Oregon legislators will likely be asked for $4.25 million next year to pay for conservation easements that would protect farmland from development.

Plans are beginning to solidify for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program, which would provide grants to farmers interested in easements and succession planning, said Meta Loftsgaarden, executive director of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.

OWEB, which will oversee the program, plans to hold “listening sessions” this autumn based on concepts developed by agricultural and conservation groups before drafting proposed legislation for the 2017 legislative session, she said.

“We didn’t want to go out to farmers and ranchers with a blank slate. We really wanted to have something they could react to,” Loftsgaarden said during the Sept. 12 Oregon Board of Agriculture meeting in Pendleton, Ore.

Conservation easements are usually sold or donated by farmers who give up their development rights in exchange for tax benefits and lower property values, reducing inheritance taxes.

They haven’t been as commonly used in Oregon as in other states because of the statewide land-use planning system, but this system alone isn’t enough to prevent the fragmentation of working lands, Loftsgaarden said.

The $4.25 million wouldn’t be enough funding for everyone who wanted to sell an easement, but it would serve as a pilot program — particularly for lands inhabited by threatened or endangered species, or that are subject to “urban growth boundary” expansion, said Doug Krahmer, a blueberry farmer who sits on a work group advising the program.

The easements will have a conservation component and could be used to provide properties with regulatory protections, offering an additional incentive for farmers, Loftsgaarden said.

Currently, a similar approach is used for forestlands where owners want to grow trees older than 30 years but are afraid of creating habitat for the northern spotted owl, hindering future timber harvest, she said.

“They want bigger trees, we want bigger trees, so what we needed to provide was that protection,” Loftsgaarden said, noting that forestland owners submit management plans to the Oregon Board of Forestry and receive regulatory assurances from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

OWEB currently funds conservation easements, but these are focused on preserving native fish habitat and water quality, without emphasizing agriculture, she said.

For that reason, landowners in Oregon have had trouble getting matching state funds needed to obtain federal money available for buying conservation easements, Loftsgaarden said.

“We weren’t hitting for the same target,” she said.

OWEB is funded with lottery dollars especially slated for wildlife and water quality, but the agency may seek money from the general fund or from lottery-backed bonds that don’t have the same restrictions, Loftsgaarden said.

The fund would also be able to accept donations from organizations and individuals, said Krahmer.

Grant requests would be ranked based on the duration of the proposed easement — perpetual agreements will score higher than those which end after a certain number of years — as well as the management plan and the threat of development to the property, said Loftsgaarden.

The program would be overseen by a commission consisting of representatives from the agricultural industry, the conservation community, tribes and land use experts, with OWEB providing staff support, she said.

Agricultural groups have asked why the program wouldn’t be overseen by the Oregon Department of Agriculture while conservationists prefer the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Loftsgaarden said.

However, OWEB is already focused on grants and has representatives from both agricultural and conservation groups, she said. “OWEB sits sort of in the middle.”

Thursdays

An Oregon nursery and its landlord have prevailed in a lawsuit that accused them of creating a hostile work environment.

Carlton Plants and Carlton Nursery of Dayton, Ore., were sued last year by former employee Criselda Romero-Manzano, who claimed the companies ineffectively responded to her sexual harassment complaint.

Romero-Manzano had complained to a supervisor in 2013 of unwanted advances by a crew leader, after which she was reassigned to another crew leader, according to court documents. She lost her job a year later after she exhausted her medical leave that was related to a work injury.

In her 2015 complaint, Romero-Manzano claimed she’d suffered economic loss due to lost wages and emotional distress because the companies “did not effectively respond to plaintiff’s report of sexual harassment” and subjected her to a hostile work environment.

Romero-Manzano accused the crew leader of “sexual comments, invitations of a sexual nature, and unwanted sexual touching.”

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown has agreed with Carlton Plants and Carlton Nursery that the lawsuit was time-barred and must be dismissed.

Romero-Manzano originally received permission from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries to file the lawsuit against only Carlton Nursery, not Carlton Plants.

However, Carlton Nursery did not employ Romero-Manzano as it’s a separate entity that leases acreage to Carlton Plants, Romero-Manzano’s actual employer, Brown said.

While she did eventually amend her lawsuit to include Carlton Plants as a defendant, the permission to sue from EEOC and BOLI had by then expired, the judge said.

Romero-Manzano also failed to establish that the two companies were so inter-related that they should legally be treated as one entity, Brown said.

Attorneys for the plaintiff weren’t allowed to comment or did not respond to Capital Press.

Jon Bartch, registered agent for Carlton Nursery and Carlton Plants, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

BANDON — Coast Community Health Center is celebrating seven years in health care. Enjoy live music and refreshments, visit with staff and tour the clinic at the annual open house on Saturday, Sept. 24.

LANGLOIS — Pacific is breaking in a relatively young soccer team this fall, and the Pirates showed their youth in their league-opening match, a 5-0 loss to visiting St. Mary’s of Medford on Wednesday.

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Western monarch butterflies migrating between the Southern Oregon coast and the south Cascades will soon get fresh patches of strategically placed milkweed and other nectar-bearing plants to create needed habitat on this leg of their storied journey through here.

A group of public and private entities, led by the Ashland-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project, have landed a $193,000 foundation grant to restore and enhance 300 acres of western monarch habitat stretched across six sites along key migration paths through Southern Oregon.

Monarchs that winter along the California coast migrate along this route and the projects are strategically placed like stepping stones along that pathway.

“This is the epicenter of the migratory route,” says botanist Clint Emerson from the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, which is one of the participants in this habitat collaborative. “That makes this compelling.”

The plants will be grown at the federal government’s J. Herbert Stone Nursery in Central Point that will be planted along with milkweed seeds on public and private lands, including several plots already cleared and prepped for other restoration projects, Lomaktsi Executive Director Marko Bey says.

The plants include three locally native species of milkweed and 26 other plants such as coyote mint, winecup clarkia and harvest brodiaea, Emerson says.

While all the plants help butterflies, bees and other pollinators, the milkweed is tied closely to western monarchs’ life cycles.

Adult females lay their eggs in milkweed, and the ensuing caterpillars dine solely on milkweed before forming a chrysalis, from which they emerge as the royal-looking orange- and black-winged butterfly.

Monarchs produce four generations annually, each one making a portion of the migration between Washington and Idaho through Oregon and down to California and Mexico.

In recent years, private groups like the Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates have cultivated small milkweed patches for butterflies called way stations, “but this is a large-scale restoration effort,” says Robert Coffan of SOMA, which joins Lomakatsi, the forest and four other public and private entities in this project.

Restoration sites include 60 acres of Rogue River-Siskiyou forest land along the coast, 60 more acres of Forest Service land on the western slopes of the Cascades near Mount McLoughlin, another 60 acres at Table Rocks and 120 acres of public and private lands in the Ashland-Colestin area.

Some of those lands already have been cleared and prepped as part of other Lomakatsi projects, including the Ashland Forest All-Lands Restoration Project in the Ashland watershed known as AFAR.

That was important because the foundation grant did not cover site-preparation work, Bey says.

“It was a real plus that we’re laying this over other habitat projects,” Bey says.

Most of the work will be done in early 2017, Bey says.

Emerson says the multi-species plantings are different than milkweed way stations because they will create ecosystem-based landscapes instead of gardened plots of a single species.

The grant was one of several totaling $3 million doled out by the foundation’s Monarch Conservation Fund and the only one targeting western monarch habitat. The lion’s share went to the eastern monarchs and their famously arduous migration journeys.

Coffan says western monarchs generally get stiffed in the funding world.

“But we raised the flag a little bit and somebody saw the flag,” Coffan says. “I’m happy with it.”

Organic Valley, the nation’s largest organic dairy cooperative, announced it will buy and renovate the Farmers Creamery Cooperative in McMinnville, Ore.

The pending sale is the latest turn for FCC. Earlier this year, members accepted an agreement that allowed dairy farmers to apply for membership in the much larger Northwest Dairy Association of Seattle, which includes Darigold. The McMinnville plant was not included in the agreement.

The McMinnville creamery will close and be renovated “to align with Organic Valley’s operations,” the company said in a news release. The work will include a “significant investment in new equipment and state-of-the art technology.” The facility will reopen in late winter or early spring of 2017, according to the news release. Additional details of the sale were not immediately available.

Organic Valley, based in Wisconsin, represents more than 1,800 farmers in 36 states and describes saving family farms as its “founding mission.” Organic Valley produces organic milk, cheese, butter, eggs, soy and other products.

In a news release, the company said its “regional model” means milk is produced, bottled and distributed locally “to ensure fewer miles from farm to table and to support our local economies.” Organic Valley has 72 co-op members in Oregon and Washington.

Oregon’s 2015 wine grape harvest set a tonnage record as newer vineyards matured into production and yields increased, according to the annual Oregon Vineyard and Winery Census Report.

The census, produced by the Southern Oregon University Research Center in Ashland, showed a record harvest of 84,949 tons. More planted acreage and higher than average yields were primarily responsible, especially in the South Willamette Valley and Umpqua Valley, according to the report. Yield increased 8 percent statewide in 2015 over the previous year.

The state’s 2015 production value, a product of tonnage multiplied by price, was $171 million, up from $168 million in 2014. The average price per ton, which varies significantly among the more than 15 varieties grown in Oregon, was $1,958. The 2014 average price per ton was $2,136.

One thing about Oregon’s wine sector didn’t deviate: Pinot noir is still the state’s signature wine, and that isn’t likely to change any time soon.

The state makes renowned Pinot and it commands a high price. Pinot noir made up 62 percent of planted acreage and 67 percent of vineyard production in 2015.

It’s made throughout the state but the North Willamette Valley south and southwest of Portland, particularly in Yamhill County, produces most of the state’s Pinot noir. Chardonnay and Pinot gris plantings are a distant second and third.

Oregon’s wine production is tiny compared to California, which produces 90 percent of U.S. wine. Oregon ranks fourth, behind California, Washington and New York, but the number of vineyards and wineries grew rapidly over the years as the industry spread outside the Willamette Valley. The Columbia River Gorge and Southern Oregon areas have come into their own as wine-producing regions.

The industry census, however, shows the rapid growth slowed somewhat in 2015. The number of Oregon vineyards increased 2 percent, to 1,052. The number of wineries increased to 702, up from 676 in 2014.

Michelle Kaufmann, communications manager for the Oregon Wine Board, which commissioned the annual census, said the slowing is more likely a pause before another surge of vineyard growth, especially in Eastern Oregon.

“I don’t think we reached a peak in terms of planted acreage,” she said.

The number of 12-bottle cases sold in the U.S., excluding Oregon, rose to 1.6 million in 2015, about 100,000 cases more than the previous year. International case sales jumped from 62,241 in 2014 to 70,608 in 2015. Canada is the biggest buyer, with 44 percent of Oregon wine exports going there.

As this year's grand marshals of the Bandon Cranberry Festival parade, Pete and Joan Goodbrod bring a wealth of history to the 70 years of celebrations.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Trials are scheduled to begin this week for the armed ranchers who took over a national bird sanctuary in rural Oregon to oppose federal management of public lands.

Jury selection starts Wednesday in the case against Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and others who helped seize Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2. They are charged with conspiring to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs. Several others were indicted, and many have pleaded guilty.

Most key figures were arrested during a Jan. 26 traffic stop that ended with police fatally shooting Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, a spokesman for the occupation. Others left after Finicum’s death, but four holdouts extended the standoff to 41 days.

Here’s a recap of the takeover and a look at what to expect at trial:

———

WHO ARE THE DEFENDANTS?

Occupation leaders and brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy; two of the last holdouts, David Fry and Jeff Banta; as well as Shawna Cox, Kenneth Medenbach and Neil Wampler. All are charged with conspiring to impede U.S. Interior Department employees at the refuge through intimidation, threats or force.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge against another defendant, Pete Santilli, an independent broadcaster who was present at the standoff. His attorney had argued his actions were protected under the First Amendment.

Cox, Fry, Banta and the Bundys also are charged with possessing a firearm at a federal facility. Cox, Medenbach and Ryan Bundy are acting as their own lawyers.

———

WHY WERE THEY AT THE REFUGE?

It started as a protest against the imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers convicted of setting fires and grew into demands for the U.S. government to turn public lands over to local control.

The father-and-son ranchers distanced themselves from the occupiers, reporting to prison two days after the standoff began. Ammon Bundy and others contend that the Constitution limits federal power to acquire and own property within a state’s borders, revealing the larger dispute over the government’s control of vast expanses of Western range.

———

HOW DID THE OCCUPATION END?

The Bundys and other leaders were driving to a community forum when police stopped and arrested them. Finicum fled and crashed his truck into a snowbank to avoid a police roadblock. Authorities say he was reaching for a weapon when he exited the vehicle and that’s when Oregon State Police officers opened fire.

The four occupiers who remained after Finicum’s death finally surrendered on Feb. 11 after protracted negotiations with federal authorities who surrounded the refuge.

———

HOW MANY PEOPLE FACE CHARGES?

A total of 26 people were charged with conspiracy. Eleven have pleaded guilty, including several from Bundy’s inner circle. Seven defendants sought and received a delay in their trial, now scheduled for February.

———

WHAT’S THE GOVERNMENT’S EVIDENCE?

The takeover received extensive media coverage, Ammon Bundy gave daily news conferences and the group used social media in a mostly unsuccessful effort to get others to join them. In short, there’s no question the group occupied the refuge. Prosecutors have said the evidence includes seized weapons, thousands of photographs, thousands of hours of video and reams of information gleaned from social media.

———

WHAT’S THEIR DEFENSE?

They claim they used their First Amendment rights to engage in a peaceful protest and that those with guns were exercising their Second Amendment rights. The occupiers contend that nobody was threatened, no workers were impeded from performing their duties and the government fired the only shots. Moreover, they say those shots, which killed Finicum, showed why they needed guns for protection.

———

IS THE TRIAL GOING TO LAST LONGER THAN THE OCCUPATION?

It looks that way. U.S. District Judge Anna Brown has set aside three days for jury selection, and opening statements are tentatively scheduled to start Sept. 13. The trial is expected to take two or three months.

———

AREN’T THE BUNDYS ALSO FACING TRIAL IN NEVADA?

They and five others from the Oregon case have been charged in a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents near their father Cliven’s cattle ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada. The three Bundys are scheduled for a February trial in Las Vegas.

The elder Bundy drew national attention after his sympathizers pointed weapons at agents rounding up his cattle on public land. The U.S. government says he racked up more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees and penalties over two decades, while Cliven Bundy claims it has no authority over the land.

Several people took part in both standoffs. Federal officials were widely viewed as having backed down from the elder Bundy, possibly emboldening the Oregon occupation.

Cliven Bundy was arrested at Portland International Airport in February when he arrived to visit his sons.

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — The longtime home of the Oregon State University College of Forestry is being demolished to make way for a new classroom and laboratory building.

The Gazette-Times reports Peavy Hall is a campus landmark, and some members of the OSU community have questioned the decision to rebuild rather than renovate.

An OSU spokesman says renovation was considered, but would have resulted in a less functional building than the new Peavy Hall. At 80,000 square feet, the three-story structure will be slightly smaller than the old building.

The demolition work began earlier this summer. Workers have been dismantling it piece by piece rather than just bash it with a wrecking ball. The college plans to reuse 20 percent of the material in the new structure and recycle 65 percent.

ALBANY, Ore. — A judge has denied the State of Oregon’s motions to dismiss a lawsuit by Linn County that seeks $1.4 billion over state forest management practices.

Linn County Circuit Judge Daniel Murphy also said he’s inclined to certify the case as a class action — which would include other counties in the litigation — though he’s postponed ruling on that matter.

According to Linn County’s lawsuit, filed earlier this year, insufficient logging on state-owned forestland has cost 15 counties more than $1.4 billion.

The complaint claims the counties turned over ownership of forestlands to the state in the early 20th Century with the expectation that it would maximize timber revenues, but since 1998, forest managers have instead prioritized wildlife habitat, water quality and recreation values.

More than 650,000 acres were donated to the state by Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Douglas, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook and Washington counties.

In his ruling, Murphy rejected arguments by the state’s attorneys that he lacks jurisdiction over the case and that Linn County’s pleadings were insufficient for the lawsuit to move forward.

According to the Sept. 6 ruling, the judge “could only dismiss this claim now if the court could find it impossible for the plaintiff to prove the claim and thereby prove that best grazing and forest management practices/greatest permanent value at the time the contract was entered into included the maximization of revenue.”

Without “reciting in detail the court’s reasoning,” Murphy also held that he believed the lawsuit meets the requirements for a class action, but he agreed with Oregon’s attorneys that ruling on the issue now would be premature.

If the lawsuit survives further motions, then it’s “entirely appropriate and should go forward promptly” as a class action, he said.

During a hearing last month, Scott Kaplan, an attorney for the state, said the problems in managing the case as a class action would be “enormous.”

The counties donated 183 separate parcels to the state, each of which contains different slopes, tree types, waterways and federally protected species, he said.

Determining how much timber could have been generated from each parcel would devolve into 183 mini-trials, he said.

“How can we decide if revenue has been maximized on a particular parcel unless you consider all of those issues?” Kaplan said.

Linn County is also an inadequate representative of the other counties for multiple reasons, he said.

The litigation costs are currently being paid for by timber groups and lumber companies — the Oregon Forest & Industries Council, Sustainable Forests Fund, Stimson Lumber and Hampton Tree Farms.

Linn County is simply lending its name to a lawsuit that actually represents private interests, the state’s attorneys argue.

“It’s not a public interest case. It’s a case to benefit one particular group,” Kaplan said.

Unlike the counties, which appreciate tourism and other benefits from uses besides logging, the timber interests funding the lawsuit primarily want to change the state’s “greatest permanent value” rules for forest management to emphasize harvesting, he said.

Much of the alleged damages are for lost future timber revenues, which may force the state to change its logging policies, he said.

“That would directly challenge the interests of the other counties,” Kaplan said.

The case also doesn’t qualify as a class action because of the lack of “commonality” among the counties, which donated their land to Oregon during different times and under specific terms, he said.

Chris McCracken, an attorney for Linn County, rejected the argument there’s a lack of commonality among the counties.

They all face the same issues, such as whether the state has violated its contract to maximize timber revenues, he said.

“We have common questions in droves,” McCracken said.

The Oregon Department of Forestry does not manage each parcel individually but instead treats them according to regional forest plans, he said.

Deciding the counties’ contractual rights collectively is more efficient than trying separate cases with potentially conflicting verdicts, he said.

McCracken also disputed that the lawsuit’s funding mechanism should disqualify it as a class action.

The Davis Wright Tremaine law firm would be entitled to 15 percent of any financial award in the case.

Contingency fees aren’t unusual in class action lawsuits, particularly since the counties are strapped for cash and could not afford such litigation on their own, McCracken said.

“There are no disabling conflicts between Linn County and the class members,” he said.

It’s irrelevant whether some counties prefer the forests to be managed for ecological or recreational benefits, McCracken said.

The lawsuit’s outcome won’t affect these priorities, he said.

“All that is sought here is money damages,” he said. “This lawsuit is not seeking to change the management of the forests.”

Just days before his trial is scheduled to begin, Ryan Bundy has asked a judge to get rid of his standby counsel and dismiss the government’s case against him.

In the latest series of court filings from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupier, Bundy writes that he remains committed to representing himself in court.

At the same time, he says he’s been unable to create a defense for himself because he lacks access to critical documents.  

Bundy writes that standby counsel Lisa Ludwig was “thrust upon defendant by the government, without the right of interview, contract, or competence test. Defendant was denied his right to represent himself through standby counsel and to file his own motions and his right to find his own assistance which is competent to help him prepare a defense.”

Bundy also asked U.S. District Judge Anna Brown for a 30-day extension to file pretrial motions because he hasn’t been able to view what he describes as the “United States Attorney’s file.”

Bundy and defendant Kenneth Medenbach nearly lost the ability to represent themselves in court after repeatedly violating court orders.

In court this week, Bundy reluctantly assured Brown.

“I will abide by the court’s rulings as long as the court rulings are in abidance of the law,” he said.

In an unrelated filing late this week, the Utah-based attorneys for Ammon Bundy, Ryan’s brother, take issue with Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight’s assertion that the court has jurisdiction over the case because it involves federal charges.

Mumford compared Knight’s response to that of a “first-year law student” and recites what he calls a “memorable exchange” from “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

That scene includes Humphrey Bogart’s character saying, “If you are the police, where are your badges?” Alfonso Bedoya responds, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”

“The government’s response says, essentially, we don’t need to prove no stinking subject matter jurisdiction,” Mumford writes.  

Jury selection for the case of the Bundy brothers and six other occupiers is set to begin Wednesday.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, which has been closed since an armed occupation was held there earlier this year, is expected to remain closed for the remainder of 2016.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is installing security upgrades at the headquarters and visitor center. The federal agency says the work could take until early next spring to complete, but it’s still encouraging people to visit other areas of the refuge.

The roads and wetlands remain open to visitors.

The upcoming trial of eight defendants charged in the 41-day armed occupation is creating additional interest in the refuge. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Jason Holm says the agency is taking security concerns seriously.

The armed takeover started Jan. 2 as a protest against the imprisonment of two ranchers.

LANGLOIS — A month-long Silent Auction fundraiser is in progress at the Langlois Public Library. The Auction continues through Saturday, Sept. 10 when the annual Blueberry Bash ends the Silent Auction. You are cordially invited to the Blueberry Bash, a…

ST. PAUL, Ore. — Though it’s certainly no metropolis, downtown St. Paul, Ore., isn’t always a convenient place to operate a fertilizer storage and blending facility.

Occasionally, the Marion Ag Service operation receives several night deliveries of fertilizer, waking nearby residents with trucks backing up and other loud noises.

“It would turn into a little mini-truck stop,” said John Hockett, the company’s vice president of sales.

The citizens of St. Paul will soon be able to sleep easy.

Marion Ag Service is building a massive 150,000-square-foot fertilizer facility on a rural highway more than five miles west of town. It is scheduled to open in December.

The facility marks a major expansion for the 40-year-old business.

Currently, the company stores 1,000 tons of fertilizer in St. Paul and 3,000 tons at its plant north of Salem, Ore.

The new operation will be able to store 29,000 tons, more than seven times its current total capacity.

With Interstate 5 nearby and a rail line passing right next to the facility, Marion Ag’s new plant will become a fertilizer hub for its operations as well as other farm suppliers in the region.

“When the season hits, the Willamette Valley doesn’t have enough storage. This will help take the pressure off the distribution system,” said Tom Wimmer, its chief operating officer.

Severe fertilizer price volatility in recent years has often discouraged farm suppliers from building up inventories — they’re afraid of being stuck with large stocks of expensive product when prices fall.

On the other hand, getting fertilizer delivered just in time to meet farmer demand is challenging, since they’re competing for railcars and trucks, Hockett said.

“If there’s that interruption in supply, then you’re not selling fertilizer,” he said.

Since the new facility will provide warehousing services for other fertilizer companies, including J.R. Simplot, Potash Corp. and International Raw Materials, Marion Ag Service won’t actually have to buy all the fertilizer needed to fill the plant’s capacity.

Marion Ag Service’s leaders aren’t disclosing the amount of money invested in the new facility, but they acknowledge the firm is making a multimillion-dollar bet on the health of the Willamette Valley’s farming industry.

The company expects that as the costs of running a farm continue to increase, local growers will switch to more crops that generate higher returns, said Jeff Freeman, its director of marketing.

Hazelnut orchards and vineyards are expanding, while blueberry production has already seen substantial growth in the area, he said. “It continues to migrate to higher-value cropping systems.”

In addition to increasing capacity, the new facility marks a leap forward in technology.

Instead of employees mixing batches of different fertilizers, the exact ratios will be determined and blended using an automated system.

The facility will be able to blend 50 tons of fertilizer in 9 minutes, compared to 6 tons in 15 minutes currently.

“It’s all computer-generated,” said Pat Hockett, the company’s vice president of production.

Despite the increased mechanization, Marion Ag Service doesn’t expect to reduce its workforce. In fact, the firm plans to grow from 90 to 110 employees.

“One thing we are proud of is we’re creating a lot of jobs here,” said Wimmer.

The sixth annual Washington Cider Week happens Sept. 8-18 and kicks off dozens of tastings and other events across the state as the booming industry celebrates its growth and looks to the future.

Cider Week — actually 11 days, but who’s counting — includes the Seattle Cider Summit Sept. 9-10 at South Lake Union Discovery Center.

The event comes as hard cider, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, follows on the heels of regional wine and beer to find favor with people who are willing to pay more for distinctive, high-quality, locally made adult beverages.

The same consumers who support local wineries and breweries seek out and support small cideries, said Emily Ritchie, executive director of the Northwest Cider Association. The number of association cider makers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia has jumped ten-fold in six years, she said. The region now has 70 to 80 cider makers, with about 20 more in the planning stage, she said.

“To my knowledge, none of them have quit,” Ritchie said. “They’re all selling all the cider they can make.”

Cider drinkers tend to be younger — 25 to 40 — and “more adventurous” drinkers, she said.

Seattle is the nation’s largest cider market, Ritchie said, and Portlanders drink the most cider per capita. A retired Cornell University cider expert, Ian Merwin, once estimated that people in Oregon, Washington and California drink 80 percent of the hard cider consumed in the U.S. Speakers at the U.S. Cider Association’s annual convention, held in Portland last February, said cider makes up 1.7 percent of alcohol sales nationally, but about 4 percent in Portland and Seattle.

Most Northwest cider is made from repurposed dessert apples, but the push is on to establish orchards of old, bittersweet French and English varieties that were used to make hard cider in colonial days.

“The supply of that is so low compared to demand,” Ritchie said. The association is using a specialty crop grant to get the word out, and held workshops on the topic last March.

At one, “We were expecting 20 farmers to show up and we had 150,” she said.

A calendar of Washington Cider Week events is on-line: http://www.nwcider.com/cider-events/

SALEM — For sheep breeder Monte Forster, the ribbons his Horned Dorsets won at this year’s Oregon State Fair provide more than just gratification.

The awards verify that Forster is maintaining champion-quality animals and progressing with his breeding efforts, which is important to buyers.

“By having the bloodlines we have, we sell them throughout North America,” said Forster.

In 2016, Forster received the award for premier exhibitor and his sheep racked up a champion ribbon and two reserve champion ribbons.

This year also marked the 55th season that he’s shown sheep at the Oregon State Fair, where the livestock pavilion is named after his late father, Lloyd “Bud” Forster, a longtime livestock supervisor at the event.

“We are the ambassadors of agriculture here in Oregon. This is our showcase,” Forster said of livestock producers who show at the fair.

Horned Dorsets are judged for how well they stack up against the standard appearance of the breed, as well as for their frame size and correct position of feet and legs.

The breed is prized by chefs for its tender meat and by farmers for the gentle disposition of the animals, Forster said.

“They’re docile. They’re actually emotional,” said Jed Forster, Monte’s son, adding that getting accidentally hit with a stray horn is the main danger. “Other than that, they don’t have a mean bone in their body.”

Apart from temperament, the breed is know for giving birth outside the regular lambing season, providing growers with more forage flexibility.

The Forster family has been farming near Tangent, Ore., for 131 years and breeding Horned Dorsets for 75 years. The 400 sheep they run on 100 acres are primarily for breeding stock, though the family also sells their meat directly to consumers.

By bringing animals to the state fair, the family also provides visitors with a connection agriculture they might not otherwise experience, said Forster. “There’s never a bad question.”

Overall participation in livestock competitions at the Oregon State Fair has been flat to up in 2016, depending on the type of animal, said Ellen Hannan, livestock office manager at the event.

The fair has seen a big uptick in swine and dairy goats this year, while beef cattle and sheep have stayed about the same, said Hannan.

“It really just fluctuates,” said Caleb Forcier, animal competition coordinator at the fair.

Cycling animals through the livestock facilities has been complicated due to the large number of FFA kids who want to compete in open class livestock shows, where they’re matched against professional breeders, she said.

“It’s a good problem to have,” said Forcier.

That’s because it’s heartening to see that children are excited enough about showing livestock to see how they stack up against the adults, Hannan said. “It shows enthusiasm.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge agreed Tuesday to let Oregon standoff defendants Ryan Bundy and Kenneth Medenbach represent themselves at their upcoming trial, despite concerns they won’t follow court rulings in the presence of the jury.

The men, along with co-defendant Shawna Cox, have been acting as their own lawyers in the run-up to the trial, with varying degrees of help from appointed standby attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Court Anna Brown threatened to take away their right to self-representation because they have repeatedly challenged the court’s jurisdiction. At a hearing Tuesday, she said the right to serve as your own lawyer is not a license to do whatever you want in a courtroom.

She wanted them to promise to follow her rulings and not raise issues in front of the jury that have already been resolved.

“I will follow all the rules,” Medenbach said.

Bundy was much more hesitant. The judge wanted a yes or no answer, but Bundy wouldn’t supply one, despite the urging of a female supporter in the gallery: “Say yes, Ryan.”

“I still have questions on some of those rulings,” Bundy said. He eventually agreed to only raise concerns when the jury is out of the room.

The men are among eight defendants preparing to stand trial on a charge of conspiring to impede federal employees from doing their jobs at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The armed takeover of the refuge started Jan. 2 as a protest against the imprisonment of two local ranchers. It lasted 41 days.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Sept. 7 and opening statements are tentatively slated for Sept. 13.

Tuesday’s hearing got off to tough start for Bundy when the judge wouldn’t let a new volunteer paralegal sit at the defense table. The paralegal, identified as Jeremy Baker, arrived from Texas on Monday night.

Courtroom security ejected the paralegal when he left his seat, moved to the front bench of the gallery and tried to loudly whisper legal advice to Bundy while the judge was speaking.

Brown scheduled the hearing because she doesn’t want the trial to become a circus, and Bundy has repeatedly challenged the court’s jurisdiction while filing motions the judge considers frivolous. Medenbach, meanwhile, has questioned whether the government owns the refuge and if the judge took the proper oath of office after her 1999 appointment.

The judge said those matters are resolved and can’t be mentioned in front of a jury.

Matthew Schindler, Medenbach’s standby counsel, said his client only made those arguments to preserve the record for a potential appeal. Schindler is expected to take more active role during trial than Bundy’s standby counsel, but said Medenbach is still the one calling the shots. One of those orders apparently is to not pin the blame on the leaders.

“He doesn’t want me to denigrate Ryan Bundy; he doesn’t want me to go after Ammon Bundy,” Schindler said.

PRINEVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Elected officials in an Oregon county rejected a proposed plan on Tuesday from a group of residents that sought greater local control over the management of federal lands.

The development came as local officials in the West are wrestling with ways to have greater say in how the vast swaths of federal land are managed.

The issue came to a head in adjacent Harney County, where an armed group from out of state seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and held it for 41 days.

About half of Crook County in Central Oregon is public land, most of it managed by the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.

Passing the proposed Crook County Natural Resources Plan would create an “adversarial relationship” with federal agencies, BLM District Manager Carol Benkosky warned the three-member Crook County Court. About 100 spectators packed the meeting room in Prineville, the county seat.

The plan, drafted by a political action committee, would have ostensibly required the county court to be involved in “coordination” with federal agencies in managing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests and watersheds, prohibited retirement of grazing allotments and called for “the forest industry and the forest products commerce within the county” to be strengthened. Opponents of the plan said it had no legal basis.

Tyson Bertone-Riggs, federal forest health coordinator of the Oregon Department of Forestry, also said it would result in more litigation and “blocking actions” instead of moving things forward. He and other officials instead trumpeted consultations early and often between agencies and local stakeholders.

Resident Darlene Harpster got up and spoke on behalf of the plan, and denounced what she said was over-regulation by the U.S. government.

“The only thing I want to say is I want my freedom,” she said. “Government agencies want more regulation ... I don’t.”

At stake is the economic well-being of Crook County, which is 2½ times the size of Rhode Island, and other parts of the West that have been hit by restrictions on timber harvesting on federal lands and other regulations.

One woman who went to the microphones to speak about the plan indicated emotions have been running high.

The court voted 2-1 to reject the plan, with those opposed saying it could conflict at times with an existing county plan. The court suggested supporters refine it and submit it to the planning commission as a possible addition to the existing plan.

“This is an opportunity for the citizens of Crook County to have their voices heard,” county commissioner Seth Crawford, who voted for the plan, told The Associated Press. “So what I think we need to do as a county is listen, and try to use our natural resources more effectively.”

Tom Case, a backer of the plan, said the issue is not over.

“This has been an ongoing battle,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to end today.”