DENVER (AP) — Forecasters say Hawaii and pockets of the Southeastern and Southwestern United States could face above-normal danger of significant wildfires this summer.

The National Interagency Fire Center’s summer outlook released Thursday shows the risk on the Big Island of Hawaii is expected to be above normal through September.

Forecasters say western Nevada faces above-normal fire danger from July through September. The risk will be high in inland Southern California in July and in parts of Northern California during August and September.

Southeastern Arizona and western New Mexico could have above-normal risk in June.

Forecasters say fire danger will be below normal through July in the Rocky Mountains and in a large swath of the Eastern U.S. from Texas to the Atlantic. The risk will return to normal in late summer.

The Oregon Legislature gave its final approval Wednesday to a bill that puts permanent limits on suction dredge mining.

The practice has been controversial because of noise and concerns about harm to fish habitat and water quality.

Suction dredge, or placer mining, is a kind of motorized in-stream mineral extraction. Picture a lawnmower motor floating on top of a pontoon in a river. The motor powers a large vacuum hose, which is used by a swimming miner to suck up sediment in the search for gold.

Fishing and environmental groups have been trying to limit the practice in Oregon for years. They succeeded in passing a partial moratorium on suction dredge mining back in 2013.  The current bill would slightly modify and codify the restrictions.

While allowing suction dredge mining to continue, the new bill would protects 20,700 miles of rivers and streams considered “essential salmon habitat.”  It restricts when suction dredges can be operated in proximity to a residence or campground.  It also requires permitting by the state.

“The main goal is to prevent this kind of hobby, recreational mining activity from undoing the hundreds of millions of dollars in salmon habitat restoration that we’ve been focusing on for decades,” says Nick Cady, Legal Director of Cascadia Wildlands.

The group has supported Senate Bill 3, which passed the House Wednesday, 38-20. The bill cleared the Oregon Senate in April. It now goes to the governor to be signed into law.

Since the moratorium passed five years ago, the number of suction dredge permits in the state has plummeted — from a recent high of about 2,000 in 2012 to just 156 last year. And while 156 suction dredge mines won’t undo hundreds of millions of dollars in salmon restoration work, a relatively small body of scientific work on the issue does point to the potential for negative effects on aquatic wildlife.

Mining enthusiasts have disputed that their hobby hurts the environment. They say the bill violates federal mining laws and will have negative economic consequences.

Samantha Everett works at Armadillo Mining Shop in Grants Pass. She says her livelihood depends on the miners who patronize the shop being able to access places to mine.

“Oregon’s in deficit, and they’re removing money out of our state?” she said, “I don’t understand the logic.”

She says state lawmakers are trying to close public lands miners have legal access to under federal law.

A large percentage of the suction dredge operations are in southwest Oregon, which has a long mining history.

“They’re locking down … a culture and way of life,” Everett says.

California banned suction dredge mining in 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates the practice in Idaho. Washington has much more permissive rules governing placer mining.

SALEM — Nearly $1 million has been approved for predator control by a key group of Oregon lawmakers despite Gov. Kate Brown’s recommendation to cut the funding.

Roughly $460,000 dedicated to predator control is included in the budget for the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s next biennium that was passed May 31 by the Subcommittee on Natural Resources of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

A matching amount is also included in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget, which has also won a “do pass” recommendation from the subcommittee.

While each budget must still pass muster with the full Joint Committee on Ways and Means and be voted on by the Legislature, the subcommittee’s recommendation carries a lot of weight.

The approximately $900,000 in funding would be directed to USDA’s Wildlife Services division, which kills predators that predate on livestock.

Earlier this year, Brown recommended eliminating the state’s contributions to Wildlife Services to help reduce Oregon’s $1.4 billion budget shortfall in 2017-2019.

County governments also contribute money to Wildlife Services, but Oregon ranchers worried the loss of state funding would greatly diminish the USDA’s predator control efforts.

Wildlife Services is viewed by ranchers as playing a crucial role in mitigating livestock depredation, but environmental groups accuse the agency of indiscriminately killing wildlife instead of using non-lethal methods.

As part of the ODA’s budget, lawmakers included a budget note saying the agency should seek assurances that Wildlife won’t use general funds for cyanide traps, which have been implicated in the death of a wolf and a pet dog recently.

Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, said the cyanide traps are “utterly inhumane” and he was “overjoyed” by the recommendation.

“We have these things out there, and we don’t know where they are,” said Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland.

However, Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, and Rep. Rick Lewis, R-Silverton, voted against including the recommendation.

Katie Fast, executive director of the Oregonians for Food & Shelter agribusiness group, said the subcommittee’s decision to fund predator control shows that livestock industry representatives were persuasive in their support for the program.

“People made their case,” she said.

The “do pass” recommendation is important, but in this year’s climate, nothing is final until the legislative session is done, Fast said.

Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, said he voted against the ODA’s budget because lawmakers should first figure out how to cover the $1.4 billion shortfall.

It would be better to start with a comprehensive plan rather than approve individual budgets in a piecemeal fashion, Esquivel said. “You can’t say we’re broke and then up people’s general fund budget.”

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A judge called a New Hampshire man a “bully vigilante” and sentenced him Wednesday to more than seven years in prison for his role organizing armed backers of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy after a standoff with U.S. agents in 2014.

Gerald “Jerry” DeLemus became the first person sentenced for his ties to the confrontation that became a rallying cry for those who want vast stretches of federal land in the U.S. West put under local control. Eighteen others are in custody.

DeLemus has been jailed for almost 16 months, so the sentence means the 62-year-old former U.S. Marine will spend about six more years behind bars. His attorney, Dustin Marcello, said he will appeal.

DeLemus arrived at the Bundy ranch hours after the tense armed standoff that led to the release of the rancher’s cattle and was hailed as a victory in a decades-long fight over government-owned land.

He then spent more than a month in an encampment organizing armed patrols and serving as an intermediary between a self-styled militia and local authorities.

He had been expected to get a six-year sentence after pleading guilty last August to conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. and interstate travel in aid of extortion.

But Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro in Las Vegas added time after faulting DeLemus for trying to withdraw his pleas. She said she didn’t think he accepted responsibility for his actions.

“I have to say, Mr. DeLemus, that you unfortunately are blinded by the information you choose to believe,” she said.

Instead of advising Bundy to abide by court orders to pay 20 years of overdue grazing fees or let agents round up his cattle from public land, Navarro said DeLemus became “a bully vigilante, threatening peacekeepers of the community.”

“I never heard you say you told Mr. Bundy ... to follow the law,” she said.

DeLemus told the judge that he traveled cross-country with weapons because he’d heard that government snipers surrounded the Bundy home. He said he was willing to “take a bullet” to protect the family.

“My concern was that someone would get hurt,” he said, choking back tears. “It wasn’t the cows. I didn’t want that family injured. God will know in the end.”

DeLemus said he never would have shot at law enforcement. He cast himself as a martyr to his Christian beliefs and cited a biblical passage that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

“I may not have given it out there,” he said of the standoff near Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. “I’m giving it now, in jail.”

DeLemus once ran for sheriff and mayor in his hometown of Rochester, New Hampshire, and served as a delegate to the Republican National Committee.

His wife, Susan DeLemus, a former Republican state lawmaker, sat among Bundy supporters in court, where several waved and thanked DeLemus as he was led away.

“We’ll make it through this,” she said later.

Bundy, two of his sons and two other defendants are due for trial later this year. Six others, including two other Bundy sons, may not be tried until early next year.

SALEM — Pacific Coast Producers, a grower cooperative in Lodi, Calif., is buying the processing portion of Oregon Cherry Growers in Salem.

Pacific Coast Producers processes and packages fruits and tomatoes for private label retail and food service sales. It plans to operate OCG as a stand-alone subsidiary that will continue to use the OCG name and operate OCG facilities in Salem and The Dalles. The deal is expected to close by June 17.

OCG’s fresh cherry business will continue independent of the transaction as Cascade Fruit Growers.

“We believe this acquisition will be positive for the future of Oregon Cherry Growers, for our employees and our growers,” Tim Ramsey, president and CEO of Oregon Cherry Growers, said in a news release.

Founded in 1932, OCG is made up of almost 60 family farms in the Willamette Valley and Columbia River Gorge. The cooperative is the largest grower-processor of sweet cherries in the world, including fresh, maraschino, glace, frozen, IQF, dried and canned cherries, as well as a wide variety of dried fruit, servicing the food service, retail and industrial ingredient channels.

“We appreciate Oregon Cherry Growers’ 85 years of quality, service and innovation and their experience in supplying cherry ingredients to customers around the world,” said Dan Vincent, president and CEO of Pacific Coast Producers.

Values and strengths of the two cooperatives align well and the deal will allow Pacific Coast Producers to grow and further serve customer needs, he said.

Pacific Coast Producers represents growers of peaches, pears, grapes, apricots, apples and plums. It is the premier private brand supplies of canned fruits and tomatoes.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission heard from dozens of people with diametrically opposed views when it took its wolf plan review on the road to hearings in Klamath Falls and Portland this spring. When the commission sits down with ODFW staff June 8 in Salem, members will sift those viewpoints with their own to determine how the state will manage a top predator that wasn’t here when the plan was first adopted a dozen years ago. Adoption of a five-year plan is expected late this year.

Potential changes are on the distant horizon. Ultimately, the state will decide whether wolves are hunted like cougars and bears, whether USDA’s APHIS Wildlife Services — loathed by conservation groups — will investigate livestock attacks, whether to give livestock producers more leeway to kill wolves, whether to set population caps, and more.

A model of where Oregon’s wolf management may be headed can be found in Idaho, which was the source of the first wolves to enter Oregon and has much more experience balancing the presence of an apex predator with the interests and economic well-being of hunters and livestock producers.

Idaho has an estimated 800 wolves — probably more — and has actively managed them since federal officials took wolves off the endangered species list statewide in 2011.

Compared to Oregon, which documented 112 wolves at the end of 2016, Idaho’s numbers are staggering.

In 2015, hunters and trappers legally killed 256 wolves in Idaho, the same number as in 2014. Another 75 wolves were “lethally controlled.” Of those, 54 were killed in response to livestock depredations or by producers protecting herds. Another 21 wolves were taken out to protect deer and elk populations in Northern Idaho.

In all, Idaho documented 358 wolf deaths in 2015; two fewer than in 2014. Figures for 2016 were not available.

According to Idaho Fish and Game, the number of sheep and cattle killed by wolves has been “stable to declining” since the state began allowing hunting in 2009. In 2015, wolves killed 44 cattle, 134 sheep, three dogs and a horse.

Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore has described Idaho’s wolf population as healthy and sustainable.

Department spokesman Mike Keckler said the state has proven it can manage wolves in balance with livestock and prey species.

“There’s no doubt state management of wolves has been a success in Idaho,” Keckler said. “We remove wolves when they cause problems, we’re not afraid to do that. We move quickly when problems occur.”

The thought of Oregon adopting such an attitude doesn’t sit well with conservation groups.

“This is not Idaho,” Cascadia Wildlands legal director Nick Cady said pointedly during ODFW’s May 19 hearing in Portland.

Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild warn the state shouldn’t loosen its wolf management rules. Rob Klavins, Oregon Wild’s field coordinator in Northeast Oregon, said Oregon’s adherence to its adopted plan was one of the reasons there wasn’t more of an outcry when the department shot four members of the Imnaha Pack in 2016.

During the Klamath Falls and Portland ODFW hearings, representatives from the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, Oregon Hunters Association and Oregon Farm Bureau urged changes.

Among other things, producers say ODFW staff is spread too thin and sometimes can’t respond quickly to wolf attacks. They favor allowing Wildlife Services to investigate livestock attacks as well, and make the call on whether wolves were responsible. They oppose a draft plan proposal to change the lethal control standard to three confirmed depredations or one confirmed and four “probable” attacks within a 12 month period. The current standard is two confirmed depredations or one confirmed and three attempted attacks, with no time period set.

Todd Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner and the Cattlemen’s Association wolf chair, said a neighbor has eight cows. If wolves kill three in one night, he asked during the Portland hearing, does the producer have to endure two more attacks before lethal control is taken?

The groups also believe ODFW should continue collaring wolves, and should set a population cap for wolves in Oregon.

ODFW Director Curt Melcher said the commission heard good points from all sides.

“Even though folks don’t agree, they all got along just fine,” he said. “It was a respectful process. The other remarkable thing is that nobody is saying there shouldn’t be any wolves in Oregon. That wasn’t the case not too long ago. Everybody recognizes we’re going to have wolves in Oregon and we’re going to have to manage them.”

Melcher said Oregon’s plan anticipated reaching a point in the future where hunting becomes a part of wolf population management, as it is with other game animals. He said the original plan drafters also anticipated wolf management, including lethal control, becoming more routine. It is logical for Wildlife Services to help on depredation investigations he said. As wolves increase in number and geographical range, investigations become a workload management issue for ODFW, he said.

“I think we’ve done a good job so far,” he said. “We’ve navigated through potentially difficult waters and in large part have done it efficiently.”

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Andre Shavers was sentenced to five years on felony probation after authorities burst into the house where he was living in one of Oakland’s most heavily policed neighborhoods and found a quarter ounce of marijuana.

After the 2007 raid, Shavers couldn’t leave the state without permission. He was subject to police searches at any time. He walked to the corner store one night for maple syrup and came back in a police car. Officers wanted to search his home again.

All the while, cannabis storefronts flourished elsewhere in a state where medical marijuana was authorized in 1996.

Now Oakland and other cities and states with legal pot are trying to make up for the toll marijuana enforcement took on minorities by giving them a better shot at joining the growing marijuana industry. African-Americans made up 83 percent of cannabis arrests in Oakland in the year Shavers was arrested.

“I was kind of robbed of a lot for five years,” Shavers said. “It’s almost like, what do they call that? Reparations. That’s how I look at it. If this is what they’re offering, I’m going to go ahead and use the services.”

The efforts’ supporters say legalization is enriching white people but not brown and black people who have been arrested for cannabis crimes at far greater rates than whites.

Recreational pot is legal in eight states and the nation’s capital. California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada approved ballot questions in November. They join Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia, which acted earlier. Twenty-nine states permit medical marijuana.

Massachusetts’ ballot initiative was the first to insert specific language encouraging participation in the industry by those “disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement.” The law does not specify how that would be accomplished.

In Ohio, a 2016 medical pot law included setting aside 15 percent of marijuana-related licenses for minority businesses. In Pennsylvania, applicants for cultivation and dispensing permits must spell out how they will achieve racial equity.

Florida lawmakers agreed last year to reserve one of three future cultivation licenses for a member of the Florida Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association.

There have been setbacks as well. The Maryland General Assembly adjourned last month without acting on a bill to guarantee a place for minority-owned businesses that were not awarded any of the state’s initial 15 medical marijuana cultivation licenses.

There’s no solid data on how many minorities own U.S. cannabis businesses or how many seek a foothold in the industry. But diversity advocates say the industry is overwhelmingly white.

The lack of diversity, they say, can be traced to multiple factors: rules that disqualify people with prior convictions from operating legal cannabis businesses; lack of access to banking services and capital to finance startup costs; and state licensing systems that tend to favor established or politically connected applicants.

“It’s a problem that has been recognized but has proven to be relatively intractable,” said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who studies marijuana regulation.

In 2010, blacks constituted 14 percent of the U.S. population but made up more than 36 percent of all arrests for pot possession, according to an American Civil Liberties Union study released in 2013 . The report found African-Americans were nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for cannabis possession.

That study did not report Latino arrests because the FBI data on which it was based did not track Hispanics. But a 2016 study by the ACLU of California and the Drug Policy Alliance found Latinos were cited at 1.4 times the rate of white people for marijuana infractions in Los Angeles and 1.7 percent the rate in Fresno.

The Minority Cannabis Business Association has drafted model legislation for states considering new or revised marijuana laws, including language to expunge pot-related convictions and to encourage racial and gender diversity among cannabis businesses.

“The people who got locked up should not get locked out of this industry,” said Tito Jackson, a Boston city councilman and mayoral candidate. He suggests Massachusetts give licensing preference to groups that include at least one person with a marijuana conviction.

The Oakland City Council in April voted to set aside half of medical cannabis licenses for people who have been convicted of a marijuana crime or who lived in one of 21 police districts with disproportionately high marijuana arrests. Candidates must meet income restrictions.

Complicating matters is that marijuana remains illegal under federal law — a fact seen as unlikely to change under President Donald Trump. That makes most banks reluctant to lend money to startup cannabis businesses, which often must rely instead on personal wealth.

An Oakland-based nonprofit known as The Hood Incubator provides training and mentoring to minority cannabis entrepreneurs.

“Maybe they lack the money to get into the industry or they might have, you know, gotten arrested in the past for oh, what do you know? Selling weed. And now they can’t actually get into the legal industry,” said Ebele Ifedigbo, one of the group’s three co-founders.

Under Oakland’s program, applicants who don’t qualify for a so-called equity license can still get preference if they “incubate” a minority-owned business with free rent or other help.

Dan Grace, president of Dark Heart Nursery, is nervous about finding a partner but ready to make the program work. Debby Goldsberry, Magnolia Wellness dispensary’s executive director, said the industry is primed to change and expand.

“Why? Because there’s a prohibition that’s been out there targeting people in our communities in Oakland, and it’s very unfair,” she said.

Oakland hosted a business mixer this month that attracted several hundred people, including retirees who have never smoked a joint and people who served time for marijuana offenses and established cannabis businesses.

That group included Shavers, who hopes his drug-related record helps him get office space and investors to grow his delivery service, The Medical Strain.

“It’s a blessing in disguise,” he said, “but not the blessing I would recommend.”

———

Salsberg reported from Boston. Associated Press writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

PORTLAND — SAIF’s discount to Oregon AgLink members for supplemental workers’ comp coverage has been increased to 6 percent effective July 1, the association has announced.

The current discount is 2 percent.

“This is a big deal,” Geoff Horning, executive director of AgLink, said. “At a time when so many in the agricultural community are looking or ways to save money, this program saves our members money on a service they are required to have.”

The discount is calculated by the state each year, and is a ratio of actual losses divided by expected losses.

“The group continues to earn a discount as long as the collective members’ performance is better than what the rating bureau would have expected,” Pat Morrill, Agency and Group Program coordinator for SAIF, said.

To be eligible for the discount an agricultural entity must be a member of Oregon Aglink at the time of their renewal and have a mod rate of 1.0 or better. The discount does not take effect until the company’s renewal date, but is good for one calendar year regardless of the July recalculation. Thus, a member who has an October renewal, for instance, would not receive the increased discount until October, but would keep the discount until their next renewal. At that time the new recalculated discount would take effect.

“We’re proud of the partnership we have with SAIF,” Horning said. “They are an organization committed to providing agricultural workers with a safer work environment. They’ve helped us develop numerous safety videos, and their ag seminars are a staple throughout Oregon. At the end of the day, the discount is just the cherry on top. Agriculture comes with a fair amount of risk to our employees, and the important thing is creating an environment where all of our workers come home safely to their families every night. SAIF really is committed to making that happen.”

Anybody with questions can contact the Oregon Aglink office at info@aglink.org, or join the association at www.aglink.org/membership/join.

Capital Press

Idaho wheat farmers are behind on their spring planting.

About 78 percent of the state’s spring wheat crop was planted the week of May 15, compared to 99 percent the same time in 2016, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. The five-year average for this time of year is 100 percent complete.

“We’re way behind schedule,” said Blaine Jacobson, executive director of the Idaho Wheat Commission.

Spring wheat was planted in southwest, southcentral and southeast Idaho, but the delays were in the biggest growing area, the prairies of northern Idaho, due to snow, rain and a late spring, Jacobson said.

Farmers were eligible for crop insurance beginning May 15. Growers have to decide whether to attempt a spring crop or take a crop insurance payment for prevented planting.

“There’s a lot of worry about planting this late and how late the harvest would be, whether they would get it out of the field before the fall storms start,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson expects an overall crop similar to last year’s, if the northern region is able to plant. Winter wheat went in with good moisture, he said.

“It’s been cool so far, which sometimes helps wheat grow,” he said. “If it gets too hot too fast, it stunts it, but it’s been really good growing conditions for the winter wheat so far.”

For the same week, Washington’s spring wheat was 95 percent planted, down from 100 percent last year. The five-year average for this time of year is 100 percent.

“With the excellent moisture and growing-degree days, the spring crop could catch up,” said Washington Grain Commission CEO Glen Squires.

Squires believes wheat yields could be higher than USDA projections of 67 bushels per acre for the state.

“We’re just waiting for the crop to develop,” he said.

Eighty-seven percent of Oregon’s spring wheat crop has emerged, according to NASS. The crop was probably three to four weeks late in getting planted on average, but will likely make up some of that delay when the weather warms up, said Blake Rowe, Oregon Wheat CEO.

“With average weather, we might be a couple weeks late to harvest, but I wouldn’t look for much of a yield hit,” Rowe said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A dry wash cuts through rolling hills dotted by desert plants at Lindsay Chiquoine’s research site near Lake Mead, but the only scenery that seems to interest her is right at her feet.

The UNLV restoration ecologist is staring down at a patch of dirt topped with tiny blackened lumps and spires. But what looks like dried mud is actually a complex community of organisms waiting to spring to life with the first drops of rain.

“It’s like a living carpet,” she says. “It’s almost an ecosystem in itself.”

Chiquoine specializes in the study of biological soil crusts, a once-overlooked world of highly specialized mosses, lichens, photosynthetic bacteria and their byproducts that bring life to open spaces in arid environments.

When healthy and intact, this living ground cover no more than a few inches thick can reduce erosion, control dust, improve fertility, absorb water and store carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global warming.

Chiquoine says so-called bio crust is found in dry-land settings worldwide, from Ohio to Antarctica. By some estimates, it could make up as much as 70 percent of all the living ground cover in the Mojave Desert.

“The surprising thing is people come out here and they don’t even see it. It’s just dirt to them,” Chiquoine said. “This is an important part of the ecosystem, and it’s often ignored.”

RESURRECTED BY RAIN

On a Tuesday morning Chiquoine was checking the last of 96 different research plots, some of them fenced with chicken wire, along a road in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The plots are part of an ongoing study of living crusts in an area disturbed by the realignment of the road almost a decade ago. In places, Chiquoine and her research team attempted to reintroduce the crust and boost its recovery using a variety of treatments.

So far, she said, they have succeeded in improving soil stability by spurring crust development at the microscopic level, but nothing they have tried in the field has produced the lush, beautiful crusts that develop naturally under the proper conditions.

At one such natural patch, Chiquoine leans in for a closer look. Before long, she’s bent over in a practiced crouch, her nose just a few inches from the ground. She snaps photos, collects samples and taps her observations into a tablet.

One of the most amazing things about bio-crusts, Chiquoine said, is their ability to lie completely dormant when dry. They don’t die exactly. They simply cease all function until the rain returns.

To demonstrate, Chiquoine pours water on a small patch of black spires. Almost immediately, the brittle formations swell and grow spongy, as patches of moss, once brown and almost invisible, flare emerald green. A sweet scent wafts from the resurrected crust, filling the air at ground level with what desert dwellers know as the smell of a downpour.

TOUGH BUT BRITTLE

To Matthew Bowker, one of the leading experts in the field, biological soil crust is like a stopwatch that only ticks when the ground is wet.

“Whenever it rains, (the organisms) wake up, and that’s when they do everything,” said Bowker, a Las Vegas native and UNLV graduate who now works as an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University’s School of Forestry. “The only time they’re active is when it rains.”

And that’s not the only useful desert adaptation. “That dark color you see is a kind of sunscreen,” Bowker said.

But living crust is as fragile as it is resilient. Bust it and it’s likely to stay that way for a very long time.

Bowker said there are patches of the stuff in parts of eastern California that still bear the scars from General George Patton’s desert warfare training 75 years ago.

“It could be centuries of recovery in some areas,” he said. “Nobody really knows because no one has been watching these things.”

At the northern end of Lake Mead, Chiquoine pointed out a set of fresh-looking tracks punched through the crust near her research plot. She said they’re probably her footprints from when she was setting up the plot back in 2012.

“It’s hard to be light out here,” she said.

FROM LAB TO LANDSCAPE

Chiquoine isn’t the only scientist in this emerging field who is looking for ways to repair some of the damage done in the name of human progress.

Bowker and his research team can now grow several species of soil organisms in the lab, turning small patches of harvested crust into large ones. The next step is to see if those admittedly coddled, lab-grown colonies can be turned loose to make crust in the wild.

“Once you’ve grown them, they may or may not be able to hack it in the cruel world,” he said.

Bowker and company are about to launch one such an experiment on federal land in the Rainbow Gardens area just east of the Las Vegas Valley, where the planned expansion of a gypsum mine will serve as a donor site. “We’re getting funding from (the Bureau of Land Management) to see if this is a viable restoration strategy,” he said.

Bowker and Chiquoine hope their work will lead to the development of effective and economical new products and procedures that can “restore life” to pipeline rights-of-way, shuttered mines, decommissioned solar arrays and other large land disturbances.

As Chiquoine put it: “Crust isn’t doing much if it’s just laying around in a Petri dish.”

An Oregon livestock nutrition company has prevailed in a lawsuit over trade secrets against a former employee who was found to have intentionally destroyed evidence.

A federal judge has entered a default judgment against Yongqiang Wang, the former employee, as punishment for deleting emails and giving away a computer likely containing information related to trade secrets owned by Omnigen Research.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane said the “extreme measure” of a default ruling against Wang was justified because he severely interfered with the orderly administration of justice in the case.

“These actions have deprived the plaintiffs of evidence central to their case and undermined the court’s ability to enter a judgment based on the evidence,” McShane said.

Roger Hennagin, the attorney representing Wang, said he could not comment on the ruling because he hasn’t yet been able to discuss it with his client, who works in China.

The complaint against Wang was initially filed last year by Omnigen, a company founded by former Oregon State University professor Neil Forsberg and later sold to Phibro Animal Health for $23 million.

The lawsuit accused Wang of planning to sell feed additives in China that were based on trade secrets stolen from Omnigen, a company that employed him between 2005 and 2013.

Omnigen’s feed additives, which counteract hemorrhagic bowel syndrome in cattle, are used by roughly 20 percent of the U.S. dairy cow herd and the company hoped to expand its reach to China.

Wang obtained “sham” patents in China from confidential information he accessed while working for Omnigen and secretly launched two companies, Mirigen and Bioshen, to sell the additives in that country, the complaint alleged.

In a counterclaim against Omnigen, Wang denied relying on his former employer’s trade secrets and claimed Forsberg unjustly enriched himself by failing to share profits with Wang, as earlier promised.

According to McShane, the case was “plagued” by evidence problems “from its inception,” with Wang deleting more than 4,000 files from his computer despite a preliminary injunction requiring him to preserve evidence.

While many of the files were recovered, some documents that were probably relevant to the case were permanently destroyed, the judge said.

Both Wang and his wife also deleted emails detailing their involvement in the formation of Mirigen and Bioshen and donated a desktop computer to Goodwill shortly after the preliminary injunction was issued, McShane said.

While the default judgment means that Wang has lost the case, the judge still intends to hold a hearing to establish damages owed to Omnigen.

His tracking collar went dead in 2015, but OR-7, the wandering wolf, is alive and well. This spring, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trail camera caught him trotting along with what a wildlife biologist said is an elk leg in his mouth.

Federal wildlife biologist John Stephenson said OR-7 was taking food back to his den. For the fourth consecutive year, OR-7 appears to be denned up with the same unidentified female who joined him in the Southwest Oregon Cascades in 2014.

The Rogue Pack, of which he’s the alpha male, numbered six over the winter. This spring, Stephenson saw tracks in the snow of at least five wolves. OR-7 has shown up in trail camera photos several times this spring, most recently on May 18.

“He looks good,” Stephenson said.

OR-7 is now 8 years old, which is somewhat old for a wolf in the wild, Stephenson said. It became Oregon’s best known wolf when it dispersed from the Imnaha Pack in Northeast Oregon in 2011 and cut a diagonal across the state and into California. Because he was wearing a tracking collar, wildlife agencies and the public could follow his travels, and for better or worse he came to symbolize the return of wolves to Oregon’s landscape,

OR-7 was the first documented wolf in California since 1924, but eventually returned to Oregon and established what ODFW named the Rogue Pack in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. He and his mate have produced several litters of pups over the years.

His mate has never been caught or collared and is something of a mystery. Analysis of her scat, however, showed she is related to wolves from Northeast Oregon or Idaho.

Stephenson said he hopes to fit a new tracking collar on OR-7, his mate or one of the other adults in the pack.

Oregon and Washington berry farmers and crop consultants say that the harm inflicted by a hard winter on blackberry bushes is becoming clear.

Bushes are failing to bloom, and some farmers have cut canes to the ground, sacrificing this year’s crop in hopes of rebounding stronger in 2018.

“Probably the hardest decision a farmer has to make is scrap his crop. But if you don’t see blooms, you won’t see fruit,” said Ridgefield, Wash., berry farmer Jerry Dobbins. “The damage is catastrophic. It’s every place.”

Oregon dominates U.S. blackberry production, while berry growers across the Columbia River in southwest Washington have been adding blackberry acres. Growers produced large crops in 2015 and 2016, but saw prices fall. The U.S. is a net importer of blackberries, with berries coming from such countries as Mexico, Chile and Serbia, according to the USDA.

Although this year’s domestic crop apparently will be smaller, Woodland, Wash., berry grower George Thoeny said he fears that imported berries will hold down prices that farmers receive.

“We hope the price will rise some, but we won’t know until the season is over,” Thoeny said. “I think the industry is looking at a disaster.”

The Willamette Valley and southwest Washington weathered a cold winter, followed by a wet spring. March was the second-wettest on record in southwest Washington, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, which has records dating back to 1885.

John Davis of Crop Production Services said he has never seen a blackberry crop like this in his 38 years as an agricultural consultant in both states. “If you look, there’s damage in every field,” he said.

Although the extent of the damage only recently became evident, he said he believes the cold snaps caused the harm, more than the rain.

“Week by week, I noticed there was more and more damage showing up,” Davis said. “The blackberry crop went from what I thought would be a good crop to marginal.”

Crop consultant Tom Peerbolt said that in parts of Washington County, a prime berry growing area west of Portland, the temperature dropped to 5 degrees. With blackberries coming into full bloom before the July harvest, growers are assessing the damage, he said.

“The blackberry crop is not going to be a full crop this year,” he said. “If we don’t get any additional weather extremes, we can maximize what we’ve got out there.”

Peerbolt said that raspberries, blueberries and strawberries are fine, an observation confirmed by others.

Chad Finn, a berry breeder with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at Oregon State University, said freeze damage was spotty.

Berry test plots in Corvallis and at OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora survived the cold. Fields in the Forest Grove area west of Portland and nearer the Columbia River Gorge, where cold air pools, sustained damage, Finn said.

Peerbolt said freeze damage was heaviest at farms growing the Marion blackberry variety.

On a tour of farms in Clark and Cowlitz counties Tuesday, Dobbins pointed to fields of Black Diamond and Columbia Star blackberries that were damaged, too.

He estimated that yields in slightly damaged fields will be down 10 percent.

Dobbins cut 5 acres to the ground. As he watches his remaining 55 acres struggle to bloom, he said he wishes he had cut more acres.

He said he produced 550,000 pounds of blackberries last year and lost money because of low prices. He said that he will do well this year to grow 300,000 pounds.

“The price has got to be up, but will it be where it should be?” he said. “I’m under the thumb of offshore fruit.”

The EO Media Group, the parent company of the Capital Press, has assumed management of the Northwest Agricultural Show from Amy and Mike Patrick.

The Patricks, and Amy’s parents, Jim and Shirley Heater, have guided the show for 48 years.

“It is with great confidence that Mike and I transition the event to EO Media Group,” Amy Patrick said. “I believe they have a broad range of resources that can bolster and improve the show, taking it to its 50th anniversary and beyond.”

Joe Beach, editor and publisher of the Capital Press, praised the family’s management of the show.

“The Heater family built the Northwest Ag Show into an Oregon institution. In no small measure the family is the show,” he said. “As a family business ourselves, we have a particular appreciation for the responsibility we have to maintain what they have created. We are happy that the Patricks and the Heaters are working with us on the 2018 show to ensure a smooth transition.”

Amy Patrick has agreed to help EO Media Group through the transition period to maintain continuity. Jim Heater, show founder and longtime manager, will continue to work with the show and provide the move-in/move-out services for exhibitors.

The 49th annual Northwest Agricultural Show will take place Jan. 30 through Feb. 1, 2018, at the Portland Expo Center.

Beach said the Capital Press has had close ties with both the show and its exhibitors for years, so when the show became available it seemed like a natural fit.

“We’re new to the show business” Beach said, “but we bring a fair amount of promotional and management expertise to the venture, and have some exciting ideas about how we can build on the show’s past successes.”

Patrick reflected on her long association with the show.

“It has been my pleasure to work with so many great exhibitors during my time as manager of the Northwest Agricultural Show,” she said. “The show holds a special place in my heart after growing up with the event and learning the ropes from my parents. As I move on to other career ventures, I will continue to be supportive and interested in the event; the exhibitors truly became like an extended family to me.”

SEQUIM, Wash. (AP) — A team with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to catch more invasive European green crabs on the Dungeness Spit on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula.

The Peninsula Daily News reports 60 crabs had been caught as of Thursday after more traps were placed.

Crews at the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge first found green crabs April 13, which is the first sighting of the crustacean along that section of the peninsula.

Staff with Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team say the green crab, which some scientists have called one of the worst invasive species on the planet, is identifiable by five spines on each side of its eyes, and can be green, brown or reddish.

Researchers say the crab often is blamed for damaging shellfish harvests and seagrass beds in the northeastern U.S.

JACKSONVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Bill and Barbara Steele moved to this sleepy corner of Oregon to start their own winery after successful, high-powered business careers.

Now, more than a decade later and with award-winning wine to show for their hard work, they are adding a new crop: marijuana.

Oregon’s legalization of recreational pot two years ago created room for entrepreneurial cross-pollination in this fertile region abutting California’s so-called Emerald Triangle, a well-known nirvana for outdoor weed cultivation.

Recreational marijuana won’t be legal in California until next year, but a few miles north of the border in Oregon, a handful of winemakers are experimenting with pot in hopes of increasing their appeal among young consumers and in niche markets.

“Baby boomers are drinking less. Millennials are coming into their time, economically, where in 2016 they were the fastest-growing consumers of wine, both in dollars and volume,” said Barbara Steele, who runs Cowhorn Vineyard & Garden in rural Jacksonville with her husband.

“They’re looking for an experience of ‘wine and weed.’”

The Steeles leased their land to grow 30 medical marijuana plants last year, and this year they are growing double that amount to be branded with the same label as their wine. They started with seeds in plastic cups under incubators in their laundry room, and pride themselves on a “seed to smoke” philosophy.

This year’s crop also is for medical use, but the Steeles are seeing the benefits of the expanding market from legal recreational pot. Their weed was reviewed alongside one of their white wines in Stoner Magazine, an Oregon cannabis publication.

“That conversation is possible here because our quality — the agricultural possibility — is so high. This is an amazing growing region,” Barbara Steele said.

It’s hard to know exactly how many in the wine industry are looking at pot here, but there’s plenty of buzz surrounding the subject.

Some vineyards are ripping out portions of grapes in favor of marijuana plants or leasing land to private growers. Others are talking about wine-and-weed tourism, including high-end shuttles that would stop at local wineries for tastings and at marijuana farms for glimpses of how pot is prepared for market.

“There are a few wineries setting up very large recreational grows right now,” said Brent Kenyon, of the marijuana consulting business Kenyon & Associates, based in southern Oregon. “The ‘weedery’ and the winery. I think that’s huge, and we see it developing.”

But that enthusiasm comes with a caveat. Marijuana is still federally illegal, and wineries must keep their wine and weed businesses separate or risk losing a federal permit that allows them to bottle and sell wine.

That means establishing two distinct lots for tax purposes and keeping two licenses with the state, said Christie Scott, alcohol program spokeswoman for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which also licenses recreational marijuana. Vineyards that grow grapes but don’t have a liquor license, however, could get a recreational marijuana license, she said.

In the nearby Illinois Valley, Katherine Bryan is tackling these challenges as she launches a marijuana business with her son.

She owns Deer Creek Vineyards with her husband, but her pot operation will be called Bryan Family Gardens and will operate on land next to the vineyard.

“We want to be as transparent as possible because when you’re under the federal government umbrella for your wines, you have to be very, very careful,” Bryan said.

She plans to grow several hundred marijuana plants with a focus on organic cultivation and an eye toward a high-end market.

They already have some buyers lined up and are installing greenhouses and lighting as they await approval of their recreational license.

“I get $2,000 a ton for my pinot gris grapes, whereas I can make potentially $2,000 or more per pound of cannabis,” Bryan said. “We have 31,000 plants out here for grapes, so I’m pretty sure I can handle 300 to 500 cannabis plants.”

Mark Wisnovsky, of Valley View Winery in Jacksonville, says some vintners are upset because of the stigma associated with marijuana. But his family’s winery was the first in the Applegate Valley in 1971, and everyone thought they were crazy then, too, he said.

The family isn’t cultivating marijuana now, but Wisnovsky has been a vocal supporter of those who want to do so.

Diversifying with weed could save vineyard owners who have overplanted grapes for years, he added.

“A job’s a job, and money’s money, and we have capabilities here that are unique,” he said. “We either take advantage of the situation or let it steamroll over us.”

PALOMINO VALLEY, Nev. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s budget proposal calls for saving $10 million next year by selling wild horses captured throughout the West without the current requirement that buyers guarantee the animals won’t be resold for slaughter.

Wild horse advocates say the change would gut nearly a half-century of protection for wild horses — an icon of the American West — and could send thousands of free-roaming mustangs to foreign slaughterhouses for processing as food.

They say the Trump administration is kowtowing to livestock interests who don’t want the region’s estimated 59,000 mustangs competing for precious forage across more than 40,000 square miles (103,600 sq. kilometers) of rangeland in 10 states managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The budget proposal marks the latest skirmish in the decades-old controversy pitting ranchers and rural communities against groups that want to protect the horses from Colorado to California.

“This is simply a way to placate a very well-funded and vocal livestock lobby,” Laura Leigh, president of the nonprofit protection group Wild Horse Education, said about the budget proposal.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and other interests have been urging BLM for years to allow sales of wild horses for slaughter to free up room in overcrowded government corrals for the capture of more animals.

Doug Busselman, executive vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau, blamed the stalemate on the “emotional and anti-management interests who have built their business models on preventing rational and responsible actions while enhancing their fundraising through misinformation.”

Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also grappled with the spiraling costs of managing the nearly 60,000 horses on the range and another 45,000 currently kept in U.S. holding pens and contracted private pastures.

Over the past eight years, BLM’s wild horse budget has more than doubled — from $36.2 million in 2008 to $80.4 million in 2017.

Trump’s budget anticipates the $10 million savings would come through a reduction in the cost of containing and feeding the animals. The savings also would include cutbacks involving roundups and contraception programs.

The 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act permits the sale of older, unadoptable animals. But for years, Congress has approved budget language specifically outlawing the sale of any wild horses for slaughter.

Horse slaughterhouses are prohibited in the U.S. but legal in many other countries, including Canada, Mexico and parts of Europe where horse meat is considered a delicacy.

Then-BLM Director Neil Kornze said a year ago that the horses represented a $1 billion budget problem for his agency because it costs $50 million to round up and house every 10,000 horses over their lifetime.

Still, he said the agency had no intention of reversing the long-standing policy.

However, the Trump administration wants a change, saying through the BLM that the “current program is unsustainable and a new approach is needed, particularly when overall federal funding is so constrained.”

It says the budget would allow the agency to manage the wild horse program in a more cost-effective manner, “including the ability to conduct sales without limitation.”

BLM rounded up more than 7,000 horses in 2012, but only about 3,000 in each of the past two years due primarily to budget constraints.

As of March, BLM estimated that more than half of the horses roaming the range were in Nevada (34,780). An additional 13,191 burros were on the range— about half in Arizona.

The BLM asserts that U.S. rangeland can sustain fewer than 27,000 horses and burros.

“The original intent of the act was to make sure those animals had a healthy presence on the range, but also that they be kept at a number that is sustainable,” said Ethan Lane, executive director of the National Cattlemen’s public lands council. “You have horses starving to death ... and irreversible damage to western rangelands.”

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Trump’s budget proposal was shocking.

“Wild horses can and should be humanely managed on-range using simple fertility control, yet the BLM would rather make these innocent animals pay for draconian budget cuts with their very lives,” ASPCA President Matt Bershadker said.

Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, said the plan could put the horses on the brink of extinction.

“America can’t be great if these national symbols of freedom are destroyed,” she said.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A renowned strawberry researcher in California broke patent law and violated a loyalty pledge to his former university by taking his work with him to profit from it in a private company, a jury in San Francisco decided Wednesday.

Professor Douglas Shaw formed his own research firm with others after retiring from the University of California, Davis, where for years he had overseen the school’s strawberry breeding program, developing a heartier and tastier fruit.

Jurors in the federal court decided that he used seeds developed at UC Davis without gaining the university’s permission.

The rift struck fear in some farmers in California, the No. 1 strawberry-growing state, that it would stymie research and cause them to lose their competitive edge. California last year produced 1.6 million tons of strawberries valued at roughly $2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The university’s strawberry breeding program is now under new leadership, providing farmers and consumers with new generations of the fruit, school officials said.

“This federal jury decision is good news for public strawberry breeders at UC Davis and all strawberry farmers throughout California and the world,” said Helene Dillard, dean of the UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

After reading the verdicts, Judge Vince Chhabria, who oversaw the trial, scolded both sides, expressing doubt about the sincerity they claimed to have for the strawberry industry.

“If you really care about strawberries, and if you really cared about California’s Strawberry Breeding Program, you would figure out a way... to avoid subjecting them to this custody battle,” he said.

Shaw had first sued UC Davis after he retired, saying that the university unfairly destroyed some of his work and keeps some of his other research locked in a freezer, depriving the world of a better strawberry. He had sought $45 million for lost research. The university countersued.

Shaw, 63, is a giant in the strawberry world, heading the university’s lucrative breeding program for more than two decades alongside plant biologist Kirk Larson. Most of California’s strawberry farmers grow plants developed by Shaw and Larson.

The two men developed 24 new varieties, allowing growers to double the amount of strawberries produced while retaining the fruit’s succulence. They created strawberries that were more pest- and disease-resistant, more durable during long-distance travel and capable of growing during the shorter days of spring and fall.

The partners say their work netted the university $100 million in royalties. How much they themselves made at UC Davis is unclear, but they say they contributed more than $9 million of their own royalties toward the university’s breeding program.

They retired from the university in 2014 because, they said, the school was winding down the program. Working in partnership with growers and nurseries, they launched a business called California Berry Cultivars, based in Watsonville, to develop new strawberry varieties.

Attorney Sharyl Reisman, who represents the professors and the California Berry Cultivars, said that despite the disappointing verdict, her clients wish to find a way to collaborate with the university.

Damages the professors owe in the case will be decided later, the judge said.

A.G. Kawamura, a strawberry farmer, former California agriculture secretary and part owner of the California Berry Cultivars, said the judge’s comments signal a need for much more work to settle the dispute, even after the trial.

“We still believe there’s good reason to hope for a collaborative progress for all parties to move our strawberry industry forward without litigation,” Kawamura said. “We are still committed to being an important part of the California strawberry industry.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a glimmer of hope for America’s ailing honeybees as winter losses were the lowest in more than a decade, according to a U.S. survey of beekeepers released Thursday.

Beekeepers lost 21 percent of their colonies over last winter, the annual Bee Informed Partnership survey found. That’s the lowest winter loss level since the survey started in 2006 and an improvement from nearly 27 percent the winter before.

The U.S. government has set a goal of keeping losses under 15 percent in the winter.

“It’s good news in that the numbers are down, but it’s certainly not a good picture,” said survey director Dennis vanEngelsdorp. “It’s gone from horrible to bad.”

Reduction in varroa mites, a lethal parasite, is likely the main cause of the improvement, said vanEnglesdorp, a University of Maryland entomologist. He credited the reduction in the parasite to a new product to fight the mite and better weather for pesticide use.

The 10-year average for winter losses is 28.4 percent.

“We would of course all love it if the trend continues, but there are so many factors playing a role in colony health,” said bee expert Elina Lastro Nino at the University of California Davis, who wasn’t part of the survey. “I am glad to see this, but wouldn’t celebrate too much yet.”

For more than a decade, bees and other pollinators have been rapidly declining with scientists blaming a mix of parasites, disease, pesticides and poor nutrition.

While usually hive losses are worst in the winter, they occur year round. The survey found yearly losses also down, but not quite to record levels. About one third of the honey bee colonies that were around in April 2016 were dead a year later, the survey found. That’s better than the year before when the annual loss rate was more than 40 percent.

The survey, originally started by the U.S. government and now run by a nonprofit, is based on information from nearly 5,000 beekeepers who manage more than 360,000 colonies. University of Montana’s Jerry Bromenshenk said the study gives too much weight to backyard beekeepers rather than commercial beekeepers.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon timber company reportedly plans to sue its home state for $3.3 million after its plans to buy the Elliott State Forest recently fell through.

The Coos Bay World reports attorneys for Lone Rock Timber Management Company of Roseburg alerted the Oregon State Lands Department of their plans last week in an email.

Lone Rock was the sole bidder for the 82,500-acre forest, which was on sale for $220 million as a way to meet its financial obligation to produce funds for public education. The state land board reversed its decision to sell it earlier this month.

Lone Rock’s attorneys say the company has suffered millions of dollars in out-of-pocket losses and lost business opportunity, and will seek tort claims for misrepresentation and negligence.