Oregon - Ranching and Riparian Buffers

In the area south of The Dalles, on the Columbia River in Oregon, contracts on thousands of acres of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) after 1985 have expired. Some of the land is being put back into production, some highly erodible land is being re-enrolled, and some of the land will be enrolled for buffers under the continuous CRP sign-up.

In Wasco County, according to Dusty Eddy, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Resource Conservationist, "We probably have interest in enrolling 100 stream miles of marginal pastureland in riparian buffers. On Dry Creek, a tributary of 15-Mile Creek, one farmer has expressed interest in enrolling land along all the eligible streams, which adds up to 20 miles. In the Pine Hollow watershed, landowners are interested in enrolling up to 95 to 98 percent of the watershed land in CRP for riparian buffers."

One such landowner is Ron Mobley, whose Pine Hollow Creek ranch is along the boundary of Sherman and Wasco counties. According to Eddy, Mobley has as many as 34 miles of eligible stream to enroll in CRP for riparian forest buffers. Eleven hundred acres of highly erodible land on Mobley's cattle ranch have been re-enrolled in CRP for 10 years. The other 11,000 acres or so have been leased out for grazing to a neighboring farmer, but now, Mobley says, over 500 acres in the riparian areas will be enrolled under the continuous CRP sign-up. He plans to install 150-foot-wide buffers on either side of 8 miles of Pine Hollow Creek, and another 22 miles or so along its tributaries. Mobley says, "We'll make just about as much as we would have if we'd leased it out, but we'll be benefiting from stabilizing streambanks and helping fish, deer, elk, and other wildlife." He plans to keep his cattle out of 8,000 acres of rugged, steep ground it doesn't make sense to fence, so he won't need to install fencing along the creek. "Later, we'll fence around the rims of the canyons and use pasture at the top. Still, we will come out about even." Mobley is one of half a dozen neighboring ranchers who have joined together to protect the 90,000-acre Pine Hollow Creek Watershed, modeled on the nearby Buck Hollow Creek Project. In addition to technical and financial assistance from NRCS and the Bureau of Land Management, the Pine Hollow group is getting cost-share assistance from the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the governor's Watershed Enhancement Board.

When the contracts on his CRP land ended on Jim Hanna's farm in Dufur, Eddy says there was fear that erosion might bring runoff and sediment into town and into 15-Mile Creek. But, Hanna worked with Eddy on a conservation plan before receiving any complaints from the town, and has kept 18 acres in permanent vegetation under the continuous CRP sign-up. Says Eddy, "We touched bases throughout the process, and the town fully supported buffers." Hanna says the system of filters and grassed waterways has worked well, "although we didn't have much of a winter. It's also been good for fire protection."

Walter M. Fargher also lives in Dufur and, with his sister, owns a 5,600-acre ranch along Dry Creek and its tributaries--land their grandfather homesteaded in 1874. For 10 years, Fargher had whole fields enrolled in CRP. He says, "Since CRP, we don't have the erosion or streambank damage or floods we had prior to CRP; although we have damage from neighbors who don't have land in CRP. The water strips their fields of soil and erodes it into the creek."

Now, those contracts have ended. But Fargher's son Jeff, and his nephew Charlie Ernst, are involved in the ranch and working on new CRP enrollments for the most highly erodible land and for conservation buffers. Ernst has moved to the ranch from San Francisco, California, and has been working the land. Jeff and his wife still live in Los Angeles, California, but come to the ranch for as many weekends as they can. (They are restoring an 1860 house they moved to the ranch from Dufur.) Both are planting trees and the cousins agree on protecting water quality and wildlife habitat. Jeff says that 50 percent of the highly erodible land on the ranch is enrolled in the regular CRP, while "in the riparian areas, we want to go for every program possible to filter water, hold soil, cool the water, deepen the channel, and so on." Ernst agrees, "CRP is a good thing. The permanent vegetation helps fish habitat and benefits wildlife."

The Fargher ranch has 4 miles along Dry Creek and as much as 20 miles of unnamed tributaries. Eddy believes the Farghers might enroll up to 300 to 500 acres for riparian buffers in the continuous CRP sign-up--for nearly 25 miles of buffers. With a CRP rental rate of about $40 per acre, this means $20,000 per year, "so the CRP program is financially the best route to go. We know we'll come out ahead because of what it will do for the land." Ernst is planning some no-till planting to retain crop residue on the ground, and the cousins agree that since the land has been fallow for a decade, they may pursue organic certification. Jeff and his wife are using their "organic weed eradication system" to remove noxious weeds. "We dig them out and collect them."

Although Walter Fargher now lives in Dufur instead of on the ranch, he obviously takes an interest in the younger generation's activities to protect the place. After all, "the creek used to have a lot of trout," he says, "and when I was a kid there were more." He adds, obviously approvingly, that Ernst "is trying to restore the creek and has re-established vegetation in the riparian area." (Despite its name, Dry Creek does have a sizable population of resident trout which Eddy says migrate to cool, spring-fed pools in the summer.)

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