3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2016
Proposed Oregon bike trail unnerves farmers
Growers are
concerned about
conlicts with
farm practices
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
CARLTON — Farmer
Scott Bernards has more than
one reason to be nervous
about bicyclists and joggers
regularly traveling a stretch of
abandoned railroad next to his
ield.
With the negative atten-
tion given to pesticides in
recent years, converting the
decommissioned railroad into
a hiking and biking trail could
complicate spray operations,
Bernards said.
“What if I don’t even see
them?” he said.
Expecting him and other
farmers to shut down sec-
tions of the proposed 17-mile
“Yamhelas Westsider Trail”
between Gaston and McMin-
nville when applying pesti-
cides is also unrealistic, Ber-
nards said.
“I never know exactly
when I’m going to spray,” he
said.
As the “rail to trail” pro-
posal gains steam among
Yamhill County oficials
and supporters, several local
farmers have been pushing
back against the project.
A chief concern is the reac-
tion that urban trail users will
have upon encountering com-
mon farming practices to
which they object for envi-
ronmental or philosophical
reasons.
“Farming is hard enough
without people from Portland
telling us what to do,” said
Chris Mattson, whose prop-
erty is bisected by roughly
1,000 feet of the railroad.
Aside from potential con-
licts with farm operations,
Bernards, Mattson and other
growers are worried about
the prospect of increased
trespassing, ire danger and
vandalism.
Mattson said he’s fenced
off his property abutting the
railroad because of problems
with teenagers drinking, rid-
ing all-terrain vehicles and
dumping trash on his property.
If the railroad becomes
an oficial trail and attracts
even more visitors, Mattson
said he’s worried it will be
inhabited by transients simi-
larly to the Springwater Cor-
ridor Trail in Portland, which
is known for homeless camps.
Supporters of the rail-to-
trail proposal say these con-
cerns are overblown given the
rural nature of the area.
“This is not Springwater,”
said Ken Wright, a winemaker
in Carlton who supports the
project.
The
nearby
21-mile
Banks-Vernonia State Trial
— an abandoned railroad pur-
chased by the state more than
four decades ago — hasn’t
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Farmer Scott Bernards speaks about why he’s nervous about the potential conversion of
an abandoned railroad into a hiking and biking trail next to one of his fields near Carlton.
caused increased crime or
attracted transients, he said.
“It’s more of a visceral
reaction than a reality,”
Wright said. “Those concerns
are not justiied by history.”
Conlicts between trail users
and landowners also haven’t
materialized, he said. “There
have been no issues with farm-
ing practices up there.”
New visitors to the area
would spend money on restau-
rants and lodgings, strength-
ening Yamhill County’s busi-
ness community, Wright said.
Clearing brush from the
overgrown railroad track
would actually reduce ire
hazards, and volunteers could
help with the work to contain
costs, he said.
There’s also a legitimate
reason why grant dollars
from the state Department
of Transportation should be
invested in the project: Bicy-
clists who already use Ore-
gon Route 47 are regularly
killed on the narrow state
highway, he said.
“They don’t want bikes
on these roads. It’s just death
waiting to happen,” Wright
said.
Roughly $2.3 million in
grants has been raised in sup-
port of the project, which is
also in contention for another
$1.2 million in grants from
ODOT, he said.
Yamhill County oficials
have offered to purchase nine
miles of the railroad from its
current owner, Union Paciic
Railroad, but those negoti-
ations are ongoing, Wright
said.
Capital Press was unable
to reach a representative of
Yamhill County as of press
time.
The Oregon Farm Bureau
has argued that Yamhill Coun-
ty’s commissioners should
irst complete the land use
process and issue a condi-
tional use permit for the trail
before spending money on the
land.
The bureau disagrees
with the county’s view that it
would be premature to begin
the land use process before
the county buys the railroad,
said Mary Anne Nash, pub-
lic policy counsel for the
farm bureau, in a letter to the
commissioners.
“Constructing a bike path
near agricultural lands cre-
ates a host of potential con-
licts and liability concerns
which the county has yet
to address,” the letter said.
“These concerns should be
addressed before the county
invests more resources in this
project.”
Human-caused warming burns more Western forests
By KEITH RIDLER
Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — A new
study of Western forest ires
conirms what is already
apparent — wildire seasons
are getting longer and more
destructive.
But researchers with the
University of Idaho and Colum-
bia University also say humans
are to blame.
The study says human-
caused global warming con-
tributed an additional 16,000
square miles of burned forests
from 1984 to 2015.
Researchers say the 16,000
square miles represent half of
the forest areas that burned over
the last three decades.
“We’re no longer wait-
ing for human-caused climate
change to leave its ingerprint
on wildire across the western
U.S.,” John Abatzoglou, the
study’s lead author and an asso-
ciate professor of geography at
the University of Idaho, said in
a statement. “It’s already here.”
The authors of the study,
published online in the Pro-
ceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences, say it’s the
irst to try to quantify how much
human-caused climate change
has increased wildires in West-
ern forests. Some other factors
that had to be considered as
contributing to the increase, the
report said, included a legacy
of ire suppression in the West,
natural climate variability, and
human settlement.
The study found that longer
and hotter dry spells are caus-
ing Western forests to dry out
and become more susceptible
to wildires.
Speciically,
researchers
said, spring and summer tem-
peratures have warmed by
2 to 2.5 degrees since 1950.
Researchers said that warm-
ing accounts for 55 percent of
what they call “fuel aridity”
from 1979 to 2015. The study
attributed the other 45 percent
to natural climate variations.
The study found that since
2000 there’s been a 75 percent
increase in forested lands with
elevated aridity and nine more
days each year with dry for-
ests especially susceptible to
wildires.
“Anthropogenic
climate
change has emerged as a driver
of increased forest ire activity,”
the report says.
Park Williams of Columbia
University’s Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory, and a co-au-
thor of the study, said the report
provides a better understanding
of the effects human-caused
global warming has on West-
ern forests.
“This knowledge will allow
us to make more educated ire
and land management deci-
sions,” he said.
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Friday
Oct. 14 th
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