GOLD BEACH — The free Christmas Feast from noon to 3 p.m. Christmas Day is a festive way to share the holiday with the community. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in the spirit of sh…

PORTLAND — Supporters of Measure 92 said Monday they are going to court to compel officials to count an estimated 4,600 ballots from voters who say they were denied inclusion.

They are asking a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge to halt a statewide recount of the ballots until a question is resolved over whether the signatures of those voters must match those on file with county elections offices. They also say those ballots should be deemed valid anyway and included in the recount.

Measure 92 on the Nov. 4 ballot would require labeling of food sold in Oregon that contains genetically modified organisms.

Before the start of the recount, which Secretary of State Kate Brown ordered Nov. 24, the measure failed by 812 votes of about 1.5 million cast. The difference was well within the margin of 3,000 — one-fifth of 1 percent — to trigger an automatic recount.

The lawsuit against Brown and Tim Scott, the Multnomah County elections director, was brought by eight people who say they followed all the instructions, but their signatures do not match those on file with county elections offices because of disabilities or mental conditions. Under Oregon’s mail ballot system, signatures on the backs of return envelopes are compared with file signatures before the ballots are processed.

Christine Seals, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement that she has been using a stamp as her legal signature — and it was only after this election that officials said there was a problem.

“I take my right to vote very seriously, and I think it is very wrong that elections officials are disenfranchising me in this election because they’ve suddenly decided not to accept my stamp,” she said. “That is why I am joining this lawsuit. I cast a valid ballot, and it should be counted.”

Some said they were never told their ballot would not be counted, or that they tried to offer their signatures but were rejected.

Supporters, including some of the plaintiffs, announced their intentions at a news conference.

Although the hand recount is scheduled for completion by Friday, about two-thirds of the counties have reported their results, including Multnomah County, the state’s most populous, where it passed by a 63 percent majority.

So far the retallied results will not appear to change the outcome.

In a news release, Measure 92 supporters are frank about what they hope from the lawsuit — that inclusion of the 4,600 ballots will change the outcome.

Measure 92 generated the highest spending, at nearly $29 million, for a single ballot-measure campaign in Oregon history.

Similar measures failed at the ballot box in California in 2012, Washington in 2013 and Colorado on Nov. 4. Vermont has such a law, which is being challenged in federal court.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The AAA auto club reports the average price of a gallon of gas in Oregon has fallen to $2.93.

That’s down 8 cents in a week and 15 cents in a month.

Some metro prices from the AAA’s Monday survey: Portland $2.92, Salem $2.92, Eugene-Springfield $2.92, and Medford-Ashland $2.94.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture plans to ask state lawmakers to double the maximum fines for pesticide violations during the 2015 legislative session.

The most the agency can fine a pesticide applicator is $1,000 for a first time offense and $2,000 for a repeat offense.

The ODA wants to raise those penalty levels to $2,000 for a first time offense and $4,000 for a repeat violation, said Katy Coba, the agency’s director, during the Dec. 4 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

If the increases are approved, the agency will revise its “matrix” system of determining how much to fine applicators for various violations, she said.

The agency hasn’t raised the cap on pesticide fines since the 1970s and believes the increase is necessary to appropriately enforce pesticide rules, according to ODA.

Doug Krahmer, a blueberry farmer and board member, said he reluctantly supports the penalty increase even though he’s unsure the fines need to double.

The doubling of the fines is a fair compromise because some groups will be pressing for much larger hikes in pesticide penalties during the legislative session, said Tracey Liskey, a farmer and board member.

“We’re expecting a lot of legislation related to pesticides,” said Coba.

During the Dec. 4 meeting, the board adopted a resolution related to non-farm uses on agricultural land in anticipation of possible legislative land use proposals.

The resolution seeks to discourage non-farm uses — such as wetland banks, aggregate mines and rails-to-trails projects — on high value farmland.

Such uses are currently allowed outright, but the resolution says it should be determined whether they should be subject to land use review.

The resolution will carry weight with legislators if the ODA is asked to testify about possible legislation next year, said Jim Johnson, land use specialist for the agency.

Genetically modified organisms are a possible subject of legislative proposals next year, though it’s unclear what form they might take, Coba said.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has a GMO “placeholder” bill ready for the 2015 session, but its contents may depend on recommendations from a task force he appointed earlier this year. The task force is in the final stage of drafting a report.

The governor’s office is still reviewing legislative concepts, which are set to become public on Dec. 12, Coba said.

It’s not 221B Baker Street in London, but 1089 Cordley Hall on the Oregon State University campus has its own Sherlock Holmesian figure. Like literature’s consulting detective, plant pathologist Melodie Putnam takes a deductive approach as nursery operators, farmers and crop service workers bring cases to OSU’s Plant Clinic.

These sickly strawberry plants, for example, dug up and submitted for examination. Certainly, it’s winter, but they look particularly bad, with brown, withered leaves. The damage is so extensive that Putnam suspects a root or crown pathogen or virus. Testing will tell.

“It’s definitely a detective task,” said Putnam, the clinic’s chief diagnostician. “We know by reading the plant what has happened. The plants don’t lie.”

The clinic, part of OSU’s Extension Service, charges $75 a pop — 50 percent more for out-of-state cases — to figure out what’s gone wrong.

“Things they can’t identify, they bring to us,” she said. “They saw this abnormal growth and said what the heck.”

The clinic’s diagnosis likely determines the producer’s next action: Spend money for spray, perhaps, or simply destroy the plants.

Putnam’s work recently took on a sharper focus. She’s part of a six-person OSU team that will use a $3 million USDA grant to battle two bacteria groups that cause severe damage to Oregon’s nursery industry.

The team will study Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Rhodococcus fascians, which inflict deformities on hundreds of common landscape plants. Deformities such as swollen tumors called galls don’t necessarily kill the host plants, but make them unmarketable for use in landscaping.

Diagnosis can be difficult, because pathogens are difficult to identify. Crown galls, for example, can resemble a callous that commonly forms at a grafting site. Another infection at first looks like the effect of using too much growth regulator, and its true nature may not be discovered until it’s too late.

“Once they’re infected there is no cure,” Putnam said. “The sad news is they’ll have to throw them out.”

The work has a sharp financial edge: Nursery products are Oregon’s leading agricultural sector, with an annual sales of $745 million.

“Sometimes there’s hundreds of millions of dollars at stake,” Putnam said. “We want to be sure of what we’re doing.”

The four-year grant was provided by the USDA’s

National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Researchers will study how pathogens are introduced into nurseries and how they maintain a foothold. Putnam will spearhead work to improve detection; other work includes training nursery workers to recognize problems.

In addition to Putnam, the research team includes molecular plant pathologist Jeff Chang, plant pathologist Niklaus Grunwald, chemist Taifo Mahmud, nursery specialist Luisa Santamaria, and economist Clark Seavert.

Agricultural regulators in Oregon are thinking of using conservation easements to steer urban development away from valuable farmland.

The Oregon Board of Agriculture recently discussed the possibility of strategically placing easements instead of the current “scattershot” approach.

Easements let organizations like land trusts pay growers to give up the rights to build housing on their land while still allowing them to farm.

Land trusts have an uncoordinated “wild, wild West” way of buying easements, which is why a broader view is needed, said Tom Salzer, general manager of the Clackamas County Soil and Water Conservation District.

“What we lack is statewide policy and direction,” Salzer testified at the board’s Dec. 3 meeting.

Compared to other states, conservation easements are relatively rare in Oregon, said Jim Johnson, land use specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, an agency that’s advised by the board.

Easements protect 156,500 acres in Oregon, compared to 322,800 acres in Washington and 1.3 million acres in California, he said. Maryland, which is much smaller than Oregon, has 400,000 acres in easements.

The discrepancy is due to Oregon’s statewide land use planning system, which has prevented farmland prices from rising as much, Johnson said.

In other words, there’s a smaller difference between a property’s fair market price and its value as farmland, so farmers have less incentive to sell easements.

The prospect has to be financially worthwhile to gain farmers’ interest, said Mary Wahl, whose family has sold easements on its ranch in Curry County. “To bring in the owners, you have to be competitive.”

Also, Oregon’s land use system has caused people to think that easements aren’t as necessary in the state, Johnson said.

However, that system doesn’t permanently halt development as cities can periodically expand their “urban growth boundaries,” he said. “There’s no real ultimate stop to that.”

If several easements were bought in a block, that could effectively cause urban growth to spread in another direction, he said.

An effective strategy for protecting farmland must take many factors into account, like whether preserving the best soils should be a priority even if the property is in a limited water area, said Salzer.

“There are tons of questions like this we are wrestling with,” he said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture needs to explore whether it has a role in guiding easement strategies, or if the shift toward coordination already has enough momentum at the level of county soil and water conservation districts, said Katy Coba, the agency’s director.

It’s uncertain that any strategy devised by ODA would actually be followed by land trusts or other groups, since they’re private entities free to buy easements where they want, said Doug Krahmer, a blueberry farmer and board member.

A source of state money for buying easements could help set a direction, said Don Stuart, former director of the American Farmland Trust’s Pacific Northwest office.

The federal government also has matching funds available for buying easements, he said.

Coba said the topic of state funding for easements is likely to come up during next year’s legislative session.

“Ultimately, the people who will have control over that is the people who have the money,” said Johnson.

Oregon State University’s veterinarian teaching facility was scheduled to resume normal operation Dec. 4 following an outbreak of equine influenza. The Lois Bates Acheson Veterinary Teaching Hospital had stopped receiving horses except for emergencies over the past week.

In a news release, the university said “several” cases of equine influenza had occurred at the facility and three horses are still being treated for infection. They are housed in an isolation unit and don’t pose a risk to other animals, according to OSU.

Equine influenza, like the flu among people, is a contagious respiratory disease. It usually isn’t fatal to horses, but can cause pregnant horses to abort.

Horse stalls in the facility’s Large Animal Hospital have been disinfected and left empty for now, so that any remaining flu virus will die in a dry environment.

The infection apparently spread from an ill horse that was admitted to the hospital.

Tired of trying to please everyone during the holidays? Are you working harder at home than you are at work, but still want that perfect, old-timey, Norman Rockwell look for your table? Then t…

By MITCH LIES

For the Capital Press

For the better part of a week this past summer, Jerome Rosa’s mind was not on his Gervais, Ore., dairy operation. The veteran dairyman was considering accepting an offer to be the next executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

A religious man, Rosa said he consulted his wife, Carole, and his son, Greg, and prayed over the decision for a week, even calling Jay Gordon, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation.

Gordon encouraged him to take the position.

“Jay said, ‘Jerome, the beauty about these positions is you are involved in issues that you care about and know about,’” Rosa said.

Still, Rosa said, there was the 600-cow dairy to run, and no family member prepared to run it. His son, Greg, two years out of college with a degree in business administration, was preparing to accept a job offer that would take him off the farm.

Still, the idea of heading the cattle association was too intriguing for Rosa, and when Greg agreed to stay and run the farm, Rosa made the leap.

“It’s a dream job,” said Rosa, 54. “How many people at this stage in their life get a fresh start in something they are really excited about?”

On the surface, to shift from running a dairy, which Rose did for 27 years, to heading a 2,000-member statewide association, appears a big change. Throughout his adult life, however, Rosa, has participated in administrative boards with an eye on politics.

“I enjoy that part of the job,” he said of the political duties associated with heading the organization. “I plan to be active this coming session, working on our issues at the Capitol with (lobbyist) Jim (Welsh) and Bill Hoyt, who is chair of our legislative committee.”

Rosa, in fact, eventually planned to seek political office and has built a resume for just such a run.

Rosa has served on school boards, was on the Oregon Dairy Farmers Board of Directors for 12 years, including a two-year stint as president, served eight years on the Oregon Beef Council, and recently served one four-year term on the Oregon State Board of Agriculture.

Rep. Vic Gilliam, R-Silverton, and Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, who represent his district in the Oregon House and Senate, were aware of his intentions, he said.

“The goal was to take a run when there was an opening,” he said.

Like Jer-Osa Organic Dairy, that aspiration, too, now is on the back burner after the cattlemen hired him.

Curtis Martin, immediate past president of the association and one of three association board members who conducted the final interview with Rosa, said he’s known Rosa for several years and has been impressed with him.

“I’ve always been impressed with Jerome’s knowledge and his ability to address issues articulately and directly, yet do it in a way that is not abrasive or controversial,” Martin said.

After the final interview, he said, the three were convinced Rosa was a good fit for the organization.

“We were really impressed with Jerome’s enthusiasm and his knowledge of organizations and his ability to work with agencies, and his understanding of the political landscape,” Martin said.

“After visiting with him, we all thought to ourselves, ‘If we don’t hire Jerome, we have rocks in our head,’” Martin said.

Now two months on the job, Rosa said the position is all he expected and more.

“The depth and amount of legal issues facing our producers is more than I imagined,” he said. “I’m dealing more with lawyers than I thought I would.”

His favorite part of the job?

“The best part is getting on the ground and talking to producers,” Rosa said.

A new wildlife services report on the number of cackling Canada geese wintering in the Willamette Valley and the Lower Columbia River areas of Oregon and Washington shows the population surpasses the goal set for the migratory birds and may trigger a revision of management plans.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2014 report estimates 281,300 cacklers spend the winter in the two states, where they cause considerable agricultural damage, especially to grain and grass seed fields. The 2013 estimate was 312,200. Year-to-year population fluctuations are common; the wildlife service has set a population goal of 250,000 geese.

Crop damage from geese has been a concern for decades. Farmers argue they are essentially feeding the birds and absorbing damage for the sake of maintaining the population for hunters or nature lovers elsewhere. But the latest report hopefully will open the door to discussions of a longer hunting season or more opportunities to haze geese out of fields, said Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council.

However, the situation is complicated by migratory bird treaties and compacts involving Native American tribes, the U.S., Canada and the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and California, Beyer said. “It’s a long slow process,” he said.

The Oregon Farm Bureau’s wildlife committee will be discussing cacklers – and wolves and Greater sage-grouse – at the bureau’s annual convention next week in Salishan. Wildlife officials have been invited to discuss the population report.

A 1997 report by the Oregon Department of Agriculture estimated annual crop and livestock damage by wildlife at $147 million, with more than $100 million attributed to deer and elk. Damage from geese was estimated at $14.9 million.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon election officials began tallying 1.5 million ballots by hand Tuesday, kicking off an automatic recount of a ballot measure that would require labels on genetically modified foods.

Workers have until Dec. 12 to finish the recount, though some of the smaller counties expect to wrap up quickly. The first tally showed Measure 92 was defeated by less than a tenth of a percentage point — 812 votes — following the most expensive campaign in state history. Advocates on both sides of the issue spent nearly $30 million combined.

The recount is conducted by four-person “counting boards” appointed by the county clerk. The counters must be registered Oregon voters, and no two of them can be members of the same political party.

One voter for and one against are allowed to observe, and officials with both campaigns said they had observers.

“Our intent is to make sure that every valid ballot is counted,” said Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for the measure’s proponents.

The observers monitor the count and call into campaign officials if they spot problems, Kaushik said.

“As far as we can tell at this point, things appear to be going smoothly,” said Dana Bieber, a spokeswoman for the No on 2 Coalition.

Their level of access varies from county to county, with some counties requiring observers to watch on a television screen or from a window while others allow them to be close to the counting board, he said.

The initiative would have required manufacturers, retailers and suppliers to label raw or packaged foods produced entirely or partially by genetic engineering.

If the defeat holds, Oregon will be the fourth state in the West that has failed to pass a GMO labeling measure. A similar proposal was defeated this year in Colorado, which joined Washington state and California in opposing labeling initiatives.

There’s little science that says genetically engineered foods are unsafe, and agribusinesses fear mandatory labels would spook consumers. Most of the nation’s corn and soybeans are genetically engineered to resist pests and herbicides. Labeling proponents say there’s too much that’s unknown about GMOs, and consumers have a right to know what’s in their food.

In 22 statewide recounts around the U.S. since 2000, the average shift was only 0.03 percentage point, according to FairVote, a Maryland-based advocacy group. Five of them produced a shift that would be large enough to alter the outcome of Oregon’s measure.

Landowners in seven more Eastern Oregon counties will have the opportunity to sign voluntary greater sage grouse conservation plans that will shield them from additional regulations if the bird is listed under the Endangered Species Act next year.

The draft agreement announced Dec. 2 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Portland is significant because it potentially covers 2.3 million acres — the majority of greater sage grouse habitat in Oregon.

Soil and Water Conservation Districts in Baker, Crook, Deschutes, Grant, Lake, southern Union and Malheur counties developed what’s called a Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances, or CCAA, with the wildlife service. The announcement opens a 30-day public comment period before final action can be taken.

The agreement is modeled after one adopted in Harney County in May. Under CCAAs, ranchers and other landowners agree to manage their range in a way that benefits sage-grouse. In return, they are assured of protection from additional regulations for 30 years, even if sage grouse are listed as threatened or endangered. The bird is a candidate species for listing; the wildlife service will decide by September 2015 whether to give it ESA protection.

The Harney County SWCD agreement has enrolled 30 landowners and 280,000 acres.

Ranchers involved in the agreements have described the requirements as common-sense. They include marking fences to avoid bird strikes, putting escape ramps in water troughs and removing juniper trees that soak up water and crowd out sage and native grasses. The latter work improves grazing conditions for cattle as well. Last May one Southeast Oregon rancher described the exchange as, “What’s good for the bird is good for the herd.”

Landowners also agree to maintain contiguous grouse habitat. Fragmentation, wildfire and juniper encroachment are the main reasons for habitat loss in Oregon, according to the wildlife service.

Greater sage grouse inhabit 11 Western states. An endangered species listing could severely hamper ranching, farming, mining, logging and energy development in much of the West. In Oregon, the wildlife service has pushed for collaborative agreements that provide conservation for the bird while minimizing impact on private landowners, state supervisor Paul Henson said in a news release.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The federal government's decision to spend $55 million on cranberries may dent a global glut, support prices and speed up payments to growers.

COOS BAY — Think it's hard to find a job? Some employers say it's just as hard to find an employee.

Oregon Cranberries - Leader's guide  Oregon State University

Almost everybody does it. Many of us regret it afterward. Then we resolve not to do it again next time. Are we talking about overspending on Christmas? Or not fighting with relatives? Nope, no…

The federal government’s decision to spend $55 million on cranberries may dent a global glut, support prices and speed up payments to growers.

The purchase, however, won’t address production continuing to outpace demand, a step the U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to take this year.

“We have a very serious problem,” Long Beach Peninsula cranberry grower Malcolm McPhail said. “You don’t want anyone to have a crop failure. But you’d like to see average crops to keep things in perspective.”

U.S. and Canadian cranberry farmers produced this year a crop expected to be nearly as big as last year’s record harvest of 12 million barrels.

Between this year’s cranberries and fruit still unsold from 2013, the global cranberry supply stands at 16 million barrels (1.6 billion pounds). Demand over the next year is expected to be about 8.2 million barrels, according to the U.S. Cranberry Marketing Committee.

To trim the nearly 100 percent surplus, the USDA announced Nov. 21 it will buy approximately 680,000 barrels of cranberries in the form of juice, sauce and dried berries to distribute to food banks and schools.

The USDA buys cranberries every year, but this purchase will be a record and in addition to the $32 million the agency already planned to spend this year.

The announcement came two days after 22 federal lawmakers in the Congressional Cranberry Caucus wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asking that the agency do what the marketing committee asks of consumers — please buy more cranberries.

The lawmakers — from the country’s five cranberry-producing states, including Washington and Oregon — requested the USDA buy 1 million barrels. Although the purchase will be about two-thirds that amount, it still will be more than all the cranberries grown annually in New Jersey, the third-leading cranberry producer behind Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

“If they did 50,000 barrels, it wouldn’t have much influence, but 680 (thousand) is a lot,” said McPhail, who like most Northwest cranberry growers belongs to the Ocean Spray cooperative.

Cranberry Marketing Committee Executive Director Scott Soares said the USDA has never spent so much on cranberries and that he expects the purchase will moderately influence prices farmers receive.

Still, the cranberry inventory remains far higher than a healthy 40 percent, he said.

“The USDA purchase is a big deal, but it’s not intended to be the silver bullet for all the problems of the industry,” Soares said.

Ocean Spray growers receive payments as the cranberries are sold. Growers won’t receive the final payment for 2013 crops until June 2015, several months later usual. Ocean Spray projects the payments will amount to 45 cents a pound, down from 57 cents the year before.

With the surplus reduced by the USDA, the pool of 2014 cranberries may be exhausted sooner, which means farmers will be paid sooner, McPhail said.

The cranberry surplus has been particularly difficult for independent growers outside the Ocean Spray cooperative.

Independent growers have been receiving 10 to 15 cents a pound for fruit sold for processed products, said independent grower Alan Devlin of Grayland, Wash.

“You can’t grow it for that, at least not in Washington,” he said.

If prices were 30 to 40 cents a pound, “you could be a little more relaxed about the whole thing,” he said.

Devlin said he’s survived by selling about 70 percent of his cranberries to the more lucrative fresh fruit market.

The USDA’s cranberry purchase came a few days before Thanksgiving — the holiday the cranberry industry is trying to become less reliant on.

“It (cranberry consumption) needs to be more of a year-round thing,” Devlin said. “You don’t want to depend on the government for anything.”

The USDA will buy the cranberries under the Section 32 program established during the Depression to support farm prices. The $55 million will come from customs fees the government collects on goods coming into the U.S.

The USDA this year rejected a request by the cranberry industry to control volumes, mandating growers reduce harvests by 15 percent. The USDA said it was concerned the U.S. cranberry industry was conspiring with Canadian growers to hold down supply.

The industry likely will consider again asking the USDA to control volumes to manage the surplus, Soares said.

“We hope not to. We hope the volatility in the market will go away,” he said.

McPhail said renewing the request for volume control may be unnecessary, citing the USDA’s increased buying of cranberries. Also, Wisconsin farmers may slip back to their historical harvests after huge crops the past two years, he said.

Wisconsin produces about two-thirds of the cranberries grown in the U.S.

Cattle ranchers will have plenty to talk about when they gather for the annual Oregon Cattlemen’s Association convention and trade show Dec. 4-6 in Bend.

The convention includes Dec. 4 educational sessions on beef quality assurance training and certification and herd management concepts. Speakers scheduled Dec. 5 include Phil Ward, Oregon director of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency; Dustin Van Liew of the Washington, D.C., lobbyist group Public Lands Council; and Kevin Mannix, a former Oregon legislator and founder of Common Sense for Oregon.

The association’s annual business meeting will be held Dec. 6.

The convention is at The Riverhouse in Bend. To see the full agenda, visit http://orcattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Convention-Agenda-102114.pdf.

Kendall Derby rolls into Portland in a tan GM Sierra pickup truck, pulling a flatbed trailer full of hope and bother. It’s a load of landscape timbers Derby cut from gnarly western juniper trees, and he drove 170 miles from Fossil, the emptiest spot in rural Oregon’s bare economy, to sell them in the city of hipsters.

Derby, 53, is burly, bearded, holds a rangeland ecology degree from Oregon State University and runs a two-man sawmill called In the Sticks. He said a guy should be able to make a living milling the juniper that cattle ranchers and government agencies want removed from the landscape.

He wants to believe that. But the saw should be whining, the kiln should be humming and the phone should be ringing with orders and offers. Instead, the only sound is the wind gently flapping the plastic covering stacks of sawn timbers.

Winter’s coming on and he doesn’t have a juniper log deck to cut.

“One of the things that haunts me is, everybody that has tried juniper has gone under,” Derby said.

“Part of it is just hanging in there.” he said. “I come close to the edge pretty regularly.”

There is potential for a cascading economic and environmental impact that goes beyond Derby, a load of juniper and a struggling sawmill.

In much of the rural West, juniper sucks up water, crowds out sage and native grasses and provides perches for hawks and other predators. It’s an pervasive presence. Oregon alone has an estimated 9 million acres of juniper.

Wildlife biologists have identified the juniper infestation as one of the problems afflicting greater sage grouse, which is a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2015.

If there is a market for juniper products, the thinking goes, ranchers and other landowners will cut more of it, which will improve habitat for greater sage grouse. In turn, that might keep the bird off the endangered species list. Which would be good for cattle ranchers, farmers, miners and energy developers in 11 Western states, who worry deeply about the restrictions and regulations that come with the ESA.

But that’s national issue stuff. The rise or fall of Derby’s juniper sawmill is a big concern locally. Wheeler County is Oregon’s least populated county, with more square miles, 1,713, than people, 1,430. Fossil, the county seat, has 475 people.

The county’s economy was knocked flat when the Kinzua mill closed in the late 1970s and hasn’t gotten back up.

The situation is such that June Rollins, owner of the Kountry Kafe in Fossil, has an informal arrangement with RJ’s, the restaurant across the street. Kountry Kafe serves breakfast and lunch, RJ’s serves lunch and dinner. That way, they split the trade between them.

Derby has one employee helping him. A couple jobs in Wheeler County, former county Judge Jeanne Burch said, are the equivalent of a couple hundred in Portland.

“Two jobs won’t turn the economy around, but it makes an impact,” said Burch, who was judge for 18 years. “Every dollar goes to the grocery store, to the gas station, to the restaurants.”

Selling juniper makes sense, she said. People in the county admire Derby for what he’s doing and wish him well, she said.

“It’s a bright way to go if he can just hang in there,” Burch said.

Ryan Temple, president of Sustainable Northwest Wood, arrives on a blue Salsa bicycle as Derby’s trailer is being unloaded,

The business, in Portland’s inner east side warehouse area, is a specialty lumber yard. It’s a for-profit spinoff of Sustainable Northwest, a non-profit that mediates environmental and rural economic concerns.

Sustainable Northwest Woods is the organization’s effort to “walk the talk,” Temple said. The business buys wood from 45 small Pacific Northwest mills such as Derby’s and sells to people looking for unusual decking, butcher block, fences, flooring, timbers, posts and other items.

Temple acknowledges the difficulty Derby and other rural producers face in reaching consumers.

“The reality of it is, the purchasing power exists in dense urban areas,” he said.

In October, Sustainable Northwest received a $65,000 USDA grant to certify western juniper’s structural characteristics. The testing will be done by Oregon State University and West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau. Certification is necessary to get broader use of juniper.

But even without certification, demand is not the problem.

Tamra Rooney, operations director for Sustainable Northwest Wood, said juniper sales are growing at 50 percent a year and will approach $500,000 in 2014. “We can sell juniper all day long,” she said.

Organic vineyards want juniper posts at the end of their rows of grapes, because juniper is naturally rot-resistant and doesn’t have to be treated with preservatives. Derby is filling an order of 800 posts for a new organic vineyard.

Meanwhile, parks departments and transportation divisions want juniper for signposts, guardrails and trail beams. The University of Washington ordered juniper timbers for a retaining wall.

The most unusual application may be in Sweden, where a distiller ages gin in barrels made from juniper staves cut by Derby.

Derby believes a lack of logging infrastructure is holding back the juniper market. Two other small Oregon mills cut juniper, but they’re also struggling to get logs.

Two Baker County men who have worked on the issue say large-scale juniper logging doesn’t appear feasible. Josh Uriarte, who splits time between the local Soil and Water Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Logan McCrae, with the state Department of Forestry, say juniper is difficult to cut and de-limb.

Mechanized faller-buncher machines would make logging more efficient, but don’t do well cutting gnarly juniper, the men say. In addition, larger juniper trees usually grow at higher elevations, which are difficult to reach. A lack of roads in rangeland means logging trucks can’t get to where the trees are.

Many ranchers and land management agencies are cutting juniper, but are either letting them lie or burning them, Uriarte and McCrae said.

Derby, the juniper mill operator, acknowledges the difficulties cause him some sleepless nights. But he hasn’t fallen off the edge yet. For now, he’s an “artisan sawyer,” as he jokes, hauling loads to Portland.

“I don’t expect it to be easy,” he said, “but I expect it to be possible.”

SALEM — Oregon is on its way to creating a registry of government-owned drones, but uncertainty about federal regulations for the unmanned aircraft means any state registry for privately held drones could be more than a year away.

The Oregon Department of Aviation plans to deliver a report to lawmakers early next month on the feasibility of a state registry for private drones, and a lawmaker who reviewed a draft of the document said he expects the state will recommend against pursuing such a registry in 2015.

“There’s no need in being too anxious, because federal law is going to pre-empt state (law),” said Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, who sponsored a 2013 bill to regulate governments’ use of drones in Oregon.

Government agencies can currently obtain federal permits to use drones and the Federal Aviation Administration treats the small, recreational versions of the aircraft the same as model airplanes, said Collins Hemingway, president of the board of directors for the nonprofit Soar Oregon, which is dedicated to developing the industry.

That leaves out commercial drones, which the FAA has not authorized to operate in U.S. airspace outside of specific test ranges. The FAA expects to unveil a proposal to regulate small, commercial unmanned aircraft by the end of the year, and Hemingway said the federal agency might create its own drone registration system.

“If so, the state could end up having a registry but use the federal (identification) numbers,” Hemingway said. “That could be the simplest thing to do, if the state feels it needs to register them at all.”

The Oregon government drone registry was included in a 2013 bill that also established regulations on use of the aircraft by law enforcement and other government agencies. In addition to the registry, House Bill 2710 called for annual reports on government drone activity. The requirement to register government drones takes effect in January 2016.

The Oregon Department of Aviation was supposed to deliver its report on the status of federal regulation of drones and whether the state should create a private drone registry to the legislature by Nov. 1. Mitch Swecker, director of the Department of Aviation, said he provided a draft of the report to the office of Gov. John Kitzhaber for feedback, and he expects the report will be ready by the time lawmakers meet for three days of committee sessions starting Dec. 8.

The slow pace of federal regulation of unmanned aircraft systems or UAS has not dampened enthusiasm for the industry among some state lawmakers, who see it as a way to add more well-paying jobs.

The FAA approved three drone test sites in Oregon almost a year ago, as part of an effort requested by the U.S. Congress to safely integrate the vehicles into airspace. That could help convince lawmakers to approve potentially millions of dollars in 2015 to help boost development of the test sites in Tillamook, Warm Springs and Pendleton.

Soar Oregon received an $882,000 state economic development grant in the current biennium, and the group asked for $3.5 million in the two-year budget cycle that will begin in July 2015. Business Oregon, the state economic development agency, included the Soar Oregon request in the budget proposal it submitted to the governor, communications and marketing manager Nathan Buehler wrote in an email.

Huffman said he has already observed the economic impact of the unmanned aircraft industry in the Columbia River Gorge because his constituents include some of the approximately 850 people who work just north in Bingen, Washington, at the drone company Insitu Inc.

Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, said the three federal test ranges need help to build the infrastructure for drone testing.

“If we are thoughtful and careful about what we do, we could easily turn Oregon into the silicon sky, just as we turned it into the silicon forest,” said Johnson, who spent 20 years in the commercial aviation industry.