Friday, January 1, 2021
CapitalPress.com 3
Judge thaws AEWR wage freeze
Officials say mink recovering
from COVID-19 at Oregon farm
By DAN WHEAT
For the Capital Press
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — Mink that
tested positive for COVID-19
at an Oregon farm in Novem-
ber appear to have recovered,
according to state agriculture
officials.
Animal advocates, how-
ever, remain concerned after
one mink caught just outside
the farm tested positive for
low levels of the virus, poten-
tially exposing other wildlife
to infection.
Dr. Ryan Scholz, state
veterinarian for the Oregon
Department of Agriculture,
visited the farm Nov. 23 and
collected 10 mink samples
that were sent to Oregon State
University and USDA for test-
ing. All samples came back
positive for the virus.
It is believed the mink
contracted COVID-19 from
workers at the farm, which
was placed under quaran-
tine. ODA has not identified
the operation or disclosed its
location.
Oregon has 11 permitted
mink farms with an estimated
438,327 animals, making it
the fourth-largest pelt-pro-
ducing state after Wisconsin,
Utah and Idaho. Eight of Ore-
gon’s mink farms are in Mar-
ion County, two are in Clat-
sop County and one is in Linn
County.
Since the initial positive
tests, ODA has conducted
two rounds of follow-up test-
ing documenting the animals’
recovery. The first round was
conducted Dec. 7. Of 62 mink
sampled, only one showed
“barely detectable” levels of
the virus.
The second round, con-
ducted Dec. 21, resulted in
no positive tests. ODA says it
will conduct one more round
COVID-19 has been found
in an Oregon mink farm.
of testing before deciding
whether to lift the quarantine.
“We’re doing a lot of work
to ensure that this virus did
not — and does not — escape
this farm,” Scholz said. “That
work will be ongoing until we
can ensure this is not a risk.”
Generally speaking, Scholz
said mink farms in Oregon
process animals on-site and
send raw pelts to processors
out-of-state. The carcasses
may be sold as crab bait,
given to zoos or used to make
organic compost, according to
Fur Commission USA.
“In this case, they will be
disposed as potentially infec-
tive,” Scholz said. “They’ll
go likely to the landfill and be
buried.
Pelts and carcasses at the
farm will remain under quar-
antine until ODA, USDA and
the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention come up
with a disposal plan, he said.
“We haven’t gotten there
yet,” Scholz said.
Meanwhile, USDA Wild-
life Services, under the direc-
tion of the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife,
continues to trap and test local
wildlife to ensure the virus
does not spread. One mink
believed to have escaped from
the farm was caught Dec. 13
and tested positive for low lev-
els of COVID-19. Scholz said
it was discovered just a few
dozen yards from the com-
pound, and matched the size
and color of other minks at the
farm.
It was also showing signs
of acute, short-term starvation,
an indication it had recently
escaped. Biologists have
tested eight other animals,
five opossums and three cats,
which all were negative for the
virus.
“There is no evidence that
(COVID-19) is circulating
or has been established in the
wild,” Scholz said. “Still, we
are taking this situation very
seriously and continuing to
survey and trap near the farm.
“Also, we have asked
USDA to run additional tests
on the trapped mink, including
sequencing the viral genome
and a DNA test to ensure we
know exactly where this mink
came from,” he said.
Previous outbreaks of
COVID-19 in farmed mink
have been reported in Utah,
Michigan and Wisconsin, as
well as six countries around
the world, he said.
The situation in Den-
mark was particularly severe,
where health officials dis-
covered a mutated strain of
the virus that threatened to
undercut the effectiveness of
a vaccine.
In response, Denmark
culled its entire population of
farmed mink — more than
17 million animals. To make
matters worse, the Wall Street
Journal reported, the Danish
parliament voted to exhume
5.5 million of the dead mink
from mass graves beginning
in May after environmental
inspectors found that some
water sources might have
been contaminated by bac-
teria as the mink decay.
A federal judge in Cali-
fornia has issued an injunc-
tion stopping a minimum
wage freeze for H-2A-visa
agricultural foreign guest-
workers and ordering the
U.S. Department of Labor
to use previously estab-
lished methodology to set
minimum wages for 2021.
U.S. District Judge Dale
A. Drozd, a 2015 Obama
appointee in the court’s
eastern district in Fresno,
granted the injunction Dec.
23 saying it is likely the
plaintiff, the United Farm
Workers union, will pre-
vail on its assertion that
DOL violated procedures in
implementing the freeze for
nonrange workers.
That means all guest-
workers except those who
work as shepherds.
About
242,000
of
275,000 H-2A jobs certified
for 2020 were on farms that
grow crops, including fruits
and vegetables.
On Nov. 2, DOL
announced the two-year
freeze of the Adverse Effect
Wage Rate, known by the
initials AEWR. After that,
the AEWR was to increase
at the rate of inflation.
Agricultural
groups
for years have said the
AEWR, intended to keep
wages of foreign workers
high enough that they don’t
adversely
a f f e c t
wages and
employ-
ment
of
domes-
tic work-
U.S. District ers,
have
Judge Dale artificially
A. Drozd
propelled
wages of
foreign and domestic agri-
cultural workers higher
than the rate of inflation
and excessively increased
growers’ costs.
“This injunction drives
uncertainty into business.
As small as margins are,
it’s not a happy thing,” said
Michael Marsh, president
and CEO of the National
Council of Agricultural
Employers, in Washington,
D.C.
“Not knowing what
the wage rules and rates
for 2021 will be makes
it extremely difficult for
growers to plan for the
season ahead,” said Tim
Kovis, a Washington State
Tree Fruit Association
spokesman.
Marsh noted UFW does
not represent H-2A workers
but that its members benefit
from wage increases driven
by higher AEWRs.
DOL and UFW have 14
days to present a plan for
setting AEWRs for 2021,
Marsh said.
USDA National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service
farm labor surveys, which
are the basis for setting new
AEWRs at the start of each
year, were halted a cou-
ple of months ago for 2020
and probably won’t be com-
pleted until February, he
said.
Meanwhile, DOL and
UFW could agree to allow
current rates to continue, he
said.
The
UFW
lawsuit
against the freeze may be
heard later in spring, or
a new Biden administra-
tion could withdraw DOL’s
opposition, he said.
Whether the Trump
administration will final-
ize other H-2A rule changes
before it ends is unknown,
he said.
The AEWR increased
22.8% in Nevada, Utah and
Colorado in 2019 while the
national average increase
was 6.3%.
The
national
aver-
age increase was 5.58% in
2020.
The federal minimum
wage is $7.25 per hour
while the AEWR ranges
from $11.71 to $15.83, the
highest being in Oregon and
Washington.
The Employment Cost
Index, measuring non-
farm employee compensa-
tion, increased an average
of 2.54% a year from 2015
through 2019 while the
AEWR increased 4.48%,
Marsh said.
California seeks to block Trump pesticide rule
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
California and four other states are suing
to block a Trump administration rule that
will limit pesticide application exclusion
zones to a farmer’s property.
The rule, set to take effect Dec. 29, will
replace an Obama administration regu-
lation that made farmers responsible for
maintaining a 100-foot halo around air-
borne pesticides, no matter the boundary
line.
The states claim the Trump rule will
increase the risk of pesticides drifting onto
farmworkers.
“The Trump administration’s decision
to undercut existing public health protec-
tions for these workers is not only repre-
hensible, it’s illegal,” California Attorney
General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
President-elect Joe Biden has nomi-
nated Becerra to join his administration
as head of the Department of Health and
Human Services.
Application exclusion zones were a
main point of contention as the Trump
Environmental Protection Agency revised
federal pesticide safety rules.
Farm groups said enforcing an exclu-
sion zone on someone else’s property or an
easement was difficult.
The Trump EPA agreed, saying its rule
will eliminate confusion and that training
pesticide applicators was a more effective
way to protect bystanders.
The law still requires on-farm exclusion
zones and holds farmers responsible for
pesticides that drift off-target. The Trump
rule will allow farm families to stay in their
homes rather than being forced to leave
during pesticide applications.
New York, Illinois, Maryland and Min-
nesota have joined California in seeking a
stay of the Trump rule in the 2nd U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals.
The states also have sued in the U.S. Dis-
trict Court for Southern New York, as have
farmworker advocates, including the United
Farm Workers. The suits may be consoli-
dated into one case.
The suits allege the EPA violated the
Administrative Procedure Act by not hav-
ing sufficient reason to discard the Obama
application exclusion zone.
An EPA spokeswoman said the agency
does not comment on pending litigation.
Some states, including Washington and
Oregon, have adopted application exclu-
sion zones more expansive than the pend-
ing Trump rule. The state rules will remain
in place.
The suing states claim that even those
states will be affected if EPA standards
change because they won’t get federal help
to enforce application exclusion zones.
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