NORTHWEST AGRICULTURAL SHOW RECAP
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, February 14, 2020
CapitalPress.com
Volume 93, Number 7
$2.00
THE TRAVELS OF A
TRUFFLE
Those Valentine’s Day sweet treats and big blooms
come from around the world — and down the road
By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
E
U.S. Customs and Border Protection/James Tourtellotte
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agricultural
specialists inspect Valentine’s Day flowers for pests
at the Port of Miami’s cargo terminal.
UGENE, Ore.—It was two weeks before Valen-
tine’s Day, and workers were dipping and dust-
ing truffles at the Euphoria Chocolate Company
in Eugene, Ore.
It was like a scene from “The Nutcracker”:
Chocolate ganache twirled in vats. Smells of cinnamon,
cocoa and vanilla danced in the room. Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz
of the Flowers” was playing.
Feb. 13 and 14 are the company’s biggest individual sales
days. Store manager Tim Matterson said that in 2019, Euphoria
Chocolate sold more than 13,000 truffles for Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day is big business. Last year alone, U.S.
consumers spent a record $20.7 billion on candy, flowers
and food, according to the National Retail Federation.
But behind the flurry of treats and blooms, there are
human stories: of drug cartels, hail storms, border agents and
beet seed breeders.
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Bonnie Glass, owner of Euphoria Chocolate Compa-
ny in Eugene, Ore., holds a tray of chocolate hearts.
Around the world
Euphoria Chocolate buys most of its ingredients from
Oregon producers, said owner Bonnie Glass. Fruits from
Meduri Farms. Hazelnuts from local orchards. Mint from
Junction City. Wine from Oregon vineyards. Cream—100
gallons for Valentine’s Day—from Lochmead Dairy.
These local flavors mingle with domestic and international
ingredients: peanuts dug from soil in the American South,
almonds from California trees, cocoa from West Africa.
Each represents an industry.
See Truffles, Page 13
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Jung Houck, a floral worker, organizes shipments
for Frank Adams Wholesale Florist in Portland, Ore.,
just before Valentine’s Day.
Moutia Murheb
Kristy Leissle, who follows the cocoa and chocolate
industries, leans against a tree with cocoa pods.
Water scarcity incites Oregon legal conflicts
New report details
Oregon Water Resources
Department litigation
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Water demands are growing while
supplies are not, creating a dynamic
that’s ripe for legal conflicts involv-
ing Oregon’s water regulators,
according to a recent government
report.
Irrigators, tribes, environmental-
ists and municipalities often have
competing needs for water, which the
Oregon Water Resources Department
must often resolve through adminis-
trative and court challenges.
“The stakes can be very high,”
said Tom Byler, OWRD’s director,
during a Feb. 3 legislative hearing.
“In many ways, as scarcity increases,
the likelihood of a dispute from one
of these entities increases.”
Byler recently testified before
lawmakers about a report that
explains the 165 contested cases and
lawsuits in which OWRD has been
a party during the two most recent
budget cycles since 2015.
The Oregon Legislature requested
the report upon approving the agen-
cy’s budget last year due to increas-
ing litigation over water regulation in
the state.
During the 2015-2017 budget
cycle, for example, 25 new legal
challenges involving OWRD were
filed, compared to 13 during the
2013-2015 biennium and 4 during
the 2011-2013 biennium. The 165
cases detailed in OWRD’s report
includes older and newer cases.
Due to the upswing in litiga-
tion, OWRD exceeded its entire
2017-2019 legal services budget of
$835,000 within a year and had to
request emergency funding from
lawmakers to cover the full costs.
Of the 165 disputes outlined in
OWRD’s report, the largest number
— 79 cases — involved new water
rights applications.
Surface water is often fully appro-
priated and groundwater also can’t
sustain further development in parts
of Oregon, which can lead to dis-
putes when water rights permit appli-
cations are rejected, according to the
report.
See Water, Page 13
Working-class Oregonians protest climate bills at Capitol
By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
SALEM — Thousands of
Oregonians from across the
state lined the streets and con-
verged on the steps of the Ore-
gon Capitol Feb. 6 to protest
legislation they say would dec-
imate the rural economy.
Sign-waving protesters met
with Gov. Kate Brown and
legislators and filled hearing
rooms with their testimonies.
More than 1,000 trucks,
tractors and other large vehi-
cles circled the Capitol for
hours, their horns blaring.
They had come to protest cap-
and-trade climate legislation,
Senate Bill 1530, which they
say could crush their jobs and
livelihoods.
The protesters, work-
ing-class Oregonians who are
part of a movement called
Timber Unity, were gathered
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Thousands of Timber Unity supporters and members gather in front of the state Cap-
itol to protest the cap-and-trade bill under consideration in the Oregon Legislature.
The bill would increase the price of fuel and damage the rural economy, they say.
to stand against SB 1530, also
known as cap and trade, a bill
to cut carbon emissions in an
effort to slow climate change.
Protesters say they fear the bill
will lead to higher fuel prices,
which would hurt truckers, log-
gers, farmers and others who
live and work in rural parts of
the state.
“I don’t like division
between rural and urban
areas,” said Rachel Abbott, 27,
who works in the hospitality
industry and was raised on a
farm near Sheridan, Ore. “This
should not be a rural-versus-ur-
ban issue. It would put my fam-
ily farm out of business, but it
hurts all Oregonians.”
The big turnout for the
event surprised even its orga-
nizers. Lines of trucks paraded
around the Capitol from 6 a.m.
to 1 p.m.
Timber Unity spokesper-
son Angelita Sanchez said peo-
ple from Sweet Home, her
hometown, brought five semi-
trucks to last year’s protest
but brought more than 40 this
morning.
Some convoys formed
across the state as early as
1 a.m., said Jenny Dressler of
the Oregon Farm Bureau.
Timber Unity was birthed
out of the 2019 legislative ses-
sion in protest of House Bill
2020, the name for last year’s
cap-and-trade bill. The legisla-
tion was intended to slash car-
bon emissions but faced oppo-
sition from many Oregonians,
who said high fuel costs would
hurt their businesses.
The movement resembles
the “yellow vests” in France,
a grassroots citizens’ cam-
paign that began in protest to
fuel taxes and ballooned into
a nationwide anti-government
movement seeking economic
justice for the working class.
Last year’s bill passed the
House but failed in the Senate.
The session ended in legisla-
tive chaos; Senate Republicans
walked out to deny Democrats
a quorum.
This year’s bill is similar to
the 2019 legislation. By 2050,
the Carbon Policy Office esti-
mates the cap-and-trade plan
See Protest, Page 5