Avalos said in an interview. “But that’s the point today, coming out of the shadows. We will no longer be afraid, and this is the main point of the event.”

Now 21, Avalos had come to America from Salamanca, a town in Guanajuato state in central Mexico, when he was only 12. He is a student at a community college and works at an auto body shop.

“We are students. We are brothers. We are people who are just trying to be someone in life,” he said.

Trump says deportations are needed to keep America safe, and that the priority is to get criminals out. But some of those with no criminal history, or minor infractions, are also being detained.

During the rally, one of the protesters was on the phone, being told there had been people detained in the last few days in Woodburn, a predominantly Latino town south of Portland.

On Feb.9, a Woodburn man, a father of two who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years, was detained by ICE agents and sent to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington. ICE did not immediately confirm any additional detentions in Woodburn.

Luna Flores, who spoke at the rally, has lived in Portland for 16 years, and she is the mother of a U.S. citizen. She worries that she will be separated from her daughter if she is deported.

“We try to send a message to the ICE, to the government, to the whole administration, we are not criminals,” she said. “They are separating our families.”

Hannah Zaiv, a retired mental health counselor from Portland, held a sign saying “Let Them Stay” as she listed to the speakers.

“This is a country made for everyone,” she said. “The world should be made for everyone. Like John Lennon sang in ‘Imagine’: ‘Imagine there’s no countries.’ “

ICE said in a statement that it “fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference,” local TV channel KATU reported.

The station also carried on its website a statement from an unidentified spokesperson for the Oregon Republican Party saying “Illegal immigrants flaunting their illegality is the same as promoting anarchy.”

The first picture I'm sharing this week was taken before the Bandon Fire, and in the foreground you can see the Golden Rule store, which later relocated to Second Street and is now the Continuum Center building. East of that…

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1

Saturdays