October 21, 2016
Rain leaves
farmers
in rush
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
The heavy rain accompa-
nying October’s storms mud-
died ields, hampered harvests
and delayed plantings in some
cases, and skewed reports
from government precipitation
monitors while it was at it.
Automated
monitoring
equipment maintained by the
USDA’s Natural Resources
Conservation Service in Port-
land showed precipitation off
the charts in Oregon basins
compared to average for this
time of year.
In the Coast Range moun-
tains, precipitation was mea-
sured at 643 percent of average
as of Oct. 17, while Willamette
basin sites measured snow and
rain at 509 percent of average.
Monitoring equipment in other
basins recorded precipitation
at more than 300 and 400 per-
cent of average.
In Portland, October rain-
fall reached 5.86 inches as of
Oct. 19. The average for the
entire month is about 3 inch-
es, according to the National
Weather Service.
The heavy rain sent farm-
ers scrambling to inish fall
work, said Michael Bondi,
director of Oregon State Uni-
versity’s North Willamette
Research and Extension Cen-
ter in Aurora. “It caught us all
by surprise,” he said.
The USDA’s National Ag-
ricultural Statistics Service
in Portland said heavy rain
limited ield work and creat-
ed poor harvest conditions for
some producers. In other cas-
es, such as wine grapes, most
growers were able to inish
harvesting before the heavy
rains hit.
Grower Ray Drescher,
in the Gervais area, said his
sweet corn harvesting equip-
ment isn’t geared for work-
ing in such wet weather and
he’ll be hard-pressed to in-
ish picking by the end of the
week. The co-op he delivers
to, NORPAC, has said corn
might be too ripe if it wasn’t
picked by Thursday or Friday.
Drescher said he was able to
harvest caulilower, however.
Farmer Brenda Frketich,
of St. Paul, Ore., used her
blog, www.NuttyGrass.com,
to talk about harvesting hazel-
nuts in the rain.
“It was a good remind-
er that not all harvests go as
smoothly as they have the
past three years with only
the dust to complain about,”
she wrote. “Mud is much
worse!”
The precipitation igures
compiled by NRCS are mis-
leading to a certain extent be-
cause they measure precipita-
tion only since the beginning
of the “water year,” which be-
gan Oct. 1, and compare it to
the average amount reached at
the same point in other years.
Heavy rain or snow in a short
period, such as happened this
fall, can make the early results
seem extremely dramatic, said
Scott Oviatt, the NRCS snow
survey supervisor.
CapitalPress.com
3
Oregon barn ire leads to wetland dispute
Hay exporter
accused of violating
law by rebuilding
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. —
Hay exporter Jesse Bounds
knew it’d be a rough summer
when two of his barns burned
down in mid-July.
A ire ignited spontaneous-
ly in his ield and soon con-
sumed the structures, which
contained roughly $500,000
of straw.
“It was so windy that day
that it blew through the build-
ings in like ive minutes,” said
Bounds, who also bales straw
and compresses it at his facil-
ity here.
Problems with the insur-
ance company left Bounds
short of money to rebuild both
barns at a time when his in-
come was drastically reduced
from the loss of straw, he said.
“I’m just bleeding to death.”
Then came a blow from
an unexpected direction: Or-
egon’s Department of State
Lands notiied Bounds he’d
violated Oregon’s remov-
al-ill law by attempting to
rebuild in a wetland.
The letter came as a shock.
“I was literally sick to my
stomach,” Bounds said.
His surprise sprang from
the fact the property isn’t
identiied as a wetland on
county maps and he’d re-
ceived the necessary county
permits to begin construction.
“The problem is the coun-
ty and state don’t work on this
issue,” he said. “If they’re
really trying to protect wet-
lands, why would they allow
the county to give me building
permits again?”
Bounds suspects that
DSL’s interest in the property
was sparked by a complaint
from a neighbor with whom
he’s had disagreements, since
the agency did not protest
when he irst built the storage
facilities in 2014.
He’s already rebuilt one
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Hay exporter Jesse Bounds examines a hole dug on his property to study whether it’s a wetland.
Oregon’s Department of State Lands accuses him of rebuilding a burned barn in a wetland contrary to
state ill/removal law.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Hay exporter Jesse Bounds on his land near Junction City.
Oregon’s Department of State Lands accuses him of rebuilding a
burned barn in a wetland contrary to the state’s removal-ill law.
barn but worries he’ll still
be required to spend roughly
$57,000 on wetland mitiga-
tion on each of the 12 acres
that DSL claims are wetlands
because they contain hydric
soils. Generally, such mitiga-
tion involves buying credits
from a wetland bank that’s
been developed elsewhere.
Bounds said the agency
effectively declared the area a
wetland and then forced him
to prove it’s not.
“They come at you like
they’re the police. They auto-
matically think you’re in vio-
lation,” he said.
Julie Curtis, public infor-
mation manager for DSL,
acknowledged “the timing
of our enforcement action
was unfortunate due to Mr.
Bounds’s recent ire.”
“However, as a regulato-
ry agency, the Department of
State Lands is bound by its
statutory and rule responsibil-
ities with regard to protecting
Oregon’s wetlands and water-
ways,” Curtis said in an email.
“We always strive to resolve
violations in a way that ideally
will facilitate accomplishing
the applicant’s goals, while
meeting the state’s require-
ments to protect Oregon’s
wetlands and waterways.”
DSL acknowledged that
a “forensic wetland delinea-
tion” on the property would
be dificult and therefore the
agency was willing to discuss
alternative methods for dein-
ing the area where mitigation
would be required, according
to an agency email sent to a
wetland consultant hired by
Bounds.
The agency has agreed to
postpone taking any action
in Bounds’ case until the end
of the 2017 legislative ses-
sion next July, when it will be
“re-engaging with Mr. Bounds
to determine how to resolve
the matter,” Curtis said.
Oregonians In Action,
a nonproit property rights
group, believes it may have
a legislative solution that
would solve such problems
for Bounds and other farmers
in similar situations.
The underlying problem
is that state and county maps
may show that a property isn’t
a wetland, but that doesn’t
necessarily mean DSL can’t
later determine it’s actually a
wetland, said Dave Hunnicutt,
the group’s executive director.
“DSL isn’t limited to the
places listed on their state and
local wetland inventory,” he
said. “The maps are mislead-
ing to the public and can’t be
relied upon.”
It’s unfair to expect land-
owners to pre-emptively
check whether every portion
of their property is a wetland,
particularly since such deter-
minations are often based on
soil tests rather than stereo-
typical wetland characteris-
tics, Hunnicutt said.
“It’s not a pond, it’s not a
marsh, there are no cattails.
It’s just a ield,” he said. “If
you can’t rely on the maps,
then why do they have them
in the irst place?”
It’s also unrealistic for
DSL to examine every prop-
erty that’s permitted for de-
velopment, which is why
the process is largely com-
plaint-driven, Hunnicutt said.
Hunnicutt plans to ask a
legislator to introduce a bill
clarifying that properties not
classiied as wetlands on lo-
cal and state inventories are
exempt from the removal-ill
law.
In the alternative, the ex-
emption would be narrowed
to the rebuilding of agricul-
tural buildings, which would
be more speciically tailored
to Bounds.
“The Legislature needs to
step in and make sure what’s
happening to Jesse doesn’t
happen to anyone else,” Hun-
nicutt said.
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Interior secretary
supports Klamath
dam removal
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore.
(AP) — The U.S. Secretary of
Interior supports the removal
of four hydroelectric dams on
the Klamath River.
The Herald & News re-
ports that Secretary Sally
Jewell endorsed the plan
Monday in a letter sent to the
Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission asking it to ap-
prove an application for dam
demolition.
The dam would also be
transferred from its current
owner, PaciiCorp, to Klam-
ath River Renewal Corp., a
consortium of federal, state
and local oficials. That would
relieve PaciiCorp of all lia-
bility once the dams are de-
commissioned and removed.
The Klamath County bal-
lot will still contain an up or
down vote on whether the
dams should be removed,
but it is mostly symbolic. It
could be used as an argument
against the project if the vote
is overwhelmingly against
dam removal.
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