SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared drought emergencies in three more counties — Crook, Harney and Klamath — due to low water levels and record low snowpack.

Brown declared a drought emergency in Malheur and Lake counties last month. She added the latest three on Monday.

The counties asked the state to take action, and the Oregon Drought Council considered the requests in light of water conditions, future climatic forecasts and agricultural impacts.

The drought continues to have significant impacts on agriculture, livestock and natural resources in each of the counties.

In the governor’s words, “Oregon’s unusually warm and dry winter has potentially dire consequences.” The declaration allows increased flexibility in how water is managed to ensure that limited supplies are used as efficiently as possible.

A nonprofit organization founded by blueberry farmers is launching a campaign April 11 to raise awareness of Type 2 diabetes and its effects on child health.

The Blueberry Family Health Foundation is timing the launch of its first campaign with the April 11 opening of the Florida Blueberry Festival in Brookesville, Fla. Located near Tampa, the area is one of two communities serving as pilot-project sites for the campaign. The other is Portland, where the Blueberry Family Health Foundation campaign will be featured at the LifeWise Oregon Berry Festival, July 17 and 18 at the Ecotrust Event Space, 721 NW Ninth Ave.

Blueberry farmers from across the nation were behind the formation of the foundation in September 2013, including Fall Creek Farm and Nursery in Lowell, Ore.; Homegrown Organic Farms in Porterville, Calif.; Thomas Creek Farms, also in Porterville; HBF International in McMinnville, Ore.; Agricare in Jefferson, Ore.; Naturipe, Family Tree Farms and Driscoll’s, all from California; several farms from Florida; a Michigan farm; a British Columbia farm; Atlantic Blueberry Co. from Hammonton, N.J.; and farms in Georgia, North Carolina and elsewhere.

The organization’s board of directors includes Amelie Aust, owner and board member for Fall Creek Farm and Nursery; Karen M. Avinelis, president of Thomas Creek Farms and representatives of the financial and diabetes medical professions.

Kari Rosenfeld, sister of Fall Creek Farm and Nursery President Dave Brazelton, serves as executive director of the foundation.

Rosenfeld has been active in the diabetes community since 1993, when her 7-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Rosenfeld has extensive management experience in for-profit and nonprofit organizations and has created and led national and international health-awareness programs and campaigns, including the American Diabetes Association Youth Advocacy Program.

The foundation’s Activate the Awareness Campaign includes messaging through Florida Blueberry Festival advertisements, which are being broadcast across four regional television stations and will air approximately 800 times. It will include message-sharing with upwards of 60,000 festival attendees over the course of the two-day festival, and it will include distribution of coloring activity sheets to help kids learn about eating a “healthy rainbow of fruits and vegetables.”

Rosenfeld said the organization developed its campaign materials with help from leading pediatric endocrinologists and nutritionists.

“The plan is to leverage our relationships in the local health-care and community organizations to post and distribute these materials in the venues where those most at risk have access to help, while at the same time engaging local media to raise awareness among care providers and the general public,” Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld characterized the foundation’s work as “a multi-year philanthropic strategic plan to raise awareness of children’s risk of Type 2 diabetes.”

“Because a key barrier to prevention of Type 2 diabetes in children is lack of awareness, we have created a campaign to raise awareness that 1 in 3 children are now facing Type 2 diabetes, and that it is preventable,” Rosenfeld said.

The foundation is inviting people to join and get involved in its effort, especially healthy food and produce organizations.

“This organization is open and eager to work with all individuals and companies,” Rosenfeld said. “If you want to help shine a spotlight on a newly brewing health epidemic where your products are part of the solution, we are eager to talk about how to scale the program and impact your community,” she said.

Online

www.bbfamilyhealth.org

IN THE TOBEATIC WILDERNESS, Nova Scotia (AP) — Into the forest we went with a mushroom hunter and guide, in search of edibles in the speckled light of a summer afternoon. The finds: golden cha…

BOARDMAN, Ore. — As a potential source of renewable energy, giant cane could be the answer to saving Portland General Electric’s coal-fired power plant in Boardman long after the facility quits using coal by 2020.

On the other hand, as an invasive species, giant cane could spread wild across the Columbia Basin, choking out native vegetation and undoing years of work by local tribes to restore river habitat.

A proposed bill in Salem attempts to strike a balance between the competing environmental interests. House Bill 2183 would require farmers who grow giant cane for biomass or other commercial uses to post a $1 million surety bond with the Oregon Invasive Species Council. The money would pay for costly eradication efforts, should the crop escape from the field.

Not surprisingly, PGE is opposed to the measure while continuing research into alternative fuels that could be used to power the Boardman Coal Plant. In 2010, the state’s largest utility decided to phase out coal at Boardman instead of paying for hundreds of millions of dollars in new emissions controls. The plant is relatively young — it opened in 1977 — and employs 122 people.

One possible biomass fuel is giant cane, formally known as Arundo donax, which PGE has spent several years growing in small test plots.

HB2183 not only calls for a $1 million bond for growing giant cane in 400 acres or less, but an additional $25,000 for every acre above 400 acres. PGE has estimated it would take 8,000 tons of biomass every day to keep the Boardman Coal Plant humming, and scientists initially anticipated they could grow 25 tons per acre of Arundo donax locally.

At that rate, it would take 320 acres of giant cane just to power the plant for a single day. Brendan McCarthy, government affairs specialist for PGE, said there are still too many unknowns about whether HB2183 would make Arundo donax unfeasible on a large scale.

McCarthy did say the bill is “unnecessary,” especially considering the Oregon Department of Agriculture already has rules in place for growing giant cane — which includes a $1 million bond, along with numerous stipulations on where and how to grow.

“Arundo donax is invasive in other parts of the country,” McCarthy said. “The concerns are valid, and we took those into consideration for the stringent growing conditions we have.”

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation also opposes HB2183, but for a very different reason. The tribes would rather ban the cane in Oregon, which they say is as alarming a noxious weed as it is promising as a biofuel.

In a letter sent March 2 to the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Gary Burke, chairman of the CTUIR Board of Trustees, said HB2183 would essentially give the legislature’s approval to grow a highly invasive species with minimal controls to prevent escape.

“The CTUIR supports the use of biofuels, but does not support the introduction and use of invasive, noxious weeds as biofuel,” Burke said.

Arundo donax is a perennial bamboo-like cane native to eastern and southern Asia, as well as the Mediterranean Basin, parts of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. At maturity, the plants can grow more than 20 feet tall and form in dense stands around water.

An analysis done by the tribes in 2012 suggests the cane’s rhizomes, or reproductive stems, could be easily spread by natural factors such as flooding and high winds, as well as by humans and animals. If the plants took hold in a riparian area, they would out-compete native species that otherwise provide habitat for cultural First Foods, including salmon, deer and elk.

The same analysis also shows growing the cane on the farm would take roughly the same amount of irrigation as alfalfa, which the tribes say is bound to displace some food crops or drive increased demand for Columbia River water.

“The CTUIR, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, as well as various federal and state partners, have spent millions of dollars to restore habitat and flows in the basins, efforts that are threatened by introduction of a crop that has a potential to escape and destroy the ecosystems we’ve sought to protect,” Burke said.

Stopping giant cane after it has escaped is an expensive proposition, since weed control officers can’t use the same treatments and herbicides so close to waterways. That’s why ODA calls for a surety bond in its rules, and continues monitoring for infestations three years after a grower’s permit has expired.

Morrow County gave PGE permission to grow up to 300 acres of giant cane for its trials in 2011. Helmuth Rogg, director of plant protections and conservation program areas for ODA, said the agency will re-evaluate their rules should the utility decide to grow on a larger, commercial-size scale.

“We worked on this for quite some time with the Invasive Weed Council,” Rogg said. “We have the county weed folks checking constantly in areas downstream to see if there’s Arundo donax that has escaped one way or another.”

Other than at Boardman and a small feral population in southwest Oregon, Rogg said the cane is not grown anywhere else in the state.

Giant cane is far from the only biofuel considered at Boardman. PGE is also testing 17-18 other materials, including wheat straw, wood chips and sawdust. Before the material can be fed into the plant, it must go through a process known as torrefaction, where it is burned in the absence of oxygen to create something similar to a charcoal briquette.

A test burning of biomass at the plant is scheduled for sometime later this spring.

SALEM — The prospect of transferring federal land to state ownership roused sharply differing opinions in the Oregon Capitol recently, but the controversy may be legally moot.

Concerns over federal mismanagement of forest and range lands in Oregon serve as the impetus for House Bill 3444, which would require the U.S. government to cede most of its public lands to the state.

Oregon lawmakers are also considering House Bill 3240, which would form a task force on the subject, as well as House Joint Memorial 13, which would urge the U.S. President and Congress to make such a transfer.

However, legal experts say that Oregon and other states likely face insurmountable challenges in trying to gain ownership of federal property.

Such proposals generally reflect dissatisfaction with federal agencies but don’t have solid legal footing, said Robert Keiter, a law professor and director of the University of Utah’s Wallace Stegner Center of Land, Resources and the Environment.

“My guess is it has much more political salience given antipathy toward the federal government rather than any serious legal credibility,” he said.

During a April 2 hearing on the legislation, Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, blasted the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for sequestering employees in cubicles while forests grow overstocked and weeds overtake the landscape.

“The bloated bureaucracies that control these lands seem incapable of change,” Whitsett testified before the House Committee on Rural Communities, Land Use and Water.

Supporters of the bills claimed that the U.S. government’s ownership of more than half of Oregon’s land mass effectively starves county governments of property tax revenues, leading to insufficient funds for law enforcement and other crucial services.

Federal agencies are also hindered by environmental laws that prevent logging and other practices that generate revenues and mitigate fire risks, proponents said.

“Rather than focusing on the symptoms, we should be concentrating on the root of the problem,” said Tootie Smith, a Clackamas County commissioner.

Environmental groups testified against the legislation, arguing that federal management is necessary to protect species and water quality.

Federal lands belong to the public and should be valued for wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, not just “extractive purposes” such as logging, mining and grazing, said Rhett Lawrence, conservation director for the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club.

If federal land were transferred to state ownership, the property would still be subject to the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, Lawrence said.

The National Environmental Policy Act would no longer apply to the lands, however, which would shut out the public from decisions on how its managed, he said.

NEPA requires federal agencies to study the environmental consequences of their actions and is frequently the basis for lawsuits seeking to block grazing and logging.

Representatives of Trout Unlimited and the Native Fish Society also spoke against the bills, arguing that the state would face a huge burden in maintaining the ecological work that’s currently done by federal scientists.

The committee hearing focused on the merits of the legislation, but the state’s authority to require the transfer of federal land likely poses a major obstacle for supporters.

Lawmakers in Utah successfully passed similar legislation in 2012, but the state’s own legislative attorneys came to the conclusion that it has a “high probability of being declared unconstitutional.”

Under legal precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government has broad authority to retain ownership of public lands, said Keiter of the University of Utah.

Land transfer proponents rely on language in state enabling laws that refer to the disposal of federal lands, but these provisions are taken out of context since the U.S. government retains discretion whether to actually sell property, he said.

Arguments for land transfers that cite the “equal footing doctrine” — under which new states are treated equal to the first 13 — have also failed in court, since the doctrine applies to political rights and not land ownership, Keiter said.

“It’s a very difficult argument for proponents of transfer to make,” he said.

SALEM — A bill that would create standards for residential beekeeping in Oregon is one step closer to becoming law after proponents defused an earlier controversy.

During the initial public hearing for House Bill 2653 in February, beekeeper groups testified against the legislation due to fears of burdensome new fees and regulations.

“We’re really terrified of this,” Joe Maresh, president of the Portland Metro Beekeepers Association, said at the time.

Rep. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, said the bill’s intent was to set a baseline for residential beekeeping rules, which currently vary greatly depending on the city.

Some cities ban beekeeping, while others have no rules to ensure safety and prevent conflicts, he said.

Since then, Gorsek has consulted with concerned beekeepers to overhaul HB 2653’s language and overcome their objections to the bill.

The original legislation simply directed the Oregon Department of Agriculture to “establish standards by rule” for residential beekeeping.

Under the new version, ODA will consult with Oregon State University to write “best practices” for residential beekeeping, including recommendations for avoiding nuisance problems.

Those best practices will then be disseminated to cities and counties, which may adopt ordinances consistent with the recommendations.

“I think we came to a good compromise,” said Gorsek, noting that the amended version of HB 2653 emphasizes voluntary action by municipalities.

The revised bill faced no opposition during an April 2 work session of the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources and was unanimously referred to the House floor with a “do pass” recommendation.

After that vote, OSU came up with an “exceptionally large fiscal impact” of $300,000 to implement the bill, though that funding may be included other pollinator-related bills, said Gorsek.

Due to the fiscal impact, however, the legislation was referred to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, which handles funding requests.

The House Ag Committee also approved a package of bills to fund bee diagnostics and pollinator health outreach at OSU during an April 7 work session.

Committee Chair Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, said the bill was innovative and commended Gorsek on resolving the differences of opinion “without getting stung.”

Several other bills were also approved by the committee during the work session:

• House Bill 2474, which requires veterinary facilities to register with the Oregon State Veterinary Medical Examining Board.

• House Bill 2184, which directs the Oregon Department of Transportation to provide an online link to day use pass information at state parks.

• House Bill 2209, which creates a task force on shellfish to study environmental problems facing the industry.

Legislation to prohibit unsecured dogs from traveling on truck beds except in farm vehicles — House Bill 2687 — was not approved by the committee after Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, said he opposed the bill. Witt asked Barreto and Rep. Susan McLain, D-Hillsboro, to propose an amendment to the legislation.

COQUILLE — A former Coquille resident will be among those honored in Washington, D.C., at the national American Ambulance Association's Stars of Life event on April 13-15.

Friday, April 3 — "Backdraft" (1991) R — 7:30 p.m. Meet Coos Bay Volunteer Fire Fighters. Admission is two cans of food to be donated to the Salvation Army.

On behalf of the entire Board of Directors and our new program manager, Bailey Rienmiller, I would like to thank the community for helping us pull off a successful “2015 Bite of Bandon” annual…

The Portland City Council may ban the use of neonicioinoid pesticides, which the city currently uses at the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park and at Peninsula Park.

Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz introduced the ordinance last Wednesday and the council is set to vote on it this morning.

Neonicotinoids are one of the most widely used pesticides in the world. The Oregon Department of Agriculture documented seven bumble bee death incidents related to the application of neonicotinoids on trees since June 2013, six of which happened in the Portland metro area.

Portland Parks & Recreation currently relies on neonicotinoids to control the pest known as the rose midge, found only in the Rose Test Garden and Peninsula Park.

The neonicotinoid used to control the pest is called “imidacloprid,” and applied in a granular form to the top layer of the soil.

The ordinance calls for a phased elimination of the neonicotinoid pesticide at these locations over time, while alternative pest control methods are developed.

In the meantime, the city will continue “limited and judicial use” of the pesticide.

The ordinance calls for some immediate action:

• Parks staff will provide a plan to Fritz within four months to phase out all purchase of commercial nursery stock, trees and other plants treated with neonicotinoids.

• City bureaus and offices will purchase plants that are neonicotinoid-free.

• Parks staff will develop a phase-out plan with goal for complete phase-out by Dec. 1, 2017 unless otherwise justified.

In the meantime, the search for alternative methods begins.

“Neonicotinoids kill more than pollinators — they kill beneficial insects in the garden and the soil that help manage pest outbreaks,” the ordinance reads.

Parks still will evaluate alternatives to address pests, including organic methods such as mulches, non-toxic sprays.

They’ll also develop a management plan for the rose midge, not just for successful rose management “but as guidance to the general public, showing that successful pest management is possible with practices that protect bees and other pollinators.”

A pilot project will test the viability of using alternatives to neonicotinoids to manage the rose midge and other pests in the park system.

The pilot will include test beds at Peninsula Park or other locations with rose gardens will include consultation from experts at Oregon State University, businesses, nonprofit groups, government agencies and others.

Parks staff will monitor the test plots and report back two years after planting. If it’s successful in combating the rose midge and other pests, staff will do a cost-benefit analysis.

If the pilot is successful, Parks will convert all city rose garden beds to neonicotinoid-free methods, requesting increased funding for the new method in the city budget if necessary.

If the pilot is unsuccessful, neonicotinoid pesticide use may continue on a site-by-site basis as the ordinance allows.

PORTLAND — Containerized farm exports from the Port of Portland are unlikely to revive without a reconciliation between the longshoremen’s union and the container facility’s operator, a port official says.

The Hanjin shipping line stopped calling at the facility last month due to low productivity, but the port hopes to eventually restore direct container service to Asia.

While other carriers still use the port, Hanjin handled most of the container volume. Agricultural exporters who relied on Portland must now ship to Asia through more distant terminals.

However, ocean carriers will be reluctant to take over for Hanjin in Portland until a longstanding dispute is resolved between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and ICTSI Oregon, the container terminal’s operator, said Sebastian Degens, general manager of marine and terminal business development at the port.

It’s possible the relationship must still “hit rock bottom” before such a truce can occur, Degens told Capital Press at an April 1 panel discussion on agricultural trade in Portland.

ICTSI and ILWU are mired in several lawsuits that also involve the port and the National Labor Relations Board.

The union was recently ordered to pay $60,000 for contempt of court after a federal judge found longshoremen had violated an order not to engage in work slowdowns.

Meanwhile, ICTSI is challenging another ruling in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that dismissed some of its claims against the union.

If the two sides can bury the hatchet and vow to cooperate, that would help overcome the container terminal’s “inconsistent and unreliable” reputation — perhaps convincing Hanjin to return or another major carrier to replace the company, Degens said.

“We have to work our way out of that hole,” he said.

Apart from the specific conflict between longshoremen and ICTSI, ocean carriers are awaiting a broader labor agreement between the union and West Coast container terminals, Degens said.

The ILWU’s leaders recently struck a tentative deal with the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents operators, but the contract must still be ratified by the union’s rank and file this spring, he said.

Until the agreement is finalized, longshoremen are working without a contract that spells out how disputes are arbitrated.

Such grievance procedures are a necessary first step toward resuming normal operations at the port, Degens said. Otherwise, allegations of safety violations can drag on for extended periods of time while ships wait to be loaded and unloaded.

“The arbitration mechanism is really important,” Degens said.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Wildlife advocates have criticized Bend police for shooting a cougar, saying it could have been tranquilized and relocated, or left to leave on its own.

It’s the second time in about two months a cougar was killed in the city, The Bulletin newspaper reported.

A hiker at Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint reported the animal Saturday a few yards off a trail.

At the time, police said, there were about 40 visitors in the 100-acre park, an old cinder cone volcano where trails lead to a pinnacle 500 feet up, offering panoramic views of the Central Oregon high desert.

Less than an hour later, after a dispatcher found no state fish and wildlife trooper available, police shot and killed the cougar. It was a 120-pound male 2 to 3 years old.

“Chances are if it would have been left alone, it wouldn’t have been there in the morning,” George Wuerthner, a Bend biologist and spokesman for Predator Defense told KTVZ-TV.

The state does not have a case on record of a wild cougar attacking a person, said Brooks Fahy, executive director of the group.

Oregon Wild spokesman Erik Fernandez said the animal should have been darted and relocated.

Police Lt. Clint Burleigh said the department’s tranquilizer darts are for use on dogs and would take 15 minutes to affect a cougar.

“If it takes that long to tranquilize the cougar, then it can create a more dangerous situation in an uncontained area,” he said.

The state Parks Department defers to other agencies in dealing with cougar or bear sightings, said spokesman Chris Havel.

“Sometimes that means trapping and sometimes, unfortunately, it means killing if we have a territorial problem,” he said.

The last time a cougar report was confirmed at the park, in 2004, the trails were not so popular and the surrounding neighborhoods were not so densely populated, said Susan Bethers, park manager.

She said she had just begun working at Pilot Butte and saw the cougar herself, along with the former park manager.

The former manager decided to leave the cougar alone and close down all of the trails on the butte, she said, and by the next day the cougar was gone.

SALEM — A bill meant to encourage the construction of artificial beaver dams in Oregon’s Malheur Lake drainage basin to improve stream conditions has divided environmental groups.

House Bill 3217 would create a pilot project in the area streamlining the permitting process for these structures, which are intended to restore stream functions to the benefit of the environment and landowners.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association is supporting the legislation but several other environmental groups came out against it during a March 31 hearing before the House Committee on Rural Communities, Land Use and Water.

Currently, landowners who hope build artificial beaver dams must undergo a difficult permitting process, said Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem.

While they may benefit from better forage conditions, the expense and bureacratic hurdles prevent many landowners from pursuing such projects, he said. “Not every rancher is going to be willing to spend that kind of money.”

Under HB 3217, regulators could provide a “general authorization” for artificial beaver dams in that basin so that landowners would not have to obtain a separate removal-fill permit for each structure. The dams would also be exempt from fish passage requirements in some circumstances.

The goal is to slow down “flashy” streams that are often dry and ultimately create habitat for the reintroduction of actual beavers, said Martha Pagel, a representative of Silvies Valley Ranch near Burns, Ore., which uses the structures.

“It promotes voluntary stream restoration by private landowners,” she said. “It is not an end run around permitting.”

Many streams that now cut deep gullies through the landscape historically meandered through marshy meadows, said Gordon Grant, a hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service.

That hydrology was changed when beaver populations were reduced through trapping and a combination of other factors, Grant said.

Beavers will not re-occupy such streams until they’re restored and contain the right food sources, he said.

Artificial beaver dams can help reconnect streams to their historic flood plains, allowing them to store water, said Alan Hickenbottom, a board member of ONDA.

The structures help slow the runoff of melting snow and increase groundwater recharge, he said.

WaterWatch of Oregon recognizes the bill’s good intentions but is opposed to it as drafted, said Brian Posewitz, attorney for the group.

It’s unclear why the stream restoration goals can’t be accomplished under the existing regulatory structure, he said.

The exemption to fish passage requirements is “dangerous,” Posewitz said.

Artificial dams do not precisely mimic their natural counterparts, which permit fish to migrate, said Tom Wolf, executive director of the Oregon Council of Trout Unlimited.

“They’re not solid structures, they have holes in them,” he said.

Clem said the bill is intended to serve as a pilot program for streams that are currently dry much of the year but may someday contain fish if conditions are restored.

“They’re dry gulches,” he said.

The Master Gardeners program offered through Oregon State University Extension is well-regarded for the advice, workshops, garden tours and demonstrations its volunteers provide to people learning how to grow and care for plants.

But don’t expect Master Gardeners to provide marijuana tips when Measure 91 takes effect July 1 and Oregonians are allowed to grow up to four plants per household.

A policy adopted by OSU notes that the university receives federal funding, and the feds still classify cannabis as illegal. The university and its extension programs are governed by the federal Controlled Substance Act, the Drug Free Workplace Act and the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act.

To avoid the risk of losing federal funding, the policy states, “OSU Extension, staff and volunteers do not provide advice or referrals on the culture, care and/or use of marijuana.”

Because marijuana remains a federally controlled substance, OSU is not planning any courses on marijuana propagation, cultivation or production, the university said.

Pot quality would suffer and Oregon’s conventional farmers would swamp the market if they turned their skill, equipment, land and infrastructure to marijuana production, an Oregon State University expert says.

Seth Crawford, who teaches a pot policy class at OSU, said Oregon already produces far more high-quality cannabis than the state consumes, and could meet the state demand on 35 acres of farmland in Southern Oregon.

Crawford said Oregon’s growers could supply the total U.S. cannabis market on just 5,000 acres.

“Throw in another 500 and you’d cover Canada, too,” Crawford said.

He said Oregon now grows the best pot in the country at reasonable prices, and quality would decline if large growers jumped into the business. Existing growers have refined their techniques over 20, 30 or 40 years, in some cases, he said.

“There’s a difference between large-scale agricultural producers and these marijuana producers,” he said. “They’re still small scale compared to a 10,000-acre wheat ranch. The way the Oregon market evolved was thousands of small growers producing high quality products and unique products. You couldn’t do it on an industrial scale.”

There don’t appear to be any conventional farmers clamoring to jump into the market. And for now, seeding the back 40 with sativa isn’t legal.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which will regulate wholesale commercial production under Measure 91, has yet to draft specific rules.

The law, which was approved by voters in the November 2014 election and takes effect July 1, allows individuals to possess up to eight ounces of pot and grow up to four plants per household for personal use.

As pot prohibition laws begin to recede nationally, however, the prospect of bigger markets and industrial-sized grow operations occasionally comes up in casual, just-wondering type of conversations, some producers say. What if Oregon’s grass seed growers decided to grow the other kind of grass? What if the state’s nursery operators turned their greenhouse expertise to marijuana production?

Crawford said they shouldn’t bother, because supply already outstrips demand.

Crawford said cannabis — unofficially — is Oregon’s most valuable crop, with an estimated annual value approaching $1 billion. Based on his surveys of legal and illegal growers, the state’s “internal marijuana demand” in 2014 was about 150,628 pounds. At $150 an ounce, that’s $361 million.

Medical marijuana growers grew and exported 391,694 pounds above the Oregon demand, worth another $587 million, Crawford said. That makes the farm gate value of Oregon’s pot exports alone greater than the combined value of hazelnuts, pears, wine grapes, Christmas trees and blueberries, according to Crawford’s estimates.

Crawford said his figures are based on self-reported data from growers he reached through a “chain referral” survey technique, in which the first respondents invite others in their social network to take part, and the sample size grows in a snowball fashion. Still, the underground nature of the industry makes it difficult to get precise information, Crawford acknowledged.

Bruce Pokarney, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said the department has no way to assess the state’s cannabis crop value. “But, assuming the OSU numbers are correct, marijuana would likely be at the top of the list of commodities in terms of production value,” he said in an email.

The department assists other commodity groups with research, marketing and regulations, but is in a holding pattern as the Legislature decides how to implement Measure 91, Pokarney said. “Once the Legislature provides direction, we will have a better idea of how we will be involved in supporting the industry.”

Crawford teaches a sociology class titled, “Marijuana Policy in the 21st Century.” Students were asked to produce a collectively-authored paper with their recommendations for how marijuana should be grown, sold and distributed in Oregon.

COOS BAY POLICE DEPARTMENT

BEND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon police officer shot and killed a cougar after it was spotted just above a popular hiking trail.

KTVZ-TV reports that the animal was seen Saturday evening near the summit of Pilot Butte, a 500-foot-tall, extinct cinder cone volcano, in Bend. It was a large male, just 15 yards from a paved road and hiking trail used by hundreds of people daily.

Police Lt. Nick Parker says officers evacuated visitors over safety concerns. The department considered tranquilizing the cougar, but darts can take up to 15 minutes to work.

It was the second cougar killed in Bend in just over two months. On Jan. 30, state Fish and Wildlife agents killed a cougar in a tree above a home. They said it would have been too risky to try to relocate the animal.

lawsuitosprayresponse3272015

lawsuit3272015

Sorry for the earlier post, I tried to do it from my phone and I am not that tech savvy…

https://ecf.mad.uscourts.gov/doc1/09516692197

https://ecf.mad.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_multidocs.pl?caseid=147455&arr_de_seq_nums=454&magic_num=&pdf_header=&hdr=&pdf_toggle_possible=1&caseid=147455&zipit=&magic_num=&arr_de_seq_nums=454&got_warning=&create_roa=&create_appendix=&bates_format=&dkt=&got_receipt=1