Six new members will be added to the Oregon Nurseries Hall of Fame when industry members gather for a reception and dinner Feb. 22 in Wilsonville.

Named to the Hall of Fame this year were:

• Jack Bigej, second-generation owner of Al’s Garden Center. After taking over for his father, Al, Bigej expanded the business into four growing facilities and three retail stores, with a fourth store upcoming. He served as Oregon Association of Nurseries president in 1993 and was made an OAN honorary life member in 2004. His son, Mark, is OAN president this year.

• Dick Jovee, owner of Jovee Farms, noted for his long service to the industry. He was OAN president in 1983 and was made an honorary life member in 2003.

• Ray Klupenger, owner of Klupenger Nursery. He joined the family business in 1959, served as association president in 1972 and was one of the founders of the OAN’s annual Farwest Trade Show. His father, Joe Klupenger, was part of the first Hall of Fame group inducted in 1991.

• The late Bruce Usrey, who worked with Monrovia for nearly five decades and was president and CEO. He managed the company’s expansion, which included adding a growing facility in Dayton. Usrey died in 2015.

• The late Glenn and Viola Walters. They learned the business at George Teufel’s holly farm, then established Glenn Walters Nursery in 1948. It became one of the most influential nurseries in Oregon, according to OAN. Glenn Walter died in 2010; Viola Glenn died in 2015.

The industry established its hall of fame in 1991; it now has 45 members.

The induction banquet begins at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 22, at the Holiday Inn in Wilsonville. Tickets are $80 a person or $640 for a table of eight, and include appetizers, a drink ticket, dinner and wine. Tickets can be bought online at www.oan.org.

Oregon’s nursery industry, providing landscaping and ornamental plants, is annually among the state’s leading agricultural pursuits. The industry had sales in 2015 of about $895 million. About 75 percent of nursery production is exported out of state

Oregon saw a major upswing in hazelnut production in 2016, with growers harvesting 40 percent more nuts than the previous year.

At 43,300 tons, the state’s hazelnut crop also outperformed the USDA’s projection by 14 percent.

The situation is a big improvement over 2015, when the crop’s size fell 25 percent short of the USDA’s estimate.

Even so, experts say the uncertainty complicates the Oregon hazelnut industry’s sales planning.

“For the processors and the handlers, knowing what that crop is makes it much easier to market it worldwide,” said Garry Rodakowski, a hazelnut farmer near Vida, Ore.

Traditionally, major year-to-year swings in the hazelnut crop weren’t unusual, but these days, additional factors also complicate projections, he said.

Growers are planting new varieties that are resistant to Eastern filber blight but don’t have a long track record in terms of yields, Rodakowski said.

“With these new varieties, we don’t have that history. They haven’t been in the ground long enough,” he said.

With the larger 2016 crop, packers are also left with more hazelnuts to sell in the new year.

Packers sold about 27,000 tons of the 2016 crop by the end of that year, which is about 2,700 more tons than at the end of 2015.

However, because total production in 2016 was larger, 16,000 tons were left over at the beginning of 2017 — more than twice as much as a year earlier.

“We’ve still got a lot of inventory to move,” said Jeff Fox, CEO of Hazelnut Growers of Oregon, a division of the Wilco cooperative. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Growers were paid $1.38 per pound for the 2015 crop, up from the initial prices of $1.22 quoted by packers early in the harvest season.

The initial price for the 2016 crop is set at $1.18, but Fox said it’s unlikely to rise as dramatically in light of the leftover inventory.

Early hazelnut sales are sold in-shell to the Chinese market, but more of the remaining inventory is headed for the kernel market, where sales aren’t as brisk, he said.

Even so, the USDA’s estimate for 2016 was expected to be conservative and the industry negotiated the $1.18 price with the expectation that the crop could be 10 percent larger, said Terry Ross, executive director of the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association. “It wasn’t a tremendous shock. I expect a respectable increase” in the final price, Ross said. “I think a lot of packers moved product early into the marketplace.”

Predicting Oregon’s hazelnut production is tougher for USDA these days because farmers have increased plantings of new cultivars, said Larry George, president of the George Packing Co.

“They were pretty dang close with the old varieties but the new varieties were unpredictable,” George said, noting that yields from the Jefferson cultivar surged in 2016.

Estimating the acreage of young hazelnut trees reaching maturity is an inexact science, he said.

Growers surveyed by George Packing had wildly different estimates for the size of the 2016 crop, George said. “The variation people are seeing in their orchards is huge.”

Oregon farmers planted more than 9,000 acres of hazelnuts in 2016, up from about 6,000 acres in 2015 and 4,300 acres in 2014, according to Pacific Agricultural Survey, which tracks the industry.

The company relies on aerial photographs taken in spring or summer, but some orchards were actually planted the previous autumn, said Mike McDaniel, its principal.

For that reason, some trees are better established than estimated in the survey, he said. “There’s a decent chunk of trees reaching the bearing age.”

Dwayne Bush, a farmer near Eugene, Ore., has found that the popular Jefferson variety is generating a larger amount of hazelnuts at a young age compared to Barcelona, Oregon’s traditional cultivar.

At three to four years of age, Jefferson trees are producing as many nuts as Barcelona trees did in their seventh or eighth year, he said.

Estimating the annual harvest is also trickier due to the ongoing removal of older orchards afflicted with blight, Bush said. “It’s not an easy job, predicting.”

Regular Western World fishing columnist Tony Roszkowski will be out of town for several weeks. The following is a fishing report from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website.

Oregon State University President Ed Ray said he is “angry and disappointed” by President Donald Trump’s temporary executive order on immigration, saying the changes lack detail, are being unevenly implemented and have created “anxiety, uncertainty and hardship” among “thoroughly vetted” refugees, immigrants and green card holders.

OSU counts 165 students and six visiting scholars from the seven predominantly Muslim countries included in Trump’s 90-day order. It appears none of them were in transit when the executive order was issued, and so were not stuck at airports or otherwise prevented from reaching Corvallis, according to OSU.

Ray made his remarks in a prepared statement.

University Vice President Steve Clark could not immediately say whether some of the students or scholars are involved with OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Clark said OSU is not allowed to give out confidential student information. If only a handful of affected students or scholars are affiliated with the ag college, they would effectively be identified, he said.

OSU, like much of Pacific Northwest agriculture, has extensive international connections. University faculty travel worldwide, Clark said, and OSU hosts researchers and students from dozens of nations. Restrictions on the opportunity to do collaborative research are a serious matter, he said. During a 2015 wheat field day in Eastern Oregon, for example, OSU breeders and soil scientists cited an Iranian study of wheat yield losses caused by root lesion nematodes and fusarium crown rot.

Ray, the OSU president, previously declared the university an immigration sanctuary, and repeated that stand in the statement issued Monday.

“OSU’s Sanctuary University status is not subject to recent presidential executive orders since the university complies with all federal laws. The United States Constitution provides for states’ rights that effectively allow state entities such as OSU to decline to participate in an enforcement role in carrying out deportation actions,” Ray said in the statement.

OSU won’t provide information to the federal government to aid in those actions unless required by court order or an emergency health or safety situation, Ray said. The university’s public safety department won’t voluntarily collect or provide information to federal immigration enforcement officials, Ray said.

Vice President Clark acknowledged the university has heard from critics, including some alumni, who disagree with that stand.

The university doesn’t appear overly worried about losing federal funding due to its sanctuary stand, an action Trump has threatened to take against cities that defy him.

Executive action by the Trump administration or federal funding changes based on OSU’s sanctuary status “would be subject to legal scrutiny” based on separation of powers and delegation of authority, the university said on its website. “OSU would oppose any effort to provide executive or statutory authority for such actions,” OSU said.

According to OSU’s website, the university had 3,937 international students as of fall 2016. Of those, 89 are from Iran, one of the nations included in Trump’s ban. More than a third of international students, 1,678, are from China. The next largest segment, 442, come from Saudi Arabia, which was not included in Trump’s immigration ban. The College of Ag Sciences has 123 international students; the College of Forestry has 42.

Online

OSU President Ed Ray’s statement:

President Donald Trump’s executive order:

Tuesdays

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1

ONTARIO, Ore. — The Owyhee River Basin is holding an unusually large amount of snow right now, a good sign for the 1,800 farms that depend on irrigation water from the Owyhee Reservoir.

“The Owyhee looks really, really good. It’s incredible,” said Malheur County farmer Bruce Corn, a member of the Owyhee Irrigation District’s board of directors.

Snow melt from the basin flows into the reservoir, which provides water for 118,000 acres of irrigated farmland in Eastern Oregon and part of Southwestern Idaho.

Average snowpack was 164 percent of normal as of Jan. 30, but that only tells part of the story, Corn said.

“The whole watershed has snow in it right now,” he said. “There is a lot of snow where we normally don’t get any.”

There are significant amounts of snow in parts of the 11,000-square-mile basin that usually don’t receive much, said OID Manager Jay Chamberlin.

That means lots of snow in the basin beyond the snow measuring sites.

“What’s so different about this year is that it’s spread out through the whole watershed and normally we don’t see that,” Chamberlin said. “We’re going to get water from areas we’re not used to getting water from.”

Chamberlin said it’s possible the reservoir, which can hold more than 700,000 acre-feet of water for irrigation, could fill for the first time in several years.

OID patrons last year received their full 4-acre-foot allotment of irrigation water for the first time since 2011. In 2014 and 2015, they received only a third of that amount.

Now the 53-mile-long Owyhee Reservoir, which can hold two-years’ supply of irrigation water when full, could return to maximum capacity for the first time in several years if the rest of the winter plays out right.

Forty inches of snow has been recorded at Oregon State University’s Malheur County research station near Ontario so far this winter, said OSU Extension cropping systems agent Stuart Reitz. The previous record for an entire winter was 26 inches.

“Nobody around here has really ever seen these kind of conditions before,” he said.

OSU Extension cropping systems agent Bill Buhrig said the abundant snow is great news for the region’s farmers from a water supply standpoint — but it could cause other problems.

While area farmers have been able to plant some crops early in recent years, that’s unlikely in 2017, he said.

“We may be looking at a spring where we have to have a little more patience before we can get into the fields,” Buhrig said.

He also received a question from a farmer asking if he should be concerned about snow mold in winter wheat. Buhrig, a farmers who grew up in this area, said he will have to do his homework on that.

“That’s a good question. We’ve never had that issue before around here,” he said.

BOARDMAN, Ore. — The story of agriculture and energy production in Eastern Oregon is an increasingly high-tech narrative, replete with GPS-driven tractors, wind and solar power and irrigation pivots powered by the touch of a smartphone.

So when the Port of Morrow set out to highlight these industries, it devised a modern museum with interactive features to show visitors where their food and electricity comes from.

Three years later, the Sustainable Agriculture and Energy — or SAGE — Center continues to find its footing as a tourist destination along Interstate 84, advertising as far as Portland and the Tri-Cities while also hosting local job fairs and community events.

Kalie Davis, SAGE Center manager, said they are seeing signs of progress: last year’s Morrow County Harvest Festival drew more than 1,000 people in a single day, and new television commercials boosted general admission by about 14 visitors per day during the month of June.

Annual visitation, however, has been mostly flat, averaging 19,507 people with no year-to-year increase. By comparison, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles had 27,795 visitors (not including tour groups from Columbia River cruise lines), and the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City had 41,221 visitors.

Looking ahead, Davis said the SAGE Center will continue marketing to the Portland metro area and Tri-Cities, with another round of ads to begin in March. Davis also plans to attend this year’s Oregon Ag Fest at the State Fairgrounds in April.

It is important, Davis said, for people to understand how their food is made, processed and shipped. That’s what the SAGE Center offers, through exhibits such as a video tractor game, mock french fry processing line and video board that displays where products are exported around the world.

“People who come in are typically very confused about what they’re going to see,” Davis said. “As they go through, they’re just wowed by all these industries located in such a small region.”

Visitors normally would not be able to tour these facilities, Davis said, due to food safety and security regulations. The SAGE Center is a way for them to better understand how farm and energy technology works.

“I think it’s fascinating for people to learn how far things have come over the last hundred years,” Davis said.

The SAGE Center operates with the backing and support of the Port of Morrow, Oregon’s second-largest port, with approximately 50 businesses generating more than $100 million in tax revenue for the state.

Gary Neal, general manager at the port, initially wanted to create a museum in 2001 after Tillamook Cheese opened a new cheese-making plant in Boardman but did not include a visitor center like the one it has in Tillamook.

Instead, Neal thought the port could shine a spotlight on all the natural resource-based industries it serves, from making cheese and potato chips to electricity and ethanol.

“These are some of the most sophisticated operations in the world here,” Neal said. “We need to tell that story.”

Early designs for the SAGE Center called for a 10,000-square-foot box-shaped building, though the final building would be three times as large with a silo-themed exterior, movie theater and additional conference space.

The SAGE Center opened June 1, 2013, and cost $8.2 million to build. Roughly $3.7 million in funding came from the state grant $4.5 million from by the port.

“We think it’s a first-class facility,” Neal said. “We’re pretty proud of it.”

Over the last three fiscal years, Neal said the port has continued to cover between $400,000 and $600,000 per year in operating costs at the center. However, with a $40 million capital budget, he said the port is happy to continue supporting the center.

“We didn’t get into this lightly,” Neal said. “It’s not a routine thing that we do, but it’s something important that we felt we needed to do.”

Neal said the SAGE Center was never intended to be a self-supporting facility. Education, not money, is the goal, and he feels they are doing a good job at the center.

Others at the port and around the region agree.

Debbie Radie, vice president of operations for Boardman Foods — an onion processor that employs 175 people — said many of their customers have a specific interest in sustainable farming and energy efficiency.

The SAGE Center is a place where Radie said she can bring customers to learn about how those farming practices work.

“Sometimes people are misinformed and not understanding how sustainable the water use is here,” Radie said. “I think the SAGE Center showcases that well.”

Radie said employees at Boardman Foods also appreciate being able to bring their kids and families to the SAGE Center for movie nights or activities.

“That just helps support a way of life that people enjoy,” she said.

James Bradshaw, director of the energy systems technology program at Walla Walla Community College, said he brings 30-40 students every year to the Agriculture and Energy Job Fair, where they can network with about 30 different potential employers.

“The Boardman area has a lot of opportunities for our students to get jobs,” Bradshaw said. “There’s just a lot of synergy going on in Boardman with agriculture and energy, and with what we’re trying to train our students here in Walla Walla.”

Neal said the SAGE Center may also help local high schoolers stay in the region after school, knowing they have family-wage jobs in their own back yard. That will only improve, he said, with the completion of the Blue Mountain Community College Workforce Training Center next winter, just across from the SAGE Center.

“We look at this as long-term messaging,” Neal said.

Gaining visitors will require constant effort, but after organizing 168 events at the SAGE Center a year ago, Davis said there is plenty of potential to bring people into the region.

“I think the SAGE Center is a great starting point for that,” Davis said.

The Tillamook County Creamery Association has pledged $1.5 million to help build a new dairy science center at Oregon State University.

The facility is part of a planned food and beverage center that will include wine and beer making and other food made through fermentation. The dairy section will include an automated, small-scale manufacturing plant to produce cheese, ice cream, cultured products and powders. Oregon State’s small dairy herd, housed a quarter-mile away, will provide milk for the facility.

OSU already has a “beautiful little pilot plant” to make artisan cheese but the new facility will expand the opportunities for students, said Lisbeth Goddik, dairy processing Extension specialist and a food science professor.

“This is taking the training to a new level,” Goddik said.

She said the dairy industry, particularly on the West Coast, is doing well. Exports to Mexico, China, Japan and elsewhere have fueled the industry’s rise, she said.

The industry’s strong position has paid off in jobs for program graduates. Goddik said national dairy companies now send recruiters to OSU.

“The industry realizes we have some pretty good students come out of here,” she said.

The dairy part of the food building will cost about $6 million, of which $3 million is projected to come from donations such as the one from Tillamook. The rest is proposed to come from state bonds, pending legislative approval this year.

Patrick Criteser, president of the Tillamook Creamery group, said in a prepared statement that the donation demonstrates the co-op’s confidence in OSU to train the next generation of dairy scientists. The group is a farmer-owned cooperative that produces the familiar Tillamook brand cheese and other products.

“I can tell you, it’s pretty fabulous for Tillamook Creamery to be making this investment,” said Goddik, of OSU. “It’s real money, obviously money the dairy farmers could use themselves.”

SALEM — With the 2014 Farm Bill expiring next year, agriculture leaders are already preparing for the struggle over its successor.

Alexis Taylor, the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s new director, is no stranger to farm bill negotiations.

She helped work on the 2008 and 2014 versions of the legislation as a congressional staffer before getting hired by USDA, where she most recently served as Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services.

Barely a week into her new role as ODA’s chief, Taylor headed back to Washington, D.C. to meet with her counterparts at a policy meeting of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

Taylor said the 2018 Farm Bill is expected to be a prime subject of conversation at the meeting, scheduled for Jan. 30 to Feb. 1.

It’s too early to tell what changes are in store for the monumental piece of farm legislation, particularly in light of uncertainties about federal budget priorities, she said.

In the 2014 Farm Bill, Congress moved away from traditional farm subsidies and toward greater reliance on the federal crop insurance program.

Taylor said she expects this trend to continue, with crop insurance serving as the “cornerstone” of farm programs for commodity crops and playing a larger role in support for specialty crops.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Taylor said during a meeting with Capital Press.

Farm bill negotiations have grown increasingly contentious in the past decade. The 2008 Farm Bill took a year longer to enact than expected, and the 2014 Farm Bill went into effect two years after its predecessor expired.

Now that Republicans control the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House, though, some expect the process to be less turbulent.

Trade relations will also be another hot topic at the NASDA meeting, particularly with the questions that loom over the Trump administration policies, Taylor said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has strived to strengthen the state’s trade connections, particularly in Asia, and these ties will be vital for the state’s farm industry, she said.

In the next 20 years, about two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be in Asia, Taylor said.

Climate change is another concern for Oregon agriculture due to longer fire seasons and changes in the life cycles of pests and diseases, she said.

“It’s not just Oregon or the United States. It takes the whole world to figure that out,” Taylor said.

As for Oregon-specific issues, Taylor said she’s been directed by Gov. Kate Brown to find ways to involve farmers in the “Regional Solutions” economic development effort that focuses on local projects.

Taylor also said she’s learning about the history of genetically modified “Roundup Ready” creeping bentgrass, a variety that’s resistant to glyphosate herbicides and escaped field trials more than a decade ago.

The ODA’s previous director, Katy Coba, argued that the biotech cultivar should continue to be regulated by USDA, but the federal agency nonetheless recently deregulated it.

Taylor said she’s still “trying to wrap my arms around” the situation and how ODA will respond to the decision.

As for the controversy over genetic engineering in general, Taylor said she subscribes to her predecessor’s philosophy of encouraging coexistence among different types of agriculture.

Fewer people now have a direct connection to farming as the industry’s grown more efficient, so it’s important to educate consumers about modern agriculture, she said.

“That’s part of the job for me, being an advocate for farmers and rural communities,” Taylor said.

Fair board seeks to fill vacancies

Saturdays

NYSSA, Ore. — As much as $100 million in damages were caused when dozens of onion storage sheds and packing facilities collapsed under the weight of deep snows that have buried Idaho and Eastern Oregon.

About 50 onion buildings collapsed under the weight of up to 40 inches of snow that has fallen during the harshest winter in memory.

“It’s an absolute catastrophe,” said Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce in Nyssa. Three of the company’s storage sheds and the building housing one of its packing lines collapsed.

Myers estimated the total damage to the onion industry in southwestern Idaho and Malheur County, Ore., could be near $100 million.

The region’s 300 onion farmers and 30 shippers produce about 25 percent of the nation’s big bulb storage onions.

The damage is devastating. In many cases, it looks like a tornado tore through the buildings, said Partners Produce co-owner Eddie Rodriguez.

“They’re still going down as we speak,” he said. “Now, it’s just happening everywhere. The snow is heavy and there’s too much of it.”

Partners has lost four buildings, including its main packing line in Payette, Idaho, which will be out of commission at least seven months.

The lost production has pushed the prices shippers receive for their onions up dramatically. For example, the price for a 50-pound bag of yellow jumbo onions was around $3.50 before the collapses but is nearly $10 now.

“There have been a lot of sheds that haven’t been able to pack onions. That’s why the market’s gone up,” said Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

This region produces more than 1 billion pounds of Spanish big bulb onions annually, but the building collapses have claimed a good chunk of last year’s production. That’s because once the onions are exposed to the cold and freeze, they are no good.

Owyhee Produce alone lost 20 million pounds of onions when its buildings collapsed.

Snake River Produce in Nyssa lost the equivalent of 35, 40,000-pound truckloads of onions when four of its buildings collapsed.

“That’s peanuts compared to what some have lost,” said manager Kay Riley. “Everywhere you go ... there’s a building on the ground. It’s pretty dramatic.”

Onion industry leaders have contacted state and federal representatives to ask for help in finding assistance for the region. An estimated 150 farm- and non-farm-related buildings have been destroyed.

“I’ve personally seen at least 40 collapsed buildings, probably more,” said state Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario. “It really looks like they were hit by a bomb. It’s really shocking.”

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both D-Ore., have asked the federal government to begin the process that would result in a federal disaster declaration for Malheur County and other Eastern Oregon counties impacted by the severe winter.

A federal disaster declaration would make farmers and other businesses eligible for low-interest loans, insurance relief and other disaster aid, according to a joint news release by the senators.

Rodriguez and others said it would probably take two to three years for the industry to totally recover and rebuild.

“It’s affecting all of us in the onion industry and beyond,” he said. “It’s a sad deal.”

LANGLOIS — Small and Dull present a hardwood dance party at The Old Langlois Cheese Factory Saturday, Feb. 4. T-Bird and the Hot Pajamas will open for Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners at 7 p.m. Admission will be…

PORTLAND — Oregon farmers aren’t legally required to secure pesticide containers during transport but doing so anyway can prevent financial calamity, according to a safety expert.

Currently, Oregon traffic rules prohibit dealers from traveling with unsecured pesticides, but the regulation doesn’t apply to farmers, said Garnet Cooke, pesticide coordinator with the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Even so, growers in the state would be wise not to exploit that loophole.

Farmers can be held liable for clean-up costs if they’re shown to have caused a pesticide spill, which isn’t unthinkable given the abundance of smartphone cameras, Cooke said.

“It’s very expensive,” she said during a recent pesticide safety seminar at the Northwest Ag Show in Portland, Ore.

Regulators from Oregon OSHA can penalize farmers if their employees attempt to clean up a pesticide spill without sufficient training or equipment, but not for improper transport, Cooke said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture faces a similar regulatory gap, since it can only cite growers for improper pesticide usage — and chemicals aren’t actually being used during travel, she said.

In the event of a spill, though, costs can quickly spiral out of control.

Cooke gave the example of an exhausted driver who wrecked a truck after falling asleep near The Dalles, Ore., spilling a pesticide that’s toxic to fish next to a creek.

Nearly 30 state and federal agencies responded to the accident, which required the removal of 6,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment, she said.

The creek was also dammed to allow for about 5 million gallons of water to be pumped out, Cooke said. The total cost of clean-up came to $7 million, for which the driver’s company and its insurers were responsible.

A spill resulting from unsecured pesticide containers at a nursery near Independence, Ore., was less extensive, but the clean-up still cost $250,000, she said.

Just having a “hazardous material” or “hazmat” response team show up at a spill site costs at least $500, plus $1,125 per hour of work, Cooke said.

“The cheapest way is prevention,” she said.

While properly securing pesticides is more time-consuming, employers shouldn’t allow their drivers to skip the task, Cooke said. “Allow them the time it’s going to take to do it.”

Unsecured pesticide containers are a safety hazard even if they don’t immediately spill.

In one case, a pesticide container fell off a truck into grass along the road but remained closed, Cooke said. It was eventually mowed over by the landowner, causing him to get sick and killing a cat that wandered into the spill.

“It’s very common and it doesn’t need to happen,” she said.

Hazardous exposure to pesticides also tends to occur from poor coordination of tasks on a farm, Cooke said.

For example, a commercial pesticide applicator was scheduled to spray a grass seed field at the same time a crew of five workers was roguing the crop, she said. The sprayer came within 200 feet of the workers, which was enough for four of them to experience symptoms of illness.

In light of the multitude of duties on a farm, it’s easy to see how such incidents can occur, which is why all workers and visitors should check in at the farm office to avoid mishaps, Cooke said.

Complacency is another common cause of accidents.

The simplicity of applying aluminum phosphide, a common fumigant and rodenticide, can cause people to overlook its dangerousness, she said.

Dropping pellets or tablets into a rodent burrow is enough to activate the chemical, which reacts with atmospheric moisture to form a deadly gas.

However, when improperly disposed, aluminum phosphide poses a hazard — for example, a man opened a drum containing aluminum phosphide that had become gaseous, which then ignited and left him with a skull fracture.

Aluminum phosphide applied to rodent burrows too close to residential homes has also caused multiple poisoning deaths in Texas and Utah in recent years, since the gas infiltrated the houses, Cooke said.

“Nobody reads the label because it’s too easy to use,” she said.

A federal judge has prohibited cattle grazing on 68,000 acres in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest until federal officials reconsider its impacts on Oregon spotted frogs.

Annual grazing authorizations for the Chemult Pasture issued by the U.S. Forest Service “did not account for evidence in the record showing cattle trespass, unauthorized use, and harm to habitat under the current management,” according to U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken.

Further grazing authorizations should be enjoined until the agency can determine the actual effects of grazing on the viability of spotted frogs and other sensitive species, according to Aiken’s ruling, which upholds conclusions reached by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke.

Multiple environmental groups — Concerned Friends of the Winema, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Western Watersheds Project, Oregon Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity — have long opposed grazing within the pasture, which has been ranched by the Iverson family for more than a century.

A lawsuit filed in 2008 was dismissed as moot because the U.S. Forest Service had built a riparian fence within the pasture to protect the frogs, which are now a threatened species.

In another case, filed in 2010, the Forest Service was found to have violated environmental laws but the judge didn’t impose an injunction against grazing because it would have been impractical and likely hurt frog populations on private land elsewhere.

The most recent complaint accuses the agency of underestimating the damage that cattle inflict on wetland habitats inhabited by spotted frogs in violation of several environmental laws.

The plaintiffs argued that during dry periods, the frogs gather in shallow pools and are trampled by cattle that regularly venture beyond areas they’re authorized to graze.

Because such unauthorized grazing wasn’t fully analyzed by the Forest Service, the agency’s conclusion that cattle had only a minimal impact on the species “lacks rational support” contrary to the National Forest Management Act, according to the court.

The court characterized as “scientifically baseless” the Forest Service’s estimate that only 3 percent of spotted frogs were trampled by cattle, which is unlawfully “arbitrary and capricious” under the Endangered Species Act.

The extent of non-lethal harassment and harm to the species — which is also prohibited by ESA — was also left out of the agency’s analysis, the court held.

“Federal defendants offer little reasoning why they do not to include these measures of take of individual (Oregon spotted frogs), beyond alluding to practical difficulties in finding and measuring bodies of dead or injured (Oregon spotted frogs),” the ruling said.

PORTLAND — Kaci Buhl cut through the technical jargon while talking to producers about pesticides and the EPA’s new worker protection standards.

“I can sum it up in a few words,” Buhl said. “Don’t spray people.”

Buhl is a senior faculty research assistant at Oregon State University’s environmental and molecular toxicology department and deputy director of the National Pesticide Information Center on campus. She said the EPA’s new rules give workers and regulators a “right to know” what, when and how much pesticides farms are using.

Some of the EPA rules are practices already followed by Oregon farmers, but the changes tighten requirements for record keeping regarding training, safety procedures and application history.

Buhl summarized the major changes:

• Annual mandatory farmworker training, the previously requirement was every five years.

• More training regarding “take home” exposure, such to pesticide residue on work clothing.

• Children under 18 for the first time are prohibited from handling pesticides. The farmer’s immediate family is excluded from the regulation.

• Additional clarity regarding “no entry” exclusion zones of zero, 25 and 100 feet from where pesticides were applied. Buhl reminded producers that exclusion zones travel with the equipment.

• Mandatory “no entry” signs and mandatory record keeping.

• Changes in protective equipment requirements to make them consistent with Department of Labor Standards. Workers wearing respirators must first be medically certified and must undergo a “fit” test to make sure the gear is working properly.

• Specific amounts of water per worker must be available at the work site for routine hand-washing and emergency eye flushing. Eye wash stations are required at pesticide mixing and loading sites.

Buhl said worker training is critical. Labor contractors who can supply crews that have been properly trained in handling pesticides will have an advantage. However, farmers are ultimately responsible for making sure workers follow safety rules.

“The buck stops with the ag employer,” Buhl said.

Buhl spoke during the Jan. 24-26 Northwest Agricultural Show at the Portland Expo Center. The annual event typically includes a trade show and equipment displays combined with workshops on regulatory or production issues.

Pesticide use on farms is a flash point for some consumers and environmental activists. Buhl said the general public is afraid of or unfamiliar with pesticides. “We have a job to do, to tell the story that they are not as toxic as people think,” she said.

One producer in the audience complained that the safety gear required by pesticide guidelines makes workers look like “astronauts” and gives the impression to passersby that the material is far more hazardous than it is.

A nursery owner in the audience asked about exclusion zones. Many operations, he said, have hedges around their property in part to contain pesticide drift. There might be unseen walkers or bicyclists on the other side who are within the exclusion zone. Buhl part of a producer’s “due diligence” would involve stopping spraying to take a look, posting flaggers on the other side of the hedge and similar methods.

“Suspend, evaluate, ensure,” she said.

Some of the EPA changes went into effect this year; the rest take effect in January 2018.

HEMRISTON, Ore. — Dressed in wool overalls and carrying a pitchfork, Umatilla County Sheriff Terry Rowan looked more like a rancher than a lawman Wednesday morning while pacing the snow-covered pastures at Cedar Creek Cattle Company in Hermiston.

Two weeks earlier, Rowan and deputies arrived at this property on Columbia Lane and South Edwards Road to discover more than a dozen dead cattle and another 15 so malnourished they couldn’t be safely moved. Charges of animal neglect will likely be filed against the herd’s owner, 55-year-old Michael Hockensmith, but in the meantime daily care of the animals has fallen to the sheriff’s office.

On Wednesday, officers recruited about 15 students from Blue Mountain Community College to help round up the cows for tagging and immunizations. A local veterinarian was also on hand to assess each animal’s body condition.

By day’s end, Rowan said they processed 185 cattle with another eight still to go. The death toll, which had been 14 animals, is now 17, including a two-year-old heifer found dead early Wednesday morning. A necropsy determined the heifer, which was seven and a half months pregnant, had suffered from a bacterial disease and congestive heart failure.

“She had a rough life,” said Brent Barton, veterinarian with the Oregon Trail Veterinary Clinic in Hermiston.

Upon investigation, Rowan said it appears the cattle were neglected over an extended period of time. There was no hay when officers first showed up weeks earlier, and water troughs had frozen over with 6-8 inches of ice.

“We have some really malnourished animals we’ve been contending with,” Rowan said.

Rowan said they expect to file multiple charges of first- and second-degree animal neglect against Hockensmith in the coming days. Jake Kamins, Oregon’s deputy district attorney dedicated solely to animal cases, has been brought on as a special prosecutor.

Hockensmith has not returned multiple calls by the East Oregonian for comment.

The sheriff’s office has already spent several thousand dollars caring for the cattle, Rowan said. It also takes time and manpower to make sure the animals are properly fed, and to break through ice in the water troughs.

“It always stretches your resources,” Rowan said. “At the same time, it’s worthwhile. You hate to see the animals neglected.”

Their goal Wednesday was to tag each of the cattle and give them much-needed vaccines, such as de-wormer and multi-mineral injection to boost their immune system. To do that, students from Matt Liscom’s beef production class at BMCC joined the team to round up reluctant cattle and run them through the loading chutes.

From there, the animals were ushered one by one into a metal squeeze chute designed to hold them still, where Barton could perform his assessment. Some cattle thrashed, struggled and even fell down inside the contraption, getting themselves stuck in the process.

“They’re not used to people handling them,” Barton said. “Essentially, they’re pretty tender creatures right now. They’ve already been through quite a cold spell.”

Liscom, who works as an agriculture science instructor at BMCC, said they were contacted by the sheriff’s office last week to lend a hand, and he decided it would be a valuable educational opportunity for his beef production students.

“We had a lab day anyway, so it worked out well that we could help out the county as well as learn,” Liscom said.

Liscom said the class was not there to pass any judgment, or to determine who is right and who is wrong in the case.

“We’re just here to help care for these animals as best we can,” he said.

When it comes to cattle care, providing enough food and water is critical to the animals’ survival. Chris Schachtschneider, a professor of livestock and rangeland with Oregon State University Extension Service, said cows need to eat at least 2.5 percent of its body weight in dry feed every day.

Otherwise, Schachtschneider said the animals lose their fat reserves and the body essentially begins to eat away at muscles and other internal organs. Once that happens, it can be hard to reverse.

“If they’re too far down that road, successful recovery is very unlikely,” he said.

This year’s unusually intense winter has caused some issues for local ranchers, Schachtschneider said, especially for those cows that have already begun calving. Schachtschneider said he’s seen instances where ranchers are bringing calves inside and using hairdryers to keep them warm.

But as long as the animals have good feed and good water, Schachtschneider said they tend to withstand cold fairly well.

“The animals are really resilient to (the weather) if they have proper nutrition,” he said.

Dave Grimes, lab technician for BMCC’s agriculture department, worked on a ranch in Athena for 32 years and said inclement weather definitely makes things more challenging in the fields. However, ranchers should have an obligation to their animals.

“No matter what, they’ve got to be worked,” Grimes said. “They’ve got to be taken care of.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Kerry Nordstrom-Bradley, 1989 graduate of Pacific High School and now a school counselor in Wrangell, Alaska, was honored by (now former) First Lady Michelle Obama and (now former) Secretary of Education John King Jr. as School Counselor…

PORTLAND — Producers should watch for localized efforts to restrict genetically engineered crops and pesticide use at the county and city level, while in the upcoming session of the Oregon Legislature, the concern is “budget, budget, budget,” the policy director for Oregonians for Food and Shelter said.

Speaking at the annual Northwest Agricultural Show, Scott Dahlman said he expects legislation regarding GMO crops, pesticides, fertilizer, labor, water and other ag concerns.

“When the Legislature’s in town, that’s when we get worried,” Dahlman said.

He said a “wild card” in the upcoming session is the state’s new agriculture department director. Alexis Taylor replaced Katy Coba, who was “absolutely wonderful for us” and maintained good relations with legislators, he said.

Taylor has a strong ag background, “But it’s fair to say she will have a lot to learn about Oregon ag,” Dahlman said.

One bill already proposed, Senate Bill 499, would remove pesticide applications from the activities protected under Oregon’s “right to farm” law and forestry practices. Traditionally, the state has held producers can’t be sued for noise, dust and other normal practices, but the bill would remove pesticides from protected activities.

“We’re very worried about anything that would roll that back and open up farmers and foresters to nuisance lawsuits,” Dahlman said.

He said producers need to be careful.

When applying pesticides, for example, producers must follow label instructions exactly, Dahlman said.

“There is no room for error,” he said. “Activists are out there looking for mistakes.

“Agency investigations are becoming front page news,” he added. “All is takes is one bad apple out there and it’s on the front page of the Oregonian.”

He said conflicts within agriculture — a recent example would include herbicide drift from farm operations harming vineyards — should be handled among producers. “We’re seeing a disturbing trend of certain groups running to the Legislature” instead of sitting down with their neighbors to resolve problems, he said.

To make themselves heard, producers should call up their legislators, introduce themselves and be willing to tell their story. The latter involves being willing to testify before legislative committees that are considering laws.

Dahlman said legislators tire of hearing from lobbing groups such as OFS.

“They listen to constituents,” he said. “The best expert on what you do is you.”