August 10, 2018
CapitalPress.com
7
Walden joins call for wildfire aid
South Valley fire
latest to ignite in
Wasco County, Ore.
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Rep. Greg Walden is
the latest among several
high-ranking Oregon pol-
iticians to request federal
aid for farmers and ranchers
suffering through a particu-
larly intense wildfire season
across the state.
Walden’s district includes
Wasco and Sherman coun-
ties, where yet another large
blaze ignited Wednesday,
torching 20,000 acres — and
counting — of prime wheat
and cattle country near the
Deschutes River.
The South Valley Fire
started near Dufur, Ore., and
was likely human-caused.
It is the region’s third large
wildfire in as many weeks,
coming on the heels of the
Substation and Long Hollow
fires, which burned a com-
bined 111,875 acres, or 175
square miles.
On Thursday, Walden
— Oregon’s only Republi-
can congressman — wrote
to USDA Secretary Sonny
Perdue asking for assistance
to help producers who lost
some or all of their crops
and rangeland. The Substa-
tion fire alone has affected
an estimated 31,000 acres
of cropland over 86 farms in
Wasco and Sherman coun-
ties, including 18,500 acres
of standing wheat.
“Oregon’s
farmers,
ranchers and foresters are
facing significant challeng-
es during this fire season,”
Walden wrote. “I appreci-
ate your prompt attention
to these important issues so
Roy W. Lowe/USFWS
Five environmental groups are suing the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife for not reclassifying the marbled murrelet as a
state endangered species.
Environmental groups
sue ODFW over marbled
murrelet protections
Fox-12 Oregon via AP
In this Aug. 1 image taken from video provided by Fox-12 Oregon, a wildfire rages near Dufur, Ore.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue requesting federal
aid for farmers and ranchers affected by wildfires burning across the state.
that Oregon’s rural commu-
nities can better navigate
through the disasters they
have faced.”
Perdue is no stranger to
the area, having previous-
ly joined Walden at Martin
Farms in Rufus, Ore., on
July 3 as part of a four-day,
four-state tour visiting with
local farmers.
“Sadly, the very wheat
farm we visited in Sherman
County, and many of their
neighbors, recently lost
some or all of their crops to
fire,” Walden wrote. “Many
of the wheat farms in the
area affected by fire are also
livestock producers and
have lost pasture to the fire.”
In his letter, Walden urged
Perdue to approve Oregon’s
request for a USDA disas-
ter designation, and also re-
quested additional flexibility
from the Risk Management
should have access to emer-
gency grazing on grasslands
enrolled in the Conserva-
tion Reserve Program. The
100,000-acre Boxcar fire
near Maupin and 15,000-
acre Jack Knife fire near
Grass Valley took an espe-
cially heavy toll on range-
land in June.
Walden is not the only
political figure to request
federal fire aid in Oregon.
Gov. Kate Brown and U.S.
Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff
Merkley, all Democrats,
wrote Perdue on July 27 ask-
ing for a cut of the $12 billion
in emergency aid for farmers
hit by tariffs in the Trump ad-
ministration’s trade war with
China and other countries.
Regardless of the pres-
ident’s trade strategy, they
said the USDA must act to
assist farmers enduring di-
saster now.
Agency allowing farmers
hurt by fires to prevent soil
erosion by planting cover
crops.
The USDA Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service
has already offered assistance
to plant cover crops through
the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program, or EQIP.
But since dryland wheat farm-
ers in Eastern Oregon plant
in a summer fallow rotation,
Walden said they are worried
that adding cover crops will
put them in a “continuous
production” category under
their crop insurance.
Clinton Whitten, the act-
ing district conservation-
ist for the NRCS in Wasco
County, recently acknowl-
edged that concern, and said
they are working on a waiver
for growers affected by fires.
In addition, Walden said
ranchers who lost rangeland
Honeybee colonies stabilize after steep losses
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The number of U.S. hon-
eybee colonies for those op-
erations with five or more
colonies is holding steady, as
beekeepers add colonies to
offset annual losses.
Honeybee colonies num-
bered 2.69 million on April 1,
USDA National Agricultural
Statistics reported.
Losses were substantial
with quarterly tallies totaling
more than 1.47 million April
through April, but beekeep-
ers compensated by adding
more than 1.65 million col-
onies.
The Bee Informed Part-
nership estimates 30.7 per-
cent of managed colonies in
the U.S. were lost during the
winter, Oct. 1, 2017 through
April 1, 2018, an increase of
9.5 percent over the previous
year and 2.8 percent higher
than the 10-year average.
While summer losses were
on par with the previous year
at about 17 percent, the part-
nership estimates total losses
April through April at 40.1
percent, a 2.7 percent increase
over the annual average since
2010-2011.
Although it was a pretty
good year for Chris Hiatt —
vice president of the Ameri-
can Honey Producers Asso-
800 757
secticide exposure, diseases
and parasites.
Despite elevated losses
since the advent of colony
collapse disorder in 2006,
the number of managed col-
onies has remained relatively
stable, ranging from 2.3 mil-
lion to 2.8 million between
1996 and 2016, according to
USDA.
To stay in business, bee-
keepers have to maintain a
certain number of hives, so
they split their hives to start
new ones, Hiatt said.
“You just keep making
more divides to make up for
the dead-outs,” he said.
But divides weaken the
original colony, and the re-
sults can be seen in USDA
data on honey production, he
said.
Domestic honey used to
account for two-thirds of U.S.
consumption, with only one-
third coming from imports.
Now it’s swapped, and last
year three-fourths of domes-
tic consumption was import-
ed, he said.
Total honeybee colonies,
Northwest and California
(Thousands of colonies)
700
637
600
508
500
Source: USDA NASS
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
400
1992
’95
585,000: Down 22.7% from 1992
’00
’05
ciation and a beekeeper who
operates with his four broth-
ers in California, Washington
and North Dakota — he said
he’s not surprised by the high-
er losses. Hurricanes in Flori-
da and Texas and drought and
wildfires in different areas of
the country no doubt took a
toll in 2017, he said.
“It was a perfect storm,”
he said.
Hopefully, this year is bet-
ter. But the issue of pesticides
and mites are still here, he
said.
Varroa mites remain the
top health stressor, with af-
fected colonies reported at
55.3 percent in the October
through December 2017 quar-
ter.
Other bee health stressors
included other pests and par-
’10
’15 2017
asites, diseases, pesticides,
weather, starvation, insuffi-
cient forage, queen failure and
damaged or destroyed hives.
Losses attributed to colony
collapse disorder, at 255,070,
accounted for 17.3 percent of
total losses, compared to 21.2
percent the previous year. But
year-over-year losses attribut-
ed to the disorder were only
higher in the January through
March 2018 quarter, which at
77,800 were 15 percent high-
er than a year earlier.
Losses are cyclical. A lot
of big operators could have
normal losses for two years
and get hit in the third, Hiatt
said.
In addition to colony col-
lapse disorder, colony loss
can occur from loss of forage
leading to poor nutrition, in-
Commission denied
‘uplisting’ species
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Five environmental groups
are suing the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife
after the agency declined to
“uplist” the marbled murrelet
from threatened to endan-
gered under the state Endan-
gered Species Act.
The Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Commission initially
voted to reclassify the seabird
as endangered in February,
which would have required
adopting a management plan
and survival guidelines for the
species on state land.
However, in a move that
stirred controversy, the com-
mission reversed its decision
four months later at a meeting
in Baker City, opting against
providing endangered protec-
tions for marbled murrelets.
The commission did ap-
prove voluntary survival
guidelines Aug. 3 for log-
gers and landowners to avoid
harming the birds. The rules,
in part, define “suitable habi-
tat” for marbled murrelets as
“old-growth, coniferous for-
est stands that include plat-
form trees, and occur within
35 miles of the Pacific Coast.”
But conservationists say
more is needed to prevent the
species from potentially going
extinct.
Cascadia Wildlands, De-
fenders of Wildlife, Oregon
Wild, the Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity and Audubon
Society of Portland filed a
lawsuit Aug. 2 — one day
before the commission took
action on voluntary survival
guidelines.
“The commission’s rever-
sal of its decision to uplist
the marbled murrelet just four
months earlier ignored sci-
ence, the law and ODFW’s
mission to protect Oregon’s
imperiled wildlife,” said Nick
Cady, legal director for Cas-
cadia Wildlands, based in Eu-
gene.
ODFW listed the marbled
murrelet as a threatened spe-
cies in 1995. Groups peti-
tioned to list the birds as en-
dangered in 2016, claiming
the population has declined
by as much as 50 percent near
the central Oregon coast.
Marbled murrelets nest in
old-growth forests along the
Coast Range, where accord-
ing to ODFW’s own status
review, highly suitable hab-
itat declined by an estimated
78,600 acres, or nearly 10 per-
cent, between 1993 and 2012.
“The science is clear and
overwhelming,” said Joe Li-
ebezeit, staff scientist at the
Audubon Society of Portland.
“The June commission deci-
sion unfortunately perpetuates
an approach at ODFW that has
spanned nearly three decades
of the state turning its back on
the murrelet and ignoring the
science that shows that log-
ging of our older coastal for-
ests under the purview of the
state of Oregon is a primary
factor in driving this species
toward extinction.”
Timber companies disput-
ed the evidence, and worried
uplisting would lead to oner-
ous new logging restrictions
on state-owned forests.
Sara Duncan, spokeswom-
an for the Oregon Forest and
Industries Council, pointed to
a 2017 report by the North-
west Forest Plan Interagency
Regional Monitoring Pro-
gram, which indicated mur-
relet populations experienced
a 1.8 percent annual growth in
Oregon from 2001 to 2016.
“The ODFW Commission
made the correct decision —
they weighed the empirical
evidence and stuck to the sci-
ence,” Duncan said.
Nick Smith, executive
director of Healthy Forests,
Healthy Communities, added
the Legislature has provided
additional funding for a 10-
year murrelet study through
Oregon State University,
which will provide new clues
on the bird’s nesting and flight
patterns.
“The commission is sig-
naling they may wait until
real scientific data becomes
available, and that is encour-
aging,” Smith said. “At this
moment, we are hopeful the
process will work the way it
should. But we will contin-
ue to ask the commission to
make informed decisions that
are based in science, not pol-
itics.”
Farm bill conference committee set to roll
Capital Press
The Senate Agriculture
Committee voted Aug. 1 to
move forward with the 2018
Farm Bill conference commit-
tee, appointing members who
will serve on the committee
with their counterparts from
the House.
Those Senate members
include: Chairman Pat Rob-
erts, R-Kan.; Senate Majori-
ty Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky.; Sen. John Boozman,
R-Ark.; Sen. John Hoeven,
R-N.D.; Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Io-
wa; Ranking Member Debbie
Stabenow, D-Mich.; Sen. Pat-
rick Leahy, D-Vt.; Sen. Sher-
rod Brown, D-Ohio; and Sen.
Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.
Roberts and Stabenow is-
sued a joint statement saying
“This strong group of Senate
conferees knows how to work
together on a bipartisan basis
to get the farm bill across the
finish line.”
Late last month the
House Agriculture Com-
mittee announced its con-
ference members including
Committee Chairman Mike
Conaway, R-Tex; Glenn
“GT” Thompson, R-Pa.; Bob
Goodlatte, R-Va.; Frank Lu-
cas, R-Okla.; Mike Rogers,
R- Ala.; Austin Scott, D-Ga.;
Rick Crawford, R-Ark.;
Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo.;
Rodney Davis, R-Ill.; Ted
Yoho, R-Fla.; David Rou-
zer, R-N.C.; Roger Mar-
shall, R-Kan.; and Jodey Ar-
rington, R-Texas.
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