April 13, 2018
CapitalPress.com
3
Profit outlook mixed for
Northwest agriculture
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Port of St. Helens
The Port of St. Helens in Oregon’s Columbia County. Environmental groups have appealed a decision by the county to rezone 837 acres
of high-value farmland to expand the port’s industrial park.
County land use decision faces appeal
Proposal would
rezone 837 acres
of farmland
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
For the second time, en-
vironmental groups are chal-
lenging a decision in Colum-
bia County, Ore., to rezone
837 acres of high-value
farmland for industrial use
at Port Westward near Clats-
kanie.
The proposal would near-
ly double the size of the in-
dustrial park, owned by the
Port of St. Helens along the
Columbia River. Port West-
ward is already home to
three Portland General Elec-
tric natural gas power plants
and the Columbia Pacific
Bio-Refinery.
Columbia County com-
missioners voted 2-1 to ap-
prove the port’s rezone ap-
plication in 2017, allowing
businesses to process, store
and ship natural gas, wood
products and other bulk
commodities at the property.
Opponents, however, ar-
gue the industrial zone will
not only disrupt neighboring
farms, but flies in the face
of state land use laws in-
tended to protect high-value
farms. Columbia Riverkeep-
er, along with 1000 Friends
of Oregon, filed an appeal
March 14 to the Oregon
Land Use Board of Appeals,
or LUBA, seeking to over-
turn the county’s ruling.
At the heart of the issue
is whether such industrial
development is compatible
with local agriculture. Jas-
mine Zimmer-Stucky, senior
organizer with Columbia
Riverkeeper, says the answer
is “no.”
“Industrial development
is not a compatible use for
farmers, especially farms
that are growing sensitive
crops,” Zimmer-Stucky said.
Most soils in the rezoned
area are Class II and III,
which according to the Ore-
gon Department of Agricul-
ture are considered high-val-
ue farmland under state law.
Irrigation canals and ditch-
es are also interconnected
along the low-lying diked
lands, Zimmer-Stucky said,
meaning that an industrial
spill or runoff could spread
quickly to nearby mint, blue-
berry, cattle and poplar tree
farms.
Jim Hoffman, owner of
Hopville Farms, said wa-
ter quality is a top priority
for his blueberry farm, and
the community at large. He
said he remains disappointed
with the county’s decision to
open farmland to “industrial
polluters.”
Tracy
Prescott-Mac-
Gregor, who with her
husband, Scott, farms on
Erickson Dike Road near
Port Westward, said she is
also concerned about a po-
tential spill and toxic by-
products of industrial busi-
ness — especially fossil
fuels development.
“My biggest concern is
that almost all industry, es-
pecially fossil fuel indus-
try, creates byproducts,”
Prescott-MacGregor said.
“There’s also a potential for
spillage of any of these caus-
tic materials. It wouldn’t
take very long before the
soils would be contaminat-
ed.”
If
that
happens,
Prescott-MacGregor
said
she and her husband would
likely have to leave the area.
They came in 1999 from
Portland to grow their own
food, including a large gar-
den, goats, chickens, ducks,
geese and turkeys.
“The soils out here are
pretty fantastic,” she said.
“We are lucky farmers.”
The Port of St. Helens
bought the land in 2010, and
Paula Miranda, the port’s
property and development
manager, said they have
been approached by a num-
ber of companies in recent
years interested in the deep
water access on the Colum-
bia River.
County commissioners
first approved the rezone
in 2014, though it was ap-
pealed to LUBA and ulti-
mately remanded back to
the county. While the port’s
latest application does not
mention any specific project,
Miranda said they will con-
tinue to work with farmers
to mitigate impacts on their
land. She added there are no
plans to develop crude oil fa-
cilities on the property.
“I personally feel pretty
confident that whatever we
bring here, we’ll do it the
proper way,” Miranda said.
Margaret Magruder, a
county commissioner, said
expanding Port Westward
would provide a boost to the
local economy, and any in-
dustrial business looking to
site there would be subject to
further conditions to protect
the neighbors.
“Just because it gets re-
zoned doesn’t mean that any
business that comes along
is going to get to site,” Ma-
gruder said.
But Scott Hilgenberg, a
land use fellow at the non-
profit Crag Law Center in
Portland, said the proposal
does not justify rezoning ag-
ricultural land under Oregon
statewide planning goals.
In particular, Statewide
Planning Goal 3 aims to pre-
serve and maintain high-val-
ue farmland. Hilgenberg,
who is representing Colum-
bia Riverkeeper, said the
port’s application does not
reasonably describe why it
needs a Goal 3 exception.
“The concern is the more
industrial development that
occurs here, the more risk
the agricultural community
is going to face,” Hilgenberg
said. “It’s a question about
what the future vision of Co-
lumbia County is going to
be, and what products does
it want to focus on.”
LUBA has not yet sched-
uled a hearing in the case.
Judge: Oregon emergency horse roundup violated law
Federal government
approved removal
of 150 horses after
2016 wildfire
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A federal judge has ruled
the U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement violated environ-
mental law by rounding up
wild horses in Eastern Oregon
after a 2016 fire.
Friends of Animals, a non-
profit group that filed a law-
suit against BLM, has sought
to overturn the agency’s ap-
proval of the roundup, which
could lead to some horses
being returned to the Three
Fingers Management Area in
Malheur County.
The BLM initially con-
ducted an environmental as-
sessment on gathering and
removing wild horses from
the 62,500-acre area in 2011,
but then decided on a small-
er-scale roundup in 2016.
Shortly before the opera-
tion was set to begin in Au-
gust 2016, however, the Cher-
ry Road wildfire ignited in the
area, burning about 15,000
acres of pasture — roughly
half the range used by wild
horses in the management
area.
While the planned roundup
was canceled due to the fire,
BLM soon decided to conduct
an “emergency gather” due
to the lost forage and limited
water sources for the animals.
Under the emergency
gather, the BLM approved
BLM
The emergency roundup of 150
wild horses in Oregon after a
2016 fire violated environmental
law, a judge has ruled.
removing 150 horses — up
from about 50 before the fire
occurred — leaving about 80
to 120 in the area.
Friends of Animals alleged
the emergency action “went
far beyond what was neces-
sary to control the immediate
impacts” of the fire without a
proper review under the Na-
tional Environmental Policy
Act, or NEPA.
Instead of permanently
removing the horses, BLM
could have examined “relo-
cation, temporary removal,
fencing and providing supple-
mental water” to mitigate the
fire’s immediate effects, the
group argued.
U.S. District Judge Mi-
chael Simon has found that
BLM’s emergency gather
went further than necessary to
counter the fire’s immediate
impacts, requiring additional
analysis under NEPA.
“Its stated rationale for
conducting the gather was
not just to control the imme-
diate effects of the fire, but to
ensure survival of the horses
over the next two seasons, and
aid in the habitat’s recovery,”
he said.
The BLM claimed the
emergency action met that
requirement because it was
based on reviews conducted
for the previous roundup de-
cisions and other plans for the
region.
However, the judge dis-
agreed that BLM took the
necessary “hard look” at the
emergency gather’s environ-
mental consequences, since
the agency didn’t analyze the
effects of the fire itself or why
it was necessary to remove
more horses.
“The Emergency Gath-
er Decision does not discuss
whether there are any new
circumstances, information,
or effects not previously ana-
lyzed since the earlier NEPA
documents,” he said.
While the approval was
“arbitrary and capricious”
contrary to the law, the judge
said he will separately delib-
erate on the appropriate rem-
edy for this violation.
Lucinda Bach, attorney for
the government in this case,
said she couldn’t comment on
the ruling. Capital Press was
unable to reach an attorney
from Friends of Animals for
comment.
Most agricultural sectors
in the Northwest will be
slightly profitable in 2018,
and some will be very prof-
itable, but many will face
challenges of one type or an-
other, an analyst says.
“There’s good and bad
in the story. The economy
is strong, but there are some
concerns with trade risks,”
Karen Witt, vice president
of industry and portfolio
insights at Northwest Farm
Credit Services, said.
Strong profits are expect-
ed in the fisheries and forest-
ry industries based on strong
demand for fish and lumber.
Profitable returns are also
forecast for the wine/vine-
yards industry, supported
by the strong economy, she
said.
Dairy, however,
fac-
es significant challenges
that will spill over some-
what into the hay markets,
she said.
There are definitely
some challenges in dairy, a
long road of challenges not
helped by bad weather last
year and high inventories of
cheese, butter and skim milk
powder, she said.
“There is significant in-
ventory out there both na-
tionally and globally that
continues to put significant
pressure on milk prices,” she
said.
“The dairy industry
should expect milk prices to
remain unprofitable through
the second quarter as the
world oversupply is sold at
clearance prices,” she said.
Capital Press File
Dairy farmers will continue to
face low prices this year, an
analyst says.
Hay should be slightly
profitable, but alfalfa hay
will face downward pressure
from weak dairy demand,
she said.
Cattle producers should
see slightly profitable re-
turns, but drought in other
areas of the country could
push more cattle to slaughter
and bring some downward
pressure on prices. There are
also concerns on the trade
side regarding beef exports,
she said.
Wheat prices have seen
some improvement, and
U.S. production is projected
to be lower, so the wheat in-
dustry should see slight prof-
itability this year, she said.
Pulse crops face tar-
iffs from India, which has
caused difficult returns. But
production seems to be good
from what Farm Credit is
hearing from producers in
the area, she said.
Demand for potatoes is
good, and shrinking sup-
plies should bolster prices
on the open market. A mild
winter for processors should
bring good profits and good
returns to producers, she
said.
Washington: If our culverts break
treaties, what about federal dams?
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
In final written argu-
ments before next week’s
U.S. Supreme Court hear-
ing, Washington focuses
on a chief concern of farm
groups: If fish-imped-
ing culverts violate tribal
fishing rights, what about
dams?
The brief, filed Monday
by the state Attorney Gen-
eral’s Office, strikes back
at Justice Department ac-
cusations that state culverts
violate treaties by pointing
to federally licensed dams.
“Today, these dams pro-
vide most of the electricity
in Washington, Oregon and
Idaho and irrigate thou-
sands of farms in arid ar-
eas,” according to the brief.
The court will hear oral
arguments April 18 on
Washington’s appeal of an
order by the 9th U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals to
replace more than 800 cul-
verts to restore salmon hab-
itat. The bigger question is
whether the Stevens treaties
of 1854 and 1855 guaran-
tee 21 Washington tribes a
moderate living by fishing.
The case could result in
another landmark decision
interpreting tribal fishing
rights in the Northwest. A
previous phase of this liti-
gation led to the 1974 Boldt
decision that allocated up to
half the salmon harvest to
tribes.
While tribes are entitled
to half the fish, they weren’t
promised
a
particular
amount, the state maintains.
The federal government
and tribes say that tribes
didn’t cede their land to dip
nets into empty rivers.
The state, along with
farm groups, argues the
circuit court order makes
any activity that potentially
harms fish a treaty violation.
The fears are exaggerat-
ed, according to the Justice
Department and tribes. The
case involves only culverts
that substantially degrade
fish runs, they say.
Tribes would have under-
stood the treaties to protect
fish runs because territorial
law prohibited blocking riv-
ers, according to the Justice
Department.
The state Attorney Gen-
eral’s Office counters that
the Justice Department and
tribes are ignoring 20th cen-
tury dams.
“Respondents now claim
that the treaty parties under-
stood that any obstruction
that would substantially de-
grade a fishery would violate
the treaties. Yet for decades
starting in the early 1900s,
the federal government built
or licensed dams across the
Northwest that would have
failed this test,” according to
the state’s brief.
Weekly fieldwork report
Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA)
• Days suitable for fieldwork (As of April 8)
• Topsoil moisture, surplus
• Topsoil moisture, percent short
• Subsoil moisture, surplus
• Subsoil moisture, percent short
• Precipitation probability
(6-10 day outlook as of April. 10)
Ore.
Wash.
Idaho
Calif.
4
16%
16%
11%
33%
4.2
6%
12%
5%
16%
2.9
35%
1%
19%
10%
4.5
20%
5%
20%
10%
40-50% above
40% above
40-50% above
33-60% above