ONTARIO, Ore. — Eastern Oregon is on the path to landing a major rail transload facility, and that news is sending a jolt of excitement through the region’s agricultural industry.

The Oregon Legislature’s recently passed $5.3 billion transportation bill includes $26 million to create a transload facility near Ontario in Malheur County.

A transload facility allows shipping containers to be transferred from one mode of transportation to another, in this case between truck and rail.

The facility would be a big benefit to the area’s agricultural sector, particularly the onion industry, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, said.

“It would drive down the cost of freight significantly,” he said. “It would be a real benefit to our community.”

The facility could benefit the region’s alfalfa, timber, dairy and other industries as well but it would be a huge win for the onion industry, Bentz said during a public presentation June 13 in conjunction with a Malheur County Onion Growers Association board meeting.

“The entire facility is built around the onion industry,” he said. “Eighty to ninety percent of the facility is going to be for you guys.”

Onion growers and shippers applauded plans for the facility.

“This thing is huge,” MCOGA President Paul Skeen, a farmer, told Capital Press. “It’s a big, big deal. It will allow us to move product faster and cheaper.”

Most of the region’s onions are shipped by rail to the East Coast. They currently have to be taken by truck to the nearest transload facility in Wallula, Wash., before heading east.

It costs onion growers in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho about 50 cents per 50-pound bag to do that, said Grant Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce, an onion shipping company.

With a transload facility near Ontario, “That could be money in our pockets,” he said. “This is going to be a real salvation for our local onion industry.”

Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce, an onion shipper, estimates the transload facility could result in about $15 million per year in freight savings for the Oregon-Idaho onion industry.

“That’s just freight savings; it doesn’t include new market share that might be created by that (new) freight advantage,” he said.

Bentz, who was vice-co-chair of the 14-member committee that hammered out the transportation bill, said the biggest advantages of the transload facility would be reducing freight costs and speeding up delivery times.

He said the facility would attract product from the nearby Boise area and as far away as Burley in southcentral Idaho.

Kay Riley, general manager of Snake River Produce, an onion shipper, said that when it comes to shipping to the East Coast, the Oregon-Idaho onion industry enjoys about a 50-cent per bag natural geographic advantage over onion growers in Washington.

However, he added, that advantage is wiped away by the fact Oregon-Idaho onions have to backtrack to Washington before being shipped by rail to the East Coast.

“This (transload) facility would re-establish that advantage,” he said. “It’s huge (and) could be a real game-changer for us.”

Oregon’s attorney general is threatening to sue the Trump administration if it tries to change the boundaries of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. The Department of Interior is currently reviewing the status and size of national monuments across the country.

In his final days in office, President Obama invoked the Antiquities Act to expand Southern Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument by nearly 50,000 acres. The region is considered a bio-diversity hotspot in the West.

Supporters of the expansion fear the current review will be used by the Trump administration to reverse course.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum threaten to sue if that happens.

“As you review the vibrant landscape within the Cascade-Siskiyou region, I know that you and the President will share our desire to preserve it for future generations, she wrote. “However, if the President attempts instead to revoke or reduce the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, we stand ready to take appropriate legal action.”

State attorney Paul Garrahan said the Trump administration would be exceeding its executive-branch powers if tries to undo Obama’s action.

“The Antiquities Act does not include authority for the President to reduce or reverse a decision to designate a national monument,” said Garrahan, who is in charge of the Natural Resources Section at the Oregon Department of Justice.

Two timber companies filed a lawsuit earlier this year to block the expansion. That suit is on hold pending the result of the current federal review.

This week, the Interior Department recommended that the administration keep Washington’s Hanford Reach National Monument and Idaho’s Craters of the Moon intact.

It’s unclear if those decisions will have any bearing on the outcome of the Cascade-Siskiyou review. It’s also unclear what the Interior Department is using to make its recommendations, says Oregon State Representative Pam Marsh, whose district include the Monument.

“I don’t really understand what the criteria is that they’re looking at this point,” she said.  “And is it the same criteria across all monuments?”

Reports have surfaced that Zinke will be visiting Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument this weekend to meet with stakeholders. The Interior Department would not confirm those reports.

Jefferson Public Radio’s Liam Moriarty contributed to this report.

Statesman Journal

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — More than 350,000 fingerling trout are being dropped from helicopters into lakes across the mountains of Oregon.

The goal of this week’s drop is to offer fishing opportunities to those willing to venture into the backcountry, The Statesman Journal reported. The fish to be stocked in high mountain lakes include juvenile brook, cutthroat and rainbow trout.

“Trout fishing is still by far our most popular type of fishing in Oregon,” said Mike Gauvin, manager of recreational fishing for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “The thing about Oregon’s high lakes is there are not a lot of places in the lower 48 United States where you can have this kind of wilderness fishing experience.”

The fish drop happens every two years, and it usually takes two years for the small fish to reach the 8-inch size where anglers can keep them.

The trout are transported mostly by helicopter in a custom shuttle carrying 30 individual canisters that hold a few gallons of water and up to 1,000 fingerling trout. The canisters are opened by remote control from inside the cockpit while the chopper hovers over a lake.

A helicopter crew can seed as many as 20 lakes with 20,000 trout in a single one-hour flight. In other areas, the agency still must use the old-fashioned way of getting trout to the outback — afoot or on horseback.

Biologists generally use 3-inch juvenile fish because the 100-foot fall is less traumatic for them than larger fish.

Ninety-five percent of the little fish survive the drop, but biologists believe they may have a tougher time surviving once they’re in the lake. The state will experiment with larger trout in some locations, to see how their survival rate compares.

Spots near Salem that will get fish include numerous lakes in the Cascade Range, including in the Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington and Three Sisters wilderness areas. The Fish and Wildlife website includes a statewide list.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Authorities are investigating a logging accident that killed a man in northwestern Oregon.

The Tillamook County Sheriff’s Office says 32-year-old Casey Schlundt of McMinnville died Wednesday when an unexpected log shift caused a cable to break. The logs and Schlundt fell about 50 feet. He was pronounced dead at the scene in Tillamook.

The sheriff’s office and Oregon OSHA are conducting the investigation.

In the wine world, and in the curious niche it occupies in Oregon agriculture, it is big news that a professor, a wine climatologist, is moving from one college to another.

Greg Jones, although as unassuming an academic as you’ll find, carries that kind of heft.

Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., in Yamhill County where the state’s wine industry came of age, announced that Jones has been hired to oversee its Wine Education Program. The college offers an interdisciplinary minor in the subject, which seems unfair to previous generations of college students.

Nonetheless, Jones is leaving Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he directs the Division of Business, Communication and the Environment and is a research climatologist with SOU’s Environmental Science and Policy Program. He’s considered an expert on how climate variability and change affect grapevine growth and wine production.

The website Great Northwest Wine said Jones’ move to Linfield is “international news.” Tom Danowski, president and CEO of the Oregon Wine Board, described Jones as a “longtime friend to Oregon’s grape growers and winemakers.”

“His stellar global reputation for excellence in his field continually reminds us how lucky we are to have him here in Oregon’s wine community,” Danowski said in a prepared statement.

Linfield President Thomas Hellie said Jones has “earned an international reputation for his research on wine, climate and the environment.” In a prepared statement, he said Jones is a “perfect fit for Linfield.”

Jones agrees. The opportunity was unexpected, he said, but came at a time when he was ready for change and new challenges after 20 years in Ashland. The move puts him physically at the nexus of Oregon’s expanding and well-regarded wine industry, with 100 wineries within 50 miles.

Equally exciting, Jones said, is the chance to shape Linfield’s wine education program. The first task, he said, is to make wine studies an academic major in addition to a minor. He said Linfield will not compete with universities to crank out winemakers, but instead will offer a broad liberal arts overview of how wine functions as a business and a sustainable agricultural enterprise.

He envisions students getting a four-year degree in wine studies from Linfield, then perhaps going on to master’s degrees in viticulture from Oregon State, Washington State, the University of California-Davis or elsewhere.

Jones organized the industry’s Terroir Congress that was held at Linfield in the summer of 2016, with about 100 scientists attending from around the world. Wine Business Monthly named him one of the top 50 industry leaders last year as well. The Oregon Wine Press chose him Wine Person of the Year in 2009 and the website intowine.com picked him as one of the 100 most influential people in the industry in 2012 and 2013. He’s one of 10 Americans honored for his work with the Portuguese wine industry.

Jones, 57, said his interest in wine climatology is a “chicken or egg” question. His parents, Earl and Hilda Jones, founded Abacela Winery in Roseburg, Ore., in 1995. It was questions his father asked while starting the Tempranillo varietal winery that started Jones thinking about the niche science of wine climatology.

Jones said he still has projects in Southern Oregon and will remain involved with the region and will continue producing his email climate reports.

“I’m really not leaving, I’m just residing somewhere else,” Jones said.

“I’m grateful for all SOU and the Southern Oregon wine region have allowed me to do,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful 20 years.”

AGNESS, Ore. (AP) — A 3.2-million-board-foot timber sale federal officials said was designed as a landscape restoration project will reap little financial benefits other than the first major repairs in three decades to a popular forest road.

Compared to other sales, the Green Knob timber sale fetched pennies on the dollar from a Brookings mill that will pay $350,000 in culvert replacements so its trucks can use Bear Camp Road to ship its mill enough logs to build 200 homes.

Known on maps as Forest Service Road 23, Bear Camp Road is a one-lane, paved road over the Siskiyou Mountains used by lower Rogue Canyon rafters and others.

It will be closed for up to two months beginning Monday so contractors for South Coast Lumber Co., the sale’s purchaser, can begin replacing 22 culverts along a 7.5-mile stretch to return the 30-year-old road to log-truck worthiness for fall logging.

Tina LaNier, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest’s Gold Beach district ranger, said Green Knob was crafted over 201 acres to improve large-tree growth, reduce wildfire intensity and improve habitat for species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

“The point of the sale is landscape restoration,” LaNier said. “We’re increasing resiliency of these stands to fire. We’re trying to improve late-successional characteristics.”

The sale also was managed knowing that whoever bought it would have to improve the road, where failed culverts lead to sloughs in the pavement and washouts that dump unwanted sediment into the Rogue River.

“We knew it needed repair,” said Jim Campbell, the forest’s timber-sale contracting officer. “Almost every culvert in that road is rusted out.”

Knowing potential buyers would need to recoup the estimated $350,000 in required road improvement through lowered timber costs, the forest set the minimum bid at $10.34 per thousand board feet of timber, Campbell said.

South Coast Lumber was the only bidder and offered just the minimum bid, which is less than 5 percent of the forest’s five most recent sales, which garnered $200 to $250 per thousand board feet of timber, according to Andy Hill, a forest resource specialist.

At the sale price, Green Knob’s 3.2 million board feet of timber will add $33,088 to forest coffers, making the Bear Camp Road repairs by far the sale’s largest financial benefit to the forest.

“When you look at it, that’s what it’s showing,” Campbell said. “But we don’t really look at things that way. That (road improvements) was a secondary issue.”

About 16,000 board feet of timber goes into the average 2,000-square-foot home. A board foot is a 1-square-foot board of usable timber that is 1-inch thick.

Completed in the late 1980s, Bear Camp Road is seasonally closed by snowdrifts and is the only paved road between Galice and Agness. It has become a staple for rafting companies and private parties shuttling trailers for people rafting the Rogue’s Wild and Scenic Section, as well as summer motorists looking for a forest drive that offers spectacular panoramas of largely unscratched backwoods.

It was originally built to safely transport log trucks, but the original corrugated galvanized steel culverts have failed over time, causing regular sloughing of the serpentine soils there and requiring repairs almost annually.

While forest roads are public, upgrades to log-haul quality are the responsibility of those who buy timber sales transport logs on those roads. The Green Knob sale is the first in the area, hence the first with major road improvements built into the sale.

“They are good tools for us to repair the road,” assistant forest engineer Paul Podesta said. “(But) we are not going to fix all the issues with that sale.”

Campbell said the forest plans more timber sales in that area, with more improvements to Bear Camp Road, but to lesser financial levels than the Green Knob sale.

“It just happened that this sale footed the bill for most of it,” Campbell said. “The future timber sales will pay a hefty price to haul over that road.”

Oregon State University Extension Service is looking to taxpayers for help funding local outreach and education programs in Umatilla and Morrow counties.

A citizens advisory committee has proposed creating two new service districts for OSU Extension — one in each county. If approved by voters, the districts would tax at a rate of 33 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

That money would go toward paying for things like additional staff, supplies, maintenance and utility costs. OSU Extension not only has farm and livestock agents working across both counties, but supports educational programs such as 4-H and Master Gardeners.

The Umatilla County extension district would also include OSU’s Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center north of Pendleton and Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center, where scientists conduct experiments to improve farming practices.

Mary Corp, who serves as both the regional administrator for OSU Extension and director at CBARC, said the districts would add much-needed sustainability to the budget. Twenty-five of Oregon’s 36 counties already have extension districts in place.

Both county boards of commissioners would oversee the districts and set their budget committees, constituting three citizens and three commissioners.

Corp said they are aiming for May 2018 to place the district on the ballot, though it will be a long process going forward.

First, OSU Extension must convince Umatilla and Morrow county commissioners to approve an order initiating the development of a special district. Then, Corp said, they will be looking to get resolutions of support from all 17 incorporated cities across the two counties.

Voters will have the final say, and though new taxes are never the most popular choice, Corp said she is confident in the communities’ support for OSU Extension.

“People really see a lot of value in the work we do,” Corp said.

As it stands, OSU Extension is already supported in part through general fund dollars from both counties. In their most recent budgets, Umatilla County will be contributing $321,090 while Morrow County has earmarked $167,065.

Still, Corp said funding is on the decline due to cuts in state and federal funding. That has left OSU Extension without the ability to fully staff programs or address new needs.

An advisory group consisting of eight different stakeholders started meeting about a year and a half ago to go over their options, and they decided in May that a service district would be the best choice to generate long-term stability.

The agricultural research stations, meanwhile, are also finding themselves scraping for funding. Back in 2008, the university decided that 25 percent of each station’s budget must come from local dollars, and since then Corp said CBARC has received a block grant worth $250,000 from the Oregon Wheat Growers League.

“If I didn’t have that block grant coming in, I would be in the red,” Corp said.

However, Corp said the Wheat Growers League no longer has the money to continue that level of support as wheat prices and acreage decline.

“They’ve told me they see this (grant) sunsetting very soon,” she said.

At HAREC, director Phil Hamm said he has also had to go fundraising for as much money as he can just to keep the doors open. Some dollars have come from the Oregon Potato Commission, and some from local growers.

“It’s been a pain in my neck to go out and search for dollars,” Hamm said.

An extension district would ensure the facilities remain in shape, Hamm said, with substantial economic rewards for the region. Agriculture contributes roughly a half-billion dollars in farm gate value for both Umatilla and Morrow counties, and that total increases to $1 billion if you add in the value from trucking and food processing.

OSU Extension helps to keep the industry thriving with programs and research, Hamm said.

“We have provided what our stakeholders would say is very important information for what they do,” he said.

OSU Extension will make its initial pitch to Morrow County commissioners on July 19. The same presentation will also be given to Umatilla County commissioners, though a date has not yet been set.

Don Russell, Morrow County commissioner, said Corp has already met with each commissioner individually. Initially, he is in favor of the district but has some questions about whether the state will pull additional funding if it moves forward.

George Murdock, Umatilla County commissioner, said the county is extremely supportive of OSU Extension.

“It’s one of those things where the return on investment is many times over,” Murdock said. “We’re talking high-value operations that require a high level of sophistication. That’s the return we’re getting from cooperative extension.”

Hamm said the district would be beneficial across all sectors of extension, from farmers to families with children in 4-H.

“It’s nice to see all these folks appreciate what we do,” he said.

THURSDAY, JULY 13

HEPPNER, Ore. — A new invasive weed has been spotted for the first time growing in southern Morrow County.

Plumeless thistle, which has previously been identified in neighboring Grant County and a few small locations in Wallowa County, was recently found by a landowner while out spraying for other types of thistle in the area.

While it may look similar to Scotch thistle or musk thistle — with their distinctive rose-colored flowers — plumeless thistle is distinct from its fellow invasive brethren. The weed can grow more than 4 feet tall, with spiny leaves measuring 4-8 inches long.

Blooms usually occur between May and July, and each plant can produce up to 1,000 seeds. Once established, plumeless thistle can degrade pasture land by crowding out more desirable forage, making it all but impossible to graze cattle.

Landowners who suspect they may have plumeless thistle on their property should call the Morrow County weed control office at 541-989-9500. Early detection and rapid response is key to controlling the weed before it can become widespread.

The Pacific Northwest wheat crop is at the point when adult plant stripe rust resistance is kicking in and hot, dry weather has slowed the disease’s development, a top researcher says.

Stripe rust in winter wheat fields is under control, but low levels of rust pustules are still active in spring wheat, said Xianming Chen, research plant pathologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Pullman, Wash.

Fungicide application is no longer needed except in late-planted fields, at higher elevations or where there is a lot of soil moisture, Chen said.

Stripe rust was still severe this year, especially in winter wheat, Chen said. Late plantings and early fungicide applications reduced the amount of stripe rust in spring wheat, he said.

The disease can reduce yields in a highly susceptible wheat variety by up to 60 percent. No highly susceptible winter wheat varieties are grown in the region, but popular varieties such as Xerpha, Clearfield 102 and Eltan can have a yield loss of as much as 30 percent, Chen said.

As farmers consider fall planting, Chen recommends that farmers consider a variety that has high resistance to stripe rust.

Syngenta Ovation has more resistance but still needed a fungicide application this year.

Spring wheat varieties JD, Diva, Louise, Whit, UI Platinum, Dayn and Glee are resistant. Babe, WestBred’s WB 1035CL+ and Syngenta’s SY 605 CL are particularly susceptible, he said.

Chen hopes to see more acres of the Washington State University soft white spring wheat Seahawk and the WestBred hard red spring wheat Expresso, which don’t require any fungicide applications.

In addition to the Western states, stripe rust has also been reported in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi. Noth Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky, Nebraska, Indiana, Georgia, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and New York.

Chen said the disease’s distribution was similar to last year. The biggest losses were last year in the Great Plains, while damage was less this year, due to relatively dry conditions in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, he said.

A blue-green algae outbreak in a Lake County, Ore., reservoir has killed 32 head of cattle.

The outbreak began on KV Bar Ranch about June 12. John Shine, owner of the south-central Oregon ranch, said the steers “just started dying.” That afternoon 11 died, and the rest followed within 72 hours. Although Shine is the ranch owner, the cattle lost belonged to another rancher.

“We had a reservoir that cattle have been drinking out of for 60 years, and never had a problem. Then this breeze comes from the north and carried this layer of scum 3 to 4 feet from the edge and that’s what they were drinking. We noticed the cattle had blue legs,” Shine said. “We thought it was poison at first. We didn’t know what it was.”

The color and the smell were the most noticeable things to Shine.

“It’s a turquoise color; it’s not green,” he said. “It smelled like rotten seaweed at the ocean.”

Despite its name, blue-green algae are actually bacteria. It occurs naturally in many fresh and still waters, and is recognizable by a collection of surface scum that “looks like a green paint spill,” said Dr. Rod Ferry, veterinarian at Lakeview Animal Hospital. Although some blue-green algae species are harmless, others produce a toxin that in large doses can affect the liver or the nervous system. The toxin can affect both animals and people.

“It’s unusual to lose 32 (cattle) in one hit,” said Theo Dreher, a microbiology professor at Oregon State University. “It’s probably not infrequent in cases of ranch land cattle where a few stock die, but this is pretty exceptional, and points out the danger that does exist when you get one of these blooms.”

They suspect that the bloom formed because of Oregon’s increased rainwater this winter and spring, after several years of drought. During that time excess manure may have washed into tanks, ponds or reservoirs, which caused an increased nutrient load for the algae to feed on and grow, creating the bloom, Pete Schreder, OSU Extension livestock agent, said in an email.

Wind can also help aggregate the clumps of algae.

For producers, losing 32 head “is relatively devastating,” Schreder said.

After they eat the toxin, cattle will quit eating, stagger or be unable to rise from lying on the ground. Eventually, they will go into a coma and die. Death can come up to 72 hours after initial exposure.

“There is no treatment available. It’s pretty impractical to treat cattle with a lethal dose because it just can’t save them,” Ferry said.

Ranchers should be diligent and check all water sources for anything atypical. If they see anything suspicious, keep livestock away from the water and call the local OSU Extension office.

This is the first reported case of blue-green algae in Lake County, Schreder and Ferry said.

“I’ve been here for 30 years and haven’t seen it in this county to this degree,” Ferry said. “It’s not something experienced here.”

There have been other sightings of blue-green algae in Oregon, according to Dreher, the microbiology professor. Toxic species have been found in the South Umpqua River, Detroit Lake, Upper Klamath Lake, South Tensile Lake and areas of Lake Billy Chinook, according the Oregon Health Authority’s algae bloom advisories website.

While some algaecides are available to treat smaller ponds, they are temporary and costly. Any chemical treatments will affect too many other natural systems in the water, and would not be feasible, Schreder and Dreher said.

“We really just have to let it run its course. It grows and blooms, and then dissipates over time,” Schreder said.

Dreher estimated that the dissipation period can last a couple of weeks.

“In a small reservoir many things can happen. The bacteria can die off and be eaten by other organisms and bacteria, or it could settle out on the sediment under the water and stop growing or it can be disrupted by currents and wind until the concentration lowers,” Dreher said.

Dreher also reminds producers to be aware of the algae if they’re irrigating their pastures, as that might cause further exposure problems.

Once a bloom has been formed, reservoirs or ponds can be more susceptible in the future.

“All water has the capability, but it happens when the stars align just right,” Schreder said. “We’re looking into the summer and can’t predict if we’re going to have more blooms; we just have to watch and see. We want to alert people to be diligent and keep an eye out on ponds and reservoirs this year.”

SALEM — Bills that aimed to bring industrial hemp into the mainstream of Oregon agriculture have died despite lacking strong opposition or a hefty price tag.

Hemp seed could be tested for purity by Oregon State University under House Bill 2371, which would also have brought the crop under an official OSU research pilot program.

A new industrial hemp commission devoted to raising funds for research and promotion would have been created under House Bill 2372, similarly to several other Oregon agricultural products.

Both proposals unanimously passed the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in April but then languished in the Joint Ways and Means Committee until the end of the 2017 legislative session.

“It’s the biggest mystery I’ve ever bumped into in this building,” said Rep. Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, the bills’ chief sponsor.

The work of the Oregon Industrial Hemp Commission would have been paid by grower assessments, while the research and seed testing program would have “minimal impact” on OSU and an “indeterminate” cost for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which could charge fees to hemp farmers.

“There was zero opposition and some pretty substantial reasons why they should pass,” said Matt Cyrus, a hemp grower from Deschutes County who lobbied for the legislation.

Oregon’s hemp industry finds itself in a “slight gray area” under federal law, but HB 2371 would have brought OSU research activities into alignment with federal language in the 2014 Farm Bill, which allows some hemp production, he said.

“It was more of a technical housekeeping bill,” Cyrus said. “It was a fairly important bill for the industry.”

Without the proposal’s approval, OSU will be constrained in communications and advice to hemp growers, said Jay Noller, head of the university’s crop and soil science department.

The university can still conduct research without the bill, but it’s not permitted to provide Extension services to hemp producers, he said.

“We’re kind of hamstrung here,” Noller said.

If HB 2371 had passed, ODA-registered hemp producers would have automatically become OSU research program participants, giving OSU greater leeway to work with them under federal law, he said.

“It means we’ll be waiting until things get cleaned up,” Noller said.

When asked about the hemp bills’ failure, the co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, said that fewer than “one-in-three bills were able to move through the committee and pass both chambers, due to time constraints and other factors.”

Courtney Moran, attorney and lobbyist for the Oregon Industrial Hemp Farmers Association, did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Wilson, the bills’ chief sponsor, said he met with leaders of the Ways and Means Committee, as well as Gov. Kate Brown, to explain the significance of the legislation.

“I am absolutely stunned by this development,” Wilson said. “Everybody in this place knew what this was about and what it would do. I can’t figure out who the enemy was.”

While the industrial hemp commission would have been “nice to have,” the statutory language changes in HB 2371 are imperative to bring Oregon’s hemp industry in line with federal requirements, he said.

Wilson said he never received any feedback about why the latter bill shouldn’t be passed and plans to re-introduce it in 2018.

“I plan to bring this one back,” he said.

Wednesday, July 13

A team of researchers has developed a method that speeds up diagnosis of crown gall disease, which can damage or kill valuable nursery stock, berry bushes, grape vines, roses, and nut and fruit trees.

The testing procedure marks a “huge step forward” in eventually allowing growers to test for crown gall on-site, providing results in about 30 minutes, said Jeff Chang, an associate professor at Oregon State University. Now, testing takes about 2.5 hours, with growers taking or sending plants to OSU’s plant clinic for identification of diseases.

There is no cure for crown gall disease, but quicker, on-site confirmation of the pathogen’s presence will allow growers to isolate, remove and destroy infected plants, potentially halting the spread of the disease.

“They can accelerate that (detection) process and save on how many plants they have to throw away,” Chang said.

Crown gall is caused by a soil-borne bacteria called Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which enters plants through plant tissue wounds caused by such things as pruning cuts, boring insects and freeze damage. The pathogen genetically modifies plant tissue, stimulating it to produce swollen knobs called galls.

The disease can kill young plants and disfigure nursery stock to the point that it can’t be sold and must be thrown away.

The researchers, funded by a grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, developed molecular tools to diagnose crown gall.

Chang and post-doctoral researcher Elizabeth Savory co-wrote a report on the study. Skylar Fuller, a recent OSU graduate, designed the detection mechanism under Chang’s and Savory’s mentorship. Other collaborators were Alexandra Weisberg, also a post-doctoral researcher, and Melodie Putnam, the plant clinic director. The team used variations of gene sequences originally developed by OSU Professor Walt Ream.

On a research boat on the Columbia River, Laurie Weitkamp with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grabs two buckets filled with water and about a dozen young salmon and steelhead.

“Ooh, we got some steelies!” she says.

By stretching a net across the river below Bonneville Dam, researchers are intercepting the fish swimming toward the ocean to see what they’ve been eating.

What they really want to know is whether the fish are eating bugs that came from marshes restored for their benefit. That’s key to proving habitat restoration is helping the fish grow and survive.

Federal agencies have spent millions of dollars restoring salmon habitat on the lower Columbia River as part of a massive effort to save salmon from the impacts of hydroelectric dams.

In the Columbia Basin, 13 species of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead are navigating a river system loaded with dams.

The federal plan to help them has been challenged and rejected in court five times in more than 20 years. In that plan, the agencies told the court that restoring marshes in the estuary will help save threatened and endangered fish. The court’s response has been along the lines of: Oh yeah? Prove it.

That’s where Weitkamp comes in, with an elaborate research project funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

After measuring and labeling the fish, Weitkamp hands them to Meredith Journey, who uses a syringe to take a blood sample.

She’ll test the blood for a growth hormone released by the liver that will tell them whether the fish has recently been eating.

From there, the fish go to Angie Munguia who clips their fins for genetic testing and puts them in a cooler.

“We try to put them on ice as soon as possible to try to stop the digestive process in the stomach,” she said. “The more it digests, the harder it is to ID prey in the stomach.”

Later, the fish will get sliced up and analyzed at what Munguia calls “cutting parties.”

Looking inside the stomach will tell Munguia what bugs the fish have been eating, but her work doesn’t stop there. With further analysis, she can also tell what plants those bugs were eating before they became fish food.

Together, Weitkamp says, these tests help build the government’s case that restored marshes are feeding fish and helping them survive.

“Generally, the bigger you are, the fewer predators can eat you,” she said. “So big fish generally have higher survival when there are [more] predators around than really small fish.”

While Weitkamp is catching salmon and looking in their stomachs, other researchers are studying the bugs coming out of restored marshes. Their goal is to connect the dots between bugs in the marsh and bugs in the fish.

“Then we can kind of put it together, but it’s tough,” Weitkamp said.

The question of just how much habitat restoration improves salmon survival has become more and more pressing as judges have repeatedly rejected the federal plan for protecting salmon from dams.

In his ruling last year, federal District Court Judge Michael Simon called the uncertainty of habitat restoration a “significant deficiency” in the government’s plan. He said the agencies should look at other options, like spilling more water over dams or removing some dams altogether.

Michael Tehan, assistant regional administrator with NOAA Fisheries, said it’s clear the judge wants more certainty about how much benefit the salmon can get from habitat restoration. What’s not clear is whether the agencies can deliver.

“Through all these court rulings, the judge has been asking the question: We want to know exactly how much,” he said. “The science just doesn’t allow you to pin it down with that kind of certainty.”

That raises questions about whether the agencies need more science or a different strategy for helping salmon.

“There are some folks who are questioning: Why are you continuing to pursue habitat projects if you’re not getting credit from the courts?” Tehan said.

Will the science satisfy the court?

Mike Langsley, a fish biologist with the Corps of Engineers, says the agencies have made significant improvements in salmon survival through the dams themselves. Fish passage is up to 98 percent in some places.

That leaves them looking at where else they help salmon survive. Breaching dikes and opening up floodplains seems like it should help.

“Because we know historically that’s how it looked,” he said. “You’ve got a place salmon can’t access. You open it up so they can access it. So how do you figure out whether that’s good or bad?”

He said science can show the fish are using the habitat and eating the bugs it produces, but that might not be enough to prove more salmon are surviving to adulthood as a result.

“They feed. They grow. Just being in there maybe is good,” he said, “but it’s a very difficult thing to say that’s going to increase smolt-to-adult return rates by some percentage.”

Weitkamp says there’s still a lot we don’t know about how to help salmon survive.

“I mean, each salmon species makes its life slightly differently, and it’s really fascinating to try to uncover: What is their strategy? What are they thinking?” she said.

For her, the need to save imperiled fish from dams in the face of a seemingly never-ending lawsuit means she’ll always have more questions to answer and more work to do.

In other words, she said, “job security.”

Tuesdays

PORT ORFORD — Hike with the South Coast Striders to Blacklock Point from Floras Lake on Sunday, July 23.

PORT ORFORD -- Hike with the South Coast Striders to Blacklock Point from Floras Lake on Sunday July 23.

LANGLOIS -- The Langlois Public Library invites children ages 3-15 to Build a Better World during its 2017 Summer Reading Program.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 12