SALEM — Oregon has yet to burn through its firefighting budget, despite ongoing catastrophic wildfires around the state.
In what now appears to have been a prudent decision, lawmakers and a committee of forest landowners agreed earlier this year to more than double the amount of money budgeted for the Oregon Department of Forestry to fight fires to a total of $50 million annually.
“I’m pleased we did it,” said Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, a member of the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. “We had been warned that fires this summer, with the kind of moisture that was predicted, could be pretty high.”
The size of the Canyon Creek fire in Grant County and the Grizzly fire in northeastern Oregon “are well over 120,000 acres and growing,” he said. “And I think we’ve probably got another several weeks or so at least until we get some good rain.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the Canyon Creek Complex near John Day had burned nearly 85,000 acres and the Grizzly Bear Complex had burned more than 68,000 acres in the Umatilla National Forest and private land in Oregon and Washington state. An additional 17 large wildfires continued to burn in other areas of the state Thursday, according to an interagency fire tracking website.
Oregon relies on a unique system to pay wildfire fighting costs. Property owners with land classified as forest pay a state assessment to help cover firefighting costs in addition to money the Legislature appropriates from the general fund. The state has also purchased an insurance policy most years since 1973 to help cover firefighting costs.
After two severe fire seasons, however, the state’s insurance deductible more than doubled from $20 million to $50 million. When lawmakers and forest landowners decided to purchase the policy earlier this year, they had to prepare to spend up to $50 million before they could tap into the $25 million insurance policy.
Rod Nichols, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said this week that the agency estimated its net spending this year at $26 million, when expected reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other sources are factored in. Oregon spent an estimated total of $63 million to fight the wildfires, and fire officials so far expect to receive approximately $15 million in reimbursement from FEMA and $22 million from other federal sources.
“The main thing everyone is focused on now is getting the fires out,” Nichols said. “We cannot not respond to fires, so we just have to do it. That said, we’re spending a lot of money obviously from those figures.”
The state has to pay contractors in a timely manner, for example, to ensure they remain in business and can continue to work on the fires, Nichols said.
At the start of fire season, the Oregon Department of Forestry had 500 seasonal firefighters, 220 fire engines, 15 bulldozers and 14 aircraft. The state also had access to three 188 private contract hand crews, inmate hand crews from state prisons, three incident management teams and National Guard helicopters.
Oregon has since pulled in resources including additional fire crews, aircraft and fire managers from other states and Canadian provinces to fight the wildfires.
“Basically, the cupboard is bare, though some of the large fires are winding down and resources are starting to return from them,” Nichols wrote in an email.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — State regulators will hold a public hearing on the proposed expansion of five dairies around Oregon after multiple requests from Salem vegan groups.
The Statesman Journal reports that this will be the first hearing in more than four years on changes to Oregon confined animal feeding operations. The hearing is expected in September or October.
After 17 requests from activists, advisory groups are now looking at how the state can restrict information about such farms from being released to the public. Officials say farmers fear releasing permits puts them at risk from people who want to videotape, trespass or vandalize property.
Environmental groups say the state is following a trend of restricting information about farms to the public.
Eola Hills Wine Cellars west of Salem began picking grapes Aug. 26, marking one of the earliest starts to the Willamette Valley harvest on record.
The very early outlook: Another big harvest in terms of yield, and quality appears good as well, vineyard Manager Jim Huggins.
Crews picked Chardonnay grapes to make sparkling wine, and may pick Pinor noir grapes for sparkling wine on Friday, Huggins said.
Like multiple other Oregon crops, wine grapes are coming on about two weeks early due to an unusually warm, dry summer.
If weather conditions hold, the wine made from this year’s crop may rival the 2014 vintage, which winery managers described as outstanding.
“Typically when we get a lot of heat, the wines are big and bright,” Huggins said. “It really depends on how we end up the season.
“If rain sets in, a fantastic crop can turn into an average crop in pretty short order.”
In response to the long string of hot days, vineyard managers kept more fruit on the vine so the grapes wouldn’t ripen too quickly, Huggins said. The grapes are healthy, with very little disease pressure, he said.
“We’re very optimistic it will be a real nice year,” he said. “Certainly a big year, because there’s a lot of fruit hanging out there.”
Farther north, at Stoller Family Estate vineyard in Yamhill County’s famed Dundee Hills, vineyard manager Rob Schultz reported a similar outlook. Stoller also began picking Wednesday, harvesting Pinot noir grapes for sparkling wine.
“Things look good,” Schultz said. “We had no disease outbreak, no sunburn, no vine stress.
“I’m surprised,” he said. “With all the heat I anticipated more stress. But the vines are really happy, they like it warm and dry.”
Schultz agreed wine quality could be excellent, based on conditions now.
“I think if you liked 2014, you’ll love 2015 – very similar season,” he said.
Oregon’s hazelnut crop is projected to hit 39,000 tons this fall, an 8 percent increase over 2014, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service in Portland.
The crop won’t be a record — the state produced 47,000 tons in 2009 and 45,000 tons in 2013 — but Oregon accounts for 99 percent of U.S. production and continues to add orchard acreage at a pace of 3,000 to 5,000 acres per year. The state has an estimated 40,000 acres of hazelnuts.
Whether the price for this year’s crop will approach the record set in 2014 is an open question. Last year, frost severely damaged the crop in Turkey, the world’s leading producer. Candy, nut spread and snack companies quickly sought other sources, and the price for Oregon nuts soared over $1.70 a pound as a result. At one point last fall, an Oregon grower estimated every nut on his trees was worth 1.3 cents.
Michael Klein, executive of Oregon Hazelnuts, an industry group, said Turkey’s crop this year appears to be average. Frost hit again, but not as badly as in 2014, he said.
Like many other crops this year, hazelnut harvest will likely happen two or three weeks earlier than normal, Klein said.
According to the NASS harvest projection, 87.2 percent of the Oregon nuts tested as “good” and the average dry weight was 3.17 grams, down from 3.23 grams recorded in 2014. About 43 percent of nuts tested by NASS were categorized as “large” and 36 percent as “jumbo.”
Hazelnuts are Oregon’s ninth leading crop, with a 2013 value of $120 million, according to NASS.
ONTARIO, Ore. — When it comes to assessing how well various onion varieties grow in the Treasure Valley area, Oregon State University’s annual onion variety trial field day is a top destination for growers, seed dealers and industry representatives.
The OSU onion variety field day is one of several held around the Pacific Northwest this week but it’s particularly popular because it provides an impartial look at how varieties fare against each other under the same growing conditions, said onion industry consultant Bob Komoto.
“The real key of the OSU trial is that it’s a third party and not a seed company,” said Komoto, the retired manager of an onion shipper-packer operation in Ontario. “They do all the varieties for all the seed companies so you get an unbiased view of what’s happening. Anybody that wants to sell an onion here in the valley is going to have their onion in this trial.”
OSU’s Malheur County experiment station each year plants about four dozen of the main onion varieties grown in the Treasure Valley of Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho, the nation’s top onion producing region by volume.
“They do a very good job of trialing all the varieties that ... are available for the Treasure Valley,” said Jon Watson, special projects manager for JC Watson Packing Co. “We’re looking for an onion that does well in the Treasure Valley and this trial gives us a good idea of how the different varieties grow on the ground here compared with each other.”
The field trial includes yellow, red and white varieties, which are grown under both furrow and drip irrigation. Each variety has a 23-foot-long plot and there are five replicates of each one.
Some of the onions are lifted from the field while others are still growing.
Researchers plant at a high seeding rate and thin the stand by hand so all the varieties have about the same plant population, said Erik Feibert, one of the project’s lead researchers.
“It costs a lot of money to do it that way but you get really good data,” he said. “All of the onions are grown under the same conditions in the same location in an unbiased way so industry can compare them.”
Bill Johnson said his farming operation plants one or two new onion varieties each year and the field trial helps him figure out what those varieties will be.
“There are a couple of varieties we haven’t grown before that I liked, some that had some really good consistency,” he said about this year’s trial.
How well the varieties store is also an important factor, he said, and the industry will be watching closely for the results when OSU researchers grade them for storability in January.
When Mike Britton answers the phone at his North Unit Irrigation District office in Central Oregon these days, the conversations take a quick turn.
“The first three words are, ‘I heard a rumor,...’” Britton said.
And so it goes. Environmental groups have warned they intend to file suit over Oregon spotted frog habitat, and patrons of multiple Deschutes River Basin irrigation districts worry the outcome will leave their land with less water and more restrictions.
Britton, the North Unit manager, scheduled a town hall meeting Wednesday, Aug. 26 in Madras, Ore., to talk things out, share information and get everyone on the same page. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Madras Performing Arts Center on Southeast Buff Street.
Here’s the background: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in August 2014 listed the Oregon spotted frog as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. The listing wasn’t a surprise; the frog has disappeared from an estimated 78 percent of its historic range, from Southwest British Columbia to Northern California.
Loss of its favored marsh habitat and introduction of predators such as bullfrogs are the primary reason for the frog’s decline. Fish & Wildlife proposed 22,600 acres in the Deschutes River Basin as “critical habitat.”
The Upper Deschutes in Central Oregon is one of the few places where the frogs can still be found, particularly in Crane Prairie and Wickiup Reservoirs and in the wetlands downstream from them and from Crescent Lake.
Irrigation districts, recognizing the potential impact of an Endangered Species Act listing, worked with Fish & Wildlife, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies and groups to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan for spotted frogs. Britton heads a group, the Deschutes Basin Board of Control, which represents eight irrigation districts in the process.
But this summer, the Center for Biological Diversity and WaterWatch of Oregon separately gave 60 days notice they would file suit against the Bureau of Reclamation, which built the Crane Prairie, Wickiup and Crescent Lake reservoirs, and against the North Unit, Central Oregon and Tumalo irrigation districts, which operate and manage the dams and reservoirs.
The lawsuits allege the bureau and districts have harmed spotted frogs. In a news release, WaterWatch said “managing the Deschutes more like an irrigation ditch than a river has caused significant damage to river health.”
WaterWatch said it is primarily concerned about the stretch of river from Wickiup downstream to Bend. The Center for Biological Diversity questions the operations of Wickiup and Crane Prairie, saying the frog lives upstream and downstream of both and is harmed when river levels rise and fall rapidly in response to irrigation needs.
In a prepared statement, the Center’s endangered species director, Noah Greenwald, said the problems “can likely be fixed with minimal impact to irrigation districts.”
He said the Oregon Spotted Frog is “one of the most imperiled amphibians in the world” and the Bureau of Reclamation needs to “step up” its oversight of the dams.
Britton, the North Unit manager, said he doesn’t want to speculate on what the lawsuits will specifically allege once they are filed. “I wish we knew, good or bad,” he said.
Britton said the Center for Biological Diversity’s involvement is puzzling, because it hasn’t been involved in development of the habitat conservation plan. Britton said WaterWatch’s threat of legal action is disappointing, because it was among the agencies, districts, tribal leaders and others involved in the planning.
“I thought we were working for a collaborative solution,” he said.
One of the projects that emerged from the spotted frog work is called Ryan Ranch Meadow, a 65-acre site. Fish & Wildlife, the Forest Service and the districts see it as possible spotted frog habitat that could mitigate habitat loss elsewhere, Britton said. District volunteers installed pipes and fish screens and plan to flood the meadow to determine if it can retain enough water to be used by the frogs.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon taxpayers will get $402 million in “kicker” rebates when they file their taxes next year.
Economists said Wednesday that the median rebate will be $124. The top 1 percent of taxpayers will get $4,600, and the bottom 20 percent will get $10.
Oregon’s kicker law is triggered when the state collects more than anticipated during a two-year budget cycle. When that happens, the additional money is kicked back to taxpayers.
Tax increases from 2013 and the economic recovery helped Oregon generate about 3 percent more than anticipated in personal income taxes.
In the past, kicker rebates have arrived as a check shortly before the holidays. Because of a change made in 2011, the money will now come as a credit when Oregonians file their taxes next year.
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A state agriculture official said Tuesday that Oregon’s hemp industry is not turning out the way lawmakers envisioned, so the department will recommend changes to the law regulating how it is grown.
The law authorizing industrial hemp production in Oregon was written to regulate it as an agricultural crop, with large fields of densely planted hemp grown for fiber, seed and oil, said Lindsay Eng, who oversees the hemp program for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Instead, the nine operations inspected by the department this year seem more interested in producing compounds known as CBDs, which don’t get people high, but are believed to have medical benefits. They are also found in marijuana.
As a result, Eng says the current law does not work well to regulate growers, who are growing small plots, sometimes in greenhouses, with the emphasis on producing buds that contain the CBDs.
“I imagine there will be some changes in the next year or two,” she said. “We definitely will have some recommendations to either shore up definitions or the intent. There is not a whole lot we can do through rulemaking.”
Hemp is related to marijuana, but it contains very low levels of the compound known as THC, which gets people high. It has a long history as an agricultural crop, but it was outlawed along with marijuana in 1937. The Legislature authorized hemp production in 2009, but the first permits were not issued until this year.
Meanwhile, the department suspended issuing new hemp permits on Monday. Eng said it was largely because of practical considerations. No one could start a crop this year, and the current three-year permits change to one-year permits starting Jan. 1.
The department has issued 13 permits for growing industrial hemp around the state, but only nine growers actually produced a crop. Tests have shown they all met the standards for low values of THC, but few approached the minimum acreage set out in the law of 2.5 acres, Eng said.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two portable smoke monitors have arrived in Eastern Oregon, giving officials a more accurate reading of air quality near the Canyon Creek complex of wildfires.
One of the monitors was placed in Prairie City, which was very smoky Monday. The other will be put in Seneca.
Firefighters battling the blaze spent Monday patrolling, improving and holding control lines. Officials say crews are positioned to protect homes in the residential areas of Upper Pine Creek and Upper Dog Creek.
Along the southeastern portion of the fire, crews used existing roads and trails to strengthen lines in preparation for a burnout operation. That is expected to slow the progress of the blaze and corral it into the Strawberry Wilderness.
The wildfire has destroyed more than three dozen homes. It has scorched 114 square miles and is about 30 percent contained.
