California-based Munger Bros. denies allegations that foreign workers were mistreated at its blueberry farm in Sumas, Wash,, and vows to fight a class-action lawsuit filed Jan. 25 in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The suit claims that Mexican nationals last summer at Sarbanand Farms, owned by Munger, were underfed and overworked and that about 60 of them were illegally fired after staging a one-day strike in response to a worker’s death.

“The companies (Munger and Sarbanand) will vigorously fight the allegations in the complaint, which will be shown to be untrue and without merit,” according to a Munger statement.

The lawsuit stems from events last August at Sarbanand, including the death of farmworker Honesto Ibarra. He was taken away by ambulance Aug. 2 and died four days later at a Seattle hospital. Some workers refused to pick Aug. 4 and were fired the next day.

Labor activists alleged an ailing Ibarra was ordered back to work, though the company said it learned from a relative that Ibarra was diabetic and immediately called the ambulance.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries will complete an investigation in early February into workplace conditions at the farm, department spokesman Tim Church said Friday. A separate probe into whether the farm followed employment laws is also underway, but the department does not have a deadline for finishing it, he said.

The lawsuit was filed by Columbia Legal Services and a Seattle law firm, Schroeter Goldmark & Bender. It names workers Barbano Rosas and Guadalupe Tapia as lead plaintiffs, but seeks unspecified monetary damages for about 600 H-2A workers recruited to pick last summer at Sarbanand. The suit also names CSI Visa Processing, a Mexico-based labor contractor, as a defendant. Efforts to contact CSI were unsuccessful.

Munger Bros., based in Delano, Calif., calls itself North America’s largest fresh blueberry producer, with more than 3,000 acres in Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia and Mexico.

Columbia Legal Services attorney Joe Morrison said Friday that the lawsuit doesn’t depend on the circumstances of Ibarra’s death, but rather how workers were treated before and after his death.

“We’re hoping that people get put on notice that you may be able to use the program, but you have to play within the lines,” he said.

The lawsuit alleges that a farm manager told workers they had to pick unless they were on their “deathbed.”

The suit also claims the workers weren’t fed enough, with food running out at some meals. The suit further claims the company violated Washington labor law by firing the striking workers.

Munger, in its statement, said the company takes seriously its responsibility to see to the wellbeing of workers.

“The facts are that operations at the Sarbanand farm in Washington are exemplary. They include modern housing, dining and worker facilities for the H-2A workers. All employees are treated well and are paid well,” the company said.

The company said last summer that by refusing to pick, the workers were violating their H-2A contracts.

Farms are allowed to hire foreign seasonal workers if they can’t find enough domestic workers.

At a press conference Thursday in Seattle, Morrison leveled general criticism against the H-2A program.

“As a matter of public policy, you cannot import thousands and thousands of workers from foreign countries, exclude them from the protection of key labor laws, and expect everything to work out fine,” Morrison said.

Farms must provide housing, transportation and other benefits, such as workers compensation insurance, to H-2A workers. The U.S. Labor Department sets minimum wages for H-2A workers at a higher level than Washington’s minimum wage.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has called for replacing what it calls a “cumbersome” H-2A program with one that gives foreign workers more freedom to choose employers.

JOSEPH, Ore. — Wallowa County is well known for its bronze art and dramatic scenery, but agriculture remains its economic base. In February the county’s literary nonprofit, Fishtrap, presents a weekend of conversations entitled, Winter Fishtrap: The New Agrarians.

Held at the Joseph Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph Feb. 16 through 18, Fishtrap will host regional and local organizations as well as community members to discuss today’s farming challenges from succession planning to the culture of agriculture at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph.

Mike Midlo, Fishtrap’s program manager, said the New Agrarians schedule sets the problems, provides a structured conversation and looks for solutions and a list of action items.

“We chose the subject of agrarians because we know there are people really struggling to make it here and elsewhere,” Midlo said. “If agriculture is important to us as citizens of the West, we want to know what we can do to help farmers succeed.”

The panel discussions and breakout sessions will be interactive and inclusive, Midlo said, giving everyone a voice to come to a greater understanding.

“Whether you are a young farmer or part of the older generation we want to know what the real world solutions are.”

Kate Greenberg, Western program director for the National Young Farmer’s Coalition, will deliver the opening address on Friday night as well as facilitate breakout sessions and moderate panel discussions over the course of the weekend. Joining her is Nellie McAdams, farm preservation program director for Rogue Farm Corps, as well as Kathleen Ackley of the Wallowa Land Trust and Sara Miller and Kristy Athens with Northeast Oregon Economic Development District.

Oregon policy makers will also be on hand to discuss agricultural perspectives from tilling the ground to proposing legislation like Mike Hayward, former chairman of the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners, Brett Brownscombe of Portland State’s National Policy Consensus Center and John Williams, Wallowa County’s Oregon State University Extension agent.

To develop the weekend’s list of events Midlo said a committee of community members was asked, “What is important for people living in Wallowa County and the greater West?”

“We wanted to look at what are the barriers to becoming a farmer today,” Midlo said.

Instead of “how-to” workshops, Midlo said Fishtrap brought together a group of people with diverse voices to talk about something that is commonly important. The theme became The New Agrarians with so many concerns arising about land succession and an aging workforce.

Diminishing farmland and farmers are growing concerns in Oregon. When there is no one to take over the family farm or ranch, producers face tough choices like selling land to be converted into housing developments, driving up land prices and making land too expensive to farm. Zoning laws also impact land use in communities where agriculture is still a primary business.

“Stats show something like 60 percent of farm land is going to change hands in the next 20 years and most farmers are over 60 years old,” Midlo said.

Since 1988 Fishtrap has hosted writing workshops, classes and lectures. While the organization is best known outside Wallowa County for its weeklong event, Summer Fishtrap, held in July at a camp just south of the shores of Wallowa Lake, most of the organization’s offerings are geared to locals.

Winter Fishtrap, Midlo said, is designed to be accessible to a lot of the county’s workforce, farmers, ranchers, forest workers and wildland firefighters who are not available in the summer months and to meet people where they are — whether a producer, a consumer or a policy maker.

“What we are good at is pulling people together; bringing together diverse voices about something that is commonly important,” Midlo said.

COOS COUNTY — The Oregon Department of Education released graduation rates from 2016-2017 and the Coquille School District scored as one of the best in the state.

COOS COUNTY — The Oregon Department of Education released graduation rates from 2016-2017 and the Coquille School District scored as one of the best in the state.

When advocates of providing high-speed broadband to all corners of America talk about the “digital divide,” they are talking about places like Gilliam County, Ore.

From the waterfront along the Columbia River in Arlington to the rolling wheat fields surrounding Condon, the county spans 1,200 square miles and roughly 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Many homesteads and farms are tucked away at the bottom of steep canyons, where wireless internet struggles to penetrate.

That creates a challenge for elderly residents who rely on the convenience of telemedicine, and farmers who would like to fit their tractors with GPS steering, said Gilliam County Judge Steve Shaffer. Shaffer spoke Jan. 25 at a community forum in Salem hosted by Connect Americans Now, a coalition dedicated to eliminating the digital divide by 2022.

Specifically, the group has homed in on using what are known as TV white spaces to deliver rural broadband.

“This is a technology that we think will really work for us,” Shaffer said.

TV white space refers to unused television channels on the broadcast spectrum that act as a buffer to avoid interference between active channels. The broadcast spectrum ranges from low-frequency bands like AM radio, which can travel great distances at low data volume, to high-frequency bands like Wi-Fi, which travel shorter distances at much higher volume.

Joe Conradi, national outreach director for Connect Americans Now, said TV white space is the sweet spot between the two, able to reach long enough distances at enough volume for rural broadband.

What the market needs, Conradi said, is regulatory certainty from the Federal Communications Commission. Connect Americans Now launched Jan. 2 and is urging the FCC to leave at least three TV white space channels open in every market, luring much-needed investment to communities like Gilliam County and its population of 1,900.

Fiber will always be the gold standard for internet, Conradi said, but he estimated it would cost $60 billion-$80 billion to bridge the digital divide using fiber alone. That’s why a combination of technologies, including TV white space, is a key part of the strategy, he said.

“The most important thing is we need to put pressure on the FCC,” Conradi said.

More than 34 million Americans, including 23.4 million in rural areas, are without access to reliable broadband, according to Connect Americans Now. Microsoft, through its Rural Airband Initiative, is now working toward a device to turn TV white space into rural broadband, though it has drawn some opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters.

In July 2017, the NAB issued a statement that the proposal “threatens millions of viewers with loss of lifeline broadcast TV programming,” and that Microsoft’s white space technology has been a “well-documented, unmitigated failure.”

Conradi said the coalition has gained some allies in Congress, and has had “great conversations” with U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who represents rural eastern and central Oregon. Earlier this year, Walden issued a statement praising two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aimed at improving rural broadband service.

“Too many rural communities in Oregon lack the broadband access they need to join the 21st century economy,” Walden said. “I hear this all too frequently from my constituents.”

Several Oregon cities and counties have already signed on to Connect Americans Now, as well as the Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association. OCA spokeswoman Mary Jo Foley-Birrenkott discussed how the internet has become increasingly important for farmers and ranchers to access real-time commodity markets, weather reports and precision agriculture tools.

“Agriculture is the lifeblood of these rural areas,” Foley-Birrenkott said. “Any way they can become more efficient and build those business plans helps facilitate the survival of those towns.”

Apart from farming, Conradi said broadband is crucial for small businesses, schools and health care in small-town America.

“Some of these communities really face extinction within the next 10 years if they don’t get on the right side of this digital divide,” he said.

Rural landowners in Oregon have settled a lawsuit filed that accused their marijuana-growing neighbors of violating federal anti-racketeering law and reducing property values.

However, the question of whether Oregon marijuana growers can be successfully sued under the Rackeeter Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act may still be answered, as a similar lawsuit was recently filed against another cannabis operation.

Last year, Rachel and Erin McCart of Beavercreek, Ore., filed a RICO complaint against more than 40 defendants involved in medical marijuana production, including landowners, growers, retailers and a bank.

Apart from lowering the value of their 11-acre property, the McCarts claimed that two nearby marijuana operations attracted unwanted visitors, increased traffic and generated foul odors, among other problems.

While medical and recreational marijuana were legalized by Oregon voters, the plaintiffs claimed their neighbors were still subject to RICO because the substance is illegal under federal law.

“Given the strict federal prohibitions against each of those purposes, defendants knew these purposes could only be accomplished via a pattern of racketeering. In furtherance of that goal, defendants pooled their resources and achieved enterprise efficiency that no one defendant could have achieved individually,” the complaint said.

The complaint was filed on the heels of a ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that RICO claims should be allowed to proceed against a Colorado marijuana operation.

With the large number of defendants in the Oregon case, initial procedural steps took several months before the defendants filed motions to dismiss the complaint.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta in Portland had planned to take those requests under advisement in early 2018, but then stayed proceedings in the case when the parties notified him of a pending settlement.

On Jan. 26, the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can’t be refiled, at the request of the plaintiffs, “without an award of fees or costs to any party.”

Rachel McCart, who is an attorney, did not respond to requests to comment on the settlement deal.

Cliff Davidson, an attorney for a landowner defendant, said the dispute has been resolved but he cannot discuss the terms of the agreement.

In light of uncertainty about marijuana enforcement from the Trump administration, controversies over the crop are bound to continue, he said.

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Justice Department issued a memorandum allowing states to regulate legalized marijuana as long as they followed certain parameters, such as keeping it out of interstate commerce.

However, the memorandum was withdrawn by current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has instead directed federal prosecutors to use their discretion in pursuing criminal cases against marijuana producers in states where it’s legal.

Alleging violations of the federal RICO statute is an attractive strategy for plaintiffs, since it allows them to recover triple the amount of damages as well as attorney fees, said Davidson.

“If you’re a plaintiff, it’s a good way to maximize the damages you can recover,” he said. “It’s troubling. It’s just another form of shakedown.”

Ten rural landowners near Lebanon, Ore., filed a lawsuit last month alleging RICO violations against seven neighboring marijuana growers and a mortgage company that had loaned them money to buy property.

The complaint claims the defendants built a greenhouse on the property and converted other buildings to grow and process the psychoactive crop, in addition to cultivating it outdoors in 2017.

Aside from odors, traffic and noise, the marijuana operation has reduced property values due to concerns about the potential for armed robberies and other crime, the complaint said.

Neighbors also fear for their safety due to pit bull guard dogs roaming loose and an uncontrolled fire that resulted from the burning of marijuana debris, the plaintiffs claim.

Rachel McCart is representing the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit, which has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Michael McShane in Eugene, Ore.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a man to a year and a day in federal prison for digging a trench during the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon.

Jake Ryan of Plains, Montana, was found guilty in March 2017 of depredation of government property.

A sentence of probation and home detention seemed likely heading into Wednesday, but Ryan tried to fire his public defender, disregarded the authority of court and asserted that U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams brought false charges on behalf of an imaginary friend, the United States of America.

U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown described Ryan’s statements as “gibberish” and agreed with prosecutor Ethan Knight to impose a prison term. Moreover, she ordered Ryan to start serving the sentence immediately.

Dozens of people occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11, 2016, in a protest against federal control of Western lands and the imprisonment of two ranchers.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy and other key figures were arrested in a Jan. 26, 2016, traffic stop away from the refuge that ended with police fatally shooting occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.

The trench dug the following day by Ryan and another man contained artifacts important to the Burns Paiute Tribe.

Ryan addressed a tribal representative Wednesday, saying he loves the rich history of Native Americans and wouldn’t have dug a trench in that spot if he had known it was a burial site. Ryan said the trench was only dug in self-defense, because the occupiers were surrounded by a government authorities “armed to the teeth.”

The trial in which Ryan was convicted came months after Ammon and Ryan Bundy were found not guilty in a separate trial. In another case, a federal judge recently dismissed charges against the Bundys and their father, Cliven, in relation to a 2014 standoff with federal agents in Nevada.

Fresh off their Nevada victory, Cliven and Ryan Bundy appeared last weekend at a “Freedom and Property” rally in Montana. The emcee of the event was Jake Ryan’s mother, Roxsanna.

Jake Ryan’s father, Daniel Ryan, told reporters before Wednesday’s sentencing that seeing Ryan Bundy act as his own attorney in two victories against government attorneys influenced his son’s decision to represent himself.

But Judge Brown wouldn’t go along with it. When she questioned Ryan if he was capable of making legal arguments, he repeatedly replied that he was a living soul — a man capable of handling his own affairs — and that Jake Ryan was a fictitious identity created by the government.

“You are removing me from standing on my own two feet,” Ryan said after the judge kept public defender Jesse Merrithew on the case.

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Colorado Rep. Jared Polis are leading a bipartisan push urging President Donald Trump to reinstate an Obama-era policy discouraging federal prosecutors from targeting individuals involved in the marijuana trade in states that have legalized the drug.

The Democrats and 52 other members of Congress have written a letter dated Thursday to Trump, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted the policy earlier this month. Sessions said he would leave it up to prosecutors whether to crack down.

In the letter, the members say lifting the policy puts businesses, consumers and patients at risk.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana by adults.

Others have decriminalized marijuana or legalized its medicinal use.

Fridays

A judge has refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion from Oregon’s government for insufficient logging of state forestlands.

Linn County filed a complaint in 2016 accusing Oregon’s forest managers of breaching a contract to maximize timber harvests from forests donated to the state by county governments.

According to the lawsuit, Oregon began prioritizing environmental protection and recreational values over logging due to a policy change in 1998.

The lawsuit was certified as a class action by Linn County Circuit Judge Daniel Murphy, which effectively included 14 counties and more than 100 taxing districts as plaintiffs in the case.

Attorneys for Oregon raised several grounds for dismissing the lawsuit that have now been rejected by Murphy.

The judge has ruled against the state on a particularly controversial point that’s resurfaced several times during the litigation: Whether the doctrine of “sovereign immunity” prohibits county governments from suing the State of Oregon.

Initially, Murphy allowed the case to proceed despite the state’s sovereign immunity claim, but later issued a ruling that it’s a valid defense.

The judge withdrew that opinion and has now again rejected Oregon’s motion to dismiss, referencing his original ruling that counties can enforce their contract rights against the state government in court under these circumstances.

“He’s back to where he’s historically been in the case,” said John DiLorenzo, attorney for the county plaintiffs.

As part of the ruling, the judge also threw out Oregon’s argument that counties can’t seek to “maximize timber revenues” because that term wasn’t included in their contracts.

Oregon’s government is required to manage the forestland for the “greatest permanent value,” but this term is ambiguous and may be interpreted based on the circumstances under which the contract was made, Murphy said.

The judge also disagreed with Oregon’s attorneys that future damages in this case were “too speculative” to be decided, since “forestry experts make these estimates all the time,” and dismissed other motions filed by the state.

Frank Hammond, an attorney representing Oregon, said he cannot comment on pending litigation.

DiLorenzo, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said he’s pleased with the ruling, which removed the remaining obstacles standing in the way of a trial.

For much of the litigation, Oregon’s Board of Forestry — which oversees the defendant Oregon Department of Forestry — has treated the case with derision, DiLorenzo said.

“This should be a signal to state policymakers the court is taking this case quite seriously,” he said. “I hope this is a wakeup call the Board of Forestry might very well lose this case.”

The plaintiffs are amenable to Oregon filing an “interlocutory appeal” to challenge Murphy’s most recent ruling before the Oregon Court of Appeals, DiLorenzo said.

That way, the Court of Appeals can ensure that assumptions about sovereign immunity and other legal issues are correct before the beginning of trial, which may last a month, he said.

“From an efficiency perspective, it makes sense to get direction from the Court of Appeals first,” he said. “Everybody is going to invest a lot of time and effort in this case.”

Oregon lawmakers will consider a proposal when the Legislature convenes Feb. 5 that would tie wolf-livestock compensation for ranchers directly to the state’s overall wolf population.

House Bill 4106 requires the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to prepare a report each biennium detailing the change in wolf population over the preceding two years. Legislators would then allocate money from the general fund to the Department of Agriculture’s Wolf Depredation Compensation and Financial Assistance Grant Program based on the change.

The bill is spearheaded by Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, who represents northeast Oregon where the majority of wolves live, including Wallowa County. Co-sponsors include Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, and Sen. Herman Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass.

The idea, Barreto said, is simple — as more wolves settle in Oregon, the state may provide more money for ranchers who suffer livestock losses due to wolf attacks.

“It’s one of those bills that shouldn’t be controversial,” Barreto said. “In fact, it should be a positive on both sides.”

ODFW already does annual reports on the wolf management program, including year-end population estimates. The most recent report stated there were at least 112 known wolves at the end of 2016. An updated 2017 report should be completed in March.

The Legislature also created the compensation fund for ranchers in 2011, which covers actual livestock losses as well as implementing non-lethal deterrents like range riders and fladry to keep wolves out of the pasture.

Funding is administered by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which then awards grants to individual counties. Barreto said the program issued $395,000 last year for 112 wolves. Those numbers would serve as the base line for future compensation under his bill.

The bill has already garnered support from the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, which advocates for ranchers statewide.

Todd Nash, a rancher and Wallowa County commissioner who also serves as chairman for the OCA wolf committee, said that as the wolf population has increased, producers are paying an average of $10,000 per wolf on tools to protect their livestock.

The bill is not a fix-all, Nash said, but it will help cover some of the added expenses.

“It doesn’t cover all losses,” he said. “There’s losses we don’t find that never get reported. There’s weight loss and handling differences, the loss of forages in areas where cattle refuse to go ... This is going to be a tough issue for a long time.”

According to ODFW wolf-livestock investigation reports posted online, the agency confirmed 16 attacks on livestock in 2017. That is actually fewer than the 24 confirmed incidents in 2016, but more than the nine confirmed incidents in 2015.

ODFW did authorize orders last fall to kill four wolves from the Harl Butte pack in Wallowa County, and another two wolves from the Meacham pack (though only one was killed) in Umatilla County, for repeatedly preying on livestock. Another four wolves were illegally poached, including three in southwest Oregon where the animals remain on the federal Endangered Species List.

Still, Nash said some ranchers are so fed up and frustrated they are not even bothering to report losses anymore.

“This was a tough year,” he said.

ODFW has also once again pushed back the date for adopting an overdue revision of the Wolf Management and Conservation Plan. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission was scheduled to vote on the plan Jan. 19 before it was rescheduled for April 19-20 in Astoria.

The vote is now postponed indefinitely while the commission conducts additional outreach “in hopes of getting more consensus from stakeholders,” ODFW announced. The Oregon wolf plan was last updated in 2010. Revisions are due every five years.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking proposals for innovative projects as part of the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program for 2018.

Applications are due by noon on Thursday, Feb. 27. Approximately $1.5 million is expected to be available for groups statewide including processors, commodity commissions, industry associations, nonprofits and local governments.

Oregon ranks among the top 10 states in production of specialty crops, which are defined as commonly recognized fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and nursery plants.

Last year, 45 applications were submitted to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program totaling $4.4 million. Out of those, $1.7 million was awarded to 15 groups.

Funding priorities for the program include food safety compliance and traceability, certification programs, on-farm labor needs, training the next generation of farmers and marketing exports.

A 14-member industry advisory committee will evaluate each proposal in June and make recommendations to ODA Director Alexis Taylor on top-ranked projects. Selected applicants will be submitted to the USDA, and projects chosen to receive funding will be announced by November.

There is a selected funding range of $25,000 to $175,000, and a project timeline of up to 2 1/2 years. Match funding is not required, but highly encouraged.

More information and directions on submitting proposals is available by calling the ODA Agriculture Development and Marketing Program at 503-986-4620, or visiting www.oregon.gov/oda.

The North Santiam River flows past fields of green grass at Butler Farms west of Stayton, Ore., where Gary Butler and his two brothers grow more than 2,000 acres of irrigated crops.

In addition to grass seed, the family farm raises green beans and sweet corn for NORPAC Foods, along with hazelnuts and peppermint. Irrigation is essential to the operation, Butler said. That is why a major proposal 30 miles upstream at Detroit Dam has him so concerned.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains 13 multipurpose dams in the Willamette River Basin, wants to build a 300-foot-tall water temperature control tower and floating screen at Detroit Dam to benefit native fish, including endangered chinook salmon and steelhead.

However, construction of the project may require draining Detroit Lake — the reservoir that feeds into the North Santiam — for up to two full years, leaving farms parched during the dry summer months and vulnerable to flooding during high river flows.

Butler, who serves on the board of directors for the Santiam Water Control District, said the impacts could be devastating for agriculture in the Mid-Willamette Valley.

“If we can’t irrigate, we can’t plant vegetable crops. If we can’t plant them, then NORPAC is looking for vegetable crops elsewhere,” Butler said. “It’s going to be an issue.”

Farmers are not the only ones who would be impacted. The cities of Salem and Stayton both get their drinking water from the North Santiam, and Detroit Lake is a popular destination for fishing, boating and outdoor recreation that drives tourism in the area.

The Army Corps is currently considering five construction alternatives with varying levels of drawdown at Detroit Lake. Tom Conning, spokesman for the agency’s Portland District, said it is still early in the process and will take years to complete an environmental impact study before work can begin in 2021, at the earliest.

Butler said local farmers are not pushing the panic button yet, but they realize how much is at stake.

“The jury’s still out,” he said. “We have to take a wait-and-see attitude on how they’re going to make it happen.”

Completed in 1953, Detroit Dam is a 450-foot-tall concrete structure on the North Santiam. It provides 321,000 acre-feet of water storage and has a peak electricity generation capacity of 100 megawatts.

It is also a barrier for salmon and steelhead that migrate to the Pacific Ocean before returning up the river as adults to spawn. Over the last 10 years, fewer fish have returned on average into the Upper Willamette Basin compared to the previous 50-year average, according to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife which tracks passage at Willamette Falls Dam.

Combined spring and fall chinook returns averaged 11,757 fewer fish per year, or roughly a 24 percent reduction, while winter steelhead returns averaged 3,852 fewer fish, a 41 percent reduction. To protect the species, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion — called a BiOp — in 2008 outlining what the Army Corps needs to do to improve fish survival.

Part of the BiOp includes the project proposed at Detroit Dam, said Conning, the Corps spokesman.

“Basically, (the BiOp) gave us some recommendations for reasonable, prudent actions to take so we did not violate the Endangered Species Act,” Conning said.

The plan has two components.

First, the Corps would build a temperature control tower — called a selective withdrawal structure — roughly the height of a downtown Portland building next to Detroit Dam. It would mix water from different levels of the reservoir to ensure the water released downstream is neither too warm nor too cold for the fish.

“Salmon need a specific temperature to navigate all the way back to where they originally spawn from,” Conning said.

The second component would be a floating screen structure about the size of a football field to capture juvenile fish swimming downstream in the reservoir so they can be moved past the dam either by truck or bypass pipe.

Together, Conning estimated the work will cost between $100 million and $250 million. But first, the Corps must complete its environmental impact study evaluating the impacts on everything from aesthetics to the water supply.

“We’re getting feedback from the public about their concerns,” Conning said.

For farmers, the chief concern remains how the Corps plans to build the project, and how that will affect the irrigation supplies.

The alternatives for building the tower at Detroit Dam range from draining the reservoir for two full years — what the agency calls “building in the dry” — to no drawdown whatsoever, or what it calls “building in the wet.”

Building in the dry poses the lowest safety risk of the alternatives, but potentially has the greatest impact on water users.

Building in the wet, on the other hand, has the lowest impact on water users, but is the most expensive and dangerous of the five options. Another option involves building a temporary coffer dam around the construction site, allowing the reservoir level to remain higher.

The Santiam Water Control District was formed in 1954 and is responsible for delivering irrigation water to more than 17,000 acres of farmland, along with water to three hydroelectric plants and other uses.

The district also provides the majority of municipal water to the city of Stayton, population 8,080.

District Manager Brent Stevenson said the project details are still fuzzy, but each of the Corps’ five alternatives describes at least one season with reduced or no stored water.

“Early on, it’s just really hard to clearly identify what the range of impacts could be,” Stevenson said. “The worst case is we don’t have water available for the drawdown years.”

The value of the crops grown in the area adds up quickly. Marion County is the top agricultural producer in Oregon, according to the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture, with 286,194 acres of farms generating $592.8 million in farm gate value. The district provides water to about 6 percent of the county’s farms.

Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the organization will submit comments to the Corps, and has big concerns from both an irrigation and flood control perspective.

“There’s not a ton of information out there, but one of the plans does look at dewatering the reservoir,” Cooper said. “It seems like there’s got to be another way to achieve any fisheries objectives that need to be achieved.”

The Corps won’t release its draft impact study until next year. Until then, Conning said the agency is urging stakeholders to provide feedback that will help it analyze each alternative.

“We need input from the public,” he said. “They might know something we don’t about how much water they need, or those types of issues.”

Steve Keudell, a board member of the Santiam Water Control District and co-owner of Keudell Farms in Aumsville, Ore., said draining Detroit Lake for any period of time could potentially alter the face of farming in this part of the Willamette Valley.

“You’d have to try to raise crops that aren’t so dependent on irrigation,” Keudell said. “You basically either turn into a dryland farmer, or maybe you’d have to look at drilling irrigation wells. ... There’s obviously going to be an expense.”

In 39 years of farming, Keudell said he has never gone without irrigation water for his fields.

“In our case, all lower ground has water rights on it,” he said. “The peppermint and the vegetables get watered every year. There’s never been a year, and there won’t be a year that I foresee, when you wouldn’t need irrigation for that.”

On Tuesday, Stevenson submitted four pages of written comments to the Corps on behalf of the district. He asked the Army Corps to complete a detailed “water budget” identifying all legal water rights, which would then be reviewed by the Oregon Water Resources Department to determine exactly which rights would be vulnerable during the project construction.

The district also wants to the Corps to analyze which flows may released from the nearby Big Cliff Dam during construction.

Big Cliff Dam is 2.7 river miles below Detroit Dam, though it does not store nearly as much water and is instead relied upon as a “re-regulation” dam, smoothing out flows from power generation at Detroit Dam.

“It is critical to understand if Bureau of Reclamation stored irrigation water will be available during the construction period,” Stevenson wrote in his comments. He added the federal Bureau of Reclamation should be included as a cooperating agency on the project.

For now, Keudell said he is trying not to get too alarmed and carry on business as usual.

“I just don’t know how it’s going to work,” he said.

Online

More information about the project and a timeline of activities is available on the Army Corps website at http://www.nwp.usace.army.mil.

MAPLETON, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say a Springfield man died after a logging accident in western Oregon.

The Register-Guard reports 35-year-old Arturo Toral-Pacheco died Tuesday near Mapleton after the Lane County Sheriff’s Office says he likely fell from a height.

Search and rescue crews recovered his body about 200 yards down a steep embankment about 20 miles east of the state Highway 126 and Highway 36 junction.

The sheriff’s office says the death is under investigation.

HERMISTON, Ore. — A water reuse project by the city of Hermiston has inspired Umatilla to imagine new ways to use water coming out of the region’s data centers.

Umatilla city manager Russ Pelleberg shared details of the project, which the city hopes to begin construction on later this year, at the Oregon Water Coalition’s annual membership meeting in Hermiston on Tuesday morning.

The $3 million project would separate Umatilla’s commercial wastewater from its domestic flows, allowing the city to send water from current Amazon data centers at the Port of Umatilla, a planned data center off Lind Road and any future data centers to irrigation canals for agricultural use. Future phases would include an industrial wastewater treatment plant at the port and storage ponds for keeping reuse water during the winter when it is not needed for irrigation.

Pelleberg said data centers use “a ton of hydraulic capacity” for cooling purposes, but the water coming out the other end and into the city’s sewer system is still “very, very clean.”

“It didn’t make sense to treat clean water,” he said.

As the city looked for better solutions, Hermiston was pioneering a reuse program with West Irrigation District. Water coming from Hermiston’s recycled water treatment plant built in 2014 was well within the state’s standards for cleanliness, but was too warm to put in the Umatilla River in the summer. So the city worked out a deal with West Irrigation District to pipe the water into their canal during the growing season instead, allowing the district to save money by pumping less water from the Columbia River.

“We’re really excited about the project because it was the first time it was done in the state,” Hermiston city manager Byron Smith said.

After getting approval for the project from a laundry list of state agencies, Smith said he and West Irrigation District manager Bev Bridgewater are now sitting on a state committee working to write a set of regulations for other communities that want to follow suit.

Pelleberg said Umatilla wants to do something similar by diverting water coming out of data centers to West Irrigation District.

“We really like what Hermiston is doing with reuse,” he said.

Bridgewater said like the Hermiston water, the Umatilla water would likely be used to replace Columbia River water instead of expanding the district’s acreage. But Pelleberg said he is looking with city engineers at property that could hold massive open-air ponds to hold recycled Class A water created during the winter for use during the summer, and Bridgewater said that project could possibly lead to expanding the district’s acreage. The city needs to secure funding first, however.

The discussion was one of several presentations at the Oregon Water Coalition meeting, which was combined with the Greater Hermiston Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business to Business breakfast at Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center.

Miff Devlin, water quality supervisor at the Port of Morrow, also spoke about a three-phase recharge project to dilute nitrogen from the groundwater around the port. JR Cook of Northeast Oregon Water Association spoke about an economic impact study being developed for the Mid-Columbia Basin and goals for future water projects in the area. The meeting was wrapped up by a “water rights bootcamp” by attorney Laura Schroeder of Schroeder Law Offices.

BANDON - Old Town has a new florist who's eager to provide for the floral arrangement needs of the area.

BANDON - Old Town has a new florist who's eager to provide for the floral arrangement needs of the area.

BANDON -- The Bandon Community Youth Center was one of 35 recipients of the Oregon Community Foundation K-12 Student Success: Out-of-School Time Initiative.

BANDON -- The Bandon Community Youth Center was one of 35 recipients of the Oregon Community Foundation K-12 Student Success: Out-of-School Time Initiative.

Convincing the federal government to officially recognize a wine region’s unique “terroir” can substantially boost the price per bottle, according to a recent study.

The study found that certain geographic regions within Oregon’s Willamette Valley saw statistically significant wine price premiums due to their federal designation as “American Viticultural Area” appellations.

Average prices and wine rankings were compared across six sub-appellations within the overall Willamette Valley AVA as part of the research, which was headed by economics professor Omer Gokcekus of Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

After obtaining their sub-appellation designations, wines from four of those areas — Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Ribbon Ridge and Yamhill Carlton — saw their price-to-quality ratio outpace the rest of the Willamette Valley.

All other things being equal, the sub-AVA designations contributed to higher prices ranging from $1.43 to $14.13 for a bottle with a 90-point score from Wine Spectator, an industry publication that rates wines.

Price premiums for wines produced in the Dundee Hills AVA were the highest found in the study.

Russell Gladhart, whose family owns Winter’s Hill Estate, said the Dundee Hills AVA benefits from being densely planted with vineyards within a relatively compact area.

The resulting lack of variation makes wines from the region more distinct, he said. “The customer knows more precisely where the wine came from.”

Gokcekus, the study’s author, said he became intrigued by the phenomenon while attending an academic conference in Oregon.

“There should be a reason for this,” he said.

For wineries to petition the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for a sub-AVA, there must be an economic motivation, Gokcekus said.

“I was expecting to see an increase, otherwise, why should you bother?” he said.

Even so, Gokcekus said he was surprised by the size of price premiums some wines commanded solely due to their appellation.

The range of grape-growing conditions is narrower within a smaller appellation, leading consumers to believe they’re at less risk of buying a lower-quality wine from that region, he said.

There’s also a sense of exclusivity that comes from purchasing wine from an area that only has a limited number of bottles available, Gokcekus said.

“We are talking about wine. In my mind, we are talking about perceptions,” he said.

Creating ever-smaller appellations probably stops making economic sense at some point, though.

As the number of wineries within each area shrinks, they must each spend more money to promote the region and can’t pool their resources as effectively, Gokcekus said.

“On the one hand, there is exclusivity. On the other hand, there is cost,” he said. “It’s a kind of balancing act.”

Wineries won’t gain much from a sub-AVA designation if they’re located within a larger appellation that hasn’t won many accolades, he said. In this case, the Willamette Valley had already established a solid footing in the wine industry.

“It’s a prerequisite,” Gokcekus said. “The AVA you are in should already have a certain reputation.”

Although a sub-AVA designation may boost prices higher than they’d rise based on quality alone, it’s also necessary for wines from the region to stand out, he said.

For example, the price-to-quality ratio for two sub-AVAs, Eola-Amity Hills and McMinnville, did not meaningfully surpass the rest of the Willamette Valley despite the designations, he found.

While the price-to-quality ratios increased in both regions, they largely kept pace with the larger appellation — probably because their average wine ratings didn’t exceed the Willamette Valley’s average, Gokcekus said.

Being located within a well-known sub-AVA, such as Dundee Hills, is associated with a premium but winemakers must source 95 percent of their grapes from that appellation to promote it on their label, said Denise Flora, co-owner of the Native Flora winery.

That requirement isn’t a problem for Native Flora, which is a boutique winery that relies entirely on the 16 acres of vineyards growing on its estate, she said. “It fits our business model.”