December 22, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Oregon
Bulb onion growers seeing higher prices
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
ONTARIO, Ore. — Bulb
onion growers in southwest-
ern Idaho and Eastern Ore-
gon are enjoying much higher
prices than this time last year,
the result of a production year
that was well below average.
The price of a 50-pound
bag of jumbo yellow onions
has hovered between $8.50
and $10 in recent weeks, com-
pared to about $3.50 this time
last year.
About 90 percent of the
Spanish bulb onions grown
in the region are yellows and
most of those are jumbo size.
The onion market is ex-
tremely volatile but growers
are riding a hot streak as far
as prices go, said Cameron
Skeen, an Oregon grower and
chief operating officer for
Baker & Murakami Produce
Co., one of the largest onion
shippers in the Idaho-Oregon
growing region.
“Our market is histori-
cally higher than it’s been in
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Bulb onions are harvested in a field near Vale, Ore., in September. Onion growers in Idaho and East-
ern Oregon are seeing prices well above last year’s levels for this time of the year.
awhile,” he said. “We’re hav-
ing one of the best markets up
to this point that we’ve had in
a long, long time.”
Onion growers in this re-
gion typically produce more
than 1 billion pounds of bulb
onions a year but yields were
off 25 to 30 percent this year
due to a late start to planting
and unfavorable weather,
Skeen said.
The current market “is a
darn good price for this time
of year (and) it’s a result of
lower yields,” said Grant Ki-
tamura, general manager of
Baker & Murakami Produce.
Malheur County Onion
Growers Association Presi-
dent Paul Skeen said jumbo
prices have fallen slightly
from a high of about $10 per
50-pound bag to about $9-
9.50 recently, but he antici-
pates they will increase again
soon.
“I think there’s going to
be a movement in the market,
up,” he said. “How much up I
don’t know. The onion market
(has) come down a little bit
but we’re anticipating that it
will go back up”
Some of the 300 onion
growers and 30 shippers in
the area were significantly
impacted by last year’s harsh
winter, which resulted in
about 60 onion storage sheds
and packing facilities collaps-
ing or sustaining major dam-
age under the weight of snow
and ice.
The event caused a lot of
damage but the current up-
tick in prices is helping, Paul
Skeen said.
“Onion prices are a lot bet-
ter than they were last year,”
he said. “We hope we can
recoup some of the damage
caused by Snowmageddon.”
The storage onions grown
in this area are typically mar-
keted through March and into
April.
Cameron Skeen said
that while it’s hard to pre-
dict what the onion market
is going to do, he believes
prices could increase some
in January and should re-
main healthy through mid-
March.
“It’s a manageable amount
of inventory and I believe
we’re going to continue to
have a healthy market,” he
said. “I’m bullish on the on-
ion market.”
Irrigators protest Hood River water rights Many basins need
only part of average
spring runoff
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Several farm groups have
filed protests against the Or-
egon Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s proposal to obtain
instream water rights in the
Hood River Basin.
Fourteen of the agency’s
applications for instream wa-
ter rights, which are meant
to protect flows, were met
with objections from the Or-
egon Farm Bureau, Columbia
Gorge Fruit Growers, local
irrigation districts and county
Farm Bureaus.
The Oregon Water Re-
sources Department had
proposed approving the ap-
plications, but the protesters
argue the agency wrongly
determined the instream wa-
ter rights served the public
interest.
Farmers are concerned that
new ODFW-owned instream
water rights could prevent
the development of irrigation
water rights under the Oregon
Department of Agriculture’s
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
83,000 acre-feet of “water
reservations” in the basin,
said Mary Anne Cooper, pub-
lic policy counsel for Oregon
Farm Bureau.When Oregon
lawmakers passed a law to
protect instream flows 30
years ago, they also allowed
the Oregon Department of
Agriculture to “reserve” water
for economic development.
Last year, the Hood Riv-
er Basin’s water reservations
were renewed for another two
decades, as they generally ha-
ven’t yet been used to develop
water rights.
However, such water res-
ervations may play an import-
ant role in storing irrigation
water if the Hood River Basin
sees smaller snowpacks in the
future.
Another concern is that
instream water rights may
impede the transfer or lease
of senior water rights, said
Cooper.
New instream rights would
be junior to those of exist-
ing water users, but Cooper
said problems can arise when
those irrigators want to move
a point of diversion farther
upstream.
In such a situation, ODFW
may claim injury because the
water remains instream for a
shorter distance, she said.
Oregon wrestles with pesticide spray zone regulations
New EPA rules to go
into effect Jan. 2
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Oregon regulators are
working to finalize a proposal
that would protect farmwork-
ers from drifting pesticides by
allowing them to take shelter
indoors.
The rule, developed by the
Oregon Occupational Health
and Safety Administration, or
OSHA, seeks to address “ap-
plication exclusion zones” in-
troduced by the Environmental
Protection Agency in its 2015
update of the Agricultural
Worker Protection Standard.
Application
exclusion
zones require farms to evac-
uate workers within 100 feet
of where trucks or planes are
spraying pesticides, returning
only after the equipment pass-
es. The measure is intended to
add another layer of protection
against drift, which itself is il-
legal though it does sometimes
occur.
Grower groups, however,
argue the EPA did not account
for worker housing on the farm
when it came up with the ex-
clusion zones, and called for a
compliance alternative rather
than having to rouse workers
from their homes.
Michael Wood, Oregon
OSHA administrator, said the
issue is especially problemat-
ic for tree fruit growers in the
Columbia River Gorge, where
orchards may spray pesticides
at 2 or 3 in the morning when
the air is most calm.
“The growers came to us
and said, you know, this is
going to be something that’s a
problem in our labor camps,”
Wood said. “The challenge for
us is to come up with an alter-
native that would protect the
workers, but not be as disrup-
tive to them and the growers.”
Statewide, Oregon has 309
labor camps registered under
OSHA, including 1,262 build-
ings and 9,283 residents. Near-
ly two-thirds of those camps
are in Wasco and Hood River
counties.
For the last two years, Or-
egon OSHA has worked with
growers and farmworker ad-
vocates to come up with a
workable solution. The cur-
rent proposal would allow
workers to remain indoors
while pesticides are sprayed,
unless the chemicals pose
a respiratory hazard. If the
label requires use of a respi-
rator, Oregon OSHA would
enforce a 150-foot exclusion
zone — stricter than what is
required by the EPA — and
would not allow workers to
return home for 15 minutes.
“Obviously, the exposure
potential is real,” Wood said.
Public comment on the rule
was scheduled to end Dec. 15,
but has been extended through
the end of January. Wood said
he expects a decision some-
time in February.
The rule is being criticized
on both ends of the spectrum
of opinion, with some groups
saying it does not do enough
to protect workers and others
saying it goes too far.
Mike Doke, executive di-
rector of the Columbia Gorge
Fruit Growers, said remain-
ing indoors is more safe for
workers compared to moving
everyone outside in the early
morning hours. He said hous-
ing in the area is subject to
high building standards, capa-
ble of withstanding harsh win-
ters and plenty of rain.
Doke said the 150-foot ex-
clusion zone, however, is not
based on any scientific evi-
dence, and may result in grow-
ers pulling trees, which will
result in lost production and
lost wages.
Oregon labor camps
registered in 2017
Nearly two-thirds of the 309 OSHA registered
labor camps statewide are in Wasco and
Hood River counties. They contain 1,262
buildings that house 9,283 residents.
1-10 camps
11-50 camps
More than 50
County
Benton
Clackamas
Grant
Hood River
Jackson
Jefferson
Josephine
Klamath
Lane
Linn
Malheur
Marion
Morrow
Multnomah
Polk
Umatilla
Union
Wasco
Washington
Yamhill
Because of high reservoir
levels, many basins in Ida-
ho and Eastern Oregon only
need a portion of their aver-
age spring runoff in 2018 to
ensure adequate water sup-
plies for irrigators next year.
Ron Abramovich, a wa-
ter supply specialist for the
Natural Resources Conser-
vation Service, projected
spring reservoir storage lev-
els based on current condi-
tions and how much water
remained in reservoirs this
fall.
He then used those pro-
jections to estimate how
much stream flow, or runoff,
is needed next year to ensure
an adequate irrigation sup-
ply in certain basin in 2018.
As an example of how
the calculations are made,
annual irrigation demand
in the Boise River basin is
1.5 million acre-feet. The
basin’s reservoir system is
projected to have 800,000
1 acre-feet of water by next
12 spring.
That means 700,000
acre-feet of runoff in the
21 form of stream flow is
5 needed next spring, which
2 amounts to 51 percent of
2 the average stream flow in
that basin.
For many basins, “It
1 should be no sweat,”
Abramovich said Dec. 14
during the Treasure Val-
ley Irrigation Conference
in Ontario, Ore. “Shortag-
es are not expected at this
time.”
The Owyhee River ba-
sin, which provides water
to 118,000 acres of irrigated
land in Eastern Oregon and
part of Idaho, needs only
14 percent of average run-
off next spring to ensure an
adequate irrigation supply
in 2018.
Based on the basin’s av-
erage runoff, that shouldn’t
be much of a problem, said
Oregon farmer Bruce Corn,
a member of the Owyhee
Irrigation District’s board
of directors.
“Even with this (Decem-
ber) dry spell that we’re in,
we’re close to having an
adequate irrigation supply
for next year,” he said. “It
won’t take that much more
to fill the reservoir.”
According to the NRCS
projections, the Upper
Snake River basin needs
only 66 percent of its aver-
age stream flow next year.
The projections are a
good way to distill the cur-
rent water supply situation
down to something every-
body can understand, said
Lyle Swank, watermaster
for Water District 1 in East
Idaho, which is the state’s
largest and provides water
for more than 1 million acres
of irrigated farm land.
1
6
8
9
4
Source: Oregon OSHA
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