PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree is among a trio of lawmakers that wants to more than double funding for a key U.S. Department of Agriculture organic research program.

Pingree, a Democrat, is working with Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Washington Republican, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, a California Democrat, on the Organic Agriculture Research Act. The legislation increases the funding of the Organic Research and Extension Initiative from $20 million to $50 million annually.

The program helps pay for research projects that help organic farmers improve operations and meet consumer demand. Pingree cites the fact that sales of organic food have doubled in the U.S. in the last ten years as evidence that the added funding is needed.

The bill has the backing of the Organic Trade Association and other organic industry groups.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has extended an emergency closure of the commercial rock crab fishery in Northern California.

The commercial rock crab fishery north of Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to the Oregon border has been closed since last fall after state health agencies found unhealthy levels of domoic acid.

The closure was set to expire Tuesday but will now remain in effect until officials determine that domoic acid levels no longer pose a significant risk to public health.

The fishery is clean from Bodega Bay south along the entire California coast.

The acid is a potent neurotoxin produced naturally in marine algae whose levels can increase under certain ocean conditions.

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — In a pen surrounded by 8-foot-high fences, at a research station by the side of a winding canyon road in southeast Wyoming, stand seven elk that are going to die.

The creatures don’t look sick yet. Their caramel-colored fur still covers round bodies the size of small horses. They run back and forth with each other and two bighorn sheep ewes that share their pen, greedily eating food offered at the gate. How long they’ll last is a question researchers can’t answer.

Each animal has been exposed naturally to chronic wasting disease, a killer that can lie dormant for years before corroding their brains with tiny, sponge-like holes.

But these female elk are unlike most others. They have rare genetics, which might just prolong their lives.

The cow elk are one small piece of a complicated puzzle that has confounded researchers, scientists, wildlife managers and federal disease specialists for decades, threatening deer and elk in more than a dozen states and three Canadian provinces.

At stake is Wyoming’s identity. The Cowboy State’s iconic herds not only draw thousands of hunters and wildlife viewers each year, they’re why many people live here in the first place.

The puzzle started in the 1970s in a Colorado State University lab. Late-CWD researcher Beth Williams noticed that some deer acted disoriented and weak before they eventually died. She diagnosed the killer as chronic wasting disease, a cousin to “mad cow disease,” scrapie in sheep and the always-fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Her discovery led to a nationwide panic over fears it could spread to humans, followed by relative apathy when it seemed more and more like it would not.

Now the seven elk behind the 8-foot fence could possibly be the key, even in the smallest sense, to solving the mystery of a disease that first appeared in Wyoming in the mid-1980s and is creeping northwest, permanently infecting everything it touches.

“As one question is answered, two more pop up,” said Hank Edwards, wildlife disease specialist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “It is frustrating. It’s hard to get a handle on controlling this disease when there’s so much left to learn.”

After decades of work, wildlife managers are, in some ways, starting over in figuring out how to manage the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still don’t recommend humans eat an infected animal, but there have been no cases of transmission. Nor did the disease initially tear through herds as quickly as first predicted.

But that’s all starting to change. New models are showing that in the long term, mule deer numbers, particularly in central Wyoming, could plummet.

Instead of raging through like an ancient plague, the disease kills slowly, taking years or even a decade, and spreading in ways no one quite understands. So Wyoming wildlife managers and researchers are regrouping, working at ground zero with new information and seeking input from the public as they race to grasp the full impact of — and possible solution to — one of the most deadly wildlife diseases facing the state.

One crisp morning in late winter 2016, cattle rancher Peter Garrett opened his front door and found a four-point deer leaning against the side of his house.

The rancher’s dogs — black and white McNabs — raced outside without noticing the buck. Startled, Garrett tried shooing the buck, but the animal just stood and kicked, then laid back down.

Ten minutes later, the buck was still there. Nothing could make it move. Not the dogs coming back. Not Garrett. Not his wife.

“Maybe he was looking for warmth against the house,” Garrett said. “It was right there where the sun beats and by the fireplace.”

The Garretts ultimately called Game and Fish, as they always do when they find sick deer on their ranch, which sprawls on both sides of Highway 487 southwest of Casper. When the game warden arrived, he removed the buck. Later, he told Garrett that it tested positive for CWD.

It wasn’t the first.

More and more deer were dying on and near Garrett’s ranch in what Game and Fish calls Hunt Area 66. It has the inauspicious distinction of carrying the second-highest rate of CWD in the state.

But the mule deer herd is part of Garrett’s life. It helped keep the lights on in his family ranch 50 years ago when he and his new wife were short on cash and worked as outfitters on the side. It kept them alive when the couple couldn’t afford to eat the beef they were raising for market. Shed antlers cover chandeliers in his log home tucked at the base of a mountain. Mounts of some of the deer he and his sons have shot nestle in corners.

Garrett, 70, has spent years working with Game and Fish on habitat projects in the area to try to improve food for the deer. His list of accolades from organizations such as Game and Fish and Wyoming Stock Growers Association for good stewardship of his land grows longer each year.

But a solution still eludes him.

“I don’t like it, but what can you do?” he said. “Our deer numbers — when my kids were in school, you could count 400 to 500 between here and the highway, and now you’re lucky if you count 50.”

“And that’s on a good day,” said his wife, Ethel Garrett. “Now it’s 10 or 15. Then we complained about too many deer. But we’d like to have a happy medium.”

Game and Fish estimates that in that particular herd, about 23 percent of the buck deer will die in less than two years.

Chronic wasting disease is certainly not the only wildlife illness to confound specialists.

But finding a solution is particularly tricky because, like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, CWD can’t be targeted and killed like a bacteria or virus. It doesn’t have a cure or vaccine. It doesn’t die if you simply cook it long enough or let it sit in the sun.

“Diseases like brucellosis, we know how to work with that,” said Scott Edberg, deputy chief of Game and Fish’s wildlife division. “There’s no silver bullet, but we’re trying to find one. It’s not like a common cold.”

Edberg, Hank Edwards, the disease specialist; Dr. Mary Wood, the state wildlife veterinarian; and a handful of other researchers and wildlife experts in Game and Fish are all part of a CWD think tank of sorts. They meet periodically to talk about new research, changes in the herds around the state and new cases of the disease.

At a February meeting at the Tom Thorne and Beth Williams Wildlife Research Center at Sybille, they explained CWD’s complexities and its infamous history in Wyoming.

CWD, Edwards said, is a prion. That means it’s a protein, a natural part of a body, which mutates and becomes infectious. The mutated protein then attacks other cells living in the body’s nervous system. As it forms tiny, sponge-like holes in an animal’s brain, the animal begins to act lethargic, become emaciated and drool excessively before eventually dying.

Chronic wasting disease itself affects only mule and white-tailed deer, elk and moose in Wyoming, but there was a time after the disease was first discovered in southeastern Wyoming in 1985 when fears ran rampant.

“The threat that this prion disease could go to humans, that really drove a lot of our research and awareness, but now, based on our information, we don’t believe the disease will go to humans,” Edwards said. “I think it is time to switch the focus away from human health to herd health.”

Yet for every question researchers seem to have answered, they find new ones that are more confounding.

The prions that cause scrapie, for example, have changed over time, forming multiple strains, said Wood. Something is keeping the strains from crossing into other species; researchers don’t know what that biological reason could be and whether it’s strong enough to continue to prevent crossover.

Researchers also don’t know why CWD seems to kill deer at higher rates than elk or moose or why it kills more males than females.

It spreads by contact, researchers believe, but it also sheds off animals and can likely live in the ground for more than a decade. So far only incineration above 1,000 degrees, lye and bleach can actually kill the prion.

“What we don’t know in a free-ranging herd on the landscape is: How significant is animal-to-animal transmission versus environment-to-animal transmission? We don’t know what’s going on on the landscape,” Wood said. “That makes it hard. Knowing key transmission is the most important thing to model what is going to work.”

The disease is always fatal but takes more than a year and a half, depending on genetics, to actually kill an animal.

“Along those lines, how high does CWD prevalence get in a herd? How much can a herd withstand? Every herd is going to be different,” Edwards said. “As time goes on, we will figure this out, of course. It’s a big question of how much CWD these herds can stand without seeing a pretty big population reduction.”

Scientists are starting to get a better idea. Research by Melia DeVivo, a former University of Wyoming graduate student, concluded that the mule deer bucks in Hunt Area 65 southeast of Casper have a 40 percent prevalence, which means if nothing changes, the herd could be essentially gone in about 50 years.

Researchers are still investigating whether it can pass to humans. But over time, federal money for testing has dried up.

Each CWD test costs about $15. It’s not much, but when a resident deer license nets the state $38 and a resident elk license costs $52, the processing fee starts to eat into money used for management, said Edwards, the Game and Fish disease specialist.

The lack of federal involvement, however, doesn’t mean research has stopped.

Wood, the state wildlife veterinarian, participated in a CWD vaccine trial at the Sybille Canyon research station. A Canadian company produced it and hoped it would provide that long-anticipated silver bullet. Unfortunately, it proved ineffective.

A study of genetics in elk showed that those with an MM genotype died first. Those with an ML genotype were the next to go, and those with an LL lived the longest. It’s why the seven elk at the research station in Sybille could be a key to solving the CWD puzzle.

Edwards and Wood caution against putting too much stock in genetics. Even if those elk can survive, it could take a century for the genes to eventually help change the population. And the fear is, with longer lives, they have more time to spread the disease.

In the meantime, CWD continues to march northwest. West to some of the largest elk herds in the Rocky Mountains, and west to 23 feedgrounds, places where animals congregate and diseases can spread like wildfire.

And so while specialists like Wood and Edwards continue to research biological solutions to the disease, others on the CWD team are beginning to go to the public for answers.

Some states have increased hunting to thin herds. Others have tried sharpshooting to drop numbers and possibly slow the spread.

Game and Fish officials don’t yet have formal proposals for strategies. They want to hear from hunters, ranchers and wildlife watchers. Are Wyomingites noticing herd numbers decline? Are they willing to have antler-point restrictions on hunting seasons or increase numbers hunted to perhaps decrease the rate the disease spreads? Should feedgrounds be changed?

“We manage wildlife for the public trust, and the public has a voice in how to make these decisions,” Wood said. “If we ignore that voice, we won’t be successful. Likely any management that is done will take a long-term commitment from the public and the wildlife agency.”

The answer may come from the public, or another vaccine trial, or something no one has yet thought of. Or maybe the answer — even part of the answer — is in those seven elk living out their days behind a fence off a highway in southeast Wyoming.

SUSANVILLE, Calif. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service has filed criminal charges against a California State University, Chico fraternity for cutting down 32 trees in a Northern California national forest during an initiation of new pledges.

The complaint was filed Tuesday against the school’s Pi Kappa Alpha chapter and its president, Evan Jossey, in federal court. Jossey was not available for comment Wednesday.

The fraternity is charged with cutting the trees at a campground in the Lassen National Forest during a weekend initiation in April.

This is the second time in a year that a California recreational area has been damaged by college social organizations.

Last May, a Lake Shasta campsite was wrecked after about a thousand University of Oregon fraternity and sorority members left a half-mile-wide swath of trash after an annual trip.

Public review of the contentious way Oregon manages gray wolves continues May 19 with a hearing in Portland.

Not surprisingly, a draft plan from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has been criticized by livestock producers and wildlife activists alike. The ODFW Commission will hear testimony and eventually will adopt a five-year management plan. No date for adoption has been set. A first hearing April 21 in Klamath Falls saw 40 people testify.

Department biologists say the draft management plan builds on what they’ve learned over the years. Oregon had no documented wolves when the first plan was adopted in 2005; the state now has a minimum of 112 wolves, including 11 packs and eight breeding pairs. Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf program leader, has described wolves’ population growth and geographic spread as a biological success story.

Livestock producers and other rural residents question that thinking, while urban environmentalists generally favor the return of wolves to the state’s landscape.

The management plan is where those differences get argued.

Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association said the draft plan makes it harder for ranchers to protect their animals because it increases the number of confirmed attacks required before allowing lethal control of wolves.

The draft plan requires three confirmed depredations or one confirmed and four “probable” attacks within a 12 month period. The previous standard was two confirmed depredations or one confirmed and three attempted attacks, with no time period set.

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

Groups such as Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands find fault with the plan as well.

They believe Oregon took wolves off the state endangered species list prematurely. They oppose a population cap and plan provisions that might allow killing wolves if deer and elk populations drop due to wolves, saying that proper habitat is a greater factor in ungulate populations.

They’ve also criticized a draft plan provision that would allow USDA Wildlife Services to conduct livestock depredation investigations for ODFW. Nick Cady, legal director for Cascadia Wildlands, has said the agency is too quick to blame wolves for every attack.

Meanwhile, 10 Oregon counties will distribute $184,039 to compensate ranchers who lost livestock to wolves and to help pay for non-lethal defensive measures.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture allocated the money, which comes from a grant called the Oregon Wolf Depredation Compensation and Financial Assistance Program. It’s intended to compensate livestock owners for actual losses or injuries caused by wolves, for missing livestock and for defensive measures. County-based committees review claims; the counties are reimbursed for their administrative costs as well.

Most of the grant money, about 70 percent of the money, is to help pay for defensive action meant to deter or scare off wolves. Non-lethal measures include removing carcasses and bone piles, putting up fencing or electrified ribbons, hiring range riders, deploying guard dogs, setting up flashing lights and noise-makers, and other methods.

Wallowa, Klamath, Umatilla, Lake and Jackson counties filed claims for confirmed or probable livestock losses. Baker, Umatilla and Wallowa counties filed claims for missing livestock.

A last-minute weed management plan filed by an organic farm may be “workable” if the farm managers follow through, a Sherman County official said.

The operators of Azure Farms, a 2,000-acre organic farm on the outskirts of Moro, filed a weed management plan 24 hours before the Sherman County Court was scheduled to discuss the issue. The county had warned it would seek a quarantine on the farm if it didn’t get a handle on what it describes as “rampant” noxious weeds.

County officials, responding to complaints from neighboring farmers who don’t want their fields infested, said they will spray the weeds with herbicide and bill the farm for the work if necessary. The farm says it will lose valuable organic certification for three years if it uses the chemical herbicides conventional farmers use.

In an email, County Commissioner Tom McCoy said he discussed Azure Farms’ plan with county weed control Supervisor Rod Asher.

“He is researching some of the measures, but believes the plan may be workable if Azure is really willing to implement it. So far, their follow through has not been good,” McCoy wrote.

The Oregon Wheat Growers League urged a “prompt and rigorous review” of Azure’s proposal.

“From our members on the ground, it’s become clear that even a casual observation of Azure’s property makes it clear that their noxious weed problem is severe and has been worsening for many years,” league CEO Blake Rowe and growers Bryan Cranston and Chris Moore said in a prepared statement.”

“Neighboring farms, including those at some distance from Azure, are being impacted by the spread of noxious weed seeds from Azure’s property. The ability of surrounding wheat farms to continue to produce certified wheat seed and the reputation of the entire area for producing high quality wheat, with virtually no weed contamination, are at risk.”

The farm proposed methods that, depending on the weed, included heavy fertilization and then deep cultivation to get at roots, spot use of Boron, citrus pulp mulch, covering weeds with landscaping fabric, salt, mowing before seeds form and spraying with calcium, manganese and boron before cultivation. “This causes the new blooms to wilt and not seed out; doesn’t kill the entire plan, though, but controls the spread,” the farm suggested.

McCoy, the commissioner, said the county court has received more than 40,000 emails about the issue, “and the number is increasing rapidly.” On social media, critics have called the county’s stance outrageous and accused the county of trying to poison the organic farm on behalf of “Big Ag” or Monsanto, which has no apparent role in the matter. McCoy said the charges against county officials are inaccurate.

In a memo prepared for the county’s May 17 meeting, weed Supervisor Asher laid out the timeline of his interactions with the farm.

March 2: Asher sent the farm’s parent company, Ecclesia of Sinai at Dufur, a weed control ordinance violation notice. The letter listed 15 company properties covering 1,922 acres in the Moro area. It gave the farm 30 days to submit a plan to control Rush skeleton, classified by the county as a Class A noxious weed, and Canada thistle, Morning Glory and White Top, all Class B noxious weeds.

March 27: Ecclesia of Sinai responded that the county didn’t have jurisdiction over it and cited biblical justification for not spraying.

April 19: The County Court discussed the issue. By then, some of the properties had been mowed, “but this was seen as a poor method of control as the weeds will grow back and root systems will flourish and continue to spread, as they have done over the many years,” Asher wrote.

Local residents attending the meeting expressed “deep concern” over weeds and were skeptical that methods other than herbicide would control them.

May 1: Asher sent a second letter to the farm, suggesting various control methods.

May 2: The county’s Weed Advisory Board agreed to defer to the county court on further action.

May 5: Asher met with Nathan Stelzer, the Azure Farm manager, who said he was unaware weeds were such a big problem. Asher felt he’d made progress in the discussion.

May 11: Asher viewed Azure’s social media campaign and said it “clearly misstated the situation.”

“My thoughts of progress and working together in the future were dashed,” Asher wrote.

The campaign, which included videos of the farm’s principals urging viewers to express their outrage at the county’s stance, resulted in an estimated 40,000 emails to county officials from around the world

May 16: Azure Farms submits a weed management plan. It lists methods the farm will use to control Rush skeleton, Canada thistle, Bindweed and White Top.

May 17: The county court meets to discuss the issue. The meeting is moved from the courthouse to the high school gym, the only space large enough for the anticipated crowd.

The City of John Day has obtained a $50,000 grant to study the possibility of using wastewater for hyroponic crop production or pasture irrigation.

The award was one of eight grants totaling more than $400,000 approved for water project feasibility studies by the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

John Day currently stores treated wastewater in four ponds near the John Day River, but the system may not pass regulatory muster in the future due to potential adverse impacts on water quality.

For this reason, the city wants to examine re-using the wastewater, which amounts to 87.6 million gallons annually, in hydroponic greenhouses.

The other option would be to pipe the water to two 40-acre lagoons north of town, which would feed a 120-acre center pivot irrigation system.

The total cost of the study is expected to be $110,000, with matching funds provided by the city and another state grant program.

After the approval of the eight grants, the Oregon Water Resources Commission still has more than $600,000 available for future water project feasibility studies.

One of the proposals submitted to the commission — $93,935 to study removing sediment from the Applegate Reservoir in Southern Oregon to increase storage capacity — was rejected.

The Oregon Water Resources Department, which is overseen by the commission, recommended against funding the study because it only proposed removing sediment, which is a temporary solution.

The study would be stronger if it also looked at preventing future sediment buildup by reducing it from upstream sources, according to OWRD.

Following is a summary of the other water project feasibility grants approved by the commission:

• $30,000 to study the re-use of wastewater from Baker City for agricultural purposes.

• $60,000 to study expanding the City of Carlton’s water reservoir.

• $72,500 to study whether to rehabilitate or remove the City of Brookings dam and reservoir.

• $50,330 to study the possibility of paying landowners to forgo irrigation to increase stream flows in the Hood River Basin.

• $65,680 to study above-ground and below-ground water storage in the Upper Klamath Basin.

• $42,297 to study aquifer storage and recovery in the Milton-Freewater area.

• $40,505 to study natural water storage in a wet meadow in the John Day River Basin.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Dan Roeser rode Sanjo Gold calmly and confidently into the Pendleton Round-Up Pavilion Saturday, ready to show what the 7-year-old palomino gelding was capable of doing.

It was several hours before the Western Select Horse and Working Dog Sale would begin inside the Pendleton Convention Center — part of the annual Cattle Barons Weekend — and ranchers huddled inside the pavilion for a preview of the animals in action. Some scrawled notes in their programs as the horses ran alongside steers for a live roping demonstration.

Roeser, who runs Roeser Ranch in Marsing, Idaho, has been training horses for 40 years and taught a number of local cowboys the finer points of horsemanship. He regularly attends Cattle Barons Weekend, now in its 10th year, which helps raise scholarships for local students looking to pursue a career in agriculture.

Along with Sanjo Gold, Roeser also brought a second horse, Dealers Kid, to market at the sale. Whereas Sanjo Gold is a gentle ranch horse for riders of all abilities, Roeser said Dealers Kid is more fit for high-caliber ropers. It is Roeser’s job to show both animals at the best of their abilities in the arena and auction ring.

“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “You have to use a lot of consistency in your methods so the horses know what they can expect from you.”

Once the sale begins, trainers like Roeser take center stage in the convention center where buyers bid up to tens of thousands of dollars for horses to add to their operation. Selling horses is a big part of Roeser’s business, and he said Cattle Barons Weekend has proven to be a great venue.

“It’s a good market for the horses,” he said. “The people who run the sale do a really good job.”

Cattle Barons Weekend also featured a Western-theme trade show and Buckaroo BBQ Challenge, where teams competed for the best ribs and tri-tip beef. Proceeds go toward raising scholarships that event leaders say keep the Western tradition alive in northeast Oregon.

“That’s why we do what we do, to maintain it into the future,” said Andy VanderPlaat, Cattle Barons president.

Roeser’s return to Pendleton reunited him with at least two of his former pupils in Justin Bailey, of Pilot Rock, and Ryan Raymond, of Helix. Bailey worked eight years for Roeser on the ranch in Idaho, and described him as a highly regarded mentor.

Bailey now runs his own training business, Bailey Performance Horses, and showed three of his own animals during the Western Select auction.

“What we’re trying to show is a quality horse that can handle ranch-like situations,” Bailey said. “You’re trying to show their willingness and quiet mind.”

Bailey Performance Horses is located on the home ranch of Anderson Land & Livestock, operated by Terry and Debby Anderson who won this year’s Cattle Barons Legacy Award.

Raymond, a fifth-generation rancher who runs cows for Raymond & Son, worked three years for Roeser and continues to ride plenty of horses. Showing horses at sales like Cattle Barons Weekend takes honesty and integrity, Raymond said, with the trainer’s reputation on the line.

“These guys know what they can sell here,” he said. “You can’t bring a horse here you can’t lope around and rope on.”

Cattle Barons Weekend is just another fun event to bring more people into Pendleton, Raymond said, while promoting ranching businesses that are the lifeblood of small Eastern Oregon communities like Helix.

“If we don’t do more things to involve people in local agriculture, I would think those places will be gone,” he said.

JOSEPH, Ore. – For more than 40 years the Joseph Oregon’s Associated Ditch Company has struggled to find the money to fix its aging Wallowa Lake dam. This spring the private company announced it is exploring an old idea with new enthusiasm.

Exhausting several avenues over the years, including selling water to a downstream user, the ditch company’s board has found the support it needs to form an irrigation district, making funding such as low-interest Clean Water State Revolving Fund loans easier to access.

Following a rash of dam inspections in the wake of the 1976 Teton Dam failure in Idaho, the dam was deemed unsafe to store the ditch company’s entire water allotment. In order to bring the dam back to full storage capacity and protect water used by upper Wallowa Valley farmers valued at $36,079,000 per year, the dam needs to be rebuilt. Any reconstruction, Tom Butterfield, former Associated Ditch Company president said, must include fish passage. That dollar amount, he said, is still being studied.

Butterfield’s son Dan is now the ditch company’s president. He said forming a district had been considered in the past.

Jay McFetridge, a multi-generational Wallowa Lake water user, said when his grandfather was president of the ditch company in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s and his father in the ‘90s the worry was over the equitability, or perceived lack there of, in how votes are tallied among water users under the rules of a district versus the one vote per acre agreement currently used.

“My dad said his biggest reason that it wouldn’t work, and they would not pursue at all, was because of the voting,” McFetridge said.

This time the suggestion came from Nate James of the Natural Resource Conservation Service when he was asked to help the board with its irrigation modernization plan.

Butterfield said, “About a year ago we met with Nate to look at financing for piping spur ditches, screening the ditches and possibly even putting in water measuring devices.”

James said he has worked with Wallowa Lake water users individually to upgrade their systems, but with the scope and scale of the ditch company’s modernization needs, including reconstruction of the dam, they needed extra funding sources not available to a private ditch company. A district, formed under state statute, would hold public meetings and be able to vote and process decisions in a timely manner.

“They could see the benefits were very positive to going down this path,” James said.

For technical assistance, James asked Farmers Conservation Alliance to work with the ditch company’s modernization committee. During their initial meeting, fixing the dam was discussed.

The alliance’s executive director, Julie O’Shea, said her organization started out manufacturing fish screens for irrigation districts, but after years of designing and installing screens she said her staff found it difficult to fix one piece of an irrigation system without opening a box of other issues.

“We realized there was a great need for irrigation districts to have people come in with expertise – not just from an engineering perspective, but a financial and community-based one,” O’Shea said.

With help from Energy Trust of Oregon, the alliance started working with districts all over the state, serving as project manager. To date, they’ve worked with 11 districts on irrigation modernization plans.

In April, a little more than a year after their first meeting with NRCS and the alliance, the Associated Ditch Company’s board of directors presented their irrigation district proposal to the Wallowa County Commissioners. Rebecca Knapp, the Associated Ditch Company’s attorney, said following the publication of a series of notices, the commissioners will sign an order calling for an election of the landowners within the boundary of the new district.

Dan Butterfield said besides overwhelming backing from the landowners, there is a lot more support statewide to repair the dam than the ditch company realized.

“Everyone seems to know where Wallowa Lake is,” Butterfield said.

New numbers from the Bureau of Land Management show Oregon’s wild horse and burro populations are on the rise.

There are an estimated 4,351 wild horses and burros on Oregon’s rangelands. That’s up more than 13 percent from last year’s population. And it’s far more than the number of horses the BLM says the rangelands can handle in balance with other public land uses.

Wild horses are protected under a 1971 Congressional Act, which makes it illegal for the government to euthanize them to keep populations down. But the horses cause big problems on the rangelands when they chomp down native grasses and cause erosion.

The BLM wants to try new birth control methods for wild horses — including capture and sterilization — but those methods have been protested by animal rights advocates.

The BLM says the appropriate population number is 2,715 for Oregon’s rangelands.

Sherman County weed control Supervisor Rod Asher suggested several ways Azure Farms might be able to control the noxious weeds that other farmers in the area say are spreading to their fields. Owners of the 2,000-acre certified organic farm oppose using herbicides recommended by the county, which warns it will ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the farm if it does not agree to a weed management plan by May 22.

“Your control practices are not destroying the weeds, specifically the root systems that continue to flourish after mowing,” Asher wrote in an April 27 letter to the farm’s parent company.

He suggested:

• “Heavy deep tillage that would rip up and bring the root to the surface,” but said it probably would have to be done every 10 to 14 days through the growing season.

• Covering the weeds with dark plastic or rubber to block out the sunlight. Escaping shoots would have to be cut off during the growing season and the coverage would have to be maintained for multiple years.

• Treatment with organic herbicides. “I am not familiar with any of these so I cannot make a recommendation,” Asher said.

• Treatment with traditional herbicides. The farm would lose organic certification for three years if it uses them.

• Intense burning or “any other method that can effectively destroy the entire plant and root,” Asher wrote.

Sherman County may order owners of a 2,000-acre organic farm to spray noxious weeds or face a possible quarantine.

Local wheat farmers say weeds spreading from Azure Farms, on the outskirts of Moro in north central Oregon, cost them money in the form of additional herbicide control. Most critically, growers of certified wheat seed say their crops will be worthless if contaminated by Rush Skeleton Weed, Canada Thistle, Morning Glory and White Top spreading from the farm.

Spraying the weeds with Milestone or other herbicides, however, would cause the farm to lose organic certification for three years. Azure Standard, which operates Azure Farms, is a major distributor of organic products.

Sherman County gave the farm until May 22 to respond with a weed management plan. If not, the county will ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the farm.

The issue has blown up on social media.

The manager of Azure Farms, Nathan Stelzer, urged supporters to “Overwhelm the Sherman County representatives with your voice.” A video posted on the farm website called for people to express their outrage reportedly has resulted in hundreds of phone calls and thousands of emails to county officials.

The issue may come to a head Wednesday when the county’s Board of Commissioners takes up the issue. The county is expecting such a crowd that it moved the session from the courthouse to the Sherman County School gym, 65912 High School Loop, Moro, at 4 p.m.

“The school gym is the only site in Sherman County big enough to hold the expected crowd and we received permission to use the gym only if we delayed our meeting until after the students are dismissed,” Commissioner Tom McCoy said in an email.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Wheat Commission and several growers are meeting with the state agriculture Director Alexis Taylor, hoping to enlist the department’s support.

Oregon Tilth, which certifies organic operations, is calling for calm and urging the county to pause its enforcement timeline. Executive Director Chris Schreiner said Oregon Tilth hopes mediation can result in a weed management plan that allows Azure Farms to retain its certification while addressing concerns of neighboring farmers.

Wheat farmer Bryan Cranston, who grows certified seed next to Azure Farms, said its weed problems have gotten progressively worse over the years. Cranston said he spoke to Selzer and told him, “I don’t drift chemicals on you, I’d appreciate it if weeds don’t drift on me.”

Cranston said he told Selzer, “I grow seed wheat to garner more out of the market, you grow organic to garner more out of the market — we have a lot in common here.”

But he added, “You’re messing me up.”

Cranston estimated weed control in his wheat is costing him $12 per acre more than in the past. He said some weeds, especially skeleton weed, produce airborne seeds and can rapidly infect fields.

Another area farmer, Ryan Thompson, said the county needs to stand its ground on the weed issue.

“These guys are operating by their own set of rules,” he said. “They are not good stewards of the land. They are pretty much using religion and the fact that they’re organic to say our county laws and statutes don’t apply to them.”

The problem has been building for some time. Azure Farms appears to consist of three entities: A parent company, Ecclesia of Sinai at Dufur, in neighboring Wasco County; Azure Standard, in Dufur, which distributes organic products; and Azure Farms, the farmland near Moro, in Sherman County.

In a March 2 letter to Ecclesia of Sinai at Dufur, weed district Supervisor Rod Asher said the noxious weeds “have been found to be growing rampant and unchecked on your properties in Sherman County” and had to be destroyed.

Asher said Sherman County takes weed problems seriously. “The potential damage and economic loss caused by noxious weeds to an agricultural based community can be substantial,” he wrote.

The county warned that it would spray if the farm didn’t, and the cost for multiple surveys throughout the growing season would be billed to the farm as a lien on its property taxes.

Asher said the county could help identify weed, recommend control methods and herbicide products, and had a spray crew for hire if necessary.

In the business’s first response, a letter signed by Alfred Stelzer said Ecclesia of Sinai “is not subject to your direction.” In a three-page letter dated March 27, Stelzer said the farm will not allow any federal, state or county employees to trespass and “spray any toxic or poisonous substances at any time.”

Stelzer said the farm “made a covenant” to keep the “Common Law” of the bible. He cited Numbers 35:34, “which states that the land must not be defiled or polluted.” Stelzer, then released the video and social media plea to supporters, saying the county’s plan was “possibly to spray the whole farm with poisonous herbicides.”

Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, called the social media campaign “pretty inflammatory.”

The farm has since adopted a more conciliatory position. In a video posted May 12, Azure Standard CEO David Stelzer, the brother of Nathan, acknowledged the farm has “room for improvement.” He said one of the problems is that for the past five years, the family has been farming the Moro property “long distance” from Dufur, which is 48 miles away by vehicle.

David Stelzer said Azure is attempting to improve its ground through crop rotation and “companion planting” of various crops.

“Bio-diversity, a few weeds in the field, does not make a bad farmer,” he said.

Responding to comments he said have been made about the farm, he said it is not affiliated with a religion although they are a “family a faith.” He said Azure properly pays its taxes and provides a $6 million payroll. He said the farm’s wheat yields nearly meet the county average and is of high quality. Eventually, organic farming methods will be “dominant,” he said.

Two decades after she managed to “break out of the cubicle,” Rebecca Landis says she still draws on her time as an “all around bureaucrat.”

These days, Landis applies her experience to the variety of impromptu problems that arise while running two Oregon farmers’ markets, from filing online forms to fixing pop-up tents.

“It’s not really a career path, you just bring to it whatever skills you have,” she said.

Aside from managing the farmers’ markets in Corvallis and Albany, Landis serves as a policy adviser to the Oregon Farmers Markets Association, helping to navigate the regulatory hurdles growers encounter when selling directly to consumers.

The rising prominence and popularity of farmers’ markets in recent years inevitably led to questions about government oversight and food safety.

For example, should the Oregon Department of Agriculture require farmers’ markets to be licensed, as are grocery stores?

Do growers need licenses to sell jams, jellies and similar products that were processed on-farm from their crops?

“It wasn’t clear what was regulated and what wasn’t regulated,” Landis said.

To dispel that confusion, Landis and other experts formed a work group aimed at establishing clear rules for farm-direct marketing.

The resulting legislation, House Bill 2336, was approved by the Oregon Legislature in 2011 with strong bipartisan support.

The bill clarified that farmers’ markets aren’t subject to licensing requirements — unless they refuse to comply with sanitary standards — and sets parameters for which processed goods can be sold in such venues.

“We talked out every product category that might be ripe for a lower level of regulation,” Landis said. “I think it’s stood the test of time so far.”

When a legal uncertainty recently came to light regarding egg sales, Landis lobbied for another bill that allows farmers to sell ungraded eggs as long as they checked them for inner defects with a candling light.

The proposal, House Bill 3116, passed the House and Senate unanimously this year.

The process highlights the improved lines of communication between farm direct marketers and ODA, which supported the bill, Landis said. “That made it easy to proceed with a fix.”

As a member of ODA’s Food Safety Advisory Committee, Landis has helped the agency avoid pitfalls in other proposed food safety legislation, said Stephanie Page, ODA’s food safety director.

The farm-direct marketing bill in 2011 has “provided greater certainty” for growers as well as ODA, Page said. “We see the farmers’ markets as an important partner.”

Landis’ experience with laws and regulations dates back to her job as a legislative analyst in Texas, which she left to move to Oregon with her husband, Larry, in 1991.

After resettling in Corvallis, the couple was involved in starting that city’s farmers’ market.

Landis initially worked for a regional government, managing contracts to provide homeless services, but decided she’d had enough of office work and in 1995 became manager of the Corvallis farmers’ market.

Her arrival as the market’s manager coincided with an emerging curiosity about local agriculture among consumers.

“How stuff was being grown wasn’t discussed in the mainstream culture until 20 years ago,” she said.

Back then, for example, having 14 vendors at the Corvallis farmers’ market would be a “spectacular day,” Landis said. Last year, the number of vendors topped 70.

Expanding a farmers’ market is often a “chicken and egg” proposition — vendors are reluctant to show up unless they can count on lots of visitors, while shoppers aren’t enthusiastic unless they can pick among lots of vendors.

An important trend that’s boosted market attendance is the availability of meat and poultry, which provides stability in comparison to the seasonal fluctuations of fruits and vegetables, Landis said.

Improved payment options have also helped.

Consumers who don’t usually carry cash can now swipe their debit or credit cards at the farmers’ market in exchange for tokens used to pay vendors. Some vendors now accept “plastic” directly, through devices connected to their smartphones.

The ability to pay with food stamps — the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — has increased the number of people shopping at farmers’ markets as well.

“None of this existed back in the ’90s at all,” Landis said.

One thing that has remained constant, though, is the connection that farmers’ markets provide between growers and consumers.

Landis said she’s vigilant in ensuring her markets are free of vendors who simply resell wholesale food, since they undermine the venue’s credibility and unfairly compete against actual farmers.

“It’s transparent and traceable to have direct sales,” she said. “There’s a lot of accountability that comes from direct-selling.”

Rebecca Landis

Occupation: Manager of the farmers’ markets in Corvallis and Albany, Ore. Policy adviser to the Oregon Farmers’ Markets Association.

Hometown: Corvallis

Age: 58

Family: Husband, Larry, two cats

Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas in 1980, master’s degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin in 1985

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — The Rogue River is higher, faster and has more water than it has for six years, bringing new rafting hazards and a late return for spring chinook salmon.

With a snowpack above Lost Creek Lake now at 123 percent of average, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northwest River Center is predicting inflows high enough that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be releasing anywhere from 10 percent to nearly double the water from last year into the upper Rogue, depending on the week.

State fishery and water managers are in the midst of finalizing their outflow recommendations into the Rogue through fall, and early drafts call for releases of 3,000 cubic feet per second of water through June and early July, almost twice the releases seen throughout all of July last year.

Outflows into the Rogue are not projected to drop below 2,000 cfs until after Labor Day as water and fish managers grapple with a heavy water year coming just two years removed from a three-year drought — a scenario that will alter salmon runs and rafting activity.

“It’ll be the most water we’ve seen since 2011, and it’s going to change the dynamics considerably,” says Pete Samarin, a fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife helping set Lost Creek releases for the maximum benefit of Rogue salmon runs. “There’ll be some concerns. There will be a lot of people on the river who are used to drought conditions.”

The differences from last year to this year will be even more dramatic in the Applegate River Basin, where summer inflows are projected to be 163 percent of average into an already almost-full reservoir.

In the Bear Creek Basin, irrigators have already begun filling canals from reservoirs that are already as full as they are going to get, according to the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

Howard Prairie and Emigrant lakes already are full, while Hyatt Lake is being held at 64 percent of full so contractors can add seismic retrofits to Hyatt Dam.

That has the Talent Irrigation District regularly increasing and decreasing releases from those projects into Bear Creek to ensure those projects don’t overfill — a far different scenario than what plagued the district during drought years.

“High water has its own problems,” TID Manager Jim Pendleton says. “But it’s definitely more fun to work off the tops of these reservoirs than off the bottoms.”

Augmenting summer Rogue flows to enhance chinook salmon runs is the primary rationale behind the water-release strategy crafted each summer by ODFW to get the biggest bang for Lost Creek’s watery investment.

Releases typically are higher in May and June to cool lower Rogue flows and curb natural warmwater diseases during the bulk of the spring chinook push upstream, then releases are upped again in mid-August to do the same for fall chinook.

Flows are backed off in mid-September to corral spawning wild spring chinook in the upper Rogue.

Lost Creek Lake surface levels eyed by wakeboarders and waterskiers are considered secondary benefits for the stored water, and forecasts predict the lake’s two boat ramps will be usable through Labor Day.

River-watchers saw a big taste of what lots of water flowing into an almost-full reservoir looks like last weekend, when a spike in air temperatures triggered a snowmelt that saw runoff into Lost Creek Lake climb on Saturday to 6,800 cfs, with the Corps releases peaking at 6,156 cfs — about twice that of an average early May day, according to the Corps.

That triggered Rogue flows at Dodge Bridge near Eagle Point to record levels for May 6, according to the USGS.

This weekend’s forecast of rain on the snowpack is forecast to trigger another inflow spike that is forecast to peak around 4,670 cfs as the reservoir remains slightly more than a foot from full.

“We’re not even showing us getting back to full again,” says Jim Buck, the Corps Rogue Project operations manager. “But if we were to have that kind of warm weather again next week, we could see some noticeable increases in the inflow.”

SEATTLE (AP) — For the first time since 2011, the Pacific Northwest isn’t showing any signs of drought.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor report shows that Oregon, Washington and Idaho are free from drought worries.

Kathie Dello, deputy director of Oregon’s climate office, says the Northwest saw lots of precipitation during the water year that began in October.

She says snow and rain came earlier and stayed later. Typically drier months such as October, February, March and April were wetter than usual across the region.

Idaho had its wettest January to April on record, breaking the previous record set in 1904. Seattle also broke its record for wettest April.

Dello says reservoirs are full and the region has ample mountain snowpack.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is pledging to defend the state’s national monuments. Ferguson sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke defending the Hanford Reach National Monument, which is up for review under an executive order.

Ferguson asserts that President Trump and Zinke don’t have the legal authority to revoke national monuments. The review could wind up shrinking, modifying or eliminating some monuments altogether.”If the President seeks to do harm to Washington’s National Monuments by eliminating or reducing them, my office will initiate litigation to defend them,” Ferguson wrote.

Three monuments are up for review in the Northwest: Hanford Reach, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho.

The list includes 22 national monuments mostly in the West and five marine national monuments. The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives presidents the authority to protect lands deemed important for cultural or natural resources, without congressional approval or consultation of local residents.

“No President, however, has ever claimed the authority to revoke National Monument status,” Ferguson’s letter states. “The reason is simple: the Act does not contemplate any such revocation, and to do so would be contrary to the language of the statute and the structure in which the law delegates Congress’s constitutional authority. It also would contravene later congressional action.”

In his letter, Ferguson also states that he worries the language of the executive order could leave other monuments open to review, including the San Juan Islands National Monument.

Ferguson’s letter comes a day after U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray sent a letter of their own to Zinke, opposing the review of Hanford Reach. “Rolling back protections for some of our nation’s most prized public spaces, like the Hanford Reach National Monument, does not exemplify President Roosevelt,” the senators wrote.

The Hanford Reach National Monument, which is about 194,451 acres, was created in 2000 and is home to a variety of wildlife and some rare plants. The area also includes the longest free-flowing freshwater portion of the Columbia River, where fall chinook spawn. It’s also an important cultural area for the Yakama Nation. The B-Reactor, just outside the national monument area, was recently designated a part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was established in 2000 and expanded by President Obama in 2017, from 65,000 acres to 113,000 acres. It’s the first national monument set aside with the only purpose of preserving biodiversity.

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, a largest exposed lava flow with a scattering of cinder cones and sagebrush islands, was established in 1924 and greatly expanded by President Clinton in 2000 to about 14 times its original size. The monument is now more than 700,000 acres.

The public can submit online comments about the review after May 12, for a 60-day period. Written comments can be sent to: Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.

The USDA projects lower wheat yields for Washington and Idaho compared to last year, but industry officials say they are hopeful those numbers will improve by harvest.

Based on May 1 conditions, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service projects the average winter wheat yield in Washington will drop from 78 bushels per acre last year to 67 bushels per acre this year.

Washington Grain Commission CEO Glen Squires said a lower yield “totally” makes sense. Last year’s average yield was nearly a record, due to good weather.

“I don’t know that anyone was anticipating we’d have another near-record (year),” Squires said.

But that 67 bushel estimate could increase to around 70, Squires said, noting it’s only the USDA’s first yield estimate.

With the exception of two drought years, average yields have ranged from 65 to 71 bushels an acre in recent years, he said.

“It’s still a long ways to harvest,” he said.

Mike Eagle, a Washington Grain Commission member who farms 1,200 acres north of Almira, Hartline and Wilbur in Eastern Washington, isn’t certain what yield to expect yet.

“Half of my wheat looks good and the other half is in need of some mild weather,” he said. “We’ve got lots of moisture, so there’s good potential for a good crop.”

That moisture delayed Eagle by more than a month. He usually is out in his fields around April 1, but got started about May 1.

“People are getting stuck and it’s wet,” he said.

Eagle was spraying his winter wheat for weeds and stripe rust, and expected to make a second application to combat rust, which can reduce yields.

“If you don’t, it’ll destroy your crop,” he said.

Winter wheat yield in Idaho was expected to average 85 bushels per acre, down about 9 bushels from last year.

Yield is expected to average 59 bushels per acre in Oregon, up 9 bushels from last year.

Farmers report the wheat crop came through the winter in generally good condition, said Blake Rowe, Oregon Wheat CEO.

“We are encouraged by the good moisture conditions we are seeing in Oregon,” Rowe said. “It is too early to speculate on the NASS estimates for the harvest, but we hope they are correct. We will just have to give it a little more time.”

Eagle is cautiously optimistic for the season.

“We just need some warm weather — not hot weather, warm weather,” he said. “I’m superstitious, so I don’t like to jinx myself.”

A group of Oregon farmers is seeking $6.7 million from a bank for allegedly interfering with sales of radish seed, causing it to lose value.

The lawsuit filed by the Radish Seed Growers’ Association against Northwest Bank is the latest installment in a saga that began with the 2015 insolvency of Cover Crop Solutions, a seed company.

Cover Crop Solutions contracted with numerous Oregon farmers to grow a proprietary variety of radish seed but was unable to pay them due to financial upheaval caused by oversupply and weather disruptions.

The seed company’s creditor — Northwest Bank of Warren, Pa. — then filed a lawsuit against the growers, demanding ownership of the radish seed as collateral for a defaulted loan taken out by Cover Crop Solutions.

In June 2016, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman rejected the bank’s claims that it owned the seed, but that hasn’t put an end to the matter.

Northwest Bank is now simultaneously challenging Mosman’s ruling before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and pursuing a malpractice complaint against the law firm that advised on the loan to Cover Crop Solutions.

In the malpractice lawsuit, the bank acknowledges it had no collateral in the radish seed even as it argues otherwise before the 9th Circuit, according to the complaint filed by the Radish Seed Growers Association, representing 38 growers, and two non-member farms.

“These two positions are irreconcilable,” the complaint said.

Due to the bank’s litigation against the growers, they were unable to sell nearly 7.4 million pounds of radish seed in 2015, when it fetched roughly $1.30 per pound, the complaint said.

Aside from losing value as it aged, the radish seed also competed against crops grown in later years, so farmers were only able to sell it for 56 cents per pound or less, the plaintiffs claim.

The lawsuit aims to recover about $5.5 million in reduced seed value and another $1.25 million in storage costs and additional expenses caused by Northwest Bank’s “wrongful interference.”

The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie Russo in Eugene, Ore.

A representative of Northwest Bank said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — The amount of old crop hay stored on Pacific Northwest farms is down 38 percent from a year ago, marking a return to normal inventories that growers and exporters hope will help rebuild prices.

There were 330,000 tons of hay on Washington farms on May 1, representing 10 percent of 2016 production. That’s down 17 percent from a year earlier, according to USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Oregon totaled 270,000 tons at 7 percent of 2016 production and down 39 percent from a year ago. Idaho was at 510,000 tons or 10 percent of 2016 production and down 46 percent from a year ago.

NASS said 2.09 million tons moved off Idaho farms from Dec. 1 through May 1, 2.03 million left Oregon farms and 1.17 million tons were sold from Washington farms.

A year ago hay stocks were up 16 percent from the year before as hay remained backlogged from a labor dispute slowing down West Coast seaports in 2014 and 2015. Weather also contributed to oversupply of lower-quality feeder hay.

Lower inventory is due to a lot of acres coming out of production last year because of low prices and a long cold winter and cool spring requiring a lot more feeder hay for cattle, said Shawn Clausen, a Warden, Wash., hay grower and vice president of the Washington State Hay Growers Association.

“Normally cattlemen feed hay 60 days in winter and this winter it was more than 120 days in the whole Northwest,” Clausen said.

“Snowpack covered feed that would have been available, like corn stalks, so cattlemen had to feed twice as much hay and it cleaned up a lot of off-quality hay,” he said.

Growers and exporters have had to sell large amounts of hay at below break-even prices, but now with oversupply gone there’s a chance for prices to improve if weather allows a good 2017 harvest of less acreage, Clausen said.

Mark T. Anderson, CEO and president of Anderson Hay & Grain Co. in Ellensburg, one of the largest West Coast hay exporters, said low milk prices in the U.S. and China are limiting dairy demand for alfalfa in both countries.

“We are waiting to see what will drive energy into the alfalfa market. Pricing has been low and we need to see improvement in that. It’s hard to get margin,” Anderson said.

The Timothy inventory has cleaned up well, the Timothy market is healthy and, depending on the weather, it should regain good pricing this summer, but alfalfa is questionable, he said.

Prices bottomed out at around $75 per ton for feeder hay in December and January and $105 to $110 per ton for good export quality, Clausen said. Those prices are well below production costs, he said.

Now feeder hay is up to about $100 per ton and there isn’t any export hay, he said. Quality, which is dependent on the weather, will determine new export hay prices, he said.

Supreme and premium alfalfa reached $300 to $370 per ton in California in 2014, driven by a hay shortage before the port slowdown. Feeder grade was $220 to $240.

By the end of 2015, supreme and premium was $180 per ton and feeder hay was under $150.

“It’s a good thing to have less inventory, but it’s been painful and we can’t sustain low prices. We will go broke if we keep this up another year or two,” Clausen said.

Early cuttings this spring in California have been damaged by rain, which should increase demand for premium Northwest product, he said. But Anderson said he doubts California damage is enough to help Northwest sales.

Dairies are spot buying alfalfa when they need to, not locking up inventory for a year ahead like they once did, Clausen said. They also have turned more to triticale, a rye-wheat cross, in the past five years that along with corn makes cheaper feed, he said.

Clausen normally starts his first cutting alfalfa about mid-May but last year started April 20 because of the warm, early spring. Warm weather produced high yields, contributing to oversupply.

This year’s cooler spring means his first cutting will be closer to between May 20 and June 1 and he believes his yield will be down 15 percent.

Alfalfa swathing started May 1 in the Tri-Cities.

“The weather forecast for the rest of the month is not positive for putting up hay,” Clausen said. “If we can put up a good premium product, there will be demand for it. If the weather is such that everyone puts up feeder hay, we will overload the market.”

SALEM — Oregon’s water regulators have unanimously voted to stop permitting new agricultural wells in Northeast Oregon’s 300,000-acre Walla Walla subbasin due to groundwater depletion concerns.

At its May 11 meeting, the Oregon Water Resources Commission also designated the subbasin as a “serious water management problem area,” which means irrigators with existing basalt wells must install flow meters to measure their water usage and report it to state regulators.

The restriction on new wells doesn’t apply to exempt uses, such as domestic uses and livestock watering.

The decision was prompted by requests from senior water right holders in the region who complained of being unable to pump enough water, said Justin Iverson, groundwater section manager for the Oregon Water Resources Department, which is overseen by the commission.

“We do have a pretty wide distribution of water level declines across the full basin,” Iverson said.

Groundwater levels have been dropping by up to four feet a year in the deeper basalt aquifer and up to one foot a year in the shallower alluvial aquifer, he said.

The commission’s actions are intended to prevent the problem from growing worse and to improve OWRD’s data about water usage in the region, Iverson said.

The next step will be finding ways to stabilize groundwater levels in the Walla Walla subbasin, with the department encouraging the local community to implement a voluntary, long-term water plan, he said.

Irrigators will have until the end of 2018 to install flow meters on their wells, which is a year longer than initially planned, he said.

The deadline was extended because local contractors likely wouldn’t have enough time to install the equipment by the end of 2017, since they’d have to wait until the irrigation season ends in autumn, Iverson said.

There’s no sunset clause for the prohibition on new agricultural wells, so new permits cannot be issued unless the commission changes the rules, he said.

It’s possible the commission could reach such a decision if new data show that additional well drilling in some areas would not be harmful, he said.

Even before the new rules were adopted, OWRD was denying new groundwater rights applications on a case-by-case basis, since hydrogeological evaluations have consistently shown the water isn’t available, said Brenda Bateman, administrator of the agency’s technical services division.

The situation has gotten to the point where the agency needed to establish a broader policy against new well permits, she said.

However, there are people in the Walla Walla subbasin who have already obtained permits but have yet to drill wells, Bateman said.

OWRD is currently in discussions with those permit holders about possible extensions, she said.

During the meeting, well driller John Stadeli said he’s disappointed in the commission’s decision, since it’s unlikely people in the region will ever be able to obtain new groundwater rights.

It’s possible that additional water is still available in deeper basalt levels, Stadeli said. “I definitely think the department is jumping the gun.”

Gary Key, a water right holder, said he appreciated the commission has taken action to begin getting groundwater declines under control.

“Three to four feet of water a year is just unsustainable,” Key said.