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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2016
Audit faults Water Resources Department management
Improvements
needed in
planning, data
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — An audit by the
Secretary of State’s Office calls
on the state Water Resources
Department to improve its
long-term planning and man-
agement of Oregon’s water
supply.
The department is responsi-
ble for allocating water rights,
enforcing the state’s water
laws and other aspects of water
management. It’s overseen by
a citizen commission.
Noting that the state’s water
problems are positioned to
Sean Ellis/EO Media Group
A sugar beet field in Eastern
Oregon is irrigated in June.
An audit released Thursday
by the Secretary of State’s
Office calls on the state’s Wa-
ter Resources Department
to improve its long-term
planning and management
of Oregon’s water supply.
worsen, the secretary of state’s
findings say the department
could do more to “sustain cur-
rent and future water needs,”
protect groundwater, and col-
lect and analyze information
about the state’s water.
The audit, released Thurs-
day, comes on the heels of
the governor’s 2015 county
drought declarations and state
efforts to prioritize water issues
in their wake.
A legislative drought task
force recently identified gaps
in the state’s systems and
resources for preventing and
responding to drought.
While the Water Resources
Department gathers a lot of
information about water sup-
ply, the department hasn’t been
able to analyze all of it, the
audit found.
For example, the depart-
ment’s water availability mod-
els are based on decades-old
data, although the department
has 17 years’ worth of infor-
mation about streamflow mea-
surement collected after 1987.
In other areas of water man-
agement, such as water use
reporting, the department lacks
data altogether, the audit found.
“Only about 20 percent
of water rights holders are
required to report how much
water they use to (the Water
Resources Department),” the
audit states.
Agricultural users — who
account for up to 85 percent
of the state’s water use —
aren’t required to report how
much they use. As a result,
the department lacks “a clear
understanding of how much
water is actually being used,”
the audit states.
Additionally, the depart-
ment has focused more on col-
lecting data on surface water
than groundwater, demand for
which is growing.
The audit also recom-
mended the department adopt
an overarching plan to set long-
term water goals, and improve
communication and how it
manages its workload.
Finally, the audit noted that
planning is key to managing
the state’s water in the long
run.
“There is growing pressure
on Oregon’s water system,” the
audit states. “The state relies on
snowpack and rainwater for its
water system, and it is unclear
how climate change will affect
future precipitation patterns
and water availability.”
The department’s direc-
tor, Thomas Byler, generally
agreed with the audit’s findings
in a letter to Mary Wenger, the
interim director of the secre-
tary of state’s audits division.
In many areas, Byler noted,
the department had limited
funding to enact all of the rec-
ommended changes, although
they have already made some
strides — such as using tech-
nology to improve internal
communications and gather-
ing feedback from the state’s
watermasters on how water
use measurement could be
improved.
Byler said that the state’s
2012
Integrated
Water
Resources Strategy “provides
a long-term blueprint” for
helping the state meet its cur-
rent and future instream and
out-of-stream water needs, but
that the department intended
to set out more detailed goals
to align with the broader
strategy.
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
Tastes like popcorn: Eugene man eats, sells cricket snacks
He likes them
with chips, salsa
By ALISHA ROEMELING
The Register-Guard
EUGENE — Some describe
the taste as nutty or having the
flavor of a sunflower seed.
Austin Miller of Eugene
says the crunchy brown mor-
sels taste like popcorn.
But Miller, a 33-year-old
with an unusual new business,
isn’t describing a typical snack.
He’s talking about crickets.
Eating crickets.
“The primary way I eat
them is on chips with salsa,
maybe five or six per chip,”
Miller said. “Sometimes I put
a handful on a salad. They
pair well with soft cheeses as
well, but their appeal isn’t their
unique awesome flavor. Really,
they just provide a protein-rich
crunch.”
Miller breeds, raises,
freezes, boils, bakes and pack-
ages the small insects for
humans to buy — and eat.
His business, Craft Crickets
in west Eugene, has started sell-
ing crickets through its website.
The thought of eating crick-
ets may be revolting to most
Americans, but Miller and oth-
ers contend that the insects are a
nutritious and environmentally
friendly food source that will
play a larger role in the human
diet as the world’s population
explodes.
“When the world has 9 bil-
lion people, we’re not going to
be able to necessarily feed the
population with our current
agricultural practices,” Miller
said. “I’m not sure if it will be
in five years or 50, but we’ll all
be eating insects eventually.”
About 30 companies in the
United States sell insect-based
food items, he said, including
a handful of cricket breeding,
raising and processing firms.
Cricket Flours, founded in
Eugene in 2014 by two Uni-
versity of Oregon graduate stu-
dents, started by making flour
from ground crickets. The
founders moved their firm to
Portland. Earlier this year, they
said they had developed the
world’s first brownie mix with
milled crickets.
In other states, Aspire Food
Group, Exo, Chapul and All
Things Bugs sell cricket-based
products, ranging from flour
to protein bars, cricket powder
and whole crickets.
Aspire, based in Austin,
Texas, claims to be a “global
industry leader in the edible
insect movement.” The com-
pany, with operations in Texas
and in Ghana, west Africa, says
it works to raise food-grade
crickets on a commercial scale
as well as normalize the con-
sumption of insects in the West-
ern world.
There’s a variety of ways
people can consume the tiny,
protein-packed bugs, accord-
ing to Miller, who says he often
adds crickets to tacos for extra
texture. His life partner, Zoe
Anton, 32, grinds them up in a
food processor and puts them
in shakes or bakes the remains
into a cake for added protein.
“It’s probably the most pro-
tein-rich cake that I’ve ever
eaten,” Miller said.
His company’s crickets are
not seasoned with spices or
Kelly Lyon/The Register-Guard
Austin Miller eats a cricket
he raised inside a ware-
house in Eugene.
salt. After being baked, they’re
packaged — antennas, legs,
eyes and all — into 2- and
4-ounce resealable bags. The
2-ounce bag costs $15 and con-
tains about 650 to 750 crick-
ets. The 4-ounce bags cost $20
each and have about twice the
amount of baked bugs.
At Craft Crickets, Miller
raises about 500,000 crickets at
a time in a 3,000-square-foot,
rented warehouse on Conger
Street, off West 11th Avenue.
He and Anton became inter-
ested, and eventually passion-
Kelly Lyon/The Register-Guard
Austin Miller handles some of the crickets he raises in-
side a warehouse in Eugene.
ate about, eating insects fol-
lowing a yearlong trip to such
countries as Belize, Guatemala,
Honduras and Mexico.
“We did some traveling in
South America, where eating
insects is very common,” Miller
said. “In Oaxaca (Mexico) they
sort of pan fry them and sea-
son them, and then sell them in
large bags and people eat it like
candy — they’re tasty.”
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