2015 Prefontaine Memorial Run

0-9 Female: 1. Analise Miller, Bandon, Ore., 58:33; 2. Millee Brick, Coos Bay, Ore., 1:31:41.

0-9 Female: 1. Analise Miller, Bandon, Ore., 58:33; 2. Millee Brick, Coos Bay, Ore., 1:31:41.

Marty Myers, the general manager of a diversified dairy and crop farm in Boardman, Ore., has been appointed to the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

The company he operates, Threemile Canyon Farms, has about 50,000 cows and also raises potatoes and organic produce on more than 90,000 acres in the Columbia River Basin.

“I’ve got a diverse background in agriculture,” said Myers, noting that he worked on farms through high school and college.

Myers said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown asked him to join the advisory board, which makes policy recommendations for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, due to his past experience with task forces on dairy air quality and biotechnology, as well as his involvement in international trade programs.

“I try to find solutions rather than take hard line positions,” he said.

The appointment is not without controversy, however.

Friends of Family Farmers, a group that advocates for environmentally responsible agriculture, criticized Brown’s choice as misguidedly bending to corporate farming.

“For us, it shows the governor wants to take agriculture in the direction of industrialization,” said Ivan Maluski, the group’s policy director.

Maluski said Threemile Canyon Farms isn’t representative of sustainable farming in Oregon because it’s a “mega-operator” that causes air pollution and generates large amounts of manure.

It’s also concerning that Myers will be able to guide ODA policies that affect his company, which could create a conflict of interest, said Maluski. “They don’t need special access.”

Myers said it was offensive to label his operation as a “factory farm,” as it’s run by two families.

“It’s a group of families that have come together and we’re farming,” he said.

The dairy has a digester that captures methane from manure and turns it into renewable energy, Myers said. “When you look at air quality, we’re very proud of what we do.”

The company employs 300 full-time employees and is regularly subject to customer audits to ensure animal welfare and other best practices, he said. “Large does not mean it’s bad. It gives the critical mass to do things the right way.”

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The power company PacifiCorp is asking Oregon to change green power rules so as to reduce contract lengths and lower the amount of renewable power it is required to accept.

The Bulletin in Bend reports that the company has asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission to lower contract terms for qualified renewable power generators from 15 years to three. It has also requested to lower the limit on renewable power projects that the utility must connect to its system from 10 megawatts to 100 kilowatts.

Critics of the request say it will stifle growth of renewable energy sources by making them difficult to finance.

PacifiCorp officials argue that the fixed-price, long-term contracts don’t work with the short-term nature of the energy market.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service is planning to cut down trees that are encroaching on meadowland at Marys Peak.

The Statesman Journal reports timber company Georgia Pacific is paying over $175,000 to harvest about 3,000 trees Tuesday in the popular recreation area east of Corvallis.

Retired Siuslaw National Forest ecologist Cindy McCain is a member of the Corvallis-based Marys Peak Alliance who says noble fir reduce meadowland by about a half meter each year. The tree growth has fractured what was a single meadow in 1948, impacting habitat and views.

Five years of studying the issue led the federal agency to collaborate with the Marys Peak Alliance to remove the trees.

Work will cause periodic closures of camps, trails and roads.

LANGLOIS — Around the country, old schools are closing as student populations decline or new structures are built. In many cases, the buildings could still be useful, but instead sit vacant until the elements take their toll.

Not every member of the military served directly, or even indirectly, in Vietnam. Some, like Mark Beecher, were hundreds of feet beneath the waves, defending the United States from other enemies.

Not every member of the military served directly, or even indirectly, in Vietnam. Some, like Mark Beecher, were hundreds of feet beneath the waves, defending the United States from other enemies.

LANGLOIS — Around the country, old schools are closing as student populations decline or new structures are built. In many cases, the buildings could still be useful, but instead sit vacant un…

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19

ONTARIO, Ore. — A free pesticide collection event for agricultural producers in Malheur County will be held Oct. 23.

The first-ever such event for farmers and commercial applicators in Eastern Oregon was last year.

Oregon State University Cropping Systems Extension Agent Bill Buhrig, who is helping coordinate the event, said, “It’s a pleasant surprise” that another free collection is being held so soon. “We’re trying to get the word out to everybody to take advantage of it.”

A total of 10,506 pounds of unusable pesticides were collected during the 2014 event and organizers are expecting a similar amount this year, said Kevin Masterson, toxics coordinator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The collection event is being funded by ODEQ and the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the work has been contracted out to Clean Harbors Environmental Services.

Masterson said a household hazardous waste collection is being held the day before and because Clean Harbors is the waste collector for both events, it made sense to hold another pesticide collection.

“It allows us to stretch our dollars further by pairing those two events,” he said.

The pesticide collection event will occur from noon to 4 p.m. at Ontario Sanitary Service, 540 SE Ninth Ave. in Ontario.

Growers must fill out an application and pre-register with Clean Harbors. The pre-registration requirement is only for logistics purposes so the company can schedule drop-off times and not be overwhelmed, said Graham Gadzia of Clean Harbors.

People can use only their first names if they wish, he said.

“The only reason I ask them for a name at all is so I can contact them and make an appointment,” he said.

Buhrig said the sole purpose of the event is to get rid of unwanted pesticides and the registration information is for internal use only and won’t be shared with any government agency or third party.

After an application is submitted, Clean Harbors will call the grower and schedule a drop-off time.

“You can register under a fake name as long as you remember that fake name when they call,” Buhrig said.

If growers are unsure what a product is, they can just describe the quantity and physical state of the waste as best they can on the form, he said.

Empty containers will also be accepted.

Applications must be returned to Clean Harbors by Oct. 9. For more information, contact Gadzia at (503) 953-6397 or by e-mail at gadzia.graham@cleanharbors.com, or call Buhrig at (541) 881-1417.

Registration forms can be downloaded at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/malheur

SALEM — Oregon’s minimum wage won’t rise in 2016, which is expected to save money for farms and other businesses but also invigorate advocates of a higher rate.

Due to stagnant inflation, as measured by the federal “consumer price index” for urban areas, the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries will keep the minimum wage at $9.25 per hour next year.

Both supporters and opponents of a higher wage floor believe that the flat rate will be used as an argument in favor of a substantial increase.

“It’s a mixed blessing, politically,” said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

While it should be good news for low-income workers that prices aren’t rising sharply, the unchanged minimum wage will likely spur political action, said Steve Buckstein, senior policy analyst for the Cascade Policy Institute, a free market think tank.

“It probably will increase pressure in the legislature, or through a ballot initiative, to raise the minimum wage next year,” he said. “Both efforts will be bolstered politically by the fact the minimum wage is staying flat.”

Proponents say the unchanged rate is based on a nationwide measurement of inflation and doesn’t reflect unique factors, such as increased housing costs, seen in Portland and elsewhere in Oregon.

“To bring people out of poverty, we need at least $15 and in places like Portland, more than that,” said Jamie Patridge, chief petitioner for a 2016 ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage.

Patridge said he was disappointed by the flat rate but acknowledged that it will likely convince people that the current inflation-based system is inadequate and persuade them to take action at the ballot box.

“It’s probably positive for our campaign but negative for low-wage workers,” he said. “Workers should not be living in poverty. Every worker should be paid a living wage.”

The Oregon Center for Public Policy, a non-profit that supports increasing the minimum wage, said the rate would be $19 per hour if it had tracked worker productivity for the past half-century.

“We’re seeing growing support for some action,” Tyler Mac Innis, policy analyst for OCPP.

To achieve economic security in Oregon, a single adult with a child needs to earn roughly $45,000-$51,000 per year, depending on the region, according to the group. With the current minimum wage, a worker earns $19,240 per year.

“It’s certainly not good news that it’s staying flat. It highlights the fact minimum wage workers need a significant increase in the minimum wage,” said Mac Innis.

Dresler, of the Oregon Farm Bureau, counters that farmers in the state compete against others in the U.S. and internationally, so a higher minimum wage puts them at a disadvantage.

Oregon already has the second highest minimum wage in the nation behind Washington, she said.

“That keeps us less competitive than it does our neighbors” in the Midwest and South, Dresler said.

Farms in Oregon are currently highly diverse, but a major hike in the minimum wage would likely convince growers to transition to crops that are less labor intensive, she said. “That would be one of the reactions to that sort of increase.”

Other types of companies will have to raise prices, lay off workers or reduce benefits to cope with a higher minimum wage — or they’ll simply go out of business, said Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute.

“There are always unintended consequences,” he said. “There’s no magic pot of money that businesses have to pay more wages.”

COOS BAY — Oregon students' Smarter Balanced test results came in higher than expected — and overall, around half are meeting the bar in English and 30 percent are meeting the math standard.

COOS BAY — Oregon students' Smarter Balanced test results came in higher than expected — and overall, around half are meeting the bar in English and 30 percent are meeting the math standard.

COOS BAY — Oregon students' Smarter Balanced test results came in higher than expected — and overall, around half are meeting the bar in English and 30 percent are meeting the math standard.

The wolves found dead in Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County last month were blamed for killing a calf in June, according to an Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife report.

State police have asked the public’s help investigating the deaths of the Sled Springs pair, whose bodies were found within 50 yards of each other during the week of Aug. 24. Police did not disclose the killings until Sept. 16, saying they didn’t want to tip off the person or people responsible. The spot where the wolves were found is north of Enterprise.

Police and wildlife officials have not disclosed how the wolves died. The investigation began when a tracking collar worn by the pair’s female, OR-21, emitted a mortality signal. She and her mate were found dead.

Wolves in northeastern Oregon are protected under the state’s endangered species law, and killing them is a crime. State police have referred to the case as a “criminal investigation.” Wolves west of Highways 395, 78 and 95 are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The feds have delisted Oregon wolves east of those highways, but the state listing and management plan hold sway in that corner of the state.

ODFW biologists have not spotted the pair’s pups, which are thought to be about five months old. Department spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said the pups — their number is unclear — are weaned and typically would be free-ranging at this point. Wolves are secretive, and not seeing them would not be unusual.

Meanwhile, the Mount Emily pack in Umatilla County has recorded five attacks on sheep since June, four in August alone.

Under Phase 2 of Oregon’s wolf plan, which changes as the number of breeding pairs increases, a producer can ask ODFW for “lethal control” of wolves after two confirmed “depredations,” as they are called, or one confirmed attack and three attempts. All five attacks have been confirmed, but the producer has not formally asked the department to take action, Dennehy said. The attacks happened on a public land seasonal grazing allotment that expires Oct. 1, she said.

JEFFERSON, ORE. — It’s like leasing ground to the future. On about 90 acres that in the past was planted in vegetables and corn for silage, researchers are raising varieties of fast-growing poplar trees that can be used to make bio-fuels and other products.

It’s an idea that’s been promoted and federally funded for several years, but the promise of making fuel and industrial chemicals from renewable plants instead of petroleum has yet to fall in step with market reality.

If the two link up — believers say it’s inevitable — Pacific Northwest and Northern California farmers might have another crop to consider.

Jefferson, Ore., landowner and farmer Rob Miller, who leased about 90 acres to GreenWood Resources, a global timber company based in Portland, said marginal land in Oregon’s Willamette Valley might be ideal for growing hybrid poplars.

Acreage in the 45-mile stretch from Albany south to Eugene that is not irrigated and is used for grass seed production, for example, might work for poplars, he said.

The trees regrow after being cut and can produce six crops in a 20-year period. After the initial planting cost, they require little care and can be harvested and chipped with forage cutting machinery. With additional irrigation water likely to be hard to get in the future, growing trees for bio-chemicals is an attractive option, Miller said.

“It would be a really good crop if the market turned around,” he said.

There’s the rub. The U.S. push to develop alternative fuels is stalled by a drop in oil prices and reserves tapped by fracking technology. Bio-fuels require simultaneous cart-and-horse development of expensive refineries and the acreage to feed them.

But many believe bio-fuels’ time is coming. The environmental cost of fossil fuels, instability in the Middle East and the limit of U.S. supplies could raise oil prices.

“Which puts this stuff right back into the sweet spot,” said Rick Stonex, westside tree farm manager for GreenWood Resources.

GreenWood is part of the Advanced Hardwood Biofuels Northwest consortium, which includes other industry partners and researchers from six universities. The consortium is one of six research efforts funded by the USDA since 2011, compiling a total of $146 million.

The ultimate goal of the project is to produce “drop in” fuel that is compatible with conventional cars, trucks and aircraft. Given the state of the oil industry, however, the partners are focusing on high-value bio-chemicals such as acetic acid, ethyl acetate and cellulosic ethanol, that are produced in the first stages of the bio-fuel process. Those chemicals can replace petroleum-based products used to make plastics, paints and even runway de-icer.

In additon to the Jefferson project site, researchers are growing hybrid poplars in Hayden, Idaho; Pilchuck, Wash.; and Clarksburg, Calif.

GreenWood also has a poplar plantation growing alongside Interstate 84 near Boardman, in Eastern Oregon. Those trees are intended to feed a refinery planned by ZeaChem Inc. The company plans to break ground on the plant next spring.

Sixteen students who will be freshmen at Oregon State University this fall toured the Jefferson test plot Sept. 15 with GreenWood’s Stonex and Rich Shuren, the company’s director of tree improvement operations.

One of the students asked Stonex if bio-fuels would be viable in his lifetime.

“I think you guys will see it,” Stonex replied.

PORTLAND — A high-rise to be built using cross-laminated timber panels is co-winner of a $3 million USDA prize designed to spark the use of timber products in tall construction.

Framework, a 12-story project in Portland’s upscale Pearl District, split the Tall Wood Building Prize Competition with a project in New York City. The USDA sponsored the competition in conjunction with the Softwood Lumber Board and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the awards Sept. 17.

The Portland project will have ground floor retail, five levels of office space, five levels of workforce housing and a roof top amenity space.

According to the developers, the building’s design is intended to “communicate at street level the project’s innovative use of wood and engineering technology in the development of a high rise structure, along with its relationship to the rural economy.”

The building will feature an engineered wood core and lateral system to withstand earthquakes, and cross-laminated timber floor panels up to 50 feet long.

The design team is led Thomas Robinson, of LEVER Architecture. Construction schedule details were not immediately available.

Cross-laminated timbers, or CLT, are panels made by bonding dimensional lumber in perpendicular layers. Boosters of the technology say the panels — which can be up to 8- to 10-feet wide, 10 to 20 inches thick and 64 feet long — are strong, lightweight and much faster to install than standard steel and concrete construction.

D.R. Johnson, a mill in Riddle, Ore., south of Roseburg, is the first U.S. manufacturer certified to make the panels. State and industry officials believe CLT technology could revitalize Oregon’s timber industry.

JOHN DAY, Ore. — The Canyon Creek Complex continues to burn, but many people are already asking whether the blaze would have been less severe had the forest been managed better.

Dave Traylor, a member of the Grant County Public Forest Commission, is one of many voices questioning whether enough thinning and slash cleanup was done in past years on the 1.7-million-acre Malheur National Forest.

“We’ve got to make some changes because we’re losing our forest,” he said as the blaze reached 110,000 acres. “What we’re doing is not working.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Malheur National Forest Supervisor Steve Beverlin agrees.

“We do need drastic change,” he said.

Even Aron Robertson, communications director for environmental group Oregon Wild, thinks there are ways to decrease wildfire risks with precise thinning practices.

But overall, their prescription for change is vastly different.

Traylor thinks the forest needs more active management, including a significant increase in grazing and logging.

“That means cattle in the woods eating grass down and not letting it just dry up and become fuel, and we need to do some logging. Not clear-cutting, but spacing out trees and taking out dying trees. We can provide jobs and create a healthy forest that is fire-resistant and protects the water.”

A lack of proper forest management, including thinning, salvage sales and slash cleanup, was a significant factor in the size and severity of the Canyon Creek Complex fire, says Prairie City resident Levi Voigt.

“The only control you have over a wildfire is to reduce the amount of fuel in the forest,” he says. “I believe a reduction in the amount of fuel out there would have reduced the severity of the fire.”

It was Voigt who asked Beverlin during a community fire update meeting in Prairie City Aug. 31 whether the Canyon Creek Complex fire would serve as a learning lesson in forest management.

Beverlin said it would.

There is no denying that forest fires are increasing in frequency and intensity across the American West, and it’s no different on our local forests and rangeland.

But Beverlin says that is mainly because we’ve been so good at wildland firefighting for so long. He said before European settlement arrived in Oregon pre-1860, historically 100,000 acres burned on average each year on the Malheur National Forest — roughly the acreage burned up this year by the Canyon Creek Complex. Beverlin said fire scars in the rings of virgin timber has shown how often fire came through the area.

But those fires, while spreading wide, were of low intensity. They burned up grass, downed limbs and dead trees, but large healthy trees were strong enough to survive. The fires therefore kept it a healthy ecosystem, restoring nutrients while cleaning out fuels.

In the last fifty years, Beverlin said this is the first time fire burned the average amount of acreage that burned up in the forest before human intervention.

“If you look at how active we’ve been the last couple years, I’m not sure we could go at it any harder,” said Beverlin, pointing out prescribed thinning projects on a map in his office.

Bob Vidourek, a retired U.S. Bureau of Land Management forester in John Day, lives on Little Canyon Mountain, a few miles south of John Day and just east of Canyon City.

Before he retired 7 years ago, Vidourek guided a series of projects that resulted in most of the 2,500 acres of BLM land on the mountain being cleaned up.

That included the thinning of forest stands, the cleaning up of a significant amount of slash from the forest floor and timber salvage sales. The projects occurred from 2003-2007.

One of the projects was a 10-year BLM stewardship contract that was purchased by a local company that hired a lot of sub-contractors to do the work.

Because of the work that was done, when the Canyon Creek Complex fire came roaring toward his property, which was placed under a Level 3 “leave immediately” evacuation order, Vidourek, whose home abuts the BLM land, says he was never really worried.

“I knew if it got into that stand, it wouldn’t burn too hot,” he says.

The fire did burn some of the BLM land as it roared up the south side of the mountain, but it slowed considerably after it reached the northern part of the mountain and left most of the BLM land unscathed or lightly burned.

It stopped about 1,000 feet above Vidourek’s property.

“It killed everything on the other side of the mountain. I’m confident the work we did slowed the fire down … and probably saved some of these houses,” he says, pointing in the direction of eight other homes near his.

Grant County rancher Alec Oliver says the fire barely touched a pasture his cattle lightly grazed this spring.

“I was surprised at the difference between the area where we grazed earlier this year compared with the area across the fence that hadn’t been grazed in a year,” he says.

What angers a lot of locals, Oliver says, is the lawsuits that have stopped a lot of proposed forest management work resulted in the damage caused by the Canyon Creek Complex fire.

Traylor, Voigt and Vidourek don’t lay the blame on the Forest Service. Rather, they blame environmental groups that have sued to stop proposed thinning, slash clearing or logging projects.

“It’s not the Forest Service; it’s the environmental groups that have them handcuffed,” Vidourek says.

Traylor says based on past promises that never materialized, he doubts forest management practices in the Malheur National Forest will change much, despite the severity of this fire.

“They’re going to tell us they’ll do something but the truth is they won’t do anything that amounts to anything,” he says. “They are not listening to us.”

Robertson said he too understands the danger of living too close to an unhealthy forest, just crossing your fingers until it lights. And he said that more thinning projects may make sense in urban/forest interfaces, which accounts for much of rural Grant County.

But he said there are different definitions of reasonable forest management, and groups like his disagree with others on how best to create a healthy forests.

“Some projects call them thinning projects, but they look more like clearcuts,” he said.

Robertson said the fire has refocused the organization’s efforts on making a forest “more resistant” to devastating blazes.

“Fires like these are tragic, and we have to do what we can to stop them from being so powerful,” he said.

Beverlin said the Forest Service is willing to do what it can, but can’t make everyone happy.

The Forest Service fields complaints across the board. Often, people complain about logging projects too close to roads or homes, saying it is loud work and ruins their view. Beverlin said people also complain about smoke in the air when crews try to do prescribed burns in spring and fall, when they can keep control over them and use them to clean out downed fuels. He gets complaints from some groups when they take a more active role, complaints from others when they are more hands-off.

Beverlin said he will continue to work with the public to try to find the right amount of management, the right amount of logging, the right amount of firefighting, the right amount of letting nature do its thing.

“We know what a healthy forest looks like,” he said. “We want to get it to the place where fire helps our forest, doesn’t hurt it.”