A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2020
IN BRIEF
Warrenton man dies after arrest
A Warrenton man died in the Clatsop County Jail
after having a medical emergency, offi cials said.
Alexander Jimenez, 34, was arrested Friday eve-
ning by Warrenton police for disorderly conduct and
resisting arrest.
Offi cials said offi cers took Jimenez to Columbia
Memorial Hospital in Astoria for medical clearance
prior to bringing him to the jail.
After Jimenez arrived at the jail, offi cials said he
experienced a medical emergency in the sally port and
medical staff and deputies tried to save him. He was
taken to Columbia Memorial, where he later died.
The major crimes team and the county medical
examiner are investigating.
— The Astorian
Two coronavirus cases
reported in Pacifi c County
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Two locally confi rmed
cases of the coronavirus in Pacifi c County were
announced on Saturday and Sunday.
Both people were isolated at home, the county said
in press releases. No other details were provided.
“Pacifi c County public health nurses are conduct-
ing a thorough investigation to identify potential expo-
sures and notify close contacts. Contact investigations
are critical to track and prevent the spread of disease,”
the county said.
Another person who listed Pacifi c County as a resi-
dence tested positive for the virus in another state.
— Chinook Observer
Unemployment claims
near 2,500 in county
Another 605 people in Clatsop County applied for
unemployment insurance over the past week, part of
53,800 more claims statewide.
Nearly 2,500 people in the county have applied for
unemployment over the past month since President
Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the
coronavirus, part of around 22 million claims nation-
wide and nearly 300,000 in Oregon.
More than half of the claims in the county have
come from the accommodations and food services
industries. More than 300 retail workers have fi led for
unemployment in the county with the economic slow-
down, along with more than 220 health care work-
ers as hospitals and clinics restrict nonemergency
procedures.
— The Astorian
Popular osprey cam is off
SEASIDE — The osprey cam at Broadway Park
will not be running this year.
The camera appears to have been damaged some-
time over the last year and isn’t functioning, Angie
Reseland, the executive director of the Necanicum
Watershed Council, said.
— The Astorian
CORRECTION
Number incorrect — The Warrenton-Hammond
In
School Brief
District has loaned out over 150 computers
to help students during the coronavirus pandemic. A
story on A1 on Saturday incorrectly said the district
Correction
had loaned out over 500.
ON THE RECORD
DUII
• Eva Puckett, 40,
On
the
Record
•
Kiley
Kristine
of
Warrenton,
was
Holdiman, 20, of War-
renton, was arrested Sun-
day on Olney Avenue in
Astoria for driving under
the infl uence of intoxi-
cants. Her blood alcohol
content was 0.16%.
arrested Friday on N.E.
Skipanon Drive in War-
renton for DUII and two
counts of reckless endan-
germent. Her blood
alcohol content was
0.16%.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Union Health District of Clatsop County Board, 8 a.m.,
(teleconference).
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., workshop, 10 Pier 1,
Suite 209, (Zoom teleconference).
Astoria Historic Landmarks Commission, 5:15 p.m., City
Hall, 1095 Duane St.
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board
of Directors, 5:15 p.m., regular meeting; 6 p.m., budget
meeting, Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue
A, Seaside.
Seaside School District Board of Directors, 6 p.m., bud-
get committee meeting immediately followed by regular
meeting (Zoom teleconference).
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 5 p.m., work
session; 6 p.m., meeting, (teleconference).
THURSDAY
Sunset Empire Transportation District Board, 9 a.m.,
(teleconference).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Climate has changed
farming in the Northwest
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Pat Dudley and her hus-
band, Ted Casteel, began
growing wine grapes more
than 40 years ago in the
Eola-Amity Hills of Oregon’s
lush Willamette Valley.
About 50 miles south-
west of Portland, their vine-
yard lies in the direct path of
the Van Duzer Corridor — a
low point in the Coast Range
where cool winds from the
Pacifi c Ocean
travel inland,
creating the
perfect cli-
mate for pro-
ducing pinot
noir grapes.
W h i l e
most grapes used to make red
wine varieties prefer warmer
weather, pinot noir is a nota-
ble exception. Lower night-
time temperatures in the
Eola-Amity Hills help to
keep the fruit fresh, imparting
higher acidity and lower alco-
hol content by comparison.
But climate change poses
a new challenge for Oregon
winemakers and their $200
million industry. Dudley,
president of Bethel Heights
Vineyard and a former mem-
ber of the state Board of Agri-
culture, said the delicate bal-
ance of growing conditions
may be at risk.
“Everybody is talking
about it,” she said. “People
are starting to make diffi cult
choices.”
Rising average tempera-
tures are affecting farm-
ers and ranchers across the
Northwest, altering growing
seasons, threatening water
supplies and, in some cases,
prompting farmers to change
crops or fallow land.
According to the latest
census by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, the aver-
age age of farmers is now 58.
Over their lifetime, scientifi c
data reveals a warming trend
correlated to an increase in
greenhouse gases. Studies are
now showing how that will
affect everything from pre-
cipitation to pest and disease
pressure.
Andrea Johnson
Workers harvest wine grapes at Bethel Heights Vineyard in Oregon, makers of pinot noir,
chardonnay and other varieties.
are up 143.2% since 1970.
Mote is quick to acknowl-
edge that Earth’s climate is
naturally variable, though
scientifi c consensus is clear
that the current trend is
human-caused.
For example, Mote com-
pared the year 2015 — which
saw record low snowpacks at
80% of his monitoring sites
— to 1934, a similarly warm
year in the Northwest. Both
years were hotter than aver-
age, Mote said, due partly
to natural variability. How-
ever, 2015 was an additional
2 degrees warmer, a phenom-
enon Mote attributes to more
heat-trapping
greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere.
“The last few decades,
(trends have) clearly emerged
to the point where we can
now distinguish non natural
climatic changes from nat-
ural climatic changes,” he
said. “We’ll continue to see
reduced spring snowpack
and lower summer stream
fl ow.”
‘EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT
IT. PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO
MAKE DIFFICULT CHOICES.’
Snowpack declines
Water supply
Perhaps the biggest con-
sequence of climate change
for Western agriculture is
decreasing mountain snow-
pack, which acts as a natural
reservoir for streams and riv-
ers that provide fi sh and wild-
life habitat, as well as irriga-
tion for crops and livestock.
Philip Mote, who until
recently served as director of
the Oregon Climate Change
Research Institute at Oregon
State University, has pub-
lished several studies chart-
ing snow levels at nearly 700
monitoring stations across the
West.
The most recent study
published in 2018 shows that,
compared to 1955, 90% of
sites had a snowpack decline.
Of those, 1 in 3 sites saw sig-
nifi cant declines. The biggest
drops were measured during
the spring in parts of West
Coast states with typically
mild winters.
To put that in perspec-
tive, Mote said the volume
of water lost by April 1 each
year is comparable to the
West’s largest reservoir, Lake
Mead, which can hold more
than 26 million acre-feet of
water.
“It was a much larger
impact than I expected,”
Mote said. “It jumped off the
page.”
At the same time, global
temperatures have gener-
ally risen between 1 and 1.5
degrees Fahrenheit since
1980 and worldwide carbon
dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels and cement production
Drier, warmer winters
in the mountains affect run-
off and irrigation supplies
in many of the Northwest’s
most productive agricultural
regions.
Irrigation means every-
thing to Owyhee Produce, a
sprawling operation strad-
dling the arid Oregon-Idaho
state line where farms typ-
ically receive less than 7
inches of rain per year.
Owyhee Produce is the
packing and marketing arm
of Froerer Farms, a third-gen-
eration farm based in Nyssa.
Shay Myers serves as CEO
of the operation, growing
4,200 acres of onions, aspara-
gus, beans, corn, mint, wheat,
alfalfa and hemp.
“Everything grown is
dependent on irrigation,”
Myers said, pointing to the
desert climate. Here, sum-
mer high temperatures can
reach 95 degrees. Without the
intricate network of irriga-
tion ditches and canals, pro-
ductive farms become noth-
ing more than sun-baked sand
and sage.
Froerer Farms gets its
water from the Owyhee
Irrigation District, which
includes Owyhee Reservoir.
The 13,900-acre reservoir
provides water to more than
167,000 acres of farmland.
At full allotment, farmers
receive 4 acre-feet of water
per acre of farmland.
However, Myers said
lower spring runoff over the
past decade has meant less
water from the reservoir.
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For the fi rst time since his
grandfather started the farm
in the late 1950s, Myers said,
the farm had to leave several
hundred acres fallow in 2015
and 2016, at a cost of about
$400 per acre. Canals that
would normally carry water
through September instead
went dry in August.
“We’ve had less consis-
tent fi lling of our reservoir,
and more fallowing of our
ground,” Myers said. “It’s
been more exaggerated over
the last 5 to 10 years.”
Myers said he expects
water supply volatility to
continue across the region.
In response, he said some
farmers have drilled wells as
a backup water supply, and
switched from fl ood irriga-
tion to drip irrigation to con-
serve water.
Over 90% of the onion
crop is now drip-irrigated
compared to just 10 to 20%
15 years ago, Myers said.
The warming climate has
not been entirely negative for
Jeff Hale,
Contractor
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Owyhee Produce. One bene-
fi t is a longer growing season.
With 30 more days on aver-
age between the last frost in
spring and the fi rst frost in
autumn, the farm has begun
growing sweet potatoes, nor-
mally a subtropical crop, he
said.
“We could see the window
of opportunity,” Myers said.
Changing seasons
Changes in the length and
intensity of the growing sea-
son also present new chal-
lenges for other Northwest
farmers.
Gregory Jones, director of
the Evenstad Center for Wine
Education at Linfi eld College
in McMinnville, gave a pre-
sentation on climate change
at the annual Oregon Wine
Symposium in February.
He used data from 13 long-
term weather stations in agri-
cultural regions around the
state to illustrate the warm-
ing trend between 1948 and
2015.
The stations — includ-
ing fi ve in the Willamette
Valley, four in the Columbia
Basin and six in the Rogue
and Umpqua basins of s outh-
ern Oregon — show aver-
age temperatures during the
growing season increased
between 2.2 and 2.9 degrees
over those 67 years. Each sta-
tion also saw an additional 5
to 15 days each year of tem-
peratures above 95 degrees.
Growing seasons are also
getting longer, with the last
spring frost happening 19 to
23 days earlier, and the fi rst
fall frost happening 10 to 17
days later.
The longer the frost-
free period, Jones said, the
more likely insects can sur-
vive through the winter and
potentially cause more crop
damage.
“You can look at almost
any measure of climate —
warming, drying, less cold —
and fi nd something that could
be detrimental,” he said.
A 2019 survey of more
than 1,700 wine industry
members showed that half
of those represented expect
climate change will have a
strong or very strong effect
on their businesses. Jones
said growers are especially
concerned about water scar-
city, lower yields and higher
demand for products like pes-
ticides and herbicides.
Bethel Heights Vineyard
has about 50 acres of grape-
vines, primarily pinot noir
and chardonnay. Dudley said
harvest has typically taken
place during October in the
Willamette Valley.
In hotter years, Dudley
said harvest has been pushed
forward to August to avoid
the wines becoming too
“jammy,” referring to wine
with a cooked berry sweet-
ness. But that, too, poses a
predicament, as picking early
might not give grapes enough
time for their fl avor and acid-
ity to come into balance.
If earlier harvests become
more commonplace, Dudley
said the farm is considering
planting more warm-weather
grape varieties such as syrah
to adjust.
“Every grape has its own
preferences,” she said. “It’s
all dependent on the climate.”
While agriculture is on the
front lines of climate change,
growers are also in a unique
position to mitigate its effects
through farming practices
that sequester carbon and
build the soil.
“When we speak to poli-
cymakers and legislators, that
is certainly part of the story
we’re telling,” said Chris
Schreiner, executive director
of Oregon Tilth, a nonprofi t
organization that certifi es
organic farms and ranches in
49 states.
Schreiner, whose family
also runs a 200-acre commer-
cial iris garden north of Salem,
said practices like reducing
tillage, planting cover crops
and pasture-based livestock
grazing can help to reduce
erosion and improve water
retention on the soil, thus
making farms more resilient
to a warmer climate.
A study published in 2017
by the National Soil Project
at Northeastern University in
Boston found that soils from
organic farms had 26% more
potential for long-term car-
bon storage and 13% more
organic matter than soils from
non organic farms, based on
over 1,000 soil samples taken
from nearly all 50 states.
“Some of those organic
practices that are used by
organic farmers and required
by organic standards have
been incorporated on non-
organic farms,” Schreiner
added. “Non organic farms
can also contribute to climate
solutions by selective adop-
tion of organic practices.”
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