Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
DAIRY: Opponents are concerned over possible water pollution from waste
Continued from 1A
will now run through 5 p.m. Friday,
Nov. 4. Comments can be emailed
to Matthews at wmatthews@oda.
state.or.us, or faxed to 503-986-
4730.
If someone has already
submitted comments, they do not
need to send them again, Matthews
said.
Expanding operations
Lost Valley Ranch is proposed
by California dairyman Greg te
Velde, who purchased 7,288 acres
along the southern boundary of the
Boardman Tree Farm east of where
Homestead Lane intersects with
Poleline Road.
For 14 years, te Velde has run the
Willow Creek Dairy on land leased
from Threemile Canyon Farms,
producing 70,000 gallons of milk
per day to Tillamook Cheese at the
Port of Morrow. Now, he wants to
move and expand his operation,
with more than triple the number
of cows.
The application for Lost Valley
Ranch includes an Animal Waste
Management Plan, describing
how waste will be managed on
site. The plan calls for six main
lagoons, adding up to 260 acre-feet
of storage. All lagoons would have
a double liner with leak detection
to protect against material leaching
into the groundwater.
The nitrogen-rich waste would
then be recycled and applied at
agronomic rates — based on soil
testing — to irrigate 5,900 acres
of farmland growing animal feed,
such as corn silage and alfalfa.
Whatever is left over would be
used to make animal bedding or
transferred off site, according to the
application.
A methane digester might also
“The size of this Environmental concerns
Other groups are pushing back
facility is just stag- against
the proposal, urging the
agencies
to reject the Lost Valley
gering. This is es- permit over
threats to the environ-
sentially going to be ment and public health.
Heinzen, staff attorney
a sewer-less city.” for Tarah
Food & Water Watch based
— Tarah Heinzen, staff attor-
ney for Food & Water Watch
be considered to mitigate air pollu-
tion, te Velde said, though that’s
not in their immediate plans. He
igures it will cost about $4,000 per
milking cow just to get the dairy
up and running. The state CAFO
permit does not require any air
pollution measures.
Most of the environmental
concerns raised by the public have
already been addressed in the
application, te Velde said.
“I don’t think there are any new
issues that came up,” he said.
After some initial trepidation,
the Morrow County Court has
also come out in support of Lost
Valley Ranch. Local oficials had
expressed concern about the devel-
opment of a second large dairy
within three critical groundwater
areas, as well as impacts to nearby
irrigation canals and concern for
animal mistreatment.
In comments iled Aug. 24, the
court said it trusts those issues will
be addressed during the permit
review process.
“The positive economic impacts
that the proposed dairy would
have on our region, coupled with
the review and oversight provided
under the ODA permitting process,
brings the county court to the
conclusion that it is in the best
interest of the Morrow County
community to approve this appli-
cation,” they wrote.
in Washington, D.C., was the
lead author for 16 pages worth of
comments iled on behalf of nine
organizations, including: Food &
Water Watch; Columbia River-
keeper; Friends of Family Farmers;
the Northwest Environmental
Defense Center; Oregon Physicians
for Social Responsibility; the Sierra
Club; Friends of the Columbia
Gorge; the U.S. Humane Society;
and the Center for Biological
Diversity.
If approved, Lost Valley Ranch
would generate waste on par with
a mid-size city, Heinzen said.
Meanwhile, the area is home to
the Lower Umatilla Basin Ground-
water Management Area, where the
level of nitrates in the groundwater
already exceeds the federal safe
drinking water standard.
The potential for further water
pollution is signiicant, Heinzen
said, and Lost Valley’s application
too vague to assure the facility
can handle such a large volume of
waste.
“The size of this facility is just
staggering,” Heinzen said. “This is
essentially going to be a sewer-less
city.”
According to their comments,
the nine groups claim that CAFOs
produce more than 300 million tons
of waste across the country each
year, which can include things like
salmonella and E. coli making their
way into nearby waterways. Yet the
Oregon CAFO permit lacks surface
water monitoring required under
being utilized by various dairy
operations in Oregon,” the report
states.
Objections to Lost Valley aren’t
limited to environmental impacts.
Ivan Maluski, policy director for
Friends of Family Farms, is critical
of how factory farming has harmed
smaller farms and ranches across
the state.
When
Threemile
Canyon
arrived in Oregon in 2002, Maluski
said the state lost roughly nine dairy
businesses per month over a period
of ive years, even as the overall
number of dairy cows increased.
Lost Valley Ranch is easily the
largest dairy proposal since
Threemile Canyon, he said.
“All farms have been the back-
bone of Oregon’s economy for
several generations,” Maluski said.
“I think we need to do what we
can to make sure we’re not putting
those operations out of business.”
Public comments against Lost
Valley Ranch also address the facil-
ity’s “unreasonable” water with-
drawals, amounting to more than
3.2 million gallons per year, and a
lack of outreach to environmental
justice communities, including the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation which maintain
treaty rights on the land.
“You see really diverse interests
that are converging around a shared
opposition to this project,” Gold-
berg said.
There is no timetable for
approval or denial of the CAFO
permit, Matthews said. ODA and
DEQ could also request further
modiications in the proposal to
satisfy conditions.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0825.
the federal Clean Water Act.
There are also no controls on
regulating air emissions from the
facility, said Lauren Goldberg, staff
attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper.
“We were taken aback by the
lack of critical public health, air and
water pollution controls,” Goldberg
said.
In 2008, the Oregon Dairy Air
Quality Task Force issued a inal
report to ODA and DEQ inding that
dairies have the potential to emit
several kinds of harmful pollutants,
such as ammonia and methane. It
issued a list of recommendations to
create a dairy air quality program by
2015 — none of which have been
implemented so far, Goldberg said.
Best management
practices
The state has also failed to
consider the combined effects of
having Lost Valley Ranch so close
to Threemile Canyon Farms in
Morrow County, Goldberg said.
DEQ and the Southwest Clean
Air Agency, however, issued a
Columbia River Gorge Air Study
and Strategy in 2011 stating that
Threemile Canyon is “continuously
addressing its air emissions by
applying new technologies and
adaptively managing its dairies
with best management practices.”
That includes using manure as
fertilizer and compost for agricul-
tural crops on the farm, and building
a methane digester to generate
power. In the same report, DEQ
said implementation of the Dairy
Task Force’s recommendations was
dependent on receiving funding
from the Legislature, which never
came through.
“In the meantime, the Oregon
dairy industry has identiied volun-
tary (best management practices)
PERS: Hermiston School District is facing an increase of about $1.2M per year in contributions
Continued from 1A
many of their employees are
on the more generous Tier
1 beneits earned by those
hired before 2003 — but the
average increase is about
3.62 percent.
The need for higher
contributions
from
employers comes from a
combination of factors.
About 70 percent of the
system’s revenue comes
from investment earnings,
which have been falling
below the assumed 7.75
percent. Retirees are also
living longer than expected,
and the Oregon Supreme
Court struck down reforms
that lowered costs in 2015-
2017, ruling them an uncon-
stitutional breach of contract
with public employees.
Umatilla County
Umatilla
County
Commissioner
George
Murdock said he, county
counsel Doug Olsen, inance
department head Robert
Pahl and assistant Marie
Simonis held a meeting
Tuesday morning to look at
how PERS and other issues
will affect county govern-
ment. PERS contributions
for 2017-18 will cost the
county $450,000-$500,000
of general fund dollars, he
said, and the amount will
only continue to grow.
The county’s contribution
rate for its longest-serving
employees will go from
10.93 percent to 15.94
percent. New employees
have a bump from 4.21
percent to 7.61 percent. And
police and ire, including
sheriff’s deputies, will
increase from 8.32 percent
to 12.38 percent.
Murdock said the group
plans to talk to the full board
of commissioners in two
weeks. And this fall, every
department will undergo an
audit to review structural
and iscal management.
“We’re doing all this this
fall,” he said. “Spring is too
late to begin making wise
decisions for how to balance
the budget for the following
year.”
He also said there is no
point in “crying or whining
about the problem.” The
county, he said, has to focus
on inding a solution.
Cities
Based on the 2017-2019
rates released Friday, Herm-
iston Finance Director Amy
Palmer said the city’s PERS
contributions will have an
annual increase of $228,365
over the 2015-2017 rates.
That information is a
factor in the budgeting
process for 2017, although
Palmer in an email said
that there was only so much
planning the city could
do before the rates were
released on Friday.
“We did know increases
were coming, but it’s difi-
cult to prepare until you
know what it is going to be,”
she said.
In Pendleton, Finance
Director Linda Carter said
the city will see about a 5
percent increase in its PERS
payments.
Many public employers
in the state have at some
point started picking up
employees’ 6 percent match
in lieu of giving them a
raise, but Carter said city
of Pendleton employees are
still paying into the PERS
system out of their own
pockets, separate from what
the city is paying.
School Districts
Hermiston
School
District is facing an increase
of about $1.2 million per
year in PERS contributions
in the coming biennium.
The money represents a
4.8 percent increase in
payments.
“It will have some pretty
signiicant impacts on us, but
luckily it is not unexpected,”
said director of business
services Katie Saul.
Based on preliminary
estimates released months
ago, she said the district
had been expecting about a
4 percent increase, although
they knew it could be higher.
She said signiicant increases
in PERS contributions have
become the new normal and
are “always at the forefront
of our mind” during any
inancial planning.
The school board estab-
lished a PERS reserve fund
of $2 million and used
about $900,000 of it in the
2009-2011 biennium to help
soften the blow when major
increases hit. Saul said
since then a combination of
circumstances, including a
healthier state school fund
and higher than expected
enrollment, has allowed the
district to return the reserve
fund’s balance to almost $2
million again.
“Looking at it ahead of
time, we knew these rates
were coming and knew we
had to be iscally responsible
FARM: 84 percent of Oregon farms are listed as
sole proprietorships, instead of being incorporated
Continued from 1A
From 2010 through 2015,
25 to 40 percent of farm-
land sales in Washington,
Benton, Clackamas, and Polk
counties were to business
entities. Ten to 15 percent of
farm sales in those counties
involved out-of-state buyers.
Meanwhile, land prices
are increasing. The average
estimated market value of an
acre of farmland with build-
ings in 2012 was $1,882,
compared to $1,534 in 2002,
according to the Census
of Agriculture. “Realtors
and land seekers are seeing
much higher land prices,
especially for irrigated land
near urban areas and along
transportation corridors,” the
researchers concluded.
McAdams, of Rogue
Farm Corps, said there’s
evidence to suggest farmers
themselves aren’t prepared
for the turnover. Instead
of being incorporated or
formed as LLCs, 84 percent
of Oregon farms are listed
as sole proprietorships, the
simplest and cheapest form
of business organization.
But it means the farm is
tied to an individual, which
can complicate succession,
McAdams said.
The statistic “suggests that
the vast majority of Oregon
farmers may not have created
thorough plans to smoothly
transfer their businesses and
assets to the next generation,”
the report said.
The authors concluded
that land-sharing models,
farm conservation easements,
working lands easements,
and other creative leasing
arrangements may lead to
better outcomes both for
retiring farmers and those
looking for a foothold in the
profession. Other programs
could connect beginning
farmers with experienced
ones, allowing them to
explore innovative land
access arrangements, the
researchers said. Nonproit
farm incubators also offer
low-cost access to land, and
enable beginning farmers to
gain experience, they said.
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to prepare,” she said.
It will be up to the school
board and budget committee
to decide if — or how much
— the reserve fund will be
used to balance out the extra
$1.2 to $1.3 million per year
the district will need to come
up with during the next
biennium.
At Pendleton School
District, Director of Busi-
ness Services Michelle Jones
estimated the school district
will have to come up with
an additional $800,000 per
year in PERS contributions
to meet the 4.67 percent
increase they are facing.
“When we start talking
budget for next year, we’ll
address that,” she said.
The increase in the
district’s rates would have
been about twice as high,
Jones said, if it weren’t for
the PERS bonds the district
took out and placed into a
side account in 2002 to help
offset costs.
“Because those did well
for several years, that’s
helped us out,” she said.
Like Saul, Jones said
They’ve served our country with
courage and honor. They’ve left
behind loved ones to risk their lives
in protecting their country. They’ve
defended our freedoms and ideals.
They make us proud to be
Americans.
Join us for Veterans Day
Wednesday, November 9 in the
Hermiston Herald and Friday,
November 11 in the East Oregonian,
as we honor the men and women of
the U.S. Military. Their courage,
hard work and sacrifice are the
backbone of our nation, protecting
freedom, liberty, justice and all we
hold dear.
her district has been well
aware that an increase in
PERS contributions was
coming and that future
bienniums will come with
further increases for public
employers across the state.
“That just seems to be the
path we’re on right now,”
she said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
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We are so
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