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.

CORVALLIS — Oregon State University's 147th commencement ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 11, at Reser Stadium, in Corvallis, and some local area students will be receiving their diplomas. Coos County students were listed May 23.

PORT ORFORD — A Tuesday concert by the Port Orford-Langlois School District's student bands will showcase the revitalization of the district's music programs thanks to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation.

BURNS, Ore. — If wildfires erupt in the dry range and timber of southeast Oregon or southwest Idaho again this summer, firefighters will have a ready-made place to rest, shower, eat and stage for suppression work.

Crane Union High School, one of a handful of public boarding schools in the U.S., signed a contract to allow Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service firefighters to use its facilities. Firefighters will be able to sleep in the school’s dorms, shower, eat in the cafeteria and even shoot hoops in the school gym, Crane Union Superintendent Matt Hawley said. Firefighters will be able to park trucks, tanker and dozers on the school grounds, as well. Usually, crews live in tents while staging to fight fires.

The contract pays for use of the facilities for a minimum of 14 days, even if crews don’t stage there, Hawley said. The district will be compensated for any additional days of use beyond the initial two weeks, he said.

Like most small school districts, Crane Union could use the money, Hawley said.

“We’ve lost population out here so this is a partnership that benefits both entities,” he said. “It generates some revenue.”

The school will be available to firefighters from June 10 to Aug. 6, after which the district needs to get ready for the 2016-17 school year.

In a news release, the BLM said the staging area will put teams and equipment in a strategic location to fight fires in Southeast Oregon, Southwest Idaho and Northern Nevada. Public safety remains the top priority, but crews also will be pre-positioned to protect sage grouse habitat in the Burns and Vale BLM districts and nearby communities, BLM Fire Operations Specialist Sam DeLongsaid in a prepared statement.

Crane Union is 30 miles east of Burns. The district has 54 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and 52 students in grades nine through 12. Boarding is available for the high school aged students, and 28 students lived in the dorm this past year. The high school draws from elementary schools in a 10,000 square mile area, Superintendent Hawley said. Of the 28 boarders, 10 come from families in which the parents also were boarding school students, he said.

RICHLAND, Wash. — Washington cherry growers have good opportunity for exports after California fell short of its export norm.

California finished cherry sales over the Memorial Day weekend of a crop cut in half by rain damage. That and a strong dollar diminishing foreign buying power held California cherry exports this season to about 25 percent of the crop, B.J. Thurlby, Northwest Cherry Growers president in Yakima, said at the Five State Cherry Commission meeting in Richland, May 25. In the past, California has exported 50 percent, he said.

“Washington should have good opportunity for exports,” Thurlby said.

Early California districts around Bakersfield usually have a high percentage of exports with the Brooks variety, but rain reduced quality and kept exports down, said Tate Mathison, sales desk director at Stemilt Growers, Wenatchee. The company’s subsidiary, Chinchiolo Stemilt California, in Stockton, picks, packs and markets California cherries.

The Pacific Northwest, chiefly Washington, exported 5.9 million, 20-pound boxes of cherries, 30.7 percent of its crop, in 2015. The estimated gross wholesale value was $284.5 million, according to Northwest Cherry Growers 2015 annual report.

With domestic sales, the crop totaled 19.3 million boxes worth $826.7 million.

Canada was the top export market at 1.9 million boxes valued at $91.7 million. China with Hong Kong was second at 1.7 million boxes for $86.9 million.

Other top markets: South Korea, 761,000 boxes; Taiwan, 406,000; Mexico, 238,000; Japan, 233,000; Australia, 145,000; and United Kingdom, 119,425.

Northwest Cherry Growers budgets $1.7 million on export promotions and the priorities are China, Korea, Southeast Asia and Mexico, said Keith Hu, Northwest Cherry Growers international program director.

Japan, Taiwan, the UK, Europe, Australia and Brazil are not great priorities because of exchange rates, poor economies and the “timing of our product this year,” Hu said.

Taiwan is a “problematic” market because of lack of buying power, minimum residue levels of pesticides and its maturity as a market, he said.

“We have over 3,200 retail stores in the world committed to promoting Northwest cherries,” Hu said.

Roadblocks are strength of the U.S. dollar, global economic slowdown and price pressure from Turkish cherries “overflowing” into Western Europe and China, he said.

“We could have a short window of opportunity in Europe this year. Three shippers have plans to go in. We haven’t finalized European promotions yet,” Hu said.

A federal appeals court has dealt a serious blow to an already-struggling wind energy project in Oregon’s Harney County that would give local ranchers an economic boost.

Though the 100-megawatt wind energy project would have been built on private ranchland, the 12-mile transmission line necessary to connect turbines with the power grid would have to cross public property.

That triggered an environmental analysis that has now been deemed unlawful by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, largely due to a wintertime sighting of sage grouse in the area.

Approval for the project was originally granted by U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2011, but the litigation by environmental groups and the dropping price of renewable energy have delayed installation of the wind turbines indefinitely.

Due to the uncertainty caused by the lawsuit, filed by the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Audubon Society of Portland, a power-buying agreement secured by project developer Columbia Energy Partners was canceled.

The proposal now has another impediment to overcome due to the 9th Circuit ruling, which found that BLM failed to properly examine the impact on sage grouse, a former candidate for Endangered Species Act protection.

Proponents of the wind project initially prevailed in court when U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled in 2013 that BLM had complied with the National Environmental Policy Act in assessing its environmental effects.

The 9th Circuit has reversed that decision, holding that BLM wrongly concluded the wind turbine site wouldn’t be occupied by the sage grouse over winter.

Contrary to BLM’s extrapolation, the “wind-swept character” of the site that “makes it ideal for wind-energy generation” also indicated it can be used by the bird because “snow there may be blown off sagebrush and exposed for grouse to eat,” the ruling said.

A sighting of sage grouse near the site in February undermines the agency’s assumption that the area was too snowy to provide habitat for the bird, the appellate court found.

“And with the impacts on sage grouse not properly established, the BLM did not know what impacts to mitigate, or whether the mitigation proposed would be adequate to offset damage to wintering sage grouse,” the opinion said.

Members will vote on June 7 whether to merge Wilco’s farm supply business with Hazelnut Growers of Oregon’s processing facilities.

The boards of directors of the two Oregon cooperatives have already approved the combination, which they believe would create “synergies,” such as spreading administrative costs across additional business units.

Doug Hoffman, Wilco’s CEO, said the merger would further diversify his cooperative, insulating it from the ups and downs experienced by any one sector.

“It has served us well over the years not to have all our eggs in one basket,” he said. “It spreads our risk.”

Apart from its seven agronomy centers, which sell fertilizers and pesticides, Wilco also provides fuel services and owns 15 retail stores, with total annual revenues of about $220 million.

Wilco’s consumer-oriented farm stores are currently growing faster than its farmer-focused supply business, so the merger provides an opportunity to provide more services to grower-members, Hoffman said.

“It’s more of a vertical integration,” he said.

The merger would also provide HGO with more financial stability when the cooperative must cope with volatile hazelnut volumes or prices.

HGO is considering relocating from its current facility in Cornelius, Ore., to a plant that’s more geographically accessible, so the combined balance sheet will help with that investment.

The existing processing facility owned by HGO is food-grade and shells nuts, but needs a quality upgrade to better serve the domestic market, said Hoffman. “It needs to be bigger and more automated.”

The two cooperatives have scouted a location for the new facility near Donald, Ore., and are in negotiations with the property owner, but plans to build the plant in time for the 2018 harvest are contingent on the merger’s approval, he said.

Members of Wilco currently earn equity in the cooperative based on their purchases, while those in HGO gain equity based on hazelnut deliveries.

Those two modes of earning equity — and thus dividends — would remain distinct under the merged cooperative.

“Two separate pools, two separate checks,” Hoffman said.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, the two would simply merge and no money would change hands.

The current CEO of HGO, Jeff Fox, would head the hazelnut unit and report to Hoffman, who would be at the helm of the combined cooperative.

Roughly half of the 150 farmers who belong to HGO are already members of Wilco, which has 3,000 members in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and was created in 1967 from the merger of four smaller cooperatives.

The two companies have 900 employees combined, though some administrative positions will likely be eliminated if the merger is completed as planned in August and some of HGO’s office functions are eventually shifted to Wilco’s headquarters in Mt. Angel, Ore.

While Wilco’s current agronomy stations wouldn’t likely begin cleaning or processing hazelnuts, they may serve as transfer stations for the crop during harvest.

Wilco and HGO currently each have a nine-member board of directors, with farmer Ben Coleman serving on both boards. The combined board would have 17 members, which would be whittled down to 12 as they come up for re-election.

PORTLAND — A tiny Eastern Oregon school has an invitation for Portland high school students: Come stay with us for a semester and learn about ag and science.

The program, which will begin next school year with eight Portland girls visiting the first semester and eight Portland boys arriving for second semester, is a deliberate attempt to span the urban-rural divide. And Oregon does not get more rural than the Burnt River School in Unity, Ore., about 50 miles east of John Day.

The Burnt River School District has a single building, a K-12 charter school. In the 2015-16 school year — they’re already out for the summer — the district had 34 students. Fielding an eight-man football team last fall required an allegiance with Prairie City School. Cattle ranching is the primary way to make a living in the area.

District Superintendent Lorrie Andrews also serves as school principal, teaches personal finance and careers, helps seniors with their portfolios and advises the yearbook kids. She’s been there 30 years. “Time for me to go, huh?” she jokes.

She’s been working on Burnt River’s invitation to Portland for a couple of years, with noteworthy help from state Rep. Greg Smith, a Republican from Heppner, state Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican from Ontario, and Baker County Commissioner Mark Bennett. Now they are ready to try it.

“It is something we’ve thought a lot about,” Andrews said. Burnt River has a “great school and an excellent staff,” she said, but the district’s enrollment has declined for several years. Twenty-eight of the school’s 34 students are high school age.

“We were just thinking we need to think outside the box, so to speak,” Andrews said.

Over the May 21-22 weekend, Portland Public Schools sent an email to its high school families, telling them of the opportunity to take part in the Burnt River Integrated Agriculture/Science Research Ranch program, or BRIARR.

On Monday, May 23, Andrews responded to 23 emails about the program. A bunch more arrived Tuesday.

Portland students will get a semester of hands-on learning in what Burnt River describes as a “variety of natural resource settings.” They’ll learn about animal production science, sustainable rangeland science and forest restoration studies, and do water quality monitoring with the Powder Basin Watershed Council.

She said it made sense to extend the invitation to Portland, by far the state’s largest urban center. The city has more than 49,000 students in 78 schools, including 10 high schools.

“We were thinking there probably are students out there who would enjoy a rural experience and a small school experience at the same time,” Andrews said. “I think it’s a way to bridge that divide. I think there are a lot of misconceptions in both directions. I think we can all learn from one another. Kids are usually open to that.”

Attracting more students helps the district’s budget. The Oregon Department of Education pays school districts a standard per-student amount of $7,100, and that funding will follow the Portland students to Burnt River School. The students will be hosted by local parents, but the details haven’t been finalized.

Andrews said the district is engaged in a number of alternative ways to stay viable. The school became a charter school so it could offer “distance learning,” and attract students outside the district who attend class by Skype, the on-line system. The district also has successfully hosted a number of foreign exchange students over the years, Andrews said.

Burnt River partners with other institutions. Blue Mountain Community College, in Pendleton, put on a short-term welding class for Burnt River kids. Welding, GPS use and small engine maintenance will be offered as mini-courses next year, and Andrews hopes to have a mobile livestock artificial insemination lab visit the school. She’s talking to Treasure Valley Community College about an equine science unit.

Students can take college credit courses, and the district pays for it, she said.

“It’s important,” Andrews said. “It’s a priority for the school board to have students prepared to go on, even though we’re so rural.”

The district will interview applicants in June, looking for students who will be the right fit for Unity, population 75.

“If it’s important to you to spend a lot of time at the shopping mall or the movies, this isn’t the place for you,” Andrews said. “Because that’s not where we are.”

Application forms and a brochure are available on the district’s website: http://burntriver.k12.or.us/home

THE DALLES, Ore. — The pump is on for the first time this season but things aren’t working. Alejandro Rojas, Lonnie Wright’s foreman and friend for 20 years at The Pines 1852 vineyard, says there isn’t enough pressure to water the grapes up on the slope: the Syrah, the Merlot, the “Young Zin” and, of course, the Old Vine Zinfandel that grows at the heart of Lonnie’s story.

Wright doesn’t like what he’s hearing. Truth is, he’s fuming. He says there must be a leak in the system. He wants Rojas and two other employees to chop a path down to Mill Creek to see if there’s a problem in the pipe down there.

Rojas demurs; he has other options to check first. And besides, he just had a bout with poison oak and doesn’t savor crashing through brush to examine the creek pipe.

“You got a machete?” Wright asks. “I’ll do it.” And next thing he’s rummaging through a tool shed, muttering, looking in vain for a machete and grabbing a couple of big clippers instead.

Wright, 67, bears the ruddy look of someone who works outdoors, with a thick mustache and salt and pepper hair swept back from his forehead. He’s the acknowledged daddy of wine in the Columbia River Gorge, a pioneer on the level of the visionaries who made the Willamette Valley an internationally acclaimed producer of Pinot noir.

He’s planted, planned or consulted on hundreds of acres of vineyards on both sides of the river from Hood River, Ore., east to Maryhill, Wash., a region that includes two American Viticultural Areas and produces robust reds, delicate whites and boasts of “a world of wine in 40 miles.”

Other vineyard owners call him mentor, advocate and friend. In 2011, the Oregon Wine Board gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. He was nominated by his peers.

But right now he’s just another dirt farmer dealing with a dang problem. The issue is resolved a few minutes later when Rojas, the vineyard foreman, finds a closed valve on an irrigation well. Water soon flows to the drip lines strung through the legacy vines up on the hill, and Lonnie Wright is smiling again.

Columbia River Gorge wine is on a roll. Vineyards, wineries and tasting rooms dot the towns that line the river and now compete with orchard stands and brew pubs for tourists. Increasingly, the region is tapping the big Portland market on the shoulder and reminding wine lovers that Interstate 84 through the Gorge is a much quicker drive than creeping out Oregon 99W to the Pinot noir vineyards of Yamhill County. An April “Portland Grand Tasting” held in the city’s posh Pearl District was packed with people eager to sample gorge wines. In the meantime, Wine Press Northwest, an insider trade publication, named Hood River’s Mount Hood Winery as its 2016 Oregon Winery of the Year.

The Gorge itself, a National Scenic Area known for its massive basalt formations and dazzling waterfalls, is part of the attraction and is key to the variety of wines grown in the region. The river bisects the spine of the Cascade Mountain Range, which divides Oregon and Washington into western wet and eastern dry sides. Wine enthusiasts like to say the region loses an inch of rain with every mile traveled east.

The west side of the Hood River Valley gets 36 inches of precipitation annually, while only 15 inches falls in The Dalles and only 10 beyond that.

As a result, the region produces at least 40 types of wine from grapes that grow in a wide range of heat and water, from Zinfandel, Merlot and Pinot noir to Pinot gris, Riesling and Chardonnay.

For winemakers, the Gorge represents the “blessing and challenge” of a diverse American Viticultural Area, said Mark Chien, program coordinator of the Oregon Wine Research Institute at Oregon State University.

“They are well on their way to making great wine,” Chien said. “It’s sort of like where the Willamette Valley was 25 years ago: You figure out what the heck you’ve got and what to do about it.”

That might have been Lonnie Wright’s line 34 years ago as he stood on a slope above Mill Creek a few miles southwest of The Dalles. He’d heard — through the grapevine, if you will — that an orchardist planned to revive an 8-acre, century-old Zinfandel vineyard that had been abandoned for about 20 years. Wright showed up unbidden at 7 a.m. and found the orchardist literally reading from a University of California-Davis pruning textbook.

Wright grew up in Indiana, where he earned a scholarship and played guard on Butler University’s basketball team and figured he’d most likely teach and coach hoops. But the call of the road eventually led by way of Central America to the Pacific Northwest, where in 1978 he found himself part of a crew planting the first vineyards at Columbia Crest, a winery owned by Chateau Ste. Michelle in Paterson, Wash. He learned he had a knack for the work, soaked up information, became a manager and supervised the first harvest.

The road called again, however, and he went off for the first of two trips to Libya to install irrigation systems — adventures that seem crazy given the current state of affairs in the Middle East. In 1982 he was back in the Gorge, starting a family with his wife, Linda, and the idea of getting in on the start of reviving the old vineyard appealed to him.

The rest is Gorge lore. The long-neglected vineyard apparently is among the oldest in the Pacific Northwest. Wright learned it was planted by a stonemason, Louis Comini, probably between 1890 and 1900. Comini also made the headstones placed at the local Catholic cemetery, built a couple of stone houses in The Dalles and worked on The Grotto, a Catholic shrine in Portland.

Early photos, one dated 1910, show the Old Zin vines weren’t grown on a trellis system but were “head-trained on the ground,” essentially grown like low bushes. The method provided protection against freezing but left grapes susceptible to bunch rot.

Wright revitalized the Old Vine Zin and eventually bought the vineyard and adjoining property, which among other iterations had once been a dairy. Today the wine made from the old block is highly praised by connoisseurs and sells for $35 a bottle at The Pines 1852 tasting room Wright opened in Hood River.

He also started a “Young Zin” block from Old Zin cuttings 25 years ago, and planted Merlot and Syrah grapes as well. In 1983 he planted a Chardonnay vineyard for a neighbor along Mill Creek, veterinarian and beef cattle rancher Terry McDuffee. From that first job, he emerged as the go-to consultant, cheerleader and vineyard manager among people likewise drawn to the prospects of growing grapes and making wine in the dramatic landscape framed by the Columbia River, Mount Hood and Mount Adams.

Bob Morus, president of Phelps Creek Vineyards in Hood River, tells a familiar story. Arriving in the Gorge in the late 1980s, he learned Wright was the “guru” to ask about starting a vineyard.

Wright “came up to the place and kicked the dirt,” and asked Morus what type of grapes he wanted to grow. Morus answered Pinot noir, then becoming Oregon’s signature grape.

“I suppose we can do that,” Wright drawled, but he cautioned that he’d not planted Pinot noir before. Wright and his crew planned and planted the first eight acres. Phelps Creek has expanded over the years and its wines enjoy a sterling reputation with reviewers.

“He got me going and we’ve remained friends ever since,” Morus said. He jokes that he eventually had to “fire” Wright “because I needed to make my own mistakes.”

A break came when King Estates of Eugene, one of the state’s largest and most prominent wineries, came looking for grapes. Wright was friends with the late Brad Biehl, King Estates’ viticulturist, and introduced him to Morus and others who became King’s suppliers.

“The combination of Brad and Lonnie really bootstrapped grape growing in the Gorge,” Morus said. The company liked what it found and paid promptly, critical to the beginning Gorge vineyards.

“All those formative years sucked us into growing more grapes,” Morus said with a laugh. “It really helped us get established.”

Morus said Wright also pressed for recognition of the Gorge within Oregon’s wine industry.

“He’s such a strong advocates for grapes in the Gorge,” he said. “It was really a struggle to get the Oregon Wine Board to recognize people were growing grapes somewhere other than in the Willamette Valley.

“When they write the history of the Gorge, they’ll need to talk about Lonnie.”

Privately, some people familiar with Oregon agriculture say the wine industry distances itself from other forms of farming. The new people who arrived to grow grapes and make wine often came from other professional backgrounds, and relations with Oregon’s traditional farmers sometimes are stiff or frosty.

Wright bridges the gap, in part because he’s an active member of Oregon Farm Bureau. He was a state board member and headed the Wasco County chapter.

Wright shrugs off praise for connecting the two sides. He says OFB is a valuable organization for dealing with legislation and regulatory agencies.

“There are things we have to keep an eye out for,” he said. “There are a lot of city people and not very many farm people.”

He’s managing about 10 vineyards this year. In addition, he’s helped his foreman, Rojas, establish his own business as a vineyard manager by taking on a challenging site in Rufus, Ore.

Tap him and he’ll expound on rooting systems, various trellis methods, soil traits and the best slopes for catching sun on late-harvesting grapes. He still loves laying out vineyard plans on paper, figuring out irrigation systems and seeing it all come together in a fine glass of wine.

And he’s beginning to savor his own legacy, writing the history of The Pines 1852, the Old Vine Zin and how Gorge wine grew. Among other things, the Lifetime Achievement Award he received seems to improve with age, kind of like wine.

“I am proud of that,” he said. “Especially for a flatland boy from Indiana.”