June 23, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Ranchers fume as ‘Rainbow Family’ sets up camp
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Rainbow gathering
The annual Rainbow Family gathering, which could attract 10,000-
30,000 people, is taking place in Flagtail Meadow on the Malheur
National Forest off of Forest Road 24 west of Seneca.
Mt. Vernon
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John Day
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The U.S. Forest Service
acknowledged there isn’t
much it can do about a “Rain-
bow Family” gathering ex-
pected to bring thousands of
counter-culture types to the
Malheur National Forest in
Eastern Oregon over the next
two weeks.
The organizers don’t have
a permit, and the Forest Ser-
vice’s response to that has
angered area residents such
as rancher Loren Stout, who
lives near the gathering spot
and has a federal grazing per-
mit on land adjacent to it.
He said the Forest Service
would punish ranchers if they
ignored permit requirements
and tapped a spring for drink-
ing water like the Rainbow
Family has done. Stout said
it took him two years to get a
National Environmental Poli-
cy Act permit to drill an ex-
ploratory mining hole.
“People are furious over
this,” Stout said. “Not because
it’s a friggin’ bunch of hippies,
it’s the different standards.”
An estimated 500 to 700
people have already set up
camp at Flagtail Meadow
off Forest Road 24, near the
towns of Seneca and John
Day. The 46th annual Nation-
al Rainbow Gathering could
draw 15,000 to 20,000 July
1-7, and is being held without
a permit required of anyone
else who would want to stage
such an event on federal for-
est land.
Ryan Nehl, deputy For-
est Service supervisor on
the Malheur and the agency
administrator for the event,
planned to take a permit form
to organizers at the gathering
spot June 21.
“I don’t have a lot of faith
they will sign it,” Nehl said.
In that case, the Forest Service
will impose an operational
plan for the gathering to fol-
low, and could take action if
those conditions are violated.
But Nehl said the Forest
Service will not attempt to
stop the gathering.
“It’s a risk-based deci-
sion,” he said. “To try and
kick them off the land would
present a danger to employees
R oad
15
395
63
Approximate site
of Rainbow Family
gathering
s
F or e
Seneca
Source: U.S. Forest Service
and the public.”
The event is put on by the
Rainbow Family of Living
Light, a loosely organized
group that annually picks a
spot for its gathering and in-
t
Ro ad 16
N
2 miles
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
vites like-minded people to
attend for multiple days of
music, camping, dancing and
communal hanging out. The
gatherings have been held
since the 1970s.
On a Facebook page
set up for this year’s event
https://www.facebook.com/
groups/246284825703234/,
one person posted, “If we
were in control we would all
have free energy, everyone
would be housed and fed and
we’d be having song circles
every day.”
“What is the pants policy
at this event?” another poster
asked. He was assured that
nudity should be expected.
In other postings, people
urged fellow “family” mem-
bers not to upset locals by
panhandling or “gas jugging,”
meaning to beg for gaso-
line. Others caution against
“spanging,” a slang reference
to asking for spare change.
A stabbing among Rainbow
members during a meeting in
the Umatilla National Forest
earlier in June has area resi-
dents worried about what the
larger gathering will bring.
A community meeting was
scheduled June 23, in John
Day to let residents ask ques-
tions of Forest Service and
law enforcement personnel.
The meeting is from 5 p.m.
to 6:30 p.m. in the Juniper
Hall Conference Room of
the Malheur National Forest
Headquarters, 431 Patterson
Bridge Road.
The Forest Service mobi-
lized an incident command
team that includes 30 agency
law enforcement offi cers from
around the country, and has
marked areas such as creeks
that campers should stay out
of. Oregon State Police, BLM
offi cers, Grant County sher-
iff’s deputies and John Day
police are available to help
the incident team, Nehl said.
Meanwhile, rancher Stout
said the Forest Service is “try-
ing to put grazers out of busi-
ness” but lets the Rainbow
bunch do what they want.
He said the gathering spot is
a major Native American ar-
chaeological site and the area
has eight springs that could be
damaged.
He said the “takeover of
federal ground” is no different
than the Bundy group’s occu-
pation of the Malheur Nation-
al Wildlife Refuge headquar-
ters. “I hate to say that,” Stout
said.
Cascade-Siskiyou litigation
halted during Trump review
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Oregon wineries, food processors
oppose proposed work week limit
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Oregon’s food
processors and wineries are
alarmed by a bill to reduce the
maximum number of hours
that manufacturing employees
can work per week.
The proposal originated as
an attempt to clarify how to
calculate overtime paid to Or-
egon’s manufacturing work-
ers, which had recently been
in dispute.
However, the most recent
version of the bill being con-
sidered by Oregon lawmakers
would limit the maximum
work week to 72 hours for
manufacturing jobs, which
food processors and wineries
argue will impair their ability
to handle the infl ux of crops
during seasonal peaks. Work
weeks are currently limited to
91 hours.
Paying overtime is ex-
pensive, so food processors
would prefer to have enough
workers as to avoid lengthy
work weeks, said J.L. Wilson,
a representative of the North-
west Food Processors Associ-
ation.
However, such companies
are often located where crops
are grown, not where there’s
an abundance of people, so
they don’t have a suffi cient
labor pool from which to pull,
he said.
As a result, these proces-
sors must rely on existing
employees working longer
during periods of peak pro-
duction, Wilson said during a
June 20 hearing on House Bill
3458.
“This is going to funda-
mentally disadvantage rural
Oregon,” he said of the pro-
posed limit. “They wouldn’t
do it if they didn’t have to, in
many instances.”
Similarly, harvest irregu-
larities can force growers to
suddenly provide wineries
with larger amounts of grapes
than expected, resulting in un-
predictably heavy work loads,
said Ellen Brittan of Brittan
Vineyards in McMinnville,
Ore.
Wineries have little choice
but to extend work hours to
prevent the fruit from rotting,
she said. “You just have to
deal with it.”
Some workers at Brittan
Vineyards have logged as
many as 86 hours per week,
but they do so willingly to
maximize overtime pay, she
said.
“They want to be sure
they can make a signifi cant
amount of money during this
short window of opportunity,”
Brittan said. “We have people
fi ghting for those overtime
hours.”
Not all Oregon employers
are upset about the most re-
cent version of HB 3458 be-
fore lawmakers.
Associated Oregon Indus-
tries, a nonprofi t represent-
ing businesses, believes the
72-hour work week will be
challenging but is acceptable
as long as overtime rules are
clarifi ed.
Last year, the state’s Bu-
reau of Labor and Industries
changed its guidance for man-
ufacturing employers, fi nding
that workers must be paid for
both daily and weekly over-
time hours combined. Tradi-
tionally, they simply had to
pay whichever amount was
greater.
For example, someone
who worked 11 hours for two
days and eight hours for three
days spent a total of 46 hours
at work that week, earning
six hours of weekly overtime
pay.
Since the person also ex-
ceeded the 10-hour daily cap
twice, that counted toward
two daily overtime hours.
Employers would usually
just pay the worker for six
hours of weekly overtime, but
under BOLI’s new guidance,
they must combine the daily
and weekly overtime hours
to pay for eight hours of total
overtime.
A bill originally proposed
in the Senate amended the law
to allow employers to return
to the traditional overtime ap-
proach, but groups represent-
ing workers objected to the
change.
As a result, the proposal
resurfaced in the House as HB
3458 with the addition of a
work week limit of 60 hours.
Under an amendment to
the bill currently before the
House Rules Committee, that
limit was revised to 72 hours
per week for 90 days under
hardship circumstances.
Marke Clarke in Medford, Ore.,
and Senior U.S. District Judge
Richard Leon have granted the
federal government’s motions
to suspend litigation in all three
cases until Sept. 24, a month af-
ter Zinke’s report is due.
While the lawsuits largely
center on the expansion’s effect
on logging, the national monu-
ment’s larger boundaries have
also upset ranchers who graze
cattle in the area.
According to the plaintiffs,
restrictions on logging in the
Cascade-Siskiyou
National
Monument are unlawful be-
cause much of the new acreage
is governed by the O&C Act of
1937, which requires sustain-
able production.
Apart from the loss of har-
vestable forestland, timber
companies worry the expan-
sion will draw more complaints
about logging on private prop-
erty adjacent to the monument
or surrounded by it.
Counties that receive a por-
tion of logging proceeds, mean-
while, are concerned about re-
duced revenues.
While grazing would be al-
lowed within the monument,
ranchers worry the designation
will effectively curtail the
practice due to skewed envi-
ronmental studies.
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NOVEMBER 14, 15 and 16, 2017
20,000 Sq. Ft.
25-2/#5
Companies claim
72-hour limit would
hinder processing
during seasonal
peak periods
Courtesy of Bob Wick/BLM
A view of Mt. Shasta from the Cascade-Sisyiyou National Monu-
ment near Ashland, Ore. Three lawsuits challenging expansion of
the monument have been put on hold pending a review by Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke.
25-4/#13
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Workers at A to Z Wineworks in Newberg, Ore., sort grapes during the 2014 harvest in this fi le photo.
Oregon’s wineries and food processors oppose a bill that would limit work weeks to 72 hours, arguing
it would hinder periods of peak production.
Litigation has been halted
in three lawsuits over Oregon’s
Cascade-Siskiyou
National
Monument while its expansion
is reviewed by the Trump ad-
ministration.
Timber companies and
county governments have fi led
one lawsuit in Oregon and two
others in Washington, D.C.,
challenging the Obama admin-
istration’s decision to nearly
double the monument’s size
from roughly 53,000 acres to
100,000 acres.
Under the Trump admin-
istration, that designation and
numerous others are being
re-evaluated by U.S. Secretary
of the Interior Ryan Zinke,
who’s expected to submit a
report on the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument by Aug.
24.
Due to the possibility the
“designation could ultimately
be changed in ways that would
affect this litigation,” attorneys
for the Interior Department be-
lieve that “deferral of further ju-
dicial proceedings is thus war-
ranted,” according to a court
document.
U.S. Magistrate Judge