BEND, Ore. (AP) — Sap dripping from lodgepole pines this year came as the first sign of an insect invasion mounting in the Newberry Volcano caldera.

By next year, trees killed by the mountain pine beetle should stick out from healthy trees — because of their telltale red needles.

“We are just starting to get a new beetle outbreak,” Amy Tinderholt, recreation team leader for the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest, said Thursday.

Hoping to curb the outbreak before it leaves widespread dead and potentially dangerous trees standing in campgrounds around Newberry National Volcanic Monument, the national forest plans to thin out lodgepole stands there. The caldera is home to Paulina and East lakes.

The “Shield Insect and Disease Project” would cover 2,938 acres in the caldera about 20 miles east of La Pine, according to the national forest.

Along with mountain pine beetle, the project would target gall rust, a fungal disease found in pines. The earliest the thinning and other work would occur is next fall, said Anne Trapanese, National Environmental Policy Act planner with the Bend-Fort Rock District.

Cutting trees, mowing brush and burning scrap is planned in and around nine campgrounds, as well as along the road up Paulina Peak and the roads leading in and out of the caldera from the east and west, she said. The road coming from the west is paved while the road coming from the east is not.

Clearing brush and small trees in 250-foot buffers along the roads would provide safer evacuation routes in the event of a wildfire, according to the national forest. But the main problem is the beetle.

“We have a forest health issue that we want to do something about,” Trapanese said.

Native to forests in the Northwest, the mountain pine beetle attacks pines by swarm, said Andy Eglitis, entomologist with the Deschutes National Forest. Oozing sap is how lodgepole pines try to combat the beetle, but with 500 or more of the insects on one tree they can kill it in a couple of days. The larvae of the mountain pine beetle do the most damage by eating the cambium, the living part of a tree under the bark.

Adult beetles can fly up to 10 miles and are about the size of a match head or grain of rice, about three-eighths of an inch long. “These guys are pretty small,” he said.

Mountain pine beetle outbreaks have hit Central Oregon before, Eglitis said, notably around La Pine and Crescent in the late 1970s until the late 1980s and along the Cascade Lakes Highway in the mid-1990s to late 2000s.

There are also records of huge outbreaks in Central Oregon in the 1840s and 1910s, Eglitis said. “It’s always been here.”

An outbreak leaves large stands of dead trees, which pose a falling hazard in places people frequent, like campgrounds, and could fuel a wildfire. The project aims to prevent these dangers.

“It is really about trying to make the area safe for visitation,” Eglitis said.

The beetles often go after the largest lodgepoles, Eglitis said, as the trees become more susceptible to attack as they get older.

Deschutes National Forest officials have yet to determine the details of what size of trees to cut in the caldera. U.S. Forest Service rules prohibit the cutting of trees larger than 21 inches in diameter at breast height, the standard measure of a tree’s size, in forests on the east side of the Central Oregon Cascades.

Wilderness advocates delivered more than 30,000 petitions to Sen. Ron Wyden’s Portland office Tuesday in support of designating Crater Lake and the surrounding area as protected wilderness.

The proposed boundaries for the Crater Lake Wilderness would make the national park into a 500,000-acre corridor of protected area.

That’s 2 1/2 times the size of the current park.

Wilderness designations are used to limit human activity, and can even include bans on motorized vehicles.  

Environment Oregon state director Rikki Seguin said she wants Wyden, D-Ore., to submit a bill on Crater Lake to Congress this year.

“The only way you can designate land as wilderness is by going through Congress,” said Seguin. “And that’s going to take a champ like Sen. Ron Wyden stepping up to the plate and introducing a bill.” 

Wyden visited Crater Lake this summer as part of his seven wonders of Oregon tour.  

After the trip, he drafted a bill to boost the outdoor recreation economy in the state.  

Wyden’s office says he would consider the wilderness protection proposed in the petitions.

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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Miners are asking the federal government to intervene and prevent Oregon from shutting down certain types of mining in wild salmon rivers like the Rogue.

The Mail Tribune reports that a consortium of mining interests filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the state’s five-year ban on most suction dredging. The group says federal mining laws trump state restrictions on federal lands.

The legislature passed a bill in 2013 that placed restrictions on dredging. It was designed to end at the end of 2015, giving lawmakers time to devise permanent rules. They never did.

If a lawmaker introduces legislation that would keep dredging restrictions on the table, it may be allowed to continue without a problem.

The suction dredging ban is set to begin in January. In-stream work usually begins in mid-June.

Oct. 7

BANDON — The Oregon Coast Film Festival ended its two-day event Oct. 10, screening more than 35 short documentary films at the Sprague Community Theater in Bandon.

Oct. 7

BANDON — The Oregon Coast Film Festival ended its two-day event Oct. 10, screening more than 35 short documentary films at the Sprague Community Theater in Bandon.

THURSDAY, OCT. 22

A Wasco County, Oregon, woman has a Nov. 2 court appearance set on charges she allegedly stole four cows.

Elizabeth Ann Turner is charged with four counts of first-degree theft involving cows belonging to Aaron Turner.

The Wasco County Sheriff’s Office describes the case as a civil dispute that degenerated into a criminal allegation. Other news accounts indicated a family dispute is at the heart of the charges. The county indictment does not spell out the relationship between Elizabeth Turner and Aaron Turner.

The alleged thefts happened on or about Oct. 5, according to the indictment.

Elizabeth Turner was in the news in September after wildfires scorched pasture and rangeland in much of Eastern Oregon and livestock owners ranchers were looking for feed or grazing land. According to a Capital Press account, Turner offered temporary grazing on 1,200 acres of dry pasture for displaced livestock, saying it could hold 50 to 100 cow-calf pairs for two months.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21

ONTARIO, Ore. — An effort by conservation groups to have a large chunk of Malheur County set aside as a national monument or wilderness area has riled up ranchers and farmers in the area.

They have joined forces with a group of concerned citizens and elected officials who are fighting the Owyhee Canyonlands Conservation Proposal, which would encompass 2.5 million acres.

Malheur County Cattlemen’s Association President Chris Christensen said locking up that much area would eliminate a large amount of grazing land and devastate Oregon’s No. 1 cattle producing county.

“If this thing comes to pass, it would have a devastating effect on the ranching community and agriculture in Malheur County,” he said. “Anybody involved in agriculture in Malheur County isn’t going to be in favor of this thing.”

Christensen said a large chunk of that 2.5 million acres is grazed.

According to Sergio Arispe, a livestock and rangeland agent at Oregon State University’s Malheur County Extension office, locking up that much land would eliminate about 33 percent of the county’s total grazing land.

A monument designation “would destroy the community and the business of agriculture as it’s being done in this area right now,” Christensen said.

Oregon Natural Desert Association, which is leading the monument effort, says it would protect 2.5 million acres of wild lands and hundreds of miles of wild and scenic rivers. According to the group’s web site, the proposal would “allow working farms and ranches to continue to operate.”

But Jordan Valley rancher Bob Skinner, former president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said area residents believe the opposite would happen.

The majority of that 2.5 million acres is grazed, he said.

“There are cattle everywhere out there,” Skinner said. “If you take cattle out of (this) economy, you have decimated the economy. It would change our way of life. Not only farmers and ranchers, but everybody around here is up in arms about it.”

Malheur County Soil and Water Conservation District Manager Linda Rowe, who opposes the monument proposal, said that 2.5 million acres would equal 43 percent of the county.

If the county’s economically vital cattle industry was devastated by it, a lot of hay, corn and other grains wouldn’t be grown here, she said.

“It would impact agriculture in Malheur County as a whole,” Rowe said.

Local elected officials and members of Oregon’s congressional delegation are holding a town hall meeting on the issue from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 29 in the Adrian High School gymnasium.

ONDA and other regional and national conservation groups and businesses are gathering signatures to back their effort. According to ONDA’s web site, “a variety of legislative and administrative options (are) being considered to permanently protect this place.”

According to a news release from Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, it is anticipated the groups are planning to ask President Barack Obama to use his power under the Antiquities Act to designate the land as a national monument, wilderness area or national conservation area.

ZIGZAG, Ore. (AP) — A black bear roaming people’s yards and going through garbage cans has been trapped and euthanized.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says the bear was killed Tuesday.

KPTV-TV reports state officials took action in part because some residents had come face-to-face with the animal in the town of Zigzag, about 45 miles southeast of Portland.

Corvallis Gazette Times
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It's time to enjoy cranberries  Corvallis Gazette Times

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has tracked down an agency employee who impersonated a retired BLM heavy equipment operator online, but will not identify the person.

Greg Allum, an Eastern Oregon resident once employed by BLM, recently informed Capital Press that his name was used to post comments on an article about the arson convictions of two Oregon ranchers.

Allum denied making the comments about Dwight and Steven Hammond, a father and son who were recently sentenced to five years in prison for setting fires on BLM property near Diamond, Ore.

The comments referred to the Hammonds as “clowns” and defended the actions of BLM in pursuing criminal charges against them.

After checking the Internet Protocol address used to make the comments, Capital Press found that they were posted from a computer that belongs to the BLM.

The agency has identified the BLM employee who made the comments but cannot divulge any information about the person’s name, location, position or possible disciplinary actions, said Michael Campbell, a public information officer for BLM.

The employee’s actions violated the BLM’s “robust social media policy,” under which only authorized officials can represent the agency on social media sites, Campbell said.

If a BLM makes comments using a personal account, they must provide a disclaimer stating that their views don’t reflect the positions of the agency, he said.

When asked if the BLM employee or another agency official apologized to Allum, Campbell said the agency would have no record of any personal contact between an agency employee and the retired worker.

Greg Allum said he has no comment on the BLM’s response to inquiries from Capital Press.

ONTARIO, Ore. — A recent effort to create a forum where people can discuss the idea of eastern Oregon and Washington counties joining Idaho was welcomed by farmers in Oregon’s Malheur County.

If any county in the two states is a good fit for Idaho, it’s Malheur County, farmers and agribusiness owners in that county told Capital Press.

“I guarantee you we’d be all for it,” said Kay Riley, manager of Snake River Produce, an onion shipping-packing facility in Nyssa, Ore., a few hundred yards from Idaho. “We don’t have anything in common with the western part of Oregon.”

Farmers in this area grow the same crops, are in the same time zone and many of the Oregon farmers have Idaho cell phone numbers.

Malheur County farmers and ranchers are more conservative and identify more politically with their Idaho counterparts, said Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce, an onion shipper-packer in Nyssa.

“Everything about Malheur County is more identified with Idaho,” he said. “I wish I knew how to actually make this happen. I wouldn’t mind trying to help.”

The major crops grown in this area — onions, sugar beets, mint, seed — are grown by farmers on both sides of the border and the industries are closely linked.

An onion processing facility in Parma, Idaho, for example, uses onions from farmers in both states and sugar beets grown in Malheur County end up at a processing facility in Nampa, Idaho.

“With the kind of agricultural industry they have over there, we’d take them in a heart beat,” said Rep. Gayle Batt, R-Wilder.

If Idaho annexed Malheur County, it would make life easier for Oregon farmers who have to deal with tougher state regulations than Idaho growers do, said Paul Skeen, president of Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

“We would love to be in Idaho,” he said. “Idaho is an agriculture-friendly state and Idaho has a governor that is looking to help agriculture in any way possible.”

Oregon State University researcher Bill Buhrig, who has farmed in Malheur County all his life, said growers here have talked about joining Idaho for as long as he can remember.

While it’s a nice idea, the logistics of accomplishing that are formidable and incredibly complex, he said.

“There is absolutely no way that would ever happen, but it’s fun to talk about,” he said.

Idaho elected officials and representatives of the state’s congressional delegation said the effort has to originate on the Oregon side but they would be willing to help once it got going.

Ken Parsons, a retired farmer from La Grande, Ore., recently made news for creating a Yahoo forum where people can seriously discuss the idea of counties in eastern Oregon and Washington joining Idaho.

“I don’t have any of those answers but there are people out there with that knowledge,” Parsons said about the logistical hurdles. “I’m trying to get people sitting around this big internet table and start building a consensus on how to do it.”