Oregon’s Josephine County will not enforce its prohibition against genetically engineered crops while a farmer lawsuit against the ordinance is underway.

The county counsel, Wally Hicks, has notified the attorney for sugar beet growers Robert and Shelley Ann White that enforcement will be stayed as they seek to overturn the ban, which was passed by voters last year.

The couple contends that Oregon lawmakers pre-empted most local governments from regulating genetically modified organisms as part of a bill passed in 2013 and have requested a permanent injunction against Josephine County’s ban.

John DiLorenzo, attorney for the growers, said he agreed not to seek a temporary restraining order against the ordinance as long as the county consented to forgo enforcement.

“Both sides have to spend less time and less expense,” he said.

The situation would likely change if Josephine County does take action against biotech farmers before the lawsuit is resolved, he said.

“I could fire up again, but I take them at their word,” DiLorenzo said.

Biotech farmers were also required to report their crops, location and “phase-out” plans to the county sheriff, according to the notice. That reporting requirement is also stayed under the recent agreement.

In their lawsuit, the Whites claim they were planning to cultivate sugar beets in a leased field but were prevented from doing so when the county announced the GMO ban would go into effect on Sept. 4.

Josephine County’s decision, however, has not convinced the couple to plant transgenic sugar beets because they don’t want to place themselves “in harm’s way,” DiLorenzo said.

Farmers who do have genetically engineered crops, however, don’t have to worry about enforcement actions, he said.

Capital Press was unable to reach Wally Hicks of Josephine County for comment as of press time.

Mary Middleton, who petitioned for the GMO ban, said the county is likely being cautious while the case is being litigated.

“It’s unfortunate that’s the route, because the will of the people is that it would be enforced,” she said.

Voters in Oregon’s Jackson County also passed a prohibition against GMOs, but that ordinance is not subject to the state seed pre-emption bill.

The legislature exempted Jackson County from its pre-emption statute because the ordinance was already on the ballot when the state law was passed.

The Jackson County ordinance is also being challenged in federal court by several farmers.

Earlier this year, a federal judge found that the GMO ban is not precluded by Oregon’s “right to farm” law, which disallows ordinances and lawsuits against common farming practices.

However, the farmers in that case are still seeking $4.2 million in compensation from the county, as they’d have to remove their biotech alfalfa crops under the ordinance.

Enforcement of the Jackson County GMO has also been stayed until the lawsuit is closed.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 12

PORTLAND — Valerie Johnson acknowledges it’s been a wild ride. Just 22 months after hearing about cross-laminated timber panels, her D.R. Johnson mill in Southern Oregon is making them, has partnered with state money and university researchers, bought new equipment and appears poised for a breakout that many think could revitalize Oregon’s timber industry.

On Sept. 10 in Portland, Gov. Kate Brown announced D.R. Johnson is 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.

Brown made the announcement at Best Fest, an annual conference that features clean-tech innovation. The conference organizer, Oregon BEST, is a quasi-public state agency that provides development grants and links entrepreneurs with a network of university researchers.

Oregon BEST provided $150,000 for CLT research at Oregon State University and will lend D.R. Johnson $100,000 for a new production line. The governor said the state is sponsoring a CLT design competition, with $200,000 in funding and services going to the winner.

Speaking from a podium made from cross-laminated timbers, Brown said she hopes the technology will “fuel the economic engine in rural Oregon.” Cross laminated panels are strong, cost competitive, much quicker than steel and concrete to install, aesthetically pleasing and made from a renewable resource, the governor said.

“We are perfectly suited for this work,” Brown said. “We grow the most desirable species. If this product is going to hit the market, it made more sense for it to emerge from our state than any other.”

Ethan Martin, an engineer with the industry group WoodWorks, said cross laminated timbers are “like Glulam (beams) and plywood got together and had a baby.”

The process can produce wooden panels 8- to 10-feet wide, up to 20 inches thick and 64 feet long, he said. Panels are formed by bonding layers of dimensional lumber such as two-by-fours.

They can be hauled to a construction site and quickly installed in a manner Martin and others jokingly compare to assembling products from Ikea, or like giant Legos.

The product’s environmental impact is much less than other construction methods, Martin said.

“Every other material exudes carbon, except wood,” he said. “Wood is the only product that sequesters carbon.”

CLT construction has been used for high-rise buildings in Europe and Canada, but is limited in the U.S. to six stories, Martin said. The limitations come from building laws adopted in 1899 and 1910 in response to tragic tenement fires.

Martin said that’s changing, and the technology is gaining acceptance. A 19-story wooden building is being designed in Portland, he said. A four-story commercial building, Albina Yard, is under construction in Portland and is the first project built with domestically produced CLT panels.

Valerie Johnson, who became co-owner of the family company after her father died, said the rapid CLT development has the business in a “euphoric” state.

D.R. Johnson, based in Riddle, Ore., south of Roseburg, produces Glulam beams, but had no experience with CLT panels. At this point, the company is producing panels that are 24 feet long, but plans to make longer ones as new equipment comes into play.

Johnson said of the company’s experienced Glulam employees have been reassigned to produce the panels, and people were hired to take the vacated spots. All told, the company has added five jobs so far due to CLT production.

Several project developers are showing strong interest in cross-laminated timbers, however, and the company may have to add a second shift to fill orders, Johnson said.

Bandon's football team plays its annual showcase game Saturday afternoon when the Tigers host Pemberton in the Cranberry Bowl. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m.

Bandon's football team plays its annual showcase game Saturday afternoon when the Tigers host Pemberton in the Cranberry Bowl. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m.

Forecasters say they are now confident that El Nino’s southern storms will boost rainfall this winter as far north as Sacramento in California, but the Pacific Northwest will likely be drier than normal.

Federal Climate Prediction Center officials said Sept. 10 there’s a 95 percent chance that strong El Nino conditions will persist through the winter before gradually weakening next spring.

During the winter, odds favor increased chances for above-normal precipitation across the southern part of the United States and up the East Coast, officials said.

But the inland Pacific Northwest should anticipate below-normal rainfall, while the Oregon and Washington coasts and much of Northern California have equal chances of above- or below-average precipitation, according to the CPC’s three-month winter outlook.

Temperatures throughout the West are expected to be higher than normal this winter, complicating chances for an abundant snowpack, according to the outlook.

“One thing to caution a little bit is that these are probabilistic forecasts,” Mike Halpert, the center’s deputy director, told reporters in a conference call. “We could be surprised.… There have been a couple of big El Ninos when I don’t think it was really dry anywhere across the country. Everywhere was above normal.

“But the most likely case (in the Northwest) is drier than average conditions,” he said.

El Nino is a warming of the ocean at the equator that interacts with the atmosphere, changing the jet stream that drives the winter storm track. There have been six previous El Nino periods since 1950, and this one has the potential to rate near the top in terms of strength.

Some scientists have characterized this El Nino as a “monster” or “Godzilla” storm track, predicting that it could produce the kind of wet winter that California saw in 1982-83 and 1997-98, when nearly double the state’s average precipitation fell.

However, Halpert said such descriptions are “not helpful” as state and federal officials have worked to tamp down expectations that this winter could end the drought. State Climatologist Michael Anderson reiterated Sept. 10 that past El Nino events have produced mixed results in Northern California, where key reservoirs are situated.

“The fact is that this coming winter could extend our record-dry weather or bring major storms, heavy precipitation and coastal storm surges or a combination of all,” Anderson said in a statement. “We must prepare by conserving water in our daily lives, as well as protecting property against the potential of heavy storms and local flooding.”

Though growers have held out hope that a wet winter will ease drought conditions, it would take as much as three times the average annual precipitation over the next year to make up the cumulative deficit of 71.5 inches of rainfall in the central Sierra Nevada since 2011, officials have said.

Still, a wet winter would be a big reprieve in the San Joaquin Valley, where growers denied their normal surface-water allocations have depleted aquifers to the point that the ground is sinking in many areas.

“As we enter a new water year on Oct. 1, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what that water year will bring,” said Kevin Werner, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s director of western regional climate services. “It’s entirely possible we could see continued drought across many areas of the West.”

THURSDAY, SEPT. 10

BANDON — Shake a leg at the Cranberry Hop! The 69th annual Cranberry Festival in Bandon, Oregon, is Sept. 11-13.

BANDON — Shake a leg at the Cranberry Hop! The 69th annual Cranberry Festival in Bandon, Oregon, is Sept. 11-13.

Astoria at North Bend

Astoria at North Bend

The first Eight Man Football Classic last fall was a success, with two games highlighted by a win for Powers.

The first Eight Man Football Classic last fall was a success, with two games highlighted by a win for Powers.

The September 1966 Cranberry Bowl football game vs. Siuslaw.

The September 1966 Cranberry Bowl football game vs. Siuslaw. 

Unusually warm weather made for an early start to the wine grape harvest in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, and continued cool nights should assure quality is top notch, a research climatologist said.

Gregory Jones, a professor at Southern Oregon University who tracks the industry and specializes in how climate variability affects vine growth and wine production, said many growers are reporting the earliest harvest since 1992, or the earliest harvest ever at their vineyards.

Early ripening and sparkling wine varieties were the first picked, Jones said in an email newsletter he circulates to about 3,000 subscribers in the West.

“All other varieties are lining up for harvest but the recent shift to cool nights will allow for some timely queuing for flavors to develop,” Jones said in his Sept. 5 newsletter.

The unusually hot summer, of course, is the reason for an early harvest.

Average temperatures for August were one to four degrees above normal in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho, Jones reported.

The increase in degree-day accumulation — the combination of heat and time required to complete a plant’s growth — was even more striking, especially in Oregon and Washington, Jones said.

Degree-day accumulation in both states as of Sept. 1 was 10 to 15 percent above 2014, another hot summer, and 30 to 35 percent higher than 1981 to 2010 averages, he said.

The arrival of cooler nights, if the pattern holds, can put a good finish on what appears to be another good grape crop.

“There are two things that help plants to start ripening, especially wine grapes,” Jones said. “Shorter days, and cool nights. That is an environmental cue to tell the plant, ‘We have to ripen this fall.’ ”

The same thing happens with tomatoes, which take on a deep red color as summer ebbs, he said.

“Those cooler nights tell them to do this soon or you’re not going to ripen,” Jones said.

Jones said vineyard managers face day to day harvest decisions in such conditions. “How long do they leave fruit out there to get the different flavors they want?” he said.

Jones agreed Oregon growers are optimistic at harvest time no matter the conditions.

“It’s kind of like in Bordeau, in France,” he said with a laugh. “It’s always the vintage of the century.”

LANGLOIS — A month-long silent auction fundraiser has begun at the Langlois Public Library. The auction will continue through Saturday, Sept. 12, until the annual Blueberry Bash. The Bash will start at 6 p.m. and the auction will end at…

LANGLOIS — A month-long silent auction fundraiser has begun at the Langlois Public Library. The auction will continue through Saturday, Sept. 12, until the annual Blueberry Bash. The Bash will…

Quilts on display during festival

Quilts on display during festival