PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A new study says the Portland metropolitan area faces mass casualties and billions of dollars in building damages if a large Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits off the West Coast.

The report released Thursday by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries says as many as 27,000 people could be hurt or killed in a magnitude 9.0 quake, though many injuries would be minor. The study estimates up to 85,000 people would need shelter and building damages could top $30 billion.

Lead investigator John Bauer says the study employs updated building and population statistics along with the latest mapping and modeling techniques. The region had been relying on estimates from 20 years ago.

The report says damage could be even greater if the Portland Hills Fault has a quake. The low-activity fault runs beneath a large section of Portland.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Environmental groups continue to try to block the expansion of a Columbia River port, the latest in the ongoing debate over natural areas and oil and gas terminals in the state.

With a Wednesday appeal, Columbia River Keeper and another group asked state authorities not to allow the re-classification of 837 acres of farmland near the Port of St. Helens for industrial use, citing both the loss of farmland and the potential for the site to be used for handling crude oil or natural gas.

A port official acknowledged both would be allowed under the broad reclassification, but said commissioners aren’t planning either for the site.

The appeal comes during long-running conflicts between environmentalists and local governments and businesses seeking to take economic advantage of Oregon’s coast and rivers, generally centering around the types of ports where energy companies must build depots to transfer their products to ships.

A 2008 proposal to construct a natural gas terminal in Coos Bay was controversial and earlier proposals for coal facilities at the port of St. Helens garnered objections after emerging in 2012.

The current proposal would only re-classify land, not permit any particular new building - but environmentalists and the port disagree over the potential for it to lead to a gas or oil handling facility.

“Frankly our commissioners have no appetite for getting involved in that,” said Paula Miranda, the port’s deputy executive director. Officials sought the expansion because they need more space, not to allow for any particular use, Miranda said.

Miranda acknowledged oil and gas facilities would theoretically be allowed on the new land, but said the port’s elected commissioners had paid attention to negative community comments about the commodities.

Miranda also said any facility on the re-zoned land would go through its own process, including public comment.

“We don’t approve any lease without an actual public meeting,” Miranda said.

But Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, a spokesperson for Columbia River Keeper, expressed skepticism that the port would turn away such a development, and said officials’ endorsement of the 2012 coal projects was a sign they’d be open to more.

And Zimmer-Stucky pointed to a Portland Tribune report from 2012, in which Miranda was quoted explaining how port officials, at the time negotiating a proposal for a coal terminal at the site, could avoid the state’s public meetings law.

Along with broader risks that environmentalists say petroleum-based commodities carry, including spills and the likelihood that they will eventually contribute to global warming, Zimmer-Stucky said converting farmland to industry at the Columbia River site would be detrimental to the river’s estuary.

Miranda said the port was sensitive to environmental concerns, but also has a responsibility to make land available to companies that want to do the kind of business that requires access to sea shipping.

“We are one of very few deep water ports in Oregon,” Miranda said.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15

BEND, Ore. (AP) — At least 14 animals died when a truck hauling 84 head of cattle crashed on U.S. Highway 26 east of Madras, Oregon.

The Bulletin reports the single-vehicle accident happened Monday afternoon, and the driver of the Washington-licensed truck escaped injury.

Capt. Kasey Skaar of Jefferson County Fire District No. 1 says 14 animals were killed in the crash and it’s unknown how many others died from their injuries.

With the trailer resting on its side, rescuers reached the surviving cattle by cutting holes on the side of the truck.

The nearby Central Oregon Livestock Auction holds its weekly cattle auction on Mondays.

Oregon’s Douglas County has approved a scaled-back plan to allow more rural housing on land currently zoned for farm and forest uses.

The change to the county’s comprehensive land use plan would allow 20-acre home sites to be carved out from 22,500 acres in mixed farm-forest zones, down from the originally proposed 35,000 acres.

It’s unlikely the full 22,500 acres will ever be developed due to limitations on water availability, appropriate septic tank sites and landowner consent to sell or divide property, said Keith Cubic, the county’s planning director.

The most likely scenario would be 25 percent utilization of the available acreage, creating 375 new housing parcels, said Cubic.

Even so, Cubic acknowledges the county’s experiment with the “rural open space” designation is a test case for Oregon.

The county has tried to resolve concerns raised by Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development, which administers the statewide land use planning system, he said.

“I don’t know if we got there,” Cubic said. “We’ll find that out.”

Douglas County will soon formally submit the “rural open space” plan amendment to DLCD for review, then wait until April 21 before rezoning any properties under the new designation.

If the agency or another party objects to the change before Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals, proposed zone changes will be put on hold until the challenge is resolved.

A remand from LUBA requiring modifications to the “rural open space” designation could provide a helpful interpretation of the law and make the plan amendment more successful, Cubic said.

In comments submitted on the proposal last year, DLCD worried the county had too narrowly defined agricultural land and set an excessively high productivity standard for livestock and forest land to be protected under the plan.

It’s unclear whether the plan considered the environmental and wildlife benefits of lower-productivity soils, the agency said.

According to DLCD, the county “loosely” concluded that development in rural areas would be economically positive, creating a “discrepancy” with studies that found that added service costs may outweigh any benefits.

The plan refers to accommodating demand for rural housing, which isn’t required under statewide planning goals and may be in “direct conflict” with some of them, the agency said.

Due to these and other concerns, DLCD said the proposal “is not consistent with state statutes and rules.”

Cubic of Douglas County said the revised plan used additional data overlays that exclude higher-quality farm and forestland from acreage available for 20-acre parcels.

Eligible “rural open space” parcels must be within two miles of existing cities and unincorporated rural communities.

However, three towns were disqualified due to the high proportion of surrounding farm and forest zones, inadequate road access, habitat concerns and other issues, he said.

The plan change is also expected to increase housing availability within existing “urban growth boundaries” due to people moving from cities to the rural parcels, Cubic said. “It does provide some rural housing opportunities.”

While the county can approve larger zone changes, most re-designations will occur after requests from individual landowners, he said.

The county didn’t shift all available 22,500 acres into the “rural open space” designation to avoid raising expectations in the event the plan is challenged, he said.

Aside from DLCD, the conservation group 1,000 Friends of Oregon has also been apprehensive about aspects of Douglas County’s proposal.

Greg Holmes, the group’s food systems program director, said he doesn’t yet have the basis to comment on the plan because he hasn’t seen the final adopted version.

Holmes said the public wasn’t able to review details of the revised plan before it was approved, making for a “very opaque process.”

Yesterday high school students from all over southwest Oregon met in Coquille for the 43rd High School South Coast Skills Day.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday signed a drought declaration for Klamath County, directing the state Department of Agriculture and Water Resources Department to coordinate assistance for water users including farmers and ranchers.

“We know 2018 is shaping up to be a very difficult year for the Klamath Basin, and we’re closely monitoring drought conditions here and statewide,” Brown said in a prepared statement. “I am committed to doing everything possible to make state resources available to provide immediate relief and assistance to water users throughout Klamath County.”

Snowpack is just 45 percent of normal so far this winter in the Klamath Basin, according to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. The U.S. Drought Monitor lists most of south-central Oregon in “moderate drought,” and conditions are likely expected to worsen heading into summer.

Klamath County commissioners previously declared a drought emergency on Feb. 20 due to low snowpack, low precipitation, low stream flows and higher-than-normal temperatures. Between threats to agriculture, livestock, natural resources and recreation, officials predict conditions could result in economic losses exceeding $557 million and impacting 4,500 jobs.

The Oregon Drought Readiness Council then met and recommended the governor sign off on a state drought declaration to assist the county.

A drought declaration gives the Water Resources Department a few additional tools at its disposal, such as issuing temporary emergency water use permits and temporary water exchanges. Alan Mikkelsen, deputy commissioner of reclamation for the Department of the Interior, also attended Gov. Brown’s meeting with Klamath officials and committed federal assistance to the basin.

“As we brace for another record-breaking drought year, collaboration with our federal partners will also be critical as we work toward locally supported, long-term solutions,” Brown said.

Scott Cheyne, assistant manager of the Klamath Irrigation District, said the declaration is a step in the right direction.

“Now it’s important for the federal government to follow along the lines and declare a drought that may open up some relief for the farmers here through federal programs,” Cheyne said.

The district received early irrigation information on March 9 from the Bureau of Reclamation, which emphasized that low snowpack and dry conditions have resulted in low water inflows to Upper Klamath Lake. The NRCS projects inflow to be about 54 percent of average between March and September.

While an irrigation schedule has not yet been set, Jeff Nettleton, manager of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Basin Area Office, said they are working to provide more information in the coming weeks.

“We would like nothing more than to be able to provide our Klamath Project contractors with an allocation for the year as soon as possible, and I assure you we are all working hard to get there,” Nettleton said in a statement released by the bureau. “We have been working hard with stakeholders and partner agencies to find a path forward this year despite the dire hydrological conditions.”

The Klamath Irrigation District includes 33,000 acres, with farmers and ranchers growing a variety of crops such as alfalfa hay, potatoes, garlic, onion and mint. Irrigation season usually starts April 15, Cheyne said, but he is not certain exactly how the drought will affect this year’s timing.

“We’re hoping for a miracle March, but we’re in a pretty deep hole right now,” he said.

LANGLOIS - Johann Sebastian Bach's 333rd birthday is coming up on March 31 and local musicians are celebrating by inviting the public to a Bach Birthday Party and Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday April 8, at the Langlois Cheese Factory,…

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. — Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center on March 12 dedicated its first new wine grape planting in 30 years, naming it after Porter Lombard, the Oregon State University researcher who showed Oregon growers how to make vineyards pay off.

Lombard, 88 years old and long retired from his decades at the university, was on hand for the ceremony that drew colleagues and friends from the commercial fruit and wine industry.

Alex Levin, the current OSU viticulturalist assigned to the research center, noted the new grape block is adjacent to the oldest standing research pear plot on the station. Lombard came to Southern Oregon as a pomologist in 1963, working with a booming pear industry.

“All of this,” said Levin, pointing to the new trellis system and neat rows of alternating red and white wine cuttings, “would not have been possible without (the work of) Porter Lombard.”

There are about 160 vineyards and 80 wineries in Southern Oregon, including many established on ground which once supported pear orchards.

Will Brown, an historian specializing in the West Coast wine grape industry, said when Lombard arrived at the Southern Oregon station there were perhaps 100 wineries in California, a handful in Washington and only one in Oregon. Brown said Lombard knew of grape work underway at the time in Washington’s Yakima Valley.

Similar climates between Southern Oregon and Yakima led Lombard to experiment with grapes while doing pear research.

The first research plot, on ground owned by Valley View Winery, went in when that winery was established in 1972. Lombard followed up with an extensive trial at the station concentrating on cultivars from France’s Rhone River Valley. OSU later transferred him to the Corvallis campus as part of a team which advised the fledgling Willamette Valley grape growers.

When Lombard retired, he returned to Southern Oregon, and for many years was a much-sought-after consultant to local growers.

It was before sunrise last September when eight immigration agents approached the family’s sedan.

Lourdes and her husband were parked outside their home on a dark, dead-end street in Woodburn, Oregon, a mostly Latino community about 30 miles south of Portland.

Their 3-month-old daughter was strapped in her car seat in the back. The family waited for Lourdes’ mother, who was still inside with the couple’s 2-year-old daughter.

The plan was to drop the kids at day care before the adults headed to their jobs picking grapes in the Willamette Valley.

The officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t initially identify themselves, said Lourdes, who OPB is identifying only by first name because she and her husband both fear being deported.

She could read “police” on their tactical vests, but the agent who spoke first covered his badge with his hand, Lourdes said.

The agents, speaking in Spanish, demanded to know where Lourdes’ father was.

“‘Tell me where he is. If not, I’m going to take you,’” Lourdes said the ICE agents told her. “I was like, ‘Wow, you guys are going to take me even though I haven’t do nothing?’”

Lourdes told the agents she didn’t know where her father was.

“I was talking to them because I didn’t know they were ICE,” she said. Then the agent removed the hand covering his badge.

“I told my mom and my husband, ‘Don’t say any more word.’”

The family tried to move from their car and go back inside their house. The agents, Lourdes later said, blocked their path.

The ICE agents wanted to know the family’s immigration status. They asked to see their IDs. Lourdes refused, she said, because the agents didn’t have a warrant or deportation order.

“I was really scared.”

At one point, Lourdes said an agent tried to guide her husband away.

“He was telling my husband, ‘Let’s go in the car to talk, I need to talk with you,’” Lourdes said. “And I told him, ‘No, you’re not going to take him, because if you take him you’re going to arrest him.’”

Lourdes asked the agents to leave. And then she did something that would be surprising, even unthinkable, in other parts of the country: She called the police.

Advocates say this is Oregon’s sanctuary law at work. The state’s 30-year-old policy limits police from cooperating with federal immigration efforts. A number of cities and counties, including Portland, have their own policies promising immigrants protection.

And that, supporters of such policies say, means immigrants with no criminal record feel comfortable calling law enforcement — even if they’re calling to ask local police to protect them from federal agents.

The Trump administration would have you believe something different. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been touring the country warning that sanctuary policies such as Oregon’s make communities less safe. He’s pushed sanctuary communities to prove their policies don’t violate federal law and threatened to withhold federal grants. The Department of Justice sued California in early March for its new sanctuary laws, which are similar in intent but more sweeping than Oregon’s.

“Whatever the crime rate is in a city, you can be sure it would be higher and will be higher if these policies are followed,” Sessions said during a speech in Portland last fall. “Sanctuary policies endanger us all.”

Policy experts on both ends of the political spectrum say there’s no data to support that. But the lack of statistical proof hasn’t prevented Sessions and other immigration hardliners from stoking fears.

They don’t point to Lourdes and her family. Instead, they cite cases such as Sergio Jose Martinez.

Last July, a 65-year-old woman in Northeast Portland woke up in the middle of the night to find Martinez in her bedroom.

He bound her arms and legs with her own socks and scarves. He blindfolded her, gagged her and wrapped a scarf around her mouth.

Then he forced her to perform oral sex and beat her.

Portland Police arrested Martinez within hours of the attack after he physically assaulted another woman while trying to steal her car at knife-point.

In December, Martinez pleaded guilty to assault, robbery and sodomy. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

According to ICE, Martinez had been deported from and re-entered the United States more than a dozen times before the Portland attacks.

Researchers say Martinez is an extraordinary case. They say there’s no evidence to support the Trump administration’s claims that sanctuary laws create more dangerous communities.

“It’s a rhetorical argument [Sessions is] using, but the facts don’t support him,” said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

“When you take a look at the totality of crime research on immigrants in the United States, you find that immigrants are either less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, or about the same,” he said. “And that is a finding that has held since the early 20th Century.”

Last March, Nowrasteh co-authored a study that looked at incarceration rates of immigrants in the country illegally compared to native-born Americans.

“We find that they [illegal immigrants] are about half as likely to be incarcerated in prison compared to natives,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice declined interview requests. The DOJ also didn’t respond to requests for what data or research the agency has to support the attorney general’s claims.

A DOJ spokesman did write back in an email that said: “The calculation here is pretty simple: If a murderer or rapist is returned to the streets, the community is more at risk than had the criminal alien been turned over to ICE for deportation.”

Sessions has pointed to some research in his arguments against sanctuary policies. In July, during a speech in Las Vegas, the attorney general cited a study that he said showed sanctuary cities report more violent crime on average compared to cities that don’t have sanctuary laws.

“According to a recent study from the University of California Riverside, cities with these policies have more violent crime on average than those that don’t,” Sessions said during the July 2017 speech in Las Vegas.

But the author of that research says Sessions misrepresented his work.

“Obviously that’s not true because that’s not what our study shows,” said Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien, a professor of political science at Highline College in Des Moines, Washington.

Gonzalez O’Brien and researchers at the University of California Riverside examined crime rates in more than 50 sanctuary cities and compared them to crime rates in 4,000 non-sanctuary cities.

The researchers found no relationship between sanctuary policies and crime.

Gonzalez O’Brien’s work fails to support aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. But it also fails to support claims made by some law enforcement agencies that say sanctuary policies make communities safer. Put simply, the study found there is no correlation whatsoever between crime rates and whether a city has some type of sanctuary policy.

Sessions stopped citing the research after Gonzalez O’Brien wrote several op-eds complaining that the DOJ was misstating his study’s findings.

In January, the left-leaning Center for American Progress published research that found a benefit of sanctuary policies to public safety.

Tom Wong, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, wrote in his study that there’s also an economic perk to communities that protect all residents.

Wong used data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained through a public records request. The dataset included 2,494 counties — 608 of which ICE considers sanctuary jurisdictions, according to the study. Using a statistical analysis, Wong matched like counties and incorporated FBI crime data as well as economic details from the 2015 American Community Survey.

“Altogether, the data suggest that when local law enforcement focuses on keeping communities safe, rather than becoming entangled in federal immigration enforcement efforts, communities are safer and community members stay more engaged in the local economy,” Wong wrote.

Absent data and research that bolster its case, the Trump administration points to individual crimes, such as the Martinez case in Portland or the case of Kate Steinle in San Francisco.

In 2015, Steinle was shot and killed while walking along the Embarcadero.

Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, who is in the country illegally, was charged with the 32-year-old woman’s death. His attorneys argued he didn’t intend to kill Steinle, rather Zarate found something wrapped in a shirt on the pier that turned out to be a gun. The weapon discharged after Zarate picked it up. During trial, the defense called experts who said the shooting was accidental, noting that the bullet Zarate shot ricocheted before hitting Steinle in the back. In December, a jury acquitted Zarate of murder.

President Trump has cited the Steinle case repeatedly, during the campaign and since taking office, in arguing for tougher immigration enforcement. After the Zarate acquittal, Trump called the verdict “disgraceful” and Sessions urged communities to abandon sanctuary policies.

A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2017

The president has called the case a “travesty of justice.” But Christopher Lasch, a law professor at the University of Denver, said it’s telling Trump and Sessions didn’t point to any facts that arose in the trial as proof of their beliefs.

The administration isn’t saying, “‘Here’s why our whole premise that immigrants cause crime in cities is, in fact, true, despite that the case we relied on for the last two years has come out as an acquittal with no criminal conduct,’” Lasch said.

Yet, Lasch said, the rhetoric that sanctuary policies pose a public safety threat has taken hold as part of the larger national debate surrounding immigration — despite the lack of research to back up those claims.

“It’s a story that people will believe, and they’ll believe it whether or not the facts bear it out,” Lasch said.

“There’s some deep-seated belief here about immigrant criminality that [Trump and Sessions] won’t let go of. People are inclined to believe that immigrants bring crime, and a lot of that is packaged up with our ideas about race.”

Back in September, Lourdes actually called the Woodburn Police twice about the eight ICE agents outside her home. The second time was to ask what was taking police officers so long.

Lourdes said she handed her baby to her husband in an effort to stop agents who were trying to lead him away.

“I give her to my husband so they couldn’t take him,” she said.

In the 911 call, Lourdes told the dispatcher that an ICE officer was trying to take the baby out of her husband’s arms.

“Tell them to hurry up, because they want to touch my daughter, and I told them I don’t want them to touch my daughter,” Lourdes said on the call, according to audio obtained through a public records request.  

“Who wants to touch your daughter?” the dispatcher responded.

“The ICE—” she said, before being interrupted by the dispatcher.

In the background of the 911 call, a baby cried.

A spokeswoman for ICE said she couldn’t confirm the incident and also couldn’t speak to the specific actions of individual agents.

“During targeted enforcement operations, ICE officers frequently encounter other aliens illegally present in the United States,” the spokeswoman said in a follow-up email. “These aliens are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and, when appropriate, they are arrested by ICE officers.”

Lourdes later said that when she called the police, the only thing she was thinking about was her daughter’s safety.

“I trust the police,” she said.

That’s important to Jim Ferraris, who has been chief of the Woodburn Police Department since December 2015.

The city of about 30,000 is arguably the most diverse in Oregon with a population that’s 65 percent Latino, 10 percent Russian, with a growing number of Somali residents and a community of mostly white retirees centered around a golf course.

Even before Trump took office, Ferraris said, he’s made improving relations between the police and immigrant populations a priority.

“As I moved around the community to become acquainted, I heard very clearly that there was a sense of fear with law enforcement, that often times local law enforcement was confused with federal immigration authorities,” Ferraris said. “It’s no secret that it’s very likely that some of our Latino population is undocumented. So there was a clear message back to me that people were fearful of the police.”

Ferraris began a public relations campaign of sorts, writing newspaper editorials, appearing on Spanish-language radio and speaking at community meetings.

He’s also made efforts to diversify the police force. Today, about 35 percent of Woodburn’s sworn officers are Latino or speak Spanish.

“The only people that need to fear us are criminals,” Ferraris said. “People who may have issues with the federal government over their immigration status are not our issue.”

Back in September, two officers responded to Lourdes’ call, Ferraris said.

Lourdes and her family allowed them to search their home and confirm to ICE agents that her father wasn’t there.

After the incident, Ferraris received two calls: One was from Ramon Ramirez, with the area farmworkers union, complimenting the Woodburn officers. The second call was from ICE’s acting field officer, Elizabeth Godfrey, also praising how police handled the situation.

“What that exemplifies or demonstrates is that people in our community are not fearing us as they did,” Ferraris said. “And that they trust enough to call us and ask for our help.”

Wednesdays

Increased logging of old-growth forests is threatening the survival of a unique species of salamander that lives in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southern Oregon and northern California, according to a federal petition filed Monday by four environmental groups.

The organizations, including Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Environmental Protection Information Center, are asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Siskiyou Mountains salamander to the endangered species list, which would trigger protections for the amphibians and their habitat.

“This highly specialized animal can’t adapt to logging, so it will be pushed to the brink of extinction without Endangered Species Act protections,” said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The salamander is a unique indicator species of forest health in the Siskiyou Mountains. It deserves immediate protection in the face of accelerated logging.”

The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is described as a long-bodied, short-limbed terrestrial salamander and is brown with white speckles. It lives only in isolated locations along the Klamath River, on stabilized rock talus in old-growth forests covered with thick moss.

Conservationists previously petitioned for ESA protections for the salamander in 2004. While the species was not listed, the USFWS did conduct a status review in 2006 and later developed a conservation strategy working with the Bureau of Land Management, which was intended to protect habitat for 110 salamander sub-populations on federal lands in the Applegate River watershed in southwest Oregon.

However, the BLM adopted its Western Oregon Plan Revision for 2.5 million acres of forestland in 2016, which environmental groups argue will substantially increase logging in the region and undermine protections for the salamander.

Josh Laughlin, executive director of Cascadia Wildlands based in Eugene, Ore., said the BLM’s decision shrinks buffers in half for logging along streams, and does away with the policy of “survey and manage,” which required timber planners to look for salamanders before cutting in their habitat.

“It’s clearly going to have a detrimental effect on the remaining population of Siskiyou salamanders,” Laughlin said.

Cascadia Wildlands, along with five other groups, already filed a complaint in late summer 2016 against the BLM, asking for an injunction against the agency’s Western Oregon Plan Revision. Laughlin said he expects oral arguments in the case this summer.

The ESA petition filed Monday claims the survival of the salamander depends less on overall abundance than it does on habitat protections. The groups go on to argue that “very few populations are secure from habitat destruction and alteration” related to increased logging.

The Oregon Forest Industries Council and American Forest Resource Council, meanwhile, issued a joint statement against the petition, calling it politically motivated and accusing the groups of overwhelming federal agencies with petitions and litigation instead of working collaboratively with scientists and stakeholders to produce supportive research.

PORTLAND — While a growing push to link consumers with their food has become the norm, one Oregon agritourism business is stretching the local food movement further by sharing its proceeds with the hungry.

Every summer since 2003 Plate and Pitchfork has offered on-farm, gourmet meals around Oregon featuring tours of the land the meal was harvested and an opportunity to interact with the host farmers. Since its inception, Plate and Pitchfork has shared a portion of its profits.

“Plate and Pitchfork has always supported hunger relief — in the beginning we divided our support between hunger and environmental causes,” founder Erika Polmar said.

As her business grew and the message of eating locally produced food became well known, Polmar said she wanted to make a more dramatic impact by sharing her profits with those who don’t get enough to eat.

“One-in-five Oregonians is food insecure,” Polmar said.

For the past six years a portion of ticket sales and profits from merchandise were sent to Farmers Ending Hunger, a group that solicits crop donations from farmers for the Oregon Food Bank. In 2016 those donations added up to more than $22,000.

A donation of $150 to Farmers Ending Hunger is a year’s supply of fresh vegetables for a family of four, providing Polmar a way to make the dramatic impact she sought.

“I wanted to work with them because they are so cost efficient with so little overhead,” Polmar said.

John Burt has served as Farmers Ending Hunger’s executive director for 10 of its 11 years. The retired Oregon State University extension agent said in 2015 his group helped get more than four million pounds of donated food to the Oregon Food Bank and 3.5 million pounds last year.

“We help get food from point A to the food box,” Burt said.

Potatoes and onions make up half of the fresh food that Farmers Ending Hunger steers to the food bank, totaling one million pounds each. A major cherry producer in the Columbia Gorge is donating nearly 100,000 pounds, delivering bins every week during the season a large cattle farm donates hamburger.

A lot of the crops, such as carrots, green beans, carrots or beets, are frozen or canned at Norpac. At planting time Burt said Norpac knows how many acres of crop to expect.

Three years ago a wall-size display featuring Farmers Ending Hunger was installed at SAGE Center in Boardman, a sustainable agriculture and energy interpretive center. The center’s interactive displays describe the food and energy businesses at the Port of Morrow and their impact on the region.

“To be asked to have space on the wall felt like we’d arrived,” Burt said.

For Polmar, finding worthy causes to share her profits was easy, but collecting more than 100 donations from each of Plate and Pitchfork’s events was generating an administrative nightmare for nonprofits with small staffs like Farmers Ending Hunger where Burt is part-time, running an entire program on roughly $125,000 year.

To alleviate the paperwork burden for the organizations she supports, Polmar started the Plate & Pitchfork Fund to End Hunger in 2017, under the umbrella of the McKenzie River Gathering, a community foundation. The donations go into the fund throughout the summer months and at the end of the year checks are cut to different organizations.

“This was the first year we awarded $15,000 to Farmers Ending Hunger, $1,000 to Lower Columbia School Gardens and $3,500 to Community Connection of Northeast Oregon’s food bank,” Polmar said.

Polmar is preparing her 2018 Plate and Pitchfork calendar, on-farm meals with a story and a mission.

“When guests come to dinner this year a portion of their ticket and merchandise purchases will benefit the fund and awarded to Farmers Ending Hunger and other organizations finding creative ways to solve Oregon’s hunger crisis,” Polmar said.

To learn more about Plate and Pitchfork’s fund visit www.plateandpitchfork.com. For more information on Farmers Ending Hunger, visit www.farmersendinghunger.com.

LANGLOIS - Southwestern Oregon Preppers will hold a meeting at noon on Saturday, March 17, at the Langlois Public Library, 48234 Highway 101, Langlois.

LANGLOIS - Interesting Langlois Presents Kandi J Wyatt, local fantasy author at 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 28, at the Langlois Public Library. Wyatt is the author of the popular “Dragon Courage” series as well as the historical fiction, “The One…

LANGLOIS - The Trinity Alps Chamber Players, featuring Ian Scarfe, piano, and Charles Akert, cello, with special guests will perform at 7 p.m., Friday, March 23, at the charming and unique Langlois Cheese Factory, 94179 Allen Boice Drive, Langlois.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — The 77 bulls that walked through the auction ring on Feb. 25 during the 27th annual Buchanan Bull Sale had some similar traits.

They were all registered black Angus, they were 12 to 15 months old and they all had genetics and lineage that could be traced back to the Bob and Kathleen Buchanan ranch. Just over half the bulls were from the Buchanan ranch and the rest were from ranches that had purchased Buchanan bulls in the past and used them in their breeding programs.

The bids for this year’s lineup of bulls ranged from a high of $11,000 down to $2,000.

“I did like how the bulls looked,” said Buchanan, who has been in the Angus business for about 50 years. “We had some well-bred bulls in the sale.”

Steve and Jill Stoltenberg of Willows, Calif., purchased four bulls, including the one that went for $11,000. They said they have been following and using the Buchanan bloodline for a long time and have had success with it in their cattle operation.

“These were good looking bulls with good balance and good EPDs (expected progeny differences,” Steve Stoltenberg said. EPDs forecast the genetic value of an animal as a parent.

Jake Troutt, the American Angus Association field representative for Oregon, Idaho and Washington, attended the bull sale. He said he thought the quality of the bulls was outstanding.

“Bob and Kathleen have their bulls tuned in to what you want them to be,” Troutt said. “They are salt-of-the-earth people and they produce quality bulls.”

Gary McManus of Lakeview, Ore., added that the Buchanan Angus genetics are “second to nobody.” He purchased one bull for his purebred Angus operation.

The Buchanans visit several Angus bull operations in the Billings, Montana, area each year and look for traits in bulls that fit their program.

“If they fit our program, our criteria, our EPD, our phenotype, our soundness, our disposition, the things you can’t see in a photo, then we buy their semen,” Bob Buchanan.

Back at their ranch, the Buchanans’ Angus cows are all bred through artificial insemination. About 170 cows were bred in the last year.

The Buchanans note that some of the key traits of the calves are moderate birth weights, rapid growth and natural muscling. They also emphasize that there is not a creep feeder on their ranch and that the growing calves get their weight from milk and native pasture. The bull calves are weaned and conditioned on a steep juniper-covered hillside overlooking Klamath Lake, giving the animals sound feet and legs.

“We have bred our Angus to be the most trouble-free animals they can be,” Bob Buchanan said. “Cattlemen realize that advantage. There are a number of branded beef programs based on the Angus breed that increases the value of Angus and Angus cross calves.”

For the first 10 years of their bull sale, the Buchanans included only their own bulls. But as the Buchanan Angus genetics became more prominent at other operations, those ranchers were invited to be guest consigners and to bring their bulls to this annual sale.

In addition to the sale, the Buchanans, their family and friends, and the consigners host a tri-tip dinner with live music the night before the sale and then a breakfast the next day before the bulls enter the ring and bids are made.

“We probably wouldn’t be able to take on a project like this sale and the meals without the additional help,” said Bob Buchanan, noting that Steve Stoltenberg has been cooking the tri-tip for many years.

Don Santos, a Glide, Ore., area rancher attended the sale. He said the Angus breed and the Buchanan bull genetics are highly acclaimed because they produce certified beef that grades as choice.

Shavon Haynes tromps into a small, quiet clearing in the woods on Mount Ashland.  He drops a black pack into the knee-deep snow. He pulls out a snow sampler, two lengths of worn metal pipe and screws them together.

“I’ve dubbed it Excalibur, because when it’s put together it looks like a large sword. And Excalibur is the only sword I really know the name of,” he says.

Haynes works as the Jackson County Watermaster. He plunges Excalibur into a fresh patch of snow, calling out a measurement to his colleague Ben Thorpe.

“So we got a depth of 29 and a half,” Haynes says.

And he and Thorpe weigh the snow core they pull out to figure out the density – or just how much water it contains, which is also called the “snow water equivalent.”

 “It’s definitely less than last year,” Haynes says of the snowpack they find at the four sites on Mount Ashland. “And less than normal.”

This late-season snow near the Oregon-California border will feed the Klamath Basin. It’s been welcome, but the snowpack is still less than half of what an average winter brings.  And that’s no good for the region.

Every year about this time the Pacific Northwest really starts paying attention to the amount of snow in the mountains. It lets us know how much water we’ll have this summer for fish, agriculture and people.

Most of Washington has had above average snow this winter, but the situation gets more dicey the farther south you travel.

About half of Oregon is experiencing moderate drought already, and it looks like the Klamath Basin is once again going to be a focal point of water conflict in the West.

“The writing, I think at this point, is on the wall. There are going to be shortages this year,”said Scott White, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. “Even if it kept snowing and snowing and snowing, it’s going to stop and there’s not going to be enough water to go around.”

Drought is not new here in the Klamath Basin. There’s been a governor-declared drought 10 of the past 16 years.

But White says this year is different. The federal programs that subsidized farmers to idle land and pump groundwater in the past are gone. And a bill that would have given irrigation districts more flexibility to move water around didn’t get play this session in the Oregon Legislature.

“My message to the public was ‘hey, you guys really need to start thinking about what you’re going to be doing on farm,’” White said. “What are your operations going to look like this year? You need to be thinking about this on your own. Don’t plan on getting saved.”

At a meeting in late February, Klamath County commissioners did what they could. They voted to ask the state for yet another drought declaration estimating they’re facing a half billion dollars in losses.

“Hopefully we can help get some government assistance to keep our agricultural community alive in 2018,” said Commissioner Donnie Boyd at the meeting.

Commissioners said they expected to hear from the state in mid-March, which could open up some state relief programs.  After a state issues a drought declaration, then the federal government considers the request, potentially opening up even more aid for farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin.

Of course, in the Klamath Basin, agriculture is only part of the story. The other big piece is fish.

Klamath River salmon runs continue to struggle. Disease and high water temperatures linked to low flows are considered a factor.

A petition from the Karuk Tribe and the Salmon River Restoration Council has prompted federal mangers to consider whether to add the river’s spring chinook to the endangered species list. The Klamath River coho salmon are already listed.

Last year a 200-mile chunk of the West Coast off Oregon and California closed to commercial salmon fishing because of low counts.  This year’s ocean salmon forecast is better, but the fishery could still be limited. Catch allowances will be determined in early April.   

Higher up in the basin, the Klamath Tribes have given notice they intend to sue federal agencies for not adequately protecting two species of endangered sucker fish. They’re demanding more water be held in Upper Klamath Lake.    

 “The current trajectory for our fish, basically they’ll be going extinct in the next five, ten years unless something very serious takes place,” said Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribes.

This year will be the first bad water year since 2015, when a long-negotiated water-sharing compromise fell apart after Congress failed to authorize it.

Oregon politicians are pushing the federal government to step up. But in the meantime, without the common ground of a compromise deal on the table, Gentry says relationships between farmers, tribes and other water users have become strained. And this year’s drought promises to test the Klamath Basin in a way it hasn’t been tested in decades.

“It’s kind of pushed us in a corner,” he said. “And that’s one thing we have in common, we’re all pushed into a corner.”

Albany, Ore., straw farmer Shelly Boshart Davis long believed that one day she would serve her community in a public forum. She just didn’t think it would happen this fast.

Davis, 38, has announced she has filed to run for Oregon House District 15.

Her filing was precipitated by the announcement in late February that seven-term Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, would not seek re-election. With Olson’s encouragement, Davis decided it was time to make the leap.

“I’ve been talking to Andy about this for a while, and when I was asked to consider representing our district in the Legislature, I knew it was time to step up to the plate,” Davis said.

“I knew that someday I would give back to the community in some form of public office, but I thought that would be further down the road,” she said.

Davis, who is running unopposed in the May primary, said that if elected, she believes she can juggle her legislative duties with her responsibilities with Boshart Trucking, which bales over 20,000 acres of straw each summer, and as vice president of Bossco Trading, which negotiates straw sales internationally.

“The timing is good,” Davis said. “The long (legislative) session (held on odd-numbered years) ends around the Fourth of July, which is typically when we start baling. And I am only twenty minutes from the Capitol.

“If I had lived in Malheur County, this wouldn’t be an option,” she said.

Also, she said: “The Legislature is not a full-time job, and Oregon is meant to have a ‘citizen Legislature’ made up of ordinary people. Most in the Legislature have other jobs and many still run businesses. It is all about priorities.”

House District 15 has a long history of supporting Republican candidates, but Republicans hold only a 2.5 percentage point advantage over Democrats in the largely blue-collar district, and winning the seat isn’t seen as a sure thing. Davis said she plans to run a full-scale campaign, with the big push coming in September and October, after harvest.

She added that while she has never run for office, she is no stranger to campaigns, having been involved in campaigns to defeat Measure 92, the GMO-labeling measure that voters rejected in 2014, and Measure 97, the gross-receipts tax measure that voters rejected in 2016.

Davis also is no stranger to the Capitol. “I have probably testified on anywhere from 20 to 25 different issues over the past few years, from diesel to emissions to labor, manufacturing, pesticides — all of these multiple issues that have hit us (in agriculture) over the past few years. And I am very involved in the Oregon Seed Council, Oregon Aglink, Oregon Women for Agriculture and Farm Bureau.”

She also has served on the Government Affairs Committee for the Albany Chamber of Commerce, on an advisory committee for the Agriculture Transportation Coalition and, since 2016, on the Linn County Budget Committee.

Davis, who is married and has three daughters, said she has received tremendous encouragement and more than $15,000 in campaign donations since she announced her plans.

“People have been calling, asking how they can support,” she said. “I think it is encouraging and humbling, and I hope it keeps going.”

The Oregon Wheat Growers League and Oregon Wheat Commission have joined a growing number of state and national grain industry groups calling on the U.S. to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

Eleven countries, including major U.S. trade partners Japan, Canada and Australia, signed on to a revised version of the trade agreement Thursday in Santiago, Chile. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the TPP shortly after taking office last year.

The news has ignited uncertainty among Oregon wheat farmers, which export 85-90 percent of their crop. Japan accounts for 21 percent of total export sales for soft white wheat, the dominant Northwest variety, used to make products such as sponge cakes and noodles.

Oregon wheat officials announced they have signed onto letter, along with 33 other state and national groups, to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer asking the administration to immediately prioritize rejoining the TPP.

“Like President Trump, American farmers do not enjoy losing to their competitors,” the letter, dated March 7, states. “They want to make great deals and see their family businesses thrive. If the President brings us into TPP, U.S. farmers can start winning again among the world’s most important agricultural markets.”

The letter is also signed by the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates, in addition to state grain organizations from neighboring Washington, Idaho and California.

Once the TPP is ratified, wheat exports to Japan will be at serious risk, farmers argue. Oregon wheat exports to Japan earn an estimated $60 million per year at current prices from Portland’s grain terminals.

Competitors in Australia and Canada will gradually gain an economic advantage as tariffs for their wheat are reduced by $65 per metric ton, or $1.75 per bushel, compared to U.S. wheat, according to the industry’s figures.

The cost difference will set up a “catastrophic loss” of sales over the next few years, the letter continues. Japanese flour mills estimated U.S. share would fall by more than half, from about 3 million metric tons to less than 1.4 million metric tons, equal to $500 million per year. And that lost market share is incredibly difficult to regain, the letter states.

“The President has promised to negotiate great new deals,” the groups continue. “American agriculture now counts on that promise and American wheat farmers — facing a calamity they would be hard-pressed to overcome — now depend on it.”