PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An icy, snowy weekend is forecast for much of Oregon.

The National Weather Service says a storm is expected to hit the Eugene-Springfield area Saturday morning, with a mix of snow and freezing rain hitting an area that is recovering from its worst ice storm in decades.

Snow and sleet are also in the forecast for northwest Oregon, possibly coating streets and sidewalks with a half-inch of ice. Those in the Columbia River Gorge could see 6 to 12 inches of snow.

In Eastern Oregon, the wind-chill factor may be 20-30 degrees below zero in some areas on Friday, with warmer temperatures on Saturday and Sunday bringing snow, sleet and ice.

A National Weather Service advisory for Central Oregon says Bend, Prineville and Redmond could get 2 to 4 inches of snow Saturday afternoon and evening.

ALOHA, Ore. (AP) — Firefighters rescued a Clydesdale that got stuck in a large mud pit in Aloha.

Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue says the 1,800-pound horse named Windsor was found on his side Wednesday, trapped in a couple feet of mud. Windsor was hypothermic due to the sub-freezing temperature, unable to gather the strength needed to get out.

Firefighters pulled Windsor from the pit using a system of pulleys and ropes. Heating equipment was brought in to help warm the horse while two veterinarians tended to his medical needs.

After about 45 minutes, Windsor’s temperature returned to near normal. With some assistance, he was able to get back on his feet. Firefighters say he’s doing well and should fully recover.

Windsor is part of a Clydesdale team that pulls the Forest Grove Fire Department’s old steam engine in the city’s annual parade.

TOLEDO, Ore. (AP) — A landslide has closed U.S. 20 just west of Toledo, Oregon.

The state Department of Transportation says both lanes were blocked Thursday morning and the highway will be closed much of the day. A local detour is in place.

ODOT says alternative routes include Highway 34 south of U.S. 20 or Highway 18 to the north.

In Oregon, a $1.8 billion budget gap will force legislators to look for more revenue — taxes and fees — or cut services. The gap, caused by runaway state employee health care and retirement costs, will force lawmakers to make hard choices as the administration of Gov. Kate Brown settles in for the next two years.

In Idaho and Washington, water issues have floated to the top of the legislative agendas. In Idaho, replenishing the Snake River aquifer that feeds farms and ranches in the eastern part of the state and protecting water rights will take center stage.

In Washington, a different water issue has rural landowners wondering whether they can afford to drill wells as legislators seek a way to accommodate a recent court ruling. The ruling requires landowners to prove new wells won’t hurt water sources needed to maintain fish populations. At the same time, Gov. Jay Inslee will continue to his push for a controversial carbon tax as a way to bolster the state budget.

Though water is always an issue to California, the most productive agricultural state in the nation, regulations on overtime for farmworkers and a spate of other issues that impact farmers will continue to take center stage in the state Capitol.

Here is a state-by-state look at the upcoming legislative sessions:

By Mateusz Perkowski

Capital Press

SALEM — With Oregon legislators facing a major gap between the state government’s expected revenue and expenses, debates over spending reductions and tax increases are expected to dominate this year’s legislative session.

Rising costs for state employee pension and healthcare costs are expected to leave the state with a $1.8 billion deficit during the upcoming fiscal biennium, which spans two years beginning July 1. The current biennium’s budget is $70.9 billion.

For organizations representing Oregon agriculture, that means the legislative session will be spent defending government services that are valuable to farmers, experts say.

“People really feel those impacts on the ground,” said Katie Fast, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an agribusiness group.

For example, the governor’s recommended budget would create a “hole” of $9.4 million for Oregon State University’s agricultural research and extension services, likely leading to reduced service levels, she said.

Such a dramatic reduction would undermine long-term studies that boost farmers’ productivity and efficiency, said Fast. “You don’t do research for only two years.”

Similarly, the Oregon Department of Agriculture would terminate its financial contribution to USDA’s predator control program and its biocontrol program for weeds.

The Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program, which is aimed at creating easements to protect working farms and ranches from development while easing tax burdens, isn’t funded under the governor’s budget proposal, said Mary Anne Nash, the Oregon Farm Bureau’s public policy counsel.

It’s going to be tough to win funding for a new program when existing core agricultural programs are in jeopardy, she said.

On the policy front, Oregon farmers are still dealing with the consequences of past labor legislation that requires paid sick leave for workers and increased the minimum wage at varying rates based on region, said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director at the Oregon Farm Bureau.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries has interpreted those bills during the rule-making process in ways that are unclear and burdensome for farmers, so the Farm Bureau will be seeking legislative clarifications and fixes, she said.

“We’re entering this year with a lot of questions,” said Dresler.

Environmental groups are also expected to raise perennial legislative questions about regulating genetically modified crops, pesticide usage, livestock antibiotics as well as air and water quality, experts say. Exactly what bills related to these topics will be put forth remains to be seen.

With the USDA proposing to deregulate genetically engineered creeping bentgrass, which escaped field trials and has spread in Eastern Oregon, it’s possible lawmakers will have a greater appetite to regulate such crops, said Ivan Maluski, policy director for Friends of Family Farmers, a nonprofit critical of biotechnology rules.

“It’s a pretty clear example of failure of federal oversight,” he said.

Friends of Family Farmers plans to advocate a tax credit that would benefit landowners who lease property to beginning growers, Maluski said.

With the tough budget outlook, the group hopes to pay for the tax credit by eliminating a subsidy for anaerobic digesters it believes benefits only large dairies, he said.

“Access to land for beginning farmers has been a huge issue in Oregon for quite some time,” said Maluski.

By Sean Ellis

Capital Press

BOISE — Ensuring the state continues a major aquifer recharge effort is expected to be one of the main agriculture-related issues during the 2017 Idaho Legislature, which convenes Jan. 9.

In fact, several of the big issues expected to arise during the 2017 legislative session have to do with water.

Sen. Jim Patrick, a Republican farmer from Twin Falls, said ensuring the state continues its efforts to recharge 250,000 acre-feet of water into the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer annually will be a priority in 2017.

That recharge effort, which began in 2016, is a major part of a landmark 2015 settlement agreement between ground water pumpers and surface water users along the ESPA that averted the possible curtailment of water to hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated farmland.

“That’s the No. 1 issue for agriculture and for the state because if we don’t get our water, we don’t pay taxes,” Patrick said.

“We will have to continue to fund that,” said Sen. Bert Brackett, a Republican rancher from Rogerson. “The state is committed to doing recharge.”

Lawmakers will also keep an eye on the formation of a groundwater management area for the Eastern Snake Plain established in November by Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Gary Spackman.

An advisory committee created by IDWR will draft a plan that governs the management area.

“We’re waiting to see how that shakes out,” said Republican Sen. Steven Bair, a retired farmer from Blackfoot.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation governmental affairs officials said they will back a bill that requires the legislature to take affirmative action on any minimum stream flows set by the Idaho Water Resource Board.

The water board holds 291 minimum stream flow water rights covering 994 miles of streams, according to its website. If a stream falls below that minimum flow level, other water rights could by curtailed.

Minimum stream flows set by the board go before the Legislature but they go into effect even if the body doesn’t take affirmative action on them.

The Farm Bureau-backed bill would require the legislature to vote “yes or “no” on them.

Discussions about the possibility of the state helping to fund University of Idaho’s proposed $45 million livestock research center will also likely take place during the session, according to several legislators.

Lawmakers are also expected to discuss ways to beef up the state’s efforts to prevent aquatic invasive species from invading the state’s waterways and continue to fund the state’s wolf control efforts.

Idaho’s main farm groups will also seek to help push through a proposed Idaho Department of Environmental Quality rule that would amend the state’s field burning program.

Several of the state’s environmental groups say they will oppose the rule change, which the department says is necessary to avoid a large reduction in the number of allowable burn days for farmers.

A bill that creates a dyed diesel enforcement program in Idaho will be introduced this year, Brackett said.

By Don Jenkins

Capital Press

OLYMPIA — The big water issue facing the Washington Legislature originated from west of the Cascades for a change.

Whatcom County annually receives more than triple the rainfall of Yakima County. Yet the state Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in October that new domestic wells there could suck away water needed for fish.

The Whatcom County vs. Hirst decision doesn’t affect existing water rights, but it casts doubt on whether new wells for homes can be drilled anywhere in the state.

Agricultural groups, including the Washington Farm Bureau, are alarmed. The decision could stop farm families from building and cripple rural communities.

The state Department of Ecology reports being deluged with phone calls from rural landowners worried about whether they can build. The agency can’t say “yes” or “no.”

At the very least, the decision — if left alone — promises to make wells more expensive. Homebuilders would have to prove a new well won’t draw down rivers and streams. Estimates to do that range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.

“Every place we go, somebody asks us how we’re going to fix this,” said Moses Lake Republican Judy Warnick, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture, Water and Economic Development Committee.

Not everyone agrees the Hirst decision needs to be fixed.

The environmental group Futurewise, a plaintiff in the suit, said the decision means counties must balance growth with protecting fish.

House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, said he wants to “roll (the decision) back or make it work.”

“I’m hoping any legislation will clarify that people have access to their property to build a home,” he said.

The 105-day session begins Jan. 9. Republicans retained their slight majority in the Senate, while Democrats did the same in the House. The main job will be to adopt a two-year budget to take effect July 1. Lawmakers are under a court order from the state Supreme Court to increase education spending.

Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, has proposed a $46.8 billion operating budget — 21 percent more than the spending plan lawmakers passed in 2015. Inslee says the state can’t constitutionally or morally meet its obligations without raising taxes. He has proposed $4.39 billion in new revenues. He has reintroduced a tax on carbon emissions, a policy that lawmakers and voters have rejected in the past.

Senate and House agricultural committees may consider raising the beef checkoff to $2.50 from $1.50. Increasing the per head tax on cattle transactions would double funding for the Washington Beef Commission to $2 million a year.

The Washington Cattlemen’s Association and Washington Cattle Feeders Association support the increase. The Cattle Producers of Washington lobbied hard against it last year and remain opposed.

Blake said he hopes the Legislature will fund a program to use dogs to sniff for wolf scat in the South Cascades.

Under current state policy, wolves won’t be considered recovered until at least four breeding pairs are established in the region. So far, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has not found a breeding pair, let alone a pack.

Blake said he believes wolves are there, but that they are hard to find in the wilderness. He said if dogs can point the way, WDFW may be able to find breeding pairs. “I’m pretty confident that this may move us forward in the South Cascades,” he said.

By Tim Hearden

Capital Press

SACRAMENTO — Farm groups in California expect to spend the next legislative session fending off more regulations while carving out benefits for their industries.

Advocates for agriculture expect “an active year” in the Legislature as Gov. Jerry Brown works to cement his legacy in his final two years in office, said Kelly Covello, president of the Almond Alliance of California.

The main goal for the organization is to try to minimize the effort to increase the regulatory burden on producers, who are already struggling to keep up with paperwork and other requirements, said Joel Nelsen, president of California Citrus Mutual.

“We’re going to see an effort by certain segments of society to push a very left-oriented agenda, and they see the last two years of the Brown administration as their opportunity to do that,” Nelsen said. “It’s going to be up to the governor to take a moderate stand on this stuff. It’s really easy to spend somebody else’s money, and that’s what I see them doing.”

While new members were sworn in Dec. 5, the Legislature’s business started in earnest this week. Only a handful of bills have so far been filed; groups will have a better idea of what the priority legislation will be as the mid-February deadline for filing bills draws near, said Dave Kranz, a California Farm Bureau Federation spokesman.

One task for farm groups will be to make previously enacted legislation a little more palatable to growers. For instance, the ag overtime law passed last year eliminated an exemption on overtime after 8 hours in a day for managers and family members, which exists in every other industry, Covello said in an email.

Additionally, industry leaders will need to address a section of the statute that eliminated exemptions for ag irrigators and truck drivers, she said.

Under the legislation by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, farmworkers will be paid for overtime after eight hours in a day and 40 hours in a week rather than the 10-hour day and 60-hour week for agriculture that Brown originally approved during his first stint as governor in 1976. The new rules will take effect in 2022 for most farms and 2025 for operations with 25 or fewer employees.

For its part, Citrus Mutual will try anew to gain state funding to combat the Asian citrus psyllid and huanglongbing, the deadly tree disease it can potentially carry.

The industry has devoted $15 million toward research and education and received $11 million from the federal government, but two previous attempts to get funding for the psyllid and HLB included in the state budget failed, Nelsen said.

“We’re still in a position that we do not have HLB in our commercial areas,” he said.

Among other initiatives that could affect agriculture:

• Delegates to the state Farm Bureau’s meeting in December agreed to oppose any move by a newly created “groundwater sustainability agency” to regulate land use. Those decisions should be left up to cities and counties, the delegates decided.

• The delegates also propose that the statewide minimum wage be based on living cost in the lowest-cost areas in the state, while allowing localities to set higher minimum wages as they see fit. Legislation passed in 2016 will gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.

• The Almond Alliance will fight for funding in budget bills, trailer bills and grant applications for the planned Sites and Temperance Flat reservoirs, Covello said. The two projects will be considered this year for Proposition 1 water bond funds.

The Farm Bureau’s Kranz praised the appointment of Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, a former farmworkers’ lawyer and state secretary of business, consumer services and housing, to chair the lower chamber’s agriculture committee.

“(W)e look forward to working with her on issues affecting rural California,” Kranz said in an email.

Questions about the legality of a Port of Portland subsidy for ocean carriers have been kicked to the Oregon Supreme Court by a federal appeals court.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the financial system used to manage the subsidy program isn’t clearly legal under current Oregon case law.

“We are hesitant to expand Oregon law in a manner that may be contrary to Oregon’s wishes and in an important subject matter in Oregon’s history,” the ruling said.

At issue is a Port of Portland program that paid ocean carriers to stop at its beleaguered Terminal 6 container terminal, offsetting the carriers’ expense to call on the facility.

The port created the subsidy because of alleged work slowdowns by the longshoremen’s union due to a labor dispute that discouraged ocean carriers from calling on Terminal 6.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union filed a lawsuit challenging the subsidy program for allegedly using taxpayer dollars for the benefit of private organizations, thereby violating Oregon’s constitution.

Northwest agricultural exporters depended on the Portland container facility to ship crops to Asia, but ocean carriers stopped calling on Terminal 6 in 2015 due to low productivity — despite the subsidies.

Local agricultural exporters are now saddled with greater transportation costs, as they must truck goods to Seattle-area ports, but the Port of Portland hopes to eventually restart Terminal 6.

The dispute over the subsidy is part of a broader legal war between the port, the longshoremen’s union and terminal operator ICTSI that’s seen as hindering the resumption of container service.

The Port of Portland argues the subsidy program is legal because the money is drawn from rent payments by ICTSI, not tax dollars.

The ILWU counters that the subsidy program is impermissible because the funds were commingled with tax money in a single bank account.

“The Port has demonstrated that, as a factual matter, its accounting and financial management systems adequately tracked, managed, and segregated the tax and non-tax revenues,” the 9th Circuit said.

Even so, Oregon legal precedents are silent on whether such accounting methods are allowable, the 9th Circuit said.

If the Oregon Supreme Court declines to resolve the matter, the 9th Circuit is prepared to answer the question “according to our best understanding of Oregon law,” the ruling said.

Wildlife investigators decline to provide new information on the death of OR-28, a federally protected wolf found dead Oct. 6, 2016 near Summer Lake, Ore., in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible. The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group involved in wolf management issues, said it would add $10,000 to the reward fund.

The wolf’s carcass was examined at USFWS’s National Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore., but the agency has not released the results of the necropsy.

“The investigation is ongoing and at this time I cannot comment further than that,” Special Agent Gary Young said in a Dec. 23 email to the Capital Press.

OR-28 was a 3-year old female that was collared in June 2014 and dispersed from Northeast Oregon’s Mount Emily pack in November 2015. By the end of that month her tracking collar showed she had covered more than 450 miles and was in the Silver Lake area in South Central Oregon. By January 2016 it was evident she had paired up with a OR-3, a male wolf in that area. They produced at least one pup.

Killing a gray wolf is illegal under the federal Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves are listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of Oregon.

Anyone with information about this case should call Fish and Wildlife, 503-682-6131, or the Oregon State Police Tip Line, 800-452-7888. Callers may remain anonymous.

Oregon’s statewide snowpack is 22 percent above average in early 2017, which is good news but not enough to inspire confidence in the 2017 irrigation season.

Before irrigators get too confident, it should be noted that snowpacks were even higher at this point last year, said Scott Oviatt, snow survey supervisor for Oregon at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

By April, though, the advantage of that early accumulation was wiped away by high temperatures and record snowmelt, Oviatt said.

“At this point, it’s wait and see,” he said. “Things can change on a moment’s whim in spring.”

The above-average snowpack also reflects conditions in early winter — unless the snow keeps accumulating, Oregon will fall behind by spring, Oviatt said.

“You really need to have storms coming in periodically, if not daily then two to three times a week,” he said.

In early January, snowpack levels across Oregon ranged from a high of 39 percent above average in the Hood, Sandy and Lower Deschutes basins to a low of 9 percent below average in the Klamath basin, according to NRCS data.

The danger of snowpacks melting quickly in spring is that in-stream flows won’t be sufficient to meet the needs of irrigators during summer, said Oviatt.

A sudden rush of melting water can also overwhelm the control structures at irrigation reservoirs, forcing managers to release water that may not later be replenished, he said.

While the weather and temperature forecast for the upcoming months is a wild card, current conditions are certainly optimistic compared to early 2015, when there was no snow on the ground, he said.

A five-year study of cattle grazing on federal rangeland showed they spend only 1 percent to 2.5 percent of their time in streams or in riparian buffer areas, a finding that may prove important as debate continues over the impact of cattle on public land.

Researchers at Oregon State University outfitted cows from three ranches with homemade GPS tracking collars and mapped their positions during spring to fall grazing seasons over five years. The collars reported the cows’ positions about every five minutes and compiled more than 3.7 million data points over the course of the study. The technology was able to pinpoint when the collared cows were within 30 meters of streams.

The study took place on federal grazing allotments in the Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national forests. The findings are potentially significant because critics of public land grazing practices have long contended cattle trample and erode streambanks and pollute water.

But John Williams, an OSU Extension rangeland expert in Wallowa County, said cows enter riparian areas for two reasons: “One is to drink, the other is to cross,” he said.

The cows typically did not rest or graze near streams. Instead, they spent most of their time grazing on higher ground or resting in dry areas away from streams, according to Williams.

Not surprisingly, the location of good forage was the primary factor in their movement. Water sources, fences, and previous logging or fires also influenced cattle movement, as did topography and the herd’s point of entry at the beginning of the season. Cows used 10 to 25 percent of the stream area in each grazing allotment.

Williams said the findings could be important to livestock management. The cattle impact on riparian areas “isn’t for very long, and it isn’t for all of the stream,” he said. “What might we look at in management options that let us be more efficient?”

Cows were more likely to enter stream areas during the heat of summer, but in the cool spring showed little interest in riparian areas, Williams said. That suggests adjusting management practices across the seasons may be appropriate.

“If talking about riparian pasture grazing in April, maybe it isn’t a big issue,” he said. “But in August, maybe you take a look at it in a different light.”

Williams said he’s shared the study findings with the U.S. Forest Service, which manages grazing allotments in the national forests.

“I believe it’s real straight forward in terms of, here’s where cows go,” he said.

The study had some quirks. Researchers selected cows at random from among the 300 to 400 in each of the three herds, and kept some of them collared for several years. About a third of the collared cows were new each year as older participants were sold or disappeared, or collars wore out.

Williams said funding for the research was tight, and the team chose to make their own GPS collars to save money. They bought plastic boxes to hold the electronics, made leather collars to fit around the cows, bought motherboards and “soldered, taped and glued” the devices for about $450 apiece in material. Williams said he was told pre-assembled GPS units would have cost $2,000 to $3,000 each.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An early 2017 storm dumped snow in southern and central Oregon, and more is expected.

The Mail Tribune reports up to 3 additional inches could fall Wednesday in Medford, Ashland and Grants Pass, and up to 18 more inches could fall higher up along the Siskiyou Pass and around Crater Lake.

Southbound traffic on Interstate 5 over the Siskiyou Summit remained closed early Wednesday. The state Department of Transportation says the problem continues to be trucks on the steep Anderson Grade between Klamath River and Yreka. It’s expected to reopen before noon.

Along with school closures, all state offices are closed in Jackson and Josephine counties.

School and state agencies are also closed throughout central and south-central Oregon.

KTVZ reports that a National Weather Service spotter northwest of Terrebonne reported a foot of new snow overnight and three-foot snow drifts early Wednesday. A weather spotter southeast of Bend reported 8 new inches and also had three-foot snow drifts as snow continued to fall.

President Obama has turned two vast sections of Nevada and Utah into national monuments. The Bears Ears monument in Utah covers 1.35 million acres; Nevada’s Gold Butte monument is closer to 300,000 acres.

A monument under consideration for southeastern Oregon would be larger than both those monuments combined. But there’s no word on whether such a designation is coming for the Owyhee canyons of southeastern Oregon.   

Conservation groups have been pushing for creation of an Owyhee national monument, but ranchers and local leaders generally oppose that. 

Monument designations change what can be done on the land, often putting tight restrictions on mining and possibly ranching. Monuments come from executive orders outside the public process for most land-use regulations.

Malheur County rancher Elias Elguren opposes the proposed 2.5 million acre monument in his backyard.

Elguren said he has no idea if he has anything to worry about.  

“I just think there’s such a lack of openness to the process that who could really tell,” said Elguren. “President Obama has until his last day of office to sign one of these national monuments into existence. So, we really don’t know, either direction.”    

Monument supporters and members of Oregon’s congressional delegation don’t know if an Owyhee monument is coming either.

Tim Davis with Friends of Owyhee said he doesn’t know if the creation of the Nevada and Utah monuments make an Owyhee monument more or less likely in the remaining weeks of Obama’s presidential term.

“You know, I think there is a chance,” Davis said, expressing mixed feelings about the protections a monument would bring. “I mean, for myself and Friends of Owyhee standpoint, we’ve been somewhat supportive of it, but we’re still hoping for a collaboration of everyone sitting down at the table, to make a plan.”    

Davis said there are already discussions about bringing groups together to talk in March, with an eye toward limiting mining in the area and focusing on recreation activities. But Elguren said ranchers like him would need some incentive to come to the negotiating table. 

Where Davis and Elguren agree is that an open discussion would be a better approach than the high-stakes, wait-and-see situation they’re in now.

They won’t get an argument out of some in official capacities in Washington, D.C., either. Oregon Rep. Greg Walden’s spokesman, Andrew Malcolm, criticized the process by which Obama designated the other monuments this week.

“Nothing new that we have heard,” wrote Malcolm in an email answering OPB’s questions about a possible monument. “That’s part of the problem with the Antiquities Act — no transparency or public process. It could happen at any time with no warning.”

President Obama has until the day he leaves office — Jan. 20 — to take executive actions, such as designating monuments.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A Lane County winery has filed a lawsuit over nearly 800 gallons of apple cider it says it can’t sell because the Corvallis company that bottled it didn’t seek the proper label approval from federal regulators.

The Register-Guard reports King Estate Winery is seeking $100,000 in damages from Oregon Honey Products, which does business as Nectar Creek.

The suit, filed Dec. 19, alleges the winery paid $7,000 to Nectar Creek as part of an agreement requiring the company to bottle cider and obtain federal “certificate of label approval.” The approval allows an alcoholic beverage to be sold in interstate commerce.

The winery claims Nectar Creek never submitted the application for label approval, leaving the bottles of cider unable to be sold.

Nectar Creek co-founder Nick Lorenz declined to comment on the lawsuit.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has denied Oregon refuge occupier Ryan Payne’s request to withdraw his guilty plea.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ruled Wednesday that Payne’s plea in the Oregon case wasn’t, as his attorney argued, contingent on reaching a plea agreement in a case against him in Nevada.

Payne, of Anaconda, Montana, admitted in July that he conspired with others to prevent Interior Department employees from doing their jobs during the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildfire Refuge.

Payne was one of 11 defendants to plead guilty before others in the case went to trial and were found not guilty.

Payne will be sentenced at a later date.

In Nevada, he’s accused of organizing “armed protection” in an April 2014 standoff over impounding Cliven Bundy’s cattle.

RICHLAND, Ore. (AP) — Officials say dozens of elk are dead after the herd fell through the ice at a reservoir in eastern Oregon.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a Facebook post that 41 elk died Tuesday on the Powder River arm of Brownlee Reservoir.

The Baker City Herald reports someone who lives near the reservoir called to report the incident. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Biologist Brian Ratliff told the newspaper the elk were trying to cross the reservoir from the north side when the ice broke in four places.

Officials drove to the area to see if it was possible to save any of the elk or salvage meat, but Ratliff said neither option was possible.

The reservoir is about 260 miles east of Portland.

Clare Sullivan, south Willamette Valley field crops extension agent, is leaving Western Oregon to take an extension position in Central Oregon.

She will start in the newly created Small Farms and Community Food Systems position Feb. 1.

Her departure marks the second time a south valley field crops extension agent has left since Mark Mellbye retired from full-time duty in 2008. Paul Marquardt filled the position for less than a year, starting in March of 2012 and leaving in January of 2013, before Sullivan came on.

Her exit leaves the Willamette Valley with just one field crops agent, Nicole Anderson, who is based in McMinnville and has field crop extension responsibilities in Washington, Yamhill and Polk counties.

Sullivan said it was a difficult decision to leave the valley, where she has served as an extension agent since June 2014.

“It was a very, very tough decision,” Sullivan said. “I loved working with the farmers here. Basically, I feel like I was brought into a family. It makes it very tough to leave.”

Sullivan holds a master’s degree in soil science from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and a bachelor’s degree in global resource systems in agriculture from the University of British Columbia.

Derek Godwin, extension administrator for the West Central Region, which includes Marion, Yamhill, Polk, Benton and Linn counties, said refilling the south valley position, as well as filling a vacant field crops position in Marion County, are top priorities.

“Because so many large farms grow field crops, our field crops faculty are sort of first in line when it comes to working with growers and connecting with OSU,” Godwin said.

“Growers that have field crops may also be growing hazelnuts or blueberries or Christmas trees, but they tend to think of the field crops person as their kind of high priority person to go to,” Godwin said.

“That is why in my opinion it is so important to us to get these positions filled, because they are our front line in serving the industry,” he said.

Administrators could be hard-pressed to fill vacancies, however, with the Legislature facing a $1.7 billion state budget gap and with extension funding flat in the governor’s proposed budget.

According to Sam Angima, an assistant dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences, the flat budget puts extension at 8 percent below a continuing-service-level budget.

JOHN DAY, Ore. — On a recent wintry evening, members of the Grant County Public Forest Commission walked into the warmth of a rustic diner and took seats at their customary table for their bimonthly meeting.

They voiced anger and frustration. At this meeting, they were officially a nonentity.

A judge this fall dissolved the commission at the behest of a former county supervisor who worried it was becoming a risk, citing the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in a neighboring county.

While the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge grabbed the world’s attention, a quieter struggle over federal lands is being waged by those trying to use elections and the levers of government. Their grandparents and great-grandparents wrested a living from the West’s rugged landscape.

But now, the forest commissioners say, the government is tightening access to the same natural resources by closing roads and curtailing logging and other industries that allowed previous generations to be self-sufficient.

The commissioners feel they lost, by the stroke of a judge’s pen, a tool voters gave them to fight back.

Kim McKrola, a local, voiced the concern of many: “I would think we should have more say, because what does the federal government know about what’s going on around here?”

With 1,700 residents, John Day is Grant County’s biggest town, named for a fur trapper who in the early 1800s survived being robbed of everything by American Indians but trekked with a compatriot to safety.

Created by voters in a ballot measure 14 years ago, the forest commission was tasked with determining the fate of public lands, which comprise 66 percent of the county’s 4,529 square miles.

Hours before the meeting at the Squeeze-In Restaurant & Deck, forest commissioner Jim Sproul drove his pickup up a canyon and into the Malheur National Forest.

“My great-grandfather came here in the 1870s. He started the Humboldt Mine,” the 64-year-old said. A pin on his cap proclaimed support for Sheriff Glenn Palmer, a sympathizer of the refuge occupiers’ cause.

Sproul looked at skeletal trees killed by a 2015 fire that burned 43 homes and more than 172 square miles. He blamed the U.S. Forest Service, saying it let the forest grow too thick, allowing the blaze to crown and become a “huge fireball.” Sproul wants the agency to open more burned areas for loggers to salvage trees.

At the Squeeze-In, commission members voiced more complaints.

“You’re missing the point,” growled Commissioner Mike Smith from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. “The point is, they want to make it so you can’t make a living in rural Oregon, so you have to leave.”

Others nodded assent.

Commissioner Dave Traylor said he suspects the government and environmentalists want to create a 200-mile-wide corridor from Canada to Mexico, with only animals present and no humans.

Federal officials say no such plots exist.

District Ranger Dave Halemeier noted the Forest Service has increased its transparency.

“We meet with the public before we even have an idea of what we want to do in an area,” Halemeier said in an interview. “Historically, we’d come up with a plan and then present that plan, and now the public’s involved in developing that plan.”

Malheur National Forest Supervisor Steve Beverlin said he had productive talks with a forest commissioner about modifying rules for gathering firewood, but faced hostility at commission meetings.

“It was difficult to engage because they wouldn’t share information,” Beverlin said

Mark Webb, whose petition for judicial review led to the commission’s dissolution, said he felt it was growing too close to Palmer and his “increasing belligerence toward federal government.”

The leaders of the wildlife refuge takeover were planning to meet with Palmer when officers intercepted them on Jan. 26. State police shot and killed LaVoy Finicum as he appeared to reach for a pistol.

Sproul said he had invited takeover leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy to speak to residents about the Constitution and states’ rights, with no ulterior motives.

“Anyone who says there’s a militia here is a liar,” Sproul said. “But are there patriotic citizens here? Hell yes.”

Forest commissioners say no one informed them of the petition.

Judge W.D. Cramer ruled Sept. 14 that the ballot measure that created the commission violated the U.S. and state constitutions and federal statutes. In explaining his ruling, Cramer said he “may have personal views that align with many on how public lands are managed (or not), and views on how those who live close to the land should be heard.” But “facts and the law” dictate a decision.

Webb heads another organization, Blue Mountains Forest Partners, which describes itself as a diverse group of stakeholders who work to improve local forests and communities. He said his group and the forest commission have similar goals but “radically different” approaches.

“The public forest commission thought they had authority to tell the county (officials) and the national forest how to manage public lands. But Blue Mountains respects the framework … we have to operate in.”

Webb ran in the May primary for one of the commission’s seven seats. His name was removed from the ballot because of a technicality, Grant County Clerk Brenda Percy said. Webb told The Associated Press he ran in case his petition failed, so he could “inform or redirect” the commission, which he said was ineffective.

The forest commission, meanwhile, is planning to appeal the judge’s decision and has been in contact with the secretary of state’s office, which manages elections, to seek a remedy, Sproul said.

Snowpack in the Owyhee River basin is well above normal for this time of year, which is a positive early sign for farmers in Eastern Oregon who receive their irrigation water from the Owyhee Reservoir.

“It’s certainly a good start and good news,” said Malheur County farmer Bruce Corn, a member of the Owyhee Irrigation District board of directors. “We’re still quite early in the season ... but we’re cautiously optimistic.”

The reservoir provides water for 1,800 farms and 118,000 irrigated acres in Eastern Oregon and part of Southwestern Idaho.

Those farms received their full 4 acre-foot allotment of irrigation water in 2016 after receiving only a third of their allotment in 2014 and 2015 because of drought conditions.

There was 166,000 acre-feet of carryover water in the reservoir at the end of the 2016 water year, less than normal but much more than what was left in 2015 and 2014.

The reservoir had 205,000 acre-feet of water as of Dec. 21.

Total snowpack in the Owyhee basin was 144 percent of average as of Dec. 22.

With the current abundant snowpack, “We’re in a much better position than where we’ve been the past several years,” Corn said. “We have a ways to go but things are looking promising.”

Across the border in Idaho, total snowpack in the Boise River basin is at 99 percent of normal.

Carryover water levels in Boise River reservoirs is comparable to last year and about average, said Tim Page, manager of the Boise Project Board of Control, which provides 167,000 acre-feet of water to five irrigation districts in Southwestern Idaho and part of Eastern Oregon.

“We’re on par for course,” he said.

But Page and other water managers stressed that it’s early in the season and a lot more snow is needed.

“This is a really good start,” said Greg Curtis, water superintendent of the Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District, which provides water to 69,000 acres. “But we need to see it continue. It needs to keep going.”

A lot of things can happen between now and spring, when the 2017 water season begins, said Mark Zirschky, manager of Pioneer Irrigation District, which provides water to 5,800 patrons.

But, “At this point at least, what we’re seeing in the hills is good,” he said. “I think the outlook is promising. As long as it stays cold and stays there, we should be in good shape.”

Snowpack in the Payette River basin is at 90 percent of normal and it’s 68 percent of normal in the Weiser River basin.

“We’re still in need of a lot more snow,” said Weiser Irrigation District Chairman Vernon Lolley. “We have a long ways to go to get to where we need to be.”

He said the district ended 2016 with a little bit of reservoir carryover water and if snowpack reaches about 85 percent of average, that should be enough to assure an adequate water supply for the district’s patrons in 2017.

PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University and Bonneville Power Administration are planning demonstration projects in the Columbia Basin of Washington and Oregon to spread awareness about an irrigation innovation that’s gaining popularity in Idaho.

Growers throughout Eastern Idaho have rapidly converted pivots to Low Energy Spray Application, compelled by a recent water call settlement mandating groundwater irrigation reductions averaging 12 percent per year.

LESA uses low pressure and long hoses that spray below the crop canopy, reducing water loss to evaporation and drift. T adapters are installed throughout most of the pivot, dropping hoses on either side, spaced 5 feet apart for even distribution so close to the ground.

Bonneville Power mechanical engineer Dick Stroh said his company offers a program through its member cooperatives sharing 25 to 30 percent of LESA conversion costs. LESA packages range from $10,000 to $12,000, installed.

“In some ways, (LESA adoption) has been faster in Idaho than what we had expected, and that’s been driven primarily by the groundwater settlement with the surface water users on the Snake River Plain Aquifer,” Stroh said. “This is a way to achieve that reduction without really sacrificing much of anything.”

Stroh said LESA growers have cut water use by at least 10 to 15 percent. LESA power savings has been up to 30 percent for surface users, and ranges for groundwater users depending on their well depth.

At 10 demonstration sites within its Washington and Oregon service area, Bonneville Power will bear the cost of converting a single pivot span to LESA, allowing growers to compare irrigation efficiency with conventional spans in the same fields, using soil-moisture monitors. Grower field days will be hosted at the sites to share results with neighboring farmers. WSU Extension irrigation specialist Troy Peters, who oversaw a couple of LESA demonstrations in his area last season, has found interested participants in Oregon for the planned project but is still seeking Washington growers.

“This method will get more water per gallon into the ground,” said Peters, who helped develop LESA for the Northwest. “In some cases, (growers) would get behind with their water, and this will allow them to catch up, where before their systems didn’t have enough capacity.”

Peters also hopes to test reversing nozzle plates to spray up and out of the canopy as a means of chemigating with LESA. Peters noted LESA may not work in every situation — including soils where runoff occurs under conventional pivots and fields with variable topography — but he’d like to evaluate it in as many crops and conditions as possible.

“It’s not applicable in every situation, but I think a lot of people who aren’t doing it should be,” Peters said.

George Darrington, conservation program manager with the Bonneville Power member Raft River Rural Electric Cooperative, knows of a customer who installed two LESA systems as a means of coping with failing pivot pumps, given that LESA requires little pressure anyway.

Stroh advises growers to operate LESA systems with no more than 6 pounds per square inch of pressure to avoid erosion. Stroh also noted many growers have opted to reduce operational hours of pivots rather than cutting back on water volumes to achieve LESA savings, which could also pose erosion challenges.

A federal judge has prohibited logging on private property owned by a timber company due to the possibility of harm to threatened marbled murrelets.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken has issued a preliminary injunction against the harvest of a 50-acre parcel owned by Roseburg Forest Products and its Scott Timber subsidiary.

The tract was once part of Oregon’s Elliott State Forest until the timber companies bought the property in 2014, to the alarm of environmental groups.

Three nonprofits — Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity and the Audubon Society of Portland — filed a lawsuit seeking to block logging on the parcel, arguing it was occupied by marbled murrelets and harvest would violate the Endangered Species Act.

The property, known as the Benson Snake Unit, is important to the species for life-cycle behaviors beyond just nesting, said Dan Kruse, attorney for the environmental plaintiffs, during oral arguments last month.

“Fragmentation has significant impacts on marbled murrelets,” he said.

The timber companies countered that they’d hired an internationally known consulting firm to specifically pick a logging site that wasn’t occupied by the birds, which will be out to sea when the harvest occurs.

“They don’t have the facts or the evidence to show there will be death or injury to the marbled murrelet,” said Dominic Carollo, attorney for the timber defendants.

In her ruling, Aiken said the two sides have offered competing versions of the facts.

“Since both plaintiffs and defendants make compelling arguments, the issue here, as with many environmental cases, boils down to which scientific approach is best,” she said.

While the timber companies relied on newer data to determine that marbled murrelets don’t occupy the site, the environmental groups’ protocol showing the site is occupied is “widely accepted within the scientific community,” Aiken said.

At this point, though, Aiken said she doesn’t have to decide which method is better.

It’s enough that the environmental groups have raised serious questions about the presence of marbled murrelets and shown the bird would suffer irreparable injury from logging, she said.

“If the project proceeds, marbled murrelets will not be able to nest in the clear-cut parcel for nearly a century while the forest regrows,” said Aiken.

Hazelnut growers in the Eugene, Ore., area are still cleaning up damage from a nearly instantaneous flash freeze that snapped limbs, split trunks and uprooted some trees.

“We had a lot of breakage,” said Jared Henderson, who grows hazelnuts in the River Road area north of Eugene.

Older, larger trees were particularly hard hit as ice accumulated on limbs and the weight bent them past the breaking point. Henderson said his younger, more limber trees fared better.

The ice arrived as part of a winter storm that draped much of Oregon with snow beginning Dec. 14. In Eugene, about 110 miles south of Portland, it took the form of freezing rain and did horrendous damage throughout the area. About 15,000 customers lost electrical power as limbs snapped off and fell across utility lines. Some people were without electricity for up to four days, and area motels filled up with people who had no heat or no way to cook at home.

The ice damage was oddly localized. Springfield, next door to Eugene, had much less damage and only a couple hundred electrical outages. Henderson said his brother, who grows hazelnuts near Corvallis about 40 miles north, wasn’t hit as bad. “They got snow and we got ice,” Henderson said.

Henderson, who is president of the Lane County Farm Bureau, said he couldn’t place a dollar figure on the damage. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he said. The damage will include the labor cost of crews that would normally be pruning or training caneberries instead of cleaning up broken limbs, he said.

“It’s part of the business,” he said. “We’ve had it before and we’ll probably have it again.”

Dwayne Bush, a third-generation hazelnut grower, said his trees in the Fern Ridge area west of Eugene came out of the storm OK, but his orchard next to Henderson’s was heavily damaged.

He said trees he planted 16 and 17 years tended to lean to the south due to the sun’s position and a prevailing wind. The weight of ice sent them toppling into each other and “Dominoed down the row.”

But Bush said a freeze three years ago was worse. In that case, Bush and his crew trimmed the tops of trees, dug out dirt on the back sides, pulled them upright and backfilled the dirt. Of 4,000 to 5,000 trees that fell over, only a small percentage didn’t bounce back and survive, he said.

Ironically, the crop that year was one of the biggest he’s had.

“Filbert trees are pretty resilient,” he said, using the alternative name for hazelnuts.

Bush said he’s already started the same process this year.

PENDLETON, Ore. — For the second consecutive year, the Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center is at risk of losing nearly half its annual funding from the federal government.

Once again, the president’s 2017 budget calls for terminating one of two research programs at the station, which would cut $901,000 and eliminate three scientist positions.

The Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center operates under the Agricultural Research Service, the primary research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The facility is located on Tubbs Ranch Road north of Pendleton, and shares a building with the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center — though they are two separate programs.

Experiments conducted at the station provide data to improve farming practices for dryland crops, especially winter wheat, which accounts for more than $436 million and 2,600 local jobs throughout the Columbia Basin, according to Oregon State University.

Yet the President’s budget would ax research programs at Pendleton looking into tillage methods that conserve moisture and reduce soil erosion, in order to shift money to what have been identified as higher priorities within the Agricultural Research Service. The same cutbacks were proposed in 2016, before growers and Oregon congressional leaders successfully lobbied to keep the station’s funding intact.

Dan Long, station director, said there’s been no appropriation yet for 2017, though in the meantime the center has been asked to curtail its spending by 50 percent.

“It could very well be a repeat of last year, where we remain intact again,” Long said.

If not, significant budget cuts are in line at both Pendleton and the Agricultural Research Station in Corvallis. The president’s budget for the ARS calls for diverting more than $13 million from ongoing research across the country to fund higher priority environmental stewardship projects, such as adapting crops to climate change.

Soil scientists Steward Wuest and Hero Gollany, as well as hydrologist John Williams, would all be affected by cuts at the Pendleton station, though Long said all three would be given different jobs within the agency.

Nathan Rea, of H.T. Rea Farming Corporation in Milton-Freewater, serves as chairman of the liaison committee for the ARS station. He said the committee is reaching out to Oregon congressional delegates, including Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley and Republican Rep. Greg Walden, all of whom backed fully funding the station a year ago.

In addition, Rea said they are working directly with scientists at the station to promote the work they do, and benefit to area farmers.

“Telling that story is where we need to do a better job at the national level, and with local growers as well,” Rea said.

Speaking from experience, Rea said growers have benefited from the station’s research into reduced-till farming, with an emphasis on soil water retention and improving efficiency.

“There’s a lot more direct seeding, and minimum tillage,” Rea said. “We’re entering a new world with our precision agriculture.”

Representatives for Sen. Wyden and Rep. Walden could not be reached Monday. A representative for Sen. Merkley said he knows the Pendleton ARS station is critical to Eastern Oregon, and will keep fighting for the funding it needs.