CORVALLIS, Ore. — On a typical summer day, Anita Holman, an Oregon State University faculty research assistant, will have around 1,000 tall fescue or perennial rye grass samples waiting in the laboratory for her and 11 student workers to test.

Their goal: to check if there is a toxic level of endophytes in the grass straw.

“After harvest starts, within two to three weeks, I’m a thousand deep in test requests,” Holman said.

Holman works at the OSU Endophyte Service Laboratory, one of the few labs in the world that test for the poisonous alkaloids in endophytes. An endophyte is a fungus that can live within a grass plant. It helps protect the plant from drought and pests. But the same bioactive compound that keeps pests away can also be harmful to animals that eat too much of it.

Past problems with overdoses of endophyte sickening livestock have sparked a heightened awareness among grass seed growers about the importance of testing the straw byproduct of their seed production before using it for livestock feed. The industry has now reached a balance by working together to protect animals and keep costumers happy, along with developing innovative new methods of controlling the toxin.

Three diseases are caused by endophyte alkaloids: ryegrass staggers, fescue toxicosis and ergot toxicosis. The ryegrass staggers cause muscle weakness, tremors and spasms in horses and livestock. Fescue toxicosis causes fescue foot — dry, dead tissue in the extremities; summer slump in which animals develop hyperthermia; reduced food intake; and reproductive and lactation difficulties.

Ergot toxicosis can cause diarrhea, high temperature, rapid breathing, poor appetite and weight loss.

David Bohnert, director of the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center and a professor at OSU, has researched methods of alleviating toxicosis symptoms, such as giving animals seaweed extract or other compounds to help reduce the absorption of toxins.

Researchers, however, have found that while they alleviate some symptoms, they don’t eliminate all.

“There is no ‘silver bullet’ that will solve all the alkaloid problems seen with some varieties of tall fescue,” Bohnert said in an email. “Each product can be part of the overall tool box to help manage high-alkaloid forage; however, risk, cost and each ranch’s available infrastructure will determine what option, or combination of options, is best for that particular operation.”

In addition to impacting livestock, one of the three diseases, ergot, can decrease seed yield by as much as 10 percent, according to OSU researchers.

To combat ergot, they have been studying how weather conditions contribute to it by conducting spore trapping in perennial ryegrass seed production fields in the Columbia Basin. They found that the best time to apply fungicide is between May 15 and June 7 in a typical year.

Earlier this year, the program also received funding to investigate potential biocontrol options to manage ergot.

Oregon farmers grew about 332,000 acres of grass seed worth $345 million in 2016, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Among the varieties of grass seed grown in the state are fescue, perennial ryegrass, annual ryegrass, bluegrass and bentgrass.

Before the 1990s, the straw residue left after grass seed harvest was typically burned to rid the fields of pests and diseases. However, after the phase-out of field burning in most of Oregon, straw is now baled and sold locally and overseas as livestock feed.

At first, some of the straw was exported to countries such as Japan, which reported the first cases of fescue toxicity. In 2000, 5,400 cases were reported in Japan, according to the OSU Endophyte Service Lab.

“The ships got stopped at the port because livestock was getting sick and it was traced back to Northwest feed,” Holman, the OSU faculty research assistant, said. “They wanted proof that the feed was safe.”

A solution was developed: Growers would test their grass seed straw before shipping it. Since 2009, the number of cases of livestock illness has dropped to zero, and has remained stable except for a few minor blips, according to Dr. A. Morrie Craig, a professor of toxicology at the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. He also helped create the Endophyte Service Laboratory.

When Craig helped form the laboratory, he felt it would become a “world leader.”

From 2005 to 2013 the lab received an average of 3,497 test requests a year. Of the samples tested so far this year, only about 7 percent were positive for high toxin content.

The testing typically takes four days, and rush tests take two. However, the lab has been short one technician, which has slowed this season’s testing.

The test is a “19-step process to get accurate numbers, plus the lab has a second set of eyes to do the quality control,” Craig said.

Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council, said it’s “essential” for grass seed growers to have a program to test the endophyte level, and that OSU is the laboratory of choice.

“Testing is crucial to the shipment of straw for feed,” he said. “There are other uses for straw, but not really for the amount we produce.”

Beyer said more than 6,000 tons of straw are exported each year from Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

“There’s a lot of unknowns in the world of endophytes,” he said. “Some people think we should establish different levels in varieties to eliminate testing, but every year environmental factors can change the levels of the endophyte.”

Because the level of endophyte isn’t solely based on grass varieties, Beyer said the industry has to test.

“We do our best to meet people’s needs,” Holman said. “It’s hard, it’s a lot of work, very detail-oriented, “but it feels good to know it makes a difference that you come to work every day; what we’re doing makes a difference on a daily basis.”

The same toxic endophytes that can make animals ill can also help prevent airline disasters. East Coast airports such as John F. Kennedy, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia have discovered that high-endophyte grasses have a natural insecticide that kills bugs. By planting the grasses around the airports, the insect population is reduced, attracting fewer birds. Birds are a hazard to airplanes, as they can be sucked into jet engines and damage them.

James Loudon, principal landscape architect in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Engineering Department, said in a blog created by the port authority that he and his team do “whatever we can to discourage birds, because birds cause the greatest threat to aircraft in flight during landings and takeoffs.”

“By limiting the edible delights of birds and the places they gather to feed and reproduce, we can discourage them from visiting the airports,” said Laura Francoeur, a microbiologist at the port authority. “Which goes a long way towards protecting the flying public from deadly bird strikes.”

Mountain View Seeds in Salem, Ore., is one of the few dealers that sell airports high-endophyte grasses, and has a system in place to verify the levels of endophyte before it is shipped.

“Endophytes are a living organism,” Aaron Kuenzi, executive vice president of Mountain View Seeds, said. “Over time it will just fade away.”

He cited an example of grass seed with a high level of endophyte sitting for five years in a warehouse. It could start at a level of 90 percent, but by the time it’s shipped the level could drop to 20 percent.

Mountain View maintains the correct level of endophyte by storing the seed in a cooler, and testing for endophyte presence before shipping it.

“We want to make sure that when we say it’s a high endophyte that ... it actually is,” Kuenzi said.

While it is possible to develop fescue strains with little or no endophyte presence — typically referred to as “novel” — it is less attractive for grass seed producers because their primary product is the seed, not the straw. The endophytes help protect the grass plant from insects and dry weather.

Kuenzi said that it’s been great to have an alternative place for this seed production byproduct, but “ultimately, if we don’t satisfy the user or consumer of the seed, we won’t have production of the straw either.”

Mountain View Seeds has also developed non-endophyte varieties for its forage market with animal health in mind, but Kuenzi said less than 25 percent of its acreage is dedicated to it.

However, according to Bohnert, the OSU professor, that still represents progress.

“They have started moving away from more toxic endophytes and using the ones with lower (levels),” he said. “So, I think they are adjusting.”

Beyer, the seed council director, said that novel endophyte is the trend that the industry is working toward, especially for farmers who grow tall fescue as forage in their pastures.

“It’s an expensive conversion to get rid of endophyte grasses and put in novel (grasses),” he said. “But growing novel, we can grow it without testing it.”

He said that 17 to 20 percent of forage pasture and livestock regions have converted, and researchers say that acreage is increasing by 2 percent a year.

“We have a ways to go, but we’re working on it,” Beyer said.

Although researchers have yet to find a long-term management solution for endophytes, in the short term “solution by dilution” has been effective in keeping animals healthy.

“It is a good feed product if it’s used safely, but you have to know what you’re dealing with in the first place,” Holman said.

Bohnert suggests switching bales daily if endophyte is present, to give livestock a day off. He said it’s “the easiest (method) by far.”

Also, once farmers know the endophyte level of their hay, they can blend it with other types of hay that don’t have endophytes.

Controlling the endophyte is a delicate balance for farmers and ranchers, as well as for seed producers. Kuenzi has brothers who farm and understands the desire to grow only endophyte-free seeds, but he needs to think of his main customers first.

“It’s keeping in mind the ultimate product in this is the seed that goes to the marketplace, not necessarily the straw that’s harvested as a byproduct,” Kuenzi said. “For us, it’s finding that balance of satisfying the consumer and the farmer that’s growing (the seed).”

The one thing that everyone agrees on is testing for the endophyte toxin is crucial.

“A lot of people have become aware of the situation, the fescue problems are not like they were,” Bohnert said. Since 2002, “people have been very aware of potential problems. All you have to do is test, and if you’re feeding grass seed straw that has the potential of alkaloids, spend the money and have it tested so you can have peace of mind.”

PENDLETON, Ore. — At its heart, the Pendleton Round-Up — like most rodeos around the West — is an ode to the working class farm and ranch lifestyle, and a celebration of the region’s agricultural roots.

So when the Round-Up Association agreed to a three-year partnership with Farmers Ending Hunger earlier this year, both sides agreed it was a natural fit.

Wednesday marked the first ever Farmers Ending Hunger Day at the Round-Up, raising awareness and support for the organization’s mission of eliminating hunger statewide. The group also received cash donations of $5,000 each from River Point Farms and Northwest Farm Credit Services, which were presented just outside the Round-Up Grounds.

Farmers Ending Hunger was founded in 2006 by Fred Ziari, of Hermiston, upon hearing that Oregon was one of the most food insecure states in the country. According to the Oregon Food Bank, about 644,000 Oregonians do not have access to enough affordable, nutritious food, of which 223,480 are children.

Ziari, who serves as CEO of IRZ Consulting, reached out to colleagues and local farmers to see if they would be interested in pitching in to help solve the problem. Without exception, he said the farming community was on board.

“We shouldn’t have hunger in our state,” Ziari said. “Agriculture is our business, but food is all Oregonians’ business.”

This year alone, Farmers Ending Hunger has been responsible for donating 5 million pounds of ready-to-eat food to the Oregon Food Bank. Roughly 80 percent of those donations comes from Eastern Oregon, where farmers grow more than 200 different types of crops.

Top contributors include Amstad Produce, which gives 30 tons of potatoes every month. River Point Farms, the country’s largest grower and processor of onions, also kicks in 20-30 tons of produce every month. Threemile Canyon Farms contributes 20 beef cows every month, which are processed into hamburger meat.

“All the food is given by the farmers for free,” Ziari said. “This is what you buy at Safeway and grocery stores. It’s the same quality.”

What is not free is the packaging and transportation to ship that food to food banks across the state. That’s where Wednesday’s cash donations come in handy. Members of the public can also sign up to “adopt an acre” to help cover those costs.

Bob Hale, president of River Point Farms in Hermiston, said the company has contributed to Farmers Ending Hunger since the very beginning.

“I think it’s in the spirit of agriculture in general,” Hale said. “We want to make sure everybody gets to eat equally. We think it’s all part of the process, to feed people. It isn’t just business. It’s a way of life.”

The partnership with the Round-Up was finalized in May during the annual Portland Rose Festival. Rodeo royalty joined with Farmers Ending Hunger to help pack food boxes at the Oregon Food Bank, which are then distributed among a network of 21 regional food banks and 970 partner agencies, including CAPECO in Umatilla, Morrow, Gilliam and Wheeler counties.

John Burt, executive director of Farmers Ending Hunger, said the Round-Up started as an agricultural event, and the partnership between the two groups only seemed natural.

“To recognize the bounty of this area at harvest time makes sense,” Burt said.

Burt made no secret of his excitement for the partnership as he unfurled the large “Farmers Ending Hunger Day” banner, describing it as a huge milestone for his organization. He hopes to see it evolve into an annual celebration;.

“To be sought out and asked by the Round-Up, that is just huge,” Burt said. “To me personally, that means we’ve arrived.”

To learn more about Farmers Ending Hunger or to make a contribution, visit www.farmersendinghunger.com.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Wildfires that are blackening the American West in one of the nation’s worst fire seasons have ignited calls, including from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, to thin forests that have become so choked with trees that they are at “powder keg levels.”

The destruction has exposed old frictions between environmentalists and those who want to see logging accelerated, and it’s triggered a push to reassess how lands should be managed to prevent severe wildfires.

Zinke’s directive Tuesday for department managers and superintendents to aggressively prevent wildfires was welcomed by Ed Waldron, fire management officer at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

Waldron was exhausted after fighting two fires that have been burning since late July in or near the park, whose centerpiece is a lake that fills the remains of an erupted volcano and is the deepest in the United States. But he wondered where the additional resources would come from to hire contractors to thin the fuel.

For now, Waldron and other firefighters have been too busy fighting blazes that forced the closure of a road into the park to thin vegetation elsewhere.

“We’ve been working hard,” he said Tuesday. “It’s day 50.”

For decades, logging was king in the West, notably in Oregon, which is famed for its majestic ponderosas and towering Douglas firs.

But restrictions on harvesting timber from federal lands to protect endangered species and lower demand led to a freefall in the industry starting around 1990. Meanwhile, wildfires — nature’s way of thinning and regenerating forests — were being extinguished instead of being allowed to burn.

The forests grew too thick, and they began to overlap, covering meadows and other areas.

“We’ve allowed forests to develop that never developed naturally,” said John Bailey, a professor of fire management at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

There is now a record amount of fuel for fires, such as brush, and “as a result, we have longer and hotter fire seasons that drive these megafires,” he said.

He advocated thinning forests through logging, prescribed burns and allowing naturally occurring fires to be managed instead of extinguished.

A fire becomes a megafire when it reaches 156 square miles. A megafire in southwest Oregon is the largest blaze in the West, having burned 290 square miles, authorities said Wednesday. It was reported July 12 and isn’t expected to be under control until Oct. 15.

Across the West, more than 12,000 square miles have burned this season, making it among the worst in land scorched.

Oregon state Sen. Herman Baertschiger Jr. called for a work group to revamp fire policy.

“The inability to manage our forest resources due to environmental concerns is threatening the safety and well-being of Oregonians and ultimately damaging our beautiful state,” the Republican said last week.

Residents of several communities in southwest Oregon opposed to a planned federal sale of old-growth trees say logging the fire-resistant timber will increase the risk of blazes spreading to communities. They say younger, uniform trees that will grow densely there will be twice as likely to burn. A coalition of residents will protest the sale Thursday in the town of Grants Pass.

“As fires burn throughout the region, area residents believe maintaining our last fire-resistant, old-growth forest is increasingly critical,” the coalition said in a statement Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has denounced inadequate efforts to thin dead and dying trees, calling it a yearslong pattern.

He urged smarter policies, criticized the “broken system of fighting wildfires” and complained that federal funds earmarked for fire prevention are instead used for firefighting.

“The idea of ripping off prevention, which you need most, defies common sense,” Wyden said on the Senate floor last Thursday, standing next to a large photo of flames leaping from trees in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. “Shoddy budgeting today leads to bigger fires tomorrow.”

Bailey, the fire management professor, lamented that Zinke’s directive does not recommend using fire as a tool to restore forests.

Oregon Wild, which campaigns for conservation of roadless areas, suspects an ulterior motive behind the order from Zinke, who oversees more than 500 million acres of federal land, though the Forest Service, a unit of the Agriculture Department, is the nation’s largest firefighting agency.

“Sadly, policy will be all about more logging, not better fire management,” Oregon Wild tweeted.

In Montana, environmental groups last month sued over a proposal by the U.S. Forest Service to allow timber harvesting and some prescribed burning to reduce the risk of severe wildfires in the Flathead National Forest. The lawsuit argued the agency failed to analyze how the timber project, combined with another one nearby, would affect Canada lynx, grizzly bears and their habitat.

Forest fuels are at “powder keg levels,” Paul F. Hessburg Sr., a U.S. Forest Service research landscape ecologist, recently told an audience in Bend, Oregon, a former logging town that has remade itself into an outdoor recreation and microbrew mecca.

“If we don’t change a few of our fire management habits, we’re going to lose a few of our beloved forests,” he said.

Could a revival of Oregon’s timber industry reduce the fuel load in public forests and ease the blistering wildfires that choked much of the state in smoke the past few weeks?

At this point it’s an intriguing question without a simple answer. But it arises as university researchers and industry officials explore advanced wood products such as cross-laminated timbers — called CLT — and mass plywood panels, which can support multi-story wooden buildings, even modest high-rises. Only two Western Oregon mills and a handful of others nationally make the products, but they appear to hold promise.

For one thing, the massive beams and panels can be made with small-diameter logs, the very type crowding forests and contributing to the explosive growth of the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and the much larger Chetco Bar Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the southwest corner of the state.

A recent report by Oregon BEST, a quasi-public entity that funds clean technology startups and links entrepreneurs to university researchers, said CLT and related mass timber manufacturing could create 2,000 to 6,100 direct jobs in Oregon. Income generated from those jobs would range from $124 million to $371 million a year, according to the report. The estimate came from an analysis by Business Oregon, the state department.

Oregon BEST said Oregon and Southwest Washington are “poised as a manufacturing hub for the emerging Cross Laminated Timber market in the United States.” Pacific Northwest forests could easily and sustainably supply the wood needed for production, the report said.

People working in the field issue a cautionary, “Yes, but.…”

“In theory, it makes a lot of sense, but it requires for the forests to be actively managed in that way, and an outlet for that wood to be taken up,” said Timm Locke, director of forest products for the Oregon Forest Research Institute, an organization founded by the Oregon Legislature to enhance collaboration and inform the public about responsible forest management.

Locke said the public forests most in need of restoration and thinning work are east of the Cascades, where much of the milling infrastructure has “disappeared.” It doesn’t make economic sense to move poor quality trees from Eastern Oregon to mills in Western Oregon, he said.

“We need to be thinking about what’s stopping us at this stage,” Locke said. “What are the issues there?”

One of them, he said, is a lack of trust between industry and the public land agencies — principally the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Mills that once depended on logs from public forests were “burned” when the timber harvest was drastically reduced due to lawsuits and policy and regulatory changes over threatened species, wildlife habitat and watersheds. An often-cited statistic shows the Forest Service manages 60 percent of the timberland in Oregon but that land produces only 15 percent of the annual harvest.

“It’s difficult for government agencies to make significant changes quickly,” Locke said. “There’s a lot of process that has to happen.”

Locke believes the Forest Service is on the right track, but noted that conservation groups often oppose increased logging on public land.

“It’s a tricky subject, no question about it,” he said. “Public discussion about public land management — I think we’re ripe for that conversation.”

A Forest Service official said the agency makes 600 million board-feet of timber available for sale annually in Oregon and Washington, and the perspective that it is holding up an industry revival is “dated.”

Debbie Hollen, director of state and private forestry for the Forest Service in Portland, said the agency hopes tall wood buildings provide the market for restoration logging and thinning.

The agency’s Wood Innovation Grant Program provides funding to help create a market for fuel that needs to be removed from the forests.

“Our hope is that it will be the value-add that makes it worthwhile,” Hollen said. “Industry is not there yet.”

The research infrastructure is swinging into place. Oregon State University’s colleges of forestry and engineering have teamed with the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture to form the TallWood Design Institute at OSU. It is the nation’s first research center to focus exclusively on advanced structural wood products.

At this point, the one constant is fire.

John Bailey, a professor of silviculture and fire management at OSU, said the amount of biomass accumulated on forested hillsides is greater than ever before. Whether people see the biomass as scenery, recreation site, wildlife habitat or timber, it’s going to “exit the system” one way or the other, he said.

Humans remove less of the biomass through logging and thinning than in the past, which contributes to the fierce, explosive, “climate driven fire” that has gotten our attention. With more forested acreage closely connected, and with hot, dry, windy conditions prevailing, fires quickly grow large, he said.

Bailey said the Forest Service is doing all the management that society allows it to do, and it’s time to “rethink what we do with the hillsides in light of fuel accumulation” and climate conditions.

“They are going to burn,” he said.

Online

Oregon BEST CLT report: http://bit.ly/2fhpFTd

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Police say a man from Salt Lake City, Utah, has been accused of intentionally starting three wildland fires in central Oregon.

The Bulletin reports 37-year-old Christopher Glen Wilson was indicted Friday by a Deschutes County grand jury on three counts of arson and reckless endangerment.

Court records say the indictment involves three fires started in August; two along U.S. 97, and one east of La Pine, Oregon.

Oregon State Police Capt. Bill Fugate says authorities believe Wilson, of Salt Lake City, is also responsible for a fourth fire in south central Oregon.

Fugate says state troopers arrested Wilson Sept. 3 as he entered Oregon on Interstate 84 driving a stolen car.

Wilson was booked into jail on suspicion of unauthorized use of a vehicle and will be transferred to Bend, Oregon for arraignment.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Wilson had an attorney.

Oregon’s wolf management plan is supposed to be updated this year but that hasn’t happened yet. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission was to get a briefing on that process during its Sept. 15 meeting in Welches, Ore.

The pause in the process comes as ODFW has moved to kill five wolves for livestock attacks this summer and approved the shooting of a sixth. Four wolves from the Harl Butte pack were shot by ODFW staff after a series of depredations in Wallowa County. A Umatilla County livestock producer or an employee – ODFW has not clarified the details – legally shot a Meacham Pack wolf under authorization from the department.

Conservation groups are highly critical of ODFW’s actions, saying it shouldn’t be killing wolves while the management plan review is pending. A coalition of 18 groups asked Gov. Kate Brown to intervene, so far without success.

Meanwhile, a significant change is coming. Russ Morgan, ODFW’s longtime wolf program coordinator, is retiring in October. Morgan said he had planned to retire when the management plan was approved, but decided not to wait.

LANGLOIS - "Land of Fire and Ice, Trolls and Elves: An Interesting Langlois Event" with Deanna McDermott and Sandie McDonald, will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the Langlois Public Library.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday directed all land managers and park superintendents to be more aggressive in cutting down small trees and underbrush to prevent wildfires as this year is on track to be among the worst fire seasons in a decade.

In a memo, Zinke said the Trump administration will take a new approach and work proactively to prevent fires “through aggressive and scientific fuels reduction management” to save lives, homes and wildlife habitat.

Wildfires are chewing across dried-out Western forests and grassland. To date, 47,700 wildfires have burned more than 8 million acres across the country, with much of the devastation in California and Montana, Zinke said.

As of Tuesday, 62 large fires were burning across nine Western states, with 20 fires in Montana and 17 in Oregon, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Nearly half the large fires in the West reported zero acreage gains on Monday, helping firefighters across the West make progress toward containing them, the agency said.

The Forest Service and Interior Department have spent more $2.1 billion so far this year fighting fires — about the same as they spent in all of 2015, the most expensive wildfire season on record.

Those figures do not include individual state spending. In Montana, where more than 90 percent of the state is in drought, the state has spent more than $50 million on fire suppression since June, with fires likely to burn well into the fall.

Oregon has spent $28 million, but the state expects to be reimbursed for part of that by the federal government and others.

Exacerbated by drought and thick vegetation, wildfires are “more damaging, more costly and threaten the safety and security of both the public and firefighters,” Zinke said. “I have heard this described as ‘a new normal.’ It is unacceptable that we should be satisfied with the status quo.”

Zinke’s memo did not call for new spending, but he said federal officials “must be innovative” and use all tools available to prevent and fight fires. “Where new authorities are needed,” he added, “we will work with our colleagues in Congress to craft management solutions that will benefit our public lands for generations to come.”

The Interior Department oversees more than 500 million acres supervised by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies. The Forest Service, a unit of the Agriculture Department, is the nation’s largest firefighting agency, with more than half its budget devoted to wildfires.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Western lawmakers have long complained that the current funding mechanism makes it hard to budget for and fight wildfires, even as fires burn longer and hotter each year.

“I believe that we have the right processes and the right procedures of attacking and fighting fires,” Perdue said in a speech last week. “But if you don’t have the resources and the means of dependable funding, that’s an issue.”

Perdue called on Congress “to fix the fire-borrowing problem once and for all” so that officials are not forced to tap prevention programs to fight wildfires.

“Fires will always be with us. But when we leave a fuel load out there because we have not been able to get to it because of a lack of funding, or dependable funding, we’re asking for trouble,” Perdue said.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. ­— No matter the season, the fish are always jumping.

That’s because Ron Barnes and Tracey Liskey are tossing handfuls of fish food into one of their several fish ponds where they’re raising 2-pound tilapia that are live-trucked to fish markets in Seattle and San Francisco. Some remains local, often sold to Klamath Basin residents who especially enjoy the tasty, white fish.

For the past six-plus years Barnes, with Liskey’s help, has been experimenting with the best of speedily raising tilapias from tiny hatchlings until they’re large enough to be fresh-shipped to commercial markets. Before the year is out, Barnes said he expects his business, Gone Fishing, will ship about 50,000 pounds.

“We’re starting small, but deliberately so,” Barnes said, noting a commercial tilapia farm in Northern California’s Modoc County ships up to 20,000 pounds a week. His goal is raising 2-pound tilapias, admitting, “It was difficult to raise them to that size. We’ve overcome that.”

“We work together and get things done,” said Liskey. “I can fix things. I’m the mechanic, the engineer.”

He and Barnes believe the years of experimenting with feed, water temperatures and other variables have paid off. Barnes said his 80-acre operation south of Klamath Falls and adjacent to Liskey Farms, is “extremely efficient. My water use is a tiny, tiny fraction of what most fish farmers use,” noting the tilapias reach market size in about 90 days.

“There was learning curve learning how to grow them to size,” agrees Liskey. “It’s kind of like raising a beef cow to a size in the shortest amount of time.”

Liskey makes the cattle reference because he manages the family’s 1,500-acre ranch, which is 99 percent leased to others. At age 63, he calls himself semi-retired — “But I haven’t seen the ‘retired’ part yet” — because he remains active in many of the ranch’s day-to-day operations.

He said ranch operations are equally divided between cattle, hay and grain. A smaller area includes geothermal-reliant businesses that which have drawn his interest. Because of plentiful supplies of geothermal water — tests indicate flows of 5,000 gallons of 195- to 199-degree water a minute — he sees fish farming as one arm of a potentially broader operation.

“My main goal here is trying to develop a geothermal park ... to get something in here to make agriculture more productive,” Liskey said.

He envisions “cascading uses,” first using the extremely hot water to generate power. While that hasn’t yet happened, Liskey said he continues to work with power companies. Less hot, re-circulated geothermal water is already being used for three commercial greenhouses while the third tier of cooler, 84-degree “tail water” is used for raising tilapia, which require warm water.

Barnes breeds his own tilapia because, “When you do your own breeding you don’t inherit somebody else’s problems,” such as various diseases. While some believe commercially raised fish aren’t as healthy as wild fish, Barnes said the geothermal water negates the need for chemicals, insisting, “If it’s done correctly it’s better,” noting wild fish are often subject to fouled waters.

While tilapia is their current endeavor, Liskey and Barnes believe the Gone Fishing ponds could be expanded to raise other fish, including shrimp, catfish and sturgeon.

“Oregon has a lot of possibilities in the aqua industry and it’s just being done,” insists Barnes.

While Barnes focuses on tilapia, Liskey also monitors other geothermally related operations, including a trio of 200-foot greenhouses operated the last several years by Rick Walsh of Fresh Green. Certified organic produce — micro-greens, tomatoes, squash and more — grown in the greenhouses is sold regionally, with some going to Whole Foods.

Another adjacent geothermally heated section is used to grow medical marijuana. Medical and recreational marijuana is legal to grow and sell in Oregon, but recreational marijuana is not legal in some counties, including Klamath County.

Although Liskey voted against legalizing recreational marijuana, he believes the county should rescind the ban because, “We’re letting everybody else grow it and saturate the market. Let us grow it, too.”

“Without geothermal you couldn’t afford to have greenhouses or fish ponds,” Liskey said, noting the Klamath Basin typically sees below freezing temperatures and snow during the winter. As he explained while standing alongside the tilapia ponds, “It’s the cheap heat from the water that makes all this possible.”

Keeping young beef heifers penned over winter tends to delay puberty compared to letting them out on pasture, according to a new study.

Slowing a cow’s reproductive maturity may impair her ability to get pregnant in the first breeding season, which is economically undesirable for ranchers.

Only 32 percent of heifers kept in pens over winter reached puberty by late spring, compared to 67 percent that remained on pasture, the Oregon State University study found.

Among the cows that did reach puberty, those in pens achieved maturity 33 days later than those on pasture and they were 100 pounds heavier on average.

The stress of being kept penned was likely the reason that fewer heifers timely reached puberty and their maturity was delayed, said Reinaldo Cooke, who co-wrote the study.

“That may be taking a toll on the reproductive development of those females,” he said. “They like to walk around and graze and they don’t have that in the pen.”

Cows kept on pasture got more physical activity, averaging 20,000 steps a week, compared to 3,100 steps for penned heifers. Their hair also had lower levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress in cattle.

Pens probably make young heifers uncomfortable because they’ve spent their early lives on rangeland before weaning and are unaccustomed to being confined, said Cooke.

“That abrupt change in environment is pretty stressful,” he said.

Ranchers often keep young heifers in pens over winter because they’re easier to feed and check on, Cooke said. In some cases, cattle producers may not have enough property available to keep them on pasture.

“I’m not saying confinement is bad,” he said. “Many times it’s necessary. It’s the only option.”

However, ranchers should keep in mind that pens may prevent timely puberty, so they can try to reduce negative effects by avoiding overcrowding.

The half-year study compared 30 Angus and Hereford cows kept in pens with 30 heifers of the same breeds left out on pasture, with all the animals being fed the same diet.

Cooke was an animal scientist at OSU when the research was conducted in late 2015 and early 2016 but was recently hired as an associate professor of beef cattle production at Texas A&M University.

Researchers decided to conduct the study after noticing that penned heifers generally had poorer reproductive performance compared to those on pasture, Cooke said.

“Wow, maybe there’s something going on here,” he said.

An Oregon attorney known for advocating on behalf of farmers, John Albert, passed away last month at the age of 66.

Albert died suddenly in Salem, Ore., on Aug. 27 from what’s believed to be a massive heart attack. A memorial service was held Sept. 8.

After graduating from law school in 1976, Albert initially took a job with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and then held positions in Klamath Falls and The Dalles.

His became acquainted with the financial challenges faced by farmers upon joining the Churchill Leonard law firm in 1981, where he specialized in agricultural liens and bankruptcy law.

“Ag law was not his only area of expertise, but it was a primary area of expertise,” said Stephen Tweet, Albert’s friend and longtime law partner.

Among his most notable cases was the bankruptcy of the seed company AgriBioTech in 2000, which threatened to leave many grass seed farmers unpaid for their crops.

While his farmer clients initially feared huge losses, Albert was able to recover a “fair hunk” of what they were owed, Tweet said. “There were still losses but I believe a fair percentage of the growers’ claims were paid.”

Agricultural liens are a crucial tool for farmers who deliver crops to companies that go bankrupt, since they secure collateral in the buyer’s assets that can be used to compensate growers.

In such cases, Albert would often battle with banks that claimed to have the top priority for repayment, said Tweet. “The bank is competing with the farmer over who gets paid first, so that was a huge fight.”

After a decade at Churchill Leonard, Albert struck out on his own, forming two law firms with Tweet in the 1990s. He joined the firm of Sherman, Sherman, Johnnie & Hoyt after Tweet retired in 2014.

Aside from courtroom disputes, Albert also fought for farmers in the Oregon Legislature, where he was instrumental in the passage of a law strengthening their contract protections in 2011.

Among other provisions, House Bill 2159 established a mandatory payment date for delivered grass seed and a mechanism for resolving disagreements over price.

When he wasn’t delving into legal issues, Albert led an active lifestyle in his free time as a soccer referee, gardener and marathon runner.

“I couldn’t have been more shocked,” Tweet said of his friend’s death.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Hunters Association has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service, claiming its plan to build more than 130 miles of off-highway vehicle trails in the Ochoco National Forest could hurt elk habitat.

The Bend Bulletin reported last week that the association, which has more than 10,000 members, filed the lawsuit in the Pendleton Division of the United States District Court on Aug. 31. The association claims that the decision to approve the trails is not supported by scientific wildlife research and is in violation of the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Patrick Lair, a spokesman for the Ochoco National Forest, said the Forest Service will continue moving forward with planning the trail project.

Washington State University officials are recommending Northwest farmers be cautious after reports that some pollinator seed mixes elsewhere were found to be contaminated with the weed Palmer amaranth.

“As far as we know, we don’t have Palmer amaranth, and that’s the fear, that these packets of seed will bring it here,” said Drew Lyon, weed science professor at WSU.

A Weed Science Society of America survey has labeled Palmer amaranth “the most troublesome weed in the U.S.” According to the society, some native seed mixes designed to foster habitat for honeybees and other pollinators in the Midwest were found to contain the weed. Seed mixes should be tested to make sure they are free of the weed.

“There’s a big push for pollinator health, and so a lot of people want to plant these things,” Lyon said. “It doesn’t sound like maybe quality control on the end of these companies is great. And that seed is really tiny. It’d be an easy mistake to make, but it could be a costly mistake to make.”

The weed is common in fields across the South and the Southeast, and has been traveling north for several decades. Its small seeds are easily spread by birds and farm equipment, and in birdseed, livestock feed and manure.

Lyon said it’s possible someone could unknowingly order contaminated seed mix online.

The warm-season, broadleaf weed could pose the most risk for irrigated production in the Columbia Basin. The crops growing in July and August would be most affected, Lyon said.

“It’s a very prolific seed producer,” he said. “It’s glyphosate resistant, and ... we use a lot of glyphosate in our ag systems. If we have a weed like Palmer amaranth that’s so prolific and can spread so quickly, and we can’t use Roundup to help us control it, it’s going to become a bit problematic.”

Lyon also advises growers to keep an eye out and be aware of what Palmer amaranth looks like.

“If you see it, pull it before it can set any seed,” he said.

Growers should also alert the university. Researchers would try to confirm the weed and the source of the seed mix and spread the word, Lyon said.

WSU researchers will wait and see if any Palmer amaranth is reported.

“I don’t know if it’s inevitable that it will get here some day, but it seems like things move pretty good,” Lyon said. “As far as I know, we don’t have it in the state right now. And that’s the best situation to be in.”

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A bubble in Oregon’s revered craft beer industry? Sales have slowed and some breweries have closed, but the state Office of Economic Analysis isn’t going on a bender about it.

Senior Economist Josh Lehner, who has written extensively about the economic impact of the state’s “alcohol cluster,” said it’s likely the industry is maturing. Some shakeout is not unexpected.

In a post on the department website, Lehner said making good local beer, as breweries and brewpubs around the state do, is no longer enough to assure success.

“In a mature market, good business decisions and strategies matter more,” Lehner wrote.

The Economist reported that U.S. craft beer sales in a three-month period ending June 17 declined 0.7 percent compared to the same period in 2016.

“It may be that craft beer has reached its natural limit,” the magazine opined on its website. Competition for shelf space, buyouts by big brewers and consumers’ turn to wine, hard cider and spirits are cited as additional possibilities.

Lehner said in-state beer sales have slowed or declined at many of Oregon’s breweries. Some have closed, including Medford’s Southern Oregon Brewing in 2016 and The Commons this year in Portland. Others sold to larger companies.

But Lehner said four or five Oregon breweries fold per year, a failure rate of about 2 percent. That’s compared to an 8 percent failure rate for all Oregon industries combined. Leisure and hospitality closures nationally are about 9 percent, Lehner said.

As craft beer sales slow, however, more breweries will struggle to retain market share, he said.

“I do think the brewery closure rate will increase in the coming years,” Lehner reported. “It is likely to converge toward the rates seen in other industries.

“Currently, the growing and largely successful beer industry is enticing even more breweries to enter,” he said. “Eventually this will lead to (over)saturation and for closures to rise as a result.”

ODFW said a wolf from the Meacham Pack was legally shot to death Sept. 7 in Umatilla County, the fifth wolf killed in Oregon since August.

The wildlife agency authorized killing two adult wolves after depredation investigations confirmed the pack attacked cattle four times in August. All of the attacks involved the same herd grazing on a 4,000 acre private, forested pasture in the Sheep Creek area.

The lethal control permit allowed either ODFW staff or the producer or an employee to kill two adult wolves. Department spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said an adult, non-breeding female was shot by the livestock owner or an employee.

In August, ODFW killed four wolves from the Harl Butte Pack in Wallowa County, which had attacked livestock eight times in the past year.

In issuing the Meacham Pack kill permit, ODFW said the producer had taken proper action to deter attacks. The producer removed livestock carcasses the same day they were discovered, removed cattle that were weak and might be targeted by wolves, monitored and removed animals that were weak or could be a target of wolves and employed a range rider five days a week to monitor wolves and maintain a human presence on the range. The producer also delayed pasture turnout for 30 days so the calves grazing there would be bigger and perhaps better able to fend off wolves.

The closure of I-84 through the Columbia Gorge because of the Eagle Creek fire could cause delays in the delivery of the Sept. 8 edition of the Capital Press.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes readers and advertisers.

EUGENE, Ore. — A bank accused of interfering with radish seed sales is asking a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit filed against it by Oregon farmers.

A group of Oregon radish seed growers filed a complaint earlier this year against Northwest Bank of Warren, Pa., seeking $6.7 million in lost seed value and additional storage costs.

The farmers had grown the radish seed in 2014 for Cover Crop Solutions, but the company became financially defunct before paying them for the crop.

To make matters worse for the growers, Northwest Bank filed a lawsuit against them seeking to seize the radish seed as collateral for a $7 million loan it issued to Cover Crop Solutions.

The farmers prevailed against the Northwest Bank last year, when a judge dismissed the case, and then filed their own lawsuit accusing the bank of unlawfully filing meritless liens and threatening potential buyers to prevent them from selling the radish seed.

During oral arguments in Eugene, Ore., on Sept. 7, Northwest Bank asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie Russo to dismiss the lawsuit by the Radish Seed Growers’ Association and two independent farms.

The growers can’t plausibly claim the bank engaged in bad faith or improper means by trying to recover the crop, according to its motion to dismiss.

The bank has an “absolute litigation privilege” to try to collect on its loan, even if the lawsuit was unsuccessful, said Peter Hawkes, its attorney.

“It’s clear the bank had a good faith basis to assert a security interest in the seed,” Hawkes said. “They had a right to go to court and have that adjudicated.”

A federal judge held a trial to determine whether the bank held collateral in the seed and said it was not an “easy call,” he said.

While the judge ultimately ruled that farmers had a higher priority security interest in the seed, “that does not mean the bank’s argument was frivolous,” Hawkes said.

Paul Conable, attorney for the farmers, said the bank doesn’t need to be a “mustache-twisting villain” to be held liable for damages to the growers.

Rather, the bank behaved recklessly by filing invalid liens on the radish seed without conducting a rudimentary investigation of Oregon laws governing a farmer’s priority security interest in crops, Conable said.

“It didn’t bother to look before it filed those liens,” he said.

The bank admits it failed to conduct a reasonable analysis of Oregon law in a malpractice complaint it has filed against attorneys who advised on the loan, Conable said.

Even if it was the attorneys who made the mistake, that doesn’t excuse the bank from liability, he said.

“They’re responsible for the actions of their lawyers,” he said.

Similarly, people cannot avoid punishment for stealing property or committing assault because the actions were advised by a lawyer, Conable said.

“It’s a remarkable argument and also an argument that has no support in law,” he said.

The bank isn’t protected by the “absolute litigation privilege” because it hindered seed sales regardless of its lawsuit, he said.

“The interference was accomplished by filing an improper lien and sending letters to known customers,” Conable said.

Those threats and liens were not legitimized because the bank went to court against the growers, he said.

“You don’t immunize yourself from the effects of your actions by later filing a lawsuit,” he said. “There is no support for extending litigation privilege that far.”

A disease that infects Christmas trees erupted in some Pacific Northwest tree plantations last year, leading to tree loss and triggering a renewed round of research into better understanding the disease.

The disease, web blight, has been a sporadic, but relatively minor problem in Christmas trees since it was first identified in the Northwest in the late 1990s.

“I suspect that one of the reasons it was so severe this past year was because of all of the wet weather that we’ve had,” said Washington State University plant pathologist Gary Chastagner. “That provides an environment that is super conducive for spread of the pathogen.

“You need cool, moist conditions for it to spread from needle to needle,” he said.

The web blight pathogen is a type of Rhizoctonia, Chastagner said, but not the one that causes root rot or damping-off of seedlings. The disease primarily infects Douglas-fir, but this past year also showed up on noble, grand, Nordmann and Turkish fir.

Outside of some research into web blight in forest situations conducted through Oregon State University, little research has been done on the disease since preliminary studies on Christmas trees were conducted at Washington State University in the late 1990s. Chastagner said he now is revisiting that work.

“We are looking at the optimum temperature for the growth of the pathogen and development of the disease and, in collaboration with (OSU Extension Christmas Tree Specialist) Chal Landgren, we are looking at the ability of the pathogen to survive over the summer and cause problems again in the fall,” he said. “We don’t know whether those same trees that are damaged in a planting are likely to be damaged the next year, or whether new infections from the spread of inoculum from other sources, such as nearby forest trees, result in new infections.

“We don’t fully understand the sources of inoculum, what the types of inoculum are and the optimal conditions for the development of the problem,” Chastagner said. “Nor do we fully understand the extent of the susceptibility of some of the species of Christmas trees that we are growing.”

According to the Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook, web blight first appears on trees as a browning of outer foliage in roughly circular areas. Chastagner described a typical symptom as volleyball- or basketball-sized patches of brown needles, often connected by a web that can hold infected needles in place.

“What happens is this pathogen is basically growing as a web of mycelia that you can see over the surface of the needle, and it just kind of spreads from one needle to the next,” he said.

According to the handbook, under moist conditions, the fine fungal webbing may be visible. The disease, which can spread to affect as much as half the side of a tree, can be distinguished from Botrytis, or gray mold, in that the latter affects only current-year needles and shoots, and symptoms initially appear on the new growth in the spring.

In cases where trees are marginally infected, new shoots the next year will likely cover up the damage, and trees can still be brought to market. In more severe cases, growers tend to cut out trees.

“This past year there were some Douglas-fir where I would say half the tree didn’t have any needles on it anymore,” Chastagner said. The infection tended to be directional, he added. “In other words, infection was most severe on sides of the tree that were up against a forested area, or the north sides of the trees, where you might expect it to be cooler and moist longer.”

Among questions Chastagner is hoping to answer in his research is how the disease is spreading from tree to tree. “It could be doing so by spores, but that has not been demonstrated. There is a spore stage to this pathogen, but it is not clear what role that stage plays in the development of the disease, and we don’t know when the pathogen would actually be producing those spores. It could be a limited time period, or a long period of time,” he said.

“But there are other ways it can spread,” he said. “If I have trees that have the disease and I was doing culture work on the trees, I could have some of those colonized needles transferred from one tree to the next on, let’s say, a shearing knife. Or, just by walking through a planting, sometimes the needles can fall off and get on your clothes, and the next time you walk by a tree, maybe you transfer the colonized needles to another tree.

“We don’t have a good sense on how it is spreading, but there are a number of ways it could potentially spread, including the wind. If you had a windstorm, it could possibly blow needles from nearby timber into the edges of a Christmas tree planting,” he said.

Researchers also don’t know whether the pathogen survives over the summer on needles on the ground and produces a spore stage that re-enters trees, or whether it is the needles that get hung up in the tree that are able to cause infections the following year.

Chastagner and his team have collected foliage samples from several fields and are looking at the survival of the pathogen on several different types of trees, including Douglas-fir, Turkish fir, Nordmann fir, grand fir and noble fir.

“We want to see whether there is any difference (in survival of the pathogen on different hosts), so we are monitoring those (samples),” he said. “But this is the first year that we’ve done some of those types of studies.”

Among past findings from research Chastagner conducted in the late 1990s, it was shown the pathogen is sensitive to some fungicides, including Bravo, or chlorothalonil. But, Chastagner said, sprays applied in the spring to control a disease such as Swiss needle cast are unlikely to affect web blight, which appears in the fall.

Among cultural control methods identified by Chastagner and the Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook are to avoid planting trees in low-lying areas with poor air drainage and avoid planting near native stands of Douglas-fir that appear to have the disease.

Azure Farms, the organic operation that was at the center of a weed control argument in Sherman County this spring, is responding quickly to complaints and generally living up to its side of an agreement with county officials, Commissioner Tom McCoy said.

“So far, so good,” McCoy said in an email update. “I explained that I considered the weed agreement like a farm lease — not so important as a legal document, but important as a written statement of what each party should expect of the other.”

Neighboring wheat farmers, especially those who grow certified seed, have complained for years about weeds blowing onto their ground from Azure Farms, which as an organic operation would not use conventional chemical herbicides to deal with the problem. County officials said they would ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the farm’s production and warned they would spray herbicide and bill the 1,922-acre farm for the work if the weeds weren’t controlled.

Azure Farms and its parent company, Azure Standard, of Dufur, Ore., appealed to supporters on social media. County officials were flooded with anguished, angry telephone calls and nearly 60,000 emails from around the country and even internationally.

The issue came to a head at a county court meeting in May, held at the local high school gym because the crowd was so large. Brothers David and Nathan Stelzer, who head the farm and product distribution company, apologized for the social media response. They ultimately agreed to keep weeds in check using methods that won’t cause them to lose organic certification.

McCoy, the commissioner, said the county has received several complaints about noxious weeds flowering at Azure Farms and being close to producing seeds.

“When we contacted the Stelzers, they responded quickly — usually by mowing down the weeds,” McCoy said by email. “They have always seemed to accept their responsibility to keep noxious weed seeds from blowing into their neighbor’s fields.”

Portland’s downtown disappeared from view this week as thick smoke from wildfires settled in for an uncomfortable stay.

And that made it a problem, even though forest fires have been burning elsewhere in the West for several weeks.

All told, there were 65 active fires in nine Western states as of mid-day Sept. 6, including 19 in Oregon. The active fires have burned 1.4 million acres.

The biggest fire in Oregon, by far, is the Chetco Bar Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness northeast of Brookings on the Southern Oregon coast. As of mid-day Sept. 6 if had burned nearly 177,000 acres, destroyed six homes, damaged another and threatened 8,523 more.

As multiple rural residents said in effect on social media: Welcome to our world, Portland.

Some Oregonians who work in or support the state’s stagnant timber industry had another response: We told you so.

What got Portland’s attention was the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area east of the city, a spectacular 80-mile stretch of river, timber, basalt formations and waterfalls that attracts legions of climbers, hikers and scads of tourists. The chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners mourned the damage to what she called “our playground.”

The Eagle Creek Fire lit up the Gorge like a vision from hell. It began Sept. 2, jumped to 10,000 acres by mid-week and merged with the Indian Creek Fire to cover 20,000 acres.

It filled Portland with dense smoke that obliterated all scenic views. It dusted cars and porches with tiny bits of ash, forced evacuations, closed I-84 from Troutdale east to Hood River and threatened the 92-year-old lodge at Multnomah Falls, the state’s most popular natural site with 2.5 million annual visitors.

Oregon State Police said fireworks started the fire. They’ve interviewed a 15-year-old Vancouver, Wash., boy and described him as a “suspect.”

Pushed by hot, boisterous east winds, the Eagle Creek Fire hurled flaming debris up to three-quarters of a mile and even jumped the Columbia to start a fire on the Washington side. About 150 hikers on the Eagle Creek trail system had to retreat, stop in place overnight or hike out to Wahtum Lake, but were successfully evacuated.

Citing smoke and heat, Portland public schools sent students home two hours early Sept. 5 and canceled soccer games and sports practices. Many of the city’s hardcore bicycle commuters wore handkerchiefs to cover their noses and mouths. The sun and moon took turns glowing orange in the smoke filled sky. The Oregon Department of Agriculture expressed concern that farmworkers might be breathing smoke while working outside in orchards and vineyards.

If Portlanders were stunned by the wildfire’s leaping fury, many rural Oregonians and people who work in natural resource industries said the state, and much of the West, is paying the price of paralyzed forest management policy.

Critics say the state’s publicly-managed forests are primed for disastrous fires. They believe timberland agencies, especially the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, are shackled by decades of lawsuits and continued argument over endangered species, wildlife habitat, logging roads and water quality.

A stark statistic illustrates the state of affairs: Federal agencies manage 60 percent of Oregon’s forestland, nearly 18 million acres, but that land accounts for just 15 percent of the annual timber harvest, according to the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.

The institute was created by the Oregon Legislature to enhance collaboration and to provide information about responsible forest management. One of its more recent reports estimated more than 350 million individual trees are standing dead on national forestland, providing ready fuel for catastrophic fires.

Nick Smith, executive director of a group called Healthy Forests Healthy Communities, said many urban and suburban residents in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere “don’t understand the grave conditions on the ground in our federally-owned forests.” Much of the forested landscape is at risk to fire, disease and insects due to dense and overgrown conditions, he said.

“What we’re seeing right now is just how outdated and unresponsive our current federal management policies are to conditions on the ground,” Smith said.

His group and others believe federal forest agencies lack the funding and legal and policy tools to increase logging and thinning. In particular, they believe fire suppression costs should be treated as other forms of disaster relief, like hurricanes. The Forest Service spends half its budget on wildfire suppression, Smith said.

Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden agree, but haven’t been able to bring about change. In a statement issued Sept. 6, Merkley said the fires “reinforce how important it is to get a long-term fix that would fund fighting huge wildfires the way that we fund other natural disasters.”

“Many of us are frustrated with current forest management practices,” Merkley said. “I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers to find collaborative solutions and funding to return our forests to health.”

Meanwhile, Oregon State Police want to speak with anyone who heard fireworks in the Eagle Creek Trail or Punch Bowl Falls area between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 2. The state police phone number is 503-375-3555.