The deregulation was not unexpected. Last month APHIS released a final Environmental Impact Statement that recommended deregulation of the genetically engineered creeping bentgrass because it “is unlikely to pose a plant pest risk....”
Scotts and Monsanto petitioned USDA to deregulate the bentgrass, which was genetically engineered to withstand applications of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s popular Roundup weed killer.
The plant escaped field trials in 2003 and has taken root in Malheur and Jefferson counties in Oregon.
Some farmers and water manages in the affected counties worry that because the bentgrass is resistant to glyphosate and difficult to kill, it could clog irrigation ditches and affect shipments of hay and other crops to nations that don’t accept traces of genetically modified organisms.
Scotts reached a 10-year agreement with USDA last October that critics say allows the company to essentially walk away from any responsibility for controlling the plant in a few years.
As part of the agreement, Scotts and Monsanto agreed not to commercialize or further propagate the plant in the future.
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. (AP) — A 33-year-old vineyard worker from Corvallis is dead after he was found trapped under a utility vehicle at a winery near Junction City.
The Register-Guard reported Tuesday that Bentley Hart Chappell was pronounced dead at the scene on Saturday at Brigadoon Wine Company.
He was found by another employee at the bottom of a dirt road.
The cause of death is being investigated by the Lane County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Lane County Sheriff’s Office.
Winery owner Chris Shown says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also investigating the death.
Shown declined to comment further to the newspaper.
Friends say Chappell — a native of Georgia — was working at the winery to learn more about winemaking.
He was also passionate about music and craft brewing.
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Freezing rain, ice and fallen trees forced the closure of highways and roads in Oregon and Washington on Wednesday.
A 45-mile stretch of Interstate 84 between Troutdale and Hood River will remain closed all day.
Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, east of Seattle, remained closed due to ice, snow slides and multiple crashes. The Washington State Patrol says troopers responded to 67 collisions overnight because roads are covered with layers of snow, sleet and freezing rain.
Oregon transportation officials are making the call Wednesday after a major ice storm hit the Columbia River Gorge and forced the highway to shut down Tuesday afternoon.
But temperatures are now warming and the next concern is flooding as heavy rains mix with melting snow and ice from recent storms.
Freezing rain also hit a broad swath of the Cascades, Central Washington and southwest Washington.
The Yakima airport in Washington closed at 6 p.m. while the runway at Spokane International Airport was closed at 9 p.m. due to freezing rain.
SALEM — With global blueberry production climbing, farmers should focus on improving efficiencies rather than hoping for prices to rise, according to an industry expert.
“If you’re the lowest-cost producer, you will survive whatever kind of price stress we have in this industry,” said John Shelford, strategic advisor to the Naturipe Farms food company, at the Jan. 16 Oregon Blueberry Conference here.
Cold storage inventories of frozen blueberries have mounted in recent years, suppressing prices for the processed crop, he said.
In 2016, the pile of frozen blueberries leftover from the previous year’s harvest hit 145 million pounds in the U.S., up from 51 million pounds just five years earlier, according to USDA.
Frozen inventories will likely grow to 160 million pounds before this year’s blueberries enter cold storage, said Shelford. “I do not see any improvement in pricing for the 2017 harvest.”
Shelford projects that annual blueberry production in the U.S. and Canada will increase roughly one-third, from 1.2 billion pounds to 1.6 billion pounds over the next decade.
Farmers can’t depend on domestic consumption of the crop to grow proportionately and will have to ship more blueberries overseas to keep prices stable, he said.
“We can’t take our eye off the export business,” he said.
Niche markets offer an opportunity for growers but they don’t have a lot of “elasticity,” Shelford said.
For example, the market for organic blueberries — a relatively large niche — can easily be overwhelmed by excessive tonnage, causing prices to collapse, he said.
Surplus organic blueberries are actually better off being sold in the conventional market to avoid affecting organic prices, he said.
The average number of calories consumed per capita in the U.S. is effectively flat at about 2,500 calories per day, and the share represented by whole fruits actually declined in recent years across several demographics, Shelford said.
“If you eat more blueberries, you’re going to displace something else. It’s really a zero-sum game,” he said.
New blueberry plantings have slowed in North America and Chile, but farmers have still been enthusiastically committing new acreage to the crop in China, South Africa, Peru and Mexico, said Cort Brazelton, who heads business development at Fall Creek Farm & Nursery and tracks global blueberry production.
Mexico is in a strong position to supply “counterseasonal” fresh blueberries to U.S. consumers, since the country can ship its crop to the U.S. much faster than Chile, a prominent counterseasonal producer, Brazelton said.
Expansion of blueberry acreage in Peru is occurring in conjunction with overall agricultural growth in that country, which is tied to the construction of major irrigation projects, he said.
“If it grows in Peru, they’re planting it like crazy,” Brazelton said.
While North America remains an important destination for South American blueberries, producers on that continent are increasingly shipping more fruit to European and Asian markets, he said.
For North American farmers, remaining competitive will require keeping the per-unit cost of blueberries down while retaining a reputation for high quality, Brazelton said.
The stronger U.S. dollar presents a headwind for overseas sales, he said. “I wouldn’t make relying on a weak currency a tenet of successful exports.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Portland area is bracing for freezing rain that could bring up to an inch of ice to some areas east of the city, with heavier accumulations in the Columbia River Gorge.
The National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning for Portland on Tuesday and an ice storm advisory for the central Willamette Valley.
And an incoming weather system is also beginning to spread freezing rain across a broad swath of the Cascades, Central Washington and southwest Washington. The system could turn roads and highways into skating rinks.
Forecasters say freezing rain will begin Tuesday morning and could last until late afternoon, with slick conditions overnight.
Portland can expect less than one-tenth of an inch of ice, but areas east of Interstate 205 and into the Columbia River Gorge could get an inch or more.
Nearly two dozen flights had already been delayed Tuesday morning at Portland International Airport due to ice concerns.
Oregon has been pummeled by snow and below-freezing temperatures for days, but a warming trend should mean a thaw and possible flooding later in the week.
ALSEA, Ore. — The inception of Leaping Lamb Farm was far from auspicious for novice sheep producer Scottie Jones.
Upon moving to damp rural Oregon from dry metropolitan Arizona in 2003 with her husband, Greg, Jones seemed to encounter disaster at every turn.
“Things just fell apart,” she said.
Fences, irrigation equipment and farm machinery constantly broke down while the sheep had trouble birthing lambs, leading Jones to question whether they’d gotten in over their heads when buying the 44-acre farm near Alsea, Ore.
“Quite honestly, it was a mid-life crisis,” she said. “We were naive and idealistic. If we’d known a lot more, we probably wouldn’t have done it.”
Knowing full well that the couple’s friends in Phoenix were taking bets on how soon they’d give up and move back, Jones vowed not to quit.
With the help of neighbors and Oregon State University Extension agents, Leaping Lamb Farm gradually found its legs.
Much like the pioneers who traversed the Oregon Trail, Jones said she may have underestimated the challenges lying ahead, but she does not regret the venture.
The couple bought more land, expanding to 67 acres, and sold lambs both directly to consumers and to larger sheep producers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
Due to the paltry wool market, Jones also switched to raising hair sheep — specifically a cross between Katahdin and Dorper breeds — which had fewer birthing problems and better resistance to parasites, she said.
Even as she fine-tuned the operation, though, the farm was just breaking even financially.
Since farm chores kept her tied to the property, Jones decided to make the operation more profitable by starting a side business on-site.
“If I’m not going to leave the farm, what can I do?” she said.
Since she’d never been shy about socializing with strangers and was familiar with the concept of on-farm lodgings in Europe, Jones decided to open her property to overnight visitors.
Jones admits that her business plan for offering “farm stays” amounted to little more than “build it and they will come.”
Although her strategy was rather vague, that’s exactly what happened.
After Jones obtained a conditional use permit from the county government and launched a website in 2006, Leaping Lamb Farm was mentioned in four paragraphs of a Sunset magazine story on agritourism.
Despite the brevity of the reference, it nonetheless spurred public interest and further media attention.
An article mentioning Leaping Lamb Farm in a “foodie” magazine caught the attention of Kim Hall, a resident of Portland, Ore., who wanted to teach her four-year-old daughter about agriculture.
“I will probably never own a farm myself, so it was an opportunity to see what that’s like,” Hall said.
Over the past six years, Hall and her daughter, now 10, have repeatedly returned to Leaping Lamb Farm during different seasons.
The experience has changed as her daughter has grown older and become interested in new things, she said. “It’s always a different adventure.”
Lisa Peters, another Portland resident, has been coming back to the farm for three years with her two sons, now aged 13 and 15.
“It was magical,” she said, noting that they’ve pitched in with feeding the animals and distributing hay. “I don’t know how well we did at any of the tasks.”
Leaping Lamb Farms appeals mostly to families, as well as people who are thinking of leaving behind other careers to start farms, said Jones.
Visitors commonly help with chores such as collecting eggs and cleaning stalls, but some even assist with tail docking, ear tagging and castration duties.
“If you want to help, that’s great,” she said. “If you don’t want to help, that’s fine, you’re paying to be here.” Roughly 60 percent of the farm’s guest come from the Portland area, while the rest generally live along the West Coast.
The “farm stays” eventually became so popular that Jones had to turn away guests, steering them to other farms that offer overnight lodgings.
Those references led her to another project, the U.S. Farm Stay Association, which provides information about roughly 900 other farms that offer overnight lodgings across the country.
Jones created a website for the nonprofit association, also known as Farm Stay U.S., which is sustained by about 133 paying members who are allowed to display additional information and photos.
Farm stays appeal to consumers because the property is an attraction, not just a place to sleep, like a hotel, Jones said.
“A lot of people think they’re going to go places, but they don’t go anywhere because there’s enough to do here,” she said.
Leaping Lamb Farm
Owners: Scottie and Greg Jones
Hometown: Alsea, Ore.
Purpose: Raising lambs while providing lodgings to agritourists
Family: The couple has two grown daughters
Ages: Scottie is 63, Greg is 66
Education: Scottie earned a master’s degree in medieval archeology from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1980 and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix in 2003. Greg obtained a doctorate in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1978.
ONTARIO, Ore. — About 18 onion storage and packing facilities in southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon have collapsed over the past week from the weight of snow and ice, knocking out about 25 percent of the region’s total onion processing capacity, industry sources say.
“This is major. There are a lot of them down,” said Murakami Produce General Manager Grant Kitamura.
Prices for the Spanish bulb onions grown in this region have risen dramatically as a result.
Heavy snowstorms since December were followed by near-freezing rain last week and then more snow. That has caused many structures throughout the Treasure Valley area to collapse.
Kitamura, chairman of the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee’s promotion committee, said several other onion packing or storage facilities are on the brink.
“Some are still standing but they’re not looking too straight,” he said.
Partners Produce’s main onion packing facility in Payette, Idaho, collapsed and will be out of commission for at least seven months, said co-owner Eddie Rodriguez.
“I have 25-30 million pounds of onions that were destined to run through that line,” he said.
The company’s empty inventory holding facility also collapsed.
The roofs of at least four onion packing facilities have collapsed because of the weight of snow and ice.
“At least three of them will be out of commission the rest of the season and several are wounded,” Kitamura said.
At least 14 onion storage facilities have collapsed as well.
The disruptions will affect growers as well, said Oregon farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.
“When a shipper loses their packing line, it’s not just him but all his growers have to figure out what to do as well,” he said. “All those onions have to go somewhere.”
There are about 300 onion farmers and 30 onion shippers in the region, which produces about 25 percent of the nation’s storage onions.
About 25 percent of the region’s total onion processing capacity is currently off line, according to several sources, and demand is exceeding supply, which has pushed prices up dramatically.
The cost for a 50-pound bag of yellow jumbos has risen from about $3.50 before the damage occurred to close to $6.50 now, said Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, Ore.
“It’s directly related to the disruptions,” he said.
Rodriguez expects demand to continue to exceed supply for awhile because of the production disruptions.
“I think that will be the case throughout the rest of the season,” he said.
Demand for the region’s onions typically increases significantly following the new year, Kitamura said.
But the lost production capacity, coupled with trucking and railroad transportation issues related to the severe weather, has caused a significant reduction in the number of onions being shipped, Rodriguez said.
There are usually an average of about 180 total 40,000-pound shipments leaving the area each day this time of year but the actual number right now is around 110, he said.
“There have been massive disruptions in onion production this week,” Myers said.
He’s hopeful the production disruptions will be fixed and the region’s remaining onions will be shipped. “It’s just going to take a bit of time and some plan B’s and C’s.”
The timber industry thinks it may able to reverse President Barack Obama’s expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon.
The president’s decision to add 48,000 acres to the 65,000-acre national monument was praised by environmentalists and Oregon’s two senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
But a timber industry trade group argued that Obama misused his power under the 1906 Antiquities Act.
Travis Joseph, president of the Portland-based American Forest Resource Council, said Friday the expansion improperly included several thousand acres of federal land that Congress has prioritized for logging.
“Can an administration come and change the meaning of a statute through the Antiquities Act?” he asked. “That’s the legal question, and our answer is no.”
The expansion includes at least 7,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management acreage — known as the O&C lands — that the agency sees as “harvestable,” Joseph said.
Supporters of the expansion noted the original Cascade-Siskiyou monument designation also included O&C lands, and that it was never challenged legally.
Michael Campbell, a BLM spokesman in Portland, said he couldn’t comment on the timber industry’s contention. But he said the agency’s initial belief was that harvest contracts already signed in lands covered by the expansion would be honored.
In addition, Republican Congressman Greg Walden said Thursday he will talk with the incoming Trump administration about reversing Obama’s action. But there’s slim precedent for that.
“With this designation, the outgoing administration is locking up more of our public lands through a process that cut out many in the surrounding communities,” Walden said in a statement Thursday. “It appears like it was rigged from the beginning.”
Dave Willis of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council said there is strong public support for protecting an area of key biodiversity, like the Cascade-Siskiyou Monument.
Merkley said Friday he backed the monument expansion because it helped preserve an important outdoor area while being compatible with many existing uses. He said there is still grazing and timber cutting for fire management — as well as hunting, fishing and hiking.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Leaders of an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon were driving to a public meeting a year ago when police shot and killed one of them at a roadblock.
Now, LaVoy Finicum’s widow and their children are planning to hold that meeting later this month in the same town, John Day. Speakers are slated to talk about the Constitution, property rights and other issues.
“It is the anniversary of my husband’s death. We want to continue with his mission,” Jeanette Finicum told The Associated Press. “The people within counties and states should decide how to use those properties, not the federal government.”
LaVoy Finicum was the spokesman for several dozen occupiers during the 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and has become a martyr for the movement to transfer ownership of federal lands to local entities. The U.S. government owns nearly half of all land in the West, compared with 4 percent in other states, according to the Congressional Overview of Federal Land Ownership.
Finicum’s cattle brand, an L connected to a V with a floating bar, adorns bumper stickers, black flags and T-shirts seen at conservative gatherings.
Jeanette Finicum has become something of a cause celebre in the year since her husband’s death. She spoke at a rally on the steps of Utah’s capitol. The Tri-State Livestock News, based in South Dakota, recently ran a story describing her dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees. The agency administers 245 million acres of public lands and manages livestock grazing on 155 million acres of those lands.
“It’s been a horrific year,” Jeanette Finicum said in a phone interview from her Cane Beds, Arizona, home. “There’s been so much going on that most people don’t have to deal with when they lose a loved one, like we did.”
She met LaVoy at a barn dance. He told her he was a bad dancer.
“He was right. He had no rhythm,” Jeanette Finicum said with a laugh. They got married 14 days later.
“There isn’t anyone like him that I met in my lifetime, and I don’t expect there will be anyone else who will measure up,” she said, choking up with emotion.
She was a stay-at-home mom all 23 years they were married.
“With him gone, all of the responsibilities have fallen to me,” she said. “I spent the year rounding up, branding and calving.”
Oregon State Police shot LaVoy Finicum three times on Jan. 26, 2016, after he exited a vehicle at a police roadblock in the snowy Malheur National Forest, held up his hands and then reached toward his jacket.
Authorities concluded the officers were justified because they thought Finicum was going for his pistol. But at least one FBI Hostage Rescue Team operator fired two shots at Finicum’s vehicle — shots that were not disclosed during the investigation.
In March, the inspector general of the U.S. Justice Department began investigating possible FBI misconduct and whether there was a cover-up. The inspector general’s office declined to discuss the investigation last week. The U.S. attorney’s office in Portland said it was ongoing.
Jeanette Finicum insists her husband was not a threat and that he was murdered. Her lawyer has said the family plans a wrongful-death lawsuit, and Finicum said she will release more details during the Jan. 28 meeting.
It’s being held at the fairgrounds in Grant County, which neighbors the county containing the refuge.
Public lands make up 66 percent of Grant County’s 4,529 square miles. Jeanette Finicum bristled when asked if those attending the meeting might be inspired to take over federal sites.
“That’s a ridiculous question,” she said. “We will peacefully demonstrate, peacefully teach and stand for liberty.”
Fairgrounds manager Mindy Winegar said local logger Tad Haupt rented a pavilion for the meeting that seats up to 500 people. Haupt, a vocal opponent of U.S. Forest Service management practices, is the one who invited the occupation leaders to speak in John Day, a town of about 1,700, on Jan. 26, 2016.
The FBI expressed no concern about the upcoming meeting.
“Everyone has a constitutional right to assemble, and to free speech,” spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said.
Grant County Judge Scott Myers granted permission for the fairgrounds, a county facility, to be used for the event, saying rejecting the request could have had more repercussions than allowing it to happen.
Myers said he doubts it will pose a threat but then added, “I have steadfastly tried to convince myself that over the past few months.”
Heavy rain and warm temperatures Jan. 16-19 will melt the snow that paralyzed Portland but could cause widespread flooding across the Pacific Northwest, the National Weather Service said.
Meteorologist Laurel McCoy said a “very wet system” will barge into the region Monday night, bringing heavy rain Tuesday and Wednesday before tapering off into showers through the end of the week. She said 2 to 5 inches of rain is anticipated Monday night through Thursday, with highs reaching 50 degrees Tuesday and Wednesday and 45 degrees on Thursday.
The combination will melt snow in the Coast Range and the foothills of the Cascade Range, sending water pouring into the region’s rivers.
McCoy, who is based in Portland, said it’s too soon to know how bad the flooding will be. The snowpack above 3,500 elevation feet should be able to absorb a lot of rain, she said, but there’s a good deal of snow below that level that could melt and swell the Willamette River system.
Farmers and ranchers have cheered this winter’s snowpack, which eased drought worries and began to fill reservoirs to normal levels. The rain could erase some of the water gains achieved in the past couple months.
The storm is tracking toward Northwest Oregon, meaning Portland could bear the brunt of it, but it could shift farther north or south, McCoy said
“All of us are in the same boat,” she said. “There’s a good chance of flooding across a good portion of the Northwest.”
As usual, the west sides of Oregon and Washington will receive more rain than the sections on the east side of the Cascades.
Portland saw 9 to 12 inches of snow fall the past week, an unusually heavy amount for the city. The snow, layered on top of an inch or more of ice, snarled traffic throughout the metro region and closed schools for four days.
Due to severe winter weather, not all subscriber copies of the Jan. 13 edition of the Capital Press could be trucked from our printing plant in Pendleton, Ore., to the Postal Service in Portland in time to make the normal delivery schedule.
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Cattle groups reacted with dread at the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and California, which they fear will gradually eradicate ranching in the area.
The Obama administration announced Jan. 12 the monument will be increased by about 49,000 acres, up about 80 percent from its current size of 62,000 acres.
While the federal government touted the decision as improving “vital habitat connectivity, watershed protection, and landscape-scale resilience for the area’s unique biological values,” cattle groups fear it marks the beginning of the end of ranching in the expanded monument.
“They start out OK, but pretty soon the restrictions start coming in,” said Bob Skinner, an Oregon rancher and vice president of the Public Lands Council, which represents grazing interests.
Ranchers with grazing allotments aren’t allowed to properly maintain fences, water structures and other range improvements, diminishing the land’s suitability for grazing, Skinner said.
That dynamic has already been seen on the original portion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which many ranchers have left since its designation in 2000, he said.
“You can’t bother anything, you have to leave it in a natural state,” Skinner said.
As private ranch properties are sold or passed down to new generations, the federal government does not have to honor grazing agreements on adjacent public land, said Jerome Rosa, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.
“Over time, all the grazing is eliminated,” Rosa said.
As gates to public land are closed roads fall into disrepair, private property surrounded by a national monument decreases in value until ranchers have little choice but to sell it to the federal government, he said.
“There’s no value anymore,” Rosa said, noting that as property is taken off of local tax rolls, county services are also reduced. “It’s really an abuse of power.”
Not only does the land within the expanded monument offer excellent pastures for cattle, but it also contains old growth forests and wildlife habitat, he said.
“Without it being grazed, it will be just a lightning strike away from a huge fire,” Rosa said. “It’s really tragic.”
Skinner of the Public Lands Council said the monument’s expansion was supported by liberal-minded residents in Ashland and Medford who don’t understand the consequences of the designation.
“They don’t have to make a living on the ground,” he said.
Skinner said he’s uncertain about the implications that Obama’s decision in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument will have for the creation of a proposed 2.5 million-acre Owyhee National Monument in Oregon’s Malheur County.
There have been indicators that such a designation isn’t likely, but the Obama administration is unpredictable in natural resource matters, he said.
“It’s his legacy is all that matters to him, not the people on the ground,” Skinner said.
While it remains unclear whether state agencies will sign off on a controversial 30,000-cow dairy farm in Morrow County, that hasn’t stopped construction from moving quickly ahead.
The question now is whether Lost Valley Ranch broke the law by breaking ground well before it secured the necessary permits.
A coalition of health and environmental groups is calling on both the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality to investigate, and plans to meet face-to-face with regulators Friday in Portland.
ODA and DEQ are jointly responsible for issuing what’s known as a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, which outlines how Lost Valley will manage the roughly 187 million gallons of liquid manure generated each year and protect against groundwater contamination.
To date, the agencies have not issued a permit for Lost Valley. The proposed mega-dairy also has not received a construction stormwater permit, according to the coalition.
Wym Matthews, program manager for Confined Animal Feeding Operations with ODA, said they will address those concerns at Friday’s meeting.
“We will definitely be considering what our response should be,” Matthews said.
The coalition is also asking whether Lost Valley Ranch violated any laws by starting construction, even though it still hasn’t registered as a business with the Secretary of State’s Office. In fact, there is already a Lost Valley Ranch, LLC in Eastern Oregon, registered to Robert and Joan Wade of Condon.
Ivan Maluski, policy director for Friends of Family Farms — one of a dozen groups in the coalition — said the dairy is not only a threat to the environment and small farms, but is apparently operating outside the rules.
“It suggests the company perhaps doesn’t take the permits seriously,” Maluski said. “That’s very problematic as well.”
Other coalition members include: the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club; the Center for Biological Diversity; Columbia Riverkeeper; Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility; WaterWatch of Oregon; Food & Water Watch; Socially Responsible Agriculture Project; the Center for Food Safety; the Humane Society of the United States; Friends of the Columbia River Gorge; and Humane Oregon.
California dairyman Greg te Velde is trying to develop Lost Valley Ranch on approximately 7,000 acres of the former Boardman Tree Farm. He did not comment on the coalition’s complaints, except to say the company is working through the permitting process.
Te Velde did say they have built milk barns and stalls on site. He did not say exactly how much money has been spent so far, but that it was “a lot.”
Lost Valley Ranch has garnered significant public interest since te Velde applied for the confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, permits in August 2016. For the last 15 years, te Velde has run Willow Creek Dairy on land leased from nearby Threemile Canyon Farms, the state’s largest dairy with a whopping 70,000 cows.
When the Boardman Tree Farm sold a year ago, te Velde jumped at the opportunity to expand. Willow Creek Dairy currently trucks 70,000 gallons of milk every day to Tillamook Cheese at the Port of Morrow.
In his CAFO permit application, te Velde describes a closed-loop system with liquid manure stored in six main lagoons. The nitrogen-rich wastewater would then be used to irrigate 5,900 acres of farmland, growing feed for the dairy’s own cattle. Whatever is left over would be used to make animal bedding or transferred off site.
However, the coalition has spearheaded a campaign urging the state to deny the dairy permits. More than 4,200 comments have poured in on the proposal, which Matthews said are still being processed before a final decision is made.
“The agencies are working diligently to get that done,” he said.
The coalition commissioned its own aerial photos of Lost Valley Ranch last year, estimating that construction began sometime in spring or summer of 2016 and is at least 70 percent finished.
On Nov. 1, 2016, ODA did instruct Lost Valley to stop building its wastewater system without the CAFO permit, since those need to be inspected and approved by the agency prior to use. Matthews said the dairy did comply with that advisory, though there are other structures the state can’t prohibit them from building.
“We’re trying to be very specific about things they can’t construct,” he said.
Matthews said potential actions against Lost Valley could include additional citations of non-compliance or civil penalties, if they determine Lost Valley broke any laws..
MILTON-FREEWATER, Ore. — Earl Brown & Sons, Oregon’s largest grower and packer of fresh apples, has sold to another family-owned fruit enterprise in Wenatchee, Washington.
Members of the Foreman Fruit Company purchased Earl Brown & Sons in October, though the deal keeps the Browns in place to manage local operations on more than 1,000 acres of apples and 115 acres of wine grapes.
Ron Brown, whose father Earl started Earl Brown & Sons 40 years ago, said the families worked out a partnership that allows the business to retain its name and employees.
“Nobody lost their jobs. We’re moving along just like we did before,” Brown said.
The biggest difference, Brown said, is Foreman Fruit will provide additional capital for continued growth. The company is already planting another 60 acres of apples and 10 more acres of grapes.
“We’ve already taken on leasing more ground than we had,” Brown said.
Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed. Earl Brown & Sons has also spun off several other businesses, including Blue Mountain Cider and Watermill Winery in Milton-Freewater, though Blue Mountain Cider was not included as part of the sale.
All together, Earl Brown & Sons employs about 160 people. Ron Brown predicts the company will be able to tap into even more niche markets with the backing of Foreman Fruit.
“Both families are real forward-thinkers,” he said.
Alan Groff, president and CEO of Foreman Fruit Company, said they first heard Earl Brown & Sons was up for sale in April 2016. Though it was well off their radar — Wenatchee is 200 miles away from Milton-Freewater — Groff said they drove down for a meeting, and the two families immediately hit it off.
“They’ve created a number of businesses, and a number of very excellent orchards and vineyards,” Groff said. “There’s a nice intersection of our capabilities.”
Foreman Fruit Company was founded in the early 1980s by Dale Foreman, a Wenatchee attorney and former chairman of the Washington Apple Commission. Groff, who is Foreman’s son-in-law, said the business started out primarily growing pears before branching out into apples, cherries and grapes.
Earl Brown & Sons is Foreman’s first Oregon acquisition. Groff said they were impressed by the people, and wanted to keep their current team together.
“We share a common set of values and purpose in business,” he said.
Earl Brown & Sons was founded in 1977, and now packages between 850,000 and 1 million boxes of fresh apples every year. Varieties include Honeycrisp, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji and Lady Alice.
Watermill Winery has also sold roughly 3,500 cases of wine in past years. Groff said they are still in the early phases of looking at the wine business, though they are excited to be working in The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater and believe the product has plenty of upside.
“I think this is really great wine that is, perhaps, undersold,” Groff said.
Brown said the transition with Foreman Fruit has been smooth, and will ensure that Earl Brown & Sons has the resources to stay competitive.
“You have to be a certain size anymore to compete with all the regulations that come down on smaller companies,” he said.
