New director faces tough budget, more decision-making power

By Mateusz Perkowski

Capital Press

SALEM — The Oregon Department of Agriculture’s new director, Alexis Taylor, got some sound advice at a recent legislative hearing.

“We very rarely hear complaints about the Department of Agriculture, so please don’t screw it up,” said Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas.

That sentiment has been a running theme in meetings with state government officials during a recent stop in Salem, said Taylor, who was confirmed unanimously as ODA’s director by the Oregon Senate on Dec. 14.

The 2017 legislative session will begin soon after she takes office on Jan. 23, but after that, Taylor said her top priority would be visiting every county in the state to learn about the diversity of Oregon farms firsthand.

Taylor also said she’d be tackling a “core question” facing the state’s agriculture industry: “Who will be our next generation of farmers and ranchers?”

At the end of her tenure at USDA, Taylor oversaw the Farm Service Agency, the Risk Management Agency and the Foreign Agricultural Service, working on policy, budget and management issues. Overall, the three agencies have 14,000 employees worldwide.

“I really enjoy finding talent, helping to groom talent,” Taylor told Capital Press.

In the immediate future, though, Taylor doesn’t expect to make staffing changes at ODA.

She will need to rely on the experience of top staffers as the agency navigates the 2017 legislative session.

“Consistency is really important,” Taylor said.

ODA is at a tough juncture, as the agency is facing a cut to its general fund budget, which pays for programs such as predator control and weed biocontrol, among others.

Taylor is taking an optimistic view of the situation, noting that dealing with a constrained budget can prompt agencies to identify process efficiencies that save money.

“We can look at how we do things, why we do them a certain way,” she said.

The overall state budget turmoil is also likely to give Taylor greater decision-making power.

Gov. Kate Brown has a lot on her plate and probably won’t be inclined to micro-manage natural resource issues, said Katy Coba, the ODA’s former director and current chief of the state’s Department of Administrative Services.

“I expect the governor is not going to be giving a lot of detailed direction to Alexis,” Coba said.

The governor has also shifted her natural resources advisers into new positions, shrinking the natural resources team and likely leaving more power in the hands of ODA, she said.

“Agencies will have to step up a little more,” Coba said.

Oregon agriculture is facing several coexistence issues — between marijuana and hemp, between canola and related seed crops, between farmers who grow genetically engineered crops and those who produce crops organically and conventionally, she said.

There are a many key players in Oregon’s agriculture industry whom Taylor will be meeting at a time when the legislature is in full swing, she said.

“My advice to her, ‘Keep breathing,’” Coba said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The National Weather Service forecast calls for snow in much of Oregon — a lot of it in some places.

The service issued a winter storm warning for Eastern Oregon, with 4 to 8 inches expected in Pendleton and Hermiston, and up to a foot in cities at higher elevations, such as John Day and Heppner.

Similar foot-deep totals are expected in Central Oregon, where snow was falling at Lava Butte early Wednesday. School districts in that region canceled classes and after-school activities.

Meanwhile, as much as 3 inches of snow is predicted to fall in the Portland metro area. Forecasters say the snow should start early Wednesday afternoon, complicating the ride home from work.

In the southern Willamette Valley, a mix of snow and freezing rain could make Eugene streets treacherous.

KEIZER, Ore. (AP) — In a public meeting that exposed deep concerns about global warming and deforestation, Oregon’s top elected state leaders on Tuesday postponed a decision on the proposed sale of the Elliott State Forest to a timber company, instead making a pitch for alternatives that would maintain public ownership of the state’s first public forest.

Speaker after speaker came from cities, towns and farms to pack the meeting room in the Keizer Community Center, north of Salem. They beseeched their leaders to reject the sale of the 82,500-acre forest in the Coastal Range to Lone Rock Timber Co. and its tribal partners.

They said a line must be drawn to preserve public lands, expressing fear that a Trump presidency would try to sell some of the lands to enrich a few, and that the next administration would also ignore the threat of global warming.

The sale of the forest was proposed because timber harvest revenues that go into a school fund have dropped in recent years.

“Teddy Roosevelt and people like our first forester, Francis Elliott, went to great efforts to preserve these last great tracts of unclaimed land for future generations of Americans to enjoy and recreate on. I did not think I would have to be here in 2016 to defend them,” Joseph Metzler, a retired Coast Guard rescue swimmer from Coos Bay, told the State Land Board.

Those in flannel outnumbered those wearing suits at the 3½-hour meeting attended by more than 200 people.

Some school board representatives backed the sale, saying the $221 million it would fetch should go into the Common School Fund. Several speakers recommended that if the sale does not go forward, that the forest be removed from the Common School Fund portfolio so it would not suffer negative impacts with declining timber harvests.

Lone Rock, based in Roseburg, had said it was confident that it could turn a profit by extracting at least 35 million board feet per year from the forest while providing protections for older forests, streams, recreation opportunities and local jobs. The state has not logged nearly that amount in recent years, at least in part because of environmental protections and lawsuits.

“It is a sustainable harvest level based on the estimated 70-plus million board feet of forest growth each year,” Jake Gibbs, director of external affairs of Lone Rock Resources, told The Associated Press in an email.

After years of being profitable since 1997, net revenue from the forest fell from $5.8 million in 2012 to losses of $3.3 million in 2013 and $1.8 million in 2014, the Oregon Department of State Lands says. But 2015 saw gains. This year through 2019 are expected to be borderline.

People who came to testify before the board, composed of Gov. Kate Brown, State Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Secretary of State Jeanne P. Atkins, warned that no trespassing signs would go up and that the forest might be resold down the line. They said that a sale could embolden people like Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan, who led the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon last winter.

Grandmothers and even children were among those who took three seats at a time before the board to testify. Clapping was banned, so people showed silent support for comments that they liked by waving their hands in the air. Some of those who spoke against the deal said Native Americans should get much more than the small share the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians would obtain in the deal.

At the close of the meeting, Brown encouraged those attending to help find a solution.

“This is your opportunity, and I expect that you will work quickly, collaboratively and thoughtfully and hope that we can come up with another proposal that will maintain the Elliott in public ownership,” she said to a burst of applause.

She said she is proposing that the state use up to $100 million in bonding authority to pay into the Common School Fund and relieve the Elliott of part of its fiduciary responsibility for the fund.

The Department of State Lands said it will continue to work with the proposers of the purchase plan, including exploring the potential for additional partners, possibly involving public entities. The State Land Board instructed the department to provide an update on Feb. 14.

Local Lakes: Not much action out at our local lakes in recent weeks. Local angler Wes Nodine reported catching two nice cutthroat trout at the outlet on Floras Lake just south of Langlois last weekend. Wes told me he was…

The Harney Soil and Water Conservation District in Eastern Oregon hopes that new sage grouse regulations will be revised under the upcoming Trump administration.

To that end, the district has filed a lawsuit that seeks a court order requiring the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to reconsider the rules, which ranchers see as overly burdensome.

The BLM amended Oregon’s “resource management plan” for federal lands last year as part of a broader push to protect greater sage grouse habitat and prevent further declines in the bird’s population.

The agency unlawfully ignored a “rural community alternative” focused on preventing wildfire and invasive species — the greatest threat to sage grouse — developed by local BLM officials, scientists and ranchers, according to Harney SWCD’s complaint.

Instead, BLM adopted a plan that will likely cause grazing curtailments, the complaint said.

The rural community alternative was disregarded not for scientific reasons, but for expediency, which isn’t a valid reason to ignore the law, said Karen Budd-Falen, the district’s attorney.

“The BLM ignored it because they said they were under court deadlines (from a previous legal settlement) and didn’t have time,” she said.

Capital Press was unable to reach a spokesman for the Interior Department, which oversees BLM.

The amended regulations contain unrealistic grass height requirements for cattle to be allowed to graze, Budd-Falen said. “In a lot of areas, the grass doesn’t grow that high no matter what.”

BLM is also adopting a new method of monitoring rangeland health that will require re-training of agency employees, she said.

If resources aren’t sufficient to monitor certain regions with the new method, that will provide environmental groups with fodder for lawsuits to block grazing, Budd-Falen said.

Ranchers depend on grazing allotments on federal land, since they don’t have any ready alternatives for forage while the BLM calibrates its new monitoring strategy, she said. “These grazing allotments are part of these guys’ ranches.”

It would be more difficult for ranchers to build rangeland improvements due to restrictions on possible perches for predators that would hunt the sage grouse, she said.

In the best case scenario for the lawsuit, a judge would remand the amended plan to BLM, which would then incorporate recommendations in the rural community alternative that are less onerous to ranchers, Budd-Falen said.

“The Trump administration can’t predetermine a decision,” but it can re-start the process,” she said.

Tuesdays

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. government will push forward with conspiracy charges against the remaining seven people who helped take over a national wildlife refuge in Oregon, just weeks after the stunning acquittal of the first group of defendants.

Prosecutors said they also would proceed with firearms charges against six of the defendants and planned to add lesser counts that could include trespassing or destruction of property.

That would give jurors the option of a less serious conviction that wasn’t available in the earlier case.

Monday’s filing in U.S. District Court in Portland indicates that the government is not backing down despite the Oct. 27 acquittal of the occupation’s leaders, brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and five others.

Both groups faced the same charges: felony conspiracy to impede federal officers from doing their job and possession of a firearm in a federal facility.

But prosecutors appear to be padding their luck with the misdemeanor counts. Those plans make sense, legal experts said, particularly in light of how the first jury saw the case.

“I think one of the difficulties of this case always was that the actual felony charges didn’t exactly fit what the government theory was and, in an odd way, the misdemeanor charges might,” said Laurie Levenson, a law professor and former federal prosecutor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

“It gives the jury more options and room to compromise — and it still sets them up for a conviction,” she said.

Those charges also would allow the government to seize any property used in the crimes if the defendants are convicted, said Tung Yin, a criminal law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland. The provision is more commonly used in drug cases to go after property purchased with drug proceeds, he said.

In this case, the property could include guns, personal vehicles and other belongings the defendants used during the takeover, said Andrew M. Kohlmetz, lawyer for defendant Jason Patrick.

The government also asked for a 60-day delay for the trial, which was to begin in February, a request opposed by all the defense attorneys, Kohlmetz said.

The heavily armed occupiers seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2 to protest the imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers convicted for setting fires on public land and demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.

The Bundys and other key figures were arrested in a Jan. 26 traffic stop outside the refuge that ended with police fatally shooting Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, an occupation spokesman. Most occupiers left after his death, but four holdouts remained until Feb. 11, when they surrendered following a lengthy negotiation.

Federal prosecutors took two weeks to present their case against the first seven defendants, finishing with a display of more than 30 guns seized after the standoff.

During trial, Ammon Bundy testified that the plan was to take ownership of the refuge by occupying it for a period of time and then turn it over to local officials to use as they saw fit.

He also said the occupiers carried guns because they would have been arrested immediately otherwise and to protect themselves against possible government attack.

Washington and Oregon agriculture departments will not spray for gypsy moths next spring, one year after mounting high-profile and so far successful aerial campaigns to stop the destructive pest.

Combined, the states in April and May sprayed 19,250 acres, including over Portland, Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver. In the following months, gypsy moths were trapped elsewhere in both states, but none were caught in the areas that had been treated.

State officials say two more years must pass before they can declare the missions successful.

“This spring’s treatment results are very encouraging,” Washington State Department of Agriculture Director Derek Sandison said Monday in a written statement.

Western states have taken a hard line toward gypsy moths. The leaf-eating pests are established in Midwestern and Eastern states and have defoliated tens of millions of acres, according to USDA.

The egg masses of European gypsy moths come West attached to belongings, while Asian gypsy moths are introduced by ocean going vessels. Washington and Oregon have sprayed for gypsy moths most springs since 1979 as caterpillars hatch.

The states were especially alarmed in 2015 by the detection that summer of Asian gypsy moths, rarer and more mobile than European gypsy moths.

Washington sprayed a total of 10,450 acres in seven locations, while Oregon sprayed 8,800 acres in North Portland. Both states conducted extensive public campaigns to explain their plans and assure residents that the pesticide did not pose a risk to humans or animals.

Following the spraying, Washington trapped 25 European gypsy moths in Clark, Cowlitz, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Mason, Pierce, Spokane and Thurston counties. The widespread detections were not enough to warrant spraying, according to WSDA.

New England suffered its worst gypsy moth outbreak in 30 years last summer, said Jim Marra, WSDA’s pest program manager. “With outbreaks in other areas, we expect to see more catches in our state,” he said.

Oregon trapped four European gypsy moths in Grants Pass and two east of Springfield in Lane County.

Although gypsy moths have been trapped for several years in Grants Pass, the numbers are declining, ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said. “It makes us think it’s not a breeding population of concern,” he said.

AMITY, Ore. — Perrydale High School FFA Chapter’s Food For All Program winds up this month with the lofty goal of distributing over 130 tons of locally collected agricultural produce to needy families in Oregon.

The program, now in its 19th year, was started by former long-time Perrydale FFA Chapter Adviser Kirk Hutchinson. It’s now headed by second-year adviser Christina Lorenz, but “Hutch” takes an active role in each year’s collection and distribution efforts.

Students from all of Perrydale’s three public schools help the high school FFA chapter’s members gather, package and distribute the donated vegetables and other produce — from onions to squash, beets and other items — to needy people up and down the Willamette Valley. The efforts extend to the central Oregon Coast and Eastern Oregon as well.

“Each year, I am beyond impressed with the pride that my students take in this project,” Lorenz said. “It’s inspiring to see that tomorrow’s leaders are selfless and generous people who want to make their world a better place for everyone.”

Lorenz is also Perrydale High’s agriculture curriculum instructor.

The busload of kids, accompanied by Hutch and a large flatbed truck, made stops at several donor plants and warehouses to collect food and chat with the businesses’ representatives during a collection stop on Dec. 1. The route wound up the Willamette Valley from Perrydale along Highway 99E through Salem, Canby and farther northeast.

Stops at places such as EZ Orchards and Schlecter Farms were intended to introduce the FFA students to the donor’s plants and warehouses, watch the loading activities and chat with owners and managers.

EZ Orchards was the first stop, and the bus then headed up the corridor to NW Onion Co. in Brooks.

Duane Olson, NW Onion’s sales manager, had a big grin on his face and was clearly enjoying giving away 400 sacks (10 tons) of yellow onions to the FFA program’s “ambassadors” that gathered at the company’s warehouse.

Both Kevin Zielinski, Olson and principals of the other warehouse stops along the way received an FFA award “For Outstanding Service and Contributions” from Perrydale FFA Chapter President Sierra Starr and handshakes from all the kids.

“This project allows students build valuable partnerships with business and industry professionals, which leads to a strong professional network upon graduation,” Lorenz said. “(The project) also allows them to build employability skills while serving their community.”

Food For All gathered one tote of potatoes from Salem’s Kettle Foods when the program began in 1998. Since then, totals have risen each year from 10,000 pounds of food to 211,000 pounds in 2010 and over 260,000 pounds last year.

Sewer line replacement will close Fillmore Street

Federal prosecutors must decide by Monday, Dec. 12, whether to move forward with a second trial in February for those who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns earlier this year.

The trial of the seven remaining defendants is scheduled to begin in February. They’ve been charged with a felony: conspiracy to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs at the refuge.

It’s the same charge occupation leaders Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy and five others beat in October when a jury acquitted them for their roles in the armed protest that played out along eastern Oregon’s high desert.

The shocking verdict was a win for the patriot movement and others who believe the federal government doesn’t have the authority to own land.

Now the government must decide how — or whether — to proceed with a second trial.

Prosecutors have a few options: they can move forward with the conspiracy charge, bring new charges — likely misdemeanors — or drop the charges entirely, meaning there wouldn’t be a second Oregon trial at all.

Wes Williams, a criminal defense attorney in La Grande, said it’s likely the government will move forward with a trial for this second set of defendants.

“It would be wise, however, for the prosecutors to allege claims they know they can prove instead of biting off more than they can chew,” Williams said. “A good trial lawyer never shoots the moon. A good trial lawyer pleads what he or she knows they can prove.”

The defendants in the February trial include Duane Ehmer, of Irrigon, Ore. Ehmer gained notoriety during the occupation because he rode his horse, Hellboy, around the refuge, while waving an American flag. The images were published by news organizations around the world.

Another defendant, Jason Patrick of Bonaire, Ga., is currently acting as his own attorney. Video played during the trial this fall showed Patrick at the cutting of a refuge fence back in January with the Bundy brothers and other occupiers.

Sean and Sandy Anderson of Riggins, Idaho, are also slated to go to trial next year. The married couple were among the final four hold outs at the refuge as the occupation ended.

Others scheduled to go trial include Dylan Anderson of Provo, Utah; Darryl Thorn, of Marysville, Wash.; and Jake Ryan of Plains, Mont.

Unlike the occupation leaders, these defendants were, and have remained, largely unknown.

Given the higher profile trial this fall resulted in acquittals, prosecutors run the risk of appearing punitive should they move forward with a February trial, said Susan Mandiberg, a professor of criminal law at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland.

“The optics aren’t great,” she said.

Mandiberg said she’s interested to see if the government alters the charges in some way.

“If they go ahead with the same charges, I would certainly be looking to see if they had a different strategy for dealing with the arguments and the testimony that seemed to go against them the first time,” Mandiberg said.

Even if the charges are the same and many of the government’s witnesses and evidence remains the same that doesn’t guarantee the outcome will be the same, Mandiberg said. It’s a different jury and a different set of defendants, she said.

There are other risks, though, if prosecutors move forward with a second trial.

Defense attorneys have the benefit of reviewing testimony from government witnesses in court transcripts, meaning they can better prepare their cross examinations of FBI agents and others.

Martin Estrada, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in the Los Angeles area, said prosecutors could be concerned about this trial because it involves less culpable members of the alleged conspiracy.

“The jury is often going to wonder about that,” Estrada said. “They’re going to know that this was a larger act and incident. And they’re going to wonder where these other individuals, including the leaders, are and that can often be a detriment to the prosecution.”

Estrada said that’s an even larger issue for the government in this case because it received so much media coverage. He’s confident that just about every potential juror in Oregon knows about this case.

“It’s not something that’s going to be able to be concealed from the jury,” Estrada said. “They’re going to know about this. And it’s going to be a problem and a consideration the government’s going to have to take into account.”

At the same time, Estrada said, there’s a risk if the government just drops the charges. Part of what prosecutors are trying to do is send a message and, in this case, deter future occupations that target federal lands in the west.

“You want to send a message that this type of crime won’t be tolerated,” he said. “What you’re dealing with in a situation like this one, with the publicity it received, the controversy it created in the community, there’s certainly an important dynamic of deterrents that the government has to be considering at this point.”

Harney County residents remain divided about the 41-day occupation. Many locals supported it. Others said they agreed with the Bundy’s, but felt the occupation itself had gone too far. Still, many others deeply opposed it and say a second trial is an opportunity at justice and preventing future incidents.

“They should have a second trial because these guys committed crimes,” said Liz Appleman, a former Bureau of Land Management employee who was just elected to the Burns City Council.

“By just letting them off it means they did nothing wrong,” she said. “They need to be punished for what they did as far as I’m concerned.”

So far, 11 of the 26 who were indicted for their role in the occupation have pleaded guilty. Three of the defendants are trying to reverse their guilty pleas.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Arizona man is the latest Oregon standoff figure to ask for his guilty plea to be withdrawn.

Joseph O’Shaughnessy pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge nearly three months before a jury acquitted seven of his co-defendants, including standoff leader Ammon Bundy.

O’Shaughnessy is awaiting trial on accusations stemming from a 2014 standoff with government authorities at the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville, Nev.

Defense attorney Tony Schwartz wrote Sunday that O’Shaughnessy had a plea deal in Nevada, but it was contingent on him pleading guilty in Oregon. Because the plea offer fell apart, his client should be able to withdraw his Oregon plea.

When he pleaded guilty in Portland, O’Shaughnessy said he didn’t participate in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but felt a duty to provide security for the protesters.

Two other defendants have sought to withdraw their pleas. The judge has yet to rule on their requests.

SATURDAY, DEC. 10

PORTLAND — Coyotes are a fairly common sight in rural areas of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, and landowners might instinctively reach for the rifle if they see one in the pasture or sniffing around the barn.

Put a coyote in a city, however, and residents are more likely to react in a way that ranges from trying to feed them to panicking over their pets and children. Coyotes sometimes lose their heads as well, becoming so habituated to people and urban environments that they trot down streets in broad daylight and snack on garbage or the occasional cat.

Many cities, Portland among them, now are home to thriving coyote populations. Researchers in Chicago a few years ago estimated Cook County there had 1,500 to 2,000 coyotes.

Zuriel Rasmussen, a student at Portland State University, is trying to learn more about how coyotes and humans coexist in cities. Rasmussen is a researcher and director of the Portland Urban Coyote Project, which maps coyote sightings and provides information in collaboration with the Audubon Society of Portland.

Rasmussen is pursuing a Ph.D in Earth, Environment and Society, a program offered through PSU’s Geography Department. She’s interested in science communication and public engagement, and the coyote project offers opportunities for both.

She comes at it from a rural perspective. She lived in Weston, near Pendleton in Eastern Oregon, until she was 12. Coyotes were part of the landscape there, and she was startled the first time she saw one in Portland.

“I was one of those East Oregonians surprised to see a coyote,” she said. “I thought it was pretty cool. I was fascinated with how they were living in the city and how that’s even possible.”

The possible now is commonplace. Residents of the Portland metro area have reported 1,916 coyote sightings to Rasmussen’s project website just this year. Coyote calls keep USDA’s APHIS Wildlife Services hopping as well: From 2012 through 2015, officers responded to an average of 373 coyote “conflict” complaints in Clackamas County, which borders Portland, and killed an average of 30 a year, according to statistics provided by Kevin Christensen, of the Wildlife Services office in Portland.

Wildlife Services responded to an average of 222 coyote conflicts a year in Washington County, on Portland’s westside, and killed an average of 15 a year during the same time frame. Wildlife Services does not have a cooperative service agreement with Multnomah County, which covers most of Portland, but killed three coyotes that were acting aggressively toward people and pets.

Of the Clackamas County coyote complaints, 56 percent involved damage or threat of damage to agriculture. In Washington County, 54 percent of the coyote conflicts involved agriculture, according to statistics provided by Christensen.

At PSU, Rasmussen’s studies over the past couple years have shown the urban and rural divide plays out with coyotes as it does with many other issues. Some Eastern Oregon residents have posted graphic YouTube videos about hunting coyotes, complete with slow-motion replays of bullets hitting coyotes at long range.

Portlanders’ reaction to the presence of coyotes appears to range from neutral to positive, Rasmussen said. Although concerned about coyotes attacking pets, they’re generally supportive of coyotes and opposed to lethal control.

“One of the big things I’ve found is that the impact coyotes have on your life bears a lot on your attitude,” she said. In rural areas, they’ve been vilified — along with wolves — as something that threatens people’s livelihoods, particularly with livestock, she said.

In cities, they’re not seen as a threat to the way people make a living. Instead, they are “a glimpse of the wild in an urban environment, which is a different experience than seeing a coyote near your sheep pasture.”

Analysis of urban coyote scat shows their diet is primarily rats, mice, squirrels and rabbits, “pretty similar to a rural coyote,” Rasmussen said. They eat more garbage than their rural cousins, and about 1 to 2 percent of their diet is cats.

“They’re super opportunistic,” she said.

Part of her work involves advising city residents what to do when they see a coyote. She said urban coyotes can become habituated to humans, and people should “retrain” them to be wary. She recommends “hazing” them by yelling, using an air horn, shaking a coffee can full of rocks or other methods. People obviously shouldn’t feed coyotes, either directly or by leaving pet food or garbage accessible, and should keep a close eye on pets, she said.

“When they get used to being around people, those are the coyotes that cause problems,” she said.

Capital Press

Starker Forests Inc., the Corvallis-based company that began with an Oregon State University forestry professor who saw the value of buying cut-over timberland in the wake of the Depression, is looking for a new CEO.

Bond Starker, president and chairman and one of the founder’s grandsons, said he will retire in April, when he turns 70. The company is advertising for a CEO, most likely to bridge the gap until the next generation of Starkers — potentially his children and those of his brother, Barte — is in position to assume control. Barte Starker retired in 2015.

In a prepared statement, Bond Starker said he’s looking forward to seeing the next generation continue to implement the vision, values and ingenuity that made the company successful.

“That’s a value that our family has maintained for decades — from our forestry practice to our commitment to this community — we’re in it for the long haul, and that won’t change,” he said.

The company owns 87,000 acres of timber in Benton, Lane, Lincoln, Linn and Polk counties and survived Oregon’s timber wars with its reputation intact. The company didn’t venture into the more volatile milling side of the business, instead focusing on growing and selling timber as logging on public forests was restricted by environmental decisions and lawsuits.

The company developed from the foresight of T.J. Starker, Bond and Barte’s grandfather, who in 1910 was one of the first four graduates from the forestry program at Oregon Agricultural College, now OSU. T.J. Starker returned to the college as a forestry professor in 1922 and taught for 20 years. He began buying second-growth timberland in 1936, specifically seeking land with no snags on the ridges, gentle terrain and good drainage, according to an online family history. At the time, few in the timber industry realized that Oregon’s old-growth timber would become a reduced commodity.

T.J.’s son, Bruce Starker, also an OSU forestry grad, took over the company but died in a plane crash in 1975.

“Barte and I were accelerated into positions of responsibility,” Bond Starker said in an interview.

Rather than operate mills and deal with a large workforce, the company has remained a streamlined timber-growing operation. It has about 20 full-time employees, many of whom have worked for Starker Forests for decades, and typically takes on 10 to 12 summer interns.

The company has made a point of reducing financial risk by “mostly using our own money,” Bond Starker said. “It’s kept us slow and steady, I guess.”

The company has deep social, charitable and professional ties in Corvallis, Philomath and at Oregon State University, where among other gifts it supports the College of Forestry’s annual Starker Lecture Series. The community has been “awfully good” to the company, Starker said, and the company wants to return the favor.

He said the next CEO should, “Do your best to stay current on the issues, be knowledgeable on subject areas you deal with, share information among the team and listen for other ideas.”

Online

The Starker Forests job posting: http://www.starkerforests.com/jobs/ceo/

ONTARIO, Ore. — The Center for Food Safety has blasted a final environmental impact statement that recommends deregulation of a genetically engineered creeping bentgrass that escaped field trials in 2003 and has taken root in Malheur and Jefferson counties in Oregon.

It was being developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. and Monsanto Corp. for use mainly on golf courses. Since the escapes, Scotts has been responsible for controlling and eradicating it where possible.

Scotts and Monsanto petitioned USDA to deregulate the bentgrass, which was genetically engineered to withstand applications of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s popular Roundup weed killer.

A final EIS released by USDA Dec. 7 recommends deregulation of the genetically engineered creeping bentgrass because it “is unlikely to pose a plant pest risk....”

Some farmers and water manages in the affected counties worry that because the bentgrass is resistant to glyphosate and difficult to kill, it could clog irrigation ditches and affect shipments of hay and other crops to nations that don’t accept traces of genetically modified organisms.

The Center for Food Safety criticized the final EIS, saying it will result in USDA relinquishing all authority over the GE grass and lay the burden for controlling it on farmers and other landowners.

“USDA’s approval of this genetically engineered grass is as dangerous as it is unlawful,” CFS Senior Attorney George Kimbrell said in a news release. “The agency is giving Monsanto and Scotts a free pass for the harm their product has already caused farmers and the environment and is irresponsibly gambling future harm on nothing more than their empty promises.”

Sid Abel, assistant deputy director of USDA’s Biotechnology Regulatory Services, said a final decision has not been made on the petition for deregulation. A 30-day public viewing period follows release of the EIS and a final determination by the secretary of agriculture won’t be made until that time has passed.

He said it is incorrect to state that commercial approval of the bentgrass has been granted, as is stated in the CFS news release.

“That is an incorrect statement,” Abel said. “This process has not been completed.”

Kimbrell said it’s a technicality to say a final decision hasn’t been made.

“It’s called a final EIS because it’s final,” he said. “For all intents and purposes, the decision was made yesterday. That’s not going to change.”

Scotts reached a 10-year agreement with USDA last October that critics say allows the company to essentially walk away from any responsibility for controlling the plant in a few years.

As part of the agreement, Scotts and Monsanto agreed not to commercialize or further propagate the plant in the future.

Farmer Jerry Erstrom, chairman of the Malheur County Weed Board and one of the most vocal critics of the agreement, said deregulation of the creeping bentgrass will shift the onus for controlling it from Scotts to landowners.

“This smells so bad,” he said about the final EIS. “They just dumped it all on the landowner.”

Both Scotts and USDA officials have told Capital Press the 10-year agreement does not allow the company to walk away from its responsibility, and Abel said deregulation of the plant would have no impact on the agreement.

Celebrate Christmas in Old Town Dec. 10

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A proposed fuel break system in southwest Idaho, southeast Oregon and northern Nevada will limit the size of destructive rangeland wildfires and protect habitat for sage grouse, say officials with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The agency on Tuesday released a plan called the Tri-State Fuel Break Project, which would create gaps in combustible vegetation along existing roads on public lands in the three states by reducing fuel next to the roads, using either machines or chemical treatments, and maintained with a long-term schedule.

Fuel breaks would be developed on about 5,600 square miles in Idaho and Oregon that could be tied in with fuel breaks in Nevada. The agency said it has identified about 1,600 miles of roads that could be part of the fuel break system.

The agency is preparing an environmental impact statement, and is taking public comments on the plan through Feb. 3

The area contains one of the largest intact strongholds for greater sage grouse in the northern Great Basin, officials said, but faces wildfire threats from invasive annual grasses, notably fire-prone cheatgrass.

Officials say the region is prone to summer lightning storms that cause simultaneous wildfires that can use up limited wildfire fighting resources, increasing the chances that some wildfires will get out of control. Such a wildfire in 2015 scorched about 436 square miles of sagebrush steppe in Idaho and Oregon that supports cattle grazing and some 350 species of wildlife, including sage grouse. The burned area is now the focus of a 5-year, $67 million rehabilitation effort.

“The mega-fires, it’s the new normal,” said Larry Moore, a BLM spokesman for Oregon’s Vale District. “Longer fire season, extended drought in many of the most vulnerable areas. We’re very much hoping to mitigate the size and severity of these fires.”

Ken Cole of Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project said the environmental group hadn’t had time to fully go over the plan but had some initial concerns. Among them is that the fuel breaks would be planted with forage grasses for cattle instead of native plants, that improvements to roads would increase the number of human visitors and result in more wildfires, and that the federal agency would have to use herbicide to maintain the fuel breaks.

“They’re going to have a lot of problems to deal with once they start down this road,” he said.

Sage grouse are ground-dwelling, chicken-sized birds found in 11 Western states, where between 200,000 to 500,000 remain, down from a peak population of about 16 million. They depend on sagebrush for food year-round, and hens nest underneath the plants. Tall native grasses help screen the hens and their eggs and chicks from predators.

The federal government has been working to protect that habitat to avoid an Endangered Species Act listing for the greater sage grouse, and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell issued a secretarial order in early 2015 calling for a “science-based” approach to safeguard the bird.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list the bird last year, noting ongoing conservation efforts, but will review the bird’s status within five years.

John Freemuth, a public lands policy expert and Boise State University professor, said there’s an urgency to the fuel break plan with a new administration coming in under President-elect Donald Trump that might not be as concerned about a potential sage grouse listing.

“The concern is that so much stuff gets burned up we have a listing and that changes the politics and relationships people have here in the West,” Freemuth said.

BANDON -- An undertaking as big as the holiday classic ballet "The Nutcracker" has never deterred MarLo Dance Studio director Maria Merriam.

BANDON -- An undertaking as big as the holiday classic ballet "The Nutcracker" has never deterred MarLo Dance Studio director Maria Merriam.