December 15, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Pending manure rule poses murky math problem
Farmers must
calculate amount
of ammonia in air
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Courtesy Oregon Cattlemen Magazine
Nathan Jackson, left, was elected president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association, taking over for past president John O’Keeffe during the
group’s annual convention Nov. 30 through Dec. 2 in Bend.
New president takes
over reins of Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association
Annual convention
held Nov. 30
through Dec. 2
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
A new president is sad-
dling up at the Oregon Cattle-
men’s Association.
Nathan Jackson, general
manager for sales and admin-
istration at K-Bar Ranches in
Myrtle Creek, stepped into
the position Dec. 2 during the
organization’s annual conven-
tion in Bend.
Jackson, who served
the last two years as pres-
ident-elect, takes over for
John O’Keeffe, who wrapped
up his term. The OCA also
tapped Tom Sharp as the
next president-elect and Todd
Nash as treasurer, maintaining
the line of succession.
O’Keeffe, a third-gener-
ation rancher from Adel in
south-central Oregon, said he
was honored to represent the
cattlemen, and believes they
made progress on key issues
at the state and federal levels
— including the removal of
wolves from the Oregon en-
dangered species list in late
2015.
The delisting applies to
wolves east of highways 395,
78 and 95, though wolves in
western Oregon remain pro-
tected under the federal En-
dangered Species Act.
“We hope to shortly
have these wolves delisted
statewide,” O’Keeffe said.
“They’re definitely here, and
it’s time to manage them.
We’re getting a lot of depre-
dation, and quite a bit of hard-
ship.”
The status of wolves re-
mains a hot-button issue for
cattlemen, as the Oregon
Fish and Wildlife Commis-
sion considers a long-await-
ed update to the state’s Wolf
Conservation and Manage-
ment Plan. O’Keeffe said the
plan needs to have reasonable
criteria for lethal control of
wolves that make a habit of
preying on livestock.
“These wolves, if they get
in a pattern of preying on live-
stock, it tends to accelerate,”
he said. “We would like to get
away from that.”
O’Keeffe said the new
administration in Washing-
ton, D.C., is also working to
fine-tune protections for sage
grouse habitat while balanc-
ing the interests of ranchers.
As OCA president, Jackson
said he recognizes that he will
be the face of the organization
and will work to ensure cat-
tlemen have a strong voice at
the Legislature. In particular,
he said there are restrictions
being pushed by groups that
“aren’t interested in finding a
compromise, but that want to
put natural resource users out
of business.”
“Those are the most egre-
gious things we have to look
out for,” Jackson said.
In addition to legislative
work, Jackson said he hopes
to strengthen the connection
between the OCA and 26
county or regional cattlemen’s
associations across Oregon.
“We’re going to do a fair
amount of organizational
stuff,” Jackson said. “Some of
our county organizations need
some support and capacity.”
The three-day OCA annual
convention was held Nov. 30
through Dec. 2 at the River-
house on the Deschutes. The
event drew more than 350
attendees, 45 trade show ex-
hibitors and 50 presentations
on topics ranging from wild
horses to public lands.
Jerome Rosa, OCA exec-
utive director, said the wild
horse program — led by Rob-
ert Sharp, supervisory wild
horse and burro specialist
with the Bureau of Land Man-
agement — was especially
well attended.
“The room was packed,”
Rosa said. It’s a real problem
in some parts of our state, in
particular southeast Oregon.
They’re really causing a lot of
problems on private and pub-
lic lands, the way the popula-
tion is really expanding.
Rosa said turnout at the
convention was the best
it’s been in a few years,
which he attributed in part
to a greater diversity of
speakers.
“We tried to appeal to a lit-
tle more of a broad spectrum
of folks than we had in the
past,” Rosa said. “There was a
little bit of something for ev-
erybody.”
Producers are in a “to-
tally confusing situation”
calculating whether their
livestock emit enough am-
monia to qualify as a source
of hazardous gas under a
new federal rule, a leading
authority on estimating ma-
nure emissions said Thurs-
day.
University of Nebras-
ka professor Rick Stowell
said guidance offered by the
Environmental Protection
Agency, based largely on
research by Stowell and a
colleague, has been vague.
“It’d sure be nice to have
clarity on this. It’s not go-
ing to be easy for producers
to decide whether to report
and what to report, and
that’s an unfortunate situa-
tion,” Stowell said.
Animal feeding opera-
tions that emit more than
100 pounds of ammonia
or hydrogen sulfide in 24
hours will have to register
annually beginning early
next year with the Nation-
al Response Center. The
center, staffed by the U.S.
Coast Guard, coordinates
federal emergency respons-
es to chemical leaks.
The EPA had sought to
exempt agriculture from
having to report. The agen-
cy said it was unlikely
decaying manure would
ever need an emergency
response. Environmental
groups sued, however. The
D.C. Circuit Court of Ap-
peals agreed that knowing
where manure was could
be useful to emergency re-
sponders.
The court is expected to
finalize its order Jan. 22.
The court has yet to clari-
fy whether farms also will
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Cows graze in a fenced pasture Dec. 7 in Western Washington. Some livestock producers will have
to register with federal emergency officials how much ammonia their animals’ manure gives off in
a 24-hour period. There is no generally accepted way to calculate the emissions, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency.
have to report to local and
state officials.
The EPA estimates that
44,900 farms will spend
$14.9 million a year to reg-
ister with the National Re-
sponse Center. It has not
estimated how many cows,
pigs or chickens it takes to
exceed the reporting thresh-
old.
Instead, an EPA website
links to a worksheet final-
ized in 2009 by Stowell
and another University of
Nebraska professor, Rick
Koelsch. Washington State
University animal scientist
Joe Harrison, who works
with the dairy industry,
said the Stowell-Koelsch
worksheet is the best sci-
ence available on calcu-
lating ammonia, the gas
more likely to reach the
threshold.
Nevertheless, Stowell
said the worksheet only
“crudely estimates emis-
sions.” Emissions are af-
fected by factors such as
climate, the seasons, animal
housing and manure stor-
age.
Stowell said that his and
Koelsch’s worksheet should
apply to many regions,
though producers who use
an emissions calculator de-
veloped in Texas probably
will come up with much
different numbers.
“Mirror-image dairies
across the road from each
other ... can easily come
up with different, yet ac-
ceptable, estimates,” he
said. “This introduces a lot
of confusion to an already
confounding decision.”
Koelsch said in an email
that although using the
worksheet to estimate emis-
sions appears acceptable to
the EPA, he advises pro-
ducers to check with their
commodity commissions or
trade associations.
EPA says that because
there is no generally accept-
ed methodology for estimat-
ing emissions, farmers may
need to report their emis-
sions in broad ranges. As of
Friday afternoon, EPA had
not issued further guidance.
In the absence of such
guidance, Stowell said he’s
been reluctant to say how
many barnyard animals it
takes to give off at least 100
pounds of ammonia in 24
hours.
“Those sizes are not
specified by the EPA, so as
soon as we start throwing
out those numbers, it’s like
we’re making the rules, and
I don’t want to do that,” he
said.
The Waterkeeper Al-
liance, Sierra Club, Hu-
mane Society of the United
States, the Environmental
Integrity Project and Cen-
ter for Food Safety brought
the lawsuit to force agricul-
ture to report the emissions
under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability
Act, commonly known as
the Superfund law.
Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association
December 5, 2017
CSRIA Open Letter
Hon. Sect. of Interior Ryan Zinke
Hon. Sect. of Energy Rick Perry
Hon. Sect. of Defense James Mattis
Hon. EPA Adm. Scott Pruitt
Hon. Sect. of Ag. Sonny Perdue
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, WH Chief of Staff
RE: Protecting the Columbia-Snake River System, a Great National Asset
Dear Cabinet Secretaries and Gen. Kelly:
It would seem inconceivable that we should have to request your intervention to protect one of the greatest
national assets, the economic engine that comprises the Columbia-Snake River Federal Hydropower System.
But events prod this correspondence.
The Federal Hydropower System is a testament to what good men and women can achieve, when guided by
reason and the pursuit of economic prosperity and social well-being. The System’s non-carbon emitting
turbines electrify the region’s commerce, serving some of the most influential companies in the world—like
Boeing, Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, Nike, and others—and energize the homes of millions of Northwest and
California citizens. The System creates an accessible water source for the most productive and efficient
irrigated farms on the planet; it offers commercial navigation to ship the nation’s wheat to coastal sea ports; it
provides for unique recreational opportunities. And the scientists from NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers have developed protective measures for salmon and steelhead that overcome harsh river
system conditions in unfavorable water-years.
But the political, and bureaucratic, leviathan created by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has nurtured
twenty-five years of Columbia-Snake River litigation, now being encouraged by a single, federal district court
judge (Oregon). Worse yet, this judge now refuses to review evidence that points toward the destruction of
about two-thirds of Idaho’s wild spring chinook run, the lethal product of inept ESA management regimes and
failed oversight of the so-called fish managers.
Our prayer for relief is vested in the statutory power of the ESA (ESA Committee review and the exemption
process), where an executive directive can be invoked to shield Hydropower System operations from further,
abusive litigation, and to adopt System measures that will more than sufficiently protect ESA-listed fish.
While CSRIA is in communication with senior agency and DOJ staff, who are being respectful of our
legitimate concerns, the national asset at risk is worthy of your personal attention, and we would request an
opportunity to meet directly with you, to better inform your understanding of the situation.
Respectfully,
CSRIA Board of Directors
3030 W. Clearwater, Ste. 205-A, Kennewick, WA 99336
509-783-1623, DOlsenEcon@AOL.com
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