A3
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
Forum: ‘Greatest stories reveal something’
Christmas tree farmers
are facing tough times
Continued from Page A1
was where the “alcohol-
ics and screw ups” went.
“I loved it because it
gave me a thick skin and
it taught me how to be a
reporter, ” he said.
By 1993, Hallman had
won a national award.
“I say what I bring
through story is not intel-
lect. What I bring is
heart,” he said.
By KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
A seedling shortage a
decade ago has left some
Oregon Christmas tree farm-
ers with no trees to sell this
year, and back-to-back hot
summers in recent years
have left others looking for
ways to adapt to a changing
climate.
Cher Tollefson, co-owner
of Historic Kirchem Tree
Farm outside of Oregon City,
said her fi elds will be closed
this season for the fi rst time
in 27 years.
“We just don’t have the
trees,” she said. “We have
2,000 that will be ready next
year, but they are not up to
size. They are not up to our
standards.”
Christmas trees take
between seven and 11 years
to mature and, just about a
decade ago, seedling suppli-
ers grew too few small trees
to go around, according to
Chal Landgren, a Christ-
mas tree specialist at Oregon
State University.
“It became harder to get
them,” he said. “Nurser-
ies didn’t want to grow on
speculation.”
Now, 10 years later, that
short supply of seedlings has
left fi elds full of trees that are
too short to sell, according to
Tollefson.
Then in 2017 and 2018,
the
Pacifi c
Northwest
sweated through two hot
and dry summers in a row.
Those conditions can be
particularly hard on young
trees, Landgren said. Christ-
mas trees aren’t irrigated,
they are “watered by God,”
as Tollefson said, and young
Practicing his craft
Christmas tree farmers in Oregon are facing a tough season in
2019 after a seedling shortage a decade ago left some farms
with no trees to sell.
trees are especially suscepti-
ble to heat stress.
She said the 110-acre
farm lost a “high percentage”
of its seedlings. Once trees
are established, they stand a
better chance of withstand-
ing high temperatures.
The hot summers of
late had no effect on this
year’s crop, but they have
left Christmas tree farm-
ers looking for ways to cope
with longer and warmer dry
seasons.
With climate change
expected to increase the fre-
quency of hot and dry sum-
mers, some farmers have
begun looking for ways to
adapt. Growers are looking
at new mulching strategies
that retain more moisture,
erecting shade structures and
planting different species
of trees that are more heat
tolerant.
Others are diversify-
ing their crops, opting to
grow products with shorter
rotations, like grass seed
or hazelnuts. Tollefson set
aside a few acres this year
and hosted a pumpkin patch
around Halloween, complete
with games for kids, food
carts and beer for adults.
That supplemental business
won’t come close to making
up for the lost tree business,
however.
“It’s not a fun time to be
in the business,” she said. “In
an average year we’ll take
in $30,000 to $50,000. This
year is a big zero.”
Landgren
said
that,
despite some farms facing
trouble this year, others were
forced to close for last sea-
son for similar reasons and
should have a decent crop.
He said Oregon typically
produces about 4.2 million
Christmas trees annually
and looks to be on track to
get close to that number this
year.
With some growers side-
lined, Landgren cautioned
that others could be tempted
to raise prices.
“In general prices may go
up,” he said. “But if you talk
to growers, we’re about right
in terms of supply.”
Timber: Lawsuit focused on three
words — ‘greatest permanent value’
Continued from Page A1
In a statement, the Ore-
gon Department of Forestry
said it “believes that balanced
and science-based public for-
est management produces the
best long-term outcomes for
all Oregonians, including the
counties and taxing districts
that receive revenue from
state forests.
“We are disappointed that
the jury did not agree ... We
will be reviewing options
and next steps with attorneys
from the Oregon Department
of Justice.”
During the four-week
trial, attorneys for the state
had argued that the counties
wanted to allow clearcutting
of forests and did not care
about endangered species.
The lawsuit was focused
on three words — “great-
est permanent value” — and
what that meant when the
phrase was written into law
80 years ago.
Lawyers for the counties
say it meant maximizing rev-
enue from logging. Attor-
neys for the state argue that it
includes other factors such as
recreation and habitat.
The law stemmed from
a time decades ago when
private lumber companies
descended on Oregon and
clearcut forests. Instead of
paying taxes, the companies
left counties to deal with the
land in a practice known as
cut and run.
The counties didn’t have
the resources to restore the
land. So, during his 1939
inaugural address, Gov.
Charles Sprague urged the
Legislature to pass a bill
allowing the state to desig-
nate the land as state forests,
grow back the trees and man-
age the land “to secure the
greatest permanent value”
and share revenue with the
counties.
The law enabled the state
to adopt about 1,000 square
miles — roughly the size
of Rhode Island — from 15
counties that receive 64% of
the logging revenues. Clat-
sop County was the only
county that declined to join
the lawsuit.
The counties claim the
state breached the contact in
1998 when it adopted a rule
defi ning greatest permanent
value to mean healthy, pro-
In observance of Thanksgiving
will be closed
Thanksgiving Day
November 28 th
The Thanksgiving
edition will
be delivered
Wednesday,
November 27 th
ductive and sustainable for-
est ecosystems that provide
a social, economic and envi-
ronmental benefi ts to the peo-
ple of Oregon.
Attorneys for the counties
made it clear they want the
trees treated as a commodity
to be exploited.
“Timber is like a crop of
wheat, except for a longer
growing season, isn’t that
right?” John DiLorenzo, a
Portland attorney hired by the
plaintiffs, asked one witness
at the trial.
He also noted that smaller
timber harvests mean fewer
jobs in logging, milling,
transportation and other
services.
Scott Kaplan, an attorney
for the state, declared that the
counties’ vision of greatest
permanent value is “turning
Oregon into a tree farm from
the Cascades to the Pacifi c.”
Nicole Bales of The Asto-
rian and The Oregonian
contributed to this report.
Hallman
doesn’t
like writing. “Writing
is awful,” he said, but
he enjoys interviewing
people.
“The greatest stories
reveal something” Hall-
man said. “I learn about
somebody’s life and I
learn more about them
than their spouse might,
(more) than even their
therapist might.”
Hallman is a listener
and strives to write with
voice, feeling and heart.
He tries to get out of the
way in his stories and let
dialogue from his reporting
do the work.
Hallman gave an exam-
ple of a story about the San-
ford & Sun Triathlon that
started out with a standard
newspaper lead. It could
have shined, however, if the
writer used a detail included
at the end of the story
about a father who pulls his
13-year-old daughter who
has cerebral palsy with him
in his races, he said.
When he wrote the story
about prom dresses, he real-
ized it would be a challenge
since there were over 3,000
girls there.
So, he chose to focus on
the universal human emo-
tions a prom dress brings.
“It’s just a dress. Only
a few yards of fabric on a
hanger. Take the fi nest, most
expensive silk ever spun
and there’s still no life and
certainly no magic. What
a dress always needs is a
girl. A girl and a dress take
a father’s breath away. …
A girl and her dress stand
before her mother and you
realize despite all the argu-
ments over messy rooms
and dirty dishes, they share
a bond that doesn’t need to
be expressed with words
… A girl and a dress stands
before a mirror and sees her
past and her future.”
“My stories are simple in
the words, complex in the
thought and complex in the
structure,” Hallman said.
Because he gains the
trust of his subjects, he lets
them look over stories that
aren’t news before they run.
“When you write a book
you are asking someone to
give you their heart that you
can sell,” he said.
He recognizes the com-
mercial nature of report-
ing on people’s lives. He
spoke about a time when he
observed a family who let
a baby die that had a birth
defect.
The mother told Hall-
man, “I n my child’s 27-day
life, he will live on forever
because of the story you
wrote.”
U.S. Highway 101 could be reconfi gured in Gearhart.
Highway: ‘We’re still really in the beginning’
Continued from Page A1
Seventy-fi ve poten-
tial projects are listed
in the plan, which out-
lines policies and proj-
ects considered important
to protecting and enhanc-
ing the quality of life in
Gearhart.
For Highway 101, the
plan presents an option
for the new confi guration
through most of Gearhart,
with additional lanes at
intersections as needed.
Traffi c safety and
emergency evacuation is
a key concern to city lead-
ers, given their role in mov-
ing people during emergen-
cies , such as a tsunami .
“We’re still having inter-
nal conversations on whether
this could be done with strip-
ing, if it needs to be a part of
a paving project, or if it needs
to be part of another project,”
Shonkwiler said. “We’re still
really in the beginning of this.
We know the direction right
now. We’re just trying to fi nd
out the details.”
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