SALEM — Oregon’s food processors and wineries are alarmed by a bill to reduce the maximum number of hours that manufacturing employees can work per week.

The proposal originated as an attempt to clarify how to calculate overtime paid to Oregon’s manufacturing workers, which had recently been in dispute.

However, the most recent version of the bill being considered by Oregon lawmakers would limit the maximum work week to 72 hours for manufacturing jobs, which food processors and wineries argue will impair their ability to handle the influx of crops during seasonal peaks. Work weeks are currently limited to 91 hours.

Paying overtime is expensive, so food processors would prefer to have enough workers as to avoid lengthy work weeks, said J.L. Wilson, a representative of the Northwest Food Processors Association.

However, such companies are often located where crops are grown, not where there’s an abundance of people, so they don’t have a sufficient labor pool from which to pull, he said.

As a result, these processors must rely on existing employees working longer during periods of peak production, Wilson said during a June 20 hearing on House Bill 3458.

“This is going to fundamentally disadvantage rural Oregon,” he said of the proposed limit. “They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t have to, in many instances.”

Similarly, harvest irregularities can force growers to suddenly provide wineries with larger amounts of grapes than expected, resulting in unpredictably heavy work loads, said Ellen Brittan of Brittan Vineyards in McMinnville, Ore.

Wineries have little choice but to extend work hours to prevent the fruit from rotting, she said. “You just have to deal with it.”

Some workers at Brittan Vineyards have logged as many as 86 hours per week, but they do so willingly to maximize overtime pay, she said.

“They want to be sure they can make a significant amount of money during this short window of opportunity,” Brittan said. “We have people fighting for those overtime hours.”

Not all Oregon employers are upset about the most recent version of HB 3458 before lawmakers.

Associated Oregon Industries, a non-profit representing businesses, believes the 72-hour work week will be challenging but is acceptable as long as overtime rules are clarified.

Last year, the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries changed its guidance for manufacturing employers, finding that workers must be paid for both daily and weekly overtime hours combined. Traditionally, they simply had to pay whichever amount was greater.

For example, someone who worked 11 hours for two days and eight hours for three days spent a total of 46 hours at work that week, earning six hours of weekly overtime pay.

Since the person also exceeded the 10-hour daily cap twice, that counted toward two daily overtime hours.

Employers would usually just pay the worker for six hours of weekly overtime, but under BOLI’s new guidance, they must combine the daily and weekly overtime hours to pay for eight hours of total overtime.

A bill originally proposed in the Senate amended the law to allow employers to return to the traditional overtime approach, but groups representing workers objected to the change.

As a result, the proposal resurfaced in the House as HB 3458 with the addition of a work week limit of 60 hours.

Under an amendment to the bill currently before the House Rules Committee, that limit was revised to 72 hours per week for 90 days under hardship circumstances.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Federal and county forestry officials are concerned that this year’s large outbreak of the invasive cheatgrass could lead to increased wildfires.

Deschutes County Forester Ed Keith says a wet winter and spring has led to taller, thicker patches of the grass. Cheatgrass is common throughout the Western U.S. It dries out and becomes very flammable around summer after sprouting anew starting in December.

The Bend Bulletin reports that the grass tends to grow along roadways, which in 2015 sparked a 105-square-mile wildfire when a vehicle struck the grass.

Keith says cheatgrass is in Deschutes County’s lowest-priority class in part because it’s so widespread. He said he talks to landowners about how to manage growth on their properties, but doesn’t focus on removing it because of its abundance.

The first picture I am sharing was taken 60 years ago (1957) of people getting prepared to take part in speedboat races at Floras Lake. My guess is that the building on the left side of the picture is the…

Litigation has been halted in three lawsuits over Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument while its expansion is reviewed by the Trump administration.

Timber companies and county governments have filed one lawsuit in Oregon and two others in Washington, D.C., challenging the Obama administration’s decision to nearly double the monument’s size from roughly 53,000 acres to 100,000 acres.

Under the Trump administration, that designation and numerous others are being re-evaluated by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who’s expected to submit a report on the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument by Aug. 24.

Due to the possibility the “designation could ultimately be changed in ways that would affect this litigation,” attorneys for the Interior Department believe that “deferral of further judicial proceedings is thus warranted,” according to a court document.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Marke Clarke in Medford, Ore., and Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon have granted the federal government’s motions to suspend litigation in all three cases until Sept. 24, a month after Zinke’s report is due.

While the lawsuits largely center on the expansion’s effect on logging, the national monument’s larger boundaries have also upset ranchers who graze cattle in the area.

According to the plaintiffs, restrictions on logging in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument are unlawful because much of the new acreage is governed by the O&C Act of 1937, which requires sustainable production.

Apart from the loss of harvestable forestland, timber companies worry the expansion will draw more complaints about logging on private property adjacent to the monument or surrounded by it.

Counties that receive a portion of logging proceeds, meanwhile, are concerned about reduced revenues.

While grazing would be allowed within the monument, ranchers worry the designation will effectively curtail the practice due to skewed environmental studies.

Several environmental groups have intervened as defendants in the Oregon lawsuit because they were concerned the Trump administration wouldn’t vigorously defend the expansion.

Similar motions were pending in the two Washington, D.C., cases when the litigation was suspended.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Steelhead fish in Santiam and Willamette rivers in northwestern Oregon have hit low levels not seen in over 40 years, fisheries managers said.

There are typically about 5,600 wild winter steelhead crossing through Willamette Falls annually, the Statesman Journal reported Friday. This year, it was around 800, officials said.

Numbers for hatchery-raised summer steelhead also came out low. This year, the count came out to 1,100 compared with the regular average of 18,000 fish per year.

These are numbers that have never been seen since the fish counts began in the 1970s, officials said.

“The steelhead run has basically crashed,” said Dave Carpenter, a fishing guide on the North Santiam River. “We’ve seen ups and downs over the years, as you do any place. But this is the first year we’ve seen such a dramatic drop. We’ve never seen anything even close to this bad.”

The low counts are caused by years of poor ocean conditions and drought, said Bruce McIntosh with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Those factors have limited the steelhead’s food supply, McIntosh said.

“The fish we’ve seen coming back are often skinny and clearly struggling to make a living out there,” he said.

Sea lions have also become a significant threat to the fish, McIntosh said.

Wildlife officials found that sea lions snacked on 20 to 25 percent of this year’s steelhead run.

Even though ocean conditions have improved, McIntosh predicts steelhead fish runs may continue to be smaller over the next two years.

Carpenter said he is doing his part to protect the fish. He said he cancelled five scheduled steelhead trips and has stopped advertising future trips, even though they were a significant part of his business.

Wildlife officials have no immediate plans to curtail fishing, McIntosh said.

Tuesdays

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21

Capital Press

The appearance of voracious Mormon crickets in the Arlington area of north central Oregon prompted a June 16 meeting of townspeople with state agriculture and Oregon State University Extension representatives.

Officials hasten to say the insects are neither Mormon nor crickets, but rather a grasshopper relative called the shield-backed katydid. The more common name dates to when the pests leveled the crops of Mormon settlers in the Salt Lake area of Utah in the 1800s.

By either name, they can overwhelm crops, fields and gardens. They don’t fly, but grow up to 3 inches long and crawl in mass formations that can be startling.

Area wheat farmer Walter Powell said he was driving near Arlington recently and “All of a sudden it was like the road was moving” there were so many bugs crossing.

He said they also affected play at the annual wheat growers tournament at China Creek Golf Course in Arlington. On the fifth green, Powell said, players had to clear insects from their putting lines. He said Mormon crickets will eat anything; during the golf tourney, he saw some eating companions that had been crushed by golf cart wheels. “They’re cannibals,” Powell said.

That’s true, said Helmuth Rogg,an entomologist and director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Plant Program Area. Rogg said the insect’s cannibalistic nature may explain its fabled marching behavior, in which hordes of Mormon crickets move en masse. Ones that falter or get injured are fair game for those coming along behind, “They move on so they don’t get eaten,” he said.

But Rogg said their presence in the area is not a new phenomenon and there’s no indication the population has increased. The insects thrive in the open sage country around Arlington, he said, and may have taken a wrong turn.

“It sounds like now Mormon crickets are marching into town,” he said. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

He said Mormon crickets can decimate wheat fields and pastures, however. A growth inhibitor insecticide such as Dimilin works on immature Mormon crickets, but the adults marching on Arlington are best countered with carbaryl, a poison bait marketed as Sevin Dust.

Rogg said Mormon crickets also are a problem in the Jordan Valley area along the Idaho border. Grasshoppers, meanwhile, are causing problems in the Steens Mountain area and in Malheur County, in Southeast Oregon.

March 4, 1942 - June 4, 2017

Two hard cider makers from Montana — yes, they grow apples in Montana — swept the top awards in the fifth annual Portland International Cider Cup.

Western Cider Co. won a gold medal and the overall best of show award for its McIntosh “heritage dry” cider. Montana Ciderworks won a gold medal and was runnerup best of show for its North Fork Traditional, entered in the “modern sweet” category. Western Cider Co. also was selected New Cidery of the Year. It is based in Missoula, Mont., and makes hard cider from its orchard in the Bitterroot Valley.

The competition included more than 150 ciders from more than 40 cideries in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia. This was the second year in a row that a Montana cidery won the top prize. Entries were sampled in April by 45 judges with experience in the industry, and the results were announced during the cup event earlier this month.

In a news release, Northwest Cider Association Executive Director Emily Ritchie said the Pacific Northwest is the largest cider market in the U.S. for per capita consumption, and is home to 25 percent of the country’s cidermakers.

Other gold medal category winners were:

• Square Mile, Oregon — Spur and Vine, hopped cider category.

• Square Mile, Oregon — Ginger Pear, spiced/herbed.

• Swift Cider, Oregon — Peach Oak, wood/oaked.

• 2 Towns Ciderhouse, Oregon — Traditions 2015 Riverwood, modern dry.

• 2 Towns Ciderhouse, Oregon — Flight of the Kiwi, fruit.

• Eden Valley Orchards, Oregon — Pear House Cider, modern perry.

In other awards, 2 Towns Ciderhouse, of Corvallis, Ore., was named Large Cidery of the Year, and Montana Ciderworks, of Darby, Mont., was chosen Small Cidery of the Year.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — The Washington State Department of Agriculture will put out more traps in southwest Washington this summer to detect Japanese beetles, a strong-flying and leaf-eating pest found in abundance last summer across the Columbia River in Oregon.

Unlike other Western states, Washington has never had an outbreak of the invasive insect. Last year, WSDA trapped just three Japanese beetles — all at airports in King County.

But the Oregon Department of Agriculture detected a record 369 Japanese beetles in Cedar Mill, a suburb of Portland. ODA has just finished spreading a granular insecticide, Acelepryn, at more than 2,400 residences to kill larvae. ODA obtained a court order to ensure it could get on every property.

Washington has never had to conduct an eradication campaign for Japanese beetles, though it has experience in spraying for gypsy moths, another invasive species that like the Japanese beetle is widespread in the East but has so far been fended off in the West.

“I’m not sure which would be worse, but I know the Japanese beetle would be bad because we’re such an agricultural state,” said Rian Wojahn, WSDA’s eradication coordinator. “It’s a turf pest, and it’s a plant pest. That’s why it’s such a bad pest.”

The USDA has estimated that nationwide Japanese beetles cause $460 million in damage annually.

As grubs, the insect feeds on grass roots. The insects emerge above ground as flying beetles for two months in the summer and attack flowers, fruits and ornamental plants. Japanese beetles are so attracted to roses that traps are baited with the scent of roses.

ODA estimated that a Japanese beetle infestation would cause $43 million worth of damage annually.

Although the judge’s order applied to about 200 properties, ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said Thursday that only two landowners could be described as “real holdouts.”

In the end, they attested to their sensitivity to chemicals, and ODA agreed to use an insecticide similar to the organic pesticide that it sprays from the air over residences to eradicate gypsy moths. Pokarney said the alternative insecticide is less effective and more expensive than the chemical used elsewhere.

The operation ended June 7 and went well, he said. “It’s been amazing how this community has recognized the threat of Japanese beetles.”

The insecticide won’t kill the generation of Japanese beetles about to emerge, but is expected to begin thinning the population. Eradication may take four more years, according to ODA.

ODA opted not to spray foliage to kill the insects as beetles. “It would be very intrusive to landowners, and we think we can (eradicate the insects) this way,” Pokarney said.

WSDA plans to set out 325 traps in Clark, Cowlitz, Klickitat, Lewis and Wahkiakum counties, more than triple the usual number for southwest Washington. “Now that they’re close, it could be that some eradication is on the horizon, so we’re definitely staying vigilant,” Wojahn said.

SALEM — Farmers can pay the minimum wage to piece-rate employees who miss work due to illness under a bill Oregon lawmakers passed Thursday.

Senate Bill 299, approved by the House 38-21 after earlier passing the Senate unanimously, resolves some of the confusion that’s dogged Oregon’s paid sick time law since 2015.

As interpreted by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries, the statute required growers to calculate a “regular rate of pay” to compensate piece-rate workers for sick time.

The problem is workers are often paid varying rates per pound for different crops, which means their hourly wage changes over time.

This fluctuation created a conundrum for farmers, who were uncertain when the “regular rate of pay” was established.

Should a worker be paid based on the previous week’s earnings, during the harvest of a higher-value crop?

Or is the “regular rate of pay” based on average rates earned by other workers when the sick employee was missing, when a lower-value crop was picked?

Although BOLI recommended basing sick time wages on the previous week’s earnings, farmers could still face lawsuits from workers who disagreed with that interpretation.

Under SB 299, the statute clarifies that sick piece-rate employees can be paid the minimum wage unless they have a predetermined hourly, weekly or monthly wage.

Provisions in the bill also help distinguish between farms that must pay workers for sick time and those that can provide it without pay.

Throughout much of the state, 40 hours of sick time must be paid by employers with 10 workers or more, while those with a smaller workforce must still provide those 40 hours but without compensation. In Portland, that threshold is set at six employees.

Business owners and their family members weren’t supposed to contribute to this employee count, but BOLI determined that they still count as workers if they fill out a federal “W-2” form for tax purposes.

The newly passed bill exempts business owners — those who have at least 15 percent ownership in a company — and their spouses and children from the employee count.

The provision is important to multi-generational farms that have family members working on them, said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which supports SB 299.

“They don’t necessarily consider themselves employees, but rather managers of the farm,” said Dresler.

Setting the ownership threshold at 15 percent was necessary to overcome objections from the bill’s critics, who feared that companies would list employees as owners to circumvent the sick pay requirement, she said.

“That was probably one of the most contentious pieces,” Dresler said.

Uncertainty over growers who participate in seasonal farmers’ markets in Portland is also relieved by SB 299.

The worry was that farmers who normally operate outside Portland but regularly sell produce within its borders would become subject to the city’s lower six-employee sick time threshold.

The bill makes clear that such temporary locations don’t count as Portland businesses.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An organization representing U.S. beet and cane sugar farmers says it supports a revised agreement to resolve the illegal dumping of subsidized Mexican sugar onto the U.S. market.

In 2014 Mexico and the U.S. reached an agreement, in lieu of protective tariffs, limiting the amount and type of sugar Mexico could export into the U.S.

Based on U.S. growers’ concerns that the agreement failed to address the glut of Mexican sugar on the market and increase U.S. prices, the countries recently reached a tentative agreement setting higher minimum prices for the sale of Mexican sugar into the U.S. and requiring that a greater percentage of Mexican sugar be shipped in an unrefined form to meet demand at U.S. refineries.

Leaders of the American Sugar Alliance said they liked many aspects of the proposed updated settlement but couldn’t support it. They explained Mexico has the right to supply all U.S. sugar needs when its own production and existing agreements with other countries are insufficient to meet demand. The Alliance argued the original version of the settlement update would open a loophole allowing Mexico to decide the form of sugar to send the U.S. — refined or unrefined — to fill unmet demand.

ASA spokesman Phillip Hayes said in a June 15 press release his organization will now support the agreement because the Department of Commerce has tightened it to address the loophole.

President Donald Trump “has said repeatedly that trade agreements and U.S. trade laws don’t work without strong enforcement,” Hayes said in the press release. “For too long, Mexico has been allowed to sidestep our trade laws, but those days are over.”

Based on price declines following sugar dumping, ASA estimates Mexico cost U.S. sugar producers $2 billion during 2013 and 2014 combined, and another $2 billion since the original agreement was signed.

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Future accidental radiation releases at the largest U.S. site of waste from nuclear weapons production are likely following back-to-back emergency evacuations of workers in May and June because aging infrastructure is breaking down, the top Energy Department official at the site told The Associated Press.

Adding to the likelihood of more nuclear mishaps at the sprawling Hanford Nuclear Reservation is inadequate government funding to quickly clean up the millions of gallons of toxic nuclear waste at the site, said Doug Shoop, who runs the department’s operations office at Hanford.

Hanford has an annual budget of $2.3 billion for cleanup but Shoop said it will cost at least $100 billion to clean up the highly toxic radioactive and chemical wastes on the 580-square mile site which produced up to 70 percent of the plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal since it was established in World War II.

“The infrastructure is not going to last long enough for the cleanup,” Shoop said in an interview this week. “It will be another 50 years before it is all demolished.”

Shoop made the comments after hundreds of Hanford workers were evacuated May 9 when the roof of a 1950s rail tunnel storing a lethal mix of waste from plutonium production collapsed. Tests show no radiation was released.

Then, on June 8, demolition work at a 1940s plutonium plant sent 350 workers seeking cover inside. Radiation was emitted but not deemed at a level harmful to people.

More money would lead to a faster cleanup, Shoop said. But President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for next year includes a $120 million cut for Hanford.

The official deadline for cleaning up Hanford is 2060, but Shoop said so much infrastructure at the site is deteriorating that “some facilities are not going to withstand that time.”

The site’s cleanup began in 1989 and critics have accused regulators of allowing the U.S. government to delay cleanup deadlines by decades, putting lives and the environment at risk.

“Every year that we don’t have an earthquake ... has been just luck,” said Gerry Pollet, a Washington state legislator who represents a liberal Seattle district, about 200 miles from Hanford.

Shoop said about half of the site is free of pollution. And parts of Hanford make up the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park, where visitors can learn about the development of the atomic bomb.

But Hanford’s most dangerous contaminated waste has not been cleaned up, and the two recent evacuation incidents illustrated problems that could become more frequent in the future.

In the May rail tunnel collapse, a huge sinkhole suddenly emerged above the 360-foot long tunnel holding eight railroad cars that transported waste in the 1950s. The earth that fell into the tunnel helped prevent radiation from going into the air because it covered the railroad cars. Workers have since filled in the sinkhole and covered the tunnel with a fabric similar to what is used to cover farmers’ haystacks.

Officials were aware of the risk to the tunnel, Shoop said. He warned other aging facilities at Hanford also pose a risk.

“There are a whole bunch of things analogous to the tunnels,” he said.

In the June incident, radiation warnings sounded as workers removed outdoor equipment from a plant that once churned out disks of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons and is now one of Hanford’s most polluted areas.

The event illustrated how Hanford’s precautions to protect its workers have paid off and how they’ll likely face similar situations in the future, Shoop said.

“We are sending people into environments no one was expected to go to,” Shoop said. “Is there the potential for more alarms? Absolutely.”

Hanford’s has 177 underground tanks made of steel that contain more that 54 million gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes.

In late May, radioactive contamination was also found on robotic equipment surveying the space between the walls of a double-walled underground nuclear waste storage tank, indicating a possible leak. Some radioactivity was discovered on the clothing of the worker who removed the robot from the tank, although no skin contamination was found, Hanford officials said.

In addition, vapors for several years have escaped from underground storage tanks and made dozens of workers sick, most recently on Tuesday. In that event, eight reported smelling vapors and three underwent medical checks.

The tunnel collapse prompted a group of northwestern U.S. lawmakers to press the federal Government Accountability Office to review the Hanford cleanup work, saying they “are concerned that future events could put the safety of workers, the public and environment at risk.”

Shoop defended progress at Hanford, pointing to numerous successes from three decades of cleanup.

He is aware that some people may feel little has been done.

“Some things are not proceeding as fast as we’d all like,” Shoop said. “You can’t do it all at once.”

LANGLOIS -- Coast Community Health Center will be providing Oregon Health Plan assistance from 3-6 p.m. at the Langlois Public Library on Wednesday, June 21. A certified assister will be able to complete new and renewal OHP applications, as well…

AURORA, ORE. — No one will ever mistake Oregon’s minuscule strawberry production for California’s $1.8 billion crop, but for a couple weeks in early summer the state’s berries take center stage to bask in the lore of their supreme flavor.

Hoods, anyone? Case closed, strawberry purists would argue. No hard, white-centered, flavorless pretenders from out of state allowed.

At a strawberry field day earlier this month, growers got a glimpse of some new cultivars that could provide options in what USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates is a $9 million annual agricultural niche in Oregon.

Chad Finn, a USDA berry breeder who works closely with Oregon State University in Corvallis, said Charm and Sweet Sunrise are early, high-quality, June-bearing berries that will be good for processing.

Charm is sweet enough that it could be used in ice cream like Hoods, which have been around since 1965. “It’s got that kind of quality,” Finn said.

It has a tender skin and Finn said he’s always described it as a processing berry, but at farmers’ markets in Corvallis it’s been one of the predominant varieties brought in for sale, he said.

Charm also is a tough, vigorous plant and produces a thick canopy, Finn said. There was concern the canopy was so thick that pickers wouldn’t be able to get at berries efficiently, but anecdotal feedback from picking crew bosses indicate it hasn’t been a problem, he said.

Because of its vigorous nature and reliably high yield, Finn said Charm might be suited for organic production. “If I was an organic guy I would start experimenting,” he said.

Sweet Sunrise, meanwhile, is a full flavor berry, one of the best, Finn said. It’s a bit tart, but a little sugar allows the flavor to come through, he said. It’s a more open plant than Charm, making it easy to pick.

Both cultivars appear to be ones that will hold up longer in the field, providing three years of harvest compared to two years or even one for Tillamook, Totem or Hood strawberries, Finn said.

Another relatively new cultivar, Mary’s Peak, also is a June-bearing berry, with a big canopy and large fruit, he said.

Bringing new strawberry cultivars to commercial production is a slow motion process. Sweet Sunrise was selected in 2000 and Charm in 2001 from crosses made two years earlier in each case. Years of trials and testing are necessary, then the plants have to be reproduced in large numbers by commercial nurseries, which can slow down the process, Finn said. U.S. plant patent applications are pending on both.

Beyond size, flavor and plant vigor, another key factor in strawberry production is the availability of labor. If berries ripen too early in the season, professional picking crews may not be on hand to harvest them, Finn said. If they are too late, crews may have moved on to blueberries, which are easier to pick.

Of Oregon’s strawberry production, roughly one-third goes into ice cream, one-third is sold fresh market, and perhaps one-third is flash frozen and bagged for store sale, Finn estimated.

Sweet Sunrise and Charm were developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in cooperation with the research and experiment arms of the ag schools at OSU and Washington State University. The field day presentation was at OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center near Aurora.

SALEM — A key group of lawmakers has approved a 16 percent fee hike for Oregon water rights transactions while a more controversial proposal has languished.

Fees for numerous water rights transactions administered by the Oregon Water Resources Department would collectively be raised by 15.88 percent under House Bill 2295, which averts the loss of 5.5 full-time staff dedicated to processing such requests.

“People would have to be laid off and transactions would go through slower,” said Rachel Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

“You’ve got to have people at the department who can process those pieces of paper,” Snell said.

The bill is scheduled for a June 16 vote by the Joint Committee on Ways and Means after recently clearing its Natural Resources Subcommittee with a “do pass” recommendation, which bolsters its chances of approval by the full Legislature.

If HB 2295 does become effective, it would mark the third increase to water rights transactions fees since 2009, but if it fails, those fees would revert to 2009 levels.

The OWRD argues the latest hike is necessary due to rising salary, benefit and retirement expenses, and points out that it’s signficantly reduced backlogs of various transaction types in recent years.

The Oregon Farm Bureau does not oppose HB 2295 as long as there are no other new fee increases that would skew funding for water rights transactions more heavily toward irrigators, said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the organization.

Currently, the total cost of such transactions — which covers roughly 35 staff positions — is split evenly between the general fund and irrigator fees.

A proposal to impose a new $100 fee on all existing water rights in Oregon, House Bill 2706, is also before the Joint Ways and Means Committee but it hasn’t been referred to a subcommittee, which is generally a necessary first step toward passage.

While HB 2706 will technically stay alive through the end of the 2017 legislative session, it’s expected to go no further this year, said Snell of OWRC.

A weed control plan for the Azure Farms organic operation is up for discussion by the Sherman County Court June 21 in Moro, Ore.

The plan is under negotiation by Rod Asher, the county’s weed district supervisor, with brothers Nathan Stelzer and David Stelzer, the Azure Farms manager and CEO of Azure Standard, respectively.

Nathan Stelzer said he and the county are close to a weed control agreement but some details remain to be settled. Particularly, he wants the control options “totally spelled out” so the county weed officer doesn’t come on the property and spray.

“We both want the same end result,” he said. “We want to trust each other.”

Azure Farms could lose its organic certification for three years if it uses the sprays commonly used by conventional wheat farmers in the area.

Stelzer said mowing weeds is a method of “control,” for example. County officials and local farmers don’t believe mowing is sufficient.

However, County Commissioner Tom McCoy said the proposal is intended to let Azure Farms select any organic method it chooses to control weed seeds, rather than have the court dictate a method.

“We’ll have them commit to not allowing (weed) seeds to form,” he said. “Let them use any organic technique they want, but they’ve got to conform to the order.”

The pending agreement allows Sherman County weed district employees to monitor Azure’s fields. They may access the fields “by permission and appointment only” and must be accompanied by Azure Farms representatives.

If a weed patch is out of compliance, Azure will have seven days to take care of it. If nothing is done, Sherman County will take action, which could involve spraying.

Azure’s neighbors don’t want seeds from noxious weeds blowing on to their fields, and the pending agreement defines control to that effect. In windy Sherman County, weed seeds can set sail.

The proposed agreement says it may be an option to let some “B” type weeds go to seed when Azure Farms uses various biological controls. Other methods mentioned in previous discussions include deep tillage, over-fertilization, covering with landscape fabric to block light and water, and spraying with substances such as calcium, manganese or boron to make blooms wilt.

Some Sherman County farmers believe Azure Farms should simply spray with an herbicide such as Milestone and endure the loss of organic certification for three years. The farm could then start over with clean fields, the conventional farmers argue.

Farmers, especially those who grow certified seed, are most concerned about Rush Skeleton weed, Canada Thistle, White Top, Knapweed and Morning Glory.

The organic farm’s weed problems have been a local issue since 2006, but came to a head this spring when the county warned it would ask the Oregon Department of Agriculture to quarantine the 1,922-acre farm if it didn’t control rampant noxious weeds that neighboring wheat farmers said were spreading onto their ground. County officials warned they would spray herbicide and bill the farm for the work if the problem was not dealt with.

The uproar that followed jolted the county. Azure Standard, based in Dufur, Ore., and a major distributor of organic products, ignited a social media campaign that flooded county officials with telephone messages and an estimated 59,000 emails from around the world. Critics accused the county of planning to “poison” an organic farm with dangerous chemicals and of somehow doing the bidding of Monsanto. The company is the biggest bogeyman to activists but had no discernible role in Sherman County.

At a county court meeting in May, Sherman County residents let the brothers know they didn’t appreciate being attacked, accused and lied about by strangers with no first-hand knowledge about the issue. The Stelzers apologized, saying they didn’t intend to cause such a response and didn’t know it would spread so widely through social media.

McCoy, the county commissioner, read an additional response into the record when the court met June 7.

“None of the emails or calls that supported Azure Standard came from our constituents,” he said. “I care about Sherman County residents, not residents of Virginia or California who showed in their emails and calls that they were badly misinformed about the situation. The only thing your attack accomplished was to annoy us and make communication more difficult.”

PENDLETON, Ore. — Gusty winds made for a chilly Tuesday morning at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center north of Pendleton, where scientists with Oregon State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted their annual field day for local wheat growers.

The station, located on Tubbs Ranch Road, is home to both OSU and the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Field day provides an annual update of ongoing research projects to help farmers improve the quality of their crop and the bottom line of their business.

Participants rode in buses from one wavy wheat field to the next, where project leaders discussed their latest findings on experiments to battle weeds, plant diseases and soil degradation. Representatives of the National Association of Wheat Growers were also on hand to gather feedback on priorities for the 2018 Farm Bill.

Christina Hagerty, plant pathologist at the station, said this year was a perfect storm for stripe rust across the region, given early seeding of winter wheat followed by a cool, wet spring. Stripe rust is capable of cutting wheat yields by more than half if it goes untreated.

Hagerty passed around samples to show how to identify diseases such as stripe rust, eyespot and crown rot. While OSU has done a good job of developing disease-resistant wheat varieties, Hagerty said options are still lacking for soil-borne mosaic virus, which has been another major focus of her program.

“Our options for genetic resistance are pretty limited,” she said.

Bob Zemetra, a wheat breeder for OSU in Corvallis, said he began screening for soil-borne mosaic virus in 2008. The disease is especially on the rise around the Walla Walla Valley, and can cause severe stunting in plants.

“One of my goals is to release varieties that can fit in across the state, and in these micro-climates,” Zemetra said.

Other issues raised during field day included soil stratification, where the nutrient and pH levels are uneven in the soil profile. Don Wysocki, a soil scientist with OSU Extension Service, said that problem is “like a freight train coming down the line” for farmers.

One possible soil amendment is biochar, a charcoal-like substance made by roasting biomass such as woody debris at high temperatures and low oxygen. Biochar has already been proven to instantly increase organic matter and soil pH in tests conducted at the research station.

Stephen Machado, agronomist for OSU, reviewed his data from early experiments and said he is now looking into how long the residual effects of biochar may last.

“If it does last, I think this is going to be a great thing for farmers,” Machado said.

When he started his project, Machado said biochar cost a whopping $1 per pound. The price has since dropped to 5-10 cents per pound, and he anticipates market demand could make biochar a cost-effective solution in the future.

Later during the lunch break, David Schemm and Chandler Goule with the National Association of Wheat Growers outlined the industry goals for the next farm bill and agriculture appropriations for fiscal year 2018. Schemm, the association’s president, emphasized the importance of crop insurance moving forward.

“It’s a key component to a good risk management program,” said Schemm, a farmer from western Kansas. “It’s about ensuring your program will be there the next year.

Schemm said the association opposes the proposal in President Donald Trump’s budget that calls for a $40,000 hard cap on crop insurance subsidies, which could prevent some larger and mid-size farms from insuring their entire acreages.

“This is something that cannot work,” Schemm said.

As the Trump administration announced its intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the wheat industry is also urging the government not to harm its trade relationships with Canada and Mexico. Exports to Mexico have been especially strong under NAFTA, increasing by as much as 400 percent, according to the association.

A second field day will be held Wednesday at the OSU Sherman County station in Moro.

MOXEE, Wash. — Washington, Oregon and Idaho are forecast to set another record in hop acreage, but it might be the last in a while because hop inventory reports have indicated supply is catching demand.

Hop area strung for harvest in the three states this year is estimated at 54,135 acres, 6 percent more than the 2016 crop of 50,857 acres, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

With 38,921 acres, Washington accounts for 72 percent of the U.S. acreage. Oregon, with 8,045 acres, is 15 percent of the acreage, and Idaho, with 7,169, is 13 percent of the estimate, NASS said.

Idaho had the largest increase at 27 percent, and growers there have been thinking they might overtake Oregon this year.

Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Simcoe and Zeus are the top five hop varieties strung.

In March, U.S. hop stocks were up over the previous March for the second straight year. Growers, dealers and brewers had 140 million pounds on hand March 1 compared to 128 million pounds a year earlier.

That showed the line had been crossed from undersupply to oversupply, industry sources said.

Ann George, executive director of Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission in Moxee, said some varieties will have substantial carryover while a few specialty varieties may remain undersupplied.

For years the expansion of small, craft breweries has fueled the need for more aroma hop varieties. Not only has acreage caught up with their needs but big brewers are losing market share worldwide because of increased competition from other beverages, she said.

Prices will remain strong in 2017 but will start to drop in 2018 and probably more dramatically in 2019, Pete Mahony, director of supply chain management and purchasing for John I. Haas, a major processor and grower in Yakima, has said.

Acreage increased 17 percent last year, he said.