Capital Press
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, August 27, 2021
Volume 94, Number 35
CapitalPress.com
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LIGHTS, CAMERA, AUCTION
More equipment auctions going online
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
W
ASHOUGAL, Wash. —
Like many businesses
impacted by COVID-
19, last year marked a
crossroads for J. Stout
Kasey
Steendam
Auctions.
The company, which specializes in sell-
ing heavy equipment for construction and
agriculture, could no longer have in-per-
son crowds at its auctions due to pandemic
restrictions. Quarterly auctions hosted by
JSA in Spokane and Washougal, Wash.,
would routinely draw up to 1,000 bidders
from across the Northwest.
That’s when JSA and owner Jake
Stout began a digital transformation,
pivoting exclusively to online sales for
public health and safety.
“It was nerve-wracking for everyone,”
said Kasey Steendam, the company’s mar-
keting manager. “We weren’t sure how it
was going to be done.”
JSA held its fi rst online-only auction on
April 29, 2020, using live-streaming web-
cams to broadcast over the internet. Though
it wasn’t perfect — the video was too dark,
and the sound quality was less than ideal
— Steendam said they were pleasantly sur-
prised to see no decline in the number of reg-
istered bidders or item values.
By November, with a return to pre-pan-
demic life still uncertain, JSA made the
George Plaven/Capital Press
See Online, Page 9
The studio at J. Stout Auctions was designed to look like
a television newsroom.
Emergency worker protections put Oregon farms to the test
SALEM
—
Farm-
worker advocates are so
far pleased with emergency
rules adopted by Oregon
OSHA to protect workers
from extreme heat and wild-
fi re smoke, though they say
more education is needed to
make sure everyone is aware
of the new mandates.
On July 8, the state’s
workplace health and safety
agency announced a rule
requiring employers to pro-
vide suffi cient shade and
drinking water when the heat
index exceeds 80 degrees
Fahrenheit, and regular rest
periods when the heat index
exceeds 90 degrees.
The rule came on the
heels of a “heat dome”
that enveloped the Pacifi c
Northwest in late June,
with temperatures above
100 degrees. One farm-
worker, 38-year-old Sebas-
tian Francisco Perez, died
of an apparent heat stroke in
104-degree weather June 26
at Ernst Nursery and Farms
in St. Paul, Ore.
Oregon OSHA wasn’t
done there, adopting two
more rules on Aug. 2 estab-
lishing safeguards for work-
ers in heavy smoke and high
heat in employer-provided
housing.
The smoke rule requires
farms and businesses to
provide outdoor workers
with N95 masks when the
Air Quality Index, or AQI,
exceeds 201. AQI is a mea-
sure of air particle pollu-
tion using a scale from 0 to
500 — anything below 50
represents good air qual-
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press File
The new emergency rules adopted by Oregon OSHA are
intended to protect workers.
ity, and anything above 300
represents hazardous air
quality.
As for worker housing,
farms must provide cool-
ing areas for workers if they
cannot maintain an indoor
temperature of 78 degrees
or less.
All rules are temporary
and will remain in place for
180 days. An advisory com-
mittee is now working with
Oregon OSHA to adopt per-
manent heat and smoke
protections.
Reyna Lopez, executive
director of the farmwork-
ers union Pineros y Camp-
esinos Unidos del Noroeste,
or PCUN, said the rules are
having a positive impact.
During the week of Aug.
9, which brought another
multi-day, triple-digit heat
wave, she said they did not
hear of any more heat-re-
lated fatalities or injuries.
“The tone was just a lot
more positive than it was
that week of the heat dome,”
Lopez said.
PCUN recently con-
ducted surveys with 50
farmworkers in the Willa-
mette Valley to assess how
well they felt employers
were complying with the
rules. The vast majority,
Lopez said, indicated they
were being provided with
enough water and shade
during the extreme heat.
“Overall, people feel like
there are steps being taken to
follow the rules,” she said.
Since July 9, Oregon
OSHA has fi elded 971
workplace complaints from
across the state, according
to the agency’s records. Of
those, 136 were marked as
“heat-related.”
A Capital Press review
found that, of the 136
heat-related
complaints,
18 complaints were made
against 12 diff erent farms
and food processing com-
panies. Complaints ranged
from not providing access to
water or breaks, to workers
not being trained to recog-
nize the signs of heat-related
illnesses.
Each of those complaints
See Heat, Page 9
Biden EPA to ban pesticide chlorpyrifos
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Environmental Pro-
tection Agency informed a
federal court Aug. 18 that
it will ban the pesticide
chlorpyrifos, a crop-protec-
tion chemical widely used
in agriculture for more than
50 years.
The EPA said it could
not determine that aggregate
exposure to chlorpyrifos
meets the safety standards
of the Federal Food, Drug
and Cosmetic Act. “Accord-
ingly, EPA is revoking all
tolerances for chlorpyri-
fos,” the EPA stated in a
rule expected to be pub-
lished Aug. 19 in the Fed-
eral Register.
The ban will become
eff ective in six months.
The decision grants a
petition fi led in 2007 by two
anti-pesticide groups that
Founded in 1945
by Farmers and Ranchers.
Who saw a need for Rural Lending.
MEMBER FDIC
sought to ban chlorpyrifos.
The Obama EPA tentatively
proposed a ban, but resisted
court pressure to fi nalize
it, leaving the decision the
Trump administration.
The Trump EPA denied
the petition, but said it
would continue to study
whether chlorpyrifos meets
safety standards.
The 9th U.S. Circuit of
Appeals has consistently
sided with ban advocates
and pushed the Obama and
Trump administrations to
rule on the petition.
Ban advocates said
chlorpyrifos causes brain
damage in infants and
unborn children. The EPA,
under both Obama and
Trump, questioned the evi-
dence for that claim.
Household
use
of
chlorpyrifos, unless in
child-proof packaging, was
banned two decades ago.
Farm groups and the Obama
USDA defended chlorpyri-
fos’ use in commercial agri-
culture as safe and eff ective.
American Farm Bureau
Federation President Zippy
Duvall on Wednesday crit-
icized the Biden EPA for
departing from how pes-
ticides are reviewed and
registered.
“This administration has
See Ban, Page 9
Jed Myers and Nial Bradshaw are
Experienced Lenders with a focus on
Agricultural and Commercial Loans
and Operating Lines of Credit.
CALDWELL, ID
ONTARIO, OR
422 S. 9TH AVE.
435 SW 24TH ST.
208-402-4887
541-889-4464
JED MYERS
Ontario, OR
NIAL BRADSHAW
Ontario, OR
S228607-1
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press