Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current, December 28, 2018, Image 3

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Newspaper Page TextFriday, December 28, 2018 By DON JENKINS Capital Press Odds are high that the Paciﬁ c Northwest will be warmer than average the next three months, and current drought condi- tions are expected to per- sist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- tion scientists said Dec. 20. Temperatures in Ore- gon, Washington and Northern California have been generally above aver- age recently. That trend is expected to continue in January, February and March as an El Nino forms, according to NOAA. “Western snowpack is generally behind aver- age, particularly the farther west you go,” NOAA cli- mate scientist Deke Arndt said. “The Cascades have quite a bit less snow on them than is typical.” NOAA updated its sea- sonal outlook for U.S. tem- peratures and precipitation. More than anywhere else in the Lower 48, the odds favor above-normal tem- peratures in Western Ore- gon and Western Washing- ton, according to NOAA. Odds in the rest of the West also lean toward higher- than-usual temperatures. The odds favor a dri- er-than-average winter in Oregon, Washington, Northern California and the Idaho Panhandle, with the rest of the West having equal chances of wet, dry or average precipitation. Nearly 90 percent of Oregon and nearly 33 per- cent of Washington were in some stage of drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported Dec. 20. “Persistence (of drought conditions) is forecast for the Paciﬁ c Northwest,” NOAA meteorologist Brad Pugh said. “That’s related to the low snowpack cur- rently over the Cascades and also the seasonal out- look for drier than normal conditions.” In Oregon and Wash- ington, snowpacks in the Cascades ranged Dec. 20 from 95 percent of normal near the Canadian border to 39 percent in northern Oregon, according to the Natural Resources Conser- vation Service. Pugh said an El Nino has yet to inﬂ uence the weather. Sea-surface temperatures have been above average for several weeks, but the warm ocean has yet to link up with the atmosphere to form an El Nino. “We hav- en’t seen that atmospheric response to the warmer than normal sea-surface tem- peratures,” he said. Climatologists pegged the chances that a weak to moderate El Nino will form in the next month at 90 percent. An El Nino typically will have its greatest effect on North- west winters after Jan. 1. El Nino’s warm waters are along the equator. According to the Ofﬁ ce of the Washington State Cli- matologist, sea-surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska also are higher than average and resemble the mass of warm winter that contributed to the 2015 drought. Pugh said those warm waters did not factor into his forecast. U.S. hop production hits new high By DAN WHEAT Capital Press MOXEE, Wash. — U.S. hop pro- duction reached a record high of 107 million pounds in 2018, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. But production grew just 1 per- cent in 2018 versus 20 percent in 2017, a NASS report says. The U.S. produced 106 million pounds of hops in 2017 and 87 million in 2016. There was a 3,000-acre increase in 2017 and a big jump in yields after 2016 had been impacted by weather and a lot of baby hops at negligi- ble production, said Ann George, administrator of the Hop Growers of America and the Washington Hop Commission, both in Moxee. The national organization holds its annual meeting in Monterey, Calif., Jan. 22-25. Hop supply, mostly used for mak- ing beer, has increased for several years because of tremendous growth in craft beer production. But the annual rate of craft beer growth has slowed from 20 percent to 5 percent, resulting in less demand for some Dan Wheat/Capital Press A wagon load of hops enters the warehouse during harvest last September at Wenas Hop Co., Selah, Wash. The state grew 73 percent of the nation’s hops in 2018. Idaho and Oregon grew the rest. aroma hop varieties, George said. In September, hop stocks were up for the third September in a row fol- lowing being up for the third March in a row. Pete Mahony, vice president of supply chain and purchasing for John I. Haas, Inc., Yakima, said con- sumption appeared to be keeping pace with supply, a positive sign. The industry hopes that’s the case preventing oversupply and a big downturn in prices but there are a lot of variables, George said. “We have over 60 hop varieties in the U.S. and over 100 in the world and each one has a micro market. So it’s difﬁ cult for the merchant sector to maintain adequate inventories of all the different varieties,” she said. Some aroma varieties are still being expanded to meet demand while others are being reduced because they have met demand, she said. Drought has reduced European production and stimulated growth elsewhere, George said. U.S. production had become 80 percent aroma varieties and 20 per- cent alpha but has now shifted to 76-24 as alpha prices have improved and there’s a need for more alpha grown outside Europe, she said. U.S. hop growth outside the Paciﬁ c Northwest has slowed as some small growers, in the Midwest and Eastern U.S., without solid busi- ness and marketing plans have found growing hops to be harder than they thought, she said. Value of production in 2018 was $583 million nationwide, down 1 percent from the previous year. Washington produced 73 percent of U.S. hops at 77.7 million pounds, down from 79 million in 2017; Idaho produced 15 percent and 16.2 million up from 14 million; and Ore- gon produced 12 percent and 12.9 million up from 12.4 million. Judge OKs class-action suit against Wash. farm By DON JENKINS Capital Press All 600 Mexican nation- als who picked blueberries in 2017 for a Washington farm can be represented in a lawsuit alleging workers were mistreated, a federal judge ruled Dec. 20. District Judge John Coughenour ruled that claims by two aggrieved workers raised issues that applied to all seasonal for- eign workers at Sarbanand Farms in Whatcom County. Columbia Legal Ser- vices attorney Joe Morri- son said Dec. 21 he had been conﬁ dent the judge would approve turning the two-plaintiff case into a class-action lawsuit. If the judge had not, “it would have changed the case dramatically,” Mor- rison said. “Every worker would have had to ﬁ le an individual lawsuit, which is completely unrealistic for this group of folks.” The ruling potentially raises the ﬁ nancial stakes in a dispute that stems from the Aug. 6, 2017, death of a Community to Community Development Striking farmworkers show their visas after being ﬁ red by Sarbanand Farms in Whatcom County, Wash, two years ago. A judge has now certiﬁ ed a lawsuit class- action lawsuit against the farm. farmworker from Mexico. The 28-year-old man died of natural causes at a Seat- tle hospital, according to ofﬁ cials, and a state inves- tigation cleared Sarbanand managers of any role in his death. His hospitalization, how- ever, led to approximately 60 other workers from Mex- ico staging a one-day walk- out. The farm ﬁ red them the next day and ordered them to leave worker housing. The lawsuit ﬁ led by Columbia Legal Services and a Seattle law ﬁ rm on behalf of two of the ﬁ red workers, Barbaro Rosas and Gudalupe Tapia, does not blame farm managers for the worker’s death. The suit claims striking work- ers were wrongly ﬁ red and evicted, and all workers were browbeat into picking when sick and pressured to harvest unrealistic amounts of berries per hour. Sarbanand is owned by Baldev and Kable Munger, owners of the large Califor- nia berry company Munger Brothers. The suit names Sarbanand, Munger and two other defendants, Munger employee Nidia Perez and Mexican company CSI Visa Processing, which recruited H-2A workers from Mexico. Each worker could rep- resent multiple violations of the Washington Farm Labor Contractors Act. State law allows a ﬁ ne of up to $1,000 for each violation. Sarbanand says the H-2A workers were ﬁ red and sent home for insubordination and denies workers were threatened or ill-fed. “It (the ruling) was dis- appointing and, of course, we’re pushing forward,” said Sarbanand general counsel Tom Pedreira, who is not litigating the suit. “The court’s order was not (a) ﬁ nding that Sarbanand or any of the other defendants did anything wrong.” The walkout, ﬁ rings and worker’s death drew media, activist and govern- ment attention to the farm in Sumas near the Cana- dian farm. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries levied a record $149,800 ﬁ ne for missed rest breaks and late meals at the farm. A judge later cut the ﬁ ne in half. Other inves- tigations failed to conﬁ rm complaints that workers had been exposed to pesticides or poorly fed. Oregon ranchers upset by wild horse release Forest Service says horses were returned to area of origin By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press An apparent relocation of wild horses to Oregon’s Malheur National Forest has upset ranchers who say the area is already overstocked with the animals. Rancher Mike Moore said he encountered a For- est Service vehicle pulling a trailer on Dec. 14 in the Murderers Creek allotment of the national forest, which is an unusual sight, espe- cially during winter. Responding to ques- tions, the “sheepish” For- est Service employee driv- ing the vehicle admitted the trailer contained several wild horses gathered from the neighboring Ochoco National Forest that were to be released in the area, Moore said. “I just think this is wrong. You can’t be taking horses from one forest to another, that isn’t right,” he said. “We’ve got too many horses and they’re not helping by bringing more horses from another forest to this forest.” Representatives of the Malheur National Forest said they’re coordinating with the Ochoco National Forest to understand why some horses were returned to the Murderers Creek allotment from the neigh- boring national forest and would soon issue a state- ment about the situation. Wild horses are a con- tentious subject in the Mal- heur National Forest, where ranchers say the animals trample stream banks to the detriment of federally-pro- tected ﬁ sh, preventing cattle from being allowed to graze on affected allotments. The maximum “appro- priate management level” for the Murderers Creek herd management area is 140 wild horses, whereas the most recent estimate for the actual population is 339 horses. Loren Stout, a rancher who grazes cattle on the Murderers Creek allotment, said the actual population is probably more than 500 horses. Stout said he’s doubt- ful of the Forest Service’s explanation of the incident, which he believes is illegal and in violation of a 2013 settlement agreement in which the agency agreed to reduce the wild horse popu- lation in the area. “Why they did it, I have no idea,” Stout said. “It’s unbelievable, espe- cially after going through a lawsuit.” Moore said he’s like- wise skeptical of the expla- nation that the horses were being returned after ventur- ing off the Malheur National Forest. “There’s a lot going on here that doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. “I think LET’S TALK! THINKING OF PLANTING ANNUAL CLOVER LIKE BALANSA OR BERSEEM INTO EXISTING ALFALFA? DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY! GREENWAY SEEDS Caldwell, Idaho • Alan Greenway, Seedsman Cell: 298-259-9159 • MSG: 298-454-8342 Weekly Fieldwork Report Wash. Idaho Calif. 95.3% 79.6% 84.4% 65.7% 72.8% 92.2% 40-50% below 40-70% below 40-70% below 40-50% below Normal 40-50% below 33-60% below • Soil moisture anomaly Below normal Normal/ Below normal Normal Below normal (Monthly deviation from normal) *Aggregate average percent of median as of Dec. 24. Medians calculated for the period from 1981-2010. 49-4-3/103 Seedsman • Precipitation, 6-10 day outlook (Percent chance deviation from normal) ELLIS EQUIPMENT 800-949-2336 Alan Greenway, ® Ore. .COM Over 40 Years Experience Grass Expertise. Presented by Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA) • Snow water equivalent * 81.8% • Percent area in drought 100% • Avg. temperature, 6-10 day outlook 40-60% below (Percent chance deviation from normal) MFG OF BRUSH MULCHERS | STUMP GRINDERS | DRAINAGE PLOWS BOOM MOWERS | PTO GENERATORS | AUGER BITS & DRIVES TRENCHERS | TREE SPADES | TREE SAWS | LIMB SHEARS AND MORE they’re in damage control right now.” After Stout ﬁ led a law- suit alleging the Forest Ser- vice had violated the Endan- gered Species Act, a federal judge agreed that the agency had failed to consult about the impacts of wild horses on threatened steelhead. 52-2/108 Warm, dry winter predicted for Northwest 3 CapitalPress.com Sources: USDA, NRCS; NOAA, www.ca.gov/; www.drought.gov/