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8 CapitalPress.com March 10, 2017 Oregon Pendleton native to lead reborn Water Coalition Group to focus on education, outreach By GEORGE PLAVEN EO Media Group PENDLETON, Ore. — Marika Sitz knew she wanted to return to Eastern Oregon. Her timing couldn’t be better. After graduating from Pendleton High School in 2011, Sitz moved to the Silicon Valley, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in human bi- ology from Stanford University. Her focus was predominantly on food and agricultural systems, which led to an interest in water development and sustainability. Now, as local farmers find them- selves on the cusp of obtaining new irrigation supplies that could mean hundreds of millions of dollars for the basin, Sitz has come home to re- vive the dormant Oregon Water Co- alition, a nonprofit group formed 25 years ago to promote water resourc- es. Sitz, 24, was officially hired in January as coordinator for the co- alition. She will serve at the rec- ommendation of an eight-member board of directors, including long- time irrigators and irrigation district managers. “It’s nice to be able to come back to a small town like this and have an opportunity like this,” Sitz said. Sitz is a former PHS athlete and Lantern Cup winner, the school’s highest award for personal and classroom achievement. Her family comes from a cattle ranching back- ground and she said rural issues have always informed her way of think- ing — even after college in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sitz graduated from Stanford in 2015, and followed that up with a one-year fellowship with the Bill Lane Center for the American West. It was there she became involved in a program called Water in the West, E.J. Harris/EO Media Group Marika Sitz has returned to Eastern Oregon to revive the Oregon Water Coalition and will be helping promote water resources and coordinated education and out- reach. researching solutions to the region’s intensifying water shortage. From there, Sitz said she began looking at opportunities in Oregon and came across the Northeast Or- egon Water Association, or NOWA. That’s the group working to nego- tiate new mitigated water rights for Umatilla and Morrow county farm- ers from the Columbia River, a del- icate and lengthy effort with poten- tially huge economic rewards. Sitz reached out to J.R. Cook, executive director of NOWA and a board member for the Oregon Wa- ter Coalition. Cook said he felt Sitz would be a great fit for the water coalition, which formed in 1992 to educate and do outreach, but had largely become inactive and nearly dissolved last year. “(Sitz) lit a fire under us,” Cook said. With Sitz on board, Cook said the coalition has been reborn. And though Sitz said she is still learn- ing the ropes, she is already at work rebuilding their website and re-es- tablishing their community partner- ships. “It’s a little bit about finding our place,” she said. Ray Kopacz, coalition vice pres- ident and manager of the Stanfield Irrigation District, said it will take some time to get themselves orga- nized after years of sitting in limbo. “It never really died. We just lost some key people who were helping run it,” Kopacz said. Sitz plans to stay with the coali- tion for two years before applying to law school. She said the relation- ships she builds now will be invalu- able down the road. “Water is not going to be- come any less important in the fu- ture,” she said. “It’s just key to the economic engine of so many areas.” When Sitz leaves, Cook said they hope to continue recruiting new blood to carry on the work that’s already been done. It has taken 30 years of work to get to where they are now, he said, and it will be up to the new guard to see many of these projects to fruition. “The goal is to bring peo- ple Marika’s age back our way to work for northeast Oregon,” Cook said. Lawmakers consider on-farm treatment of sewage sludge Bill would clarify land use law to allow mobile biosolid processing in farm zones By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press SALEM — Sewage sludge already serves as fertilizer on Oregon farms but a proposed bill would also permit pro- cessing the waste within farm zones. It’s common for biosolids, also called human manure, to be treated at wastewater plants and then applied to fields that aren’t producing crops meant for human con- sumption. Wayne Buma, who oper- ates AAA Advanced Septic Cleaning in Southern Or- Capital Press File Oregon legislators are considering a bill that would clarify land use laws to allow mobile biosolid processing in farm zones. egon, wanted to use waste from septic tanks in the same way but ran into troubles with Jackson County’s gov- ernment. The county’s objection wasn’t based on sanitary is- sues, but rather Oregon’s land use laws: It wasn’t clear that sewage treatment is allowed on land zoned for “exclusive farm use.” “There is nothing new going on as far as the safe- ty. All that has been ap- proved,” Buma told mem- bers of the House Agriculture Committee at a March 2 hearing. Under House Bill 2179, the statute would clarify that on-farm biosolids treatment is allowed in farm zones as long as it’s conducted with mobile units. If on-farm biosolid treat- ment isn’t allowed, Buma said he’d have to separately pro- cess the waste at the location of each septic tank, rather than collectively treat the material in a large tank at the site of ap- plication. “Right now, it’s bot- tle-necked,” he said. The treatment process described by Buma, which is permitted by Oregon’s Department of Environ- mental Quality, is fairly straightforward. Biosolids are filtered to remove plastic and other de- bris, then agricultural lime is mixed with the waste to make it alkaline and kill pathogens. The sterilized biosolids are then spread across a field with a truck. “It’s a stable product, it’s not a haz-mat material,” Buma said of the lime that’s integral to the process. Legislators seemed amena- ble to HB 2179, with the com- mittee’s chairman, Brian Clem, D-Salem, testifying in favor of the bill as a “no-brainer.” While Oregon’s land use laws generally confine pro- cessing activities within “ur- ban growth boundaries,” that often involves increasing the “truck miles” required to trans- port materials, Clem said. In this case, there is no con- struction of a permanent facil- ity that would take farmland out of production, he said. “If it’s not displacing farm- land, I think it’s good to have processing as close to the source of the material as pos- sible,” Clem said. 10-4/#17 Lawmakers back away from controversial farm property tax bill By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press SALEM — Intense oppo- sition from Oregon’s farmers, ranchers and forestland own- ers has apparently convinced lawmakers to back away from altering key property tax pro- visions affecting agriculture and forestry. Machinery used for agri- culture and forestry is exempt from property tax assessments while property dedicated to producing crops, livestock and timber is less heavily taxed than other real estate. Under the original lan- guage of House Bill 2859, the property tax exemption for equipment and the farm use assessment for land would ex- pire in 2024 unless renewed by lawmakers. The proposal evoked alarm in Oregon’s natural resource community, which turned out in full force at a March 1 hear- ing to argue that creating a “sunset” for these provisions would financially destabilize farming, ranching and forest- ry. By the end of the hearing, the overwhelmingly negative testimony against HB 2859 seemed to have the desired ef- fect on members of the House Revenue Committee. “I’m pretty convinced put- ting a sunset on these things that are very long-term assets doesn’t make any sense,” said committee Chairman Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene. At the beginning of the hearing, Barnhart said the bill was drafted in response to an audit from Oregon’s Secretary of State’s Office, which called for periodic review of existing property tax exemptions and tax credits. In light of the objections to HB 2859, though, Barn- hart said he thought the sunset provisions related to natural resources should be eliminat- ed from the bill. The suggestion drew no objections from other com- mittee members, so Barnhart said they would only consider the remaining provisions of HB 2859 related to economic development and other issues. “I think you should consid- er all of what I just said means that you win,” Barnhart told the audience, to enthusiastic applause. Farmers, ranchers and for- estland owners at the hearing emphasized that natural re- source industries were already highly uncertain due to the weather and volatile markets. Landowners said they shouldn’t also have to contend with the possibility their prop- erty taxes may rise dramati- cally every six years, which is the period of sunset review established under HB 2859. “In the orchard business, we need to plan long-term,” said Bruce Chapin, a hazelnut producer near Keizer, Ore. Marsha Carr, a forestland owner near Monroe, Ore., said her annual property tax- es would increase from about $1,000 to more than $25,000 under HB 2859. Carr said her family har- vests timber in small patches of five to seven acres, which preserves habitat for wildlife and songbirds. “That would have to change to pay the taxes,” she said. “We would have to cut larger areas.” Farmers rely on special- ized equipment but they often operate it for only a month or less per year, unlike other industries where machinery creates revenues year-round, said Roger Beyer, a lobbyist for the Western Equipment Dealers Association and sev- eral crop organizations. If property taxes were im- posed on farm machinery, it would destroy demand for machinery, he said. “It would simply dry up and go away.” Landowners also testified that property would unfairly be taxed at the maximum as- sessed value if the farm use assessment was allowed to expire.
