SALEM — The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality expects to lose more than 30 people in the agency’s core programs protecting air and water quality because of President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget, according to an internal DEQ memo.

If the preliminary numbers hold true, those cuts would further weaken an agency already struggling with staff and funding shortages. The DEQ’s water and air quality programs have been criticized for lengthy permit backlogs and heavy metals pollution in Portland that went undetected for years.

According to DEQ’s analysis, which assumes a 45 percent reduction in funding to states based on the Trump administration’s budget proposals, starting in 2018 the state agency could lose:

• 14 employees who study and regulate water quality.

• 11 employees who monitor air quality and issue permits.

• Four employees in agency management.

• Three employees who oversee hazardous waste handling.

The Trump administration’s budget blueprint would reduce funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent — the biggest percentage drop of any agency in the discretionary budget. That includes funding for state programs and grants that flow through states to nonprofits and local governments.

Trump’s budget is both preliminary and scarce on details. Funding for the EPA and other environmental programs ultimately depends on Congress.

DEQ has asked the Oregon Legislature for a small amount of money, “but this reduction would probably make things worse,” agency director Richard Whitman said.

“Resources on the state side are in bad shape in this particular budget cycle. There’s not an expectation that general fund money will be available,” he said.

The loss of 11 air quality employees would be significant for an agency that in recent years has come under criticism for conducting too little air monitoring, failing to respond to citizen complaints and taking too few steps to reduce the public’s risk from air toxics.

Whitman said there is adequate state funding to continue the work of Cleaner Air Oregon, an initiative in response to the scare over toxic air in Portland that aims to create health-based regulations for air pollution.

Clean air advocate Mary Peveto said she worries those rules will be ineffective without enough staff to make sure polluters abide by them.

“We already knew without these cuts that enforcement by our agency was problematic,” said Peveto, director of the Portland-based Neighbors for Clean Air. “These cuts are just doubling down on that reality.”

Oregon’s water quality program, which would lose more than a dozen people, currently has one of the country’s worst backlogs of expired water quality permits, which means wastewater plants and other facilities are allowed to pollute at levels that may violate current protections for the state’s waterways.

Whitman expects Trump administration cuts elsewhere would worsen this and other aspects of water quality.

A significant reason for the backlog, besides staff resources, is DEQ’s reluctance to demand costly wastewater infrastructure upgrades from small cities and towns without the funds to pay for them. Despite campaign promises to improve the nation’s infrastructure, Trump’s budget blueprint keeps EPA funding for wastewater infrastructure relatively stable while eliminating a $500 million Department of Agriculture loan program for rural water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades.

“There’s a clear, obvious, very callous disregard for the weakest and the poorest among us in those figures,” said Mark Riskedahl of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center said about the Trump administration budget. NEDC is one of two groups currently suing to force an update of old water quality permits in Oregon.

“So many environmental problems and environmental issues, the burdens of those are disproportionately felt by people who are in low income communities and communities of color,” Riskedahl said. Trump has also proposed cutting the EPA’s environmental justice program.

The DEQ analysis also projects reductions for programs that deal with runoff pollution and with farm and forest lands along Oregon’s coast.

Oregon has been out of compliance with federal standards to protect coastal water quality in recent years.

The EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oversee a program to control coastal water pollution and protect endangered marine species like salmon. In 2015, they pulled $2 million in annual federal funding from Oregon after deciding the state’s coastal water pollution rules didn’t adequately protect fish from logging impacts.

Trump’s budget blueprint calls for cutting that coastal program so much that Oregon’s noncompliance with it would essentially become moot, Whitman said.

The proposed reductions would also lead to likely slowdowns for the Portland Harbor superfund cleanup. Trump’s budget blueprint would cut EPA’s superfund program by $330 million.

While the cleanup itself is to be paid for by dozens of parties that are legally responsible, the process relies on EPA oversight. Without staff at the federal level to approve and implement the cleanup, Whitman said many of the steps could stall. A greater burden is expected to fall to states, but DEQ currently lacks the staff to take on that workload without slowing the cleanup.

Other states are also taking stock of what staff and programs they might lose because of the proposed EPA budget.

“We’re still lacking details from the federal administration on what exactly this means for Washington,” Washington Ecology Spokeswoman Sandi Peck said. “But we are doing assessments in all of our environmental programs on what it could mean and preparing for budget drills.”

Ecology receives about $48 million per year from the EPA, most of which is passed on to communities.

“Our own employees are very interested in knowing what this means also,” Peck said.

PENDLETON, Ore. — The northernmost agricultural pad at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport is open for business.

Members of the Pendleton Airport Commission held a special meeting Monday to resolve safety concerns between the pad and nearby drone operations. The city recently purchased two 40-foot shipping containers that will act as a blast wall to protect sensitive equipment. The containers are expected to arrive at the airport by Wednesday.

Darryl Abling, who manages the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range, previously recommended the airport temporarily close the ag pad while UAS activities are relocated to the north end of the airfield. The concern, Abling said, was planes kicking up rocks and debris that could possibly damage drones or injure flight crews.

After meeting with stakeholders last week, Abling agreed a barrier would be an effective solution in the short term. Crop dusting pilots stressed the need to settle the issue quickly, since farmers are already applying fertilizer to their fields and the window for work is finite.

Two pilots had expressed interest in using the disputed ag pad — Andrew Kilgore, of K2 Aerial Application, and Brad Wahl, of Wildhorse Helicopters. Kilgore hired an attorney after he was denied use of the pad, but never got to the point of litigation.

There was some discussion about making the pad open to the public under a pay-as-you-go system, though that raised questions about who would manage the pad and whether it would open the city to liability. As it is, the airport leases its ag pads to single operators.

The airport commission ultimately agreed it would lease the pad to Wahl, who would share use with Kilgore.

“I don’t think it has to be complicated,” Wahl said. “I think I can work with him, he can work with me and that would be fine.”

Kilgore’s attorney, Michael Schultz, said he felt the agreement was a step in the right direction.

“I am heartened that we are in the position today where we are cooperating,” Schultz said.

Robb Corbett, Pendleton city manager, questioned whether the airport commission and city council should consider changes in how the ag pads are managed and leased to ensure a pilot is not excluded in the future.

“I understand there’s cooperation going on now, but there may be times when there isn’t,” Corbett said.

Alan Gronewold, airport commission chairman, said that is a subject they will visit at a future meeting.

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SALEM — Critics of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of livestock antibiotics want the state of Oregon to do it instead.

Over several years, the FDA has phased out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion and feed efficiency in livestock with the voluntary cooperation of pharmaceutical companies.

However, this approach hasn’t satisfied critics who say that antibiotics can still be used excessively by livestock producers for the prevention — rather than treatment — of disease.

“The loophole is they’re still allowing these drugs to be used on healthy animals,” said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist with the Consumers Union, during a recent legislative hearing.

Under House Bill 785, Oregon livestock producers would only be able to provide a “medically important antibiotic” to their animals if a veterinarian determines it’s necessary to treat or control the spread of a disease or infection, or due to a medical procedure.

Farms that are considered “concentrated animal feeding operations” — such as many dairies and feedlots — would have to submit information about their antibiotic usage to the state government, with those records subject to disclosure as public documents.

Opponents argue the bill’s provisions unnecessarily infringe on a solution devised by the FDA at a federal level, creating state-specific restrictions that will leave Oregon’s livestock industry at a competitive disadvantage.

“They unfairly single out livestock producers,” said Nathan Jackson, president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

The record-keeping requirements contained in HB 785 have also perturbed agriculture groups, who say they’re overly burdensome without being useful.

Chad Allen, president of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, said he already tracks antibiotic usage at his dairy near Tillamook, Ore., but objected to submitting records to state authorities.

“It doesn’t serve the public any good for me to hand that over and bring a spotlight into my business,” Allen said.

Supporters of HB 785 said the FDA’s approach is ineffective because growth promotion accounted for less than one-fourth of antibiotic usage in livestock production.

Roughly two-thirds of livestock antibiotic usage has been devoted to disease prevention, which isn’t affected by the FDA policy and allows animals to be kept in “crowded, factory farm conditions,” said Hansen.

It’s also “blatantly false” and a “mischaracterization” to claim that FDA’s strategy is binding on the livestock industry, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit activist group that supports HB 785.

The FDA has issued guidance recommending certain actions to pharmaceutical manufacturers but these suggestions are not enforceable, Kimbrell said.

“What the FDA has done here does not have the force of law,” he said.

Opponents of HB 785 argue it’s a misconception that FDA’s policy is merely voluntary.

As of early 2017, all animal drug manufacturers have committed to change the labeled uses of antibiotics, so veterinarians cannot prescribe the drugs for growth promotion or similar uses, according to opponents.

“I am highly scrutinized and it is law,” said Chuck Meyer, a veterinarian and past president of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association.

Veterinarians can’t rely on vague possibilities and must provide specific reasons to prescribe antibiotics, such as the illness of some herd members, said Mark Wustenberg, a veterinarian and vice president of producer relations for the Tillamook County Creamery Association.

“You have to have some strong justification to say there’s a disease entity you’re targeting in that population,” he said.

Veterinarians know when livestock immune systems are likely to be suppressed — due to weather events, for example — which makes disease outbreaks more likely, said Meyer.

“The difference between prevention and treatment is usually 24 hours,” he said.

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At least two Willamette Valley vineyards are building new wineries to produce white and sparkling wines, perhaps indicating an expanding market in a region best known for red Pinot noir.

Domaine Serene, of Dundee Hills, has begun construction of an 8,000-square-foot winery dedicated to producing Chardonnay, sparkling wine and a white version of Pinot noir, the wine that made the Willamette Valley a player in the international wine scene.

The facility is expected to be ready in time for the 2018 harvest. Domaine Serene also has planted 25 acres of Chardonnay grapes over the past three years.

“We’re doubling down on it,” company spokesman Matthew Thompson said. “We feel very good about the high quality of Oregon Chardonnay.”

Reviewers appear to agree. Wine Spectator magazine rated Domaine Serene’s 2014 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay second among the 10 best wines of 2016, and the top-rated white.

Instead of producing white wine elsewhere, Domaine Serene’s new winery will have dedicated facilities for Chardonnay and sparkling wines, plus cold storage capability. Construction began March 1.

Meanwhile, Willamette Valley Vineyards, based near Salem, added seven acres of Chardonnay grapes and is working with architects on a planned sparkling wine facility in the Dundee region as well.

Company Winery Director Christine Collier said consumer demand for lighter, crisp whites is driving the changes. Rosé wines also are increasingly popular.

“We’re definitely seeing a trend in Oregon wine to expand Chardonnay programs,” she said. “The demand is high right now.”

Michelle Kaufmann, newly appointed communications director at Stoller Family Estate, said Chardonnay is “absolutely on the rise” in Oregon.

“Many people believe that it will overtake Pinot gris as Oregon’s number one white wine, though I’m not sure there’s enough data yet to make that claim,” Kaufmann said by email.

She said the nuances of producing exceptional white and sparkling wines are different than making red wines, so wineries’ decision to have facilities dedicated to that production makes sense.

But Pinot noir isn’t fading by any means.

The Oregon Wine Board’s 2015 report showed Pinot noir accounted for 62 percent of the 24,742 acres planted to wine grapes in Oregon. A pair of whites were a distant second and third: Pinot gris with 3,403 acres, and Chardonnay with 1,181 acres.

“I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch at all that Oregon is entering the next chapter in our wine history,” Kaufmann said.

Kaufmann previously was communications director for the Oregon Wine Board. She and vineyard manager Jason Tosch are recent hires at Stoller, in Dayton. Also at the company, Ben Howe was promoted to winemaker and Austin Raz to digital brand manager.