A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
OUR VIEW
Public can
get stung by
trade secrets
T
he recipe for Oreos. Facebook algorithms. The mix that
makes a Black Butte Porter a Black Butte Porter.
Those are all arguably trade secrets. You wouldn’t
expect Deschutes Brewery to be forced to make public the pre-
cise recipe for its beers.
The problem can be when trade secrets — or what are argued
to be trade secrets — intersect with things important to the pub-
lic. Like water.
In The Dalles, the City Council approved a new deal with
Google to allow it to expand its data centers. Data centers are
thirsty. And technically, under Oregon law, all water belongs to
the public.
Some residents of The Dalles and some journalists wanted
to know how much water Google would be using. City offi cials
argued the amount of water the expansion will take is sustain-
able for its aquifer. But people have diff erent ideas about what is
sustainable. And members of the public can’t really judge how
good a deal is unless they know how much water the data cen-
ters will be drinking.
Google argued that information is a trade secret. The Dalles
sued The Oregonian to keep the information secret. And so far,
that is the way the issue remains.
The Oregon Sunshine Committee, set up to ensure Oregon’s
public records laws are working, has been taking a look at the
trade secrets section of public records laws.
Businesses do have trade secrets that deserve to be protected.
And government agencies need to contract with businesses. In
those contracts, businesses will make assertions that the agree-
ments contain trade secrets. It’s generally in the interest of a
company to assert that as much as possible of an agreement is
covered by trade secrets. That limits the ability of a competitor
or anyone else to gain any advantage by reading the contract.
But government bodies are not typically equipped to decide if
what a business is asserting is a trade secret or not. “This could
allow for overclassifi cation of potential trade secrets with the
public entity stuck in the middle between a record requestor and
the potential trade secret holder,” according to a Sunshine Com-
mittee document.
State law does make it possible to go to court to overturn an
assertion that a so-called trade secret should become public. A
public records requestor can argue there is a public interest. But
that probably means going to court. How many people would,
say, have the resources to take on the city of The Dalles with
Google backing it up?
The Sunshine Committee favored advocating that the state
make three changes in the law.
1. Businesses would be required to explain to a government
entity why something should be considered a trade secret and
clearly denote what is a trade secret and what is not.
2. The committee also would like to see the two statutes in
Oregon law that discuss trade secrets condensed into one. One
statute states that there should be a public interest balancing test
when considering if something should be a trade secret. The
other does not. The suggestion is the public interest balancing
test should apply in the revised statute.
3. Oregon could also revise the statute so that a business with
an alleged trade secret — not the public entity — is the appro-
priate party to respond in any appeals process when a public
records requestor is seeking information.
We don’t know if these reform ideas will go anywhere. We
can’t imagine businesses will like them. And we are now sure
how they will level the playing fi eld so the public has much of
a chance when a business asserts something is a trade secret —
even when it’s how much of Oregon’s water will be guzzled. up.
Ag overtime bill not a victory
efore even the fi rst gavel
dropped on the 2022 legislative
session, I knew that one of the
most consequential bills of my legisla-
tive career would be considered.
HB 4002, or the agriculture over-
time bill, was a divisive bill from the
start and presented the Oregon Leg-
islature with two options. One that
would favor one side to the detriment
of the rest of Oregon, especially the
agricultural economy. This is what I
called a win — a win for a select few
at the cost of the rest of us. The other
path included compromise, good-faith
negotiation and a bill that would gen-
erate support from both parties. This is
what I called a victory — a victory for
all of Oregon.
I worked hard to get a victory, not
just a win on agriculture overtime. But
the fi nal result was a win — a win for
Willamette Valley liberal special inter-
ests who donate money to the majority
Democrats’ campaign funds.
It will make these groups feel good
about themselves, but it won’t make
Oregonians better off . HB 4002 will
result in higher prices at the grocery
store for working families, hours and
pay capped for agricultural workers,
and ultimately the shuttering of small
B
Sen. Bill
Hansell
family farms that
fi ll my district.
Agriculture is
a unique indus-
try. During harvest
seasons, it requires
long hours to reap
all the crops before
frost or rains come.
In ranching, there is
even more nuance.
The bottom line is that farmers and
ranchers don’t set their own prices,
they have to take whatever price the
markets are off ering. The Demo-
crats advanced an argument about ag
overtime that essentially stated that a
bushel of wheat harvested in the 41st
hour is worth 50% more than one har-
vested at the 5th hour. Anyone who
has grown up around farms knows
that that is not true. And requiring
farmers to pay their workers as such
will soon result in a dwindling number
of family farms to even employ these
workers.
HB 4002 leveled all these unique
distinctions in agriculture and man-
dated a one-size-fi ts-all “solution” that
is really no solution at all. The “olive
branches” that Democrats extended,
the agricultural community never
asked for. One example: Under this
new overtime pay mandate, family
farms will now be able to apply for tax
credits to ease the burden of the new
overtime pay mandate. Now taxpayers
will be subsidizing this new program.
Farmers and ranchers never asked for
that, but the majority decided that is
what would be best for them.
I worked hard to come to a com-
promise. Simple adjustments for sea-
sonality, fl exible scheduling, and rec-
ognizing the diff erence between
the kinds of agriculture would have
helped. But the majority party rejected
all these and charged ahead with what
seemed to be a predetermined out-
come, driven by their special interest
groups.
I know how much Oregon’s farm-
ers and ranchers care about their
employees and their families. HB
4002 will now force those farmers and
ranchers to make diffi cult decisions
about how much they can aff ord their
employees to work. I grew up on these
kinds of farms and I am afraid that
under this policy, less and less of those
farms will be around in the future.
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, is in his
10th year representing the seven coun-
ties that make up Senate District 29.
COMMENTARY
Proposed mountain bike trails raise alarm
T
here’s a storm brewing over the
Ochocos. A storm big enough
that it may aff ect all of Ore-
gon’s national forests.
The Ochoco Mountains, which
are southward extensions of the Blue
Mountains, are located near the geo-
graphic center of Oregon on the
Ochoco National Forest. Covering
845,498 acres of land, the Ochoco
National Forest is home to more
than 375 diff erent species of reptiles,
amphibians, birds and mammals. Also
within these colorful mountains and
lush valleys are many family ranches.
Some of those ranches have been
there for over 100 years.
The geographic center of Ore-
gon is also home to one of the fast-
est-growing cities in the Western
United States, Bend. People are fl ock-
ing to Bend for its mild climate, beau-
tiful scenery, and abundant outdoor
recreation opportunities. Just travel
north or south from Bend on Highway
97 and you will see for yourself the
maddening increase in traffi c.
The increase in population has
increased the need for outdoor recre-
ation on our national forests, and this
is the epicenter of the storm brew-
ing. The mountain biking group Cen-
tral Oregon Trails Alliance, known
as COTA, has proposed to the For-
est Service a need for more trails to
ride on.
A new trail system called Lemon
Gulch has been proposed. The system
would encompass 52 miles of bike
trails with parking lots at trailheads in
a 9-square-mile area in the Mill Creek
drainage area of Crook County.
The Forest Service, by virtue of
the 1976 Federal Land Policy and
Management Act, or FLPMA for
short, is required to manage all pub-
lic lands based on
multiple use. That
means grazing, min-
ing, hunting, fi shing,
hiking, birdwatching
and, yes, even moun-
tain biking.
Matt
The Forest Ser-
McElligott
vice proceeded with
the COTA bike trail
proposal under the guise of manag-
ing for multiple use. Yet the agency
obviously ignored FLPMA where it
clearly states the public lands must be
managed in a manner that will pro-
tect the quality of scientifi c, scenic, his-
torical, ecological, environmental, air
and atmospheric, water resource, and
archeological values; and that, where
appropriate, certain public lands will be
preserved and protected in their natu-
ral condition.
There is no way that jamming in
52 miles of trails into this area will
preserve and protect the public lands
in their natural condition. The law
is also very clear on the process that
an agency must abide by when mak-
ing signifi cant changes to the current
use of the public lands it manages —
in this case, dramatically increasing
the human footprint in the Mill Creek
drainage, specifi cally Lemon Gulch.
The law says: No action concerning the
proposal may be taken that would 1)
have an adverse environmental impact
or 2) limit the choice of reasonable
alternatives.
The erosion and sedimentation
from the trails will aff ect stream and
water quality. Many additional people
in a small area will adversely aff ect the
wildlife population. It will degrade the
natural plant population and increase
noxious weed presence.
The major mistake that the Forest
Service made in moving forward with
this project is that it did not adequately
notify the local grazing permittees or
the adjacent landowners, as required by
law. There was no direct mailing, con-
tact, or notifi cation provided to adja-
cent landowners, aff ected landowners,
or existing special use permittees. The
trail system has already been marked
and fl agged on the ground. The For-
est Service has decided Lemon Gulch
is the location and refuses to consider
other areas in this process.
On KTVZ, the local Bend channel,
there was a news story on mountain
bike usage on public lands. A public
aff airs offi cer for the Forest Service is
quoted as saying, “these trails are hurt-
ing the land.”
Why is the Forest Service pushing
this through when they admit openly
that it will hurt the land? The local peo-
ple and local permittees are not against
multiple use. They are against the size
and scope of this project and the way it
is being forced upon them. Their new
slogan is, “Don’t Bend Prineville.”
Concerned members of the pub-
lic are encouraged to attend the Crook
County Natural Resources Advisory
Committee meeting at 1 p.m. on April
13 in the Clover Building at the Crook
County Fairgrounds. Opposition to
the Lemon Gulch project will ask the
committee to better convey the need
for county commissioners to offi cially
withdraw their support of the proposal
until a larger community conversa-
tion takes place regarding recreational
development in the Ochocos.
You can learn more about this issue
and future town halls at the Don’t
BEND Prineville Facebook group.
Matt McElligott is the Oregon Cat-
tlemen’s Association president-elect
and Public Lands Committee chair.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
If you leave,
don’t come back
To the Editor:
So a recent poll reports that Dem-
ocrats would cut and run if Putin were
to invade the United States of Amer-
ica. It is sad that they are a self-serv-
ing, cowardly bunch, but it is good to
know that we won’t have to trust them
in a foxhole with us. We can only hope
that when they leave the country the
only way back is for them to sneak in
Blue Mountain
Grant County’s Weekly Newspaper
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