AMITY, Ore. (AP) — A fire has destroyed a building near Amity in Western Oregon.
John Stock with Amity Fire told KOIN the building housed a machine shop and antique farm equipment such as tractors and cars inside.
Fifty firefighters were battling the Wednesday morning blaze at one point. The building and its contents were destroyed. No one was injured.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Ammon and Ryan Bundy will be reunited at a downtown Portland jail.
The men who are awaiting trial on charges related to the armed occupation of an Oregon bird sanctuary were recently separated, with Ammon Bundy shipped to a jail in outer northeast Portland.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones granted Ryan Bundy’s request to have them housed in the same jail as they prepare their legal defense ahead of the September trial.
Though jail officials prefer to have co-defendants separated, the judge said this is “an exceptional case and an exceptional relationship.”
Also Monday, the judge allowed standoff defendant Jason Patrick to be released from custody before trial.
ALBANY, Ore. — The State of Oregon is urging the dismissal of a lawsuit that alleges state forest management prioritizes environmental concerns to the detriment of logging.
Earlier this year, Linn County filed a complaint against Oregon for allegedly depriving multiple counties of more than $1.4 billion due to a forestry rule that emphasizes wildlife, water quality and recreation over timber harvest.
During oral arguments Monday in Albany, attorneys for Oregon said the case should be thrown out because the forests are meant to be managed for the greatest permanent value to the state, not to the counties.
This “greatest permanent value” is allowed to include many factors beyond timber production under laws that allowed counties to donate their burned and logged forests to the state government, said Sarah Weston, an attorney for the state.
“The statute does not require revenue maximization,” she said. “The statutes have always provided for multiple values and multiple uses.”
Counties acquired these forest lands by foreclosing on property tax liens during the Great Depression but turned them over to state ownership in exchange for a portion of future logging revenues.
Oregon’s attorneys claim that Linn County cannot sue the state to receive compensation for breach of contract, and that the county’s challenge to the “greatest permanent value” rule can only be heard by the Oregon Court of Appeals, rather than in a county court.
Because the lawsuit seeks to recover damages for insufficient logging in the future, it clearly intends to alter the meaning of “greatest permanent value,” said Scott Kaplan, another attorney for the state.
Either the state changes its definition or it’s potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.
“This is absolutely a challenge of state policies of forest management,” Kaplan said.
Linn County argued that contracts between the counties and the state government are enforceable.
“The counties gave up assets in exchange for promises,” said John DiLorenzo, attorney for Linn County.
Counties would not have donated vast tracts of land if they’d known the state would change the terms of the deal at will, he said.
“We believe that’s precisely what the state has done in this case,” DiLorenzo said. “Counties must have a way to enforce their bargains.”
More than 650,000 acres in Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Douglas, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, and Washington counties were given to Oregon based on “promises and assurances” on which the state government has since fallen short, the lawsuit claims.
The law that lays out Oregon’s forest management obligations was written when the United States was preparing to enter World War II and must be understood in that context, DiLorenzo said.
At the time, the greatest value of the land was to produce a large amount of timber for the war effort, rather than to preserve wildlife habitat or aesthetic beauty, DiLorenzo said.
Legal precedents also indicate that Oregon was obligated to maximize revenue from those lands, he said.
Several environmental and fishing organizations claim this interpretation is erroneous.
The optimum management of state forests was bound to be contentious and so that question was left to the discretion of the Oregon Department of Forestry, said Ralph Bloemers, an attorney representing the groups.
“It’s not up to the county, or the timber industry, or the conservation community, what that should be,” he said.
There’s also nothing in the law stating that revenues take priority over other uses, Bloemers said. “It continues to be a huge gaping hole in their complaint.”
Linn County also argues the lawsuit should be certified as a class action, which would allow other counties to participate in the litigation.
There are numerous potential plaintiffs with common legal arguments that would be more efficiently resolved as part of a single case, Linn County claims.
The issue of class certification will be heard at another hearing that’s scheduled for Aug. 17 in Albany.
Hermiston, Ore. — Hermiston watermelons, savored by Northwesterners for their distinctive sweetness, are back in season.
Growers began harvesting last week, and Finley’s Fresh Produce of Hermiston was the first to arrive with melons in tow at the Pendleton, Ore., Farmers’ Market.
“I tried them yesterday. They’re so sweet and good,” said Naomi Sanchez, who owns Finley’s Fresh Produce with her husband, Ildefonso Zuniga. “We plan on selling out.”
While early season watermelons might be a little smaller than average, Sanchez said the quality remains consistent. She credits Zuniga for knowing when they’re ripe for the picking.
“I don’t know how, but he always picks them when they’re perfect,” she said.
Hermiston watermelons have earned their reputation thanks to the Columbia Basin’s unique combination of climate and soil. Watermelons are desert plants, which take in heat during the day to produce sugar as a source of energy.
Not only are the days hot enough for melons around Hermiston, but cooler nights slow down the respiration process, which allows the plants to retain all that sugar. Light, sandy soils also allow water to filter down deep to plant’s roots. The result is a sweet and juicy summertime treat.
“What isn’t good about watermelon?” Sanchez said, with a smile. “They’re so good.”
Jack Bellinger, of Bellinger Farms in Hermiston, said they started cutting melons off the vine last week. He said they’ll start shipping to stores across the Northwest this week, including the Portland and Seattle metro areas.
The growing season this year has been hit-and-miss, Bellinger said, with some weeks topping out around 65 degrees and others reaching triple digits. That type of variation can interrupt watermelons while they’re growing, but he anticipates the crop will fare well over the next couple months.
“The quality looks really good,” Bellinger said. “We’re cutting really solid watermelons right now.”
An Oregon pesticide applicator could face reduced penalties for allegedly ignoring the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s order to stop spraying herbicides.
The ODA originally wanted to revoke the pesticide-spraying licenses of Applebee Aviation and its owner, Mike Applebee, for five years in addition to levying $160,000 in fines.
Applebee admitted that his company carried out multiple herbicide operations after ODA suspended its license in September 2015, but claimed he wasn’t timely notified of the order. He also claimed it wasn’t clear the state agency had the jurisdiction to prohibit spraying on federal property.
Senior Administrative Law Judge Jennifer Rackstraw has now found that Applebee Aviation and its owner violated Oregon pesticide law, but has recommended suspending their pesticide-spraying licenses for one year and imposing fines of less than $55,000.
While the company shouldn’t have sprayed without a license and “engaged in a pattern of misconduct,” Rackstraw found that a five-year revocation would be “an excessively harsh sanction” for Applebee Aviation’s violations.
The ODA suspended Applebee’s pesticide license when he was on an out-of-state hunting trip and had limited means to respond to the order, which meant that several operations carried out directly after it was issued weren’t “willful or grossly negligent,” the judge said.
However, Applebee and his company could have done more to shut down spraying once they had “reasonable knowledge” of the emergency suspension order, Rackstraw said.
He also “recklessly disregarded” the ODA’s opinion that the company wouldn’t be able to spray on federal land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, she said.
Applebee proceeded with the operations with the “hope” it was outside ODA’s jurisdiction but without contacting an attorney or BLM for advice, she said.
As for previous incidents in which Applebee’s company allowed herbicide drift and sprayed a pesticide on a prohibited site, Rackstraw said the violations were relatively isolated and “should not weigh heavily” on the penalty analysis.
The ODA did properly consider the impact of insufficient “personal protective equipment” being provided to Applebee employees, the judge said.
While the agency initially sought $160,000 in fines against Applebee and his company, it has since revised that number to roughly $60,000.
In light of her findings, Rackstraw further adjusted it to about $55,000.
Capital Press was unable to reach an attorney for Applebee as of press time.
Bruce Pokarney, ODA’s communications director, said the agency can amend Rackstraw’s proposal and will likely issue a final order by the end of the month.
Applebee may then challenge the final order before the Oregon Court of Appeals.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Arizona man pleaded guilty to conspiracy for his role in the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon and was nearing a resolution to charges he faces from a 2014 standoff with federal agents at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch.
Blaine Cooper, 37, of Humboldt, Arizona, admitted to a federal judge in Portland on Thursday that he appeared in a video with occupation leader Ammon Bundy, urging patriots to show up at the refuge with firearms, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
“I could see how calling people out to a refuge armed could be intimidating,” Cooper said.
Federal prosecutors had no evidence that Cooper carried a gun at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said the man was part of the first convoy of people to arrive there on Jan. 2, starting an occupation that lasted nearly six weeks.
The group had been in Burns, Oregon, protesting the return to federal prison of two ranchers convicted of setting fires.
Court records show Cooper will be sentenced Nov. 18. He’s expected to receive six months in prison, with credit for time served, and six months in a either a halfway house or home detention.
He’s the seventh defendant to plead guilty in the case. Another 19, including Ammon Bundy, are awaiting trial.
Meanwhile, it was revealed in court that Cooper has reached a tentative deal in the Nevada case, likely pleading guilty to two charges.
Krista Shipsey, Cooper’s defense lawyer, asked Cooper’s co-defendants and others to respect his choice.
“It’s incredibly hard for him to be here today,” Shipsey said. “He felt he needed to take care of this, but I hope they respect this is what’s best for him.”
Cooper had wanted to resolve the cases for a long time, she said.
“He is very apologetic about his behavior,” Shipsey said. “He felt like a nobody, and this movement gave him a purpose in his life. ...The fame took over his senses.”
AURORA — Blueberry Field Day at Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center included the expected technical discussions of fertilizers, pesticides and cultivars, but then a bird swooped in and stole the show.
That would be Copper, a fierce-eyed falcon trained to scare the bejeebers out of pest birds that damage blueberries, wine grapes or orchard crops. Falconer Kort Clayton, owner of Integrated Avian Solutions, let Copper loose for a demonstration flight during a field day presentation on bird control options. Compared to Copper’s buzz bomb performance, discussions of humic acid and boron applications barely stood a chance.
Copper, a 4-year-old Red-naped Shaheen, is one of Clayton’s five falcons and the one that usually accompanies him to field demonstrations. “He’s super reliable,” Clayton said. “He’s a flashy flier, he’s not really bothered by crowds.”
There was more to Copper’s appearance than show, because bird damage is a major problem for fruit and berry producers. Growers across the country use chemical repellents, netting, noisemakers and pulsating lasers to keep birds out of fields, with mixed results.
Cornell University estimated that 10 percent of the U.S. blueberry crop is lost to bird damage. In Oregon’s blueberries, a crop worth $102 million annually, the loss can be significant.
A 2013 USDA study estimated birds cause $189 million damage annually to Honeycrisp apples, wine grapes, blueberries and tart and sweet cherries in just five states: Oregon, Washington, California, Michigan and New York.
The USDA study also said bird damage costs per hectare (2.47 acres) ranged from $104 in Oregon tart cherries to $7,267 in Washington Honeycrisp apples.
To scare or discourage bird, growers use such things as propane cannons, flagging or netting. During the field day bird abatement presentation, company representative Rick Willis described the Bird Gard system, which is in place at the OSU research plots. The system’s microprocessor, which can be powered by a solar panel, plays robin and starling distress calls, and the call of predatory red-tailed hawks — all of which unnerve pest birds.
Another presenter, Marc Gaffrey of Bird Control U.S., explained how the company’s Agrilaser scares birds by shooting harmless laser beams across fields.
The system, mounted on a swiveling tripod, can be moved from place to place, and a hand-held model is available.
Clayton’s falcon, however, was the hit of the presentation. Copper, released from his perch on Clayton’s gloved hand, immediately swooped low over the OSU blueberry plots, then ascended in a corkscrew pattern until he was nearly out of sight. Clayton said falcons’ vision is 10 times better than humans’, and he’s called birds in from 3 miles away by swinging a lure. The birds wear a GPS transmitter, enabling Clayton to know where they’ve been.
The problem with other bird abatement systems, he said, is that pest birds eventually learn they won’t be harmed and are no longer frightened away. But they immediately recognize and react in terror to predators such as falcons, Clayton said.
“Habituation is the Achilles’ heel of traditional bird control techniques,” he said. “Pest birds do not habituate to natural predators.”
Clayton said falcons work best in fields of 80 acres or more. Falcons occasionally kill birds they’re chasing, but primarily deter pests by hazing them. The service typically costs $20,000 to $30,000 per season, he said.
Bernadine Strik, OSU berry crops professor and research program leader, said growers should install bird abatement systems before berries begin to turn color.
“Once the birds get a taste, it’s impossible to get them out,” she said
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has rejected Ammon and Ryan Bundy’s request for a trial delay.
The Bundys and more than a dozen other defendants are scheduled for trial in September on charges stemming from the January takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, Marcus Mumford, seeks both the delay and his client’s pretrial release, contending he and Bundy have been unable to watch hours of video evidence with his client still jailed.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Bundy was recently moved from the jail in downtown Portland to one on the outskirts of the city.
In arguing against a delay, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said the September date allows the Bundys to have a fair and speedy trial in Oregon and time to prepare for a February trial on a different matter in Nevada.
A renewed move by Oregon’s Clackamas County to designate more land for future industrial and commercial development prompted an unusual response from the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District.
Usually, the district’s board isn’t very political, General Manager Tom Salzer said. But the county’s decision to review the status of 1,625 acres got the conservation district’s attention. The county commissioners want to know if land in three areas south and southeast of the Portland urban center, now set aside as 50-year “rural reserves” and thus open to farming, would be more beneficial as “employment lands.”
The commissioners want to review the status of 800 acres south of the city of Wilsonville; 400 acres adjacent to the urban growth boundary of the city of Canby; and 425 acres south of the Clackamas River along Springwater Road. County officials believe the land should revert to “undesignated” rather than rural reserves.
Board members of the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District decided they should speak up. On June 29, Salzer delivered a letter to the five-member county commission. The primary point was succinct: “The District believes the County’s current initiative to create employment lands may not adequately consider the long-term value of high-value farmland. A significant amount of the land proposed for reconsideration as employment land is high-value farmland, an irreplaceable natural resource.”
Salzer said the conservation district’s board is concerned about the longterm future of farmland in Clackamas County, which despite being adjacent to Portland remains one of Oregon’s top five agricultural counties. The county is particularly known for growing Christmas trees, nursery crops and berries.
But it’s also known for political contention — some Portlanders derisively call it “Clackastan” — and for opposition to Metro, the land-use planning agency for the tri-county Portland area. The current county commission chair and vice chair, John Ludlow and Tootie Smith, are generally viewed as favoring job growth and development over land-use restrictions.
The commissioners point to an economic study by a consulting firm, Johnson Economics and Mackenzie, that said the county is short between 329 and 934 acres of industrial land and up to 246 acres of commercial land, an overall shortage of up to 1,180 acres over the next 20 years.
The conservation district, however, has some concerns. The acreage south of Wilsonville involves land adjacent to the Aurora Airport and Langdon Farms golf course. It has long been proposed for development by its owners, while farm groups and land-use watchdogs oppose development spreading into prime Willamette Valley farmland.
The acreage next to the city of Canby is Class 1 agricultural soil, some of the best farmland in the valley, said Jim Johnson, the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s land-use specialist.
The conservation district is alarmed at the prospect of losing more farmland, said Salzer, the general manager.
“This is remarkable,” he said. “It’s the first time this board has stood up as a unanimous body and said, ‘Wait a minute. Farmland is being threatened and we need to do something about it.”
Jeff Becker, the conservation district’s board chair, said the board doesn’t want to antagonize the county commissioners but simply wants to promote discussion of the issue.
“We don’t want to fire darts,” Becker said. “We don’t want to attack their policies. I know they get pressure (from all sides).”
But Becker said issues such as food supply need to be considered when development is discussed.
“If you get rid of farmland, it’s gone forever,” he said.
The county commissioners had questions and comments for Salzer when he delivered the conservation district’s letter.
Commissioner Ludlow said any development on the land in question would be years out. “We’re 1,100 acres short of job-producing land,” he said. Commissioner Smith said farming requires a “whole host of behaviors” that young people don’t want to engage in, and said much of the land under consideration is “fallow,” not actively farmed.
“It may be fallow at this time, but if you build on it, it’s gone,” Salzer responded.
The current development proposal covers familiar ground about a lack of land for economic development. A bill introduced in the 2015 Oregon Legislature would have allowed Clackamas, Washington and Columbia counties to designate industrial reserves of up to 500 acres outside of established urban growth boundaries, but it died in committee.
This time, Clackamas County is going it alone and apparently will work through Metro.
Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah counties, which include the greater Portland area, agreed in 2010 to designate urban and rural reserves. Urban reserves will be considered first when the urban growth boundary is expanded for houses, stores and industries. More than 265,000 acres in the three counties were designated as rural reserves, meaning they would remain as farms, forests or natural areas until 2060.
“The facts on the ground have changed dramatically since the original reserves adoption,” the Clackamas commissioners said in a letter to Metro, “prompting the need for corresponding changes to reserve designations. We cannot pretend that those changes didn’t happen, or allow the matter to be dismissed as simply a change in leadership.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Court of Appeals has decided to reconsider a lawsuit against the state that was dismissed a couple months ago over its decision last year to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.
It means environmentalists will have another chance to argue for an independent, judicial review of the delisting decision — as well as challenge the validity of House Bill 4040, one of the Legislature’s most controversial new laws this year that ultimately led to the case’s dismissal in late April.
“The issues presented by this judicial review and by HB 4040 are complex matters of public importance,” Judge Erika Hadlock wrote in the court’s decision Tuesday. “Without deciding what, if any, effect HB 4040 has on this judicial review, the court determines that the issues of possible mootness and the validity of HB 4040 are more appropriately decided by a department of the court following full briefing.”
The controversy stems from the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission’s November decision to delist the gray wolf as endangered, a move aimed at managing the species’ replenishing population that environmentalists say was premature and based on questionable science.
As environmentalists were asking the court for a review of the delisting decision, some Republican lawmakers crafted HB 4040 as a means to block the case. The idea was that, with the Legislature’s stamp of approval that the decision was air-tight according to law, reviewing that decision was a moot point and the case itself, therefore, would be too.
The bill was blasted by many residents, conservationists and Democratic leaders, including Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, as an overreach by the Legislature into judicial branch-matters and therefore potentially unconstitutional — an argument environmentalists reiterated in court this week.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a “notice of probable mootness” soon after HB 4040 was signed into law, prompting the case’s dismissal on those grounds on April 22.
Nick Cady, attorney for Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands, which brought the case along with Oregon Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity, said the case was reconsidered after they challenged the constitutionality of HB 4040 and also the court’s process for the dismissing the suit.
“It’s really a crazy, convoluted issue that makes it that much more confusing,” Cady said. “Now we’re going to be dodging around the issue of whether or not (the wildlife commission) used the best-available science, which is why we were all here in the first place, and now we have to also argue about separation of powers and other legal nuances that’s just going to make this more convoluted.”
Officials at the wildlife department and Gov. Kate Brown’s office declined to comment. The Oregon Cattleman’s Association, an intervener in the lawsuit that also helped craft HB 4040, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel Oregon Farm Bureau, also an intervener, said in a statement her group didn’t take a position on Tuesday’s reconsideration.
“However, nothing in the ruling pertains to the merits of the Commission’s decision to delist the wolf, which Farm Bureau firmly believes was good law and good policy,” Nash said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $27.5 million on cranberry concentrate, buying a fraction of the surplus berries that are suppressing prices.
The purchase of the value-added product will soak up 30 million pounds, or 300,000 barrels, of cranberries, according to the industry’s Cranberry Marketing Committee, which announced the purchase in a press release June 29.
“We’re pleased to hear that. Certainly when you have an inventory of 7 million barrels, it’s nice to have some help getting rid of that,” Washington cranberry grower Malcolm McPhail said July 1.
Total U.S. production in 2015 was about 8.4 million barrels, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The cranberry surplus has hovered around 90 percent in recent years, swelled partly by a bumper crop of nearly 9 million barrels in 2013. Farmers have seen prices fall every year since 2009.
The average price growers received in 2014 was $30.90 per 100-pound barrel. The USDA is due to issue a report Wednesday on the 2015 crop.
“Any sale of cranberries helps our growers,” Ocean Spray cooperative spokeswoman Kellyanne Dignan said. “From our perspective, we appreciate the USDA’s attention to the cranberry industry.”
The USDA purchases surplus food to stabilize prices under a program created during the Depression. The government distributes the food to schools, summer camps and charities.
The USDA has been a regular customer for cranberry farmers. The purchases included buying 680,000 barrels for $55 million around Thanksgiving 2014. A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers from the five cranberry-producing states lobbied for the purchase.
“We are grateful for the continued support of the USDA and appreciate the positive impact that this bonus buy has on our industry,” the marketing committee’s executive director, Michelle Hogan, said in a written statement.
A Massachusetts task force in mid-June made several recommendations to help that state’s cranberry growers.
The recommendations included providing grants, tax credits and low-interest loans to farmers to renovate bogs and increase yields.
Other recommendations called for programs to pay farmers to convert bogs to wetlands to reduce production.
Cranberries are the top farm crop in Massachusetts, the country’s second-leading cranberry producer.
Washington, the fifth-leading cranberry state after number-three New Jersey and number-four Oregon, has 1,700 acres planted in cranberries. “I think everybody is hanging in there,” McPhail said.
SALEM — The Oregon agricultural industry is gearing up for battle against a campaign to pass a corporate sales tax measure on the November ballot by shedding light on how the tax will affect individual companies and farmers.
Under Initiative Petition 28, the Mt. Angel-based Wilco farm supplies and fuel cooperative faces a 1,388-percent increase in its state corporate income tax bill, from $168,000 to $2.5 million per year, CEO Doug Hoffman said.
The tax would apply only to the $100 million in sales at Wilco Farm Stores in Oregon; direct sales to the cooperative’s 3,000 members are exempt, Hoffman said.
The ballot measure targets C corporations, imposing a 2.5 percent tax on their Oregon gross sales exceeding $25 million. It’s expected to raise about $3 billion a year in new state revenue.
The nonpartisan Legislative Revenue Office says the tax will act largely as a consumption tax, raising prices for consumers and businesses.
The union-backed campaign A Better Oregon says the state needs that revenue to bolster support for education, health care and senior services. Proponents also note that corporations’ income tax contributions to state revenue has declined as a percentage from 18.5 in the mid-1970s to 6.7 now, according to a study by the Oregon Public Policy Center.
While the campaign says the tax targets big out-of-state corporations, it also affects some Oregon businesses with high sales receipts but relatively low profit margins, said Dave Dillon, executive vice president of Oregon Farm Bureau.
Wilco typically nets income of 2.5 to 3.75 percent of gross sales, Hoffman said. In some years, such as 2009, the company doesn’t make a profit. One reason he opposes IP 28 is that even companies that lose money have to pay the tax as long as their gross sales exceed $25 million.
Supporters are unmoved.
“A Better Oregon was specifically designed to protect farm co-ops and it won’t raise taxes on the supplies farmers buy through their co-ops,” said Katherine Driessen, a campaign spokeswoman. “A Better Oregon was also designed to make large pesticide companies like Wilco and Monsanto pay their fair share in taxes. Based on the claims that Wilco has made, it has to do at least $100 million in non-farm co-op sales. It can and should pay more to support or schools and critical services.”
Dillon said those extra costs will be passed onto farmers.
The impact of the tax could be felt at every point of sale, as suppliers and retailers increase prices to cover their additional costs.
The gas and diesel that Wilco sells, for instance, changes hands several times before it gets to the end consumer, Hoffman said. By that time, the tax may push the cost up 5 to 7 percent, he said.
That will impact farmers who have to drive their products to market. The tax also will drive up the cost of fertilizer, farming equipment and other necessities for producing and selling a crop, Dillon said.
“We are going to have folks out of work, and there isn’t going to be an economy to pick them up,” said Katie Fast, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter.
The tax is estimated to slow growth in private sector jobs by 38,000 in the next five years years, but public sector jobs would grow by 17,000 in the next five years, according to the Legislative Revenue Office.
A recent study by Portland State University, commissioned by A Better Oregon, found that the tax would boost public sector jobs by 33,600 by 2027 and slow growth in private sector jobs by 13,500.
“You don’t see Wilco take a stand on many things,” Hoffman said. “We believe we have the story that touches people in a small way It will affect us and our consumers We couldn’t let it stand and suck it up and not get involved.”
Support for international trade slipped in Oregon while the major candidates for president criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that Congress could consider later this year.
According to two polls conducted by DHM Research, the percentage of Oregonians who believe foreign trade is an opportunity for economic growth dropped from 65 percent in March 2014 to 53 percent in April 2016.
During that time, the percentage of Oregonians who believe trade is more of a threat to the economy increased from 19 percent to 36 percent.
“Our polling data reveal that Oregonians are less certain that international trade is a good deal for our state and our country in 2016 than they were two years prior,” says DHM Research founding partner Adam Davis.
The drop in support followed repeated attacks on international trade treaties by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. All three candidates came out against the TPP, even though Clinton had previously called it the “gold standard” of such treaties.
“The seemingly 24-7 coverage of Trump and Sanders this past year has taken its toll on public understanding and appreciation of the benefits of trade,” Davis says. “It’s been a constant drumbeat of Americans losing jobs and big companies being the only beneficiaries of policies like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
Doug Badger, executive director of the Pacific Northwest International Trade Association, deplores the criticisms. Although Trump, Sanders and — to a lesser extent — Clinton have all claimed such treaties have reduced the number of American jobs, Badger says the opposite is true, especially in Oregon.
“Trade is creating jobs in the country and the region, which is especially dependent on trade. And they are good-paying jobs,” says Badger, whose organization is aligned with the Portland Business Alliance and is pushing for approval of the TPP.
Badger notes that support for international trade is still above 50 percent in Oregon, which he says is a good thing. But he worries the criticisms by the presidential candidates will make it harder to win approval of the TPP and future trade agreements.
“The politicians are saying one thing but the economy is saying another when it comes to trade,” he says.
Davis agrees there’s little public understanding of the benefits of trade.
“Like we see in our research about public understanding of the basics of governance and public finance, there’s a great deal of ignorance about international trade. And the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement? You got to be kidding; there’s next to no facts-based understanding of what it is and how it affects Oregon’s economy — positively or negatively,” Davis says.
TPP opponent Michael Shannon of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign argues that just the opposite is true.
“The public isn’t responding to the politicians, the politicians are responding to the public,” Shannon says.
“People are tired of stagnant wages and increasing inequality, and previous trade deals have shipped good paying jobs with benefits overseas,” says Shannon, whose organization includes labor, environmental and social justice organizations.
Shannon and other opponents point to a recent study by the United States International Trade Commission that says some manufacturing jobs would be lost because of the TPP, although other sectors of the economy, like agriculture, would benefit.
Davis confirms his company’s polls are finding deep public dissatisfaction with the economy.
“Nearly half of Oregonians believe that America has gotten the short end of the stick, perhaps in a nod of agreement with Trump and {img:116920}Sanders about the exportation of manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs that once served as the backbone of our economy. Many of these same people are not considering, because they’re not aware, the benefits of international trade such as lower prices and the availability of a wider range of goods and services,” he says.
A 2013 study by the Value of Jobs Coalition found that $20 billion worth of Oregon goods and services were exported in 2012. There were 490,000 jobs tied directly or indirectly to international trade that year, up 20,000 from 2010. And the amount of Oregon’s trade-related employment grew 7.5 times faster than total employment between 2004 and 2011, said the study, which was supported by such business groups as the Portland Business Alliance and the Port of Portland.
The TPP is an agreement between the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. According to Badger, seven of Oregon’s top 11 export markets were on this list in 2015, and they accounted for nearly half of all of Oregon’s export value that year.
“The export of Oregon goods and services will only increase if we can reform the rules and reduce the tariffs with our major trading partners,” Badger says.
Shannon counters that the biggest companies, such as Nike, benefit most from such deals, not average workers.
Because of the political climate, some observers believe President Obama will ask the lame-duck session of Congress to approve the TPP after the November general election.
Several growers in Northeast Oregon are accusing the Westland Irrigation District of cheating them out of water to benefit larger farms.
A federal complaint claims the district unconstitutionally deprived the plaintiffs of water and seeks $2.9 million in damages as well as an injunction requiring the Westland Irrigation District to enforce the plaintiff’s water rights and properly deliver water.
Plaintiffs include ELH LLC, Oregon Hereford Ranch LLC, Paul Gelissen, Maurice and Lucy Ziemer, Frank Mueller, Craig and Cynthia Parks and Richard and Kristine Carpenter.
Mike Wick, the district’s general manager, said it would premature for him to discuss the lawsuit.
“Our board hasn’t had a chance to meet to discuss the complaint,” he said.
The Westland Irrigation District will hold a special executive session about the litigation that’s scheduled for July 5 in Echo, Ore.
According to the complaint, the district “facilitated large scale theft” over the past six years from 10 farms with senior water rights, which own between 58 acres and 837 acres each, to deliver water to three operations with more than 5,000 acres.
The lawsuit claims those three farms with junior water rights — L&L Farms, Eagle Ranch and Amstad Farms — diverted more water than they were allowed.
The district used several methods to make the overpumping possible, including fraudulent accounting and improper contracts, the complaint said.
“Defendant’s misappropriation of plaintiffs’ senior water rights has deprived plaintiffs of the opportunity to double crop their farms and shifted that lucrative opportunity to junior water rights holders in violation of Oregon water rights law.”
Capital Press was unable to reach a representative of L&L Farms as of press time.
David Prior, whose family owns of Eagle Ranch, said he hadn’t heard about the litigation.
“We don’t have any information because we’re not in the lawsuit, so I can’t comment,” he said.
Skeeter Amstad, whose family owns Amstad Farms, said it’s too early for him to comment on the lawsuit but said his company is transparent in its water use and has done nothing wrong.
“We work extremely hard to get water through all the legal channels,” he said.
Dixie Echeverria, co-owner of plaintiff ELH LLC, said she was alerted to the problem when her company didn’t receive all the water to which it was entitled during the spring.
Westland Irrigation District didn’t provide answers to her questions and the Oregon Water Resources Department’s local watermaster refused to intervene in the dispute, she said.
The lawsuit was filed to ensure senior water rights in the district are protected, Echeverria said.
Litigation filed by farmers against their own irrigation district is rare, according to an Oregon water law attorney who didn’t want to be named.
An irrigation district’s board of directors is supposed to ensure proper water allocations, but these governing bodies are often dominated by the largest landowners, the attorney said. “That’s potentially a problem.”
If the board’s directors refuse to take action or are accused of wrongdoing themselves, farmers have few alternatives aside from litigation, the attorney said.
State watermasters regulate at the point of diversion from a public water source, but they aren’t involved in internal water distribution, the attorney said. “They leave that to the district to manage.”
