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12 CapitalPress.com October 7, 2016 Upstream CONTINUED from Page 1 Wasserman said he planned an “edgy” advertising campaign and re- minded McLerran that the EPA already had spent $500,000 developing it. A conciliatory McLerran asked Wasserman to work with agriculture, but emphasized that the agency consid- ered the matter a “policy issue, and not a legal issue.” No EPA lawyer was at the meeting, a fact that worried the agency’s Puget Sound intergovernmental coordinator Lisa Chang, who had raised the issue of What’s Upstream’s legality. “It seems to be a vulnerable posi- tion for EPA to be in to be speaking to Swinomish counsel without EPA counsel on hand,” Chang wrote short- ly before the meeting in an email to EPA Puget Sound program manager Angela Bonifaci, who took the notes of the meeting. According to Bonifaci’s notes, Wasserman said he didn’t intend to reach out to farm groups, but he did agree to meet with EPA oficials to discuss the campaign’s content. Five months later, the tribe and several environmental groups re- launched whatsupstream.com, disre- garding some of EPA’s concerns about the website’s accuracy and tone, but delivering on Wasserman’s promise to wage a hard-hitting campaign to per- suade state legislators to pass stricter regulations on agriculture. Gerald Baron, the director of Save Family Farming, which formed this year to counter What’s Upstream, said the meeting notes show that McLerran allowed the project to pro- ceed. “We interpreted from the docu- ments that we had earlier that McLer- ran green-lighted the campaign and now it’s very clear he green-lighted the campaign,” Baron said. The EPA issued a statement say- ing the records, mostly internal emails, show the agency tried to alter the campaign’s tone. “What these and previously re- leased documents demonstrate is that the EPA consistently requested that the content of the ‘What’s Upstream’ project should be more factual and collaborative in nature to be consistent with National Estuary Program goals and intent,” according to the EPA. “At all levels of the agency, from staff to the regional administrator, EPA expressed concerns — within the limits of our legal authorities as we understood them — that the lan- guage, imagery and goals of the pro- gram should be adjusted. “While the tribe did not ultimately make all of the changes requested by EPA, they removed billboards and al- tered some web content.” The EPA asked the tribe to remove What’s Upstream billboards in Olym- pia and Bellingham in late March af- ter U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said the billboards were “disturbing” and “malicious” and typiied the EPA’s antipathy toward farmers. The tribe later also removed a “Take Action” link from the website that allowed people to send form let- ters to state legislators asking them to impose mandatory 100-foot buffers between farm ields and waterways. The website remains up. The EPA has said its lawyers de- termined What’s Upstream was not engaged in lobbying. The EPA with- held some emails from disclosure, citing attorney-client privilege. The EPA also said in its statement that the Swinomish tribe is no lon- ger requesting funds for What’s Up- stream. The EPA did not respond to a request for clariication on how much it spent. Previously released emails show the tribe planned to spend more than $655,000. Efforts to contact Wasserman were unsuccessful. The EPA recognized that the cam- paign, which charged farmers with being unregulated polluters, would be controversial. In mid-December 2015, EPA staff members anticipat- ed McLerran would be asked about What’s Upstream at a meeting of state and federal agencies hosted by the state Department of Ecology. The staff provided McLerran with “talking points.” The points includ- ed the EPA’s position that What’s Upstream was “consistent with the goals” of a multi-agency plan to clean up Puget Sound. Into 2016, What’s Upstream orga- nizers continued to develop advertis- ing to draw attention to their website. Strategies 360, a Seattle lobbying irm, developed ads that Chang of the EPA called “click bait.” “I have signiicant concerns with the ads,” Chang wrote in a Jan. 14 email to EPA colleagues. “The im- ages and text are designed to be provocative (click bait), to convey a message in a glance and provide no supporting context/background.” Several months later, the tribe was seeking EPA’s permission to expand the campaign’s social media presence when federal lawmakers learned of the Northwest campaign, causing EPA to discontinue the project. Photos by Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Steve Marlega of Northwest Reclaimed Lumber, left, and Danuta Burris of Salem Salvage examine the lumber of a grain elevator in Suver, Ore. Old wood from barns and other farm buildings is popular among woodworkers and home renovators. Wood CONTINUED from Page 1 However, deconstruction also reduces the trauma of removing a structure with which people have developed a nostalgic connection, said Michelle Ratcliffe, a landown- er near Hubbard, Ore., who worked with Salem Salvage to dismantle a barn earlier this year. Ratcliffe thought of her old barn as “the world’s greatest lawn orna- ment,” while neighbors considered it a local attraction. “People loved the barn,” she said. “It is really emotional for the people involved and the community.” Unfortunately, the leaning struc- ture had become dangerous. Reno- vating it would have been prohibi- tively expensive. The deconstruction process, meanwhile, yielded salvageable wood that can be used as loor- boards or other elements, as well as “trinkets and treasures,” such as an old hay trolley, Ratcliffe said. “This is a valuable resource and it doesn’t need to go up in lames,” she said. Old windows, boards and other re- claimed components of deconstructed buildings are on display at the yard of Salem Salvage in Salem, Ore. Old wood from barns and other farm build- ings is popular among woodworkers and home renovators. Terms vary The terms of each deconstruction project are different, and in some cases, buildings have decayed too much for the process to be worth- while, said Marlega. As a rule of thumb, the value of reclaimed lumber offsets the cost of deconstruction to the landowner, who also saves money by having less waste material to dump at the landill, he said. Salem Salvage earns roughly half its revenues by wholesaling the lumber to builders and wood- workers, and the other half by turn- ing the wood into furniture, Burris said. The company also restores old barns as a supplementary seasonal business. “I love wood and I love being creative, so it’s fun for me,” she said. It’s critical for the company to keep track of the lumber’s origin, she said. “My guys in the yard know where each piece of wood came from.” Such details are valuable for fur- niture-building companies such as The Shaker Craftsman in Yakima, Wash., which buys lumber from Sa- lem Salvage. Shaker Craftsman uses old- school joinery methods to make Wheat CONTINUED from Page 1 Farmers and researchers are try- ing to igure out why so much dam- age occurred this year. Some farmers told Sullivan it was “the best-looking wheat” they’d seen in years. “The unfortunate thing is that prices are not cooperating, and hav- ing that much wheat on the market can sometimes have a negative im- pact,” she said. At Portland on Monday soft white wheat traded for $4.50 to $4.76 per bushel. Hard red winter wheat ranged from $4.02 to $4.83 per bush- el and dark northern spring wheat was $5.63 to $5.93 per bushel. The prices are down signiicantly Danuta Burris of Salem Salvage, top, stands near a partially dismantled grain el- evator with Dustin Stephenson, left, Steve Marlega, center, and Darell Braman, right, of Northwest Reclaimed Wood, as well as their dog, Cooper. furniture from lumber that comes entirely from a single building, said Rhonda Cornwell, the company’s co-owner. “They know I need that informa- tion,” she said. “If you provide that history, our customers really like that.” Cornwell said she buys several species of reclaimed lumber from all over the U.S., but relies on Salem Salvage for old-growth Douglas ir. Television shows, magazines and social media devoted to home ren- ovation have increased the popu- larity of reclaimed lumber, driving up both competition and prices, she said. “People are wanting it more,” Cornwell said. “A lot of people are getting more aware of it.” Aside from its age, reclaimed lumber intrigues people due to its texture. “The coolest thing about it is the wood is amazing before you do anything to it,” said Terry Edwards, Burris’ husband and co-owner of Salem Salvage. Unusual textures often develop from how a piece of wood is used over decades, he said. For instance, the old Pacif- ic Seed grain elevator contained wooden chutes that grain passed through. Over time, the grain wore away the softer wood, leaving ripples similar to those created when water passes over sand, Edwards said. Edwards plans to use the wood from the chutes to build a confer- ence table for Wilbur-Ellis. “We’re going to knock their socks off,” he said. Another unique texture was created when generations of cows stomped on the loor boards of a barn, causing the softer wood to wear away faster than the knots, which then appeared elevated. Edwards and Burris turned that lumber into a bench that a wife gave to her husband, a former cow- hand. “It told the story of how the cows had worked that wood just by walking on it and gave it a shape that a machine never could,” Ed- wards said. from last October, when soft white wheat prices ranged from $5.41 to $5.50 a bushel. Wheat with low falling number also brings a lower price. As of Sept. 13, 42 percent of soft white wheat samples collected by Washington State Grain Inspection showed a fall- ing number of 300 or lower. In Idaho, winter wheat produc- tion was 66.7 million bushels, up 15 percent from last year. Spring wheat production was 34.4 million bush- els, up 13 percent. In Oregon, winter wheat produc- tion was 35.5 million bushels, up 3 percent from last year. Spring wheat production was 4.4 million bushels, down 5 percent. Oregon Wheat CEO Blake Rowe said his organization believes the NASS numbers for his state are a little low, and are more likely in the low to mid-40 million bushel range for “more of an average yield year.” Low prices remain a concern, he said. There is “nothing I can point to that will drive prices higher other than hope,” Rowe said. Wheat acreage varied across the region, according to NASS. Idaho farmers harvested 710,000 acres of winter wheat, the same as in 2015. Spring wheat dropped 9.2 percent to 395,000 acres. Winter wheat yields increased from 82 to 94 bushels per acre and spring wheat yields rose from 70 to 87 bushels per acre. The harvested Oregon winter wheat acreage was 710,000 acres, a decrease of 3.4 percent. Harvested spring wheat acreage dropped 6.5 percent 87,000 acres. Winter wheat yields increased from 47 to 50 bushels per acre. Spring wheat yields were 51 bush- els per acre, up 1 bushel from 2015’s yields. Washington farmers harvested 1.67 million winter wheat acres, up 21.6 percent from 2015. They harvested 530,000 acres of spring wheat, a drop of 16.5 percent from 2015. Winter wheat yields rose from 56 to 78 bushels per acre. Spring wheat yields were 51 bushels per acre, up from 36 in 2015. Nationwide, total wheat produc- tion increased 12 percent from 2.06 billion bushels in 2015 to 2.3 billion bushels this year. The average yield increased from 43.6 to 52.6 bushels per acre. Growing popularity Workers from Northwest Reclaimed Wood, a deconstruction company, dis- mantle a grain elevator in Suver, Ore. Old wood from barns and other farm buildings is popular among woodwork- ers and home renovators.
