Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley took credit this week for securing nearly $30 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay for piping in the Tumalo Irrigation District system. The pipes will replace about 70 miles of inefficient open-air canals.

“In some places, we can lose up to 50 percent of the water we put in the canal,” said Tumalo watermaster Chris Schull.

That’s due to evaporation, and because the geology of Central Oregon lends itself to leakage and seepage, Schull said. The district has been slowly piping its main line over the years, and the funding announced this week will help it finish the job. The USDA payments will be spread over 11 years, with about $13 million more coming from local water user groups.

So far, about $75 million in federal funding has been set aside to help conserve water diverted from the Deschutes River basin, where reservoirs are at historic lows. The Tumalo Irrigation District is the first water user group in the basin to get federal funding in response to a legal settlement between irrigators and environmental groups two years ago. The settlement requires leaving more water in the river to save the endangered Oregon spotted frog.

“This important project will not only improve irrigation conditions for Central Oregon farmers, it will also help ensure habitats are protected and water is conserved,” Merkley said in a press release.

Ranchers in north-central Oregon are just beginning to recover from a devastating wildfire season that saw hundreds of thousands of acres of dry grass and rangeland go up in flames.

To assist livestock producers who lost vital grazing pastures, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue authorized emergency grazing on Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, land through Sept. 30 in Wasco, Sherman and Wheeler counties. CRP is a federal conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency that pays farmers to take environmentally sensitive land out of agricultural production for 10-15 years.

Now, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are asking Perdue to extend the CRP deadline through Feb. 28, 2019, while also expanding emergency grazing and haying to neighboring Gilliam County, which recently sustained a 50,000-acre blaze.

Brown, Wyden and Merkley, all Democrats, sent a letter Wednesday to Perdue asking for additional relief, and to consider any other programs to address soil erosion that may affect both farmland and fish habitat.

“All told, it was a devastating year for rural agriculture communities in Oregon,” the letter reads. “Now, as these communities seek to recover, producers need support from the government to utilize appropriate resources.”

Perdue approved emergency CRP grazing for affected ranchers through Sept. 30 at the behest of Oregon officials, while at the same time directing the Risk Management Agency to allow wheat farmers who lost some or all of their crop to plant cover crops on burned acres, preventing soil erosion without causing any changes to their crop insurance.

The region was hit especially hard by fires over the summer, including the Boxcar, Substation, Long Hollow and South Valley blazes that scorched a combined 235,000 acres of cropland. In their letter, Brown, Wyden and Merkley thanked Perdue for the assistance ranchers have received so far, but urged more is needed to help them get back on their feet.

“The loss of grazing land in particular presents an ongoing concern for producers in the area, and the opening of CRP land in Wasco, Sherman and Wheeler counties has proven invaluable to producers in those counties,” they wrote, requesting an extension through February 2019. “We further ask that USDA extend the CRP haying and grazing authorization to Gilliam County for the same period.”

Gilliam County Judge Steve Shaffer said they are “forever grateful” to farmers and ranchers who helped to suppress fires over the summer, and authorizing CRP grazing will help relieve them of a huge concern caring for their animals through fall and into winter.

“When their grazing issues are solved, Gilliam County farmers and ranchers can begin to focus on soil erosion and bringing their land back to its natural state,” Shaffer said.

Jerome Rosa, executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said the group is “excited about the potential opportunity to see these grazing opportunities for ranchers in that part of the state who have been devastated by the effects of the wildfires, and hopes that these grazing and haying opportunities will be extended.”

Ted Birdseye had already lost three calves to wolves from the Rogue pack in southwest Oregon back in January. On Sept. 24, wolves returned and killed one of the guard dogs Birdseye brought in to protect his herd.

Birdseye, who owns the Mill-Mar Ranch south of Prospect in Jackson County, said he was awakened early in the morning to the sound of his dog, an adult Tibetan Mastiff, being attacked in a fenced pasture 600 yards from the house.

By the time Birdseye got up, jumped into his boots, grabbed a headlamp and rifle and ran out onto the front porch, he said the wolves were gone, though he did find the dog limping along slowly with blood on its backside. It died later in the day.

Wildlife investigators shaved the dog, finding injuries consistent with wolf bites. Birdseye said the animal’s back end “was like grape jelly.” The investigation also turned up wolf tracks on the property, which together was enough for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to confirm the Rogue pack was responsible for the attack.

“There’s no escaping them,” Birdseye said. “It seems like they’re getting pretty brazen.”

Problems with the Rogue pack at Mill-Mar Ranch began in January, when wolves killed three calves in a span of eight days, prompting Birdseye and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ramp up non-lethal deterrents at the property.

As part of the effort, Birdseye was given two Tibetan Mastiffs from a family in Wimer, Ore., on the other side of the county.

“I do believe they’ve been a deterrent,” Birdseye said. “Any time the wolves have been in the vicinity, they just carry on like crazy.”

John Stephenson, wolf biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon, said the ranch is within the Rogue pack’s territory, not far from where the wolves den.

It is common for wolves to act aggressively toward dogs, Stephenson added, viewing them as competition.

“If they have the number on the dogs, they can behave pretty aggressively,” Stephenson said.

The Rogue pack was started by Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, and his mate in 2014. In 2017, the pack had seven known animals, including two new pups that survived through the end of the year.

Unlike wolves in Eastern Oregon, the species is still federally listed as endangered west of U.S. highways 395, 78 and 95. Birdseye said he is working with the USFWS to once again surround his 276-acre property with electrified fladry — lines of rope with flags that flap in the wind to spook wolves from entering the pasture — and set up additional flashing lights to scare away the predators.

Stephenson said the fladry was an effective tool earlier this year, and hopes it will be effective again. But Birdseye said he is becoming increasingly frustrated, dealing with the anxiety of wolf attacks at the ranch.

“I need to have some way to protect my livelihood and not have to stress out about this, day in and day out,” he said.

The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill Sept. 26 by a vote of 19-15 that would remove gray wolves from the federal endangered species list in the lower 48 states. The legislation has drawn sharp rebukes from environmental and conservation organizations, with Jason Rylander, senior staff attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, saying science — not politics — should decide when to delist species.

“Gray wolf recovery is well underway, but the work is not done,” Rylander said in a statement. “If Congress really is committed to preserving and protecting wildlife, they would spend their time finding the funding needed to recover species, not attacking the process.”

Oregon currently has at least 124 wolves living across the state, according to the 2017 ODFW annual wolf report.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — After a summer wildfire season that blanketed much of the West in smoke, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced a bill Wednesday that would reduce the severity of wildfire by thinning forests that are crowded with too many trees and have become fuel for megafires.

The bill would create a $1 billion fund to allow the Forest Service to increase the pace and scale of wildfire reduction projects, empower federal agencies to work with local communities to plan and prepare for wildfires, and permanently reauthorize a collaborative forest restoration program that brings stakeholders together to thin forests.

“I’m hoping it’ll become a bipartisan vision. Everybody who pays any attention to the forest sees these benefits,” Merkley said, speaking from Washington in a conference call with reporters.

As an example of how thinning can save communities, the Oregon Democrat cited a fire that was ignited by lightning one August afternoon in 2017 near the Oregon tourist town of Sisters. It spread fast. Residents in outlying areas fled as flames marched toward their homes.

Just a few months earlier, the U.S. Forest Service and a group of locals representing forest stakeholders arranged to thin part of the overgrown forest, creating a buffer zone around Sisters.

That effort saved homes, and perhaps the community of 2,500, by slowing the fire’s progress and allowing firefighters to corral it.

The work was done by the Deschutes Collaborative Forest Project, composed of loggers, environmentalists, local officials, recreation outfitters and others. It was one of 23 projects in the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, created in 2009 by Congress and that Merkley seeks permanent support for.

His bill would allow more projects to receive funding in a given fiscal year.

“It’s way past time to do a lot more on the front end to make our forests more fire resilient,” Merkley said.

He hopes the Senate will take up the bill after the November elections.

Last year, 71,500 wildfires burned 10 million acres nationwide, the second-largest figure on record.

CORVALLIS, Ore. — For Christie Alexandre-Zeoli, who is in charge of cheese purchasing at Market of Choice, the collaboration between Oregon State University and the high-end regional grocery chain “scratches every itch.”

The collaboration involves utilizing the cheese created in the OSU dairy program to teaching the store’s cheese stewards how the cheese is made.

“I really feel like land grant universities with these programs have so much to give retail organizations,” she said. “There is so much knowledge and talent available.”

Although stewards understand what they are looking for with the cheese, Alexandre-Zeoli said it’s a completely different experience when making it, and she wanted to provide them with first-hand experience. A cheesemaker herself — formerly involved with Washington State University’s Cougar Gold cheese — she said it’s a connection between the head and the heart.

“The head knows it’s a great cheese, but the cheesemaker has a different depth about what it takes,” she said. “The sweat and cleaning, the science and technology, as well as the artisan knowledge. This collaboration not only educates my stewards to be the best cheese retailers in the state of Oregon, it also teaches them what it means to make cheese.”

Alexandre-Zeoli said she has known Robin Frojen, the OSU food pilot plant and creamery manager, for years, and has watched her bring Beaver Classic cheese back to the forefront. Through their partnership, Beaver Classic Provolone was born.

“This cheese that Robin has created is a traditional style provolone aged for three months,” she said. “Provolone in this country — in my opinion — has become, and has been in the past, a highly processed standardized product, one that has not showcased traditional provolone the way it’s made in Italy. Robin was inspired to make it an Old World-style aged provolone.”

Alexandre-Zeoli said it’s a snacking and ingredient cheese that is creamy, with a butter flavor and a little funk. She’s often asked about the choice of provolone, and she said that everyday cheeses “deserve as much exposure and appreciation as a triple-creme brie.”

The process starts with getting the milk from the OSU dairy herd. The students pasteurize, culture and ferment it until it coagulates. The curds are cut and cooked for a specific time and a set temperature and acidity. A special aspect to this provolone: Instead of the curds being manually stretched out, it goes through a cheddaring process that does it for them.

The specialty cheese is available at Market of Choice for $16.99 a pound, a standard price for most of the Beaver Classic cheeses.

“We’re not an affordable cheese, but we have no business being affordable,” Frojen said. “It’s an excess agricultural commodity as a result of education. We’re not making to production needs. We’re teaching students how to make cheese and run a processing plant.”

She said the job is 90 percent cleaning and 10 percent glory.

“The excitement is the passion,” she said. “A lot of people end up being stewards because they took a job at the grocery store, then they catch the passion. Watching them interact with my students is amazing. The learning on both sides is critical.”

Although the creamery has been part of the university since the beginning but in the 1950s it was shut down out of concerns it would compete with the private dairy sector. It reopened in 2010 with a donation, and came out with its first cheese in 2012.

At the time, the cheese was called Beaver Classic, but over the years that has expanded to be the brand. Now, they have eight lines of cheeses, from classics such as original cheddar and Swiss to Pinot-, cider- and porter-soaked cheddars.

The milk comes from the dairy herd of around 125 cows, and the program has 20 students.

“We could not be more excited about this opportunity,” Lyn Ryse, Market of Choice vice president of marketing, said. “I don’t know of any other retailer in Oregon, or anywhere in the country, that’s doing anything like this. There’s really nothing more rewarding than actually making the cheese, bringing it into our stores and offering it to people who will take it home and enjoy it, then have them come back and tell us how much they loved it. It really is satisfying.”

Beaver Classic provolone is sold exclusively at the 11 Market of Choice stores in Oregon.

“For Christie and me, the reason we match so well is the passion that this means to us,” Frojen said. “This is what students and stewards are catching and that surpasses anything else. I encourage people to eat and think outside the box. Do something that scares you, eat something that scares you. That’s how they’ll find if this is for them.”

Willamette Valley winemaker Ken Wright made his first sales trip to China in 2017 thinking he had his work cut out for him to educate international consumers about the region and its reputation for high-quality Pinot noir.

Instead, it was Wright who learned a surprising lesson while overseas.

“I was stunned to find out that in fact almost everyone I met, not only did they know where the Willamette Valley was, they knew how to say it correctly,” Wright said. “For them to have that connection in their minds of the Willamette Valley and Pinot noir, I came back from that trip so impressed with what decades of work for so many people had done to create this value.”

That hard-earned recognition is now at the heart of a dispute between the Oregon wine industry and one Napa Valley producer, Copper Cane Wines & Provisions of Rutherford, Calif., over allegedly deceptive and misleading labeling practices.

Case in point: earlier this year, Copper Cane released a new brand of Oregon Pinot noir named “The Willametter Journal,” which Oregon leaders worry may give the impression that the wine originates from the Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area, or AVA, a federally designated region noted for its distinctive winegrowing conditions.

The issue recently landed on the radar of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which requested Copper Cane provide production, transfer and bottling records for seven wines, including the Willametter. The company has until Sept. 28 to turn over the information.

State Rep. David Gomberg, a Democrat representing the central Oregon coast, also testified about Copper Cane’s labels during a hearing before the House Interim Committee on Economic Development and Trade on Sept. 24, alongside Tom Danowski, CEO of the Oregon Winegrowers Association, and OLCC Director Steve Marks. The concern is whether Copper Cane is breaking the law by inferring Oregon’s distinguished AVAs on its labels to boost sales, without meeting the state’s rigorous standards.

“Labeling is important. So is truth in advertising,” Gomberg said. “We have seen our labeling laws being tested.”

Oregon adopted its wine labeling regulations in 1977, which are among the strictest in the country.

Under federal law, if a wine labels itself a particular variety — such as Pinot noir — then 75 percent of the grapes must be that variety. In Oregon, the rule is 90 percent. Likewise, federal law states that if a wine labels itself as being from a particular viticultural area — say, the Willamette Valley — then at least 85 percent of grapes must come from the AVA. Oregon requires 95 percent.

The law also prohibits making false, ambiguous or misleading statements on the label. That is where Danowski said the Oregon Winegrowers Association takes issue with a name like the Willametter, which may wrongly be associated with the Willamette Valley AVA.

“It raises questions about product integrity,” Danowski said. “When you are using Oregon AVAs,and commercializing Oregon products, you simply must follow the same rules that everyone else in Oregon is following.”

Both the Oregon Winegrowers Association and Willamette Valley Wineries Association met with Copper Cane’s owner, Joe Wagner, in August. Danowski said they had a productive conversation, and Copper Cane agreed to submit records to the OLCC.

Copper Cane denies any intentional wrongdoing. Jim Blumling, vice president of operations, said every wine it sells has received labeling approval from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

“We’re not bottling something that doesn’t have TBB approval,” Blumling said. “If they want us to tweak it because there is some new wisdom or there is some change of opinion, then we’ll certainly work with TBB to do the right thing.”

Blumling said Copper Cane buys wine grapes from roughly 50 growers in Oregon, including the Willamette, Rogue and Umpqua valleys, representing more than 90,000 cases worth of business. All Oregon wines are made with 100 percent Oregon grapes, he said, while the appellation of origin is listed as “Oregon,” and not any specific AVA.

As for the Willametter Journal, Blumling said it is a “fun, fanciful” name that is not intended to be misleading or disingenuous.

“We don’t think we’re doing anything wrong,” he said.

Jim Bernau, founder and winemaker at Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner, Ore., disagrees. He said the labels and marketing used by Copper Cane are clear violations of the law, and exploit Oregon AVAs for profit.

“I’m astonished that any producer would misrepresent the origin of their wine,” Bernau said.

Wright, who owns Ken Wright Cellars in Carlton, Ore., has spent the last year working with David Adelsheim, founder of Adelsheim Winery in Newberg, Ore., on a pair of legislative proposals to protect the Willamette Valley AVA and, specifically, their pinot noir.

The first initiative, known as conjunctive labeling, would require wineries who label a nested AVA in the Willamette Valley — such as Ribbon Ridge or Yamhill-Carlton — to also include Willamette Valley AVA somewhere on the bottle.

The second, known as “exclusive wine content,” would require all Willamette Valley Pinot noir to contain 100 percent Pinot noir grapes and 100 percent from the valley, as opposed to the current standard of 90 percent variety and 95 percent AVA. Such a change would require OLCC rule-making to mitigate potential financial hardships on businesses. A work group would also be formed to consider other wine varieties for inclusion.

Adelsheim said they are working on two separate bills for the 2019 Legislature. They would apply only within the Willamette Valley AVA.

“What we’re really trying to do is to ensure that the long-term safety of what we’re about as a brand is preserved,” Adelsheim said.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Legislature is considering allocating more than $1.2 million to better equip state agencies to respond to algal toxin contaminations.

The Statesman Journal reports the increased funding stems from Salem’s drinking water crisis earlier this year when city public works officials discovered elevated levels of cyanotoxins.

Water advisories were issued in May and June after toxins spiked above safe levels for vulnerable populations.

State lawmakers have recommended $160,000 for the Oregon Health Authority to fund a permanent and a temporary position in the state’s drinking water program.

The state is also recommending $750,000 for the state Department of Agriculture for laboratory equipment and a temporary position, and $380,000 for the state Department of Environmental Quality for four positions to continue cyanotoxin testing at 94 facilities.

NORTH BEND, Ore. — A computer glitch discovered this year masked the fact that Oregon’s backlog of food safety inspections hadn’t been as sharply reduced as initially estimated.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture had thought its backlog of inspections had been cut back to roughly 500 licensees in 2018, down from more than 2,800 identified in a 2016 audit.

However, the agency’s database system had a problem in which new companies that became overdue for inspection weren’t added to the backlog list.

When the glitch was found after inspector territories were redrawn earlier this year, the backlog list jumped to 2,200 licensees, including food manufacturers and grocers.

The finding was a “big hit to morale” for food safety inspectors, who felt as though they were largely back to where they started, said Isaak Stapleton, ODA’s director of food safety and animal health, at the Sept. 26 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture in North Bend, Ore.

Inspectors have now been directed to devote every Thursday to cutting back on the backlog list, Stapleton said.

ODA is planning for a big “ask” for its overall food safety program from the legislature next year.

The agency wants lawmakers to allocate $1.4 million from Oregon’s general fund for the program, rather than drawing that money from ODA’s “other” fund, which is comprised of fee revenue.

Drawing money from the “other” fund creates pressure to increase fees on the farmers, ranchers, food processors and other companies that receive services from ODA.

Even if the agency obtains that money from the general fund, it still wants to extend its ability to increase food safety fees by 3 percent a year. That authority expired in 2018.

The agency also wants to be granted new authority to close and condemn food safety licensees that fail to pay their fees.

Currently, ODA can only issue them civil penalties, but those are unlikely to be paid by licensees who ignore the underlying inspection fees, said Lisa Hanson, ODA’s deputy director.

The agency plans to request an additional $12 million from lawmakers next year on top of the $120 million needed to maintain its current level of operations in the 2019-2021 biennium, Hanson said.

The agency’s budget is $117 million in the 2017-2019 biennium.

Aside from the food safety program request, the added funds would pay for doubling the number of “strategic implementation areas” in the agency’s agricultural water quality program, from six to 12 a year.

Strategic implementation areas receive a higher level of regulatory scrutiny, with a focus on helping landowners achieve compliance with water quality requirements such as keeping manure piles away from streams.

The added funding would also supplement the ODA’s work in regulating cannabis, which includes overseeing hemp production and manufacturing of marijuana food products.

“Cannabis has brought an additional workload for the department, especially on the laboratory side,” said Hanson.

The agency also wants to reinstate a market development position to determine how Oregon can develop demand for its farm goods in Asia.

Japan is still the top market for Oregon’s agricultural products, but its population is aging and not growing as quickly as other Asian countries, Hanson said.

“The demographics are changing,” she said.

Apart from the ODA’s overall budget, the agency is asking Oregon’s Emergency Board — a panel of lawmakers who dispense funds between legislative sessions — for money to study toxins in water from blue-green algae.

Specifically, ODA wants to test manufactured food products to see whether the cyanotoxins in water render them unsafe to consume.

The study would cost $730,000 in the current biennium and $375,000 in the next biennium.

Earlier this year, cyanotoxins in the City of Salem’s water supply caused some food processors to suspend operations for 29 days while others trucked in water from elsewhere, Stapleton said.

“That’s a pretty big hit for a processor not to be processing,” he said.

PORTLAND — As a lifelong hunter and fisherman, Joe Furia said he has always taken a keen interest in natural resources management.

“For me, natural resources and society are not isolated,” Furia said. “They’re completely interconnected.”

Furia took over earlier this month as the new executive director of the World Forestry Center in Portland, a 52-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable forestry through educational programs.

A lawyer by trade, Furia, 41, previously worked five years as general counsel for The Freshwater Trust, a Portland-based conservation group focused on water quality and habitat projects. Furia graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School in 2008, and has spent time at several other Portland law firms, including K&L Gates and Landye, Bennett, Blumstein LLP.

Before earning his law degree, Furia spent five years in Silicon Valley working for a tech startup, and later as business development manager for AFS Trinity Power, a hybrid vehicle company.

Jennifer Allen, associate professor at Portland State University and chairwoman of the World Forestry Center Board of Directors, said Furia’s experience has prepared him to reach out to all partners in forest management to address issues in federal regulation, conservation and industry practices.

“The board was united in our belief that he’s the best leader to take the World Forestry Center forward in a time when our forests are more important that ever,” Allen said in a statement.

Furia arrived at the center Sept. 1, and is already preparing to host the 14th annual “Who Will Own the Forest?” conference Sept. 25-27. More than 400 people are expected to attend the event, with presentations on a range of topics from markets for wood products to climate and carbon concerns. The World Forestry Center is near the Oregon Zoo in Washington Park, and includes the Discovery Museum.

Everyone can agree that healthy forests are good for business, good for the economy and good for nature, Furia said. He said forests are a key component of Northwest infrastructure — just as communities rely on roads and bridges for transportation, they also rely on the forests to provide clean air, clean water and rural timber jobs.

The World Forestry Center is unique in that it is a trusted convener on forestry issues, Furia said, with a rich Rolodex of the players involved in forest management.

“If you want to improve forest management, then you have to look at the science. But if you’re looking at a pace and scale that’s meaningful, you have to engage the larger (social and economic) drivers,” Furia said. “You cannot manage forests in a vacuum.”

Heath Curtiss, general counsel for the Oregon Forest & Industries Council, a trade organization that advocates for the timber industry, has known and worked with Furia stemming back to Furia’s time with The Freshwater Trust. Curtiss described Furia as a smart, high-caliber leader who will bring productive thinking to issues that affect the industry.

“I think that Joe is interested in hosting conversations around forestry and its role in our economy and, frankly, our society,” Curtiss said. “He has some interesting thoughts on that.”

Furia said he values integrity, trust and hard work as a manager, and those qualities will be essential to moving the ball forward on sustainable forestry into the future.

“If we don’t have healthy forests, healthy salmon runs and a community that values them, then we have lost something that is at the heart of being a Northwesterner,” Furia said.

The wastewater problems at a controversial Oregon dairy will likely result in proposed changes to how such facilities are regulated during next year’s legislative session.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, chairman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, said during a Sept. 25 hearing that he’d be assembling a work group to propose legislation based on “lessons learned” from Lost Valley Farm of Boardman, Ore.

Dembrow said he wants to take steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again, referring to the large dairy’s repeated violations of wastewater rules since starting in April 2017.

So far in 2018, the dairy has been fined more than $10,000 by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which later sought to shut down the facility with a lawsuit.

That litigation was settled, but during the summer ODA filed another complaint accusing owner Greg te Velde of contempt of court for violating the agreement’s terms. The agency is also moving to revoke his “confined animal feeding operation” permit for the dairy.

A judge found te Velde in contempt and has ordered him to take remedial actions to prevent further manure lagoon overflows and other problems this winter.

Meanwhile, te Velde filed for bankruptcy to prevent a forced auction of his dairy herd, but the judge in that case has appointed a U.S. government trustee to oversee his assets, citing his spending unauthorized funds on gambling. Last week, te Velde was arrested in Hermiston, Ore., and charged with methamphetamine possession.

Alexis Taylor, ODA’s director, testified that overseeing the troubled dairy has proved expensive for the agency.

Normally, inspecting the dairy three or four times a year would have cost the ODA about $2,600 if it hadn’t run into non-compliance issues, she said.

Instead, the agency has inspected the dairy 62 times in the past year and a half. Combined with the costs of its legal actions against the company, the ODA has spent roughly $200,000 more on regulating the facility than it normally would have, Taylor said.

One idea mentioned during the recent legislative hearing would be to create a bonding requirement to compensate the agency in extraordinary circumstances, such as those associated with Lost Valley Farm.

Taylor said she would prefer to avoid the “moral hazard” of funding the agency’s operations with civil penalties, but would welcome exploring a “cost recovery” mechanism for extreme cases.

She said the ODA is also looking at the enforcement mechanisms used by other states in regulating CAFOs to see if there are other tools available to bring facilities into compliance.

Though water rights are regulated by the Oregon Water Resources Department, Dembrow also mentioned requiring CAFOs to secure water rights before beginning operations so they don’t have to rely on the “stockwater loophole.”

Providing water to livestock is exempt from water rights permitting in Oregon, which came under criticism in Lost Valley Farm’s case due to its size. It planned to have 30,000 cows.

The U.S. Forest Service was scheduled to present a plan Monday in Sisters to log trees that the Oregon Department of Transportation accidentally killed along a scenic drive. The culprit is an herbicide that state regulators still allow for roadside weed control.

The Forest Service says it needs to log as soon as possible along a 12-mile stretch of scenic road corridor through the Deschutes National Forest. Some of the trees to come down are hundreds of years old.

“It’s a public safety issue ... you just never know when a tree is going to go,” said Forest Service spokeswoman Kassidy Kern.

The herbicide Perspective is behind the die-off. An ODOT contractor in Jefferson County applied it for years to control weeds and minimize fire risk along Highway 20. Trees absorbed the chemical aminocyclopyrachlor through their roots and began to slowly die. 

ODOT’s Peter Murphy says the agency is no longer using Perspective. But the Oregon Department of Agriculture has not restricted its use in response to tree deaths.

ODA spokeswoman Andrea Cantu-Schomus said in a text message: “ODA is collecting information on how widespread the damage might be, and is evaluating possible restrictions to prevent future damage to valuable tree species. ODA does intend to implement protective measures in the near future.”

The Forest Service hopes to log the standing dead and dying trees before winter.

Oregon’s environmental regulators have asked a state judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that controls over dairy pollution in the Tillamook basin are insufficiently strict.

The complaint was filed by oysterman Jesse Hayes, who claims that excessive fecal coliform bacteria has curtailed or shut down harvest from his oyster beds in the Tillamook Bay.

Attorneys representing Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality asked Tillamook County Circuit Judge Mari Garric Trevino to throw out the case before it goes to a jury trial, which is currently scheduled for three days beginning on Oct. 23.

Much of the oral arguments on Sept. 21 centered on procedural matters.

The state government claims its “total maximum daily load” regulation for fecal coliform bacteria in the rivers flowing into Tillamook Bay is a final agency order that can only be challenged through an administrative process.

Since the TMDL was set in 2001 and the deadline for such an administrative objection has long expired, it’s too late for Hayes to fight the order, according to DEQ.

Hayes, on the other hand, claims that DEQ’s regulation is a rule change that can be challenged in state court, since the ongoing deposition of fecal coliform bacteria is a “continuing tort” that harms his oyster beds.

“It’s hard to hold any one dairy farmer accountable for what’s going on in the bay,” said Thomas Benke, the attorney for Hayes, explaining why the lawsuit targeted DEQ rather than individual operations.

Even if the judge decides the TMDL was an order, Hayes should still be allowed to challenge the regulation because he was never served with a formal notice of the government’s action, his attorney claimed.

Sadie Forzley, an attorney for DEQ, said there was “no legal basis” requiring such formal service to Hayes, since he could have participated in the same public process as other people affected by water quality issues.

Trevino, the judge, appeared to question that conclusion, at one point saying that “it just doesn’t make sense to me that he wouldn’t be noticed.”

“His property is affected probably more than anyone in the watershed,” she said.

The state government also claims that it cannot be held liable for injuries caused by third parties, since the alleged dairy pollution isn’t occurring on state property.

There’s no basis to regard Oregon’s permit for “confined animal feeding operations” as unlawful, but if that were the case, then Hayes should challenge the CAFO permit and not the TMDL regulation, Forzley said.

Hayes isn’t challenging the CAFO permit in the current litigation but he is considering legal action against the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which oversees that program, Benke said.

After the hearing, Benke told Capital Press that if the oyster company cannot get the state to reconsider the TMDL regulation then he’ll have no choice but to challenge the CAFO permits.

“It was an invitation for us to sue the ODA. I don’t want to, I have to,” he said.

A defunct Oregon beef packer is planning to auction its assets because a buyer hasn’t yet committed to purchasing its facilities as a package.

Bartels Packing of Eugene, Ore., shut down in March with a debt of $8.3 million, including $4.6 million owed to cattle suppliers and feedlots.

Although the company estimated the $14 million value of its assets would cover its debts, the closure nonetheless left livestock producers without an important local cattle buyer.

Earlier this summer, however, the possibility emerged of a new owner taking control of Bartels’ slaughter-and-processing facilities as an ongoing enterprise.

A potential buyer had submitted a “letter of intent” to purchase the company’s assets as a package deal, according to court documents filed by Richard Hooper of Pivotal Solutions, the receiver who’s overseeing its dissolution.

That deal is now apparently being called into question.

Hooper is seeking a judge’s permission to sell the company’s assets at an auction because he “has not yet found a buyer that has committed to purchase substantially all of the assets” owned by Bartels in a “package transaction.”

“We’re still chatting with the prospective buyer but we’re also preparing for an auction if that’s what we need to do,” Hooper told Capital Press.

The assets would most likely be auctioned by the James G. Murphy Co. in early to mid-December, which would allow the winning bidders to collect the equipment and other items before a lease on the property expires in January 2019.

Any liens or other encumbrances on the assets would attach to the proceeds of the auction, which is intended to maximize the value of the assets as opposed to “selling the most desirable items piecemeal,” according to the receiver’s request.

Bartels has paid about $624,000 to cattle sellers who had valid USDA trust claims, but other suppliers weren’t eligible for such payments under the federal Packers & Stockyards Act, which generally doesn’t cover livestock transactions based on credit.

The founder of Oregon’s second-largest dairy found himself Friday in Hermiston police handcuffs.

Hermiston police arrested Greg te Velde, 60, for felony methamphetamine possession. The resident of Tipton, Calif., was not alone. Police also arrested Sarah Cook, 38, of Hermiston for felony meth possession as well.

Officers contacted the pair late Friday during a traffic stop in the parking lot near her apartment complex at 630 S.E. Sixth St., according to Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston.

“Officers discovered suspected methamphetamine and smoking devices in plain view,” he stated, and te Velde was in possession of $7,400 cash. The police chief also reported te Velde “admitted to buying and using methamphetamine earlier in the evening with Cook.”

Officers detained the pair and searched the vehicle, where they found several grams of what appeared to be methamphetamine. Police arrested te Velde and Cook for the drugs and booked them into the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton. Officers also seized the $7,400 and cited te Velde for driving while suspended and failing to drive on the right.

“This arrest was the start of the weekend for the team of officers that was late shift,” Edmiston said an in email. “Our officers were extremely busy making several drug and DUII arrests. We are aware Mr. Tevelde is facing numerous charges from more than one entity. We have been in consultation with the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Office.”

Court and police records also use the name Tevelde.

Te Velde founded the Lost Valley Farm, near Boardman, plus two dairies in California — GJ te Velde Ranch, Tipton, and Pacific Rim Dairy, Corcoran. He also brought on himself a slew of financial, personal and legal troubles, including drug use and patronizing prostitutes. The California bankruptcy court in September wrested control of the farms from te Velde and appointed a trustee to oversee their operations.

A “perfect storm” of high demand and increased production carried the Oregon wine industry to significant economic growth in 2017, according to an annual study by the University of Oregon Institute for Policy Research and Engagement.

The latest Oregon Vineyard and Winery Report shows the state added 92 new vineyards and 44 new wineries in 2017, while expanding planted acres from 30,435 to 33, 631 — a 10.5 percent jump.

Overall production also rose from 79,282 tons of wine grapes valued at $167.8 million in 2016, to 91,343 tons at $191.9 million in 2017. Willamette Valley Pinot noir remains the leading variety, accounting for 58 percent of acreage and 59 percent of production.

Most new wineries, however, came out of Eastern Oregon and “at-large” wine growing regions. Eastern Oregon — home of the state’s newest American Viticultural Area, The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, established in 2015 — saw 18 new wineries open in 2017, while the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon saw 13.

Total sales grew to more than $550 million in 2017, up nearly 4 percent over 2016. Though in-state sales saw a slight decrease from 593,192 cases to 579,155 cases, domestic sales outside of Oregon rose from 1.8 million cases to more than 2 million cases, and international sales exploded from 65,515 cases to 94,351 cases, bringing exports back to levels last seen in 2014.

The top export destination by a wide margin is Canada, which brought in 46,692 cases of Oregon wine, or nearly half of all Oregon wine exports. Japanese consumers bought 26 percent more Oregon wine than they did in 2016, and the United Kingdom bought 31 percent more Oregon wine.

Tom Danowski, executive director of the Oregon Wine Board, said the data shows Oregon is well positioned to compete in a fiercely competitive global wine market.

“We continue to see the marketplace recognizing quality and Oregon delivering it more consistently across more grape varieties and growing regions than ever,” Danowski said in a statement.

The majority of Oregon wine grapes continue to come from the North Willamette Valley, a region that specializes in Pinot noir, though production did increase markedly for Chardonnay, which gained nearly 1,500 tons, and Syrah, which gained roughly 1,250 tons.

Sally Murdoch, a spokeswoman for the wine board, said Oregon winemakers have garnered a reputation for quality.

“People associate Oregon wine with consistently high quality, and they are showing us with their purchases they’re willing to pay for it,” Murdoch said. “Thanks to the hard work our winemakers do in hosting tastings and landing on wine lists all over the world, we have better exposure, and the more people who taste Oregon wine, the more fans we make.”

With the increase in planted acres, Murdoch said the future continues to look bright.

“While wine is a competitive market, we now have a perfect storm of high and increasing demand for Oregon wines met with more wine grapes being grown and more wine produced,” she said.

Forests and farmland are identified as the major sources of mercury pollution in the Willamette basin’s waterways in a modeling study commissioned by Oregon’s environmental regulators.

The finding reflects the extent to which agriculture and timber are major land uses in the region and doesn’t necessarily blame them for causing pollution.

Nonetheless, Oregon’s natural resource industries are troubled by the implication they’ll be expected to shoulder most of the regulatory burden to reduce the mercury load.

“It will have a serious effect on people’s bottom lines for a problem they’re not even creating,” said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that’s naturally found in the soil but also travels through the air from coal-burning plants in China and gets deposited on the ground in Oregon through rain.

Forestry and agriculture advocates are troubled by a modeling study conducted by Tetra Tech, an environmental consulting firm hired by Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality.

The study indicates environmental regulation can’t control the major cause of mercury pollution, since it’s coming from overseas, but it can address the “fraction of the load that reaches streams” through erosion.

“You can’t achieve the target concentration without addressing the atmospheric deposition,” said John Butcher, an environmental engineer at Tetra Tech, during a Sept. 19 meeting in Wilsonville, Ore.

At this point, the modeling study is simply Tetra Tech’s opinion, rather than official DEQ policy.

However, since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon’s DEQ — which enforces federal water quality standards — cannot stop China from burning coal, natural resource industry advocates worry they will be expected to solve a problem they didn’t cause.

Due to the steep reduction in mercury pollution that DEQ determined was necessary to comply with the Clean Water Act, it’s possible that even the most stringent restrictions on tilling and logging wouldn’t sufficiently lower mercury levels in fish.

Activities that disturb the soil lead to erosion, with the mercury-laden sediment winding up in waterways.

The median concentration of mercury in fish tissue is currently 0.15 milligrams per kilogram. Under the “total maximum daily load” determined by DEQ, the maximum level of mercury would have to fall to 0.04 milligrams per kilogram.

Atmospheric deposition is estimated to contribute 34 percent of the Willamette basin’s mercury load, while sediment contributes to about 43 percent — however, much of the mercury in that sediment comes from historic atmospheric deposits.

In the context of land use, the model estimates that forestland represents 45 percent of the mercury load source, followed by shrubland — which is mostly disturbed forests — at 20 percent.

Row crops were found to represent 7 percent of the load source, while the “other” category — which includes pasture and hay ground — was estimated at 11 percent. Altogether, these sources represent 83 percent of the mercury load.

Heath Curtiss, government affairs director for the Oregon Forest Industries Council, fears it’s possible that even if all forestry and farming were shut down in Oregon, mercury pollution would still exceed the DEQ’s standard.

“This water quality modeling proves this standard is unattainable,” he said. “There is literally nothing we can do to meet those target reductions.”

Arguably, farms and forests are actually “sequestering” much of the mercury by capturing the element in soil and plants, preventing all of it from going directly into waterways, said Mary Anne Cooper of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

The modeling study doesn’t acknowledge the erosion-prevention measures that farmers have already taken, she said. “It doesn’t take into account cover cropping, it doesn’t take into account riparian buffers, it doesn’t take into account restoration work or conservation tillage.”

Objections were also raised about the data used in the modeling study, much of which was collected in the 1990s, before such methods were as commonly employed by Oregon’s farmers and foresters.

“I had hair in the 1990s, which has very little relevance for today,” said Jeff Stone, executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

Gene Foster, DEQ’s watershed management manager, said the agency won’t ignore the strides made by natural resource industries in controlling erosion.

“We recognize a lot has happened to keep soil on the land over the past years,” he said. “We will be able to take those into account in our water quality management development.”

The EPA and DEQ are under a tight court-ordered deadline to revise how the state deals with mercury pollution.

In 2017, a judge ruled the way that EPA and DEQ had decided to implement the “total maximum daily load” standard was insufficiently strict and gave the agencies two years to revise their methods. That deadline is coming up next April, which is why DEQ has commissioned the modeling study and assembled an advisory group to confer on its plans.

At this point, the modeling study hasn’t identified which sources of mercury pollution are human-caused or would occur without logging or tilling, Foster said. The study currently differentiates among land use sources of the mercury load regardless of human activity.

Though it’s unclear whether the water quality standard can be achieved through regulation, the modeling study is the best science available to the agency, he said.

As the state implements the TMDL standard to reduce the mercury load, regulators will monitor the basin water system and respond with “adaptive management,” Foster said.

“As things progress, we learn more and adapt accordingly,” he said.

As a university horticulture student, Kathy LeCompte once got some bad advice from a guidance counselor about her plan to commercially grow and sell plants.

“I was told early in my career there was no room for women in the nursery industry,” she said.

After successfully running the Brooks Tree Farm for the better part of four decades with her husband, Dave, LeCompte likes to think she and other women have helped change the negative gender stereotype espoused by her counselor.

“It turns out he was wrong,” LeCompte said.

Since starting on a 30-acre parcel in 1980, the company has grown to seven sites with 255 acres and annually sells up to 6 million plants of roughly 50 varieties.

The nursery produces conifer seedlings for multiple markets — reforestation, Christmas trees and ornamental stock — as well as native plants for habitat restoration projects.

Much of the company’s plants are field-grown, but it’s also invested in greenhouses in which they’re grown in “plugs,” or tiny containers that contain the roots, rendering them less vulnerable to drying out.

“They tend to be a lot more uniform,” LeCompte said.

Selling plants with more than one purpose has traditionally broadened the company’s base of customers, helping to insulate it from shocks to any one market.

“It helps even out production,” LeCompte said.

Brooks Tree Farm was usually far enough back in the supply chain to cushion it from economic disruptions, but the most recent “Great Recession” proved an exception to that rule.

With the severe downturn in housing, loggers weren’t cutting trees for new homes and didn’t need seedlings for replanting. At the same time, housing developers and homeowners stopped investing in landscaping, drying up demand for plants.

“It hit our nursery on both sides. We weren’t supplying the timber or the ornamental nursery trade,” LeCompte said.

To make matters worse, severe overproduction in the Christmas tree industry destroyed demand for seedlings in that sector as well.

Between 2008 and 2015, the company dumped three million Noble fir seedlings, for example, because they were getting too big to effectively harvest and ship.

“It’s not like other businesses where you can leave product on a shelf until things are better,” she said.

Fortunately, the fourth pillar of the company’s business, native plant sales, was a major factor in why the nursery survived. Environmental restoration projects are often funded by the federal government, which spent heavily to stimulate the economy during the recession.

The native plant market is inherently risky because there are relatively few buyers who can order tremendous numbers of plants.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, native species are often finicky to germinate and cultivate even though they’re grown in their natural climate.

“They just take a lot of baby-sitting,” LeCompte said.

Seeds from the cottonwood and willow spoil very quickly, for example, and the seedlings that do emerge can grow very unevenly. Meanwhile, their irrigation needs are disparate: Willows desperately need water, whereas over watering cottonwoods would quickly produce enormous, unsaleable trees.

Though native plants pose particular challenges, anticipating demand years or even decades out is a conundrum facing each of the market segments served by Brooks Tree Farm.

Knowing how many Christmas trees consumers will want, for instance, is highly speculative, LeCompte said. “We’re guessing what the market is going to need 12 to 15 years out. That’s tough.”

Now that the glut of Christmas trees has ended and housing starts have improved, there’s enough need for seedlings that a shortage has developed.

“Those trees were pushed out and now there’s an under supply,” LeCompte said.

One product that’s not as exposed to long-term trends in other industries are tiny coniferous trees that are used as gifts at weddings and funerals.

The traditional use for these trees was as “grafters” that serve as the base for other varieties, but Brooks Tree Farm also sells them in decorative boxes or champagne flutes, serving as inexpensive and flexible party favors.

Such diversification is helpful in an industry filled with uncertainties about future demand.

“Those are questions none of us knows the answers to,” LeCompte said.

Brooks Tree Farm

Owners: Kathy and Dave LeCompte

Headquarters: Brooks, Ore.

Employees: 30 year-round, up to 75 during peak harvest season.

Founded: 1980

Property: Seven locations totaling 255 acres.

Markets served: Christmas trees, reforestation, ornamental nursery stock, native habitat restoration.

Sales territory: Primarily the Pacific Northwest, but also throughout the U.S. and occasionally international.

A volunteer group of wildland firefighters in south-central Oregon is frustrated with the U.S. Forest Service after members were turned away from suppressing the Watson Creek fire, which would go on to burn nearly 60,000 acres.

The fire started Aug. 15 on the Fremont-Winema National Forest about 13 miles west of Paisley, Ore., spread quickly and prompted multiple evacuation notices for nearby residents in rural Lake County.

Kevin Leehmann, of Summer Lake, serves as chairman of the High Desert Rangeland Fire Protection Association, covering 1.7 million acres from Fort Rock south to Valley Falls. He was among the crew that initially responded to the Watson Creek fire when it was still only 8-10 acres in size, only to be told by the Forest Service to leave.

“We were pretty angry,” Leehmann said. “I was just dumbfounded they would turn us away.”

Rangeland fire protection associations allow local farmers and ranchers across the West to work with state and federal firefighting agencies to battle wildfires in large, remote areas. Oregon’s High Desert association formed in 2017 following the Ana fire, which burned 5,874 acres and two structures west of Ana Reservoir near Summer Lake.

“We needed this association,” Leehmann said. “I think it’s a great model.”

The association now has roughly 75 members scattered over a mix of private timberland and dry, scrubby desert. Leehmann said they have signed agreements with the Oregon Department of Forestry and Bureau of Land Management, but not with the Forest Service.

At about 3 p.m. on Aug. 15, Leehmann said the association first received reports of a fire over dispatch through the Lakeview Interagency Fire Center. They responded first to the Withers Ranch near Paisley, before determining the fire was west of Highway 31 on the national forest, outside of their jurisdictional boundaries.

Leehmann, who works as a trained firefighter and paramedic with the La Pine Rural Fire Protection District, said they got within 1,000 yards of the fire, walking in a D6 bulldozer to start digging a firebreak in thick timber and lots of dead and down fuel.

By that time, the Forest Service had taken command, and that’s when Leehmann said they were ordered to leave.

“We jut flat got shot down,” he said. “I’m not saying we would have stopped the fire, but at least we would have done something.”

Leehmann readily admits they were outside of their jurisdiction, but nonetheless were prepared to go to work. The fire made a seven-mile run overnight, leading to immediate evacuation orders for Lakeview Estates and Level 2 notices as the fire approached Paisley.

Leehmann said the association needs an agreement with the Forest Service to prevent something like this from happening again.

“If we don’t have it by next year, I’m probably going to raise holy hell over it,” he said. “It’s just ridiculous.”

Tamara Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the Fremont-Winema National Forest, said the primary issue was safety. The association arrived on scene without being dispatched, outside of their jurisdiction, and without wearing the appropriate protective gear, she said, such as Nomex shirts, pants and hard hats — an assertion Leehmann denies.

“Our first priority is firefighter and public safety,” Schmidt said. “We didn’t want them to get hurt.”

Now that things have settled down, Schmidt said the Forest Service will work this winter to reach an agreement with the High Desert association, and outfitting the group with the proper equipment.

Schmidt said the Forest Service is accustomed to working across jurisdictions on wildfires. She cited the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership, made up of the Forest Service, ODF, BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Crater Lake National Park.

Schmidt said the Forest Service knows members of the community were frustrated following the Watson Creek fire, and appreciates their patience and understanding.

“We value and appreciate the community, and want to make sure we’re all working together, and doing it safely,” she said.

The Watson Creek fire is now 95 percent contained. The cause is still under investigation.

A longtime onion entrepreneur from Ontario and a small urban farmer from Portland are the newest members of the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has appointed Grant Kitamura of the Baker & Murakami Produce Co. and Shantae Johnson of Mudbone Grown farm to replace outgoing board members Tracey Liskey, a farmer in the Klamath Basin, and Laura Masterson, an organic grower from Portland.

Kitamura, an Oregon State University graduate and married father of three children, is the descendant of Japanese immigrants who “transformed his onion business into a successful, modern enterprise shipping onions nationwide,” according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which is advised by the board.

Johnson, a graduate of Portland State University who raises six children with her partner, operates a “community-oriented collective farming and farmer training program” that’s intended to teach job skills and serve “people of color and veterans of military service,” the agency said.

Both Kitamura and Johnson are expected to attend their first board meeting in McMinnville in late November.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — In August, a state analyst spotted dozens of suspicious transactions when he crunched cannabis sales data: a small number of medical marijuana cardholders bought unusually large quantities of marijuana flowers on consecutive days.

Oregon regulators suspected medical marijuana patients and caregivers were exploiting the system by buying cannabis to sell on the illicit market.

The response was swift. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, under pressure from federal officials to tackle the robust black market for marijuana, quickly issued a temporary rule that dramatically reduced the amount that medical marijuana cardholders could buy in a day.

The limit dropped from a pound and a half of marijuana to 1 ounce -- the same quantity recreational cannabis consumers are allowed to buy.

“What we saw was abuse, clear abuse of the standards,” Steve Marks, executive director of the Liquor Control Commission, said Wednesday.

Over 19 days in August, for instance, one medical marijuana cardholder bought nearly 13 pounds of cannabis. Another bought 7 pounds over 10 days that month. Officials said the questionable transactions came from a small percentage of cardholders and that the typical purchase for most cardholders was 4 grams or less.

Marks said marijuana program overseers worried that the state’s low marijuana prices enticed some cardholders to stock up and “take it to Iowa or wherever and sell for a profit.”

“We saw that happening,” he said, adding it was “a little bit of a Ponzi scheme.”

Oregon has been in the crosshairs of U.S. Justice Department leaders for not doing enough to crack down on the black market. U.S. Attorney Billy Williams has repeatedly expressed frustration with the state’s failure to contain production and he’s chided top officials for not devoting enough resources to oversight and enforcement.

On Wednesday, patients and advocates for the medical marijuana program blasted the new limits at a contentious meeting of the state’s rules advisory committee.

Advocates said medical marijuana patients sometimes need large quantities of the drug to make products they rely on to treat their conditions and they accused the state of meddling with medicine.

The rules committee, made up of marijuana industry participants and advocates, called on the Liquor Control Commission to restore daily purchase limits to 24 ounces.

The at-times boisterous crowd included some of the same activists who have long championed Oregon’s 20-year-old medical marijuana program since its early days. For many, the rule reflects the latest change to a program that has experienced a steep drop-off in participation since voters approved recreational marijuana in 2014.

State statistics show Oregon has about 39,000 medical marijuana patients, down from 78,000 in 2015. The number of grow sites serving three or more patients has also plummeted from about 4,000 in 2015 to about 800 today, according to Anthony Taylor, a longtime advocate.

Cannabis is tax-free for medical marijuana patients. They also are allowed to buy more potent edibles and oils than recreational users, and until the latest rule change, they could buy more cannabis flower.

It remains a vital program for those who remain, supporters said.

Brent Kenyon, a licensed producer, processor and retailer based in Medford, accused regulators of scapegoating medical marijuana cardholders for black market diversion when recreational producers do the same.

“You cannot punish everybody for the few bad actors,” he said. “You can’t do it. It’s not good policy.”

During a particularly tense exchange, Jesse Sweet, the lawyer who has helped draft the state’s rules for Oregon’s legal marijuana market, asked Dr. Rachel Knox, a member of the advisory committee, to explain why one person would need so much cannabis.

“I need you to explain to me why a patient needs 6 pounds of flower,” he said. Knox countered by saying the state had no proof that the transactions were linked to illegal activity and she wouldn’t rule out that one person could have a legitimate medical need for a large quantity.

It was a claim that Sweet found incredulous, using an expletive to express his disbelief.

Sweet, the administrative policy and process director for the Liquor Control Commission, then got up and walked out of the crowded meeting. He eventually returned and apologized for losing his temper.

Marks, after the meeting, struck a diplomatic note, saying he was encouraged by the lively discussion and some of the advocates’ proposals, including allowing patients to buy more marijuana based on a doctor’s recommendation.

“We are going to look at it,” he said. “We are listening.”