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CapitalPress.com
Friday, April 23, 2021
Lawsuit filed to stop post-fire logging in Santiam State Forest
wildlife habitat.
“Salvage logging in the
Santiam State Forest will
do great damage to spot-
ted owls, struggling salmon
populations, water quality
and forest recovery,” said
Noah Greenwald, endan-
gered species director at the
Center for Biological Diver-
sity. “The Oregon Depart-
ment of Forestry is stuck in
the 1950s and out of step
with science and the values
of most Oregonians.”
Proponents of salvage
logging, however, argue
it is a valuable tool that
can expedite forest resto-
ration by removing dead
and hazardous trees, while
also maximizing the value
of timber to support rural
communities.
ODF
manages
the
47,465-acre Santiam State
Forest. An estimated 24,000
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — Seven envi-
ronmental groups are suing
the Oregon Department of
Forestry to halt salvage log-
ging in the Santiam State
Forest east of Salem.
The lawsuit, filed April
15 in Multnomah County
Circuit Court, seeks an
injunction to stop ODF from
logging in areas of the state
forest that burned in the
2020 Labor Day wildfires.
Plaintiffs include the Cen-
ter for Biological Diversity,
Audubon Society of Salem,
Audubon Society of Corval-
lis, Benton Forest Coalition,
Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon
Wild and Willamette Riv-
erkeeper. The groups raise
concerns over the impact of
post-fire logging on healthy
watersheds, recreation and
Stayton Fire District
The Beachie Creek Fire ravaged the Santiam Canyon of Or-
egon in September. Seven environmental groups are now
suing the Oregon Department of Forestry to halt salvage
logging in the Santiam State Forest east of Salem.
acres were within the perim-
eters of the Beachie Creek,
Lionshead and Riverside
fires, three massive blazes
that tore through the San-
tiam Canyon last year.
Of those 24,000 acres, a
little more than 16,000 acres
actually burned in the fires,
according to ODF. The state
has proposed logging and
timber sales on about 3,000
acres.
Timber sales would pro-
vide direct economic benefit
to Marion, Linn and Clack-
amas counties, which would
receive two-thirds of the rev-
enue generated. ODF also
estimates the work will cre-
ate 675 primary jobs and 640
secondary jobs in the woods.
But
environmentalists
argue that post-fire logging
increases sedimentation and
runoff into streams and riv-
ers, and eliminates habitat
for a variety of plant, insect
and wildlife species.
Nick Cady, legal director
for Cascadia Wildlands, said
ODF is treating these areas
of the forest more like an
industrial tree farm, instead
of allowing natural regen-
eration and creating more
complex forest structures.
“I think people were
pretty disheartened to see
the department was target-
ing areas where they never
thought in a thousand years
would be logged,” Cady
said. “And they’re not sup-
posed to be. They’re sup-
posed to be older, complex
forests.”
A spokesman for ODF
said the agency can-
not comment on pending
litigation.
Seth Barnes, director of
forest policy for the Ore-
gon Forest and Industries
Council — a trade associ-
ation that represents more
than 50 Oregon forestland
owners and wood products
manufacturers — said the
lawsuit is “disappointing,”
and reflects an anti-timber
agenda rather than a true
conservation ethic.
Post-fire logging has
several benefits, Barnes
said. First, it removes dead
standing trees that can burn
again in future fires. Sec-
ond, it can help offset the
cost of reforestation, return-
ing green healthy trees to the
landscape.
Mild winter prompts another
busy rodent year in S. Idaho
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Eastern Idaho farmer
Will Ricks is always on the
lookout for voles.
“I would sure love a mir-
acle cure,” the Idaho Hay
& Forage Association pres-
ident said. “Voles, espe-
cially, cause a phenomenal
amount of damage to our
hay stands.”
Helped by a mild winter,
it’s shaping up to be another
busy year for rodent pests
in much of southern Idaho
and parts of the Pacific
Northwest.
At Melba, Idaho-based
Idaho Gopher Control,
owner Erin Turpin joins the
field crew when she’s not
taking a barrage of service
inquiries.
“Normally we don’t see
evidence of the first litters
until late February or into
March,” she said. “And in
the last two years, we have
seen evidence in January.”
Canyon County Weed &
Pest Control gopher trap-
pers “were trapping all win-
ter,” superintendent A.J.
Mondor said. “They didn’t
even miss a week.”
Turpin said gopher pop-
ulations surged in 2018
and 2019 and have stayed
strong since due to mild
winters. “And we are on
track to see possibly higher
levels this year than last
year.”
She said a slowdown
in the gopher population’s
growth may occur in 2022
based on last month’s dry
conditions. March was
wetter in 2020, 2019 and
2018, providing more food
for breeding females by
quickly greening fields and
lawns.
“We can expect a normal
increase in the population
because of the mild winter,
but I haven’t heard of popu-
lation explosions for any of
these rodents,” said Sher-
man Takatori, Idaho State
Department of Agriculture
Pesticide Services program
manager.
He said more gophers
can survive winter in mild
conditions. The vole pop-
ulation can swing widely
on several factors includ-
ing weather, disease and
predator pressure. Neither
gophers nor voles hibernate.
As for ground squirrels,
“depending on the region,
they are either still in hiber-
nation, or starting to get
active and looking to feed
on whatever is out there and
available,” Takatori said.
Some Idaho regions and
farms remain rodent-chal-
lenged regardless of win-
ter severity or weather, he
said. Operations heavy on
forages and perennials have
ground that isn’t disturbed
much and offers limited
opportunity to alter habitat.
Idaho Gopher Control
machines force pressurized
carbon monoxide into tun-
nels. Turpin said the com-
pany is busy with alfalfa hay
growers.
She said the work ide-
ally takes place before hay
growth progresses to the
point that mounds can’t be
located. Otherwise, a farmer
may sacrifice some yield to
avoid mounds.
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Dairy Farmers of America
Members of the dairy industry are debating ways to improve the Federal Milk Mar-
keting Order system.
Industry mulls improvements to milk marketing orders
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The Federal Milk Market-
ing Order system is a means
to maintain orderly market-
ing conditions for milk, but
a lot of dairy farmers would
argue it soured the vat during
wild fluctuations caused by
the pandemic.
From pricing to pool-
ing, producers are calling
for reform of the complex
system — and how to make
improvements has captured
the attention of all sectors of
the industry.
One improvement would
be to simplify pricing so a
negative producer price dif-
ferential — which is alarm-
ing to producers — isn’t on
the milk check, said Tom
Wegner, director of gover-
nance and leader develop-
ment at the Land O’Lakes
cooperative.
Even more important is
simplifying pricing so mar-
kets on the Class I side and
Class III and IV side align in
timing, which would make
hedging easier, he said during
the latest “DairyLivestream”
podcast.
“I think more hedging at
the dairy producer level …
will really result in durable
dairy farms, sustainable dairy
farms,” he said.
The second thing would be
changes to the make allow-
ance, he said.
The make allowance is the
cost of manufacturing dairy
products and comes out of
producers’ milk checks.
Make allowances should
be updated on an annual basis,
perhaps through indexing, so
the industry doesn’t have to
go through a formal hearing
process to change them, he
said.
Calvin Covington, retired
CEO of Southeast Milk Inc.,
has been involved in federal
orders for more than 40 years
and said he sees four areas
that could be improved.
The first item is to use the
administrative process instead
of the legislative process to
amend federal orders.
“When Congress gets
involved, they have the ten-
dency to mess it up,” he said.
The administrative pro-
cess also allows all partners
to have a seat at the table, he
said.
The second item is to look
at the purpose of marketing
orders, which is to encourage
the movement of an adequate
supply of fluid milk for drink-
ing purposes. That purpose
works in some areas, such
as the Southeast, but federal
orders in other areas might
want to accomplish some-
thing else, he said.
The third item is participa-
tion in the orders and pooling
requirements.
“There’s room there to
have more equity and a fairer
system of who participates in
orders,” he said.
Only Class I processors
are required to be regulated.
Non-regulated plants can
decide whether they want to
be in the pool.
“We’ve had a lot of depool-
ing here over the last year
because it hasn’t been profit-
able to (stay in the pool),” he
said.
And those processors can
get back in the pool when it is
profitable, he said.
A lot of processors
depooled when the price of
Class III milk, used to make
cheese, skyrocketed so they
wouldn’t have to pay the reg-
ulated price. The value of that
depooled milk was not shared
by producers in the pool.
“Looking ahead, there
needs to be some kind of sta-
bility. You either need to be in
or out. If you’re going to be
out, you need to stay out for a
period of time. If you’re going
to be in, you need to be in to
make the system more fair
and equitable,” he said.
The fourth item is tweaks
and updates to the milk-pric-
ing system so the numbers
used to calculate milk prices
are looked at on a more regu-
lar basis, he said.
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