Feed aggregator

VFW craft bazaar, bake sale and breakfast

The annual VFW Ladies Auxiliary Craft Bazaar and Bake Sale will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept. 12, at the VFW Hall on Bates Road off Highway 42S.

Grand Marshal has seen Bandon change and grow

BANDON — Port of Bandon General Manager Gina Dearth is this year's Cranberry Festival Parade Grand Marshal, an honor she humbly accepted.

Early start for Oregon cranberry harvest

BANDON — At this rate, the Thanksgiving turkey will show up on Halloween.

Wild Rivers Coast Alliance is 2015 festival sponsor

BANDON — A crowd gathered at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in April, not to play golf, but to celebrate a new addition to the resort campus: the Wild Rivers Center. An overcast spring sky didn't da…

VFW craft bazaar, bake sale and breakfast

The annual VFW Ladies Auxiliary Craft Bazaar and Bake Sale will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept. 12, at the VFW Hall on Bates Road off Highway 42S.

Cranberry Festival street closures

The following streets will be closed during the 2015 Cranberry Festival:

Disc golf tourney is Saturday

The Bandon Parks and Recreation Commission will hold a Cranberry Festival Disc Golf Tournament beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, at Bandon City Park.

Pacific View sponsors Past Court Scholarship

BANDON — The Cranberry Room at Pacific View Assisted Living and Memory Care recently served as the ideal back drop for a photo shoot featuring three past Cranberry Court members who are all cu…

Cranberry production on Oregon's South Coast

Native Americans on Oregon's northern coast gathered wild cranberries. But it wasn't until 1885 that Massachusetts native Charles McFarlin realized that cranberries would thrive on Oregon's sa…

Blessing the harvest is age-old tradition

The Blessing of the Harvest will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 11.

Pickers, scoops and beaters: A history of bringin' in the harvest

BANDON — Generations of Oregon coast cranberry farmers have applied muscle and ingenuity to growing and harvesting their crops. In fact, the mechanical picker, forerunner of the present day we…

Visit a local working cranberry farm

BANDON — Visit a working cranberry farm Cranberry Festival weekend in Bandon. Bowman Bogs will be open to the public from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 11, 12 and 13. Tour the bogs and sample products …

A 1950s theme for the parade

Parade attendees and entrants are sure to have a be-boppin' time with this year's Cranberry Festival Theme, “Cranberry Hop.”

Grand Marshal has seen Bandon change and grow

BANDON — Port of Bandon General Manager Gina Dearth is this year's Cranberry Festival Parade Grand Marshal, an honor she humbly accepted.

Tigers to host Pemberton again at Bowl

The Bandon Tigers will again host the Pemberton Grizzlies, a community team from British Columbia, Canada, for the 2015 Cranberry Bowl. The game begins at 4 p.m. at Tiger Field on 11th Street SW.

Quilts on display during festival

The 15th annual “Quilts by the Sea” quilt show will be presented during the Bandon Cranberry Festival Sept. 11, 12 and 13. The show will be held at the Odd Fellows Hall on Highway 42S and Ohio…

All makes and models at Cranberry Cruise-In

The second annual Cranberry Cruise-In will be held in Old Town on Saturday, Sept. 12.

Dairy expansion proposals stir controversy

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon - Wed, 09/02/2015 - 13:58

SALEM — Expansion plans at several Oregon dairies have caused a backlash among vegans and animal rights activists, but farm regulators lack the authority to consider many of their objections.

Likewise, the Oregon Department of Agriculture can’t do much about dairy industry concerns that publicly disclosed regulatory filings will expose farms to trespassing and vandalism.

As mandated by the federal Clean Water Act, the agency issued a public notice in June that five dairies are seeking to change their animal waste management plans.

Wym Matthews, manager of ODA’s Confined Animal Feeding Operation program, said such notices are fairly routine, but this one was somewhat unusual because four of the five dairies want to expand their herds.

After an article in Salem’s Statesman Journal described these plans, the agency received enough requests for a public hearing that one was scheduled for Sept. 2.

Previously, such hearing requests were rare, Matthews said. “I think the interest is new.”

Several of the people requesting a hearing identified themselves as vegan, he said.

The ODA can only consider comments that relate directly to whether the waste management changes conform with the Clean Water Act, not overall opposition to animal agriculture or CAFOs as being abusive, he said.

“The permit doesn’t regulate animal cruelty,” Matthews said.

The ODA also can’t consider comments that endorse particular management systems, such as organic or pasture-raised, he said.

Many of the comments made during the Sept. 2 hearing appeared to fall outside of the ODA’s purview, as they opposed CAFO expansion generally without identifying specific problems with the proposed waste management plans.

Some commenters mentioned antibiotics, which the agency does not regulate as a pollutant.

“They end up in the meat, in the manure and in the waterways,” said Niko Morozov, a college student.

Others objected to the amount of water used to produce milk, which also isn’t regulated under the Clean Water Act.

Nick Shipley, another college student, claimed dairy water use is excessive.

“Is milk really worth it?” he said.

The issue of animal welfare was also brought up.

“In an ideal world, we wouldn’t treat animals the way we do and have massive mega-farms,” said Laurel Hines. “My opposition is to the large farms, the farms that aren’t organic.”

Gavin Curtis expressed dismay with the practice of culling young calves for “bob veal.”

“These two- to three-day-old babies are torn from their mothers and then slaughtered,” he said.

During a July meeting of an advisory group for the CAFO program, some livestock industry representatives expressed worries that information contained in the waste management plans, such as the farm’s location and layout, will expose dairies to retaliation from activists.

Dairy and agriculture representatives later said a Statesman Journal article mischaracterized their comments as trying to hide information from the public.

Tami Kerr, executive director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, said they were simply worried about private information being misused and not about the contents of the waste management plans becoming public.

“We were asking questions and expressing concern for our producers,” Kerr said. “We’re not trying to hide anything. I’m a big fan of transparency.”

While ODA can redact confidential business information — such as financial data or experimental water treatment systems with patents pending — the bulk of these plans must be publicly disclosed under the Clean Water Act, Matthews said.

“We’re required to by law,” he said.

Pages