SALEM — A conflict over a straw-compressing facility has raised legal questions over what type of crop “processing” or “preparation” is allowed outright on Oregon farmland.

The Oregon Court of Appeals must now decide whether a farmer near Albany, Ore., may run the facility without a county permit restricting its operation.

The dispute centers on whether straw-compressing qualifies as the “preparation” of a crop, which is allowed outright in farm zones, or if it’s a form of “processing,” which requires a conditional use permit.

Jim Johnson, land use specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said the ruling would be significant if it affects which activities are considered “farm uses” under the state’s land use law.

Farmers depend on seed-cleaning and straw-compressing services to get crops ready for market, he said. “They also need infrastructure to support their operations.”

In the case, John Gilmour had obtained a conditional use permit from Linn County for the facility but then found that the operational time limits were hurting his reliability as a straw supplier.

In some circumstances, the facility must run around the clock to meet the demands of straw buyers in Asia, Gilmour said. “Without that ability, I’m not very competitive.”

Earlier this year, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, held that Gilmour doesn’t need a conditional use permit because straw-compressing is “essentially an extension of the initial baling of the straw, which occurs in the field, that is simply further preparation in the facility, and therefore accurately characterized as a farm use.”

Neighbors who are concerned about traffic and noise from the facility have challenged that finding before the Oregon Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in the case on May 5.

Suzi Maresh, a neighbor, said the facility is a “huge safety issue” because large trucks turning onto a narrow roadway are an “accident waiting to happen.”

Neighbors and the facility would be better off if it were located near a major freeway because the nearby roads are inadequate, she said.

Maresh said she doesn’t believe the straw-compressing facility is covered as a “farm use” under Oregon law because it brings most of its straw from other farmers and operates year-round.

“I don’t think this is farming,” she said.

Alan Sorem, attorney for Gilmour, said the facility can accept other people’s straw because it’s also grown on land that’s zoned exclusively for farming.

The fact that trucks are frequently needed to bring the compressed straw to market is expected and doesn’t preclude straw-compressing as a “farm use,” he said. “The commercial nature is not relevant here.”

Straw-compressing is clearly a type of crop “preparation,” unlike the “processing” of berries into jam, which cannot be reversed, Sorem said during oral arguments.

“Whether it’s been compressed or not, once you cut open the bale, it’s just straw,” he said.

Sean Malone, an attorney for the Friends of Linn County conservation group and concerned neighbors, said LUBA committed an error by declaring that straw-compressing is crop “preparation” without sufficiently examining whether it’s also “processing.”

“We’ve been given half a look. We haven’t been given the whole analysis by LUBA,” Malone said.

The agency acknowledged that the two terms were “potentially overlapping,” so the county’s interpretation that straw-compressing is “processing” should stand under Oregon’s land use law, he said.

“Given the ambiguity of the term, that provides the county with a certain latitude,” he said.

MONITOR, ORE. — It may come as no surprise that Ross Nels Iverson’s family is asking friends to bring their favorite tractors to the celebration of his life that will be held Saturday, May 7.

Iverson, patriarch of the family’s famed Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and other agricultural enterprises, loved family, friends and farming. A line of tractors in his honor seemed a fitting — and funny — way to acknowledge the connection.

“I think it would make him smile,” said Paul Iverson, the youngest of his six children.

Ross Iverson died at sunset on April 26, with his family by his side. He was 90. The celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Wooden Shoe Gardens, 33814 S. Meridian Road, Woodburn.

He was born Sept. 14, 1925, on the family farm in Bear River City, Utah, and moved with his family to Portland when he was 17. He graduated from Grant High School and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

He married Dorothy Van Veen in 1950 and they were married 63 years before her death in 2014. They bought a farm in Monitor and there raised six children: Steve, Karen, Nels, Ken, Barb and Paul. The couple also traveled extensively, visiting six continents.

Ross Iverson was active in the community, serving 60 years with the Monitor Fire Department as volunteer, chief and on the board of directors, and 25 years with the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District. He also was involved with the Monitor Telephone Co-operative, served on the Ninety-One School and Canby High School boards, and was a director with the Federal Land Bank. He also enjoyed classical music and opera.

But it was farming, his family said in a published obituary, that was his “life, vocation and hobby. He loved nothing more than overseeing and directing everything happening on the farm.”

During tulip season, Iverson enjoyed chatting with visitors who flocked to the farm. He was known to raid tulips from the farm’s coolers and delighted in delivering them about the community.

Paul Iverson said his father was a quiet man who endured accidents and illness and “never cheated anything but death. He took it in stride.”

He said his father would be humbled by the outpouring of cards and calls the family has received.

“He was a great man, he taught us a lot of good things,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown is preparing for the trial of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers to last a long time, possibly months.

Speaking during a pre-trial status hearing Wednesday in Portland, Brown said she still wanted the trial of Ammon Bundy and the other occupiers to begin Sept. 7. But she also discussed how the court would manage breaks for holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, if necessary.

“Heaven forbid we’re still doing this then,” Brown said.

Wednesday’s hearing covered a range of topics, including jury selection and where the trial would be held.

Brown said jury selection would likely draw on a pool of 1,500 people, although where those people would come from hasn’t yet been decided.

The selection could be limited to the Northwest section of the state, which includes both Portland and rural areas. But defense attorneys argued they’d like to see jury members drawn from more rural parts of the state, such as the Pendleton court district. Brown said she was open to the idea of a proportionally drawn pool.

Summons for jurors could go out as early as next month.

Defense attorneys also said they’d like to commission studies to look at how media coverage throughout the occupation may have affected the viewpoints of possible jurors. Lawyers said they’d use the nearly $130,000 studies to determine if they’d get a fair trial in Oregon.

If commissioned, the polls could take up to 150 days, which means they’d finish at or near the scheduled September trial date.

Attorneys also discussed the idea of allowing a half-dozen defendants who have already been released from custody to sever their cases from those of Bundy and other leaders of the occupation. That would allow those defendants to have a different trial date.

For occupiers Ryan Bundy and Kenneth Medenbach, who are representing themselves in the case, the hearing was another chance to raise their concerns about their ability to prepare an adequate defense while they are incarcerated.

The men complained they can only access the jail’s law library for six hours a day, and said they don’t have adequate writing materials to work on their cases.

“I’m not able to change all of the jail’s rules, nor am I trying to do so,” said Brown. But she indicated she’d try to create a dialogue with the jail that could improve case work conditions for Bundy and Medenbach.

Despite those complaints, occupiers Jason Patrick and Duane Ehmer expressed interest in representing themselves in the case, too.

Wednesday’s hearing also had its share of unusual moments.

Before the hearing began, some of the defendants gathered in the court room, bowed their heads and recited the Lord’s Prayer.

Ammon Bundy’s lead attorney, Mike Arnold, also complained that his client and Ryan Bundy appeared “thin and emaciated” after a recent trip to the Nevada district court, where they face charges for a 2014 standoff. Arnold said the men should get more “rations” in jail.

“I don’t know what you mean by rations,” said Brown, before stating she’d ask the jail to look into the issue.

Later in the hearing, defendant Jason Patrick complained to Brown that a U.S. marshal threatened him and his mother while he was in custody.

“I’ve never had a complaint like that before,” Brown said, before saying she’d pass Patrick’s complaint on to the head of the U.S. Marshal Service for review.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A plan to exclude mineral development on about 100,000 acres of federal land, to thwart a proposed nickel mine near the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, is nearing fruition.

The U.S. Forest Service released its environmental assessment last week, and written comments will be accepted through May 27.

The proposed mineral withdrawal would add five more years to the existing two-year moratorium on exploration already in place, on upper sections of Baldface Creek, Rough and Ready Creek, the Pistol River and Hunter Creek.

The withdrawal falls in line with congressional legislation proposed last year by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to protect the area’s pristine nature.

The legislation targets the Red Flat Nickel Corp.’s proposal to strip-mine more than 3,000 acres, primarily for nickel, in the Baldface Creek drainage about 12 miles west of O’Brien just outside the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

The company also has claims in other drainages.

The Daily Courier was unable to reach representatives for Red Flat’s operation. Based in the United Kingdom, the company has an office in Portland.

Roy Bergstrom of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest said Red Flat hasn’t proved mineral wealth in any of its claims, although it has done test drilling on some of them in the Hunter Creek-Pistol River drainage.

“Valid existing rights are not established on any of these,” Bergstrom said.

Any existing mining claims with valid mineral rights would not be subject to the withdrawal, but claims would have to go through mineral exams to test their validity.

“We would have to do a mineral evaluation to determine if claims are valid or not,” said Kevin Johnson, geologist for the BLM based in Grants Pass. “We have not made any determination yet.”

Virtually no hard rock mining operations have been permitted by the Forest Service in that area for many years.

The proposed mine location is near Baldface Creek, and claims fall on both sides of the creek.

Baldface drains into the North Fork Smith River, prized by rafters and an important spawning tributary for salmon and steelhead.

At public meetings in Grants Pass and Cave Junction last year, sentiment was heavier toward protecting the watersheds, but others from the mining community were dismayed over shutting down land to extraction of natural resources.

Nickel is an important alloy metal and is especially useful in the production of stainless steel.

BANDON -- Tom Collins, music director and organist, will present a free recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 22, at Bandon First Presbyterian Church, 592 Edison Ave. SW.

BANDON -- Over one hundred entries were received for this year's Piehl Youth Poetry Contest. Grade 5-12 students from Bandon, Langlois, and Port Orford were eligible to participate. The contest's 2016 theme was "What Makes Me Happy?" Winners were Isabel…

LANGLOIS -- The Langlois Public Library presents How to Draw a Dragon with local author Kandi Wyatt from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, May 14.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon says a massive habitat restoration effort doesn’t do enough to improve Northwest salmon runs.

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon in Portland on Wednesday rejected the federal government’s plan for offsetting the damage that dams in the Columbia River Basin pose to the fish. He found that for the past 20 years, U.S. agencies have focused on trying to revive the salmon runs without hurting the generation of electricity.

He says those efforts “have already cost billions of dollars, yet they are failing.”

The ruling gives a major victory to conservationists and fishing businesses who hope to see four dams on the Snake River, a major tributary of the Columbia, breached to make way for the salmon. The state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe were also among those who sued.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas woman who took her children to perform for occupiers during the armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge earlier this year says authorities have removed seven of her children from her home and arrested her for assaulting an officer.

Odalis Sharp, 46, of Auburn was booked into the Shawnee County jail Friday evening for battery of an officer and interfering with a law enforcement officer, jail officials told The Kansas City Star. No charges had been filed as of Tuesday morning. The Shawnee County prosecutor’s office could not be reached for comment.

Sharp was released Saturday on $3,000 bond.

Sharp traveled with seven of her 10 children, who have a family gospel band, from Kansas to Oregon to sing for and support the 41-day occupation by armed militants of at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. One daughter, 18-year-old Victoria Sharp, was riding with Nevada rancher LaVoy Finicum and three of the other militants when Finicum ran a roadblock and was shot and killed by Oregon state police.

Sharp said the arrest occurred after she went to court earlier Friday trying to file paperwork accusing her landlord of breach of contract. Her landlord had earlier sought to have her removed from the home. She said when she returned home, law enforcement and employees with the Kansas Department of Children and Families were waiting.

“They wanted me to go with them,” Sharp told the newspaper. “They wouldn’t let me go to the house. One grabbed my arm and legs and dragged me out of the car. I kicked the woman officer.”

Sharp said the sheriff’s officers arrested her and took one of her children who was with her at the time. Six of her other children had been taken by child welfare workers while she was away, Sharp said. Three older children live elsewhere.

A DCF spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

“They’re all in DCF custody now, as far as I know,” she said. “They’re evil. They steal kids. This is the devil against my family.”

She said DCF workers visited her at least twice since returning from Oregon and that someone had apparently called the child abuse and neglect hotline recently.

“They’re making false charges,” she said.

In 2011, the Kansas Department for Children and Families removed Sharp’s oldest child who was then 15 and placed him in foster care. Sharp appealed, but the appellate court sided with the lower courts in October.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Part of the 80-year-old Malheur Siphon, which carries irrigation water to thousands of acres in Malheur County, is starting to fail.

As a result, the Owyhee Irrigation District has hired an engineering firm to assess the integrity of the pipe and design a fix.

The siphon, a 4.3-mile long steel pipe that is a landmark in the valley, delivers up to 325 cubic feet per second of irrigation water from the Malheur Reservoir to farmers on the northern part of the OID system.

“If that siphon went down, the whole north end wouldn’t have any water. It’s very important to this area,” said Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

About a third of the OID system is dependent on the pipe and ensuring its survival is a priority, said Bruce Corn, a farmer and member of the OID board of directors.

“It’s absolutely critical,” he said. “If it failed, it would totally dry up that area.”

The major area of concern is east of the Malheur Butte, where the 80-inch pipe is supported by large steel legs, said OID Manager Jay Chamberlin.

“The pipe is starting to fail ... and we need to go in and really figure out what’s going on,” he said. “It’s the heartbeat of this valley. It’s a critical piece of our infrastructure.”

The soil in that area expands and contracts wildly depending on the temperature, and the legs and pipe can move as much as 6 inches a day, he said. “It’s like it’s doing this dance and it’s not all staying together.”

MWH Americas, a Boise engineering firm, is being paid $45,000 to assess the problem and design a fix. Chamberlin met with MWH officials May 2 and received some good news.

“The pipe itself is worth saving. The integrity of the steel is great,” he said. “Now we just have to invest in some good legs to support that pipe for many more years to come.”

The new legs will be designed to allow movement from side to side as well as vertically.

Chamberlin said the goal is to design the fix in a way that OID employees can do most of the work themselves, reducing the cost.

A design fix should be ready by the end of summer and work could begin this fall.

Chamberlin said there are other issues with the siphon that need to be addressed and fixing all of them will take a number of years.

“It really has to be engineered correctly and I think we’re on the right path,” he said.

Local lakes: ODFW District fish biologist Mike Gray told us that he received a grant for weed removal at the Bradley Lake boat launch. Last Wednesday weeds were removed from the fish dock and boat launch area. This week, Bradley…

Hortifrut of Santiago, Chile, which last year sold roughly $350 million in berries globally, recently announced the upcoming merger with Munger Bros. of Delano, Calif., which has more than 3,000 acres in Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia and Mexico.

Details of the agreement were not disclosed and the deal is subject to “various conditions,” including due diligence and shareholder approval.

The two firms, which are currently partners in the Naturipe Farms marketing organization, expect to complete the merger this summer.

Hortifrut also recently bought eight parcels totaling more than 550 acres near Forest Grove, Ore., for $11 million from the Glenn Walters Nursery.

Bob Hawk, president and CEO of Munger Bros., said he’s not prepared to make a public statement about plans for the property, which is still being evaluated.

“We found it to be a good investment opportunity,” he said. “There’s no short-term plan to begin planting anything at this point in time.”

For the past 15 years or so, berry production has become increasingly globalized as farmers seek to diversify their holdings, said Bernadine Strik, berry specialist with Oregon State University Extension.

Growing numerous types and cultivars of berries across different geographies allows companies to supply grocers with fresh fruit for longer periods of time, even throughout the year if they own properties in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, she said.

Such diversification also helps mitigate risk, Strik said. “If there’s a climate event or pest problem in one region, and that’s the only region where you grow, it hits harder economically.”

Before its recent acquisitions, Hortifrut had nearly 3,200 acres in production in Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Spain, with about 80 percent of that acreage in blueberries and the remainder in raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and cherries, according to its 2015 financial report.

The company also sources berries grown by about 700 suppliers in various countries where it has operations.

About 60 percent of the company’s revenues are generated in North America, 25 percent are generated in Europe and the remaining 15 percent come from Asia and South America.

Hortifruit was founded in Chile in 1980 and began exporting its berries to the U.S., Europe and Asia, eventually becoming a publicly traded company in 2012 with a stock offering that raised more than $67 million.

Siuslaw swept the varsity (eighth grade) team titles and Marshfield took the junior varsity (seventh and sixth grade) crowns at the sub-district track meet in Florence last Friday.

Members of Pendleton Grain Growers voted overwhelmingly to dissolve the 86-year-old farmers’ co-op at a special meeting Monday night.

Board Chairman Tim Hawkins said the vote was about 95 percent in favor of dissolution. At least a two-thirds majority was required to pass the resolution. PGG will now sell its remaining assets in order to pay off debt and return any leftover equity to members.

The vote officially brings an end to PGG, which was established in 1930 during the Great Depression to protect local farmers against slumping grain prices. In recent years, the co-op lost millions of dollars in profit and misrepresented millions more in overstated earnings. PGG attempted to restructure its business model before ultimately turning to dissolution.

Eric Anderson, a PGG member for 40 years, said the attitude at the members-only meeting was one of resignation.

“Losing this vast amount of money is the real tragedy,” Anderson said.

Despite losing the co-op, Hawkins said he felt this was the best outcome for PGG members, given the circumstances.

The environmental group Cascadia Wildlands is accusing three Oregon lawmakers of knowingly misrepresenting a bill that ratified the state’s decision to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list.

The complaint was filed Monday with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission against Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie; Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford; and Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove.

Barreto introduced House Bill 4040 during the short legislative session earlier this year. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had previously determined wolves no longer need endangered species protections, and the Fish and Wildlife Commission followed through with delisting wolves in November 2015.

HB 4040 effectively gave the Legislature’s stamp of approval, and Gov. Kate Brown signed off on the bill in March.

Cascadia Wildlands argues that in order to secure votes for the bill Witt, Esquivel and Barreto made false statements that HB 4040 would not affect a judicial review of the wolf delisting decision.

“There’s a real concern this bill passed through the House with a fundamental misunderstanding of what it does,” said Nick Cady, legal director for Cascadia Wildlands. “Salem can be somewhat of a black box ... We perceived this as pretty egregious.”

Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity had all requested a judicial review of the delisting decision. The case was tossed by the Oregon Court of Appeals on April 22, which cited HB 4040.

Cady claims the bill’s sole purpose was to block their review, despite claims from Barreto, Witt and Esquivel.

According to the complaint, Barreto said during a Feb. 4 hearing that the bill “does nothing more than shore up the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Commission,” and “Our objective in this is not to usurp the authority of the commission. It is only to shore up the decision that they have made and to make the (wolf) plan a workable plan as was written.” He also sent a written document to colleagues stating the bill had no language precluding judicial review.

However, on Feb. 16, the Legislative Counsel Committee issued a report to Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, stating that the only legal effect of HB 4040 was to “validate any real or perceived irregularities” in ODFW’s decision under state law.

“In essence, the only effect of the bill was to preclude judicial review of the commission’s delisting decision,” the complaint reads.

HB 4040 passed the House 33-23, and the Senate 17-11.

Since then, ODFW shot and killed four wolves from the Imnaha Pack in northeast Oregon for frequently attacking livestock in the area. There is still no legal hunting of wolves allowed in Oregon.

Barreto said he had not seen the complaint as of Monday morning, but reiterated the intent of the bill was to affirm what ODFW had already done.

“All we did was say yes, we agree with Fish and Wildlife,” Barreto said. “If that precludes their lawsuit, then so be it.”

Esquivel also said that he had not received a copy of the complaint, but was not worried about it because he did nothing wrong.

“We didn’t intentionally try to mislead anyone,” Esquivel said. “It’s our opinion, and our opinion’s our opinion.”

Environmentalists had asked for a review of the delisting decision because they argued it was not made with sound science, and had not been independently reviewed, as required by state law.

Cady said they are pushing to have the case reconsidered by the Court of Appeals.

“To be very clear, the (wolf) recovery is going very successfully,” he said. “Our frustration is more just the pushback this species’ recovery is getting from state legislators and various lobbying interests.”

Oregon’s wolf population had grown to at least 110 animals by the end of 2015, a 36 percent increase over the previous year.

Capital Bureau Reporter Hillary Borrud contributed to this report.

PORTLAND — Government helicopters spraying pesticides over funky neighborhoods in a liberal city would seem a recipe for outrage.

But the Oregon Department of Agriculture completed its gypsy moth eradication campaign over North Portland May 2 without much protest or hubbub. A few people were concerned about the spraying but opposition was “scattered,” department spokesman Bruce Pokarney said.

“I would say the vast majority of people inside the treatment zone either were happy with what we were doing or at least accepted what we were doing,” Pokarney said.

The department sprayed about 8,800 acres three times since April 16, using aerial applications of a biological insecticide called Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, or Btk, which kills moth larvae. Gypsy moths, an invasive species, can do horrendous damage to trees, and Btk has been the insecticide of choice since the 1970s.

Monday’s final application involved the St. Johns, West Hayden Island and Linnton areas, a portion of Forest Park, and an industrial area of the Port of Portland. The department also sprayed at the Port of Vancouver, across the Columbia River from Portland, under an arrangement with the Washington Department of Agriculture. The Washington department carried out its own gypsy moth campaign involving 10,450 acres, including parts of Seattle and Tacoma. The department intended to finish May 3.

Pokarney, of the Oregon ag department, said the lack of widespread protest may be due to a couple factors. First, Btk has been used for decades and is widely viewed as effective and safe, he said.

But a public information campaign was crucial, he said. The department held neighborhood meetings, invited comments, arranged for residents to receive project information by automated calls or text messages, and took to Facebook and other social media to explain the operation.

“I think there’s a direct correlation between the amount of transparency in this project and the opposition we faced,” Pokarney said. There were a few glitches — some people who signed up for automatic notification of spraying didn’t receive it — but overall the public seemed to accept the project.

“There’s now an expectation of transparency of what government is doing,” Pokarney said. “You tell them what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and allow them to ask questions That’s the bare minimum now.”

The department will place monitoring traps in the area this week and check them over the summer to make sure gypsy moths haven’t returned, he said.

Last summer, three Asian gypsy moths and two European gypsy moths were detected in the Portland area, including one Asian gypsy moth on the Washington side of the Columbia. Oregon hadn’t sprayed for them since 2009, Pokarney said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Three Oregon lawmakers have been hit with an ethics complaint filed by environmentalists, arguing they broke state law by deliberately misrepresenting the purpose behind House Bill 4040, the so-called wolf delisting bill, during the legislative session earlier this year.

Environmentalists filed the complaint Monday with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission against Republican Reps. Greg Barreto, Brad Witt and Sal Esquivel.

The Oregon Court of Appeals cited the bill last month when tossing out a lawsuit filed by environmentalists trying to reverse a state decision to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.

The ethics complaint says the lawmakers in February repeatedly denied that the bill’s purpose was to intervene in the courtroom.

Esquivel, R-Medford, said Monday that he had not received a copy of the complaint, but he was not worried about it because he did nothing wrong.

“We didn’t intentionally try to mislead anyone,” Esquivel said. “It’s our opinion, and our opinion’s our opinion.”

Hillary Borrud of the EO Media Group/Pamplin Media Group Capital Bureau contributed to this report.

TUALATIN, Ore. — An aerial pesticide applicator is fighting allegations of willful misconduct from Oregon farm regulators who want to revoke his spraying license for at least five years.

An administrative law judge heard the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s case against Mike Applebee and his company, Applebee Aviation, which are accused of ignoring an emergency order to stop spraying last year.

Aside from license revocation, Applebee and his company could be subject to $180,000 in civil penalties.

During the hearings, held in Tualatin, Ore., on April 26-28, the agency argued that Applebee Aviation had a pattern of safety violations leading up to the emergency suspension but continued pesticide treatments after the order was issued in late September 2015.

Applebee countered that he wasn’t properly notified of the suspension and responded to it belatedly due to an out-of-state hunting trip from which he didn’t return until the order had been already effective for several days.

The company also sprayed cheatgrass on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property in Eastern Oregon because ODA officials didn’t clearly answer whether the suspension order prevented operations on federal land, according to Applebee.

Dale Mitchell, manager of ODA’s pesticide program, said he could not comment on the pending litigation against Applebee but acknowledged such contested cases are rare.

Companies have only challenged roughly a dozen pesticide violation citations issued by ODA over the past quarter-century, and most of those did not involve license revocations, he said.

The Applebee dispute has erupted at a time of broader controversy over aerial pesticide applications in Oregon. A prospective ballot initiative filed for the 2016 election would seek to ban aerial spraying across the state.

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill that increased no-spray buffers and doubled fines for pesticide violations last year, but environmentalists argued the legislation didn’t go far enough.

Applebee’s case came to public attention when a former employee, Daryl Ivy, claimed to have been sprayed with herbicides and released videos allegedly depicting improper aerial operations.

The ODA couldn’t substantiate that Ivy had actually been sprayed but found he possessed “credible evidence” of safety violations, such as insufficient “personal protective equipment,” or PPE, according to court documents filed by the agency.

During the recent hearing, Applebee testified that he provided pilots with credit cards to ensure the company’s crews always had enough protection.

However, some employees didn’t like using the equipment, such as thick gloves that made unscrewing chemical containers difficult, he said.

“The problem wasn’t the PPE, it was getting people to wear the PPE. That was the problem,” Applebee said.

Applebee’s testimony was supported by some of his current and former pilots, who said personal protective equipment was made readily available.

“We always did things the safest way possible,” testified David McDaniel, who flew for Applebee until December 2015.

That testimony was countered by witnesses called by ODA, including former batch truck driver Kevin Vanderlei, who said the company had a “minimal amount” of PPE and pressured employees to finish spray operations quickly.

Vanderlei said he was terminated in 2015 for complaining about leaking spray nozzles, but another Applebee pilot said he was fired for insubordination and vandalizing a company truck.

Rob Ireland, the attorney for Applebee, said the company is currently challenging the ODA’s original emergency suspension order in the Oregon Court of Appeals.

An administrative law judge found that the emergency order should be overturned, but the ODA later overrode that decision, Ireland said.

If the Court of Appeals agrees that the original suspension was invalid, it would undermine the agency’s case for license revocation and fines, he said.

Applebee Aviation has been able to spray pesticides in Oregon again for the past six weeks because the company’s license was reinstated while the litigation is pending, he said.

ODA and Applebee have until May 27 to submit their closing arguments in the administrative case on license revocation. Administrative Law Judge Jennifer Rackstraw said she would try to issue an order within 30 days of their submission.

MOXEE, Wash. — Hop acreage is increasing for the fourth straight year in the United States and for the third year globally.

U.S. hop acreage is projected to increase by 6,000 acres this year, a 13 percent rise. That follows a 19 percent last year, according to the Hop Growers of America.

The 13 percent is a conservative estimate and could be higher by the time final figures are available. Last year’s initial estimate was 15 percent, but the actual increase was 19 percent, said Jaki Brophy, Hop Growers of America spokeswoman.

Of the increase, 5,400 acres are in Washington state, Oregon and Idaho and 600 acres are in other states.

With the new acreage, the U.S. total is 51,275 acres, widening the gap with Germany, the other leading producer at 45,468 acres. Germany’s acreage is up 10 percent.

The worldwide increase is 8,347 acres, up 6.7 percent, which was predicted by the International Hop Growers Convention in Paris on April 18. The convention estimates 2016 production at 232 million pounds globally, up from 190.4 million in 2015. In the U.S., the estimated production is 97 million pounds, up from 80.2 million in 2015.

Of the U.S. estimate, 60.6 million pounds are aroma varieties and 36.4 million pounds are alpha. Aroma varieties are mainly used by craft breweries and alpha are mainly used by large brewers.

Drought in Europe reduced the worldwide production in 2015. U.S. yields are expected to be better due to more acreage coming into production and no drought in the Yakima Valley, where about 70 percent of the U.S. crop is grown, Brophy said.

The acreage increase continues to be driven by the growing number of craft breweries, said Ann George, administrator of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission.

The number of breweries in the U.S. reached 4,144 at the end of November, topping the historic high of 4,131 in 1873, according to the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colo.

Brewery openings exceeded two a day in 2015 with 15 states each now home to more than 100 breweries, the association said. California, Oregon and Washington are among the top 15.

The U.S. inventory of hops was 131 million pounds on March 1, up 10 percent from a year earlier. For perspective, that compares with 190.4 million pounds harvested worldwide in 2015.

“We are finally beginning to see some signs of breathing room in the supply chain, especially in popular craft varieties hard-hit last summer, although we have not reached comfortable levels quite yet,” said Pete Mahony, vice president of supply chain management and purchasing at John I. Haas in Yakima.

Early maturing aroma varieties in the Yakima Valley experienced lower yields last year due to drought but there’s adequate water this year from a larger mountain snowpack.

It looks like a good season and more breweries are buying hops by contract versus the spot market, resulting in more breweries reliably having their needs met at a known price, George said.

“We hope to see this continue, reducing reliance on the spot market, which acts as a good buffer for unanticipated need and yield variances,” she said.

Too much spot market supply causes market price volatility and more grower risk, she said.

Forward contracting also allows growers to secure necessary capital from lenders, as they can prove their crop is sold, George said.

That’s crucial for expansion estimated at a minimum of $40,000 per acre, including the cost of land, growing supplies, rootstock, labor, equipment, harvesting, cold storage and packaging, she said.

ONTARIO, Ore. — Farmers who depend on the Owyhee Reservoir will receive more irrigation water in 2016 than they have the past two years combined.

As a result, they are planting more high-water — and more lucrative — crops such as corn, sugar beets and onions, which they cut back on the past three years because of the drought.

Land that was left idle because of the lack of water is now being put back into production.

A good snowpack year in the Owyhee Basin has caused the water supply situation to go from good to better.

The Owyhee Irrigation District has increased the 2016 allotment for its patrons to 3.8 acre-feet. It had been tentatively set at 3 acre-feet in March.

The 1,800 farms in Eastern Oregon and part of Idaho that depend on the reservoir received 1.7 and 1.6 acre-feet the past two years.

The OID system has been running for more than three weeks now but the reservoir level is still rising a little bit each day. It held 430,000 acre-feet of storage water on April 27.

“There is a hair more water coming in to the reservoir than is going out. We’re doing pretty good,” said Malheur County dairyman and farmer Frank Ausman, a member of the OID board of directors.

He said there’s a good chance patrons will end up with their full 4 acre-foot allotment this year.

“We think we’ll be able to tweak it again and get to 4 acre-feet but at this point we don’t want to give something away that we don’t have yet,” he said.

Reservoir in-flows were above 1,500 cubic feet per second on April 27, well ahead of last year, when they were near 200 cfs, said OID board member and farmer Bruce Corn.

“I’m very optimistic we’ll have a full 4-foot allotment this year,” Corn said.

Farmers and Oregon State University Extension agents say corn and sugar beet acres, which were down by about half the past two seasons, are up substantially this year, and onion acres will also increase.

“There definitely seems to be a lot more sugar beets and corn than there has been the last couple of years,” said Stuart Reitz, an OSU Extension cropping systems agent in Ontario. “I think things are getting back to a more normal routine and farmers are starting to get their rotations back in order.”

Ausman, who likes to grow as much of his own animal feed as possible, said he left a lot of ground idle the past two years.

“Now I’m farming every drop of land I’ve got,” he said.

Ausman said that in his area, “A lot of ground that was setting empty these past few years has been planted to corn this year.”

Corn said farmers in the area who get their irrigation water from the Malheur Basin are also in a much better situation this year.

“The whole Malheur County area is significantly better than we were the last couple of years,” he said.