A18
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Silvies
Continued from Page A1
Golf Digest, with a circu-
lation of 1.6 million, recog-
nized the Hankins and Crad-
dock courses as two of the
top-four best new courses of
2018.
“This is the first time that
any property had two new
courses ranked in the top
five in a single year,” Colby
Marshall, the resort’s gen-
eral manager, said.
The Hankins and Crad-
dock are reversible 18-hole
courses designed by Dan
Hixson, the golf course
architect known for his work
at Bandon Crossings in Ore-
gon and Wine Valley in
Washington.
The concept of a revers-
ible course isn’t new — the
historic Old Course at St.
Andrews in Fife, Scotland,
is still flipped occasionally.
Nine greens are shared by
the Craddock and Hankins
courses, with a total of 27
greens, 17 fairways and 36
holes.
Golfers approach the nine
shared greens from different
angles as the course reverses
each day on 120 acres of
maintained property. The
Craddock course runs clock-
wise, while the Hankins runs
counterclockwise,
start-
ing from the solar-powered
clubhouse. The courses are
named for homesteaders in
the Silvies Valley.
Guests can also play the
Chief Egan course, a moun-
tain meadow 9-hole par-3
course. Special reduced rates
are offered to residents of
Grant and Harney counties,
Marshall said — $75 to play
on an 18-hole championship
award-winning course.
Sean Hoolehan, the past
president of the Golf Course
Hemp
Continued from Page A1
to smoke it will just get a
headache. Signs posted along
the perimeter will inform
neighbors about the hemp
crop, and security cameras
will watch for trespassers.
Delano told the Eagle the
10-acre property is zoned
residential, but while the
city’s zoning regulations say
farming is discouraged in
residential districts, the regu-
lations don’t stop agricultural
uses. He noted that the prop-
erty also has a farm deferral
for property taxes.
Prairie City zoning
Tai Ma Oregon has been
growing hemp in green-
houses and outdoors on
property in Prairie City south
of the cemetery for two sea-
sons. The property is zoned
R2, which allows farm uses
under a conditional-use per-
mit, which Tai Ma Oregon
needs to apply for, Mayor
Contributed photos/David Zaitz
A goat caddie follows a golfer at The Retreat & Links at Silvies Valley Ranch.
Superintendents Associa-
tion of America, joined the
agronomy team at Silvies in
2018.
“There really is no other
place like Silvies in the golf
world,” Hoolehan said. “I
played most of the great golf
courses in the United States,
and many in Europe, in my
40 years in golf course man-
agement. Nowhere else will
you find an experience like
this.”
Summertime visitors also
can enjoy cattle drives, rifle
and pistol shooting, fish-
ing in the ranch’s ponds and
creeks, and mountain biking
on the two-track trails that
crisscross the ranch.
Guests from metropoli-
tan areas or countries with
restrictive gun laws quickly
take to the frontier atmo-
Jim Hamsher said.
Prairie City’s zoning reg-
ulations allow agriculture in
the R2 residential district for
personal use. The intent is
to support 4-H participants,
City Recorder Bobbie Brown
said. Hamsher said 4-H par-
ticipants typically don’t get
a conditional-use permit and
are governed by the city’s
nuisance ordinance.
Prairie City officials were
not aware of Tai Ma Ore-
gon’s past hemp opera-
tions in the city, but the city
has heard no complaints,
Brown said. The city’s attor-
ney advised the city that they
could update city ordinances
to address complaints, but
the city couldn’t prevent
hemp farming.
Hamsher noted that the
city council could request
conditions if Tai Ma Ore-
gon applies for a zoning per-
mit, but the company might
be protected by the Oregon
Right to Farm law.
The law prevents local
governments from declaring
Mule deer wander across
one of the golf courses at
The Retreat & Links at Silvies
Valley Ranch.
sphere, Marshall said. That
includes shooting at the
pistol range, long-distance
sharpshooter range and the
Western-style range, where
guests shoot lever-action,
File photo
Hemp grows in a field in
Oregon in this 2016 file
photo.
certain farm practices a nui-
sance, including noise, vibra-
tion, odors, smoke, dust, irri-
gation mist, pesticide use
or use of crop production
substances.
“The Oregon Department
of Agriculture doesn’t see
any difference between hemp
and alfalfa,” Kilpatrick said.
Company origins
Kilpatrick filed the initia-
tive petition in 2016 seeking
to overturn Grant County’s
ban on marijuana growing,
processing and sales. When
the initiative failed in the
open-sight rifles at metal tar-
gets that ping when they get
knocked down.
The resort also offers a
wide range of winter activ-
ities, from snowshoeing and
cross-country skiing on the
snow-covered golf courses
to ice fishing and ATV tours.
A fun new winter attrac-
tion is “cool golf” played on
the Chief Egan course, Mar-
shall said. Extra-large cups
are set up at the “greens,” and
golfers use high-loft clubs to
drive neon-green tennis balls,
he said.
“There’s no pressure,”
he said. “It’s a family fun
activity that often ends up
as a snowball fight after five
holes.”
Ozzie and Arnold, the
Clydesdale horses that pull
guests on wagon rides in the
summer, are being trained
to pull a sleigh for winter
guests, Marshall said. The
resort is also interested in lin-
ing up snowmobile touring
for guests through an outside
contractor.
Founded in 1883, the
ranch’s 140,000 acres of
deeded and leased land in
Silvies Valley is home to
mountain meadows, ponder-
osa pine forests and the Sil-
vies River drainage. Ranch
hands manage 2,600 goats
and 4,500 head of cattle.
The Retreat & Links at
Silvies Valley Ranch is a
34-room resort offering lux-
urious accommodations, fine
dining and a conference cen-
ter. Golf Magazine recently
recognized the Lodge at Sil-
vies Valley Ranch as one of
the 13 most spectacular golf
May 2016 election by 1,689-
1,469, he turned his focus to
hemp.
Getting started wasn’t
easy, he said, because a seed
exchange for hemp had not
been started. The company’s
name comes from a Chinese
phrase meaning “the great
fiber that connects us all,”
Kilpatrick said.
Under state and federal
law, industrial hemp must
contain less than 0.3 per-
cent THC, the psychoac-
tive ingredient found in
marijuana. According to
Cantu-Schomus, pre-harvest
hemp grown by Tai Ma Ore-
gon in Prairie City last year
was tested and found to con-
tain THC under the legal
threshold.
In the U.S., hemp went
from being an important
fiber product promoted by
President George Washing-
ton to an illegal substance
under the 1970 Controlled
Substances Act. Over time,
the value of hemp fiber for
textiles, biofuel, paper and
other materials and the value
of hemp flowers and seed
oil for medicinal, nutritional
and beauty products were
recognized.
The 2018 Hemp Farm-
ing Act, which is part of the
2018 Farm Bill signed by
President Donald Trump in
December, changed hemp
from a controlled substance
to an agricultural commod-
ity. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell introduced
the Hemp Farming Act,
which was co-sponsored by
Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff
Merkley.
Passage of the act opened
up a number of opportuni-
ties other farmers routinely
benefit from, including water
rights, agricultural grants,
access to the banking sys-
tem, marketing, agronomy
research and crop insurance.
Kilpatrick said alfalfa has
been growing on the 10-acre
property in Mt. Vernon since
the 1970s. He spent his first
11 years living in the two-
story house on the property,
which was built in 1908.
“I learned how to drive a
tractor there,” he said.
Water taken from ditches
connected to Strawberry
Creek in Prairie City and
Beech Creek in Mt. Vernon
will be used for the hemp
fields, Kilpatrick said. A
thousand hemp plants on a
drip line use significantly less
water than a flood-irrigated
alfalfa field, he said.
Kilpatrick said they tried
growing hemp outdoors on 2
1/2 acres in Prairie City but
are still looking for a suitable
hemp strain. The weather in
Prairie City is slightly colder
than in Mt. Vernon, he said.
The plan is to grow seed-
lings that are clones of suc-
cessful female plants in a
greenhouse and then manu-
ally plant about 1,000 seed-
lings per acre in the outdoor
fields. Planting should be
completed in June, and har-
vest of the 4- to 6-foot-high
plants should be completed
by mid-October, Kilpatrick
said.
For now, the value in
hemp farming comes from
selling the flower tops to pro-
cessors for medicinal, nutri-
tional and beauty products,
Kilpatrick said. Hemp flow-
ers and seeds contain canna-
bidiol, omega-3 and omega-6
fatty acids and other chemi-
cals that may offer a wide
range of health benefits.
A processing plant for
fiber may come to Hermis-
ton, at which time Tai Ma
Oregon might harvest the
hemp stalks for sale instead
of tilling them into the
ground. Looking forward,
Tai Ma Oregon might reg-
ister as a hemp handler and
invest in equipment to pro-
cess hemp flowers from their
fields and others, Kilpatrick
said. The result would be
more jobs.
“It’s been a long time com-
ing,” he said. “It’s another
tool in the toolbox for the
local agricultural economy.
There aren’t too many tools
in the toolbox now.”
Legal
the UN, if authorized to
perform activity in Grant
County, would curtail it
because of this measure,” he
said.
If that happened, or if
county officials intervened,
Cramer said the complaint
“would be justiciable.”
Cramer said no evidence
had been presented that
the county ever petitioned
Congress for title to public
lands as directed by Measure
12-40 but that the county
could make such a request
even without the measure.
“If a petition were filed,
then the time would be ripe
to determine if it is proba-
ble that Congress would cede
title of the lands to Grant
County and if so, if there is
harm,” he said.
Regarding
Ordinance
2013-01, Cramer said, “there
is no evidence that roads
have not been closed by fed-
eral or state agencies as a
result of this ordinance.” He
said Webb failed to show
how invalidating the ordi-
nance would have “a prac-
tical effect on his rights” as
required for review.
“The legislature ... lim-
ited when challenges to laws
and measures can be heard,”
Cramer said in the opinion.
“Requiring actual or probable
injury as opposed to whether
the law is valid is required.”
Yockim also argued on
behalf of the county that
Webb’s complaint against
Measure 12-40 should be
dismissed because it did not
occur within the seven-day
period allowed by law to
challenge a county clerk’s
determination that a prospec-
tive initiative complies with
requirements in the Oregon
Constitution.
Cramer said that was true
for a clerk’s determination
whether a measure complies
with requirements to include
the full text of a proposed
law and to embrace only one
subject.
“The remaining argu-
ments as to the validity of the
measures do not appear time
barred,” Cramer said, “but
I do not reach those issues
here as my decision on justi-
ciability is dispositive.”
Continued from Page A1
For more information contact
Grant County Veterans 541 620-8057
100632
61008
94762
course restaurants.
Breakfast, lunch and din-
ner is served ranch-style
every day at long wooden
tables shared by guests,
staff and management. The
beef and chevon comes
from grass-fed cows and
free-range goats raised on
the ranch, and the meat is
USDA-certified organic.
Chef Damon Jones, rec-
ognized as a premiere ranch-
to-table chef, was recently
selected as the Chef of the
Year by the Oregon Beef
Council.
Jones hails from Ala-
bama, but his father has roots
in Central Oregon. Jones
began his culinary career as a
sous-chef in New Orleans for
the Brennon family restau-
rants and at Emeril’s. Jones
said he learned the principles
of “scratch cooking” in New
Orleans — owning the entire
meal from start to finish.
In Oregon, he worked at
the Rogue Valley Country
Club, Crosswater at Sunriver
Resort and the Larks Restau-
rant at the Ashland Springs
Hotel, where he was the
executive chef. He came to
Silvies in March 2018.
Ranch-style meals at Sil-
vies include seven courses
featuring what’s available
locally and what’s in season,
Jones said. Silvies grows
some herbs and vegetables
in a micro garden and green-
houses. Local ranchers are
invited to a more laid-back,
buffet-style ranch barbecue
on Fridays.
In addition to the oppor-
tunity to prepare great
meals, golfing drew Jones to
Silvies. His passion for golf
explains why he has worked
at so many golf resorts, he
said. When he’s not golfing
or cooking, Jones said he
enjoys the quiet and solitude
of Eastern Oregon.
allege a specific injury he
incurred from the laws in
order to create a justiciable
claim the court could review.
Grant County Circuit
Court Judge William D. Cra-
mer Jr. dismissed Webb’s
complaint Jan. 9 without
addressing whether these
three county laws conflicted
with paramount law because
he determined the complaint
was not justiciable.
“On the record before me
I do not find any actual harm
to Petitioner (Webb), nor that
any purported harm is possi-
ble,” Cramer said in his Jan.
9 opinion. “... I will comment
that under different facts,
each of these two measures
and ordinances could be jus-
ticiable and meet the stan-
dards for review.”
Regarding
Measure
12-37, Cramer said no U.N.
activity had been alleged to
have ceased because of the
measure.
“I find it improbable that
Company plans