The Oregon Department of Agriculture has decided against seeking federal funds to conduct on-farm food safety inspections.

The agency will instead wait to see what role the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will play in on-farm enforcement of the Food Safety Modernization Act.

ODA doesn’t have the authority to perform on-farm inspections, though it’s considering asking state lawmakers for that power in 2017, said Stephanie Page, the agency’s food safety director.

“We need to have a conversation with the Legislature before we commit to a grant application to do that work,” said Page.

Farmers are giving the agency “diverse feedback” about whether they’d prefer for ODA to conduct inspections, rather than FDA, she said.

While some farmers would feel more comfortable with ODA, it’s not clear that the agency’s involvement would preclude FDA from doing its own inspections.

For example, FDA concurrently inspects food manufacturers even though ODA also inspects these facilities.

For that reason, some farmers wonder whether there’s any purpose in ODA conducting on-farm inspections, Page said.

“It’s not a done deal we will do inspections. We need to continue to have those conversations with the industry,” she said.

The Oregon Board of Agriculture has affirmed the agency’s decision not to purse inspection funding, voting unanimously to wait until more information is available at its June 8 meeting in John Day, Ore.

While Oregon is only one of a handful of states not to seek FDA funds for on-farm inspections, the agency is asking for about $3.5 million over five years to educate farmers about FSMA.

“I think we need more time to do some more outreach,” said Katy Coba, ODA’s director.

To obtain those funds, ODA must commit to developing a database of farms for the FDA.

If farmers were required to submit information to the database, that would become a public record, which makes some growers uncomfortable, Coba said.

The agency has decided not to pursue a mandatory database and will instead seek voluntary submissions.

The FDA is unlikely to object to the voluntary inventory idea, since the agency recognizes “all states are struggling with how to do that,” said Page.

If the ODA wins grant approval for education and outreach, it plans to create three new staff positions located in major produce-growing areas of the state, she said.

The FSMA rules for farmers only apply to fruits and vegetables that are consumed raw.

If the ODA changes its mind about on-farm inspections, it can apply for that grant in a separate application next spring, Page said.

“That’s a small price to pay to have more time to talk to our stakeholders,” she said.

Oregon’s food processing and beverage manufacturing industries are expected to perform well over the next decade, and the state’s crop production and nurseries will gain as well, according to a new report from the Office of Economic Analysis.

While lacking details, the quarterly economic and revenue forecast by Senior Economist Josh Lehner predicts strong performance by Oregon’s agricultural segments and associated industries, bucking the trend in one case.

Lehner said most Oregon manufacturing will have “very minimal gains” in the coming years. He noted the recent downsizing of Intel, the computer chip manufacturing company and the state’s largest employer, and said the manufacturing’s “cyclical rebound” from the recession has run its course.

“What manufacturing gains are expected are among the state’s food processors and beverage manufacturers, predominantly breweries,” Lehner wrote in the forecast.

Jeff Stone, executive director of Oregon Association of Nurseries, said the report’s projection of an upswing for nurseries is accurate.

Stone said nurseries spent much of the past six years trying to hang on as the state and nation rode out the recession. As conditions continue to improve, the call for landscaping, gardening and agricultural trees and plants picked up with it.

“We have an opportunity to grow significantly over the next 10 years,” Stone said. “I don’t think it will be the rocket ship we saw 20 years ago, but there are shortages out there.

“We’re looking at markets three to five years out, and I think we’re well positioned to grow.”

Depending on the year, greenhouse and nursery products is Oregon’s first or second most valuable agricultural sector, sometimes trading places with calves and cattle. In 2014, greenhouse and nursery products were worth $829 million.

Lehner, the state economist, said overall Oregon continues to see “full throttle” growth rates, with job gains and wage gains outpacing other states. The state is approaching full employment for the first time since 2000, and “underemployment,” the number of people involuntarily working part-time, is back to where it was before the recession. The state’s unemployment rate, 4.5 percent in April and May, is actually below what would historically be considered normal for Oregon during an economic expansion, Lehner said.

Over the past two years, Oregon has added an average of 5,000 jobs per month, a 3.5 percent annual growth rate, according to the report.

Lehner projects continued strong Oregon growth through the end of 2017. The state’s longterm outlook is dampened somewhat by the new minimum wage law, which he said will result in 40,000 fewer jobs by 2025 than would have been the case otherwise.

“Our office is not predicting outright job losses,” Lehner emphasized in the analysis. “However we are expecting somewhat slower growth. Low-wage workers receiving raises in the near term boost incomes. Over time, however, employers will adjust by increasing worker productivity, possibly via capital for labor substitutions.

“The Great Recession caused severe damage that has taken years to repair,” Lehner said in the report. “However, Oregon is now quickly approaching full employment, or a healthy labor market.”

Oregon farmers have prevailed in a legal dispute with a bank over the ownership of radish seed they’d grown but hadn’t been paid for.

Multiple farms in Oregon’s Willamette Valley grew the radish seed in 2014 for Cover Crop Solutions, a Pennsylvania company that became insolvent before taking delivery of the crop.

Last year, the company’s creditor — Northwest Bank of Warren, Pa. — filed a lawsuit against the growers, claiming to own the radish seed they’d produced because it served as collateral for a $7 million loan.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman has now dismissed Northwest Bank’s arguments that growers relinquished ownership of the seed when they delivered it to a cleaner.

The June 6 ruling effectively means they can sell the crop rather than turn it over to the bank.

“It was a total victory,” said Paul Conable, attorney for the farms.

James Ray Streinz, attorney for Northwest Bank, said his client did not wish to comment on the ruling.

The bank had claimed that several seed cleaners effectively acted as “agents” of Cover Crop Solutions, so the radish seed they were storing was that company’s inventory.

When Cover Crops Solutions became insolvent, the inventory became the bank’s collateral because its liens on the crop were of a higher priority than liens taken out by farmers, according to Northwest Bank’s attorneys.

Conable said Mosman’s rejection of this claim shows he understands the functioning of the seed industry.

“It would have changed the seed business if by turning over seed to the cleaner to get cleaned, you were turning it over to the purchaser without getting paid,” he said.

Before reaching a decision on the question of whether seed cleaners were “agents” of Cover Crop Solutions, Mosman dismissed the bank’s lawsuit against several growers who had retained possession of the seed.

In May, the CHS cooperative announced it would license the radish seed variety in question now that Cover Crop Solutions is being liquidated or dissolved.

Future production of the variety will be controlled by CHS, which will also “facilitate purchasing of current inventories and production contracts,” according to a letter the cooperative sent to growers.

Conable said he doesn’t have information about whether CHS will buy the radish seed grown by his clients.

The final water supply report of the season concludes Oregon creeks and rivers will have below normal flows this summer, tightening the amount of water potentially available for irrigation, fish and recreation.

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland predicts most streams will be at about 60 percent of normal flow, worse in the southeast corner of the state.

The June Water Supply Outlook reflects an up and down year as monitored by the NRCS snow survey team in Portland.

In a recap, team supervisor Scott Oviatt said heavy winter precipitation helped refill the state’s reservoirs, which dropped precipitously during the drought.

“Water year precipitation (measured Oct. 1 to March 31) has been near to above normal across the state, and has boosted reservoir levels that were near record low at the end of last summer,” Oviatt said in a prepared statement. “This paints a much better picture for water supply this year, compared to last year when reservoir storage was well below average. However, if the summer is hot and increases demand, water users drawing from reservoir sources could still experience possible water shortages.”

Reservoir levels won’t be sustained into the summer by melting snow, because it’s already gone.

About half the state’s snow monitoring sites recorded near normal snowfall this past winter, but the peak of it occurred one to four weeks earlier than normal, the NRCS report said. Then came an early April heat wave, and the snow at most monitoring sites melted one to three weeks earlier than normal, and up to five weeks early at a few sites.

JOHN DAY, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Agriculture has dropped a proposal to give the agency “stop work” authority over food processors and pesticide applicators.

Earlier this year, ODA was considering asking the legislature for a new regulatory tool to prohibit companies from using equipment or taking actions that are potentially hazardous.

These “stop work” orders would be more specific than the agency’s current authority to suspend or revoke the licenses of regulated companies.

After “combing through” existing enforcement laws for state agencies, however, the agency decided to first try using tools that are already on the books, said Lisa Hanson, ODA’s deputy director.

“We feel like we have adequate authority there after a lot of work rethinking the statutes,” she said during a June 7 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture in John Day, Ore.

It will likely be possible to compel companies to “cease and desist” hazardous activities with statutory tools that ODA has not used in the past, said Katy Coba, the agency’s director.

“If we exhaust those and they don’t work, we can come back and look at new statutory authority,” Coba said.

While the “stop work” idea was scrapped, ODA may still ask for authority to conduct on-farm food safety inspections for growers of fresh produce and manufacturers of animal feed.

Such authority may be necessary if the federal government delegates such inspections — which are required under the Food Safety Modernization Act — to state agencies.

Apart from refining “legislative concepts” regarding agricultural policy, the ODA is also currently examining possible funding requests for next year’s legislative session.

State agencies are expected to face a budget shortfall in the 2017-2019 biennium due to increased costs related to Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System.

However, state government may obtain several billion dollars in revenue if voters approve a ballot initiative raising corporate taxes this year.

The ODA is conservatively planning for budget cuts if the initiative fails, but the agency has also undertaken a parallel process to identify “asks” if it passes, said Coba.

“It’s kind of a strange budget prep for us,” she said.

The agency will have more specific budget plans ready to submit to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown in September, she said.

JOHN DAY, Ore. — Oregon’s farm regulators want to overhaul their noxious weed control strategy to focus on invasives that haven’t yet gained a strong foothold in the state.

The current weed control program at the Oregon Department of Agriculture obtains about 40 percent of its funding from federal agencies and thus focuses much of its attention on public lands.

This approach means that ODA’s highly trained weed specialists are often battling lower-priority “B list” weeds that are already abundant in some regions, rather than “A list” weeds that can still be eradicated, said Helmuth Rogg, director of the agency’s plant program area.

The agency would prefer to put more emphasis on an “early detection rapid response” approach to economically damaging “A list” weeds while delegating the fight against “B list” weeds on public land to counties, Rogg said at the June 6 Oregon Board of Agriculture meeting.

“We’re trying to figure out how to best use the limited resources of state and federal funding,” he said.

To make this change, ODA is contemplating a “legislative concept” to bring before Oregon lawmakers in 2017 that would increase funding for state and county noxious weed control programs by $3.3 million.

ODA’s current noxious weed budget of about $2.2 million in the 2015-17 biennium would be increased by $1.5 million, which would strengthen its “early detection rapid response” and biological control efforts, among other activities, and create a new aquatic weed specialist position.

The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board is spending millions of dollars to improve water quality across the state but invasive weeds can undermine those projects, Rogg said.

Weeds like flowering rush, newly discovered in Oregon in 2014, also pose a risk to irrigation canals, so an aquatic weed specialist is needed to concentrate on such threats, he said. “We need to save that investment.”

Only 23 of Oregon’s 36 counties have weed control districts dedicated to fighting invasives, so under the “legislative concept” $1.8 million would fund such programs across the state.

Federal funding of $1.2 million is needed to “keep the lights on” for the state noxious weed program, but under the ODA’s proposal, some of that money would be sub-contracted to county programs as necessary, Rogg said.

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Douglas firs and other trees are dying in Southern Oregon forests, where three years of drought have been taking their toll.

The Mail Tribune reports that experts say even more drought-tolerant trees like Ponderosa pines have lost out in the competition for water. The wet winter couldn’t prevent tree death after years of drought and beetle attacks.

The die-off in Applegate Velley, up the West Cascades and into the Willamette Valley appears to be even worse than those caused by drought in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. The scale of the die-off will be quantified during aerial mapping surveys next month.

Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest plant pathologist Ellen Goheen says there seem to be more dead and dying conifers than at any point during the past 22 years.

HOOD RIVER, Ore. — The Farmers Conservation Alliance was born of destruction, or more precisely, destruction that inspired creativity.

Twenty years ago, rushing floodwaters uprooted trees, knocked out bridges and demolished irrigation equipment in Oregon’s Hood River Valley.

Faced with a clean slate, growers in the Farmers Irrigation District decided to rebuild a more efficient system than the one that had been washed away.

Clogged fish screens were a common problem at the old system’s irrigation diversions. Not only would someone frequently have to remove the debris, but the mechanical devices regularly needed repair.

“Any time you have moving parts, they just wear out,” said Dan Kleinsmith, a former project manager for the district.

Before the flood, the Farmers Irrigation District spent about $90,000 annually to operate and maintain its fish screens, which stop salmon, steelhead and other native fish species from swimming into irrigation lines and pipes while keeping them clear.

Developing their unique replacement “Farmers Screen,” which relies on rushing water instead of machinery to keep the screens clear, turned out to be a heavy investment — roughly $2.5 million over 10 years.

In 2006, the screen concept was licensed to the newly formed Farmers Conservation Alliance with the goal of commercializing the technology so other irrigators could also benefit from it.

Since then, the nonprofit has installed about 40 of the screens, which cost from $15,000 to roughly $1 million, depending on the size of the diversion and level of customization.

Initially, the fish screens were approved by federal authorities on an experimental basis. However, widespread adoption would require proving to the National Marine Fisheries Service that they don’t harm fish protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“To scale our business, we had to become a NMFS-approved technology,” said Julie Davies O’Shea, the alliance’s executive director.

The process was financially taxing, as the nonprofit had to test the screen’s function at various water levels and fish life stages, she said.

The alliance nearly went out of business before finally winning clearance from federal authorities in 2011, but O’Shea said she doesn’t want to “vilify” the government because the process was new for everyone.

Old fish screen designs were “grandfathered in” the federal system, so the alliance had to “face the reality” of having the first new technology to receive more thorough vetting, she said.

O’Shea said she hopes their experience will make it easier to gain approval for future irrigation improvements developed by farmers and others in agriculture.

“How do we transfer that knowledge?” she said.

The basic idea behind the Farmers Screen —— of water moving horizontally over a flat screen — wasn’t new, but it never caught on because it didn’t work correctly, said Kleinsmith, who’s now a project manager for the alliance.

The concept was nonetheless attractive due to the possibility of reduced maintenance costs.

“We liked the idea of water traveling over the top of something rather than slamming into something,” Kleinsmith said.

An important refinement of the Farmers Screen is that water flows into a channel that gradually becomes narrower.

This feature is key because the amount of water in the channel decreases as some of it falls through the screen at the bottom.

If the channel was the same width, the speed of the water would diminish toward the end. However, because the channel is tapered, the water doesn’t lose its velocity.

Because of that, debris is prevented from settling on the screen and causing clogs, Kleinsmith said. “We’re counting on the water to sweep the screen off.”

Aside from installing fish screens, the alliance also helps other irrigation districts to modernize in other ways.

For example, replacing open canals with pipelines reduces water loss from evaporation and seepage, while also creating enough water pressure to generate hydropower.

However, many irrigation systems were built upwards of a century ago, so upgrading them to become more efficient is akin to fitting new parts onto an antique truck, O’Shea said.

The alliance assists irrigation districts with retrofits, including finding partners who can provide funding.

“There’s so much opportunity for environmental improvement,” O’Shea said.

Farmers Conservation Alliance

Organization: Nonprofit group aimed at irrigation system modernization

Founded: 2006

Executive director: Julie Davies O’Shea

Employees: 5

Headquarters: Hood River, Ore.

Annual revenue: $318,000 (in 2014)

Website: http://fcasolutions.org

ONTARIO, Ore. — For the first time since a lingering drought began to grip this area four years ago, Owyhee Irrigation District patrons will receive a full allotment of irrigation water this year.

“It’s really a positive thing for the area,” said Bruce Corn, a farmer and OID board member. “It’s a tremendous change from what we’ve faced the past three years.”

The Owyhee Reservoir provides irrigation water for 1,800 farms and 118,000 acres of ground in Eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho. OID patrons receive 4 acre-feet of water during a good water year.

But due to the effects of a sustained drought, they only received 1.7 acre-feet last year and 1.6 acre-feet in 2014.

Because of good snowpack, farmers in this area anticipated receiving 4 acre-feet this year but the OID board chose to be conservative and not allocate the full amount until the water was actually in the reservoir.

The board set the allotment at a tentative 3 acre-feet in March, raised it to 3.8 acre-feet in April and then 4 acre-feet in late May.

OID Manager Jay Chamberlin said a major storm last month dumped a lot of snow in the valley and snowmelt was also higher than anticipated, which increased in-flows into the reservoir.

“Those two things combined gave us an additional 25,000 to 30,000 acre-feet of water that was somewhat of a surprise to us,” he said. “It really gave us a shot in the arm.”

The focus now shifts to trying to ensure there is a decent amount of carryover water left in the reservoir to provide a buffer heading into the 2017 season, Corn said.

There was only 5,000 acre-feet of carryover water left in the reservoir at the end of the 2015 water season, a drop in the bucket compared to the reservoir’s 715,000 acre-foot capacity.

“The hope now is that we can carry over a little water into next year so we don’t start at zero like we did last year,” Corn said.

That means it’s doubtful that any excess water will be sold this year, he said. In years when there is ample water, OID patrons can purchase excess water above their 4 acre-foot allotment.

“We’ve been operating off of the bottom of the tank here,” Chamberlin said in regard to the fact the system has ended the past two seasons with close to no carryover water. “We want to get to the point where we are operating off the top again. It’s going to take some time to get there.”

The reservoir has about 350,000 acre-feet of carryover water following good water years.

Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen said even 150,000 to 180,000 acre-feet of carryover water would provide farmers some breathing room heading into 2017.

“Going into next season with even 150,000 acre-feet would be a whole lot better than what it has been,” he said.

The Langlois Lions Club would like to thank the following for the wonderful support with donations of time, enthusiasm, great plants and just hard plain work for this year's Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale: Bev Walters, Norma Eikamp, Loretta Hillman,…

Kudos to all of the wonderful World Famous Langlois Villagers, as well as our nearby generous neighbors of Port Orford and Bandon, who helped make our now signature Langlois Lions Club Mary Hildebrand Memorial, held this May, such an outstanding…

Friday, June 10

An Oregon livestock nutrition company has won an injunction against a former employee accused of stealing trade secrets to start his own company in China.

Omnigen Research of Corvallis, Ore., has filed a lawsuit alleging that scientist Yongqiang Wang is trying to sell knock-offs of its feed additives in violation of confidentiality agreements.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane has ordered Wang and his wife, as well as the companies under their control, to stop using any of Omnigen’s copyrighted materials and trade secrets.

The preliminary injunction also instructs them to return all materials pertaining to Omnigen’s technology, and turn over their electronic media, among other provisions.

Omnigen was originally founded in 2002 by Oregon State University professor Neil Forsberg and his graduate student, Steve Puntenney, who developed patented feed additives aimed at counteracting hemmorhagic bowel syndrome in dairy cows.

A decade later, the firm was bought for nearly $23 million by the Phibro Animal Health Corp., a publicly-traded company based in New York.

Roughly 20 percent of the U.S. dairy cow herd is treated with Omnigen products, which are also catching on in several foreign countries and have received regulatory approval to be sold in China, according to Phibro financial documents.

According to Omnigen’s lawsuit, cofounder Forsberg took Wang “under his wing” when Wang was an OSU graduate student and asked him to join the company.

“However, at some point, Wang apparently decided he owed no loyalty to OmniGen Research,” the complaint said. “So, while continuing to work at OmniGen Research, he shirked his contractual and fiduciary obligations to secretly form two businesses, Bioshen and Mirigen, to compete with OmniGen Research with the help of his wife and associates.”

Before he quit in 2013, Wang had access to its confidential “research and experimentation methods” as well as improvements made to Omnigen products, such as ingredient sources and ratios, the complaint said.

Wang allegedly took out a “sham” patent in China for products with similar ingredients as Omnigen’s, but which listed his wife and associates as the inventors, and has obtained a Chinese production license for a feed additive, the complaint said.

Last year, the companies formed by Wang held a symposium on livestock health in China at which he presented Omnigen’s “illegally copied” copyrighted slides, the complaint said.

In response to the complaint, Wang admits obtaining a Chinese patent, launching Bioshen and Mirigen and organizing a scientific conference but denies that he relied on any of Omnigen’s trade secrets or confidential information.

Omnigen’s methods of testing feed additives, as well as its “processes for making additives, sourcing ingredients, mixing ingredients, ingredient ratios and scientific knowledge” do not qualify as trade secrets, according to Wang’s answer.

Wang also claims that he was enticed to quit a faculty position at OSU to work for Omnigen with the promise of receiving a share of the profits if the company was sold.

Forsberg, the co-founder, unjustly enriched himself by breaching that promise when Phibro bought Omnigen, Wang alleges.

“As a foreseeable result of Forsberg’s fraudulent conduct Wang has incurred economic damages consisting of a reasonable share of the proceeds that Forsberg received from the sale of OmniGen and the licensing of its products,” Wang said in a counter-complaint.

Wang has also requested that the judge reconsider the preliminary injunction, arguing it’s “vague, draconian, and outside the scope of a legitimate provisional remedy.”

The defendants had an insufficient opportunity to respond to the injunction request and requiring Wang to surrender his laptop and other electronic devices “effectively limits his ability to work,” according to a court document.

Early forecasts suggest this year’s wildfire season should be closer to normal across Eastern Oregon, though another hot, dry month in June could change that outlook.

Joe Hessel, unit forester for the Oregon Department of Forestry in La Grande, said there is still plenty of green grass in the Blue Mountains, but heavier fuels such as down trees and branches are drier than usual thanks to the effects of drought.

The past couple years have seen ODF declare fire season historically early in northeast Oregon. Hessel said the district was feeling pretty good about bucking that trend in 2016 until April came along and quickly melted the region’s snowpack. Since then, Hessel said the potential for fires — especially at lower elevations — has been rising.

“We’re all waiting to see what happens in June,” Hessel said. “If June is relatively warm or dry, or both, that will reflect through the rest of the fire year.”

Fire season began on June 16 in 2015, and a number of devastating infernos kept firefighters scrambling from one blaze to the next. The Canyon Creek, Windy Ridge and Grizzly Bear complexes all started about the same time in August, and together burned nearly 300,000 acres of rangeland and forests.

Hessel doesn’t know if it will be as bad this year, but he’s keeping a close eye on the conditions. If the weather stays warm and dry, it could start parching some of that grass and make it more likely fires are able to spread. The seasonal trend, Hessel said, is a little ahead of schedule.

“If this trend doesn’t change, we’ll start to have discussions (about entering fire season) this week, I’m sure,” he said.

For now, the fire danger remains low. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise issued a report that says large fires will be more likely in July and August, “but at this point there is no reason to believe that the risk of them is above normal.”

The ODF Northeast Oregon District is responsible for protecting nearly 2 million acres of private forestland in mostly Umatilla, Union, Baker and Wallowa counties. Hessel said they work cooperatively with other agencies and neighboring jurisdictions, including the U.S. Forest Service.

Brian Goff, fire staff officer on the Umatilla National Forest, said they received several good storms at higher elevations in May that have kept things in fairly good shape. Lightning did spark one small wildfire on the North Fork John Day Ranger District about seven miles from Granite, but it was contained.

Even with an average fire season, Goff said that doesn’t mean there won’t be any fires during the summer.

“It dries out in July and August, and we will have fires,” he said. “People being fire safe is just always very important.”

Multiple agencies will send their seasonal firefighters to a week-long fire school beginning June 13 in La Grande for training. ODF will also contract two single-engine air tankers for the district, as well as a Type 2 helicopter that will be stationed in Pendleton.

Meanwhile, members of Congress have their sights set on changing the way the federal government pays for fighting increasingly large and costly wildfires. For the fourth straight year, the House has passed a bill known as the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to transfer disaster funding to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management when they have exhausted their firefighting budgets.

As it stands, the agencies are forced to take additional funding for fighting wildfires from other non-fire programs — a practice known as “fire-borrowing.” The Resilient Federal Forests Act would also expedite thinning projects up to 15,000 acres, if they are the result of collaboration.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, has been a vocal supporter of the bill.

“Our rural forested communities have waited long enough,” Walden said in a recent testimony. “They have choked on smoke summer after summer long enough. They’ve seen their watersheds get destroyed by catastrophic fire. It’s time to fix the problem.”

On the Senate side, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, along with Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Maria Cantwell, D-Washington and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, recently released draft legislation that also targets fire-borrowing and accelerating forest restoration.

“This draft legislation is not an end-all solution to the growing problem of fire borrowing from prevention and restoration funds but it’s a step in the right direction,” Wyden said.

Representatives for both Walden and Wyden said any differences between the bills will be addressed in a conference committee in order to reach a middle ground.

COOS BAY — The South Coast Regional Early Learning Hub has allocated $180,238 to regional schools and programs through Kindergarten Partnership and Innovation grants. The grants will fund various projects that will support children in our community as they prepare…

A new organization plans to help Oregon State University and Cornell University train people to make hard apple cider, an industry that is growing rapidly in the Pacific Northwest and is attracting the same sort of connoisseurs who favor the region’s craft beer and fine wine.

Formation of the Cider Institute of North America (CINA) was announced in late May. Nick Gunn, co-owner of Wandering Aengus Ciderworks in Salem, Ore., is chair of the new group’s board of directors.

Gunn said the new organization sprang to life because English cider guru Peter Mitchell is retiring. Mitchell’s Cider & Perry Academy — “Perry” is hard cider made from pears — is based in the United Kingdom and Mitchell has been teaching cider makers in the U.S. since 2003. Gunn said he took one of the first classes Mitchell taught in the U.S.

“Education at this point in our industry is maybe the most critical thing to maintain cider quality in America,” Gunn said. “Maintaining a high level of quality is the only way to keep moving forward.”

Gunn said CINA will work with instructors at Oregon State’s Fermentation Center, which focuses on such things as beer, wine, cheese and yogurt production. He said foundational laboratory work and “Introduction to Cider Making” classes are necessary.

He envisions students obtaining a certificate that would help them get jobs in the industry.

The organization is applying for non-profit tax status, which Gunn said will provide flexibility in obtaining grants and conveying money to the university programs. CINA hopes to help universities pay for tenured faculty and for research and development costs.

Making and drinking hard cider is particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest. Membership in the Northwest Cider Association grew from 17 to 70 in a three-year span, and cider accounts for 4 percent of alcoholic beverage sales in Portland and Seattle, compared to 1.7 percent nationally. A former Cornell University cider expert estimated that people in Oregon, Washington and California drink about 80 percent of the cider consumed in the U.S.

KIMBERLY, Idaho — A monitoring program has detected the arrival of the first psyllids in commercial potato fields. They were found in Malheur County, Ore., according to an alert from University of Idaho.

Individual psyllids were captured on sticky traps by two separate fields in Malheur County, according to the May 28 alert.

Psyllids can carry the Liberibacter bacterium that spreads zebra chip disease, which creates bands in potato flesh that darken when fried.

The disease first surfaced in the Northwest in 2011. Testing results for Liberibacter from the recently captured insects were not available.

There’s more to FFA than just showing animals. The organization features a broad and diverse range of activities, from diesel mechanics to gardening to cooking.

Members of the Pendleton FFA Chapter presented just a few of the possibilities May 27 to eighth-graders from Sunridge Middle School, giving them an up close and personal look at all FFA has to offer. Students cycled through each of five stations at the chapter’s lamb lab, where they had the chance to plant pumpkins, pet a horse, watch a welding demonstration and even try their hand at flying an agriculture drone.

Jake Szumski, a junior at Pendleton High School and FFA chapter president, said the goal was not only to show what opportunities are available, but how FFA can help students develop new skills for college and careers.

“It really is a learning opportunity for the rest of your life,” Szumski said. “There’s a lot of career development where you can experience things you wouldn’t otherwise do.”

The Pendleton FFA Chapter has approximately 50 active and 80 non-active members, said Hallie Porter, sophomore and chapter secretary.

“To be in FFA, you don’t have to show animals. There’s so many options,” Porter said. “You can really do any competition, and still feel welcome in FFA.”

More than 20 chapter members participated at the State FFA Convention in Corvallis, and Seely Daniels, PHS agriculture teacher and FFA advisor, said she hopes to take their officers to the National Convention and Expo next October in Indianapolis.

Daniels said they welcomed about 200 eighth-graders on Friday.

“The kids just loved it,” she said. “They are so much fun to work with.”

Wolves killed a lamb and probably killed a calf in separate attacks in late May, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife reported.

On the evening of May 20, a herder working on private land along the South Fork of the Walla Walla River near the Umatilla-Wallowa county line noticed a disturbance in the flock and saw four wolves, one with a dead lamb in its mouth. ODFW personnel investigated the next day and confirmed the kill was done by wolves. Investigators found a “drag trail” of bone, blood and wool, but the rest of the lamb apparently had been consumed overnight. Tracking collar data showed that OR-40, of the Walla Walla Pack, was near the sheep bedding ground at 3 a.m. on May 21.

On May 23, a landowner checking cattle on private land in the Mud Creek area of Wallowa County found the remains of a dead calf. There was no clear evidence the 150-pound calf had been attacked by wolves, but marks on the rib, back and leg bones found scattered about the site indicated a predator with large teeth was responsible, according to an ODFW report.

In addition, the calf was consumed in one night, also hallmark of a wolf attack. Nonetheless, ODFW designated the incident a “probable” wolf attack rather than “confirmed.”

Tracking collar GPS coordinates showed two members of the Shamrock Pack, OR-23 and OR-41, were in the area at different times on May 22 and May 23.

Peter and Pam Hayes’ claim about herbicide exposure in the forest of the Oregon Coast Range begins the same way as most from the news in recent years.

On May 17, they and two others were out tending their property. They heard a helicopter in the distance and thought little of it. Then, they say, they began to smell and taste chemicals.

“The helicopter was not over me. It was not droplets. It was just a super strong, strong taste,” Pam said.

Both are familiar with the idea of aerial spraying. Pam and her husband, Peter Hayes, are fifth generation loggers and the owners of Hyla Woods in Washington County, Ore.

Peter is a former member of the Oregon Board of Forestry. He’s also become an advocate for more environmentally friendly logging practices, including the elimination of herbicides.

Hayes uses some herbicide on his property to control invasive plants, but he has a goal of getting to zero herbicide use. He applies them by hand rather than by helicopter, which many timber companies use to cover large swaths of land in the sometimes narrow window when herbicides are most effective at killing vegetation that competes with young trees.

Hayes has said he views profit at the expense of the land as a form of theft.

The Hayes’ complaint comes in the midst of ongoing debate about the practice of aerial spraying.

Last year, multiple bills were introduce to change the rules for the practice. This year, environmental groups and coastal residents introduced a ballot measure aiming to limit and stop the practice altogether.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is investigating Hayes’ claim. That includes reviewing records and taking samples from the property in an attempt to determine if chemical trespass occurred, how and from where.

The helicopter in question was hired by Stimson Lumber Co., whose property is more than a half-mile from Hyla Woods. The application was done by Wilbur-Ellis.

“We welcome the investigation and are cooperating in every way we can,” said Scott Gray, Western resource manager for Stimson Lumber.

Gray said he was “very surprised” to hear from Hayes about drift, given the distance from the application site to the Hyla Woods property, which he said is more than 3,600 feet. 

Gray said the application was in compliance with all the regulations that apply, and that the company used an additive in the herbicide mixture to prevent drift.

“Our job is to manage the timberland, but we also have to protect all the other resources we don’t own. That’s our professional responsibility we have to abide by,” Gray said.

Peter Hayes urged against rushing to judgment in such a case. Stimson and Hyla Woods have been neighbors for years with a good relationship. The case was actually referred to the Oregon Department of Agriculture for an exposure investigation by the Department of Forestry, not because Hayes complained directly.

“I’d call them friends,” Hayes said of Stimson.

But, he said, he is not OK with chemical trespass, and he said Oregon has allowed it to be a problem for too long.

“I think we need to take a hard look at the current practice,” Hayes said, referring to helicopter spraying. “Too often, it degrades the things we have in common: our air and water. Too often it has impact on other people’s lands. We need to take a solid look at it.”

This latest complaint comes as rulings on two other high-profile aerial spray cases are still pending. The first is a lawsuit over a 2013 incident in Gold Beach, Ore. The other is an administrative hearing over whether the state was justified in suspending the license of Applebee Aviation after it allegedly violated worker protection rules. 

Decisions in both cases are expected this summer, which could affect future penalties assessed by state government and the liability of farm and forest companies in such cases.