COOS BAY — Last school year, about 25 percent of South Coast students were chronically absent.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Another lone wolf recently passed through Central Oregon, following a path similar to the one blazed by OR-7, a wolf made famous by his wandering.

But like OR-7 and three other wolves tracked by collar in the past five years, OR-28 appears to not be interested in establishing a territory in Central Oregon.

Since coming from northeast Oregon last month, she is so far sticking south of Silver Lake — the dry lake, not the town — in Lake County, said Russ Morgan, state wolf coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in La Grande.

Why collared wolves have only passed through Central Oregon so far and not stayed is unknown, he said. “Collar data only tells, ‘The wolf was here at this point in time.”’

And the data is from a small sample size. Oregon has at least 81 wolves, according to a Department of Fish and Wildlife tally from the end of 2014. Most are found in the northeast corner of the state. Less than 20 percent of the wolves have tracking collars, estimated John Stephenson, Oregon wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said people should not read too much into the collar data showing wolves passing up on Central Oregon territories.

“We also know there are other wolves that don’t have (GPS or) radio collars running around, and we don’t know their paths,” he said.

The collar data do show that wolves seem to avoid the population centers of Central Oregon, such as Bend, Redmond and Madras. Drawn on a map, the paths of OR-7 and OR-28 show the wolves turning south when they came close to Pine Mountain, about 30 miles southeast of Bend.

Both wolves were likely dissuaded from staying in Central Oregon by human activity and bright city lights at night, Stephenson said. That’s not to say other wolves might not eventually find a home here, though, particularly in the forested mountains.

“I think the Cascades of Central Oregon are good wolf habitat and they will occupy that area, but they have to get around Bend and Redmond to do that,” he said.

So far, at least one wolf, OR-25, is known to have passed though the Central Oregon Cascades earlier this year, although he kept going south.

Of the collared wolves to disperse, or leave their packs, from northeast Oregon, OR-25 is the only one so far to find trouble. In early November, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed he attacked three calves, killing one and wounding two others, on private land near the Upper Williamson River.

Efforts to keep him away from cattle since have been effective, Stephenson said Wednesday. They include lights and noise boxes as well as electrified fladry — flagging designed to deter wolves from going over a fence line. And state wildlife managers have fired cracker shotgun shells, which make a loud noise designed to spook animals.

OR-25 is spending less time near the pasture. “We’re hoping he’ll move somewhere else entirely, but he hasn’t done that yet,” Stephenson said.

While OR-25 and OR-28’s collars still are sending signals, the collars of OR-3 and OR-7 have blinked out.

Since September 2011, state and federal wildlife managers did not know what had become of OR-3, until a private trail camera captured a photo of him this July in the Cascades of northern Klamath County. The photo shows a wolf in the lower right corner of the frame. The black animal has a tracking color and an ear tag.

State officials used the color and location of the ear tag to determine the identity of the wolf.

“The only wolf that can be (is) OR-3,” Morgan said.

Farther south and west in the Cascades, OR-7 found a mate, a female who also dispersed from northeast Oregon and now is raising his second litter of pups.

Only time will tell whether more wolves follow OR-3 and OR-7 to the southern Cascades or decide to blaze their own paths to Central Oregon. In May 2014, another male wolf, OR-24, wandered into Central Oregon only to turn back and return to northeastern Oregon.

“We just have to be patient and wait for the wolves to tell us where they will be,” Morgan said.

The U.S. Forest Service could finalize its revised land management plans for the Blue Mountains National Forests by early 2017, following a year-long re-engagement process with the public.

The plans will essentially guide management decisions on the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur national forests for the next 10-15 years. While the documents do not approve any site-specific projects, they do set goals and desired conditions on approximately 4.9 million acres of public land.

Forest plans are supposed to be updated every 15 years to reflect changes in the landscape and science, though the current Blue Mountains Forest Plan is from 1990. Forest supervisors unveiled a draft version of the revised plan last year, which was met with criticism.

The negative feedback was so overwhelming that regional forester Jim Peña allowed more time in January to meet with stakeholders and find common ground on issues including road access, wilderness and commercial logging. Since then, the Forest Service has held public workshops across Eastern Oregon to hear new ideas and solutions.

Despite some continued rumblings, the supervisors say the input they’ve gathered has led them in a positive direction.

“Overall, the engagement process has helped us to better understand our public,” said Tom Montoya, supervisor on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. “There’s been folks on all sides of the issue who have provided really good comments to find some balance.”

However, Montoya admitted he was frustrated during a meeting Nov. 2 in La Grande, where nearly 200 people packed the Blue Mountain Conference Center. Tempers flared, and Montoya said he later heard from people who told him they felt threatened.

Norm Cimon, a retired Forest Service employee of 26 years, said the discussion was not closely moderated and broke down into a free-for-all.

“Given the anger that’s built up from the rhetoric that’s been thrown around, there’s going to have to be better management of these meetings,” Cimon said.

Cimon, who serves on the board of directors for Oregon Rural Action, a La Grande-based environmental nonprofit, said the tone was set by a letter from state Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, accusing the Forest Service of “bureaucratic ineptness.”

Re-engaging with the public is absolutely worthwhile, Cimon said, but he felt Barreto’s letter didn’t help the situation.

“I hate that kind of talk. I really do,” Cimon said.

In his letter, Barreto says, “The overreaching heavy hand of government continues to pursue its stranglehold on the rural parts of the state, our way of life and our pursuit of happiness.” He also wrote “The preservationists along with you, the federal government, are teaming up to keep local people from our public lands.”

In a separate interview, Barreto said he was unable to attend the meeting in person and was asked by his constituents in the forest access movement to write a letter. Barreto said he intentionally worded the letter the way he did to make a point about people’s distrust in the current administration.

Barreto did credit the Forest Service for re-engaging with the public, and said people need to speak passionately to make sure they are heard.

“If everyone goes to these meetings and speaks in blasé language, probably nothing comes out of it,” he said. “If there’s no passion in what you’re saying, then what you’re saying falls on deaf ears.”

Montoya said the feedback is heard, and will be used to evaluate potential changes to the proposed forest plans. But, he added, people need to make sure they are providing substantive comments backed by evidence.

“It’s really not a venting process. It’s about addressing issues,” Montoya said. “I think we’re making positive momentum, definitely.”

Montoya said the Nov. 2 meeting was an anomaly, and they could have done a better job facilitating such a large group.

Steve Beverlin, supervisor on the Malheur National Forest, said he has been happy with the turnout at meetings he attended. He said the passion in people’s arguments comes through much stronger in person than just reading them on paper.

“Some people want more wilderness, some people want less; some people want more timber harvest, some people want less; some people want more access, some people want less,” Beverlin said. “The key for me is providing a safe environment for people to voice those opinions.”

After the new year, Beverlin said there will be a meeting of the minds to evaluate what potential changes could be made to the proposed plan. Of course, there are legal sideboards, he said, and not all suggestions will be feasible.

The supervisors said they hope to have a final Environmental Impact Statement completed by the end of September. Barring any other setbacks, a final Record of Decision could be done by April 2017.

Two more public meetings are scheduled from 6-9 p.m., one on Monday, Dec. 14 in Clarkston, Washington, and one on Tuesday, Dec. 15 in North Powder.

“We need the public’s engagement and help for managing the public forests. That’s the bottom line,” Beverlin said.

COOS BAY — The Coos Bay School District's effort to overhaul its facilities could get a boost from the state through a new matching grant program.

COOS BAY — The Coos Bay School District's effort to overhaul its facilities could get a boost from the state through a new matching grant program.

A Baker County, Ore., cattle ranching couple who helped forge sage grouse habitat conservation agreements was honored during the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association annual conference Dec. 5-6.

Mark and Patti Bennett, of Unity, were given the 2015 Riley Freeman Award, named for a past OCA wildlife committee chairman who saw the need for cooperation between private landowners and the state and federal agencies that regulate wildlife and natural resources.

The award was jointly established and is presented annually by the OCA and ODFW.

In honoring the Bennetts, ODFW Director Curt Melcher praised them as “model stewards” of their cattle ranch. Like many other Eastern Oregon ranchers, the Bennetts signed a voluntary conservation agreement to maintain or improve habitat for greater sage grouse. Mark Bennett served on a rules advisory group that worked to balance the interests of landowners and regulatory officials.

“Bennett pushed for a reasonable approach to protecting sage grouse habitat while also protecting the economic viability of eastern Oregon and working lands,” ODFW said in a news release.

The voluntary agreements in Oregon were a model for other states, and were a key factor in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision in September to keep Greater sage-grouse off the endangered species list.

PORT ORFORD — The second annual "Seasonal Sensations,"a celebration of the holiday season's music and words, will feature the Cape Blanco Bell Ringers, the Pacific High School Musical Ensemble, Mary Morganti and her piano students, local musicians, poets, story tellers,…

PORT ORFORD — The second annual "Seasonal Sensations,"a celebration of the holiday season's music and words, will feature the Cape Blanco Bell Ringers, the Pacific High School Musical Ensemble…

NEWTON, Kan. (AP) — Kansas authorities say an Oregon man was urged to head home after he was spotted taking pictures of a wheat field wearing nothing “but a hat and a smile.”

The Harvey County sheriff’s office in Central Kansas says the man was first spotted Wednesday afternoon.

Sheriff T. Walton says authorities found the man four hours later — wearing boxers.

Walton said on the office’s Facebook page that an officer told the man and his friend that “Kansas is not as liberal as Oregon” and “suggested they continue their travels” back home.

Walton says it’s technically not illegal to be publicly naked in the county, as long as one is not trying to arouse oneself or others.

Walton added, “You know folks, you just can’t make this stuff up!”

The largest mountain snowfall of the season is expected to hit Western Oregon during the next six days, dropping snow on pass levels and bringing 20 to 40 inches of powder to the Cascade Range.

A system of cold air should transform the heavy rain into heavy snow above 4,000 feet, forecasters with the National Weather Service in Portland said, in a winter storm projected to last through the weekend.

Snow is expected to slam Willamette and Santiam passes with up to 10 inches of snow by Thursday evening. By Friday, the snow level is expected to drop to around 3,700 feet.

“This should be the biggest snow accumulation for the Cascades so far this year,” said Gerald Macke, a metrological technician with the NOAA. “We’re going to see wave after wave of moisture that’s not going to stop until next week, and above 4,000 feet, that should all fall as snow.”

The projected numbers — always to be taken with a grain of salt — are eye-popping.

Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood and Willamette Pass in the Central Cascades could see 20 to 40 inches, while Crater Lake National Park could get upwards of 50 inches by early next week.

PORTLAND — For the record, it is possible to find a job where you do your work while sitting in a yurt with a laptop and a sandwich. The yurt, it should be said, is on the third floor of a 100-year-old building in Portland’s Old Town, where street people provide rambling commentary and futilely shake parking pay stations for loose change.

Inside the old building, up to 400 employees of AirBNB, the international online vacation rental hub whose other offices are in San Francisco and Dublin, Ireland, take calls and emails from all around the world while perched in cubby holes, arranged in themed mini-offices or, yes, occupying the yurt.

But let’s talk about the sandwich.

The greens are from Portland’s Sauvie Island Organics. The ham is from Olympia Provisions, also of Portland, and the chutney was made in-house by AirBNB’s food team. The bread is from Pirate Bread, a North Portland startup.

All of which is intentional. AirBNB provides free breakfast, lunch and all-day snacks to its call center workers five days a week. As much as possible — bananas, orange juice, coffee and chocolate are among the few exceptions — the food is locally sourced. The baked kabocha squash? From Sauvie Island again. The portabella mushrooms? From Hood River, Ore. The maple-cashew-miso cream cheese? Made in-house. Craft beer and wine are available after work shifts, beginning at 5 p.m.

That’s just the casual soup, salad and sandwich bar. Four blocks away, behind an unmarked door along busy Burnside Street, AirBNB operates a full-blown restaurant for its employees. They’re encouraged to take a walk, grab a table and eat family style from shared platters. Again, free.

The employees, of course, eat it up.

Darcy Boles said free, healthy food is an “added, incredible bonus.” Her lunch table mate, Jeralyn Fix, said it’s the best perk of the job. The relaxed work atmosphere is somewhat like home, she said, and she feels free to get up and get a bowl of cereal anytime she likes.

Then there is James Evans Harvey, who on a recent day found a couch in the yurt to her liking. Evans Harvey worked one season for a CSA farmer and gained an appreciation for local food.

“I’m a new mom,” she said, “and for me it’s profoundly important to know the food going into my body and my baby’s body was grown, produced and made with a whole lot of love.”

AirBNB’s food service has a ripple effect, she said. The way she and other call takers interact with customers is “impacted by the way we’re treated here.” The work is “greatly enhanced by feeling we are home.”

The bigger ripple effect may be in the regional food system, especially among small producers and processors who operate relatively close to urban areas.

Kristin Arychuk, AirBNB’s culinary product and vendor lead in Portland, seeks out local farms and processors that can supply the greens, grains and finished goods needed to feed workers. She finds leads at farmers’ markets, looking for partners to provide ingredients and food that is seasonal and sustainable. AirBNB’s corporate culture encourages support of the local economy, she said.

“One of my main emphases is to make sure we ethically and wisely spend our money,” Arychuk said.

It’s a job that requires menu flexibility. “Yes we plan but no we don’t,” Arychuk said. “It’s dictated by what is great right now.”

The Portland center stresses sustainability in other ways as well. It eliminated canned beverages and the food team makes many drinks in-house. It employs re-usable totes, and snacks are delivered in bulk to avoid packaging. Leftover food is re-purposed, if possible, or donated to area missions that feed the homeless. “I feel pretty good about our waste structure,” Arychuk said.

Corporate cafes apparently started as a perk offered by high-tech firms that were competing for talented employees. A 2014 article online at Business Insider said Google had become the “gold standard of dining in Silicon Valley” by operating more than 30 free cafes for the estimated 20,000 employees at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Each cafe focused on using local ingredients, according to the article.

Big buyers such as AirBNB have the power to change the nature of the food system, said Amanda Oborne, vice president of food and farms for Ecotrust, a Portland nonprofit. Oborne was lead author of a report that examined how small to mid-size farms and processors can find success in Oregon’s regional food systems. The report noted that institutions such as schools, hospitals, care centers and jails serve 40 million meals annually, and that “ag of the middle” producers could find expanded markets if they can solve some transportation, warehousing, cold storage and aggregation problems.

Corporate cafes such as AirBNB’s have more money to spend than public institutions, and likewise can have a big impact by seeking out locally produced food and ingredients and “really putting their money where their mouth is,” Oborne said.

AirBNB’s action in Portland is a significant commitment to sourcing within the region, she said.

Buying from local producers requires give-and-take from both sides, she said. Corporate cafes have to work harder and be more flexible to find everything they need, and accept the seasonal ups and downs of supplies. For their part, small farmers and processors accustomed to being paid on delivery have to realize their payment will be delayed as it cycles through a company’s accounting system.

“There isn’t any way around it,” Oborne said. “They get paid, but not that day or the next day, but a couple weeks down the road.”

AirBNB employees, meanwhile, say the free, healthy and locally sourced food they’re being served is a more immediate reward.

Employee Phil Davis said he’s paid less at AirBNB than at a previous job, but the food helps bridge the gap.

“It’s like a hidden benefit in your paycheck,” he said.

GOLD BEACH — A Central Culinary Event was held in Gold Beach on Nov. 13 to connect local farmers, producers and buyers in the area.

GOLD BEACH — A Central Culinary Event was held in Gold Beach on Nov. 13 to connect local farmers, producers and buyers in the area.

Medford resident David Miles grumbles every year about having to turn his clocks forward in the spring and back again in the fall.

This year, Miles decided to respond differently by launching a ballot initiative Nov. 12 to end daylight-saving time in Oregon.

“I complain almost every time there is a time change and do nothing about it, and I didn’t want to be that guy anymore,” he said.

A month later, Miles has 20 volunteers in 15 Oregon towns and cities who have gathered nearly 1,000 signatures — a first step toward placing an initiative on the ballot. He said he expects to hit the 1,000-signature mark by mid-December.

Once the volunteers pass that hurdle, they’ll need to round up a total of 117,578 signatures to send the measure to voters in November.

The proposal abolishes daylight-saving in 2018 and allows voters in individual counties to opt out through an election. Miles added that provision with Malheur County in mind. That county already follows Mountain time to be uniform with neighboring Idaho.

“The fringe benefit is other counties can decide to stay on daylight-saving time, through general county election,” Miles said.

Changing clocks back and forth is disruptive to internal body clocks, sleep patterns and can even be dangerous, he said.

A 2014 study by University of Colorado at Boulder found that fatal traffic accidents spike by 17 percent on the Monday after clocks spring forward.

Daylight-saving began in the United States in 1918 to conserve electricity during the final days of World War I. It became a permanent ritual in 1966 with passage of the Uniform Time Act. The federal legislation was designed to end a confusing patchwork of different time zones in the country but allowed individual states to opt out. Arizona, Hawaii and some U.S. territories have chosen to stay on standard time.

Nowadays, the time change fails to accomplish the goal of saving energy, Miles said.

A University of California Berkeley study found that a two-month extension of daylight-saving time in Australia during the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 failed to curtail electricity demand.

Earlier this year, there were proposals in several states to end time changes by either remaining on daylight saving or adhering to standard time year-round, according to the Washington Post.

Oregon Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, introduced a bill in January that would have let voters to decide whether to abolish daylight saving in 2021.

Dozens of Oregonians testified in favor of the proposal.

Joanne DeWitt, one of those who submitted testimony, said daylight saving causes hazards while serving no purpose.

“I would like to see it go the way of other old dinosaurs,” DeWitt said.

The legislation stalled in the Senate Rules Committee. Some lawmakers were concerned about being out of sync with Washington and California, according to Thatcher’s office.

“I think once one state does it, the others will follow, and honestly, it isn’t that big of a deal,” Miles said “I have never heard people in Arizona say, ‘I hate being off time with Utah.’ They always laugh at the rest of the country at daylight-saving time.”

Albany resident Carrie Davis, one of the volunteer petitioners, said she has always hated daylight-saving time. Her opposition compounded when she had children.

“Now that I have kids, it is apparent to me when we try to change our daily schedule even by an hour, it is so impactful to our whole success through the day,” Davis said. “Trying to get a toddler to go to sleep an hour later or an hour earlier is just challenging, for a superficial social agreement we don’t need.”

The irrigation company that owns the dam at Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa Lake has temporarily withdrawn a water right application that is part of its plan to pay for rehabilitating the structure by selling some of the water from its increased storage capacity.

Associated Ditch Companies Inc., formed by five irrigation ditch companies that originally built the dam nearly 100 years ago, will renew its application to the state Water Resources Department in 2016, project manager Dave Hockett said.

The decision is another detour in a long-running community argument. Federal inspectors, citing the possibility of a breach, have restricted the dam operators to storing about 72 percent of the water it could potentially hold. Associated Ditch Companies, or ADC, maintains that rehab work will allow it to reach the dam’s previously authorized storage capacity, an estimated 12,000 acre feet more than is currently being stored.

The problem has been how to pay for the work, estimated to cost $15 million. ADC has proposed selling about 4,200 acre feet annually of the renewed storage capacity to downstream users. Buyers might include other irrigation outfits, industrial users or community water systems, Hockett said.

Farmers and others in the Umatilla Basin are pursuing ways to recharge aquifers and have expressed interest in drawing water from the Columbia River for that purpose. In the past, they’ve mentioned increased flow that might come from the Wallowa River if the dam is repaired. The Wallowa flows into the Minam River, which joins the Grand Ronde River, then into the Snake and finally the Columbia.

ADC’s plan to finance the repairs by selling water is opposed by community members who believe the water should be retained for local benefit.

The discovery of a bacterial disease, Xylella fastidiosa, has convinced Oregon’s farm regulators to order a quarantine restricting shipments of susceptible plants from nine counties.

The pathogen causes symptoms similar to drought stress and often kills affected plants, as no treatments are available, said Helmuth Rogg, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s plant program area.

A pear nursery in Hood River County first reported disease symptoms earlier this year, which researchers from Washington State University found were caused by Xylella fastidiosa, he said.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture was initially unable to replicate these results but eventually confirmed the bacteria’s presence after refining its test procedures, Rogg said.

The agency then found that pear trees from the National Clonal Germplasm Depository in Corvallis, Ore., were infected with the bacteria and that pear scion wood from that facility had been sent to 22 sites in the state, he said.

ODA is now trying to trace the disease’s source and where else infected plant material may have been shipped.

It’s also issued an emergency quarantine for the nine counties where the pear tree scions were shipped: Benton, Hood River, Jackson, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill. Violating the quarantine is punishable by fines of up to $10,000.

While the bacteria has so far been associated with pear trees, the quarantine prohibits shipments of any host plant material, including oak, maple, blackberry, caneberry, blueberry and stone fruit, said Rogg.

That restriction remains in place until either the counties are found free of the disease or the bacteria’s presence is determined not to exist at a particular nursery production site, he said.

If ODA nursery inspectors do detect the bacteria, affected plants must be destroyed and the surrounding 10 meters around them will be surveyed for further evidence of the pathogen.

Insects that suck sap from plants, such as the glassy-winged sharpshooter in California, are known vectors for the bacteria’s spread, Rogg said.

Disease caused by Xylella fastidiosa has devastated olive orchards in Italy and threatens California wine producers, he said.

Oregon’s climate has traditionally been considered too cold to harbor the bacteria, which is likely why it hasn’t been found in the state until now, he said. With the prospect of warming temperatures, however, the concern is that Xylella fastidiosa will be able to survive here.

The recent discovery will postpone shipments of plant material to Europe until ODA and the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are able to demonstrate the existence of pest-free areas or production sites, Rogg said.

Cort Brazelton, whose family runs the Fall Creek Farm & Nursery near Lowell, Ore., said he’s optimistic that ODA’s efforts will allow his company to ship blueberry plants to Europe next year.

“We feel confident we’ll be able to comply with all the requirements,” he said.

Brazelton said he’s happy to follow additional steps to ensure that Xylella fastidiosa doesn’t spread to customers in Europe.

“You’d always rather have no barriers but it’s important that individual counties that don’t want pathogens have reasonable protocols so that they don’t come in,” he said. “We do have to comply with the higher global standards because we ship all over the world.”

BEND, Ore. (AP) — As Oregon conservationists turn their attention to the monarch butterfly, field research has found that there are more of the colorful insects in the state than once thought.

The field research last summer by the U.S. Forest Service and volunteers found that Central Oregon is dotted with butterflies, The Bulletin reports. Researchers found 125 adult monarchs and more than 300 caterpillars. Before the data was collected, there were only four or five known spots for monarchs. The survey found about 30 sites.

“We basically put Central Oregon on the map for monarch butterfly conservation,” said Matt Horning, a geneticist with the U.S. Forest Service in Bend.

The new findings could help efforts to revive the species, which is being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Monarchs are known for their massive migrations, with the trip south for winter taking multiple generations. Some butterflies have been known to fly as far as from Mexico to the Midwest. The butterflies eventually make their way to coastal California before a new generation returns north.

Monarchs are found in Oregon from May to October.

Horning said he plans to further study monarchs in Central Oregon, potentially marking some to learn more about where they migrate.

Katya Spiecker, founder of the Monarch Advocates of Central Oregon, said monarchs are important because they are a good poster child for pollinators, such as bumblebees and wasps, and the problems they face.

“A lot of pollinators, their populations are dropping,” Spiecker said.

A federal agency has twice faulted the longshoremen’s union for unfair labor practices at the Port of Portland, but such rulings won’t directly restore container service at the facility, experts say.

Ocean carriers responsible for the majority of container traffic at the port, Hanjin and Hapag-Lloyd, stopped servicing the facility earlier this year due to low productivity.

The disruption has affected farmers who relied on Portland’s container terminal to export crops to Asia and now face higher shipping costs.

The National Labor Relations Board has found that since September 2012, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union operated cranes and trucks in a “slow and nonproductive manner,” among other actions, to force ocean carriers and the terminal operator to “cease doing business with the port.”

In a previous ruling, the NLRB also found that the union also engaged in earlier work slowdowns and stoppages during a dispute with the terminal operator, ICTSI Oregon.

These findings allow the agency to seek contempt sanctions against the union in federal court.

Capital Press was unable to reach an ILWU spokersperson for comment. Elvis Ganda, CEO of ICTSI Oregon, released a statement saying the union should “accept the validity” of the ruling and agree to restore productivity at the container terminal.

While the terminal operator has prevailed in these NLRB disputes, using these legal victories to actually bring ocean carriers back to Portland is a more complicated matter, experts say.

That’s because the NLRB has ruled that ILWU cannot engage in work slowdowns, but there’s currently almost no work with which to interfere at the container terminal.

“This is a very unusual scenario when it raises the point of enforcing the law,” said Michael LeRoy, a law professor specializing in labor relations at the University of Illinois.

For ICTSI, the NLRB rulings are more likely to serve as bargaining chips in its overall negotiations with the longshoremen’s union, LeRoy said.

The union, the port and the container terminal are also engaged in other litigation in federal court.

It’s possible that ICTSI will use legal victories as part of a public “tit for tat” with the longshoremen’s union but later “wipe the slate clean” so the terminal can again become operational, LeRoy said.

Terminal operators have not traditionally enforced such NLRB rulings to win monetary awards due to fear of creating “lifelong ill will” with the longshoremen’s union, said Jim Tessier, a labor relations consultant and former employee of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents terminals.

“They use it as a negotiating tool,” he said.

ICTSI would be wiser to drop the case against the union as a show of good faith rather than press for penalties, Tessier said. “That would mean the kiss of death for that company, in my humble opinion.”

Ocean carriers won’t return to the port unless they’re convinced the union and terminal operator have reconciled, he said.

ICTSI Oregon has a 25-year lease for the container terminal, so unless the company is willing to make amends with ILWU to restore service, it “will have a nice parking lot,” Tessier said.

Whether the NLRB is willing to seek financial damages or simply regards the legal victories as symbolic is a “wild card,” said LeRoy.

The agency has won major awards in the past, such as a $64 million against a miner’s union for staging illegal pickets, he said.

In that case, however, the pickets were directly preventing the movement of trucks, LeRoy said. At the Port of Portland, the agency would have to prove that ILWU’s actions drove ocean carriers away.

“That is harder to demonstrate,” he said.

The prohibition against genetically engineered crops in Jackson County, Ore., will be allowed to stand if a proposed settlement is finalized, barring a new legal challenge to the ordinance.

Voters in the county approved the ban last year, which prompted alfalfa growers Schulz Family Farms and James and Marilyn Frink to file a lawsuit claiming the ordinance violated Oregon’s “right to farm” law.

In May, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke rejected their argument, finding that the “right to farm” statute is intended to protect growers from lawsuits and ordinances against common farming practices, but it exempts farmers who want to avoid damage to their crops.

“While farming practices may not be limited by a suburbanite’s sensitivities, they may be limited if they cause damage to another farm’s crops,” Clarke said in the ruling.

While the plaintiffs lost this argument, they still sought more than $4 million for the lost value of the biotech alfalfa crops they’d have to destroy when the ordinance went into effect.

Also, the growers would eventually be able to challenge Clarke’s “right to farm” ruling before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals once the original lawsuit was closed.

They’ve now agreed to give up that right and drop their other claims against Jackson County under a proposed settlement that would in turn allow their alfalfa to stay in the ground, but for no longer than eight years.

While other farmers are not bound by the agreement, which must still be approved by the judge, any future lawsuits would have to “grapple” with the finding that the ordinance complies with Oregon’s “right to farm” law, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety, which was involved in the litigation.

“This settlement preserves their victory,” he said.

It’s unclear whether the biotech industry would want to pursue a new challenge against the ordinance, Kimbrell said.

Shannon Armstrong, attorney for the plaintiffs, said they decided to agree to the proposed settlement because it would safeguard their investment in biotech alfalfa.

Altogether, the two farms planted more than 300 acres of alfalfa that’s resistant to glyphosate herbicides, which makes weed control easier.

“For us, it lifts a cloud of uncertainty,” said Armstrong.

Most local governments in Oregon are pre-empted from regulating biotech crops under a law passed in 2013 that exempted Jackson County because its proposed ban had already been approved for the ballot.

However, litigation is also pending over a similar prohibition passed in neighboring Josephine County in 2014.

Proponents of that ordinance plan to argue that Oregon’s biotech pre-emption statute is unconstitutional, according to court documents.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Portland area was in line for a second soaking Tuesday after heavy rains turned streets into creeks, wreaked havoc on mass transit and forced the evacuation of at least one neighborhood.

Monday’s flooding caused the closure of numerous roads, and heavy rains triggered landslides.

The 24-hour accumulation at Portland International Airport set a record for December. More than 3.3 inches of rain fell in the 24-hour span that ended Monday at 2 p.m. Parts of the Coast Range got even more.

Light rain fell early Tuesday and forecasters expect the region to get soaked later in the day and again Wednesday night.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for much of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington. It’s in effect through Thursday afternoon, but rain likely won’t stop until the week’s end.

The rains are caused by several low-pressure systems moving through the region, one after the other, forecasters said.

The downpours had officials evacuating a neighborhood in Clackamas County, and the American Red Cross opened a shelter there. Several school districts sent students home early Monday and the Oregon Zoo also closed.

A big sinkhole developed in a street in Gresham, a Portland suburb, where crews were also pumping water from an elementary school in Gresham.

The parking lot at Multnomah Falls, a popular tourist stop in the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, was closed after a creek overflowed its banks.

In Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, several cars were stranded in high water.

The rain also caused Portland’s sewer system to overflow into the Willamette River. Officials said people should avoid contact with the river for at least 48 hours because of bacteria in the water.

Officials say residents should avoid traveling and should watch for flash floods, mudslides, falling trees and power outages. They are also advised to keep children and pets away from floodwaters and avoid walking and driving through high water. Residents whose property is at risk for flooding should use sandbags.