Friday, June 11, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
BLM again faulted for proposed
logging in recreation zone
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The U.S. Bureau of Land
Management has violated a
court order by again propos-
ing to harvest timber within
a “recreation management
zone” on public land near
Springfi eld, Ore., according
to a federal judge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge
Mustafa Kasubhai has rec-
ommended that environ-
mental groups prevail in
their claim that BLM’s 100-
acre Pedal Power project is
inconsistent with the Fed-
eral Land Policy and Man-
agement Act.
The timber sale was
previously found to vio-
late federal law in 2019 by
U.S. District Judge Michael
McShane, who faulted BLM
for proposing to “cut the
trees fi rst, zone the buff er
later” along recreation trails
in the Thurston Hills area.
The judge said that
“allowing logging and then
establishing a Recreation
Management Zone at some
unspecifi ed later date—if
at all—seems to defeat the
Zone’s very purpose.”
Last year, the agency
re-proposed the project
with a “recreation manage-
ment zone” surrounding the
trails, which would be con-
structed once the logging
was fi nished. The BLM
argued that it’d be ineffi cient
to develop the trails before-
hand because harvest oper-
ations would “rip them up.”
The Cascadia Wildlands
and Oregon Wild nonprofi ts
fi led another lawsuit against
the timber sale, alleging the
government was “trying the
same thing and expecting
diff erent results” by logging
within the buff er zone.
Judge Kasubhai has now
agreed with the environmen-
tal plaintiff s that BLM failed
to follow the instructions of
the earlier court order, since
its revised version of the
project “proposes to log the
identical area.”
“In other words, other
than simply adding the trail
designations and an RMZ
to a map, BLM has not
taken affi rmative steps to
preserve the RMZ in any
meaningful manner prior to
the harvest as ordered by
Judge McShane,” he said.
“Because BLM’s current
plan fails to take affi rmative
steps to preserve the RMZ
prior to timber harvesting,
it violates Judge McShane’s
prior order as a matter of
law.”
However, the judge rec-
ommended that BLM and
the Seneca Sawmill Co.
— which intervened in the
case — were correct that
the project complied with
the National Environmental
Policy Act.
In the earlier lawsuit, the
agency was found to violate
NEPA by not taking a suffi -
cient “hard look” at the proj-
ect’s fi re risks and not shar-
ing important information
with the public.
Judge Kasubhai has now
determined that BLM has
corrected these fl aws in its
revised plan, in which the
agency concluded the proj-
ect’s “eff ects on fi re hazard
would be the same under all
alternatives, although the
timing of these eff ects would
diff er.”
The parties in the lawsuit
will now fi le arguments over
the appropriate remedy for
BLM’s violation of FLPMA.
The ultimate decision will
be made by a U.S. district
judge who reviews Kasu-
bhai’s recommendations.
Weeds fi nd some advantages in dry
soils of southern Idaho, SE Oregon
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
A mostly dry, windy spring gave
weeds some advantages as crop-grow-
ing season got underway in southern
Idaho and southeastern Oregon.
“One of the problems we had was
the wind,” said Brent Zeyer, a retired
Melba, Idaho, farmer who helps son
Tad with operations. “We couldn’t put
out post-emergent herbicide on the
schedule we wanted to.”
They since have caught up, he said.
Joel Felix, weed-management
researcher at the Oregon State Univer-
sity Malheur Experiment Station, said
dry, windy conditions slowed onion
farmers’ weed management soon after
planting.
Wind delayed spraying. And in dry
soil, an herbicide applied in the late
pre-emergence stage did not get the
moisture it needed to activate. Weeds
in turn emerged. These growers thus
had to wait until onions reached the
two-leaf stage before applying another
chemical, he said.
“By and large they have caught up,”
Felix said. “Except now, Yellow Nut-
sedge has come up and they are using
an herbicide through drip irrigation to
control it.”
Albert Adjesiwor, weed scientist
at the University of Idaho Kimberly
Research and Extension Center, said
pre-emergent herbicides in dry soil not
only can lack the soil moisture they
need to activate, but, “if it is dry and
windy, those herbicides are going to be
lost very fast from soil.”
And post-emergent herbicides won’t
kill weeds as eff ectively as they would
in normal conditions, he said.
Farmers who have limited options to
Courtesy UI
Albert Adjesiwor, weed scientist at the University of Idaho Kimberly Re-
search and Extension Center.
use a pre-emergent, because the soil is
too dry, can wait and apply a post-emer-
gent “hoping there are some good con-
ditions,” Adjesiwor said.
But relying only on post-emergent
herbicides increases the chances that
weeds will escape the farmer’s control,
he said.
“Weed escapes are a recipe for
disaster,” Adjesiwor said. Challenges
include the immediate work as well
as increased future risk the weed will
develop resistance to the herbicide, pro-
duce seed and escape again.
Adjesiwor said dry soils leave fewer
soil microorganisms to break down her-
bicide, which can limit planting options
the following year.
Roger Batt, statewide coordinator
for the Idaho Weed Awareness Cam-
paign, said overall weed pressure hasn’t
changed much from 2020 to this year.
But late-May rains, followed by heat,
“are going to result in some new growth
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and some added weed pressure,”
Some species are thriving more.
“We do see a lot more Kochia,” Batt
said.
As for noxious weeds, Poison Hem-
lock “is out in full force” and the recent
rain prompted puncture vine to emerge,
he said. Whitetop, or Hoary Cress —
equipped with a horizontal and verti-
cal root system and now nearing its last
blooming stages — will seed for next
year if not controlled. Morning Glory,
or Field Bindweed, also has a trouble-
some root system.
“We’re also starting to see Rush
Skeletonweed,” Batt said. It’s hard to
eradicate, crowds out native vegetation
and has no nutritional value — signifi -
cant in that it causes grazing and other
animals to move to other areas.
Salt Cedar or Tamarisk also is
appearing, he said. It’s a high-volume
consumer of water, a potential problem
in a dry year.
Wheel Rakes
8-,10- and 12-wheel models
Central Oregon farmer off ers
grim picture to state legislators
By MICHAEL KOHN
EO Media Group
Cate
Havstad-Casad,
co-owner of Casad Fam-
ily Farms, didn’t hold back
last week while speaking on
a Zoom call with state repre-
sentatives about the drought
conditions aff ecting farmers
in Jeff erson County, Ore.
Speaking during a meet-
ing of the House Water Com-
mittee chaired by Rep. Ken
Helm, D-Beaverton, Havs-
tad-Casad told the legisla-
tors in stark terms that Jeff er-
son County farms are starving
for water while farms in other
parts of the Deschutes Basin
have more water than they
need.
“What is happening
through the forced dry up
of this district, because we
are junior water rights hold-
ers, is a massive ecological
and a social disaster that not
many people truly understand
is happening,” said Havs-
tad-Casad, a patron of the
North Unit Irrigation District.
Havstad-Casad,
a
fi rst-generation farmer, was
highlighting concerns raised
by others in Jeff erson County,
whose water allotments this
year are so small that roughly
half the county’s farmland is
fallow. When the wind kicks
up, the exposed ground cre-
ates clouds of dust in the Cen-
tral Oregon sky as topsoil gets
blown off the landscape.
“We watch it happen. We
stand in the middle of it. It’s
like watching your children’s
future blow away,” she said.
She had been invited to
speak to the legislators by the
Coalition for the Deschutes,
a nonprofi t that works with
both farmers and environ-
mentalists to protect the
Deschutes River.
Havstad-Casad said farm-
ers are also facing fi nancial
hardship because their costs
remain just as high as a nor-
mal season, but their profi ts are
slashed due to the lost acreage.
“While we maintain
100% of our overhead costs,
we are only able to farm 40%
of our land because of the
40% allotment we have been
given,” said Havstad-Casad,
who practices regenerative
agriculture on 200 acres.
She has been farming near
Madras since 2017 after
moving there from a smaller
property
near Bend.
Drought
and
low
reservoirs
are the pri-
mary rea-
sons behind
Cate
the drop in
Havstad-
water allot-
Casad
m e n t s .
Wickiup Reservoir, the
source of water for the North
Unit Irrigation District, was
just 31% full as of Friday. In
an average year on the same
date, the reservoir would be
79% full.
At its current pace, the
reservoir will be empty by
early August.
The reservoir is draining
quickly even though North
Unit patrons are getting just
1 acre-foot of water. Water
patrons of other irrigation
districts, including the Cen-
tral Oregon Irrigation Dis-
trict (COID), are getting
three times that amount.
That’s because districts like
COID have older (senior)
water rights, so when water
resources are restricted due
to drought, junior rights
holders have to curtail their
water usage. Junior water
rights holders get cut off in
times of shortages.
Farmers are asking Ore-
gon’s legislators to eliminate
red tape that makes sharing
water diffi cult.
Tod Heisler, director of
the rivers program for Cen-
tral Oregon LandWatch, said
the barriers to sharing water
are the result of a lack of
legislation.
“In response to drought,
COID off ered to allow
patrons to share their water
with farmers in Jeff erson
County,” said Heisler. “But
without a program in place to
do this, and a concerted com-
munications eff ort to recruit
patrons into the program, it is
questionable what can actu-
ally happen.”
Greg Mintz, legislative
director for Rep. Ken Helm,
D-Washington County, said
state legislators are work-
ing to resolve the water cri-
sis faced by Jeff erson County
farmers. House Bill 3103A
could make a diff erence, he
said. This bill seeks to “fi x
Oregon’s broken statute for
transfers of stored water,” said
Mintz.
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