SALEM — A proposed fund dedicated to protecting farmland from development in Oregon has come under fire from critics who say the state government can’t afford it.

The Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund would buy easements from farmers that limit their ability to develop property, thus preserving the land for agricultural production.

Organizations that “hold” easements by enforcing such constraints, such as land trusts, would also receive money and technical assistance from the fund, as would farmers who need help with succession planning.

Investment decisions would be made by a 12-person commission under House Bill 3249, which creates the fund without directing a specific amount of state dollars to it.

Kelley Beamer, executive director of the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, said the new fund is needed because roughly two-thirds of Oregon’s farmland is expected to change ownership in the next decade, but about 80 percent of the landowners don’t have a plan for the transition.

“We do see conversion and fragmentation as a real threat to those values we have as a state,” she said during an April 4 legislative hearing.

However, critics argue that Oregon’s projected $1.6 billion budget deficit in the 2017-2019 biennium precludes a new program aimed at helping agriculture, which already receives much government support.

Farmers already benefit from property tax breaks, inheritance tax exemptions and other programs that will add up to about $550 million in the next biennium, said Gerritt Rosenthal of Tax Fairness Oregon, a group that seeks to preserve government revenues from tax breaks.

“In this time of budget shortfall, it’s not the time to create new programs that may cost significant amounts of money,” he said.

The fund would primarily serve farming interests by spending public dollars, even though Oregon’s protections for agricultural water quality are insufficient, said Jim Myron, a natural resources consultant testifying on behalf of several environmental groups.

“While there may be positive aspects to the bill, it isn’t ready for prime time yet,” Myron said.

Proponents of HB 3249 claim the fund is a wise investment because state dollars will be matched by contributions from the federal government, conservation groups and the farmers themselves.

It’s likely that as much private money would be used to buy easements as public money, said Doug Krahmer, a farmer from St. Paul, Ore., who helped devise the program.

“This particular proposal is part of a piece of a puzzle,” he said.

Farmland would be preserved in perpetuity while the state would pay for only a fraction of its appraised value, said Woody Wolfe, a Wallowa County farmer and rancher who sold an easement on his property.

Conservation groups would be more willing to invest in further restoration efforts if they know the land is permanently protected from development, he said.

“I would ask what the cost would be if those lands become concrete or developed,” Wolfe said.

A limited amount of funds dedicated to the program would be awarded to easements and other projects after careful deliberation by the commission, he said.

“You’re concentrating your efforts on the most valuable property,” Wolfe said.

A large-scale Northwest farmer claims in a new lawsuit to have bought out full ownership of a Washington processing facility from his partner, the J.R. Simplot Co.

Simplot, however, characterizes the transaction as “nothing more than a sham” that’s part of a deliberate scheme of mismanagement by farmer Frank Tiegs.

The allegations are part of a legal battle between Tiegs and Simplot over the operations of Gem State Processing in Heyburn, Idaho, and Pasco Processing in Pasco, Wash., both of which they own jointly.

Simplot filed a lawsuit last year accusing Tiegs of running the processing facilities into the ground financially to benefit his own farming affiliates.

The complaint claimed that Tiegs’ farm companies sold excessive amounts of inferior-quality crops to the processing plants at above-market prices, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

Simplot has asked a federal judge to appoint a receiver to take over management of the processing companies while Tiegs has requested the case be thrown out.

Tiegs has now filed a lawsuit asking another federal judge to declare that he’s purchased Simplot’s half of Pasco Processing — including its National Frozen Foods subsidiary — as permitted under an operating agreement between the partners.

The complaint alleges the two companies reached a deadlock about whether to each infuse the processing plant with $3 million in capital to ensure it complied with loan covenants.

According to Tiegs, the deadlock triggered “buyout” provisions entitling him to purchase Pasco Processing for a pre-arranged price based on its financial performance.

Because that price was a “negative number,” Tiegs was “not required to tender cash or other available funds” for Simplot’s shares, the complaint said.

Simplot has alleged this an “attempted conversion” that’s “the latest act in a pattern of willful, reckless and grossly negligent misconduct.”

The deadlock was manufactured by Tiegs to take over Pasco Processing “at an artificially low price — resulting from a devaluation caused by defendants’ bad acts,” according to Simplot.

Simplot argues that Tiegs could not actually force the sale in this manner but has nonetheless claimed to be the sole owner of Pasco Processing to its employees and lender.

The company has asked a federal judge to either dismiss Tiegs’ lawsuit or merge it with the previous case.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Voters in Oregon’s most populous county might be voting on a soda tax this fall.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the health advocates behind the proposal must gather 17,381 valid signatures from Multnomah County voters to get the item on the November ballot.

Voters would decide whether to add a tax of 1.5 cents per ounce on sugary drinks, including soda, energy drinks and sweetened teas. That means an 18-cent tax on a 12-ounce can of soda.

The proposal suggests using the tax revenue to help pay for early childhood education, and programs in schools to promote healthy food and lifestyle choices.

The American Heart Association has helped passed similar measures in several California cities as well as Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado.

Shawn Campbell, a veteran of the food processing industry, is the new president and CEO of NORPAC, the venerable Willamette Valley farmers’ cooperative.

Campbell replaces George Smith, who retired after heading the co-op for more than a decade and working at the company 38 years.

Campbell was hired as NORPAC’s chief operating officer in 2016 as part of a strategic succession plan, and he’s not new to the workings of farmers’ cooperatives. He worked more than 10 years at Darigold, the dairy products co-op, where he was most recently the senior vice president of consumer products.

He also has food brokerage and business development experience in the U.S. and Canada, according to a NORPAC news release.

Campbell was not immediately available for comment on his appointment.

NORPAC was established as Stayton Canning Co. in 1924 and now operates processing and packaging facilities in Stayton, Salem, Brooks and Hermiston, Ore., and in Quincy, Wash.

The co-op was among the first processors to use quick-freezing units to produce what are known as Individually Quick Frozen, or IQF, products. NORPAC is best known for its FLAV-R-PAC brand frozen vegetables and fruit and for its Santiam brand canned products.

More than 200 farmers grow on contract with NORPAC, raising 27 different crops ranging from strawberries, broccoli and cauliflower to zucchini, corn, beans and peas.

According to the co-op website, NORPAC is Oregon’s largest vegetable and fruit processor and the largest unionized agricultural employer in the state. The co-op has about 1,000 full-time workers and employs up to 3,500 people during the peak harvest and processing season.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Owyhee Project patrons will pay $4 an acre more this year for their irrigation water, with the additional money being used to make repairs on the aging system that provides water to 1,800 farms.

The project, which is managed by the Owyhee Irrigation District, provides water from the Owyhee Reservoir to 118,000 irrigated acres in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho.

The annual assessment that irrigators pay to receive that water was raised from $58 to $62 an acre this year, a 6.9 percent increase. In the past 30 years, the assessment has risen by an average of 4 percent a year.

The OID’s total budget is $4 million and the additional $268,000 in funding from this year’s assessment increase will be used to continue to repair the Owyhee Project’s aging infrastructure, said OID Manager Jay Chamberlin.

The project, completed in 1932, includes hundreds of miles of canals and drains. The 71-mile-long system has six pumping stations that pump supplemental water from the Snake River.

When the project was built, it had a 100-year life expectancy; it is now 85 years old.

That doesn’t mean the system has 15 years left — “It certainly is going to last a lot longer than that,” Chamberlin said — but it is in need of some major repairs.

“The system is getting older faster than we can keep up with the repairs on it, honestly,” he said. “There is much more that needs to be done.”

This year’s assessment includes a $2.50 an acre increase in the regular operations and maintenance fee and a special $1.50 fee to help pay engineering costs for a project designed to fix the failing Malheur Siphon, work that will cost upward of $2 million.

Major repair work recently completed on the system includes a $450,000 project to repair the Ring Gate, an 80,000-pound spillway, and a $250,000 project to stabilize part of the Snively Siphon that was in danger of sliding down a mountain.

Close to eight miles of new pipeline was installed in the system this past year.

A ditch break costs about $30,000 to fix on average and the system has those every year, Chamberlin said.

The OID received some phone calls about the increase and OID board members regularly answer questions about the assessment, said Bruce Corn, a member of the board and a local farmer.

“If you don’t actually go out and see it and understand what’s going on, it’s hard to comprehend,” he said. “It’s an engineering marvel but it requires maintenance to keep it going and it’s very, very expensive.”

Corn said it is going to require a lot more work to keep the system in a reliable condition and that’s going to cost money.

“You have siphons, tunnels and all kinds of structures and they are aging,” he said. “In the foreseeable future, there is going to be one project after another and they are going to be fairly major.”

A federal judge has tacked on $785,000 in attorney fees and costs to a $1.2 million judgment against the H.J. Heinz Co. in a lawsuit over sweet potato processing.

The Bright Harvest Sweet Potato Co. filed a complaint in 2013 accusing Heinz of breaking a deal to buy sweet potato fries and instead producing them itself at a newly constructed facility in Ontario, Ore.

Heinz initially convinced a jury that it hadn’t violated the contract with Bright Harvest, but U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ordered a new trial after overturning the first verdict for not being supported by the evidence.

The second jury found in favor of Bright Harvest, awarding the company $1.2 million in damages, which Winmill upheld last year.

The judge has now decided that under Idaho law, which governs the contract, Bright Harvest is entitled to more than $785,000 in attorney fees and costs because it’s clearly the “prevailing party” in the dispute.

Even though Bright Harvest didn’t recover the total amount sought in its lawsuit — the company asked for nearly $11 million during settlement talks — the $1.2 million judgment is “significant enough” to establish it as the prevailing party, Winmill said.

The judge also ruled the attorney fees sought by Bright Harvest were reasonable for the most part, though he refused to include nearly $11,000 in fees sought by one attorney who was a “possible fact witness” rather serving on the litigation team.

Capital Bureau

SALEM — State regulators on Friday approved a wastewater permit for a hotly-debated expansion of a large dairy farm in Boardman.

The Lost Valley Farm, on about 7,000 acres formerly belonging to the Boardman Tree Farm, is now due to start operating in the coming weeks. It’s a project of Greg te Velde, the owner of the nearby mega-dairy Willow Creek Farm, whose cows supply milk to local processors.

The proposed expansion drew criticism from environmental and animal-welfare groups, and state agencies say they have taken additional steps to address them.

Lost Valley Farm will be allowed to have up to 30,000 cows under a permit designated for confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The permit issued Friday is intended to protect surface and groundwater from contamination, officials say.

Leah Feldon, deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said Friday that the department had done “extensive review and work” on the permit over the past year.

The departments say Lost Valley Farm will also be required to closely monitor its groundwater, soil and leak detection in areas where animal waste is stored. There will be eleven groundwater monitoring wells on the site.

The state also says that the only nearby surface water is a canal at a higher elevation than the farm, which would make it “improbable” that the farm’s wastewater or stormwater would end up there. Further, they say, the entire property is in a depression.

Large dairies such as Lost Valley Farm are typically subject to inspection by the state Department of Agriculture three or four times a year.

Lost Valley Farm expects to start with 16,500 cattle in the first year and gradually build the herd over several years, according to ODA and DEQ.

Although state regulators say it was not a factor in the permit decision, the state also touts the expected economic value of the project, which the dairy estimates will provide more than 100 jobs.

The farm also says that they will recycle about 75 percent of the water they use. In a statement, te Velde said the farm agreed to all the requirements of the permit and remained “committed to protecting the quality and quantity of groundwater in the critical groundwater area.”

The proposed dairy is located in the Umatilla Groundwater Management Area, which has elevated levels of nitrate.

The state’s water resources department is currently processing the dairy’s water use applications; an appeal period ends April 7.

The dairy currently has a temporary permit until April 30, which allows 450 gallons per minute of water for construction.

Through a water rights transfer, the farm is requesting 1,037 acre feet of water per year.

State officials said Friday that the state received a protest filed by the Crag Law Center on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups, who oppose the transfer and called the operation a “major threat” to water and air quality.

The permit does not regulate air quality, which was a concern raised by environmental groups and by a group representing small and mid-sized farms.

The Lost Valley Farm plans to build and use a methane digester in two to three years, if it is “economically feasible.”

A bill currently before the Oregon Legislature would require the state’s Environmental Quality Commission to adopt a program regulating air contaminant emissions from confined animal feeding operations such as Lost Valley.

Ivan Maluski, of Friends of Family Farmers, called the decision by state regulators “disappointing but not unexpected.”

Maluski argues that large dairies like Lost Valley push small and midsize dairy farms out of business, and points to a 2013 report from the state’s employment department that shows that the number of small dairies in Oregon shrank between 2002 and 2007.

State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said in a statement that the project was a “win” for the region and the state, and demonstrated “we can welcome projects without compromising our high standards for protecting the environment.”

The Oregon Dairy Farmers’ Association could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon residents can celebrate more than the coming weekend today as Gov. Kate Brown has declared March 31 Cesar Chavez Day.

The Statesman Journal reports that Brown on Thursday signed a proclamation celebrating Chavez’s work in founding United Farm Workers, a farmworkers rights organization that advanced livable working conditions and fair pay for farmworkers in the 1960s.

Chavez is celebrated in Oregon with Chavez Elementary School in Salem, but Brown says that’s not enough. She encouraged workers to continue fighting for civil rights for farmworkers.

The Department of Agriculture estimates there are about 160,000 farmworkers in Oregon who contribute roughly $5.7 billion annually to the state’s agricultural economy.

SALEM — Utility companies that grow a potentially invasive biomass energy crop would be on the hook for its eradication costs under a bill proposed in Oregon.

Due to worries about the weediness of Arundo donax, or giant cane, Senate Bill 789 would require public utilities to post a surety bond of at least $1 million to cover removal efforts.

However, the only company currently affected by the proposal, Portland General Electric, argues the measure is unnecessary because it’s soon abandoning experiments with the crop.

PGE has been evaluating giant cane as an alternative feedstock for its power plant near Boardman, Ore., which must stop burning coal in 2020.

The Native Plant Society of Oregon wants Oregon lawmakers to pass SB 789 because giant cane poses an “existential threat to all streamside habitats” along the Columbia river, said Billy Don Robinson, legislative committee chairman for the group.

“It simply crowds out every other plant in these streamside habitats,” he said during a March 29 legislative hearing.

Under another proposal the group supports, Senate Bill 790, Oregon State University would be required to conduct a study of the risks associated with giant cane and potential safeguards for producing it.

Unlike previous research on the plant, the OSU study would examine the hazards associated with genetically enhanced varieties, said Judi Sanders, past president of the Native Plant Society of Oregon.

In California, eradication costs for the weed range from $4,700 to $64,000 per acre, which shouldn’t be borne by taxpayers if cultivated giant cane escapes fields in Oregon, she said.

“If there’s no mess, it’s not much of an issue,” she said.

Giant cane is already making its way north from California, but PGE’s experiments near Boardman have introduced a new point of risk, said Robinson.

There are also 48 patents pending that would make the crop more cold-hardy, drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant, he said. “It scares me.”

Right now, though, PGE is winding down its cultivation of giant cane, said Brendan McCarthy, the company’s state environmental policy manager.

The company grew nearly 100 acres of the crop at one point but is now down to about 30 acres, with the remaining plants to be eradicated after the 2017 growing season, he said.

Giant cane and other forms of biomass proved more than twice as expensive as needed to operate the power plant profitably, McCarthy said. “It really came down to cost.”

With less than four years before the company would have to convert the facility to biomass, PGE doesn’t have enough time to establish a biomass supply chain, McCarthy said.

PGE considered using beetle-damaged wood from national forests, but that wouldn’t be a sustainable feedstock, he said.

Juniper removed from Oregon’s rangelands is too dispersed to economically collect and transport, while other dedicated biomass crops have risks similar to giant cane, McCarthy said.

“Things that grow really well may very well be invasive,” he said.

While PGE is suspending its biomass research, representatives of the Native Plant Society of Oregon said they want SB 789 amended to impose the surety bond requirement on other potential giant cane growers, not just public utilities.

Aside from biomass, companies may want to produce the crop for building products, paper fiber and livestock feed, said Robinson.

PORTLAND — Speakers at the Oregon Mass Timber Summit acknowledged some hangups, but said they’re still optimistic using fabricated wooden panels in tall buildings can revitalize the state’s timber industry and restore jobs in rural areas.

Valerie Johnson, whose D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. in Riddle, Ore., was the first to make cross laminated timbers certified for tall construction, said the state is still having “intense” harvest management discussions. “But if there’s a way to create more jobs with the same log supply, why don’t we get on about that?” she said.

The March 27 summit in Portland focused on the Oregon industry and served as a prelude to the International Mass Timber Conference held in Portland later in the week.

In September 2015, D.R. Johnson became the first American company certified to make cross-laminated timber panels. Certification by the American Plywood Association and the American National Standards Institute assures the panels, called CLT, can be used in building construction.

Johnson said the company she and her sister, Jodi Westbrooks, co-own is working to supply multiple tall wood construction projects, including half a dozen schools in Washington. The city of Springfield, Ore., once home to major wood products companies, will build a parking garage made from wood.

Johnson said the estimated market opportunity for cross-laminated timber panels in U.S. construction is $1.5 billion to $4 billion. She said Oregon is a natural center for the industry.

“Well, why not here?” she said. “We’re as smart and hardworking as anybody.”

A four-story commercial building under construction in Portland, called Albina Yard, is the first project built with domestically produced CLT panels. Such products now are referred to generically as mass timber construction.

Meanwhile, Oregon State University’s College of Forestry and College of Engineering have formed a partnership with the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts. A new facility at OSU, called the TallWood Design Institute, will be the nation’s first research collaborative that focuses exclusively on the advancement of structural wood products.

Meanwhile, D.R. Johnson may soon have company, or competition, on the production side of things. In a March 16 opinion piece in the Capital Press, Tyler Freres of Oregon-based Freres Lumber said in 2017 the company intends to complete a production facility that can make “veneer-based” panels up to 12 feet wide, 48 feet long and 24 inches thick.

Eagle Point, Ore. — To rancher Lee Bradshaw, the presidential order nearly doubling the size of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was both shocking and predictable.

Ever since the original 53,000 acres of public land were designated as a monument in 2000, there had been whispers about enlarging it.

Even so, the announcement during the final days of President Barack Obama’s administration in early 2017 appeared rushed to Bradshaw, particularly since a handful of meetings held about the expansion were more about creating hype than seeking public input, he said.

“I knew it was coming our way, but it was unexpected about the way they did it,” Bradshaw said.

With the federal government adding 47,000 acres to the monument, the ranching and timber industries in Southern Oregon are bracing for the worst.

Critics of the monument say they’ve seen the economic damage caused by the original designation, leading them to expect similar restrictions on grazing and logging within the expanded boundary.

“Through no fault of their own, their operations are in jeopardy,” said John O’Keeffe, president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

Meanwhile, supporters have cheered the expansion of the monument, which they believe was shortchanged in the initial designation.

“We knew the footprint wasn’t as large as the scientists had hoped for,” said Terry Dickey, board chairman of the Friends of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which promotes and advocates for the monument.

This time, though, the timber industry and county governments are spearheading a legal battle against the monument expansion, arguing the federal government lacks the authority to restrict logging on much of the newly included property.

If the litigation proves successful in scaling back the monument’s size, it would also effectively thwart potential restrictions on cattle grazing.

Although inclusion in the monument doesn’t automatically prohibit grazing — as it does most commercial logging — critics say ranchers will inevitably face increased scrutiny and curtailments.

“Even though the language of the proclamation says grazing can continue, they just regulate you out of business,” said Karen Budd-Falen, an attorney specializing in public land disputes.

Under the original Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument proclamation issued by President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had to analyze whether grazing interferes with “protecting the objects of biological interest.”

If necessary, the agency was ordered to retire allotments.

In 2008, the study found “negative interactions between livestock and individual biological objects of interest,” meaning that grazing was “not compatible” with their protection in some locations.

This determination convinced Mike Dauenhauer and several other ranchers to sell their grazing rights to environmental groups for an undisclosed amount.

“The bottom line was we saw the writing on the wall. The end was near,” Dauenhauer said. “We figured anything was better than nothing, and the BLM was going to give us nothing.”

Dauenhauer said he’s skeptical of the study’s objectivity and believes the outcome was largely predetermined.

In his view, the biological diversity of the area was retained through more than 100 years of grazing by cattle, which have an impact on the land similar to that of deer and elk.

“I think the cows are part of the biological diversity. I don’t think they hurt it in any respect as long as they’re managed correctly,” Dauenhauer said.

When the monument was first established, Bradshaw felt as though he’d largely dodged a bullet — fewer than 30 acres of his BLM grazing allotment were included.

Now, roughly half of Bradshaw’s 10,000-acre BLM allotment is encompassed by the monument.

If grazing is eventually restricted on that allotment, he could still graze cattle on private land and a national forest allotment.

However, losing the BLM acreage would disrupt the continual availability of forage through the seasons, potentially rendering his cattle operation economically unsustainable.

“We won’t be able to use our rotational grazing system,” Bradshaw said. “We would lose half our grazing season.”

For the Murphy Co., which owns forestland and plywood mills, the impacts of the monument’s growth are two-fold.

Up to half the company’s timber volume comes from federal land during some seasons, so the expansion equates to a loss of raw material in the long term, said Jake Groves, its operations director.

“It’s wood out of the wood basket,” Groves said. “It’s just been a constant erosion of the available land base, from our perspective.”

Mills are geographically limited in sourcing timber, as some logs are too distant to transport economically, he said.

Logs from the Southern Oregon region are peeled at the firm’s facility in White City, Ore., for raw veneer, which is used in plywood and engineered wood at its other plants.

In all, the company employs nearly 800 people and invests in state-of-the art technology to process logs efficiently, but none of that equipment can operate without wood, Groves said. “This stuff can’t make veneer out of air.”

Aside from the timber supply, the monument expansion affects Murphy’s private forests in the region, he said.

Of the nearly 50,000 acres owned by the company in Southern Oregon, roughly 4,000 acres are surrounded by the monument or are adjacent to it.

Groves is concerned about overstocked federal forests fueling wildfires that will spread onto Murphy’s property, as well as the public outcry in reaction to logging near the monument.

Visitors often don’t realize that private inholdings are within its boundaries, he said.

“It changes the social license. The first time people see logging trucks rolling through the monument, questions get asked,” Groves said. “I don’t have unlimited hours in the day to explain our actions.”

Proponents of the monument say it’s economically beneficial, bringing in hunters, fishermen, snow-shoers, hikers and others.

“There’s a huge amount of tourism-related revenue coming into this area,” said Dickey of the Friends of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

The monument is also valuable for university scientists and students who research its bountiful animal and plant life, he said. “It’s really great to be able to use the monument as a background for teaching environmental education.”

For the Murphy Co., though, the economic threat is big enough to justify filing a lawsuit that asks a federal judge to declare the expansion unlawful.

Other cases have been filed by the American Forest Resources Council, which represents timber interests, and the Association of O&C Counties, which represents counties that depend on revenue from federal timber sales.

The three complaints rely on the same basic theory: A majority of the new monument acreage consists of so-called O&C Lands, which the federal government has dedicated to sustained timber production.

By effectively banning most logging on those O&C Lands, the monument expansion was unlawful, the lawsuits claim.

Several environmental groups have intervened as defendants in the lawsuit filed by Murphy Lumber, arguing their interests “may not be adequately represented by the existing parties to the litigation.”

As reasons for their intervention, the environmentalists cite “the federal government’s frequent reluctance to adequately protect the O&C lands” and the governmental transition to a “president and federal agency leadership who did not participate in the review and expansion.”

Environmentalists are also seeking intervenor status in the case filed by the Association of O&C Counties.

Based on history, it’s not likely the Trump administration would overrule the environmental intervenors to reach a settlement scaling back the monument’s size, said Karen Budd-Falen, the natural resources attorney.

“They can do that, but it doesn’t happen very much,” she said. “It’s really rare.”

The U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the BLM and the national monument, is now headed by Ryan Zinke, a former Montana congressman who supports multiple use of public lands, Budd-Falen said.

However, it’s still too early to tell how much sway the Interior Department will have in these cases, compared to the influence of the U.S. Justice Department, she said.

“I just don’t know how the new administration will handle it,” Budd-Falen said.

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is one of several designations made by the Obama administration that have stirred controversy, said Ethan Lane, executive director of the Public Lands Council, which advocates for cattle grazing.

“It certainly has been on our radar,” he said.

Altogether, the Obama administration used the Antiquities Act to establish or expand more than 30 national monuments totaling 550 million acres of land and water, Lane said.

The massive scope of Obama’s designations has prompted calls for Trump to shrink monument boundaries, he said.

Theoretically, Trump could decrease the size of these monuments as swiftly as Obama increased them, Lane said. “There’s no red tape or analysis or box-checking required.”

However, the overly liberal use of the Antiquities Act — which allows a president to declare national monuments on public land and restrict its uses — has also compelled demands to reform the statute, he said.

“It’s been turned from a tool for protection into a large land-planning tool, and that’s just not what was intended,” said Lane.

For example, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has introduced a bill that would require Congress to approve a national monument designation, in addition to the governor and legislature of the state it’s in.

That language, or similar provisions, could also be rolled into a broader package of legislation, Lane said. “There are a lot of resource issues that need attention.”

Environmental groups that support the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument see some of the hardships claimed by the ranching and timber industries as overstated.

The Soda Mountain Wilderness Council used private funds to purchase grazing leases in several allotments from willing ranchers, said Dave Willis, the organization’s chairman.

Ranchers who refused the buyouts have continued grazing cattle on some allotments — such as Dixie and Buck Mountain — that failed to meet several grazing standards set by BLM to improve rangeland health, he said in an email.

Forest management isn’t entirely banned within the monument, as the proclamation allows timber harvest that’s part of an “authorized science-based ecological restoration project,” Willis said, citing the monument proclamation.

Much of the O&C Lands within the expanded boundary are classified as “late-successional” and “riparian” reserves, or have reforestation problems, he said. “The ecological benefits of protecting these relatively very few acres exceed their commercial timber volume value.”

Science has also shown that wildfires are less severe in protected forests than those that are commercially logged, Willis maintained. “If anything, it is the fire hazard on private, logged-over land that endangers protected public forests.”

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Officials have removed a number of cattle carcasses from a popular reservoir just west of the Oregon-Idaho border.

The Idaho Statesman reports that Malheur County Sheriff Brian Wolfe says five of the 15 carcasses that had been spotted in the Owyhee Reservoir that didn’t sink have been pulled to the shore and buried by ranchers.

Wolfe says other animals such as deer, antelope and fish were also found in the reservoir.

The carcasses had been alarming for recreationists who went out on the lake, in part because the public didn’t know what caused the die-off.

Wolfe says the cattle died when ranchers were not able to get close enough to feed the animals during winter due to heavy snow.

Repairs at the Little Goose Dam navigation lock have delayed its reopening until April 11, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The dam was originally slated to reopen March 20 with the rest of the Columbia and Snake river system locks. Its reopening has been delayed twice.

Operational testing of the north gate revealed that the pintle heel was not replaced in the correct position under a previous contract, the corps said in a press release. The north gate’s quoin blocks will need to be machined to correct the deficiency.

Surveying was performed on the south gate, confirming the south pintle heel was also installed out of position under the previous contract. Corrections were made, and the gate is being moved into place to verify the alignment, according to the corps.

The pintle heel is a part of the bottom hinge component, said Gina Baltrusch, corps spokeswoman. Quoin blocks are the thick, vertical pieces of metal on the outside of the gate that run from top to bottom, creating the water-tight seal between the gate and the wall.

The corps will shave roughly one-sixteenth of an inch off the quoin block so it will seal properly, Baltrusch said.

“We regret the impact to our navigation stakeholders caused by this additional delay in reopening the lock at Little Goose,” project manager Jason Williams said in the press release. “We are doing all we can to restore safe, reliable lock service as quickly as possible.”

Columbia Grain in Clarkston, Wash., is one of the companies that uses the river system to ship grain to Portland for sale to overseas customers.

Assistant vice president Randy Olstad said he supports and trusts the corps to make sure the repairs are done right.

“It’s frustrating at this point, but the river system is extremely important for our business,” he said.

His company had time to prepare for the downtime, but is eager for the dam to be repaired, Olstad said.

Customers have been understanding so far, he said.

“We’ve done our job, I believe the corps is doing their job,” he said. “This is just an unforeseen circumstance we wish they would have caught earlier, but did not. That’s water under the bridge. We’ve just got to deal with it.”

Olstad declined to estimate how much the delay will cost the company.

“It’s more of our reputation, saying what we’re going to do and doing what we’re going to say,” he said. “I think that’s more on the line than anything.”

SALEM — Neonicotinoid pesticides, which critics blame for death and illness among pollinators, would be subject to new restrictions and labeling rules under two bills proposed in Oregon.

Labels would be required for pesticides containing neonicotinoids, as well as seeds and raw crops treated with the chemicals, under Senate Bill 928.

The entire class of neonicotinoid insecticides would be restricted under Senate Bill 929 to only be available to licensed pesticide applicators, farmers and veterinarians.

These measures are necessary because neonicotinoids have been implicated in large-scale die-offs of pollinators, as well as long-term health problems for these species, according to proponents.

A March 27 hearing on the two bills before the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee attracted an overflow audience, including some supporters adorned with insect antenna headbands, wings and striped black-and-yellow outfits.

Proponents of the bill argued that studies have linked neonicotinoid pesticides to the decline of honey bees and other pollinators, adversely affecting their biological processes even when the exposure isn’t lethal.

“When exposed, an entire plant becomes toxic, including the pollen and nectar,” said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, a sponsor of the bills.

It makes sense to limit neonicotinoid availability to farmers and others who are trained to use them judiciously, since many retail buyers don’t carefully read pesticide instructions and often assume more is better, she said.

“We have to take action and we have to do it now,” Marsh said.

Opponents of the bill argue the threat of neonicotinoids to pollinators is overstated, since they’re unlikely to come across the chemicals in the field at the same high concentrations they would in laboratory experiments.

Raw agricultural and horticultural commodities would be labeled under SB 928 as being treated with neonicotinoids even if they contain no residue of the chemicals, said Scott Dahlman, policy director of the Oregonians for Food and Shelter agribusiness group.

“They do break down over time,” he said.

An exemption in SB 929 allows farmers to use the insecticides but doesn’t explain who meets that description, Dahlman said. “There’s no such thing as a farmer card to prove you’re a farmer.”

Neonicotinoids do pose a risk to pollinators, but restricting their usage would likely have unintended effects, said Paul Jepson, director of Oregon State University’s Integrated Plant Protection Center.

Jepson said he’s neutral on the bill but asked lawmakers to consider the trade-offs of the legislation.

Without access to neonicotinoids, many backyard gardeners would probably substitute organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticides that also kill insects but are more toxic to humans, he said,

“I urge you to consider the consequences of using a blanket approach,” Jepson said.

MERIDIAN, Idaho — An unusually harsh winter, followed by a string of rainstorms, has left farm fields soggy and delayed planting at least two weeks in many parts of the Treasure Valley area of southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon.

Many areas of the valley received record or near-record amounts of snowfall this winter, which left soils saturated when it melted.

Coupled with persistent and untimely rainstorms, many farmers have been prevented from planting crops that would normally be in the ground by now.

“It just keeps raining and raining and that’s pushing everybody back,” said Meridian farmer Richard Durrant. “We hope the rest of spring treats us OK and we can catch up in May and June.”

Middleton, Idaho, farmer Sid Freeman is already two weeks late planting his onions and because of more rain in the immediate forecast, that’s likely to turn into three weeks.

“We should be finishing up planting our onions by now and we’re not,” he said.

Don Tolmie, production manager for Treasure Valley Seed Co. in Homedale, Idaho, said many farmers are 20-25 days behind.

“There is so much (ground) work that still has to be done and the rain keeps delaying it,” he said. “There is still a lot of moisture to get rid of and we haven’t had any real drying weather.”

Tolmie and others said the delay in planting is something they can deal with, for now.

“But you delay us another two weeks, and it’s going to be really damn serious,” Tolmie said. “It can be lived with today but if it gets much later, people are going to be panicking.”

Nyssa, Ore., farmer Craig Froerer had all his sugar beets and onions planted by this time last year but hasn’t been able to get them in the ground yet in 2017.

He said he will end up planting his onions at least on the second latest date since he started farming in 1978.

Froerer said the delay will likely reduce his sugar beet yields but isn’t serious at this point. However, “If we get to the 15th of April and we still aren’t going, then we’ll start getting nervous.”

For fall planted crops, the heavy snowfall was a blessing, area farmers said, because it insulated those crops from temperatures in December and January that averaged about 10 degrees colder than normal.

“All the crops we planted in the fall fared pretty doggone well because of the snow cover, which acted as insulation against the frigid temperatures we ended up having,” Freeman said.

“My mint came through the winter better than I’ve seen it in a long time,” said Meridian farmer Drew Eggers. “And my winter wheat seemed to green up right after the snow melted.”

Snow mold damage to winter wheat and triticale that east Oregon farmer Bill Buhrig worried about several weeks ago has mostly vanished.

“Now you have to look diligently to find it,” he said. “Things seem to be rebounding real well.”

SALEM — Dairy Day at the Oregon Capitol on Tuesday offered generous portions of dairy products — along with continued educational and lobbying efforts on legislative measures important to the industry.

Three FFA Chapters, members of the Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador program, Oregon State University Dairy Club members and others pitched in to help distribute information and treats in the Capitol Galleria.

But the main purpose of the event was to give a higher profile to measures currently being debated in the Legislature — about 350 of them that are important to the dairy industry, said Tammy Dennee, legislative director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association.

March 26 through April 1 is Oregon Ag Week, and this year is “the 20th anniversary of the designation of milk as the official beverage of Oregon,” said Tami Kerr, executive director of the association. A toast to that milestone was held in the Galleria to mark the occasion.

The event was created to be fun and informational for visitors and staff, but also a reminder to legislators to be aware of the impact of bills they are considering have on the lives of dairy producers and family farms.

“We want to make sure that our producers can come in and share information (with legislators) about their farms and how various measures will positively or negatively impact their businesses,” she said.

One measure important to the dairy industry is Senate Bill 197, “which is about air quality and only targets the dairy industry,” Kerr said. The bill would require monitoring and regulation of the air quality at dairy operations.

“It’s still in the Senate Energy Committee right now,” Dennee said. “Fortunately, it is not moving out of committee right now, which is a very good sign for us because we feel our industry has done a great deal to be very progressive and responsive” by following voluntary best practices.

More than 55 pounds of cheese, 400 servings of milk, 25 servings of yogurt and 40 gallons of ice cream were served during the event.

Dennee said the event raises awareness of the dairy industry and helps the public learn about the way the 228 dairy farm families in Oregon manage their 125,000 cows.

SALEM — Hemp would be brought further into the mainstream of Oregon agriculture under two bills that create a commodity commission and seed certification process for the crop.

“Industrial hemp has a huge potential in Oregon, we just need a few tweaks to help move it forward,” said Matt Cyrus, who grows hemp in Deschutes County, during a March 28 legislative hearing.

Under House Bill 2372, Oregon’s hemp industry would join 23 other crop, livestock and seafood sectors to have a state commission aimed at promoting and researching a commodity through fees raised from producers.

Breeders of new hemp varieties could also get the purity of their seeds certified under House Bill 2371, similarly to other crop species, through a system overseen by Oregon State University.

“It’s truly about a certified seed, one we know Oregon can count on,” said Jerry Norton, a hemp grower.

To comply with federal provisions in the 2014 Farm Bill that allow hemp research, HB 2371 would also create a hemp pilot program at OSU, among other changes to Oregon hemp statutes.

Commercial hemp production is illegal under federal drug laws that lump hemp, a form of cannabis, in the same category as its psychoactive cousin, marijuana.

Aligning Oregon’s hemp laws with the 2014 Farm Bill provisions will likely ease financial transactions for hemp growers, since many banks are otherwise leery of dealing with the crop, Cyrus said.

“The banks are looking for specific language in statute,” he said.

If there’s ever a change in federal law regarding cannabis, Oregon’s seed certification process would let hemp breeders patent their varieties, said Jay Noller, head of OSU’s crop and soil science department.

Because cannabis is illegal under federal law hemp varieties can’t be protected, he said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has authorized Noller to import high-quality hemp seeds from Canada and elsewhere.

At this point, though, foreign companies are reluctant to export hemp seed into Oregon due to a provision in state law allowing growers to save and plant it, he said.

Under HB 2371, that provision would be struck from Oregon law, hopefully opening the way for new hemp genetics to enter the state, Noller said.

Oregon’s hemp statutes are already setting an example for other states and the proposed changes will let growers “get off the airstrip and into the air,” said Norton.

“We feel that hemp in Oregon is going to be the new crop of the decade, if not the century,” he said.

Capital Bureau

SALEM — After a sustained outcry from environmental groups, Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read appeared to signal his intent Tuesday to side with the governor in her evolving plan to stop the impending sale of an expanse of coastal forest in Southern Oregon.

Read said Tuesday that he sees a “path forward” for public ownership of about 82,500 acres of the Elliott Forest in Coos and Douglas counties.

Last month, though, the treasurer voiced qualified support for a proposal to sell the forest to a partnership between a Roseburg timber company and a Native American tribe.

Read announced Tuesday that he would work with the Department of State Lands to develop a plan for the forest that would end its obligation to generate revenue for the Common School Fund, which is essentially an endowment for K-12 education.

In 2015, the State Land Board — then comprised of Gov. Kate Brown, then-Treasurer Ted Wheeler and then-Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins — decided to sell the land after litigation challenged the state’s management of areas occupied by protected species. The state said lawsuits prevented it from harvesting enough timber to generate money for the fund.

But a year later, only one entity — the partnership between Lone Rock Resources, a Roseburg timber company, and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians — had submitted an acquisition proposal, which drew fire from the state’s environmental groups.

And Brown has said she no longer wants to sell the forest.

Environmental activists have been lobbying the board for months, and of late have focused on Read.

They warn that the sale of the Elliott to a private company would realize fears that under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, states will follow the president’s lead and privatize public land.

In a statement Tuesday, Brown alluded to those concerns, saying public ownership was “critical” to sustainable timber harvests and protecting the environment for future generations.

“I remain committed to exploring a path toward public ownership of the Elliott that continues to honor the Common School Fund,” Brown said. “I am heartened that Treasurer Read shares this vision and I appreciate his unwavering commitment to the state’s fiduciary responsibility to Oregon schools.”

Brown has proposed using the state’s bonding capacity to buy a portion of the forest. Read said Tuesday that the governor had worked to drum up support for that strategy.

“I have made it clear to all sides that if Gov. Brown brought forward a viable alternative I would consider it,” Read said. “The Governor and her team have continued to refine her framework, and most importantly she has worked to build support for key bonding components among legislators, including the Senate President.”

Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, has suggested using revenue bonds payable from revenues generated by the forest — whether through timber harvests or other activities.

The lone Republican on the land board, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson, voted in favor of moving forward with the sale in February. His office did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment on Treasurer Read’s announcement.

On Sunday, the Democratic Party of Oregon passed a resolution that urged the state Land Board to work with the governor on the public ownership option.

The move puts newly elected party chair Jeanne Atkins in the position of advocating against a concept she signed off on when she was secretary of state and member of the land board in 2015. Read, who was elected treasurer in November, is a Democrat, as is Brown.

The land board meets again May 9 in Salem, Until then the Department of State Lands is both preparing a sale agreement and a report on public ownership options.

SALEM — Filing lawsuits over alleged pesticide damages would be easier in Oregon under a bill that would eliminate a plaintiff’s responsibility to first notify farm regulators.

Currently, anybody who claims to be harmed by pesticides must submit a report within 60 days to the Oregon Department of Agriculture before taking legal action against the landowner or applicator.

Senate Bill 500 would remove this requirement, which is characterized by proponents as an unfair impediment to justice and by critics as a reasonable barrier to frivolous litigation.

“Keep things the way they are,” urged Denver Pugh, a farmer near Shedd, Ore., during a March 22 legislative hearing.

Pugh said pesticide spraying at his family’s operation was blamed for injuring the trees and shrubs of a nearby organic grower, who filed a “report of loss” with the ODA.

After an investigation, ODA determined the damage was actually caused by hail, not pesticides, which prevented an unnecessary lawsuit, said Pugh.

Critics of the bill argue the reporting requirement allows ODA to gather facts substantiating or repudiating the claims of pesticide loss, thus avoiding litigation based on weak or nonexistent evidence.

The 60-day window also ensures that accused farmers have an opportunity to collect their own evidence, which may not be possible if a lawsuit is filed long after an alleged incident, opponents say.

Greg Peterson, a tree farm owner, said ODA officials determined that his pesticide usage had no connection to the death of fish at a nearby property, contrary to the neighbor’s accusations.

“It was very good they were able to act as an intermediary,” Peterson said. “To unravel that would have been horrendous for us as landowners.”

Supporters of SB 500, on the other hand, say the “report of loss” requires submitting specifics that are difficult for people to obtain, such as the type of pesticide applied and who sprayed the chemical.

“Most people have to work with a state agency to get that information and it takes more than 60 days,” said Lisa Arkin, executive director of Beyond Toxics, which supports the bill.

Gary Hale, a resident of Lane County, said rural residents who are exposed to pesticides often won’t realize they must submit a report to ODA.

“There’s a very small percentage of Oregonians who expect that to be a requirement,” he said.

Once they find out about the 60-day deadline, it may be too late to submit the report of loss, permanently blocking the possibility of legal recourse, Hale said. “There is no justice after that.”

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A judge has sided with two environmental groups in a ruling that halts a timber sale in southern Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest.

The Statesman Journal reported Monday that Judge Jolie Russo ruled that the forest must conduct a more comprehensive study of environmental impacts caused by the proposed logging project near Crater Lake National Park.

The timber sale calls for 1,400 acres of commercial thinning and construction of nearly 6 miles of temporary roads near popular recreation sites.

Russo’s ruling last week marks the second time the project has been delayed in court.

Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild brought the lawsuit against the timber sale, which was first halted in 2014.

Lawson Fite, with the American Forest Resource Council, disagreed with the ruling, saying the project will have “negligible or beneficial” environmental impacts.