Pear growers request emergency declaration

HOOD RIVER — At the Hood River Board of Commissioner’s April meeting Lesley Tamura, board chair of Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers, requested commissioners declare an emergency for pear orchardists in the county, who suffered extensive damage from pear psylla infestations while other regions had a bountiful harvest in 2025. The combination led to tons of fruit being discarded. 

“This means we paid to grow the pears, to pick the pears, to have the pears sorted and graded, and then we paid for the pears to be taken to the dump,” said Tamura. “We paid for everything and we will receive zero income from those pears.”

She estimated $40-$45 million in losses across the Mid-Columbia region alone. Local growers will receive about 50% of their average annual income this year, Tamura said, while input costs continue to rise.

And despite the large harvest from Wenatchee, Yakima, and elsewhere, supermarket produce prices remain high, discouraging consumption, backing up packinghouses, and wasting more product.

“We are price takers, not price makers,” said Tamura, emphasizing how this might be the breaking point for some growers. 

The declaration would increase awareness and allow orchardists to work with elected officials at the state and federal levels to mitigate some of these damages. 

While not yet a clear factor, the Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center (MCAREC) is examining whether higher temperatures induced by climate change exacerbated last year’s psylla outbreak. On average, Anjou and Barlett pears grown at MCAREC’s site since 1945 bloomed on April 15 and April 18, respectively. This year, Anjou trees started sprouting on April 4, and Bartlett’s followed shortly after on April 6.

Earlier blooms surely increase the likelihood that damaging frost conditions will set in (there have been 20 such nights at various locations in the Hood River Valley this year), and whether or not climate change influences psylla, it makes mitigation more difficult. Mount Hood’s snowpack is historically low right now, and Tamura said that growers were forced to use 12 times more water per acre just to wash off the residue psylla leaves on pears last summer.

Following her presentation, Commissioner Chad Muenzer inquired about the cumulative impact. Beyond direct loss of income, if farms do shutter from pest damage, unforgiving market forces and the myriad other challenges that growers face, jobs and housing will leave as well.

“When the farms go away, there’s always that housing that could go with it,” said Tamura. She also mentioned the effects on agriculture-related businesses like packinghouses, and all the above will ripple out countywide. 

The board directed staff to work with the growers on what this declaration would look like, and to schedule a meeting to move this issue forward. Due to a conflict of interest, Chair Jennifer Euwer, also a pear grower, and Commissioner Ed Weathers, owner of Duckwall Fruit, recused themselves from voting on the issue. 

Board weighs priorities 

After a presentation in the work session, public comment supported a proposal from the Trust for Public Land (TPL), which offered to conduct free feasibility study and polling to determine whether there was public appetite for a wildfire resilience ballot initiative. While interested in the proposal, however, the majority of commissioners were reticent to begin the process before this year’s budget process is complete, and before they’ve had to chance to incorporate the suggestions made in the fiscal sustainability and organizational efficiency assessments they’ve recently received from the Baker Tilly advisory firm.

“It was very clear that any polling that was done would only be about wildfires,” said Euwer. “If this is the [issue] we concentrate on, this will be the one we’re doing and that will detract from our deciding that we need to perhaps go in another direction.” Muenzer and Weathers voted with her to not add it to the agenda until a future meeting. “When we have a better handle on how our budget looks this year, which will be in the next couple of months,” said Euwer, “it would be appropriate to bring up and or have a special meeting for it.” Muenzer agreed, pointing out the requirements of staff time and other resources that may need to be allocated to other priorities. 

“I feel like it’s a good time to move on it now. We don’t have any obligations to move forward with it; it’s just learning about what this would look like,” said Commissioner Leticia Moretti, who, alongside Commissioner Arthur Babitz, was in favor of beginning the process with TPL. 

“I completely understand the budget and planning issues we have in front of us,” said Babitz. “We have a multi-year process in front of us to deal with [the Baker Tilly reports]. That process would be well informed by having the ability to consult with the research team that the Trust for Public Lands has and is willing to make available to us for free.”

Forest Land Management Plan

Commissioners were split along the same lines as they began discussing the language for forest management policy, intended as a high-level accompaniment to Hood River County’s Forest Management Plan, which guides the sustainable production and sale of the timber resources of the county — one of the predominant sources of county revenue. Euwer argued the document should explicitly lay out priorities for the forest manager, and Babitz said including a list of what must be taken into consideration is sufficient so that revenue as the first priority is not given undue weight to the detriment of other considerations. 

Babitz requested time to return to the draft and incorporate the concerns of other commissioners before returning for further discussion. 

Other business

Weathers was appointed to serve on the Oregon Human Development Corporation Board, and the Hood River County’s Ambulance Service Plan received its first reading. Needing more information, the board also tabled comment for Cascade Renewable Transmission Project — a high-voltage direct current transmission line that will run between The Dalles and Portland through the river. The only jurisdiction the board has over this project is dependent on the approval of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s floodplain maps, which may change the designation of some land impacted by the project.