April 27, 2018
CapitalPress.com
5
OWRD to hold groundwater workshops
Staff will address
regulation of
permitted wells
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
The Oregon Water Resources De-
partment will offer three open houses
in Klamath County for landowners in-
terested in learning about local ground-
water management ahead of a looming
summer drought.
Gov. Kate Brown declared a drought
emergency for the county on March 13.
Stream flows in the Klamath Basin are
expected to range between 24 and 58
percent of normal through September,
according to the USDA Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service.
In certain situations, pumping wells
can also diminish stream flows in the ba-
sin due to the hydrological connection
between surface water and groundwa-
ter. That, in turn, reduces the amount of
surface water available to senior water
rights holders, prompting OWRD to
regulate junior wells until the senior
rights are satisfied.
Since 2015, OWRD has regulated
groundwater in accordance with “Di-
vision 25 rules,” negotiated as part of
the Upper Klamath Basin Comprehen-
sive Agreement. However, in December
2017, the Secretary of the Interior termi-
nated the agreement, transitioning to a
separate set of regulations known as “Di-
vision 9 rules.”
Because of the transition, OWRD
expects to mail more regulation notic-
es in 2018 compared to previous years.
Approximately 140 permitted wells are
subject to regulation under Division 9
rules, compared to about 40 wells under
Division 25 rules. Division 9 rules do not
affect exempt groundwater uses, includ-
ing domestic use and livestock watering.
OWRD staff will be on hand to ex-
plain the new rules and answer questions
during each of the three open houses. The
first meeting is Monday, April 30, at 4-8
p.m. at the Sprague River Community
Center in Sprague River, Ore. Two more
sessions will be Tuesday, May 1, with the
first from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Chil-
oquin Community Center in Chiloquin,
Ore., and the second at 3-6 p.m. at the
Klamath County Fairgrounds in Klam-
ath Falls.
For more information, visit www.ore-
gon.gov/owrd.
Mill 95 hop processor thrives after first-season challenges
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Expectations-beating suc-
cess during its first season oper-
ating in the heart of Idaho hop
country wasn’t good enough
for Mill 95 leaders.
They are working on in-
house improvements on two
fronts. One is obtaining an in-
ternational quality certification
for food safety. The other is an
internal mapping and detailing
of all inputs and processes.
“We continue to strive for
quality and service. Those are
at the forefront of everything
we are doing in the offseason,”
said Jamie Scott, manager and
sole owner. “We are going to
come into year two smarter,
stronger and better-prepared.
We keep getting better.”
The business on U.S. 95
between Wilder and Parma,
Idaho, offers hop cold storage,
cone-to-pellet processing and
logistics services. It considers
itself an alternative to facilities
hundreds of miles away, such
as in central Washington or
western Oregon.
Unique challenges materi-
alized in Mill 95’s first season.
Operations Manager D.J.
Tolmie said startup went fairly
well but took more effort than
envisioned. Historically heavy
snow accumulation as 2017 be-
gan tightened labor availability,
backlogged various projects in
the strong construction market
and ultimately pressed the new
hops facility as harvest loomed.
“We had hop traffic and
construction traffic,” he said.
“You can’t delay hop harvest.”
Mill 95 formed in 2016
and commenced construction
last April on part of its 20-acre
site. The cold-storage building
of 40,000 square feet was fin-
ished enough in late August to
receive just-harvested hops.
The pelletizing operation that
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
Jamie Scott, left, and Meagen Anderson view hop product from Mill 95’s cone-to-pellet processing facility.
anchors a 10,000-square-foot
building began operating in
November.
The expanded team that
helped get Mill 95 running in-
cluded the crew, the building
team led by Boise-area builder
Engineered Structures Inc. and
vendors, Scott said.
“It ended up taking all hands
on deck,” she said. It’s amazing
what people will do under the
gun, and we delivered. There
was no way we weren’t going
to.”
The business employs eight
full-time, not including found-
er and owner Scott, plus 15 to
20 during the hop harvest and
production season from late
August through February, said
Amaya Aguirre-Landa, mar-
keting and sales associate.
Before Mill 95 opened,
many southwest Idaho hop
growers shipped 200-pound
bales of the cone-like flower
bunches to storage and process-
ing plants in Washington and
Oregon.
Sales Manager Meagen
Anderson said Mill 95 can
help growers greatly reduce
shipping expense, limit their
crop’s exposure to quality-less-
ening heat and other conditions
during transport, and even in-
crease the Idaho hop industry’s
exposure to brewers. Hop pel-
lets are easier for brewers to buy
in bulk and store in a way that
helps them last longer while re-
taining quality, she said.
“It’s a tremendous opportu-
nity, particularly in craft brew-
ing and smaller brewers,” An-
derson said.
Mill 95 can store or pelletize
hops for growers, or buy them
for processing and packaging
under an in-house brand. The
business does not grow hops.
Tolmie said Mill 95 han-
dled about 2.8 million pounds
of hops harvested in 2017, ei-
ther cold-storing or pelletizing
them. That exceeded expecta-
tions, though the facility prob-
ably could handle 3.5 million
pounds, he asid.
“That said, I would like to
pelletize every hop in Idaho,
and we would expand to do so,”
Scott said.
“It is a great thing, and we
will be using them in the fu-
ture,” Brock Obendorf, who
co-owns and manages Oben-
dorf Hop near Parma, said of
Mill 95. He is president of the
Idaho Hops Commission.
His family’s hop farm now
NOAA sees warm months ahead for Northwest
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Northwest’s late
spring, summer and fall likely
will be hotter and drier than
usual as the Pacific Ocean
warms up, leading toward a
possible El Nino next winter,
the National Oceanic and At-
mospheric Administration re-
ported Thursday.
Sea-surface temperatures
along the equator are slowly
rising from below normal to
average, according to NOAA.
By fall, climatologists an-
ticipate temperatures will be
above normal, a heating of the
ocean associated with warm
winters and low snowpacks in
the Cascades.
“Right now, I’d have to
forecast a less than aver-
age snowpack. I reserve the
right to change my forecast,”
Washington State Climatolo-
gist Nick Bond said.
NOAA’s Climate Pre-
diction
Center
foresees
above-average temperatures
and below-normal precipita-
tion for May, June and July
in Idaho, Oregon, Washington
and Northern California.
Bond said he had more
confidence in the temperature
forecast.
“I would say that with the
(forecasting) models there is a
pretty strong consensus that it
will be on the warm side,” he
said. “I would be loath to put
too much stock in the precipi-
tation forecast.”
NOAA’s outlook relies
heavily on the Pacific Ocean
transitioning from La Nina, a
cooling of sea temperatures,
to El Nino, a warming. La
Nina has prevailed since last
fall, but chances are good
that sea temperatures will be
normal by May, according to
NOAA.
La Nina generally means
colder and wetter winters in
the northern U.S. and the op-
posite in the southern U.S.
Although never strong,
this La Nina has delivered for
Washington irrigators.
Snowpacks in 11 basins
monitored by the Natural
Resources Conservation Ser-
vice were all well above av-
erage Thursday. Northern
Idaho snowpacks also are
well above normal, and some
Northern Oregon snowpacks
have rallied to above or near
normal after a slow start.
To the south, snowpacks
in the rest of Oregon and
Northern California are below
normal. A drought in Eastern
Washington that covers al-
most one-third of the state is
expected to persist for at least
the next several months, the
U.S. Drought Monitor report-
ed Thursday.
Ocean temperatures may
gradually increase over the
summer. By October, the odds
begin to favor a weak El Nino.
NOAA cautioned, how-
ever, that climatologists have
been fooled before. “Though
we appear headed a toward
a cold-season El Nino, there
have been several false starts
in recent years where prom-
ising El Ninos simply faded
away,” NOAA stated.
If NOAA’s forecast holds
true, sea-surface temperatures
will be much as they were the
winter of 2014-15, the year
of Washington’s “snowpack
drought.” That winter, how-
ever, El Nino was combined
with an unusually warm mass
of water off Washington’s
coast.
Hazelnut Orchard
39 Acres • Yamhill County, Oregon
NE Fryer RD
Excellent Tier 1 soils
Tile Drainage Installed
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Representatives of sev-
eral Northwest ports asked
members of Congress last
week to continue funding for
maintaining waterways used
to transport goods in and out
of the region.
Members of the Grays
Harbor, Bandon and Coos
Bay port districts and the Pa-
cific Northwest Waterways
Association
participated
April 20 in a roundtable host-
ed by Rep. Peter DeFazio,
D-Ore., in Coos Bay, Ore.
DeFazio is ranking member
of the House Transportation
and Infrastructure Commit-
tee.
The port representatives
said continued funding in the
next Water Resources Devel-
opment Act is necessary to
ensure navigation channels
are dredged and jetties main-
tained.
A congressional user fee
for coastal ports and harbors,
the harbor maintenance tax,
is designed to provide 100
percent of operations and
maintenance costs to the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
for deep draft and coastal
waterways. But since 2003,
according to the association,
tax collections have far ex-
ceeded funds appropriated
for harbor maintenance. The
surplus of collections over
expenditures has grown to
more than $9 billion.
“Rather than being used
for their intended purpose,
harbor maintenance tax rev-
enues have been used to help
balance the federal budget,”
according to the association.
“That’s a problem when
you have deteriorating jet-
ties and navigation channels
not being maintained to their
depth and width that we need
to move cargo,” Kristin Mei-
ra, executive director of the
waterways association, told
the Capital Press.
Members of Congress at
the roundtable had a positive
response to the presentations,
Meira said.
“This is the difference be-
tween U.S. cargo being able
to be moved efficiently to
our ports, loaded on vessels
that are able to load fully and
make it out overseas,” she
said. “It’s the part of cargo
transport that folks just don’t
think about when they think
about whether or not U.S.-
grown and manufactured
products are competitive in
overseas markets.”
Northwest industry repre-
sentatives hope for a return to
a two-year cycle for renew-
ing the Water Resources De-
velopment Act, Meira said.
Meira hopes the House
and Senate will introduce
versions of the bill by this
summer. The House and
Senate would reconcile the
two versions into one bill to
be signed by President Don-
ald Trump.
“We think it looks really
good,” Meira said. “This is
a bill that typically gets a lot
of support because no matter
where you are in the United
States, chances are you’re
pretty close to a Corps of
Engineers project. Most
members of Congress see
the value in what the agency
does.”
18 th Annual
WILLAMETTE VALLEY
3 Big Days!
Tues • Wed • Thurs
NOVEMBER
13 • 14 • 15
4 Big Buildings!
• 180+ Vendors
and Dozens of
New Exhibitors!
Another 20,000
sq. ft. of indoor
heated displays!
• CORE Pesticide
Training
for credits
• CPR/AED
Training
(Register online)
• Forklift Certification Classes (Register online)
• Antique Farm Equipment Show with over 70 pieces
on display
• Back by
Popular Demand:
Wed. Evening
Dine Around
Oregon.
Tickets available
online.
3700 Knox Butte Rd., Albany, OR
I-5 @ Exit 234 • (20 Minutes South of Salem)
BIDS ACCEPTED UNTIL
To place your bid or
for more information email :
info@creeksidevalleyfarms.com
Northwest ports seek federal
funding for maintenance
Linn County Fair & Expo Center
BUILDING PERMITS POSSIBLE
5pm • Friday May 25th, 2018
Minimum bid: $975,000
hauls its yield to a broker’s re-
ceiving station nearby. While
the broker bears the cost of
shipping the hops to its own
pelletizing plant, reducing that
cost would be beneficial, he
said.
“Their whole plan is really
good for the area,” Obendorf
said, “getting Idaho’s quality of
hops out there.”
Tolmie said Mill 95 by early
July expects to receive its Inter-
national Standards Organiza-
tion 9001 best-practices quality
certification for food safety.
Concurrently, Mill 95 is inte-
grating an enterprise resource
planning system designed to
optimize processes from re-
ceiving to processing and de-
livery.
EO Media Group File
A cargo vessel calls at the Port of Astoria, Ore. Representatives
of several Oregon port districts met with members of Congress
last week seeking funds to maintain channels and jetties.
Bidding
Ends
May 25 th
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