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EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER Friday, April 17, 2020 Volume 93, Number 16 CapitalPress.com HOW CLIMATE $2.00 Joseph Haeberle Marcey Clark, a crew leader at Owyhee Pro- duce, gestures toward a field at the family farm straddling the Or- egon-Idaho state line. HAS CHANGED NW FARMING Some impacts are more subtle as water supplies, temperatures and growing seasons vary Editors Note: Fifteen years ago, the Capital Press and its sis- ter publications at EO Media Group published a landmark series of stories on climate change. This month we begin a new series, Climate Changed, that will revisit many of the sources we talked with then and look at what has happened in the intervening years. By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press 0.8 0.6 0.4 P at Dudley and her husband, Ted Casteel, began growing winegrapes more than 40 years ago in the Eola-Amity Hills of Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley. About 50 miles southwest of Port- land, their vineyard lies in the direct path of the Van Duzer Corridor — a low point in the Oregon Coast Range where cool winds from the Pacific Ocean travel inland, creating the per- fect climate for producing Pinot noir grapes. While most grapes used to make red wine vari- eties prefer warmer weather, Pinot noir is a notable exception. Lower nighttime temperatures in the Eola-Am- ity Hills help to keep the fruit fresh, imparting higher acidity and lower alcohol content by comparison. 0.79º C (1.42º F) Average worldwide temperature anomaly Global median average land-sea temperature anomaly compared to the 1961-1990 average temperature in degrees Celsius (°C). Median average temperature anomaly 0.2 0.59º C (1.06º F) Source: ourworldindata.org Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group 0.035º C (0.06º F) 0 -0.2 Baseline average temperature time frame -0.4 -0.37º C (-0.67º F) -0.54º C (-0.97º F) -0.6 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2018 See Climate, Page 11 Oregon farmer must pay EPA $100,000 penalty By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Farmer Bill Case of Albany, Ore., points to the North Santiam River, which abuts his farmland in this Capital Press file photo. The U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency has settled a lawsuit against Case that accused him of unlaw- fully reinforcing the river bank. To settle a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit, an Oregon farmer must pay a $100,000 civil penalty, remove two rock embankments and convert an 18-acre field into a forest. The U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency initially filed the complaint against farmer Bill Case of Albany, Ore., four years ago, alleging he’d unlawfully reinforced the banks of the North Santiam River to prevent erosion. The federal agency claimed that Case had created rock levees along about 770 feet of the river in 2009 and another 1,000 feet in 2012 and 2013 without obtaining a Clean Water Act permit, which subjected him to penalties of up to $37,500 per day. Case said the rock embank- ments were necessary to keep sediment from polluting the river and to prevent floodwa- ters from eventually eroding his 50-acre field. “What they’re doing is totally eroding into the river. All this pollution is exactly what the EPA does not want,” Case said of removing the embank- ments. “This is absolutely pol- luting the river, totally.” Case argued that he’d relied on advice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the embankments wouldn’t fall under Clean Water Act jurisdic- tion as long as they were built outside the river. “It was all approved by the Corps in the first place and we got witnesses to that,” he said. However, in 2018, a federal judge ruled there was “ample evidence” that Case had bro- ken the law by working below the river’s ordinary high water mark. While the farmer had pro- vided “sufficient evidence” of relying on government advice and being unaware of the need for a Clean Water Act Permit, the judge said Case was still liable for violating the statute because he hadn’t shown the government had deliberately misguided him. Case said he’s still troubled by the ruling. “I don’t know how that can be when the government tells you what to do and you do it,” he said. See EPA, Page 11 No end in sight for lifting state stay-home orders By DON JENKINS Capital Press Restrictions on daily life may con- tinue for many months and won’t be totally lifted until cases of COVID- 19 steadily fall and states are able to test, treat, track and quarantine more peo- ple to keep the virus from rebounding, according to officials in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California. States have yet to fully quantify the scale of the task. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said state officials are still learning how fast hospitals are going through masks, gowns and gloves. “We honestly don’t know how much PPE (personal protection equip- ment) capacity we need,” she said. Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Wednes- day extended his state’s stay-home order until at least April 30, though some retailers can reopen immediately if they offer curbside pickup. The gov- ernor said he expected more businesses to reopen next month, pro- viding they can keep work- ers and customers spaced apart. “I hate to tell people to be patient in these trying times, but that’s the message,” he said. “I gotta do what I gotta do for the good of the people of Idaho.” States have exempted agriculture from orders that have shut down businesses deemed “non-essential.” The lockdowns, how- ever, have caused widespread job losses rippling through the entire economy and changing consumer demands. INSIDE For more COVID-19 stories see Page 4 Brown and California Gov. Gavin Newsom presented Tuesday what they called state-specific “frameworks” for reopening the economy and rolling back bans on social gatherings. Both declined to set numerical goals or timelines. The governors said preconditions to rescinding their respective indefinite stay-home orders included being able to test people who show symptoms, track down their contacts and isolate the sick. “It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take longer than we want,” Brown said. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s chief of staff, David Postman, said Tuesday that the state didn’t have specific bench- marks. “I wouldn’t expect us to say, ‘When we hit this number, this will hap- pen.’ It’s not that easy,” he said. The three West Coast governors, all Democrats, announced Monday they were forming an alliance to coordinate their responses to the coronavirus. The pact, however, had no immediate effect. State officials said they would come out with their own plans to guide their actions. Little, a Republican, said he’s inter- ested in what the other states are doing, but added, “we are vastly different than those three states on the West Coast.” According to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Met- rics and Evaluation, demand for hos- pital beds in Washington and Idaho have peaked, and will peak in Cali- fornia on April 17 and in Oregon on See COVID-19, Page 11