Friday, February 12, 2021
CapitalPress.com 13
Wyden to move ahead with Owyhee wilderness bill
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Sen. Ron Wyden plans to reintro-
duce legislation that would designate
more than 1.1 million acres of the
Owyhee River Canyonlands in Mal-
heur County, Ore., as wilderness.
He and Sen. Jeff Merkley, both
D-Ore., in November 2019 intro-
duced the Malheur Community
Empowerment for the Owyhee Act.
Senate Bill 2828 received a hearing
before a public-lands subcommittee
last September. The 2019-20 Con-
gress adjourned without taking fur-
ther formal action.
A diverse group of stakehold-
ers including ranchers, environmen-
tal groups and community leaders
crafted the legislation. It aims in part
to safeguard habitat while protecting
historical uses such as grazing.
“I’m definitely going to pull out
all the stops to get this enacted in
this Congress because this is a fresh
approach to managing public lands,”
Wyden said during a Feb. 5 virtual
town hall with residents of Malheur,
Harney and Baker counties.
Courtesy Bureau of Land Management
The Owyhee River canyon in Oregon, part of an area proposed to
be designated wilderness.
Concerns expressed included
that using a programmatic Envi-
ronmental Impact Statement pro-
cess for the large area rather than the
narrower, project-level EIS doesn’t
allow enough public input or suffi-
cient scrutiny of grazing permits; the
stakeholder group should be subject
to Federal Advisory Committee Act
guidelines; and the bill should have
monitoring money up-front.
Wyden said he would respond to
all concerns.
“The bill is not done until the bill
is done, but we’ve got to keep every-
body together on this,” he said.
“When you are working on a
public-lands bill, nobody gets every-
Bureau of Reclamation seeks
solutions to seeping canals
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
DENVER — The U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation is
seeking innovative solutions
to reduce water seepage in
open irrigation canals across
the West.
Applicants can submit
their ideas to the agency as
part of the “Water Ameri-
ca’s Crops Challenge,” in
partnership with the HeroX,
an online crowdsourcing
platform.
“The goal here is what
are those outside-the box,
innovative solutions to make
sure we’re maximizing
the efficiency of our water
delivery system, while also
improving their reliability,”
said Evan Lindenbach, civil
engineer with the Bureau of
Reclamation in Denver.
The bureau is the nation’s
largest wholesale water sup-
plier, managing 8,116 miles
of canals to deliver water for
30 million customers and
10 million acres of farm-
land in six western regions
— including the Pacific
Northwest.
Seepage is one of the larg-
est potential losses of water
within the system, Linden-
bach said. The bureau has
experimented with different
solutions in the past, primar-
ily heavy duty liners made
out of concrete, plastic and
other materials.
But those come with
a tradeoff, Lindenbach
said. Issues with effective-
ness, durability and mainte-
nance can all increase costs
for the agency and local
communities.
The challenge seeks solu-
tions that will minimize
maintenance costs, while
maximizing water savings
across a variety of regions
and climates.
“We have canals all the
way from northern Montana
to Arizona,” Lindenbach
said. “Some are more effi-
cient than others, but seep-
age out of canals is obvi-
ously a loss to the end user.”
Proposals are due by
Kennewick Irrigation District
Water flows in a Kennewick Irrigation District canal in
south-central Washington. The Bureau of Reclamation
is offering cash prizes for ways to reduce seepage from
irrigation canals.
June 24. Lindenbach said
the bureau will select five
finalists, who will receive
$50,000 to develop and test
a lab-scale prototype of their
design.
“What I think is really
exciting is this opportunity
to get funding to forward
their solution to a prototype
scale,” he said.
Finalists
will
be
announced Sept. 9, with
lab testing slated to begin
in June 2022. The bureau
will select a winner by Jan-
uary 2023 that will receive a
$90,000 prize.
This is not the first time
the bureau has used crowd-
sourcing to solve problems.
Lindenbach said the agency
has conducted 27 challenges
over the last six years,
awarding more than $3 mil-
lion in cash prizes.
Challenges typically cen-
ter on water availability,
infrastructure and the envi-
ronment, he said.
Christian Cotichini, CEO
of HeroX, said water seep-
age impacts a critical part
of U.S. infrastructure, and
requires innovations that are
both effective and economi-
cally sustainable.
“This is where the crowd
can step in, with brilliant
minds working worldwide
to protect one of our most
valuable resources: our
water,” Cotichini said.
To learn more about the
challenge, visit www.herox.
com/WaterAmericasCrops.
thing they want or everything they
think they ought to have,” Wyden
said. “But the question is can you get
something done ‘the Oregon way’ to
achieve your core objectives?”
He said there is “a lot of good-
will” among agriculture, environ-
mental and other interests. Each has
sacrificed something in creating the
bill.
“I don’t want these decisions
made in Washington,” Wyden said.
“We can do it. That’s the Oregon
way. We have shown the country
we’ve got a new approach for pub-
lic lands, so let’s find a way working
together to get it done.”
Tim Davis of Ontario, Ore.-
based Friends of the Owyhee said
in an interview that it is likely the
bill would be introduced unchanged
from the previous congressional ses-
sion. Any subsequent changes would
come from the legislative process
in Washington, D.C. — not from
local stakeholders — as occurred
when Congress in 2009 passed the
Owyhee Initiative designating Idaho
wilderness.
“The skeleton of what we put
forward needs to stay intact,” said
Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coa-
lition Treasurer Elias Eiguren, a
southeastern Oregon rancher. “There
is some room for certain fine-tun-
ing, but the authority of the Malheur
CEO Group (of stakeholders) needs
to be such that the group can fine-
tune implementation of the legisla-
tion and respond to on-the-ground
conditions.”
The bill would allow grazing to
continue, including in newly des-
ignated wilderness areas. It would
give wilderness protection to parts
of the Trout Creek Mountains, Cas-
tle Rock, Leslie Gulch, Honey-
combs, Three Forks and Jordan
Craters.
It would not create a national
monument, amend the Taylor Graz-
ing Act, impede current projects,
impact water rights or irrigation
districts, or affect management of
Owyhee Reservoir.
The plan includes maintain-
ing existing roads and establishing
“loop roads” designed to to encour-
age tourism and improve access for
firefighting.
Tensions run high on Capitol Hill
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
WASHINGTON, D.C.
— The dairy industry has
a lot of issues to pursue on
Capitol Hill against a back-
drop of a narrowly divided
Congress, a new adminis-
tration and a high degree of
turbulence.
“The atmosphere on
Capitol Hill is unlike any-
thing I’ve ever witnessed
before, just given the tur-
bulent times we’ve been
through in the last several
weeks,” said Paul Bleiberg,
senior vice president of
government affairs for the
National Milk Producers
Federation.
“I think there is signifi-
cant mistrust between the
two parties right now. There
is a great deal of skepticism
about what can be accom-
plished working together,”
he said.
At the same time, a new
administration is trying
to find its footing during
really unprecedented times,
he said during the latest
“Dairy Defined” podcast.
The pandemic is upend-
ing everything that’s done
on a daily basis. It’s created
challenges for the admin-
istration and the new Con-
gress, he said.
“And when you factor in
the political temperature …
it’s a very tense atmosphere
right now,” he said.
It’s possible that time
heals a lot of things over
the course of the next few
weeks and people will get
down to work, but it starts
off very heated, he said.
The top issues on Capitol
Hill right now are another
COVID-19 stimulus pack-
age, nominee confirma-
tions and former President
Trump’s impeachment trial.
The Biden administra-
tion is taking a look at what
the next COVID package is
going to be and how it will
be structured, he said.
The question is whether
it will be a bipartisan mat-
ter or whether Democrats
are going to pass it through
budget reconciliation if
they’re unable to get enough
Republican votes for some-
thing on the scale they want.
Decisions have to be made
on how they’re going to pro-
ceed, he said.
As for confirmations,
the Senate does seem to be
moving at a relatively quick
pace now after some orga-
nizing delays, he said.
“But it’s also important
to factor in that in a couple
of weeks, the Senate will go
through the impeachment
trial. And depending on how
that plays, that will impact
the temperature and tensions
again and may impact the
ability for bipartisanship on
either the nominees or the
COVID package,” he said.
As for National Milk, it
will continue to build on the
successes it had in 2020, he
said.
Raw butter supporters call
for legalization in Oregon
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Raw butter sales would
be legalized in Oregon
under a bill that supporters
claim will offer new options
to dairy farmers and con-
sumers without sacrificing
food safety.
House Bill 2612 would
allow for the sale of but-
ter from unpasteurized milk
and direct the state’s Depart-
ment of Agriculture to estab-
lish grades and standards for
the product.
Violations of these regu-
lations for raw butter would
be punishable by up to a year
in prison, a criminal fine of
$6,250 and a civil penalty of
$10,000.
Billie Johnson, a Crook
County dairy farmer and
proponent of HB 2612, said
that raw butter acts as “brain
food” that is reliably con-
sumed without making peo-
ple sick.
“Businesses are ask-
ing us for this product,” she
said during a recent hearing
before the House Agricul-
tural and Natural Resources
Committee.
The Organic Pastures
Dairy in Fresno, Calif.,
legally sells butter in Cali-
fornia but cannot ship it out
of state, said Mark McAfee,
its founder.
The industry needs more
local producers of raw but-
ter, he said.
“It’s a really powerful
food, we sell the heck out of
it,” McAfee said. “We can’t
make enough raw butter at
this point.”
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