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CapitalPress.com
February 20, 2015
Bird flu strikes second Calif. poultry farm
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A second California com-
mercial poultry farm has been
stricken with highly patho-
genic bird flu. It’s the farthest
south the virus has surfaced
yet.
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture confirmed the
Eurasian H5N8 virus in a
114,000-bird chicken farm in
Kings County in the San Joa-
quin Valley. The agency add-
ed the farm Feb. 13 to a list
of bird flu outbreaks in U.S.
commercial and non-com-
mercial flocks since mid-De-
cember.
No further information, in-
cluding the name of the farm,
was available Monday from
the USDA.
The USDA reported to
the World Organization for
Animal Health that the out-
break began Feb. 2 with an
increased mortality among
chickens.
The virus was confirmed
Feb. 12, and the premises
were quarantined. The flock
included ducks, according to
a report posted by the Organi-
zation for Animal Health.
Canadian authorities react-
ed Feb. 13 by banning poultry
raised, processed or shipped
from California. Hong Kong
banned poultry from Kings
County. China and South Ko-
rea have enacted bans on U.S.
poultry in response to previ-
ous cases.
Bird flu has infected wild
birds, non-commercial flocks
and a game bird farm in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho,
Utah, California and Nevada
since mid-December.
The only previous com-
mercial poultry flock infected
in the U.S. was a 145,000-tur-
key Foster Farms operation in
Stanislaus County. The virus
was confirmed there Jan. 23.
Stanislaus County’s coun-
ty seat, Modesto, is 126 miles
north of Hanford, the county
seat of Kings County.
Highly pathogenic Eur-
asian bird flu was first con-
firmed in North America Dec.
1 at a British Columbia, Can-
ada, commercial poultry farm.
The virus spread to 10 other
B.C. commercial chicken and
turkey operations by Dec. 17.
The virus appeared in
the United States in a north-
ern pintail duck found dead
at Wiser Lake in Whatcom
County in northwest Wash-
ington. Another disease killed
the migrating duck.
Migratory waterfowl carry
the virus, but are immune to
its ill effects. The virus is le-
thal to poultry and a variety of
native birds.
The USDA recently added
a great horned owl and bald
eagle to the list of wild birds
infected by avian flu. Both
birds were in Canyon County,
Idaho.
Carlton Complex bill gaining support in Olympia
Legislation allows
swifter action as
wildfires spread
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Legislation
rising from the ashes of the
state’s largest wildland fire
ever has been tamped down
enough to win more political
support.
House Bill 2093 combines
a handful of policies original-
ly proposed in several bills in-
troduced by northeast Wash-
ington Reps. Joel Kretz and
Shelly Short.
The policies include au-
thorizing landowners to go
onto public and private lands
without permission to nip a
wildand fire.
“You can go and fight the
fire. That’s the key,” House
Agriculture and Natural Re-
sources Committee Chairman
Brian Blake said.
HB 2093 also would re-
quire Public Lands Com-
missioner Peter Goldmark to
appoint a liaison to represent
landowners during a wildland
fire. The liaison also would
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Old Highway 97, just north of Malott, Wash., still shows, Oct. 16,
that it was a fire break on the eastern edge of the Carlton Complex
Fire last summer. Hills in the background were burned.
oversee a new advisory com-
mittee, on which counties,
fire agencies, environmental
groups, and timberland and
rangeland owners would be
represented.
The bill does not include
an earlier proposal to divert
taxes from the state Depart-
ment of Natural Resources to
fund county-level wildland
firefighting divisions.
The bill also does not in-
clude a proposal to let coun-
ties assume command if DNR
can’t marshal the resources
for a speedy response.
Also, landowners would
be limited in how they could
fight fires on somebody else’s
land without permission.
Backfires, for example, would
be prohibited.
At a hearing Tuesday,
Kretz, R-Wauconda, said he
was satisfied with HB 2093.
“I think we’ve got a pret-
ty good product. I think we’ll
enter the next fire season with
more tools,” he said.
Okanogan County resi-
dents told the committee ear-
lier this month that landown-
ers missed an opportunity to
contain the Carlton Complex
fires as they waited in vain for
permission from DNR to go
onto state lands.
The
lightning-sparked
blazes eventually burned
256,108 acres in north-cen-
tral Washington between
July 14 and Aug. 25, de-
stroying 300 homes and kill-
ing 1,000 cattle. One man
died of a heart attack defend-
ing his home.
The DNR and the Wash-
ington Public Employees As-
sociation, which represents
DNR firefighters, dropped
their opposition to earlier bills
and have indicated support for
HB 2093.
Blake, an Aberdeen Dem-
ocrat, said he’s confident the
bill will pass the House.
The legislation likely will
be amended before it leaves
Blake’s committee. As it
stands, the bill, which was
worked on by DNR, would
bar someone from falling tim-
ber or bulldozing a fire line
without permission. Land-
owners would be limited to
using hand tools and hoses,
opening gates and moving
burning vegetation away from
buildings.
That’s too restrictive,
Blake said. “When we spotted
the language, we said, ‘Wait a
minute.’”
Courtesy of Alice Welch, USDA
U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service
inspectors examine chickens at the Holmes poultry slaughterhouse
in Nixon, Texas, in this file photo.
Poultry inspection
ruling appealed
Plaintiffs oppose new
inspection system
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A consumer advocacy
group will appeal a federal
judge’s decision to throw out
its lawsuit against USDA’s
new poultry slaughter inspec-
tion system.
U.S. District Judge Ketan-
ji Brown Jackson in Wash-
ington, D.C., recently found
that Food & Water Watch did
not demonstrate its members
would be harmed by the reg-
ulatory change.
Last year, USDA enacted
new rules that reduced the
number of inspectors moni-
toring poultry carcasses for
adulteration, instead allowing
slaughterhouse employees to
perform those duties.
The agency said the tra-
ditional focus on visually
detectable diseases during
post-processing inspection
was outdated and it made
more sense to devote person-
nel to preventing microbial
contamination of poultry.
Food & Water Watch
sought a preliminary injunc-
tion blocking implementation
of the rules, arguing the new
system violates the Poul-
try Products Inspection Act,
which governs processing and
labeling.
The judge recently reject-
ed that request and dismissed
the lawsuit because Food &
Water Watch and individual
members who opposed the
rule change lacked the legal
standing to challenge it in fed-
eral court.
To proceed with their law-
suit, the plaintiffs would have
to suffer an injury from the
agency’s action, but Food &
Water Watch failed to show
the rules will significantly in-
crease the risk of disease for
its members, Jackson said.
As evidence of the new
system’s hazards, the group
provided statements by cur-
rent and former meat inspec-
tors who claimed the rules
will allow more adulterated
meat to enter commerce.
However, Jackson said
these assertions are “unsup-
ported and overblown” be-
cause they’re based on an-
ecdotes that USDA rebutted
with data from pilot projects.
The judge also discounted
the group’s arguments that
processing plants involved in
the pilot projects had higher
rates of pathogens — salmo-
nella and campylobacter — in
some years and scenarios.
“This narrow focus on
certain agency findings is an
exceedingly myopic view”
of the USDA’s data and over-
looks the “larger and far more
significant conclusion” that
the agency expects an “over-
all reduction in foodborne
illness under the new poultry
inspection system,” she said.
Jackson also rejected Food
& Water Watch’s legal stand-
ing on the basis that plaintiffs
were misinformed by the US-
DA’s “inspection legend” on
carcasses that were not actual-
ly approved by federal inspec-
tors, among other arguments.
Food & Water Watch al-
leges USDA’s new inspection
scheme allows the poultry
industry to police itself and
the group has filed a notice of
intent to challenge the recent
ruling before the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the D.C. Cir-
cuit.
Two-day Blueberry School to help growers
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
In 2003, after participating
in a day-long blueberry confer-
ence where presenters reported
on research results, Oregon
State University Extension
Berry Crops Specialist Ber-
nadine Strik and other small
fruits researchers couldn’t
shake the feeling that some-
thing was missing.
“Considering that blueber-
ry acreage doubled from 1990
to 2004, we felt there was a big
need for a school that would
address everything from site
selection to markets, cultivars
and how to develop and main-
tain good plantings,” Strik
said.
Behind Strik’s leadership,
a year later, the researchers
LEGAL
Request for Proposals
Fiscal Year
8-2/#6
July 1, 2015 - June 30, 2016
The Oregon Beef Council is
soliciting proposals for projects
in the following areas:
1) Positive Producer Image
2) Studying Legislation
3) Education related to beef
4) Generic promotion of beef
Any individual or organi-
zation may propose projects
in any of the categories listed
above.
Projects must meet the Beef
Council’s mission of enhanc-
ing the beef industry’s image
of profitability of Oregon’s
beef industry. Approved pro-
jects must comply with the
Beef Promotion and Research
Act and O.R.S. 577
To present a proposal you
must complete and submit
an Authorization Request
Form by March 20, 2015 at
4:00 p.m.
Download an Authorization
Request Form from orbeef.org
or by contacting the Oregon
Beef Council office (503) 274-
2333 or via e-mail at
julie@orbeef.org. legal-8-2-2/#4
Courtesy of Oregon State University
launched the first OSU Blue-
berry School.
“It was a great success,”
Strik said. Three years lat-
er, after Oregon acreage in-
creased another 43 percent,
the researchers put on a second
blueberry school.
It, too, went over well, Strik
said, and now, with harvested
acreage up 83 percent since
2007, the researchers are back
with a third school, scheduled
for March 16 and 17 on the
OSU campus.
Strik described the school’s
main emphasis as an attempt
“to help growers produce
high-quality fruit with high
yields while minimizing input
costs as much as possible, and
to help ensure that those who
are getting in the business
make the correct decisions.”
The school has morphed
LEGAL
CHERRY AVENUE STORAGE
2680 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97301
(503) 399-7454
Mon. March 2, 2015 • 10 a.m.
• Unit 25
Brandy Logan
• Unit 99
Christopher Stewart
• Unit 185
Bob Gonzales
• Unit 196
Christopher
Stanley and Meesha
• Unit 218
Brian and Emmy Isle Hudnall
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to refuse
any and all bids
over the years to keep up with
changes in the industry. This
year, for example, instead of
one presentation on organic
blueberry production, infor-
mation on organic production
methods will be interspersed
throughout the presentations.
Strik made the change
both because acres in organ-
ic blueberry production have
increased substantially since
2007, and because convention-
al growers often utilize organic
production methods.
The school also will pro-
vide new information on use
of organic amendments, Strik
said, and new information on
nutrient management in organ-
ic and conventional production
systems, a presentation that
will include information on
leaf-tissue standards for vari-
ous cultivars.
Also, she said, blueberry
industry consultants will pro-
vide market information. And
new this year, the school will
include a section on blueberry
plant physiology.
“This has gone over well in
test runs,” Strik said. “It helps
growers understand the why
and not just the how.”
Strik described the work-
load involved in putting on
the school as “tremendous.
Not just from me,” she said,
“but from all the speakers in-
volved.”
LEGAL
legal-7-2-5/#4
Virus surfaces farther south than before
PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87
Notice is hereby given that the
following vehicle will be sold,
for cash to the highest bidder,
on 2/23/2015. The sale will be
held at 10:00 am by
AUTO TRANSPORT LLC
3760 MARKET ST NE #488
SALEM, OR
2014 Subaru Crosstrek
VIN = JF2GPAKC9E8245154
Amount due on lien $2,125.00
Reputed owner(s)
ALLSTATE INSURANCE CO
Grand Auto
Legal-7-2-5/#4