TODAY

Morrow County is joining the line to ask Oregon Gov. Kate Brown for an emergency drought declaration, as farmers and ranchers deal with oppressively dry conditions.

The county court signed off on its request May 6, which will be considered when the state Drought Council and Water Availability Committee meet in Salem on Thursday.

Requests have also been submitted by Umatilla, Grant, Deschutes and Josephine counties. Gov. Brown has already declared drought in Baker, Crook, Harney, Klamath, Lake, Malheur and Wheeler counties.

“We all consider this drought situation important, not only to our individual counties but also to the region,” said Morrow County Judge Terry Tallman.

Across the region, snowpack is all but gone in the Umatilla, Willow and John Day basins. Water releases from McKay Creek Reservoir near Pendleton began about two months earlier than usual, and the reservoir itself is just 71 percent full. Cold Springs Reservoir in Hermiston is even lower, at 51 percent full.

In southern Morrow County, regulators are on the verge of imposing restrictions from Willow Creek. Ken Thiemann, district watermaster based in Condon, said the creek is flowing at 6 cubic feet per second above Willow Creek Dam near Heppner, well short of the average 26 cubic feet per second.

The reservoir is also about two feet lower now than it was at this time a year ago, Thiemann said. Such depleted water supplies pose a threat for ranchers who rely on irrigation to support their pastures and livestock, according to the county’s drought resolution.

Meanwhile, dryland wheat farmers are suffering a lack of rain to produce a solid yield on this year’s crop. The National Weather Service reports precipitation in Heppner has been below normal every month since January, and is down 1.93 inches overall for the calendar year. That’s already 15 percent of the area’s average annual rainfall.

County Commissioner Don Russell said he drives from Boardman to Heppner about five times every month, and he can see a difference in this year’s wheat stands.

“I’ve noticed the wheat crop looks pretty stressed,” Russell said. “It’s shorter than normal, and not as green as it should be.”

Several farmers talked to the county court about pursuing a drought declaration, Russell said, to help them through a potentially difficult year. If approved, the declaration could allow the Oregon Water Resources Department to issue temporary water rights and transfers where necessary.

The OWRD has said drought is “unavoidable” in the John Day River basin and likely in the Umatilla basin, given this year’s extreme lack of snow in the mountains to recharge streams.

As of May 5, the U.S. Drought Monitor has all of Umatilla, Morrow, Union, Gilliam and Sherman counties listed in severe drought. Umatilla and Morrow counties already qualify for federal drought assistance since they are contiguous with Grant County, where the Department of Agriculture has identified disaster conditions.

“Morrow County is no exception to our neighbors. We’re very dry,” Russell said. “Unless we get some very late rain, it’s going to be a very dry summer and dry fall.”

The Drought Council and Water Availability Committee will make its recommendations following review Thursday. The governor has the final say in whether to declare a local drought emergency.

As farmers’ markets open across the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, the economic vitality that accompanies the direct grower to consumer connection shows no sign of wavering.

The Oregon Farmers Markets Association estimates the state has about 160 markets, 40 of them in the Portland area. The state had 12 in 1987.

John Eveland, whose Gathering Together organic farm in Oregon is in its 27th year of selling vegetables at farmers’ markets, said markets are a response to consumer unease over “industrial” agriculture.

Anyone who is half-aware realizes how important food is, he said. With most people a couple generations removed from the farm, many look for a re-introduction to farmers.

“You start wondering where it comes from and how they produce it,” Eveland said. “I think it’s inherently reassuring to look at the people who actually had something to do with it.”

His employees make the rounds of up to nine markets in season, including several in the Portland area, 90 miles north of the farm. Market sales make up about 40 percent of his $2.5 million annual business. He also sells at his farm stand and to grocery stores, restaurants and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscribers.

“They feed off each other quite well, it’s a little bit synergistic,” Eveland said. Having the farm’s name on the menu of high-end restaurants increases its visibility, and pays off in more sales when customers see Gathering Together’s booth at farmers’ markets.

Farmers’ markets also are a good outlet for excess production, he said. Farmers serving CSA customers, for example, often produce much more than subscribers require.

“You need a place to move product, and farmers’ markets are great,” he said. “If you show up to sell something this week and you don’t have it next week, it’s not the end of the world.”

Julie Laube hits the road from Greens Bridge Gardens, of Jefferson, about an hour south of Portland, while her husband, Jason, runs the family berry operation. The route includes markets in Beaverton, where they’ve sold for 26 years, and Portland, Lake Oswego, Salem, Lebanon and Lincoln City, in addition to a home fruit stand.

This month, Julie Laube found an eager reception for the family’s Jefferson Reds, one of the earliest strawberry varieties.

Markets also are an entry point for beginning farmers. Partners Sarah Lynch and Matthew Willis used a USDA micro loan to get started. They own Super Natural Farm in Willamina, a 9-acre organic operation about 60 miles southwest of Portland. They make the rounds to markets in Portland, Beaverton, McMinnville and Lincoln City. Lynch recently set up a booth at the Moreland Farmers’ Market in Southeast Portland to sell gleaming spring garlic, intensely purple kohlrabi and other early veggies.

Lynch said she’s been farming since 2006 and, with Willis, is committed to the lifestyle and to the work needed to succeed at it. At this point, farmers markets make up 75 percent of their business.

“We’re ready to go,” Lynch said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s wine industry has come into its own in recent years, spurring the growth of wineries and newly planted acres of vineyards from the California border to the Columbia River.

Now the wine industry wants in the trans-Pacific trade agreement that President Barack Obama came to Oregon to promote. Vineyard owners and wine makers say the trade deal would help open up foreign markets and increase job growth in Oregon.

“It’s a big world out there, and there (are) a lot of thirsty people,” said Alex Sokol of Sokol Blosser Winery. “Wine is a heavily regulated thing. But if tariffs drop, it will be that much easier and will make us more competitive.”

Obama gave a shout-out to the Dayton-based winery in his speech Friday at Nike’s Beaverton headquarters — spelling out how the trade deal would cut tariffs in Japan, Sokol Blosser’s top export market, and increase sales.

The industry has grown substantially in recent years. Planted vineyard acreage in Oregon doubled in the last 10 years to 25,000 acres. According to a study released earlier this year, Oregon’s wine industry now has a $3.3 billion economic impact on the state, including crop values, jobs, services and sales.

Wine-related jobs total about 17,000 in the state. That includes direct employment in vineyards, wineries, distribution, retail and restaurants, as well as indirect jobs in production, marketing and distribution.

A trade deal that would break down tariffs and other barriers would give an even bigger boost to the industry, said Jana McKamey, government affairs director of Oregon Winegrowers Association. The association would like to see the specifics of the trade agreement before giving the deal a full blessing, though it generally supports agreements that ease trade, McKamey said.

“Access to international markets is very important to our industry’s expansion,” she said. “Tariffs put American wines at a disadvantage, so having a level playing field is important for our wines to compete.”

That’s especially key in countries like Japan, which is one of the top destinations for Oregon’s wine. Japan currently has a tariff on wine, McKamey said, which means Oregon’s wines — already an expensive, premium product — sell at above-average prices. Oregon wines have a hard time competing with those from other countries, such as Australia, which has recently signed an agreement with Japan to phase out tariffs.

Japan is one of the 11 countries that are negotiating the trade agreement with the U.S.

Selling Oregon wine abroad also indirectly boosts economic activity in the state by bringing in wine tourists, who leave their money not just in wineries, but also in local hotels, restaurants and stores. Wine-related tourism contributed $208 million in revenues to the state’s economy in 2013, data show.

The ability to increase exports would also boost jobs in the U.S., A to Z Wineworks founder Sam Tannahill said.

“Every 10 acres of vineyards we plant in rural areas of Oregon, that’s one job. We cannot move those jobs anywhere else,” Tannahill said. “The more markets we have access to, the more wine we can sell, the more jobs we create here.”

Tannahill, whose Newberg-based company is one of Oregon’s leading wine producers, exports his wine to seven countries and would like to export to more places. “In some places, the barriers are just too high,” he said.

But critics say a trade agreement could harm agricultural workers — because that’s what happened in Mexico after NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was implemented in 1994.

NAFTA’s goal was to remove barriers to trade and investment between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But under NAFTA, as the U.S. vastly increased corn exports to Mexico, millions of small Mexican farmers couldn’t make ends meet — leading many of them to cross the border illegally into the U.S. to seek agricultural jobs in places like Oregon.

“The NAFTA labor side agreement proved too ineffective in protecting farmworkers against the negative consequences of agricultural trade in both the United States and Mexico,” Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said in an email.

“Any new trade agreement,” he said, “is likely to have major negative consequences for many workers.”

The trade deal envisioned by Obama is not a sure thing. Congress is debating whether to give Obama so-called fast-track authority to complete the deal. Obama’s toughest sell is with his own Democratic allies, who fear the loss of American jobs and weakened financial and environmental rules.

PORT ORFORD — Grim statistics translate to reality in Port Orford, as you look around at a tiny town appearing to crumble and fade.

Port Orford has the highest percentage of students in poverty in Oregon — but every year, its kids outperform their South Coast peers.

The Oregon state veterinarian said horses that competed in a high school equestrian meet in mid-April should be quarantined for 28 days following an outbreak of equine herpes virus.

At least four horses developed neurological symptoms of the disease, and five others that were exposed to the disease have developed fevers, state vet Dr. Brad Leamaster said in a Department of Agriculture news release. Horses at eight farms were under quarantine as of May 7, six in Marion County and two in Polk County.

The infected animals or other exposed horses from the quarantined facilities were at the Oregon High School Equestrian Team (OHSET) Willamette District meet at the Linn County Fairgrounds, Albany, on April 16-19; rodeo events at Branton Arena, Jefferson, April 19-20; and at High Prairie Arena, Eugene, April 25-26.

Leamaster said horses that were at the high school event in Albany should not be taken to other shows or meets for 28 days.

“The responsible thing for OHSET Willamette District attendees to do at this time is to stay home and monitor their horse,” Leamaster said in a prepared statement. “Call your veterinarian if you suspect any signs of illness.”

People who own stable mates of the exposed horses should consult their veterinarian to assess the risk of infection, he said.

Equine herpes virus, of EHV-1, is a common respiratory virus among horses. It usually lies dormant or causes respiratory problems, but stress or other factors can cause it to flare up and attack a horse’s nervous system, leading to severe illness.

Symptoms include fever, decreased coordination, nasal discharge, dribbled urine, loss of tail tone, hind limb weakness and poor balance, according to an ODA news release. Sick horses may be unable to rise.

The virus can cause pregnant mares to abort. Severe cases can kill horses. It is contagious among horses, spread through human hands, or infected equipment or clothing.

BANDON — Bandon Dunes Golf Resort's director of guest services, Mark Bergmann, will talk about customer service at the South Coast Development Corporation's first "The Buzz on Biz" meeting 6-8…

LANGLOIS — The Langlois Lions Club would like to remind community members about the Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale, to be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at the Langlois Lions C…

Oregon’s Shelly Boshart Davis prevailed in 11 days of on-line voting and is 2015 National Farm Mom of the Year.

The contest, sponsored by Monsanto Co. in conjunction with American Agri-Women, honors women for their involvement with their families, farms, communities and the agricultural industry, according to a Monsanto news release.

Davis won $10,000 for getting the most votes in the contest. She grows grass seed, wheat, radishes and hazelnuts on her family’s farm near Albany, Ore., and is a vice president in her family’s straw pressing, trucking and exporting companies. She and her husband, Geoff, have three daughters.

The other regional finalists were Megan Seibel of Virginia, Shelley Heinrich of Texas, Amy Kelsay of Indiana and Sara Ross of Iowa. Each of them was awarded $5,000.

On her Facebook page, Davis thanked supporters in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

CORVALLIS — Vaughn Walton is in his tenth year at Oregon State University, a period that’s coincided with the arrival of invasive, damaging pests.

Spotted Wing Drosophila, or SWD, a tiny fruit fly that lays its eggs primarily in ripening berries and causes them to collapse in a gooey mess, is number one on Walton’s list.

Controlling it costs blueberry and caneberry growers an estimated $14 million to $15 million annually in Oregon alone, Walton said. They’ve gone from perhaps a single clean-up spray before harvest to six or seven sprays per season, he said.

Now comes the Brown Marmorated Stinkbug, or BMSB, which attacks everything the SWD favors plus a wide range of tree fruit and vegetables. It’s mouthpiece is tough enough to pierce hazelnut shells and to puncture apples, pears and cherries. Walton issued a special alert this year for wine grape growers, who are likely to see a late season stinkbug infestations that could taint wine.

“The economic impact may be bigger” than SWD, Walton said.

Last year’s long, warm growing season, followed by a mild winter, allowed for additional generations of Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs to make themselves at home.

“Those populations are going to continue building,” Walton said.

Increased pesticide use is the immediate control tool, but the expense of that in terms of money and public ill will may be unsustainable.

Walton and other OSU researchers continue to press for biological controls of pests. One of the most promising options involves using tiny parasitic wasps, which insert their eggs into stinkbug eggs, for example. The wasp larvae feed on their hosts as they emerge.

In China, a wasp called Trissolcus japonicustakes out 50 to 90 percent of the potential BMSB population. OSU obtained some of the wasps from China for study under quarantine, but the process is complicated and strictly controlled.

Researchers can’t just turn them loose and hope for the best. Among other things, they must show the wasps won’t attack beneficial insects; some parasitoids aren’t particular.

Walton and others are cheered by news that a native population of Trissolcus japonicus has been found in Maryland. That discovery could loosen controls and speed up use of the wasp against BMSB on the West Coast.

Walton wishes biological controls received more attention and funding. Compared to pesticides, targeted bio-control can be self-regulating. As pest populations decrease, parasitoid numbers drop as well, he said.

Meanwhile, OSU reminds growers of simple pest management practices such as using weed fabric, the black mesh berry growers often place around plants. The material retains heat, and can fry pest larvae dropping from the plant.

Increased pesticide use isn’t the only answer, Walton said.

“We really need pesticides, but we need to be less dependent on them,” he said.

Oregon’s water supply development fund is closer to becoming functional now that regulators have proposed rules for its operation that may be finalized in mid-June.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are considering upping the fund’s size from the already-approved $10 million to $16 million, along with a bevy of other water proposals.

The fund was created by the Oregon Legislature in 2013 but hasn’t yet dispensed any money because irrigators, conservationists and others have been negotiating the environmental conditions that will apply to projects.

Storage projects must dedicate 25 percent of their water for in-stream uses under the law, which is intended to help fish.

They’re also subject to “seasonally varying flow” restrictions that determine how much water can be withdrawn outside the regular irrigation season without disrupting watershed function.

Details about “seasonally varying flow” requirements and other aspects of the fund’s operation were hammered out by two task forces in 2014 and early 2015, with that information now being incorporated into proposed rules written by the Oregon Water Resources Department.

Under the rules, projects will be subject to increased scrutiny depending on their impact to streams and how much environmental data is available about the waterway.

The proposed rules were recently made available for public comment, with OWRD scheduled to hold five rule-making hearing around the state between May 18 and May 22. The Oregon Water Resources Commission is expected to consider adopting the regulations during its June 18-19 meeting.

During negotiations, irrigator groups were concerned that the environmental conditions associated with funding could be too onerous for project developers to apply for funds.

The complexity of the rules remains a concern for Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River, who was involved in passing Senate Bill 839, which created the water supply development fund.

Environmental restrictions were necessary to get the legislation passed in a Democrat-controlled legislature, but it remains to be seen if projects will be able to meet the 25 percent in-stream use requirement and the “seasonally varying flow” conditions, he said.

“They just take the common sense out of it,” Thomsen said.

The conditions placed on water projects will make them more expensive to build at a time when Oregon doesn’t have enough reservoirs to store water when it is available, he said.

“We’ve relied on snow pack for so many years. If it’s not going to be there, we’ve got to have a back-up,” Thomsen said.

At this point, it’s important to simply get the water supply development fund up and running to assist project that can work under the proposed rules, said JR Cook, director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association, who is trying to improve irrigation systems in the region and who participated in the negotiations.

Once the fund is operational with a track record, lawmakers can later make “tweaks” to ensure it functions better, Cook said.

“It requires baby steps,” he said. “We can’t fix it all at once.”

The Oregon Water Resources Department is persuading lawmakers to authorize $50 million in bonds to pay for the state’s integrated water resource strategy, which includes an additional $6.25 million for the water supply development fund.

Of that proposal, $30 million would be allocated for loans and roughly $14 million for feasibility studies and other water funding projects.

The response from lawmakers has generally been positive, though time will tell how much political wrangling the $50 million package will undergo, said Richard Whitman, natural resources policy director for Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.

Ideally, the water funding will soon be approved as a standalone bill, separately from broader bond funding discussions later in the legislative session, he said.

“If it moves earlier, it tends to be more straightforward,” Whitman said.

CORVALLIS — About five times a year, architects call Scott Leavengood at Oregon State University to ask about juniper. Usually they have a client who wants to use the beautifully gnarly wood as an architectural detail such as exposed beams.

Normally, architects and engineers can find wood design values — load-bearing properties and so on — by turning to a booklet published by the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau.

Trouble is, “Juniper is not in there,” said Leavengood, director of OSU’s Oregon Wood Innovation Center. “It’s a market barrier right now.”

Work at OSU this year could change that. Loads of juniper timbers from Idaho and North Central Oregon will be cut, bent, stressed and broken in the center’s testing facilities.

The certified results could strengthen market demand for a tree that is rooted in Greater sage grouse, ranching and rangeland health issues.

The thing about juniper is, it’s native and invasive at the same time. It controls swaths of Eastern Oregon and beyond. It intercepts precious moisture from sage brush and grasses and provides hawks and other predators a place to perch and spy for prey.

Leavengood of OSU said juniper logs sometimes show false growth rings, periods where the tree basically turned itself off to wait out a drought. They hang tough, he said.

“If I was an ecologist, I think I would study juniper,” he said. “Because it’s such a tough species.”

And now agencies and researchers say we should cut juniper like crazy. They say removing juniper allows for a quick comeback of sage and grasses. This improves habitat for Greater sage grouse, which hangs on in 11 Western states and is a candidate for inclusion on the federal endangered species list. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will make that call in September.

A lot of ranchers connect the dots. Improve habitat, keep the bird off the list, ease the worry of increased grazing restrictions. Necessary management changes are “not onerous” as a Southeast Oregon rancher put it once.

A market for juniper could fuel the whole thing, the thinking goes. But that’s the problem. “It’s expensive to harvest, expensive to cut up, and the yields are low,” Leavengood said.

He believes juniper is best suited for minimally processed uses such as sign posts and guardrails, and for the high-end niche market such as cabinets and flooring. It’s pretty, smells good and is naturally rot resistant.

And juniper has that rangeland “restoration” message that frankly plays well with urban buyers.

“Juniper’s got a story behind it,” Leavengood said.

“I don’t think it’s ever going to be Doug fir or Ponderosa pine,” he said. “But that’s not the point.”

Some landowners now cut juniper and leave it on the landscape or burn it. Leavengood and others hope to convince them juniper should be hauled to small mills operating in Eastern Oregon.

Efforts to establish a juniper logging, hauling and milling infrastructure have come and gone for a couple decades. Leavengood believes establishing its design values, as OSU will do, could help the market. A USDA grant is helping pay for the research.

CAVE JUNCTION, Ore. (AP) — More than 20 years ago, it was touted as a miracle plant — a “hyperaccumulator” able to pull heavy metals, such as nickel, out of the area’s serpentine soil and store it in its leaves.

At least that’s what was told to then-county commissioners who approved planting of yellow-tuft alyssum on eight plots, totaling more than 50 acres in the Illinois Valley.

Now the flowering invasive weed has traveled up and down the Illinois River and is considered a menace that’s keeping local volunteers on their toes trying to control and eradicate the invasive, self-pollinating, perennial plant.

Volunteers Gordon Lyford, Scott Taylor and Wes Brown recently received the Oregon Invasive Species Council’s Ten Fingers in the Dike award for their efforts to coordinate the Alyssum Eradication Task Force and keep the plant at bay. The three regularly pull and destroy alyssum plants that grow at the Illinois Valley Airport and other locations in southwest Josephine County.

The area is known for its bounty of beautiful native wildflowers, many of which are endangered by the invasive alyssum.

“I like wildflowers, but the alyssum crowds them out,” Taylor said, between pulling clumps of alyssum with Lyford on a recent afternoon trek through the airport grounds.

In addition to being a co-owner of Taylor’s Sausage in Cave Junction, Taylor is a private pilot and spends a lot of time at the airport.

Much of that time is taken up with noxious weed eradication efforts, since alyssum grows and seeds throughout the year. Some plants are a few inches tall, others nearly three feet tall.

Lyford said there are many reasons to get rid of the plant.

“It’s a non-native, opportunist plant and will take over, not to mention, it is toxic to livestock. I’ve heard two bulls died from eating it,” he said.

The plants’ variation of heights when ready to drop seeds is one reason it is difficult to harvest or eradicate alyssum, said Larry Graves, Josephine County airport manager.

Alyssum is a member of the mustard family and native to Turkey and elsewhere along the Mediterranean coast.

Although many objected to the county’s decision to plant alyssum, a previous airport manager OK’d the plan, Lyford said.

Graves has been the county’s airport manager for the past four years, and inherited the “unfortunate situation,” he said.

When he came on board, there were piles of the pulled plants stacked in an area at the airport, which, according to Lyford, had sat there for 8 to 10 years.

Lyford tells a tale of how difficult it is to destroy the plants.

“We burned (the stacked plants) four years ago in October. In the spring, there were alyssum germinated in the black ashes. They survived the fire,” he said.

The county isn’t on its own, however, to eradicate alyssum.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has taken the lead, coordinating the task force and performing helicopter surveys to locate patches and escapees, single plants that have strayed to neighboring locations, said Carri Pirosko, the region’s noxious weed coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Although it may seem difficult at first glance to distinguish the weed from other yellow wild flowers, the structure of the plant, which has a more rigid stem so it doesn’t sway in the wind like many other flowering plants, makes it fairly easy to spot from the air, Pirosko explained.

An upcoming helicopter survey is planned in the Illinois Valley on June 16.

Pirosko said her department uses two methods to eradicate alyssum — manual volunteer efforts and with chemicals. Manually pulling and destroying the plants is the preferred method, she said.

She calls Taylor, Lyford and Brown some of the “extraordinary volunteers” involved in the eradication effort. But, there are several other local volunteers also involved.

Pirosko said an alyssum pulling party last week on private property near the airport yielded more than 600 of the plants.

Two species of alyssum were planted in the Illinois Valley, murale and corsicum. Both are difficult to destroy, but they are also listed as A-level noxious weeds because there is a chance of eradicating them, with enough effort.

The common name “yellow tuft” refers to two both Alyssum murale and A. corsicum. Originally from eastern Europe, these two mustards were planted in the Illinois Valley for phytomining — a process in which plants that accumulate high amounts of metals are used to extract these materials from the soil.

The major difference in the look of the two weeds is the stem. Murale has a red, speckled stem, and corsicum has a carrot-like corkscrew root, Lyford described, as he held out two of the plants, being careful so as not to allow the gentle breeze at the airport carry away any of the tops of the plants.

Volunteers pulling the plants generally change shoes or boots upon entering and leaving the sites where alyssum grows, so as not to transport parts of the plants on their feet.

That was especially important in recent years, when a fence was built around the airport, since it would have been easy to transport seeds from the Illinois Valley to elsewhere across the state, had officials not had contractors decontaminate heavy equipment on a daily basis, Graves said.

Though it is a daily struggle to destroy the weed, the escapees are the biggest problem, according to Lyford.

“The goal is to not have any seeds in the ground, but they just keep coming,” Lyford said.

“It’s like a big metal spring, we’ve pushed that spring down, but we can’t let it back up. We’ll declare it eradicated five years after you don’t find one plant. But, that five years hasn’t started yet,” he said.

LANGLOIS — The Langlois Lions Club will be holding the Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at the Club House, 48136 Floras Lake Loop Road, in Langlois.

Oregon water regulators are aiming to close a loophole in the rules governing the state’s $10 million water supply development fund.

The legislature created the fund in 2013 with the goal of funding water projects that meet certain environmental conditions.

For example, storage reservoirs must comply with a “seasonally varying flows” requirement to ensure that enough water is left in-stream outside the irrigation season to ensure the proper functioning of watersheds.

While developing regulations for the fund, the Oregon Water Resources Department noticed that project developers who get a water right permit before applying for money could circumvent this requirement.

House Bill 2400 would clarify that water storage projects that receive state funding must comply with the “seasonally varying flow” conditions regardless of when the permit was obtained.

The bill has already passed the House 47-10 and is now being considered by the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

During a May 4 hearing, some lawmakers said they were concerned about provisions in the bill that extend deadlines for the completion of key reports on the fund’s operations.

Sen. Alan Olsen, R-Canby, said he was concerned why the work wasn’t done in the time frame set by lawmakers.

Racquel Rancier, senior policy coordinator for OWRD, said the delay was caused by the untimely appointment of two task forces that were charged with writing the reports last year.

April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, urged the committee to pass the bill because the reports are now finished and being used to write regulations for the water fund.

As for the permit loophole, Snell said the intention of lawmakers all along was to condition funding on environmental requirements being met, and HB 2400 simply corrects the statutory language.

“We want to see it up and running and we want to see it workable,” she said of the water fund.

The committee also heard testimony on other bills that have already passed the House:

• House Bill 2445, which provides farm regulators with additional ways to notify people of agricultural quarantines beyond newspaper ads.

• House Bill 2474, which creates licenses for veterinary facilities that are owned by non-veterinarians.

• House Bill 2047, which corrects map boundary mistakes made in a previous bill dealing with urban and rural reserves.

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — Oregon State University says a Benton County ballot measure that seeks to ban the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the county could hurt GMO-related university research projects.

Backers of Measure 2-89, the Local Food System Ordinance of Benton County, say the ordinance is limited to food crops. Its goal is to protect farmers from GMO contamination and keep corporations that sell GMO seeds from taking over the county’s agricultural base.

The measure would also grant legal rights to soil, plants and water.

University officials fear the measure could affect a host of non-food university projects that use genetic engineering techniques or GMO’s, The Corvallis Gazette-Times reports.

OSU officials point to a section of the ordinance that states: “It shall be unlawful for any corporation or governmental entity to engage in the use of genetically engineered organisms within Benton County.”

“Our general counsel’s office has done a review of the ballot measure as written and has a strong concern that that language, whether intended or otherwise, would impact the use of genetically engineered organisms at Oregon State University,” said university spokesman Steve Clark.

Projects that could be affected, the university says, include testing on transgenic mice to discover tumor-suppressing therapy, genetically engineering poplar trees to make them tolerant to herbicides and unable to cross-pollinate, or genetically engineering viruses to protect vineyards from disease and insect damage.

Research on possible treatments of ALS, a degenerative neurological disorder, could also come to a halt. OSU researcher Joe Beckman uses genetically engineered bacteria to produce proteins with potential therapeutic value, and he tests those proteins on laboratory mice genetically engineered to develop ALS.

Thanks to genetic engineering, Beckman’s lab has been able to develop a drug that appears to slow or even halt the progression of ALS in mice. If the measure passes, Beckman said he worries he may no longer be able to pursue his work.

“We’re working with the FDA, and we’re hopeful to be testing in humans within a year,” he said.

Private biotech firms operating in Benton County have also expressed concern about the measure. Siga Technologies, which has a $433 million contract to provide anti-smallpox drugs to the Strategic National Stockpile, uses genetic engineering to develop drugs.

Philomath-based company Gene Tools is working on a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. In an email to the newspaper, the company’s CEO Jim Summerton said the measure could spell a major setback for researchers like him.

“We are now experiencing a quantum leap in humanity’s ability to improve the properties of plants and animals,” Summerton said, “except perhaps in Benton County if our local Luddites (anti-technology folks) succeed in getting voters to pass Measure 2-89.”

Proponents of the measure insist the GMO ban would not affect most university or private research.

OSU would have to take out its field tests of agricultural GM crops, they say. But any other non-food related projects could go on unhampered, said Stephanie Hampton of Benton Food Freedom, the coalition of organic farmers and anti-corporate activists behind the measure.

Hampton said a ruling by Benton County Circuit Court Judge Locke Williams made it clear the measure contains only one subject, protecting the local food system — a constitutional requirement for a citizen initiative to be placed on the ballot in Oregon.

But Benton County Counsel Vance Croney — who would have to defend the measure from legal challenges if it passes — said the measure includes the whole spectrum of research involving GMOs.

If it passes, it’s unclear whether the ban would have any teeth — the Oregon Legislature in 2013 prohibited ballot measures and local governments’ GMO bans. According to the measure’s backers, a local food system ordinance would pre-empt that state law.

Voters will get a say on the measure on May 19.

ADRIAN, Ore. — The arrival of a lone wolf in Malheur County has ranchers in the state’s top cattle producing county concerned.

“It’s plum serious,” said Malheur County Cattlemen’s Association President Chris Christensen. “There’s nothing positive from a cattleman’s standpoint in the fact that a wolf showed up.”

The wolf, which separated from a Northeast Oregon pack in February, entered the county April 10 and has been living mostly in sagebrush county south of Vale and west of Adrian.

The adult male wolf, which has a tracking collar and is known as OR22, has been seen by several farmers during brief forays into farm country.

“He’s started moving around a little bit more and has gone a few new places but he’s still in that same general area,” said Philip Milburn, a district wildlife biologist in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Ontario office.

Milburn said two cow carcasses were found in the area last week, which might be part of the reason he’s staying in that region.

ODFW officials removed the cow carcasses, which are believed to have died before the wolf found them, Milburn said.

“There’s no evidence the wolf was involved (in the cows’ deaths),” he said. “There’s still no evidence he’s killed anything since he’s been here.”

Christensen said ranchers should ensure their dead animals are disposed of quickly and properly.

“They don’t want to give him any easy meals,” he said. “That’s probably why it’s staying around.”

This is the first time a wolf has stayed in the county for more than a brief period, ODFW officials said, but there have been multiple wolf sightings in the county and confirmed wolf tracks have been found in several places, including at the Oregon State University research station a few miles outside of Ontario.

OSU livestock extension agent Sergio Arispe said OR22’s arrival has caused some concern among the county’s 150 beef cattle producers, especially since the industry realizes it’s probably only a matter of time before wolves establish a permanent presence in the area.

At today’s cattle prices, a producer can lose a lot of money from a single wolf kill, he said.

“It’s not a matter of if they’re going to be here, but when,” Arispe said. “There is some big concern from cattle producers who are trying to make a living.”

Milburn said the Northwest part of the county, in particular, contains what could potentially be some good wolf habitat.

“(There is) a fairly high potential of wolves settling in that area eventually,” he said.

Christensen said Malheur County ranchers need to start learning from their colleagues in Northeast Oregon on how to operate with wolves present in the area.

“We’re not up to speed on wolves like the guys up north are and we need to be aware of what’s going on,” he said. “Malheur County is the No. 1 cattle producing county in the state. It’s certainly an issue to have a wolf show up.”