Friday, June 26, 2020
CapitalPress.com 11
Plunging Oregon lottery funds
hinder fight against pests and weeds
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Video lottery revenues evapo-
rated as Oregon’s bars and restau-
rants closed during the coronavirus
outbreak, which means there’s now
less money available for fighting
weeds and pests.
The Oregon Department of Agri-
culture expects the $10.6 million of
its 2019-2021 biennial budget that
was expected to come from lottery
funds will have to be reduced by
30%, said Lisa Hanson, the agen-
cy’s deputy director.
“For us, it’s a cash flow prob-
lem initially as well as not know-
ing how much we’re going to get,”
Hanson said during a remote June
18 meeting of the Oregon Board of
Agriculture, which advises ODA.
Though the ODA received its
full quarterly distribution of lot-
tery funds in May, it’s bracing for
a decrease in August. Among the
Japanese beetles are among the
pests affected by reduced erad-
ication funds at the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture.
programs most likely affected by
a drop in lottery funds are nox-
ious weed control and the preven-
tion and management of insects
and pests.
In practical terms, that means
certain weed eradication projects
won’t go forward or won’t receive
state money, while ODA won’t
be hiring seasonal workers to set
insect traps that help the agency
decide how best to control pests
next year, she said.
Instead, ODA employees and
volunteers will be setting the
insect traps, Hanson later said. The
agency has scaled back trapping
due to past budget shortfalls “but
not as drastically as we’d have to
do this time.”
An ounce of pest prevention is
worth a pound of cure, as infesta-
tions tend to grow more expensive
when they go undiscovered, Han-
son said. “The key to the eradica-
tion programs is early detection
and rapid response. Finding things
early when they’re small is the best
approach.”
Aside from anticipating a
plunge in lottery revenue, ODA is
also recommending 8.5% reduc-
tions to several program allotments
expected to draw from the agency’s
$26 million general fund during the
current biennium, as requested by
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.
In reality, these reductions
would amount to 17% since there’s
only one year left in the current
biennium, Hanson said. The gov-
ernor can act on those recom-
mendations in forming her own
budget reductions or the Leg-
islature can make more precise
cutbacks.
“We’re still unclear how big the
shortfall is going to be,” she said.
“There are still a lot of balls up in
the air.”
Among general fund reductions,
ODA recommends eliminating:
• $600,000 for laboratory equip-
ment upgrades.
• $200,000 in predator control
payments.
• $280,000 slated for the Oregon
Invasive Species Council, which
conducts education, outreach and
coordination.
$10M USDA grant helps UI study turning manure into money
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A $10 million grant from
the USDA will help Uni-
versity of Idaho research-
ers develop
a way to
turn
cow
manure into
revenue.
About
90% of a
dairy farm-
er’s income
Mark
typically
McGuire
comes from
milk, said Mark McGuire,
associate dean of the uni-
versity’s College of Agricul-
tural and Life Sciences and
director of the Idaho Agri-
cultural Experiment Station.
But cow manure has
many nutrients that could
be used in fertilizers and soil
amendments, he said.
The funding comes from
USDA’s National Institute of
Food and Agriculture’s Agri-
culture and Food Initiative’s
Sustainable Agricultural Sys-
tems program. It is one of
nine projects from eight uni-
versities receiving total of
$90 million.
The researchers will test
and develop technology and
processes to help dairies,
Capital Press File
University of Idaho researchers hope to convert the
“raw material” produced by dairy cattle as manure and
turn it into valuable fertilizer and soil amendments.
dairy processors and other
food processing companies
make an alternative fertil-
izer. They will extract nutri-
ents from dairy waste and
estimate their value as crop
nutrients or soil amendments.
The researchers will also
look for possible problems in
adopting the new products,
McGuire said.
Dairies might adopt the
technology, team up with
other dairies or new busi-
nesses might partner with
the dairies to generate the
products, similar to methane
digester businesses, he said.
“It would hopefully be
very low input as far as
labor, technology,” he said.
In 25 years, Idaho grew
from the 11th or 12th larg-
est milk-producing state to
third, with most cows in the
Magic Valley, said Michael
Parrella, CALS dean.
“They produce a product,
you could either consider
it waste or you consider it
nutrients,” he said. “From an
environmental impact per-
spective, the focus seems to
be more on waste manage-
ment, how you deal with this
product, when in fact there’s
value there — it’s actually
fertilizer.”
The research project turns
a product that many dairy
farmers worry about man-
aging into a potentially valu-
able product, Parrella said.
The five-year project will
be undertaken by UI’s Cen-
ter for Agriculture, Food and
the Environment, slated to
open in 2023. Research will
be conducted at the research
dairy site in Rupert, Idaho,
currently in the design phase,
and other locations, McGuire
said. Researchers already ran
soil samples to get a baseline
reading of soil health.
UI’s study could “trans-
form” the entire U.S. dairy
industry, Parrella said.
It also drives home the
links between dairy and other
commodities. Forage crops,
alfalfa and hay feed the
cows, and the resulting nutri-
ents benefit crops such as
sugar beets, potatoes, beans
and malt barley, he said.
“It actually reinforces the
sustainability of the whole
system,” Parrella said.
“This almost brings it to full
circle.”
Farmers today use fertil-
izer guides from the 1970s.
McGuire said the study
will result in updated infor-
mation about crop nutrient
requirements.
Dairy is the top agricul-
tural industry in Idaho, pro-
ducing more than 13 billion
pounds of milk valued at
more than $2.2 billion each
year.
“To give (dairy) an
alternative income stream
would be very important,”
McGuire said, pointing to
low milk prices in recent
years.
The project includes 21
faculty researchers, four
post-doctoral students, 23
graduate students and 37
undergraduate students. One
researcher will emphasize
water quality and cleanup
as part of the study, Parrella
said.
The study will include
work from the university’s
soil and water systems, plant
sciences, agricultural eco-
nomics and rural sociology,
engineering, animal and vet-
erinary science and exten-
sion departments.
Parrella said the grant
establishes that UI is com-
petitive nationally.
“We do expect it to be
one of many large grants to
come through once CAFE
gets up and running,” he
said.
Oregon DEQ hands out $63,750 in fines for manure digester overflow
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
TILLAMOOK, Ore. —
Oregon environmental reg-
ulators have issued $63,750
in fines after an anaerobic
digester at the Port of Til-
lamook Bay malfunctioned
last year, causing 163,301
gallons of partially treated
cow manure to overflow
into a nearby creek.
The port, which owns the
facility, was fined $19,800
by the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality.
Tillamook BioGas LLC,
based in Raleigh, N.C.,
leases the digester and was
fined $26,700.
DEQ also fined Rege-
nis, of Ferndale, Wash.,
$17,250. Tillamook Bio-
Gas hired Regenis — a
company that specializes in
building and maintaining
Port of Tillamook Bay
The stormwater outfall at Anderson Creek, which is
more than 2 miles from the Tillamook River. The river
then goes several miles before reaching the bay.
farm digesters — to oper-
ate the plant.
All three fines are now
under appeal. Clay Hart-
man, project manager for
Tillamook BioGas, said the
company has spent months
raising money to retrofit
the digester and comply
with DEQ requirements.
“We
remedied
the
underlying conditions that
caused the spill,” Hartman
said. “We did even more
than what they asked for,
actually.”
The digester was orig-
inally built in 2012 and
operated by the Port of Til-
lamook Bay on the north-
ern Oregon coast until
2017. It takes manure from
dairy farms in the area and
captures methane and car-
bon dioxide emissions
from the waste, used to cre-
ate electricity.
The process, known as
anaerobic digestion, works
by heating the manure
slurry in large tanks with-
out
oxygen,
allowing
bacteria and microor-
ganisms to break down
the material and release
gases.
After sitting idle for
two years, DEQ issued a
new permit for the digester
in late 2018 and the port
leased the facility to Tilla-
mook BioGas. Tillamook
BioGas, in turn, hired
Regenis in February 2019
for day-to-day operations.
On July 22, 2019, a
faulty sensor caused one
of the digester’s tanks to
overflow, spilling 378,572
gallons of liquid manure
overnight.
An estimated 163,301
gallons reached a storm
water pipe that emp-
ties into Anderson Creek,
south of the Tillamook
River.
The Tillamook River
flows into the Pacific
Ocean at Tillamook Bay,
where the Oregon Depart-
ment of Agriculture says
there are 10 licensed shell-
fish firms.
USDA
Oregon has received
money from the feder-
al government that will
be used to expand the
availability of broad-
band internet in some
rural areas of the state.
Coronavirus
relief funds
to finance
broadband
projects in
rural Oregon
By MARGO CRAIG
Capital Press
Oregon’s
Legisla-
tive Emergency Board
has allocated $20 mil-
lion in federal coro-
navirus relief funding
to expand broadband
internet availability in
rural areas of the state.
Half of the $20 mil-
lion will go to projects
in regions that have
no broadband inter-
net access. It will be
distributed
through
the Rural Broadband
Capacity
Program,
which is managed by
Business Oregon, the
state’s economic devel-
opment agency.
The other half will
go to Link Oregon,
a nonprofit consor-
tium that includes the
State of Oregon and
the state’s four research
universities
working
to expand broadband
coverage in the pub-
lic sector, including
school districts, health
care providers and
businesses.
The funding will be
used for Phase 2, which
focuses on southern and
eastern Oregon, includ-
ing Roseburg, Med-
ford, Ashland, Klam-
ath Falls, The Dalles,
Pendleton, La Grande,
Ontario and Burns,
among other locations.
The program will
begin accepting pro-
posals once details
are clarified, accord-
ing to Nathan Bue-
hler, communications
and research manager
for the Oregon Busi-
ness
Development
Department.
The $20 million for
rural internet expansion
was part of $247 mil-
lion the state received
through the $2 trillion
Coronavirus Aid, Relief
and Economic Security
Act, or CARES Act,
which Congress passed
last spring.
U.S.-Israeli research grants fuel agricultural advancements
By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
When it comes to
research funding, univer-
sity professors say agricul-
ture often gets overlooked.
But a successful interna-
tional fund is showing that
agricultural research is
worth the investment.
A joint U.S.-Israeli
research fund has approved
$7.3 million this June for
22 agricultural research
projects done jointly by
Israeli and U.S. scientists.
Three 2020 awardees are
based in California.
The program, which
funds three-year proj-
ects and pays researchers
about $310,000, is called
the U.S.-Israeli Binational
Agricultural Research and
Development Fund, or
BARD for short.
This year, BARD also
granted 10 postdoctoral fel-
lowships, including one to
a researcher in Washing-
ton state, one in Oregon and
four in California.
Several researchers told
the Capital Press that even
with grants from the USDA,
Food and Drug Adminis-
tration and other organiza-
tions, agricultural research
still has limited funding.
They say BARD is signifi-
cant not only because it has
transformed agriculture and
contributed to the global
economy, but also because
it demonstrates the payoff
from investing in agricul-
tural research.
The American and Israeli
governments created and
funded the program in 1978
because the nations had
BARD
BARD-funded agricultural research projects since 1978
by state.
shared interests in agricul-
ture and science.
“I get to work with incred-
ible scientists from around
the world. It’s really, really
fascinating,” said David
Zilberman, 2020 BARD
recipient and professor of
agricultural and resource
economics at the University
of California-Berkley.
This year, Zilberman and
his fellow researchers plan
to study how microalgae can
be managed for agricultural
purposes.
Among the other grant
proposals approved this year
are projects on salmonella
sensing-based antibacterials
for use in poultry, Beta-glu-
cans as growth promot-
ers and antibiotic alterna-
tives and the use of in-vitro
embryo production and gene
editing in sheep.
For decades, BARD has
been a global pioneer in drip
irrigation, solar sterilization,
increasing milk yield, bio-
logical control of pests and
more.
An independent, external
review of BARD recently
measured the program’s
impact.
According to the review,
the grants have led to 200
new agricultural practices,
40 commercial deals and
100 patent-series and breed-
ing licenses.
For every U.S. dol-
lar spent in BARD’s agri-
cultural research, $20 has
been gained, economists
estimate.
Since 1978, BARD has
awarded 299 grants to Cal-
ifornia researchers, a higher
number than any other state.
Scientists say this is partly
because Israel’s arid envi-
ronment makes it a natural
research partner for Califor-
nia, which produces similar
crops.
Yoram
Kapulnik,
BARD’s executive direc-
tor, told the Capital Press
that Israel’s struggle to sup-
ply water to a growing pop-
ulation forced the nation
to become a world leader
in water and agricultural
technologies.