April 7, 2017
CapitalPress.com
11
Oregon
‘Mass timber’ in state’s future, speaker predicts
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
PORTLAND — Speakers
at the Oregon Mass Timber
Summit acknowledged some
hangups, but said they’re still
optimistic using fabricated
wooden panels in tall buildings
can revitalize the state’s timber
industry and restore jobs in ru-
ral areas.
Valerie Johnson, whose
D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. in
Riddle, Ore., was the first to
make cross laminated timbers
certified for tall construction,
said the state is still having
“intense” harvest management
discussions. “But if there’s a
way to create more jobs with
the same log supply, why don’t
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Valerie Johnson, co-owner of D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. in Riddle,
Ore., says the state should be the center of producing cross-lami-
nated timbers for use in building tall wooden buildings.
we get on about that?” she said.
The March 27 summit in
Portland focused on the Oregon
industry and served as a prelude
to the International Mass Tim-
ber Conference held in Portland
later in the week.
In September 2015, D.R.
Johnson became the first Amer-
ican company certified to make
cross-laminated timber panels.
Certification by the American
Plywood Association and the
American National Standards
Institute assures the panels,
called CLT, can be used in
building construction.
Johnson said the company
she and her sister, Jodi West-
brooks, co-own is working to
supply multiple tall wood con-
struction projects, including
half a dozen schools in Wash-
ington. The city of Springfield,
Ore., once home to major wood
products companies, will build
a parking garage made from
wood.
Oregon regulators approve
permit for 30,000-head dairy
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — State regula-
tors on March 31 approved a
wastewater permit for a hotly
debated expansion of a large
dairy farm in Boardman.
The Lost Valley Farm, on
about 7,000 acres formerly be-
longing to the Boardman Tree
Farm, is now due to start op-
erating in the coming weeks.
It’s a project of Greg te Velde,
the owner of the nearby me-
ga-dairy Willow Creek Farm,
whose cows supply milk to
local processors.
The proposed expansion
drew criticism from environ-
mental and animal-welfare
groups, and state agencies say
they have taken additional
steps to address them.
Lost Valley Farm will be
allowed to have up to 30,000
cows under a permit designat-
ed for confined animal feed-
ing operations, or CAFOs,
according to the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture and
the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality.
The permit issued Friday
is intended to protect surface
and groundwater from con-
tamination, officials say.
Leah Feldon, deputy di-
rector of the Department of
Environmental Quality, said
Friday that the department
had done “extensive review
and work” on the permit over
the past year.
The departments say Lost
Valley Farm will also be re-
quired to closely monitor its
groundwater, soil and leak de-
tection in areas where animal
waste is stored. There will be
11 groundwater monitoring
wells on the site.
The state also says that the
only nearby surface water is
a canal at a higher elevation
than the farm, which would
make it “improbable” that the
farm’s wastewater or storm-
water would end up there.
Further, they say, the entire
property is in a depression.
Large dairies such as Lost
Valley Farm are typically sub-
ject to inspection by the state
Department of Agriculture
three or four times a year.
Lost Valley Farm expects
to start with 16,500 cattle in
the first year and gradually
build the herd over several
years, according to ODA and
DEQ.
Although state regulators
say it was not a factor in the
permit decision, the state also
touts the expected economic
value of the project, which the
dairy estimates will provide
more than 100 jobs.
The farm also says that it
will recycle about 75 percent
of the water it uses. In a state-
ment, te Velde said the farm
agreed to all the requirements
of the permit and remained
“committed to protecting
the quality and quantity of
groundwater in the critical
groundwater area.”
The proposed dairy is locat-
ed in the Umatilla Groundwa-
ter Management Area, which
has elevated levels of nitrates.
The state’s water resources
department is currently pro-
cessing the dairy’s water use
applications; an appeal period
ends April 7.
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
Twin carousels simultaneously milk 80 cows on each side while
slowly revolving in the milking parlor at the Columbia River Dairy
outside Boardman, Ore. Last week Oregon regulators granted Lost
Valley Farm, another mega-dairy near Boardman, a wastewater
permit.
The dairy currently has a
temporary permit until April
30, which allows 450 gallons
per minute of water for con-
struction.
Through a water rights
transfer, the farm is requesting
1,037 acre-feet of water per
year.
Officials said Friday that
the state received a protest
filed by the Crag Law Cen-
ter on behalf of a coalition of
environmental groups that op-
pose the transfer and called the
operation a “major threat” to
water and air quality.
The permit does not reg-
ulate air quality, which was
a concern raised by environ-
mental groups and by a group
representing small and mid-
size farms.
Lost Valley Farm plans to
build and use a methane di-
gester in two to three years, if
it is “economically feasible.”
A bill currently before the
Oregon Legislature would re-
quire the state’s Environmen-
tal Quality Commission to
adopt a program regulating air
contaminant emissions from
confined animal feeding oper-
ations such as Lost Valley.
Ivan Maluski, of Friends
of Family Farmers, called the
decision by state regulators
“disappointing but not unex-
pected.”
Maluski argues that large
dairies like Lost Valley push
small and mid-size dairy farms
out of business, and points to
a 2013 report from the state’s
employment department that
shows that the number of small
dairies in Oregon shrank be-
tween 2002 and 2007.
Johnson said the estimat-
ed market opportunity for
cross-laminated timber panels
in U.S. construction is $1.5 bil-
lion to $4 billion. She said Or-
egon is a natural center for the
industry.
“Well, why not here?” she
said. “We’re as smart and hard-
working as anybody.”
A four-story commercial
building under construction in
Portland, called Albina Yard,
is the first project built with
domestically produced CLT
panels. Such products now are
referred to generically as mass
timber construction.
Meanwhile, Oregon State
University’s College of For-
estry and College of Engineer-
ing have formed a partnership
with the University of Ore-
gon’s School of Architecture
and Allied Arts. A new facility
at OSU, called the TallWood
Design Institute, will be the
nation’s first research collabo-
rative that focuses exclusively
on the advancement of struc-
tural wood products.
Meanwhile, D.R. Johnson
may soon have company, or
competition, on the produc-
tion side of things. In a March
16 opinion piece in the Capi-
tal Press, Tyler Freres of Ore-
gon-based Freres Lumber said
in 2017 the company intends
to complete a production
facility that can make “ve-
neer-based” panels up to 12
feet wide, 48 feet long and 24
inches thick.
NORPAC names new CEO
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Shawn Campbell, a vet-
eran of the food processing
industry, is the new president
and CEO of NORPAC, the
venerable Willamette Valley
farmers’ coop-
erative.
C a m p -
bell replaces
George Smith,
who retired af-
ter heading the
Shawn
co-op for more Campbell
than a decade
and working at
the company 38 years.
Campbell was hired as
NORPAC’s chief operating
officer in 2016 as part of a
strategic succession plan, and
he’s not new to the workings
of farmers’ cooperatives. He
worked more than 10 years at
Darigold, the dairy products
co-op, where he was most
recently the senior vice presi-
dent of consumer products.
He also has food brokerage
and business development ex-
perience in the U.S. and Can-
ada.
Campbell said he’d been
looking for an opportunity
to lead an organization when
the NORPAC position came
open. The co-op has a sol-
id foundation, he said, with
quality products, reliable
sourcing and a hardworking
employee base. The co-op
model gives independent
businesses — farms, in this
case — more economic
power than they would have
by themselves, provides
a reliable market for their
crops and gives them an op-
portunity for governance,
he said. Co-op members sit
on NORPAC’s board of di-
rectors.
Campbell agreed con-
sumers are familiar with
NORPAC’s
FLAV-R-PAC
brand frozen vegetables and
fruit and its Santiam brand
canned products, but said peo-
ple may be buying NORPAC
products without realizing it.
The co-op packages under
private labels, and its vegeta-
bles, soups and chili are used
by restaurants, he said.
Campbell said most of his
background is in sales and
marketing and he’ll be look-
ing for innovative growth,
including new products. He
declined to be more specific.
“There’s definitely opportuni-
ty out there,” he said.
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