SALEM — Irrigation districts are butting heads with city governments in Oregon over proposed legislation that’s intended to avert conflicts over housing development and stormwater discharge.

Supporters of Senate bills 865 and 866 say the two bills will help prevent urban encroachment from damaging irrigation facilities and water supplies.

“We need this tool so we can avoid fights,” said Marc Thalacker, manager of the Three Sisters Irrigation District, during a March 9 legislative hearing.

Cities and counties would have to provide notice about impending property subdivisions to irrigation districts, drainage districts and similar entities under SB 865.

Districts shouldn’t be surprised by new developments, said Brent Stevenson, manager of the Santiam Water Control District.

“It will only save money in the long run for others,” Stevenson said of SB 865.

When farmland is converted to urban uses, unintended consequences to irrigation systems can arise, said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress.

Cities and counties can ward off such problems by getting input from irrigation districts before approving a plat, or map of the new parcels, she said.

“It’s really for the ability of districts to provide the information,” Snell said.

Irrigation districts can encounter serious financial impacts from urban encroachment, while disruptions to water infrastructure can also hurt urban residents, said Mark Landauer, lobbyist for the Special Districts Association of Oregon.

“People tend not to be very happy when their basements get flooded or things of that nature,” he said.

Under SB 866, cities would have to take reasonable steps to ensure stormwater discharged into irrigation canals meets federal and state water quality standards.

Cities would also be held liable for discharing stormwater into canals unless they receive permission from an irrigation district or implement plans to avoid affecting the district.

Proponents of SB 866 say that irrigation districts may not have the facilities to handle additional water from municipal runoff, potentially breaching canals and causing flooding.

Farmers are also under increasing scrutiny regarding food safety and environmental impacts, so they can face liabilities from pollutants found in stormwater, supporters say.

The League of Oregon Cities and several municipal governments oppose both of the bills, arguing they give excessive authority to irrigation districts while imposing unrealistic conditions on cities.

Opponents claim SB 865 is unnecessarily duplicative of existing procedures that many cities already have in place, so it’s unclear how the new requirements would affect these procedures.

The plat approval process is also a late stage for irrigation district to provide review, which is more appropriate during land use planning, opponents say.

As for SB 866, cities would effectively be responsible for all the rain that falls within their boundaries and potentially collect and divert that stormwater, said Tracy Rutten, intergovernmental affairs associate at the League of Oregon Cities.

The bill is “incredibly broad” and would subject cities to more stringent restrictions than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Rutten said.

Stormwater can cross multiple government jurisdictions, which would greatly complicated any permission agreement under SB 866, said David Sawyer, city administrator of Turner, Ore.

That permission can also be revoked under the bill, thus requiring the development of a plan for stormwater to have “zero effect” on irrigation district, he said.

“No impact is a blank check and it’s a little scary,” Sawyer said.

AURORA — Oregon knows wine grapes. The vineyards growing Pinot noir and multiple other varieties have won justifiable acclaim, as the success of the state’s wine industry attests.

But work done at Oregon State University’s research station in Aurora may help open an opportunity for growing table grapes, the sweet snackers that now come piling into grocery stores from California, Mexico and Chile.

Amanda Vance, a faculty research assistant, spent three years evaluating cultivars planted at OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center, or NWREC. Her work, which has been accepted for scholarly publication, identified several varieties that might be suitable for commercial growing in the Willamette Valley.

Not that Oregon is suddenly going to be shipping truckloads of Thompson Seedless out of state. Instead, Vance said table grapes might increasingly become part of what small producers take to farmers’ markets or sell at roadside stands.

“I think there’s good potential for small, diverse farms to add them into the mix,” she said. “We’ll probably not grow them on a large scale.”

Vance’s research came about partly by happenstance. University berry and fruit breeders sometimes informally share their work with counterparts at other institutions, who grow them as a courtesy to see how they do in other regions, or with an eye to future research of their own. OSU’s North Willamette center has 41 cultivars on a one-third acre demonstration plot, including several selections from Cornell University. In 2006, NWREC accepted new table grape cultivars from John R. Clark, a noted University of Arkansas plant breeder and horticulture professor.

Clark wanted to test his new selections in the Willamette Valley, and afterward came to visit and taste the grapes, but they hadn’t been evaluated until Vance began work on them in 2014.

Vance has worked four years at NWREC, where she manages research fields and does day-to-day data collection and analysis. She has a background in viticulture, however, and the grapes intrigued her. She selected 13 cultivars to study, eventually eliminating three of them because they weren’t working out.

Vance said the most promising of the cultivars are Neptune, a green grape from Arkansas with high yields year after year; Canadice, a smaller red grape from Cornell with good flavor and uniform clusters. The best of the newer varieties from Clark is called A2932. It’s a green grape with nice sized fruit, Vance said, and it will be named and propagated over the next year or so. Vance is doing a mini-trial this year with A2932, comparing cane pruning to spur pruning methods.

Two other promising Arkansas cultivars, Joy and Faith, are purple grapes with variable size in clusters, but good yields.

Vance said the research does not include an economic analysis, but people thinking about growing table grapes will find information such as yield and cluster weight when the study is published. OSU Extension provides general information on growing grapes, and the study results will be noted in OSU’s small farm newsletter, Vance said.

She said table grapes do well in colder climates than the Willamette Valley, including New York and Michigan, and valley farmers may find a spot for them.

“People are always looking to the mix of what they can do,” she said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Frustrated with life in the big city? Looking to escape to a simpler place where your dreams can stretch out as far as the horizon? If you’ve got deep pockets, this could be your lucky break.

The entire southern Oregon town of Tiller is up for sale, and could be yours for a cool $3.85 million. That’s right: You could own an entire town!

The ability to purchase an entire town is a great opportunity for a developer with vision, according to Garrett Zoller, the listing agent for the property from Medford-based Land and Wildlife realty.

“The most important thing is the arrangement of the properties as a whole, with 28 different tax lots, a school — it makes it very marketable,” Zoller said. “It’s an opportunity to do the development, and do it with a lot more elasticity and less bureaucracy.”

Zoller said that it’s rare for 250 acres and property to become available that could be developed from scratch.

Tiller is an unincorporated town in Douglas County that’s nestled on the banks of the South Umpqua River, about 30 miles east of Canyonville and Interstate 5 along Oregon Route 227. The town sits at an elevation of 1,020 feet, and is surrounded by the Umpqua National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands. It’s about an hour from Crater Lake, and 24 miles from Seven Feathers casino.

This is an area that’s primed for outdoor recreation, including camping, horseback riding, mountain biking, hunting, and enough fly fishing to make you feel like an extra in a scene from “A River Runs Through It.” The town gets an average for 40 inches of rain each year, and about 3 inches of snow. The July high temperature is about 84 degrees, and the low for January is 33.

Not the outdoorsy sort? Tiller also has potential as a future location for a hotel, resort or restaurant.

The official listing for Tiller notes some of the key features of the town that would be included in the sale:

• 28 tax lots, making up more than 250 acres.

• Multiple domestic and agricultural community water rights.

• Nearly a mile of waterfront along the South Umpqua River and Elk Creek, including launch access for boats.

• Approximately 2 million board feet of merchantable timber.

• Tiller Store, a general store that’s not currently operating, but includes a deli, a commercial kitchen, a gas pump, and an apartment.

There’s plenty of history wrapped up in the sale. Tiller was named for Aaron Tiller, who was a pioneer in the area. Tiller’s post office was established in 1902.

So what’s life in Tiller like? It sounds sleepy, for now. Zoller said the town had very few actual residents, but there are about 250 people nearby. There’s a community church located there, and on Sundays it might attract a congregation of about 50 people.

Tiller’s elementary school has been closed for several years, and is a separate sale from the purchase of the town.

Zoller said there’s been quite a bit of interest in the Tiller sale, including investors from China, as well as people looking at the possibility of developing a senior care facility, and buyers who are interested in using the land for hemp production.

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — The leaky dam at Hyatt Lake is being shored up this summer as part of a $3.7 million seismic retrofit.

The Mail Tribune reports the project will bring the dam east of Ashland into safety compliance after a seepage issue was discovered during a 2009 inspection.

Greg Garnett of the federal Bureau of Reclamation says engineers are nearly finished with designs. Work is expected to start in mid-May and run into mid-November.

Because of the project, Hyatt Lake will be kept no higher than four feet from full pool this summer,

That’s not expected to impact the Talent Irrigation District’s ability to store and deliver irrigation water this year. It also won’t change the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s trout-stocking plans.

ODFW plans to stock 10,200 legal-sized trout there this spring and 39,000 larger fingerlings in October.

Reopening of a navigation lock at Little Goose Dam near Starbuck, Wash., has been delayed at least a week, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The lock was originally scheduled to reopen March 20.

According to the corps, reasons for the delay include difficulty removing a pin on the operating cylinder and jacking system placement in early January, the extreme winter weather and cracks that appeared on the gate structural members, requiring additional weld repairs.

The corps will provide an update to stakeholders during a phone call March 14, said Gina Baltrusch, corps spokeswoman in Walla Walla, Wash.

“We understand the effect this has on the navigation community,” Baltrusch said. “We know they need as early a decision as possible to make changes to their own plans. We’re going to keep them informed as we continue to get more information. We are doing everything we can to minimize this delay.”

Randy Olstad, general manager of Columbia Grain at Clarkston, Wash., said the delay has an effect on his company, but he understands the need to have the locks repaired so they will last for years to come.

Columbia Grain planned for the worst and hoped for the best in preparing for the closure, so no adjustments are yet needed, Olstad said. He credited the corps with keeping stakeholders informed.

“Do I want to see another delay?” he said. “No, but do I understand it? Yes.”

If the delay is extended further, the company may have to make some adjustments, Olstad said.

Olstad said weather has slowed vessel loading in Portland, so he doesn’t expect the delay to cause too much of a problem.

“The environment’s always changing, so a week from now, I might be very upset, but as it stands today, I’m understanding and hoping they get it done as quickly as they can,” he said.

The lock was taken out of service Dec. 12 as part of system-wide maintenance. Bonneville lock and dam reopened Feb. 9 as scheduled. The Dalles, John Day, McNary, Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite locks and dams are scheduled to return to service March 20, according to the corps.

A federal judge has rejected environmentalist arguments that cattle grazing has unlawfully harmed endangered sucker fish in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke has thrown out a lawsuit by three environmental groups — Oregon Wild, Friends of Living Oregon Waters and the Western Watersheds Project — which claimed that grazing was unlawfully authorized on eight allotments in the Lost River watershed.

The plaintiffs accused the U.S. Forest Service of “ignoring widespread evidence of riparian problems” that adversely affected the Lost River sucker and shortnose sucker, which are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act.

However, the judge has ruled that plaintiffs failed to prove that grazing degraded streams in violation of the National Forest Management Act.

Conditions have improved in many riparians areas despite continued grazing while recovery trends are “not significantly different” among sites that are grazed and those that are not, Clarke said.

“This would tend to indicate grazing is not the reason for any failure to attain (riparian management objectives) in streams found on the challenged allotments,” he said.

While the environmental groups have pointed to evidence of deterioration along portions of some creeks, they haven’t shown “watershed level” and “landscape-scale” failures to live up to fish-recovery objectives, Clarke said.

The “creek-specific observations” by environmental groups aren’t enough to “successfully rebut” the Forest Service’s interpretation of the data, he said.

“Finally, many of the creek assessments plaintiffs point to as evidence of a failure to attain (riparian management objectives) actually show improving or stable trends,” the judge said.

The Forest Service’s decision to authorize grazing on the eight allotments was based on “reasonably gathered and evaluated data” related to fish recovery strategies mandated under the National Forest Management Act, he said.

Clarke also dismissed the plaintiffs’ Endangered Species Act arguments, ruling they were moot because future grazing approvals will rely on a new consultation among federal agencies on the two fish species.

The environmental groups’ claims of National Environmental Policy Act violations were likewise dismissed because the plaintiffs hadn’t fully “exhausted” administrative challenges against grazing plans, the ruling said.

New information that’s emerged about threats to the fish and their critical habitat doesn’t rise to the level of requiring additional environmental analysis of grazing, Clarke said.

For example, although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reached the “alarming” conclusion that shortnose suckers face a “high degree of threat of extinction,” this finding doesn’t influence the Forest Service’s assessment of grazing, he said.

“While FWS concluded that significant threats to shortnose suckers’ viability remain and thus that their chance of extinction is high, it did not identify grazing as one of those threats; in fact, it made no mention of grazing at all,” the judge said.

Grain handling was initially the primary purpose of the Pratum Co-op, but the company’s focus shifted and expanded in the seven decades since its founding.

The cooperative diversified into selling fertilizers, chemicals and fuel while developing an expertise in grass seed as farmers devoted more acreage to the crop in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Eventually, Pratum decommissioned its iconic grain elevator at the company’s headquarters near Salem, Ore., after its grain business was phased out.

This year, though, the cooperative has returned to grain storage and marketing with the purchase of the CHS cooperative’s service center in Madras, Ore.

The move has less to do with nostalgia for the grain industry than a desire to branch out.

“We can spread our risk over a larger cropping system,” said Troy Kuenzi, the cooperative’s president.

Apart from grain handling, the Madras Service Center also has agronomy, seed processing and seed marketing divisions that correspond with several units of the Pratum Co-op.

“We aligned really well with Madras,” said Kuenzi.

The acquisition of the Madras Service Center marks an eastward leap across the Cascade Mountains, opening the cooperative to a new climate and crop portfolio.

The Central Oregon region also specializes in seed crops that aren’t widely grown in the U.S., so Pratum has expertise in serving such growers, said Doug Kuenzi, the cooperative’s agronomy division manager and Troy’s cousin.

“We understand niche crops, we understand how to service them,” he said.

Pratum isn’t disclosing the purchase price for the Madras Service Center, but the cooperative expects it will increase annual sales by $14 million, for a total of about $115 million. The number of employees will also increase by 23, to 115 in total.

The acquisition, which closed in February, includes a 13-acre property, four lines of seed processing equipment, several delivery trucks, a warehouse and a fertilizer plant.

Pratum expects to break ground on replacing the fertilizer plant this autumn with an operation that has faster blending capacity and more storage space, said Troy Kuenzi.

“We feel it would be better to start over with a new, modern, state-of-the art facility,” he said.

Pratum has long shown a willingness to seize new opportunities in its 70-year history.

In reaction to the surge in grass seed production in the 1980s, the cooperative constructed its first seed cleaner for farmers in the region.

As the grass seed industry matured, Pratum assumed new roles in seed contracting and marketing with its Mountain View Seeds division, which was launched in 1998.

Today, the cooperative contracts with farmers to grow grass seed on 28,000 acres.

The company has a private label business, packaging seed under other brand names for its clients, as well as its own “Top Choice” retail trademark.

As larger grass seed companies began buying research firms, Pratum took another step in its vertical integration by partnering with breeder Steve Johnson to start Peak Plant Genetics.

The company operates on 80 acres north of Albany, Ore., and has released and licensed 125 varieties of cool season grasses since it was established in 2008.

The venture’s timing was precarious: Peak Plant Genetics was created during the severe housing downturn that cratered demand for grass seed across the U.S.

Without its own research capabilities, however, Pratum realized that it would struggle for sources of high-end genetics, said Troy Kuenzi.

Over the past nine years, the cooperative has invested about $3.5 million in research and breeding, with Peak Plant Genetics turning its first profit last year.

“We knew it was a long-term investment,” Troy Kuenzi said.

Much of Oregon’s early grass seed production was dedicated to perennial ryegrass but tall fescue has recently been gaining a foothold in the turf market, he said. Valued for its fine texture, dark green color and drought tolerance, tall fescue is making strong in-roads in northern climates.

Aside from providing seed for lawns and golf courses, Pratum works with sod producers across the country to supply turf for sports venues, Troy Kuenzi said.

“It’s evident athletes want to play on real turf. It’s cooler and it’s easier on the body,” he said. “Artificial turf is hot and it’s like a rug burn.”

Pratum Cooperative

Headquarters: Salem, Ore.

Established: 1946

Members: 315

Employees: 115

Annual revenues: $115 million

Business units: Agronomy, petroleum, seed processing, seed marketing, seed research, grain handling

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A jury on Friday convicted two men of conspiracy to impede federal officers during last year’s high-profile armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon in a protest over control of Western lands. They face possible sentences of years in federal prison.

The verdict handed prosecutors some measure of redemption after they failed to convict occupation leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five other occupiers in a trial last fall involving the takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a federally owned remote bird sanctuary about 290 miles southeast of Portland.

Dozens of people, including some government informants, occupied the refuge from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11, 2016. They were allowed to come and go for several weeks as authorities tried to avoid bloodshed seen in past standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

The Bundys and other key figures were arrested in a Jan. 26, 2016 traffic stop outside the refuge that ended with police fatally shooting occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.

After the verdict, assistant U.S. attorneys Ethan Knight and Geoffrey Barrow said they tried to do a better job of explaining to jurors why the FBI took a hands-off approach and how the standoff impacted refuge employees.

“But at the end of the day, the facts were essentially the same,” Knight said. “And in our system, juries can reach different conclusions.”

Jason Patrick and Darryl Thorn were found guilty of conspiracy and face up to six years in prison. Defendants Duane Ehmer and Jake Ryan were found not guilty of conspiracy but guilty of depredation of government property — for digging two trenches. Thorn was also convicted of possessing a firearm in a federal facility.

The men remain out of prison as they await sentencing May 10. Thorn faces up to five years on the weapons charge. Ehmer and Ryan face up to 10 years on the property charge.

U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams said the guilty verdicts send a message that it’s not OK to take over buildings and property that belong to all Americans. He pointed out that nearly all the occupiers were from out of state.

“Folks in rural Oregon understand that if they have a disagreement there’s a Democratic process in place for them to raise their concerns and challenge the government,” he said. “They don’t need to do it at the end of a gun.”

Ehmer said after the conviction that he would head “home to go ride my pony for a couple months and then I’m going to take my mom fishing.”

“Life goes on,” he said. “I was there at the refuge and I rode my horse on the game refuge and now I’m a felon.”

Patrick, part of the initial group that seized the refuge, said he plans to appeal. He said the “silver lining” in being found guilty is that the issues raised by the occupation will stay alive during the appellate process.

“Without a guilty verdict, it’s all over and it goes away,” he said.

The men had faced the same primary charge as the Bundy defendants — conspiring to impede Interior Department employees from doing their jobs at the refuge.

Prosecutors had said any rational person would be impeded from work when someone with a gun is sitting at their desk, as images of the occupiers showed they did during the standoff.

Defense attorneys countered that the occupation was a political protest against federal land policy and the imprisonment of two ranchers. They said there was no talk of disrupting someone’s ability to work.

Testimony began Feb. 21 and no defendants took the stand. Ammon Bundy did testify about his motive for the occupation, saying he was “driven” to protest after learning that Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond were heading back to prison a second time for setting fires that spread to public rangeland, including refuge property.

There was no dispute the group seized the refuge and established armed patrols, leading many to initially believe these were open-and-shut cases.

Stung by their defeat in the Bundy trial, prosecutors hired an outside consultant to help with jury selection for the latest trial. Barrow and Knight emphasized to jurors that a conspiracy doesn’t require a formal or written agreement hashed out in secrecy.

Most occupiers of the refuge left shortly after Finicum’s death, including the four defendants in the current trial, but a few holdouts remained for a few more weeks before surrendering.

A total of 26 people were indicted on the conspiracy charge. In addition to the 11 who appeared in the two trials, 14 pleaded guilty and charges were dropped against one man.

Saturdays

SALEM — Proponents of legislation requiring new air regulations for Oregon dairies, Senate Bill 197, claim it merely implements recommendations from the 2008 Dairy Air Task Force, which was composed of agricultural and environmental representatives, among others.

Critics of the proposal argue the 2008 report didn’t actually require any action and that emissions from dairies still aren’t significant enough to justify new rule-making.

Lawmakers created the task force in 2007 as part of broader legislation aimed at clearing up inconsistencies in state and federal law regarding Clean Air Act requirements for agriculture.

The task force issued a report the following year recommending that Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission develop rules for a dairy air emissions program, which would initially be voluntary but become mandatory in 2015.

“Senate Bill 197 does not stray from those recommendations,” said Ivan Maluski, policy director for Friends of Family Farmers, a group that supports the bill.

Members of the task force who now oppose SB 197 initially endorsed the 2008 report’s findings when it was issued, said Kendra Kimbirauskas, CEO of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project and a task force member.

“Nothing has been done to move forward with rules we all agreed to,” she said at a March 9 hearing before the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scapoose, a member of the task force, said it’s part of the “mythology” of the 2008 report that it required EQC to develop dairy emission rules.

In reality, the report only recommended the dairy air program become mandatory if resources became available, she said.

Opponents of SB 197, including the Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, argue that dairy producers have made great strides voluntarily reducing dairy emissions over the past decade.

Troy Downing, a dairy specialist at Oregon State University, testified that dairies have been pursuing odor reduction measures that also effectively curtail greenhouse gases.

Dairy producers have decreased protein rations in feed, which cuts nitrogen emissions “from the back of a cow,” and many have installed biodigesters that capture methane for energy production, he said.

“The technology keeps changing, our options keep changing,” Downing said.

He said it’s also worth remembering that Oregon’s air quality rarely falls below a “good” rating by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with air quality problems associated not with agriculture but with wood-burning stoves.

“I really don’t think we have a pressing air concern, particularly when it comes to public health,” Downing said.

PENDLETON, Ore. — The owner of a crop dusting business says the city of Pendleton will not let him operate at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport because of safety concerns at the adjacent Unmanned Aerial Systems Range.

Andrew Kilgore, who runs K2 Aerial Application, already flies out of Hermiston and Boardman and wants to add Pendleton to that list. But he said the city will not give him permission to load his plane with fertilizer and herbicides at the airport, citing a conflict with the nearby UAS test range.

Kilgore’s attorney, Michael Schultz, said he is optimistic they can find a solution. Traditional crop services and drones need not be exclusive, he added.

“We’re not asking for special treatment,” Schultz said. “We just want (Kilgore) to have the opportunity to use a public facility.”

In a letter sent March 6 to Pendleton city manager Robb Corbett, Schultz said the city has no rational basis for limiting Kilgore from using the airport. Schultz said they would be happy to meet any lawful safety measure the city chooses to implement, but that has not been specified.

“Those concerns have not been shared with us,” he said.

Corbett and airport manager Steve Chrisman declined to comment through city attorney Nancy Kerns. There was, however, a Pendleton Airport Commission meeting scheduled for Wednesday to discuss temporarily closing its northern-most agricultural pad while UAS operations are relocated.

In an action item addressed to the commission, Chrisman said that the UAS range safety officer Darryl Abling has determined that there is a safety risk to personnel and equipment by allowing operations at the launch pad.

“UAS operations are often testing new functionality ... and while every effort is made to mitigate the risks associated with new technology, things can go wrong when it is initially flight tested,” Chrisman wrote. “Having non-participating personnel (or) equipment in the area poses an unnecessary risk should an anomaly occur.”

Kilgore, 32, is a Pendleton native who returned home after serving in the Air Force and completing his flight training at Central Oregon Community College. He launched K2 Aerial Application in 2013 and serves farmers across Eastern Oregon.

Kilgore said he has received many requests to spray fields around Pendleton, which is why he approached the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport. Time is of the essence, he said, since many wheat farmers are already beginning to apply fertilizer to their fields.

Kilgore already shares the Boardman Airport with Aerovel Corp., another developer of small unmanned aircraft based in Washington. Tad McGeer, the company’s president, said that he and Kilgore have no problems getting along.

“We let each other know what we’re doing, and that’s good enough,” McGeer said. “I’m not aware of any reason why there should be a conflict.”

In his letter to Corbett, Schultz indicated that any safety concerns about UAV operations raise a dilemma for the city: Either the program is dangerous because the city has not worked out proper safety procedures, or it is not dangerous and the concerns are merely an excuse to discriminate against Kilgore.

“The city cannot have it both ways,” Schultz wrote.

Furthermore, Schultz said farming is the economic basis for the community and the airport should be supportive of bringing in another service where farmers can have their crops sprayed for pests and diseases.

Kilgore has received signed letters of support from 16 farmers asking for the airport to make its facilities available.

“We believe this is an occasion to make additional crop services available for farmers,” Schultz said.

Though Schultz said he and Kilgore are reviewing their legal options, he stopped short of saying they were considering a lawsuit.

NYSSA, Ore. — The snow is gone, but much of the devastation remains.

Many members of the region’s vibrant onion industry are rushing to rebuild their storage and packing facilities after four feet of snow and ice crushed the buildings and destroyed the onions and equipment inside.

The damage is extensive — most estimates place the total at $50 million to $100 million. That includes about 100 million pounds of onions — about 7 percent of the year’s crop — that were lost.

The industry must rebuild in time for this fall’s 1 billion-pound-plus harvest. Most of the Spanish big bulb onions grown along the border between southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon are stored to be marketed later in the year.

About 60 onion storage sheds and packing facilities either collapsed or sustained major damage, according to Stuart Reitz, an Oregon State University Extension cropping systems agent in Malheur County.

Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, Ore., lost four storage sheds, which had a combined capacity of about 33 million pounds of onions. The company’s packing facility was damaged but is still operating.

The shipper lost 22 million pounds of onions, and general manager Shay Myers estimates the company sustained about $10 million in damage to the buildings.

He said at least three other shippers sustained the same degree of damage.

Demolition of damaged buildings is occurring now and the rebuilding is underway.

Though Owyhee Produce, which had insurance coverage on its buildings, will experience significant financial pain in rebuilding, it will emerge stronger, as will the entire industry, Myers predicted.

“It’s forced us to make some changes that, frankly, otherwise we would have taken longer to do,” he said.

That includes updates in technology in storage sheds and additional automation in packing facilities.

“I don’t mean it’s a positive thing that this happened but the end result will be positive for the industry as a whole because it forces updates that otherwise wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

According to Jay Breidenbach, a National Weather Service meteorologist, the areas where most of the damage occurred were blanketed by unprecedented amounts of snow. No official records exist for snow accumulation in Nyssa, but total accumulation in nearby Ontario, Ore., peaked at 48 inches on Jan 19.

“That looks like the most snow they have ever had on the ground,” he said.

But the big question is whether the rebuilding will be finished in time for the 2017 harvest, which will start in earnest in September and wrap up by mid-October.

Snake River Produce in Nyssa lost three of its storage sheds, three others that it leased and about 25,000 50-pound bags of onions, said general manager Kay Riley.

The shipper had good insurance coverage and should be fine financially, Riley said, but a lot of the storage sheds that were lost were owned by individual farmers, some of them retired.

It’s unknown how many of those structures had adequate insurance and how many will be rebuilt.

“I don’t know if building an onion storage is a good retirement scheme or not,” Riley said.

He agrees with Myers that the industry will be stronger in the long term because of the modernization that will occur with rebuilding.

“But in the short-term I’m very ... concerned because I don’t think there’s enough contractors, time, money and insurance claims to get all of this put back together by this fall,” Riley said.

Reitz said it’s a major question mark whether there will be enough storage in the region.

“People have to be careful about that,” he said. “They have to make sure they have a place to put their crop at the end of the year.”

Almost all of the region’s lost onion packing capacity will be replaced by this fall, Myers predicted. “I don’t think there are long-term ramifications from a production standpoint. Where there may still be some is on the storage side.”

John Wong, owner of Champion Produce in Parma, Idaho, which lost one storage shed and part of another, said he has heard that most people plan to be rebuilt in time for this year’s harvest.

“I think a lot of people in the industry wonder how likely that is to occur,” he said. “But I wouldn’t bet against the American farmer.”

Another unknown is how many Oregon shippers that suffered major damage will move to Idaho.

Several industry leaders have told Capital Press in the past year that some shippers are seriously considering relocating in Idaho because of Oregon’s much higher minimum wage. Oregon’s current non-urban rate of $9.50 an hour will increase to $12.50 by 2022. Idaho’s minimum wage is $7.25.

Myers said this winter’s catastrophe could well push his company and others to move. Owyhee Produce and several other onion shippers are a few hundred yards from Idaho. The Snake River separates the two states.

“There’s a high probability we’ll be across the river in a new place,” Myers said. He said he knows of at least three other companies that are also seriously considering moving to Idaho.

The onions that froze or have debris mixed in with them — worth between $7 million and $10 million — are no longer good and will be buried in area landfills.

That’s to protect the region’s reputation for quality, Riley said. The area, which calls itself “Onion Country, USA,” is under a federal marketing order and promotes and markets its onions as a region, he said.

“We have a good reputation for quality and if somebody sent something out that had problems it would reflect on all of us,” said Riley, the marketing order chairman.

In the meantime, the rest of the region’s onion industry, which produces about 25 percent of the nation’s big bulb storage onions, wants customers to know plenty of onions are still available.

“We still have plenty of onions to ship,” said Grant Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce in Ontario, which did not sustain any weather-related damage. “Most of the onion sheds have their normal supply of onions.”

With the region declared a federal disaster area, many businesses are eligible for low-interest loans, which will help the rebuilding process.

Myers and others said Oregon and Idaho officials have done a good job of helping to speed up the recovery by cutting through red tape where possible.

That includes making exceptions that allowed more landfills in the area to accept onions and building debris, and relaxing restrictions that otherwise would have slowed the recovery.

For example, buildings usually can’t be burned during demolition but exceptions have been made, Myers said.

“The bureaucracy was bypassed as much as possible, where possible, to allow things to happen in the way that they needed to to make sure that we’re in business next year,” he said.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, a Republican, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, toured the region on a National Guard Black Hawk helicopter and saw the damage first-hand.

Oregon farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association, was on the helicopter with them and made sure they understood the magnitude of the damage.

“There’s no question they saw the devastation because I was pointing it out to them,” he said. “They understand it fuller now. They’re seeing our plight.”

BANDON – It was a delicious event for those attending the annual Bite of Bandon, a fundraiser for the Bandon Community Youth Center, held Saturday night at the Bandon Community Center.

BANDON – It was a delicious event for those attending the annual Bite of Bandon, a fundraiser for the Bandon Community Youth Center, held Saturday night at the Bandon Community Center.

BANDON -- The small Jewish village of Anatevka, Russia, home to a tight-knit community of peasants, becomes the setting for New Artists Productions’ spring stage presentation, Broadway Junior’s "Fiddler on the Roof Junior." The year is 1905 when this musical…

LANGLOIS -- The Friends of Langlois Library honor an individual each year from the community that goes over and beyond. This year it is Jake Pestana of the Langlois Market and The Spoon restaurant.

BANDON — The small Jewish village of Anatevka, Russia, home to a tight-knit community of peasants, becomes the setting for New Artists Productions’ spring stage presentation, Broadway Junior’s "Fiddler on the Roof Junior." The year is 1905 when this musical…

PORTLAND — The Port of Portland has officially regained control of its container terminal, but agricultural exporters can’t expect shipping from the facility to resume quickly.

The port’s commission voted unanimously March 8 to sever ties with ICTSI Oregon, a terminal operator involved in a long-running labor dispute that brought container shipping at Terminal 6 to a halt.

“This gives us the opportunity to press reset,” Keith Leavitt, Port of Portland’s chief commercial officer, told the commission.

With ICTSI out of the picture, the port will now seek to repair relations with the International Longshore Workers Union, said Leavitt.

While that partnership is key to resuming service at Terminal 6, finding a new company to run the facility is more complicated, he said.

“How do you proposition when you have no cargo and no volume?” Leavitt said. “The value proposition to an operator is a complex equation.”

The port will need to identify its market strengths and develop a business plan for reactivating the container terminal, he said.

“We want to take the time to study what our future in the container business is,” Leavitt said.

The port expects to “hit the ground running with a new strategy” in early 2018 after conferring with shippers and other stakeholders, he said.

The undertaking comes at a time of upheaval in the shipping industry, adding another layer of difficulty to the situation, he said.

“We have to find our market niche. It’s changing and it’s more narrow than it’s ever been,” Leavitt said.

Getting the container terminal up and running will only be part of the solution for agricultural shippers, he said.

Even at full capacity, Terminal 6 was only serving about 55-60 percent of the potential regional market of importers and exporters, Leavitt said.

In the future, the port will need to take a comprehensive approach by helping shippers get products to ocean carriers in the Puget Sound as well as restarting its own terminal, he said.

One idea could be to send containers to ports in Seattle and Tacoma on barges, though the economic viability of this concept is questionable due to the added travel time involved, he said.

Terminal 6 also has a rail yard that’s been underutilized, Leavitt said. “We’ve never really consistently activated it.”

It’s not an option for the port to operate the terminal because that has proven unprofitable in the past, said Bill Wyatt, the port’s executive director.

“We were losing boatloads of money in the course of that,” Wyatt said. “We were subsidizing the operation of Terminal 6 by selling land and we were running out of land.”

This unsustainable position led the port to lease its container terminal to ICTSI for 25 years in 2011.

While the arrangement initially seemed productive, a dispute broke out in 2012 over whether the ILWU had jurisdiction over plugging in and unplugging refrigerated containers.

Since then, ICTSI has been locked in a labor battle with the longshoremen’s union that has involved several lawsuits.

The conflict resulted in slowed productivity that prompted ocean carriers to abandon Terminal 6 in 2015 and 2016.

“It could take a few years before there is light at the end of the litigation tunnel,” said Leavitt.

Now that ICTSI has agreed to amicably end the contract, the Port of Portland is once again free to decide what to do with the container facility, Wyatt said.

“It’s been a journey,” he said. “Maybe a saga is the best way to characterize it.”

Oregon State University’s novel small farms program is asking producers to help guide where it goes next.

The program is part of OSU Extension and offers classes, workshops and training in the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge. Associate Professor Melissa Fery and Assistant Professor Amy Garrett are asking small farmers to take an on-line survey that will gauge interest in various topics.

The survey asks farmers which production topics interest them, ranging from pasture and grazing management to organic certification, and from fruit, nuts and berries to small grains and diversified vegetables.

Another survey question asks farmers if they are interested in selling directly to schools, hospitals and retirement communities. Food system activists believe institutional buying is an untapped market for many small and mid-size producers, hampered in part by consolidation, storage, processing and distribution problems.

Other survey questions cover business development and agritourism. Another asks respondents if they want to learn more about growing fruit and vegetables without supplemental irrigation; Garrett conducted a “dry farming” trial at OSU.

The survey also asks farmers to rate their interest in learning about livestock and forage topics and woodland management topics. The latter include tree planting, riparian management and timber harvesting.

SALEM — Oregon’s farm regulators encountered no objections to a bill that would authorize them to conduct on-farm inspections and enforce federal food safety law.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has asked lawmakers to grant it the ability to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act on behalf of the federal government, though the agency remains unsure it will acually use that authority.

Under Senate Bill 18, ODA officials could inspect farms at the behest of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure compliance with food safety standards for raw produce, among other provisions.

Last year, the Oregon Board of Agriculture — an advisory panel overseeing the agency — decided ODA shouldn’t seek federal money for on-farm inspections until it became clearer how FSMA enforcement would be carried out.

The ODA has nonetheless obtained $3.5 million in FDA grant money for FSMA education and outreach over five years, which will likely involve hiring three staff members, said Stephanie Page, the agency’s food safety and animal health director.

At this point, though, the ODA is contemplating cutting inspections of food manufacturers conducted on FDA’s behalf to catch up on state food safety inspections.

Any on-farm inspections and enforcement related to FSMA would be contingent on federal funding, but ODA has proposed SB 18 to confirm it has the necessary statutory authority.

The proposal drew no opposition from the public or members of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

The committee’s chair, Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said he planned to soon schedule a work session to vote on the bill.

Several other proposals related to ODA regulations have recently gained traction in the legislature, including:

• House Bill 2364, which restores the agency’s ability to mediate among farmers of genetically-engineered, conventional and organic farms. A program to mediate conflicts over cross-pollination and similar issues was created in 2015, but another bill unintentionally removed ODA’s authority to oversee it. The House voted unanimously to approve HB 2364, which corrects the mistake.

• House Bill 2256, which clarifies that ODA can regulate nutritional supplements as food. While the agency already licenses and inspects manufacturers of such products, statutory language wasn’t clear that ODA can regulate them. HB 2256, which formalizes this authority, has unanimously passed the House.

House Bill 2255 aligns language regarding ODA’s authority to regulate pasteurized milk with federal rules. The bill has unanimously passed the House.

• House Bill 2254 exempts Oregon produce headed for foreign markets from labeling requirements. Currently, such crops must be labeled for sale before being shipped overseas, complicating the export process. The House has unanimously approved HB 2254, which allows commodities to be shipped without labels and then labeled in the destination country.