EAGLE, Idaho — ConAgra Foods, Inc. announced Friday that its Lamb Weston processing facility will expand operations in Boardman, Ore.
The $30 million investment will add additional processing capacity for making formed products such as hash brown patties and potato puffs. The addition of the line at the company’s existing facility is expected to add 50 jobs to the 390 people already employed by the company in Boardman.
With continued increase in demand for frozen potato and formed products, this capacity expansion is necessary to fulfill Lamb Weston’s global growth projections, according to a press release from the company.
Construction on the processing line is expected to begin this spring, with completion in 2017. The added line will increase processing capacity by approximately 50 million pounds.
“With the frozen potato category growing globally, we have tremendous opportunity to support our customers’ growth in the U.S. and around the world,” said Lamb Weston President Greg Schlafer in a press release. “To capture that growth, we need to make more products. Expanding our operations in the Columbia Basin — with access to great potatoes, people and ports — just makes sense.”
The facility in Boardman is close to growing, storage and shipping operations, with easy access to the Port of Morrow. The company opened an initial expansion of the facility in June 2014, adding 300 million pounds of capacity with a new fry line. That $200 million project included plans for the addition announced Friday.
“Lamb Weston’s planned expansion shows their continued commitment to the Port of Morrow, Boardman and the Mid-Columbia region as the right place to do business,” said Gary Neal, general manager of the Port of Morrow. “Their ongoing investments add good paying jobs to our region and we are fortunate to have such great partners at the Port.”
Lamb Weston employees approximately 4,500 people at a corporate office and seven manufacturing facilities in the Columbia Basin, and operates 22 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and China.
PORTLAND — Jason Ball has an unusual job at an unusual place. He’s the research chef at the Food Innovation Center in Portland, which itself is a joint venture of Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the state Department of Agriculture.
The FIC was among the first in the U.S. Ball believes his position is still somewhat unusual, but may become more common over time.
Ball’s job is to help develop food products. He said being a research chef combines the technical skills of culinary arts with the principles and methodologies of food science.
Which leads us to dulse, which is basically a red seaweed. Yum.
But it’s nutritious. OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport figured out 15 years ago how to raise dulse in tanks rather than harvest it from the ocean. The Marine Science Center was raising it to feed abalone when an OSU business professor, Chuck Toombs, took notice and turned his marketing students loose on the project. OSU fisheries researcher Chris Langdon and colleagues patented a strain of dulse, and Ball was hired to figure out what to make with it.
His hiring had its own bit of dulse kismet. Ball was in Copenhagen, working on plant-based ice cream products for the Nordic Food Lab, when he saw the job notice from the Food Innovation Center.
He was snacking on a dulse ice cream sandwich as he emailed then- center Director Michael Morrisey and FIC Product Development Manager Sarah Masoni to ask about the position.
He made sure to mention his snack choice; he got the job and started about 14 months ago.
The first commercial product to come from Ball’s FIC work is a dulse seaweed salad dressing and marinade, sold at New Seasons stores in the Portland area.
Ball enjoys the challenge of developing products that are “less luxurious or appealing.” It’s easy to make lobster or steak taste good, he said, but seaweed?
“I like to say that I am an equal opportunity cook — I don’t discriminate against ingredients,” Ball said by email. “Why can’t we approach all ingredients with that excitement and enthusiasm?”
Jason Ball
Who: Research chef at the Food Innovation Center in Portland, a joint venture of Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Personal: Age 31, originally from Chicago. Worked as a chef there, and in New York and outside London. Bounced about Europe. Began work at FIC in January 2015. Lives in Portland.
Best known for so far: Dulse development work. Developing food than can be made from seaweed, which in turn is grown in tanks, not harvested from the ocean.
All hail vegetables and bread: Finds cooking meat and fish “somewhat easy” and thinks vegetables are more interesting. Enjoys baking bread, especially natural yeast sourdough. “Honestly, warm bread (out of the oven — with butter and salt) is one of my favorite things to eat — so simple, yet so delicious,” he says by email.
His choice for an Oregon breakfast: A frittata with kale sprouts, heritage farm cheese, green garlic, chili flakes and potatoes, probably garnished with herbs and flowers. On the side he’d have a salad of mixed chicories, hazelnuts, herbs and tahini dressing. Fresh bread and coffee, as well.
When not cooking: Can most often be found at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in North Portland, which he says has the best pizza and ice cream. Ever. “Hands down my favorite restaurant in Portland, maybe even the world,” he says.
A wintertime sighting of sage grouse could prove significant in the legal controversy over proposed wind turbines on ranchland in southeast Oregon.
Nearly five years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved a 12-mile transmission line across its property that’s necessary for the construction of a 100-megawatt wind power project in Harney County.
Ranchers and community leaders hoped the installation of wind turbines on private land would provide a new source of income and jobs in the rural county, which has long stagnated economically.
The Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Audubon Society of Portland filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the transmission line, but the BLM says continued legal uncertainty has preventing the project from moving forward.
The dispute has now landed before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held oral arguments in the case in Portland, Ore., on March 10.
During the hearing, appellate judges Raymond Fisher and Marsha Berzon sharply questioned why the BLM omitted mention of sage grouse being sighted in vicinity of the project in late winter.
Plaintiffs argue the sighting lends credence to their claim that the bird — formerly a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection — uses the area for over-wintering habitat.
“Wind-swept ridges are precisely the types of places you’d expect to find these birds in the winter,” said Peter Lacy, attorney for ONDA.
The environmentalists claim that BLM’s approval of the transmission line violated the National Environmental Policy Act because the agency didn’t specifically analyze whether the project area contained winter habitat for the species.
Instead, the agency extrapolated that sage grouse didn’t inhabit the area over winter from data collected at nearby sites, noting in its “environmental impact statement,” or EIS, that no birds were sighted after December.
Judge Fisher said this extrapolation was based on error, since the record of evidence shows that a consultant observed four sage grouse in the area during a visit in February.
“There is a factual misstatement that appears in the EIS,” he said. “I don’t know how you get around that.”
Judge Berzon also seemed troubled by the BLM’s mistake, saying that if the agency is going to extrapolate, then the extrapolation should be based on particularly solid data.
Peter Krzywicki, an attorney for BLM, acknowledged the report contained a “misstatement” but said the “stray sighting” of sage grouse does not change the conclusion that the species generally doesn’t occupy the area in winter.
The “exceptional case” of sage grouse appearing in the vicinity of the project in February doesn’t mean it’s a regular occurrence, Krzywicki said.
Dominic Carollo, an attorney for Harney County, said the 9th Circuit should defer to the BLM’s expertise about land conditions in the area.
The agency is familiar enough with the region to know the site is too snowy to support winter habitat for sage grouse, Carollo said.
Federal courts are required to defer to agency technical expertise, so it stands to reason they must also defer to its knowledge about something as basic as snow conditions, he said.
Peter Lacy, the attorney for ONDA, countered that wind can blow away snow from such an “escarpment,” uncovering sage brush habitat, so the the agency must conduct site-specific monitoring rather than simply “eyeball it.”
PORTLAND (AP) — Two Oregon state troopers who fatally shot one of the main figures in an armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge say they believed he was about to shoot one of their colleagues.
Transcripts of interviews with the troopers are contained in 360 pages of documents released Thursday by Oregon law authorities from their investigation into the Jan. 26 death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.
The two troopers said they believed Finicum was reaching for a gun inside his jacket pocket and that he was about to shoot a colleague of the officers about 15 feet from Finicum.
Both troopers said Finicum repeatedly reached into his jacket while refusing to surrender.
Investigators say a loaded pistol was found inside Finicum’s jacket pocket after his death.
Earlier this week investigators said they have concluded that the troopers were justified in shooting Finicum.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office says reports related to the ongoing federal and state investigations aren’t included in the 360 pages released Thursday.
The documents include forensic reports, interview transcripts, photos from the shooting scene and other material.
A prosecutor ruled the shooting was justified, but FBI agents at the scene are under investigation for failing to disclose that they fired two shots during the confrontation. Neither hit Finicum.
An overwhelming majority of voters in Malheur County rejected the idea Tuesday of a national monument in a corner of southeast Oregon known as the Owyhee Canyonlands.
The vast and rugged area is known for its stunning red rock geology and canyons, extreme remoteness, and wildlife habitat. It’s also an important area for cattle grazing and hunting.
The idea of an Owyhee National Monument is championed by Keen Footwear. The Portland-based company led a petition campaign to convince President Obama to designate the monument, using his executive authority through the Antiquities Act.
Malheur County leaders decided to put the idea to citizens with an advisory vote, and county Clerk Deborah DeLong says voter turnout was high for a special election — higher even than some primary elections. Ninety percent of voters rejected the monument proposal. In some rural precincts, 100 percent of voters voted no.
“It’s amazing to me that the difference in the vote was 90 percent no and 10 percent yes,” said DeLong. “That’s a huge statement.”
Malheur County resident Tim Davis leads the grassroots group Friends of the Owyhee in Malheur County. He voted yes on the monument proposal, because he said it’s important “to have areas like this for people to explore and love.”
“Now that the people of Malheur County have spoken loudly and clearly against a 2.5 million acre federal monument, it’s time for Gov. (Kate) Brown and our U.S. senators to speak out against it as well,” said Steve Russell, Chairman of the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition, in a statement. “Oregon already has millions of acres of protected lands, rivers and oceans.”
Conservation proposals for wilderness or monument designations in the Owyhee have also drawn fierce local opposition during recent public meetings. The Oregon Natural Desert Association has been talking about wilderness in the Owyhee for years, but that can only be designated through Congress.
President Obama has not given any indication that he plans to designate the Owyhee a national monument, as some conservationists propose. Obama has already created or expanded 19 national monuments. Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell said last week that she is not aware of any coordination between her office and the White House on a monument proposal.
The Malheur County vote is advisory only and holds no legal weight.
ONTARIO, Ore. — The Owyhee Reservoir could provide the 1,800 farms in Eastern Oregon and part of Idaho that depend on it for irrigation a normal water supply for the first time in four years.
The reservoir provides water for 118,000 irrigated acres in Malheur County in Eastern Oregon and around Homedale and Marsing in southwestern Idaho.
Snowpack levels in the Owyhee Basin, which feeds the Owyhee River and the reservoir, have been bleak the past four years and the Owyhee Irrigation District has only been able to provide the irrigators who depend on the reservoir a significantly reduced portion of their normal 4 acre-foot allotment the past two years.
OID patrons received 1.7 acre-feet last year and 1.6 acre-feet in 2014.
As a result, farmers have left a lot of farm ground idle and switched many fields to less water-intensive crops that are also less lucrative.
But snowpack levels were well above normal for much of this winter and the reservoir is filling fast.
“It’s going to be significantly better than last year,” said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn, a member of the OID’s board of directors. “It certainly looks promising.”
The reservoir peaked at 205,000 acre-feet of usable storage water last year but was already closing in on 300,000 acre-feet as of March 8, according to OID Manager Jay Chamberlin.
“We’re feeling pretty good about the outlook,” he said.
Reservoir in-flow levels have varied between 3,000 and 5,000 cubic feet per second recently, which means the reservoir is receiving between 6,000 and 10,000 acre-feet of water every day.
Chamberlin said it takes more than 400,000 acre-feet in the reservoir for every OID patron to receive their full 4 acre-foot allotment.
While there is still a ways to go before that level is reached, “I think there’s a pretty good chance we’ll have a full allotment this year,” Corn said.
Chamberlin, who flew over the basin 11 days ago, said snowpack levels are at the point now where it would be helpful if warmer temperatures or some good rainstorms flushed the rest of it off the mountains and into the reservoir quickly. Otherwise, a lot of the water could seep into the soil and never reach the reservoir.
“We’re hoping that the rains predicted for later this week will really flush that stuff out and into the reservoir,” he said March 8.
Corn said the ground in the valley is wet and stock ponds are full, which means river flows should respond quickly if the predicted rains do materialize.
Farmers in the region are more optimistic heading into this season than they have been in several years because of the improved water situation, said Nyssa farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.
“People are very optimistic they will get their full allotment,” he said.
The OID will hold its annual meeting March 22 at the Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario and could announce a tentative 2016 allotment then.
Oregon wineries expect sales to surge in 2016 but that doesn’t mean all of them anticipate a healthy bottom line.
Despite healthy demand for their wine, more than one-fourth of Oregon wine producers reported being in financial distress in a recent survey.
About 28 percent of Oregon wine producers surveyed by Silicon Valley Bank, a wine industry lender, said they were in poor financial health, compared to 16 percent for the industry overall.
According to that same survey, Oregon wineries predict sales will grow 13 percent in value and 9 percent in volume this year.
Experts say this seeming disparity between rising revenues and financial uncertainty isn’t necessarily surprising.
“The good news is sales are up, the bad news is sales are up,” said Joe Dobbes, a longtime Oregon winemaker.
Rapid growth in sales and production often suppresses profits due to the hefty investment involved, said Christian Miller, proprietor of the Full Glass Research firm, which tracks wine industry trends.
“You’re spending more on new tanks, a new crusher, better barrels,” he said. “That’s certainly been the case in Oregon for the past few years.”
Sales of Oregon wine rose more than 14 percent, to $430 million, while wine grape production increased about 40 percent, to more than 78,000 tons in 2014, the most recent year for which Oregon Wine Board statistics are available.
By the time vineyards reach maturity, grapes are harvested and wines are bottled, producers have already spent a great deal of time and money, said Kurt Wittman, a relationship manager and vice president at Northwest Farm Credit Services, who’s familiar with the wine industry.
Finding a market for a new brand also isn’t immediate, so many wineries experience a “predictable 5-10 year negative cash flow, negative profitability cycle,” Wittman said.
“It’s a long time line,” he said.
The challenge for small wineries is that some expensive equipment is only used once a year at harvest, said Michael Adams, wine business instructor at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Ore.
“There is an economy-of-scale issue,” Adams said.
Oregon has seen a rush of new entrants to the wine industry — the number of wineries climbed about 75 percent, to 676, in five years and nearly tripled over a decade, according to OWB’s 2014 statistics.
In light of this influx of newcomers, it’s perhaps foreseeable that many still haven’t found their legs financially, said Wittman. “Maybe some of that exuberance when they started 10 years ago isn’t there anymore.”
The precarious economic position of these wineries is likely correlated with another survey finding by Silicon Valley Bank: Owners of Oregon wineries report a greater willingness to sell their operations, said Rob McMillan, founder of the bank’s wine division.
Oregon wineries tend to be smaller than average, which may impede access to distribution channels, and many owners are reaching the age when they must either sell the company or transfer it to the next generation, he said.
According to Silicon Valley Bank’s survey, 41 percent of Oregon wine producers said a sale is likely or possible, compared to about 25 percent for the industry as a whole.
“I think it has to do with winery size and difficulty in getting distribution,” McMillan said.
The California wine industry is larger and more mature, so it’s had a chance to undergo changes that are only confronting Oregon producers now, said Dobbes. “There’s potentially been a lot of fallout in California that hasn’t happened yet in Oregon.”
Oregon’s climate is associated with lower grape yields compared to California, which cuts into producers’ profit margins, said Tom Danowski, executive director of the Oregon Wine Board.
“There’s very few winemakers driving Maseratis in Oregon,” he said.
However, Oregon wineries can still be profitable with the right business system, which explains the investment capital pouring into the state, Danowski said.
Several large companies have bought Oregon wineries or expanded their vineyard acreage in the state in recent years, which may also give smaller wineries ideas about selling, he said. “They see more of it going on around them.”
PORTLAND — David Stone, an associate professor whose specialty is the study of pesticides, metals and biotoxins, is the new director of Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center.
Stone, 44, will take over April 1. He succeeds Michael Morrisey.
Stone now is director National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC), a joint venture of Oregon State and the EPA, and is part of OSU’s Superfund Research Project. One of the classes he teaches is called “The World of Poisons.”
He acknowledged his appointment might seem an odd fit for the food center at first glance.
But Stone said his pesticide work involved extensive interface with agricultural producers, communities and government agencies “all along the food chain.”
In addition, food safety and prevention of food-borne illnesses is a paramount issue, he said.
“I see it as a natural transition,” he said. “I’m also a communicator and educator, and there’s a lot of need for that here.”
The Food Innovation Center, located in Portland’s Pearl District, is OSU’s most unusual agricultural experiment station. It was among the first in the nation when it opened in 2000, and provided OSU an early foothold in foodie Portland.
The center works to advance Northwest food products. Its specialists provide entrepreneurs advice, testing and feedback on product development, packaging and shelf-life evaluation, sensory and consumer testing, marketing planning and access, and business development.
The 33,000-square-foot center also is home to the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s international trade specialists and laboratory services program.
For PacifiCorp, setting up a separate entity to handle the removal of four dams from the Klamath River would be cheaper and less risky for ratepayers than other options, the company’s spokesman says.
The revised Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement — under which a “non-federal entity” would apply to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decommission the dams — caps the company’s costs at $200 million, spokesman Bob Gravely said.
By contrast, relicensing the dams and keeping them operating would cost more than $400 million just for improvements such as fish ladders, plus any other costs for measures imposed by the California Water Resources Control Board to obtain Clean Water Act permits, he said. Environmental groups would likely challenge the relicensing application in court, he said.
For PacifiCorp to simply handle the decommissioning itself would cost about $292 million, according to government estimates. The third-party entity would enable PacifiCorp to cap its costs while assuming liability and responsibility for the facilities’ removal, Gravely said in an email.
“So we have certainty in terms of cost and risk,” he said, “and have concluded that the KHSA is both less costly and less risky than relicensing under our known terms and conditions or pursuing removal on our own.”
The non-federal entity — a key component of a new agreement that Pacificorp and state and federal agencies unveiled last month — has come under criticism from dam-removal opponents such as Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., who accused the agencies of setting up a “shell corporation … designed to avoid public scrutiny” of the decommissioning process.
Oregon state Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, opined that the agreement between PacifiCorp, the states of Oregon and California and the U.S. departments of the Interior and Commerce to set up the dam-removal entity amounts to an interstate compact that must legally be approved by Congress.
However, Gravely has asserted that dam removals are normally handled by FERC and that congressional approval was sought in the Klamath dams’ case so that the Department of the Interior could handle — and provide funding for — their removal. Bills to authorize the Klamath agreement have languished in Congress since 2011, so having a non-federal entity handle the decommissionings was an alternative, he said.
Such an arrangement is not unprecedented, he said. In Maine, a trust operated jointly by a tribe, conservation groups, hydropower companies and state and federal agencies purchased three dams on the Penobscot River in 2010. The trust has removed two of the dams and is decommissioning and building a bypass around the third.
PacifiCorp had planned to relicense its Klamath River dams but agreed to decommission them under certain conditions, including the cost cap, liability protection and not being the entity to carry out the dams’ removal, Gravely said. Those terms were in the original agreements in 2010 and carried over to the pacts unveiled in February.
“The parties that want dam removal get dam removal, but under terms and conditions that also protect PacifiCorp and its customers and make it a better outcome for customers than relicensing,” Gravely said. “That’s the essence of the KHSA.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — FBI agents involved in the traffic stop that led to the killing of one of the armed occupiers of a national wildlife refuge are under investigation for not disclosing they fired shots that missed rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, an Oregon sheriff said Tuesday.
Oregon State Troopers fired the rounds that killed Finicum on Jan. 26, authorities said.
All six of their shots were justified because Finicum failed to heed officers’ commands and repeatedly reached for his weapon, Malheur County District Attorney Dan Norris said.
Still, it was of concern that FBI agents on the scene did not disclose they also fired shots, Deschutes County Sheriff L. Shane Nelson said at a news conference.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement it is investigating FBI agents’ actions during the confrontation with Finicum, 54.
Authorities planned the traffic stop on a remote road as a way to arrest the key members of the armed group that had taken over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Oregon State Police and FBI agents stopped two vehicles carrying occupation leaders, and officers opened fire during a confrontation with Finicum. The occupation’s leaders also were arrested.
The Arizona rancher’s death became a symbol for those decrying federal oversight, on public lands in the West and elsewhere, and led to protests of what they called an unnecessary use of force.
The FBI previously released a video showing the shooting to counter claims he did nothing to provoke it. In the aerial footage, Finicum is pulled over in his truck but then takes off and plows into a snowbank because of a roadblock. He gets out and has his hands up at first, then appears to reach toward his jacket pocket at least twice. Officers shoot him, and he falls.
The FBI said it found a loaded handgun in the pocket.
Finicum was a high-profile part of the weekslong standoff at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, launched Jan. 2 by a small armed group demanding the government relinquish control of public lands and objecting to the prison sentences of two local ranchers convicted of setting fires.
He served as the group’s unofficial spokesman and frequently spoke with media. Finicum’s affable but passionate demeanor made him a popular subject for on-camera interviews.
After his death and the arrests during the traffic stop, most occupiers cleared out of the wildlife preserve. A few holdouts extended the occupation to nearly six weeks before they surrendered Feb. 11.
More than two dozen people — including group leader Ammon Bundy — have been charged with conspiracy to interfere with federal workers in connection with the standoff.
Finicum and his wife, Jeanette, raised dozens of foster children, though social workers removed the kids from the couple’s home a few days after the occupation began.
He had said the foster kids were the family’s main source of income.
SALEM — The chief sponsors of a ballot initiative to raise Oregon’s minimum wage to $15 in three years have decided to end their campaign.
A survey of campaign partners for Oregonians for 15 indicated a majority, including unions and other organizations, are against continuing the petition, said initiative chief sponsor Jamie Partridge.
The campaign partners support a three-tier minimum wage plan approved by the Legislature last month that hikes wages over a seven-year period, he said.
The partners “considered the bill the governor signed to be a victory, though our steering committee still believes the bill is too low, too slow,” Partridge said. “But we don’t have the organizational backing or the voters.”
A recent poll commissioned by Oregon Public Broadcasting indicated that just 28 percent of voters would support the $15 initiative, compared with 51 percent before the Legislature approved a more gradual minimum wage plan.
The legislative plan hikes wages to $14.75 in the Portland area, $12.50 in rural and coastal counties with struggling economies and $13.50 in the rest of the state by 2022.
The first pay bump starts in July, from $9.25 to $9.75 statewide.
“We do take credit for the advance, the step forward by the Legislature,” Partridge said. “One hundred thousand workers will benefit from the bill. Legislators were talking about $10 an hour a couple of years. We would be nowhere near $15 without the rallies, marches, committee hearings and hard-nose lobbying and the 40,000 signatures we gathered.”
President Obama commended the Legislature and Gov. Kate Brown for approving the plan and called on Congress to follow suit. He said more than half of states now have wages higher than the federal minimum.
Another group, the Raise the Wage coalition, said last week that it suspended signature gathering to place a measure on the ballot to raise wages to $13.50 statewide during a three-year period. That measure also would have lifted a ban on cities and counties setting higher wages.
SACRAMENTO — After complaints from U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa and others that their latest agreement was being crafted in secret, agencies planning the removal of four dams from the Klamath River announced a public meeting for March 16 to discuss the plan.
The Klamath Basin Coordinating Council will consider formally amending a set of 2010 agreements on the future of the Klamath Basin and take public comments during a 1 p.m. meeting at the California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento.
The meeting comes after PacifiCorp, the states of California and Oregon and two federal agencies announced plans in February to set up a private entity to handle the four dams’ removal by seeking a go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The new pact drew vocal complaints from LaMalfa, R-Calif., after two of his staff members showed up at private meetings scheduled to discuss the proposal and were asked to sign confidentiality agreements, which they refused to do.
LaMalfa criticized the Klamath proponents for scheduling their meeting in Sacramento rather than the Klamath Basin or Yreka, Calif., which is near where three of the four dams operate.
“Thanks a lot for having it six hours away from the people who are affected by it,” LaMalfa said. “It makes me furious that they haven’t had any public meetings at all and now their best effort is to have it in Sacramento at the highly guarded EPA building.
“They need to have it in Yreka,” he told the Capital Press. “We’ll press for that. It doesn’t end there.”
Ed Sheets, the meeting’s coordinator, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
LaMalfa has ruffled feathers in recent days after grilling Deputy Secretary of the Interior Mike Connor during a hearing in Washington, D.C. about the agency’s role in the latest dam removal proposal, which was crafted after Congress’ failure to pass an authorization bill caused the original agreements to expire at the end of 2015.
When asked if he believes his complaints prompted the public meeting, LaMalfa said, “It couldn’t have hurt because I know they’re not very pleased that we’re publicizing what they’ve been up to.”
LaMalfa’s gripes follow those of Oregon state Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, who said the plan to set up the private entity to handle dam removal should still require congressional approval because it’s an interstate compact.
Whitsett’s argument is based on a legal opinion he received from Oregon Legislative Counsel Dexter Johnston, who told him in a letter that “any interstate compact that creates a joint entity, or that affects matters explicitly reserved to the federal government … is unconstitutional unless approved by Congress.”
The senator also complained about the proponents’ perceived secrecy.
“I am at a total loss for how the staff for the governors of Oregon and California and the Department of the Interior can meet behind closed doors” to discuss policy, Whitsett told the Capital Press.
Proponents of the agreements say they’re fundamentally a legal settlement that aims to resolve long-standing differences and grievances over various issues, including tribal rights, water rights and the fate of PacifiCorp’s private assets.
“These settlement meetings have always had confidentiality agreements that the parties have signed,” said Beatty, Ore, cattle rancher Becky Hyde, who represents the Upper Klamath Water Users and has worked on the pacts since their beginning. “That’s just the way these settlements work.
“It is about my water rights, and how my water rights are affected by somebody else who has legal rights,” she said. “Personally I could care less about a confidentiality agreement, but these are people’s legal rights. … At some point PacifiCorp is trying to figure out what to do with a very big part of its portfolio.”
Such agreements “are common and even expected in all sorts of settlement discussions,” PacifiCorp spokesman Bob Gravely said in an email, noting that new parties who joined the discussions recently have agreed to abide by the same rules.
Hyde vehemently rejects the notion that the process has been secretive, noting that LaMalfa chief of staff Mark Spannagel and field representative Erin Ryan were welcomed into two of the planning group’s meetings. During the second meeting in Portland, Ryan was texting updates to LaMalfa on the proceedings, Hyde said.
She said charges of secrecy have long been part of the playbook for those in the Klamath Basin who’ve resisted settlements over water.
“There has been this thing I’ve watched play out in the last 18 years that’s starting to just replay itself over and over again, and I don’t trust it anymore,” Hyde said. “People who are not focused on finding a settlement in the Klamath Basin and Siskiyou County … have repeatedly played this card of closed-door, secret meetings.
“We’re tired, and frankly my water is going to get shut off this summer again if I don’t have an agreement with the Klamath Tribes,” she said. “My community is already going broke and I’ve had it with these people … I am fine with their point of view, but it is no longer fine to just lie.”
The latest controversy continues more than a decade of division in the Klamath Basin over the agreements, which were first unveiled in 2010 and whose 42 signatories included Oregon and California officials, federal agencies, local water districts, water users’ groups, environmental groups, tribes and other entities.
Continued opposition from LaMalfa and other House of Representatives Republicans caused authorization bills to languish in Congress since 2011. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., a longtime opponent of dam removal, unveiled an eleventh-hour draft bill in December to move forward on other aspects of the agreement while putting approval of dam removal in the lap of FERC, but no efforts were made to merge it with one by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., which included dam removal.
PacifiCorp has been collecting a surcharge from ratepayers to raise $200 million for dam removal and now plans to cover any further costs with non-federal funds, including money from California’s Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion water bond passed in 2014.
The March 16 meeting will be held in the Sierra Hearing Room on the second floor of the California EPA Building, 1001 I St. Visit http://www.klamathcouncil.org for details.
