Katie Kulla photo##This panorama was captured in Spring Valley, which lies in Willamette Mission State Park. It’s future may depend on our ability to cope with a warming climate.

Casey Kulla: County can help us all address climate change

Over the course of my campaign for county commissioner, I was asked regularly, “What is the greatest challenge facing Yamhill County?”

While we face many complex challenges today, including homelessness, lack of affordable housing, population growth, mental illness and chemical dependency, we can solve all these problems together with our existing partners and knowledge. So, I answered honestly: “Climate change.”

I view climate change as our greatest challenge because it’s global in scale and affects every aspect of our lives.

When we are presented with a challenge on the farm, we see an opportunity. In climate change, I see opportunity for our county to strengthen the relationship between farmers and consumers and rebuild the relationship between the county and its residents.

What does climate change look like for Yamhill County? According to the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, the basic framework of our future entails shorter, wetter winters and longer, hotter, drier summers.

If we continue to increase our carbon emissions, the county average temperature will increase by 3-7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. What does that mean?
It means a shift from conifers to oak and other drought-tolerant species in our forests, and increasing wildfire risk. You can learn about the wildfire risk for your specific address at the Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer, found at oregonexplorer.info/topics/wildfire-risk?ptopic=62.

The crops we grow on the farm will change, too.

In its Third Climate Assessment Report, the institute says, “Warming winters, expanding growing seasons and carbon enrichment may boost yields for some Oregon crops and create opportunities to grow some new crops.” However, in the long term, increased heat and drought stress, water shortage and additional pest pressure will likely outweigh benefits, according to the summary found at occri.net/media/1045/ocar3_final_legsummary.pdf. 

Guest Writer

Casey Kulla is a Grand Island farmer and county commissioner-elect. He’s also the holder of a master’s degree in forest ecology. He enjoys surfing the Oregon Coast and hiking wild areas with his wife, Katie, and children, Dottie and Rusty. He is committed to preserving those opportunities for future generations, despite the challenges posed by climate change.

We are facing shorter, wetter winters and longer, hotter and drier summers, resulting in more wildfire, poorer growing conditions for our favored crops and lower water quality and quantity. Lower stream flows, warmer water and spreading algal blooms on the Yamhill River will damage agricultural irrigators, recreators and fish.

Speaking of fish, according to the report, “Climate change uniquely affects the culture, sovereignty, health, economy and ways of life of American Indian tribes,” who are typically more dependent on and invested in traditional natural resources.

Tackling climate change at the county level is necessary and timely.

The governor’s office is presenting a cap-and-trade/invest bill in the 2019 legislative session. It would restrict Oregon’s carbon emissions, with a goal of reducing emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The trade component involves taxing carbon emissions by the largest point-source emitters, but allowing companies that have reduced their emissions sufficiently to sell emissions permits to others who find it harder to reduce their carbon emissions so rapidly. The invest component means the state invests carbon tax revenue in carbon emission-reduction through the financing of window and insulation upgrades in older homes and installation of rooftop solar collectors on rural buildings.

While the Legislature will likely pass some version of cap-and-trade/invest, what can we do in Yamhill County to address climate change without singling out point-source emitters? How can we tackle climate change together?

There are three primary ways we can combine forces to address climate change in the county: mitigation, adaptation and sequestration. Mitigation means reducing our carbon emissions, adaptation adjusting to a changing climate and sequestration removing carbom from the atmosphere.

In the simplest terms, mitigation is about making more of our electricity from carbon-free sources and increasing the efficiency of our energy-consuming devices. For example, Oregon is hoping to achieve 50 percent carbon-free energy generation by 2050, and some other states, along with many cities, are aiming for 100 percent.

In Yamhill County, we have a number of utility-scale solar arrays, which produce carbon-free electricity. They do require energy in the production of the panels, of course.

Thus far, these solar arrays have been sited mainly on farmland featuring high-value soils, thanks to proximity to high-capacity power lines and relatively low rent. But the county effectively banned solar arrays earlier this year, due to concerns about loss of farmland, use of gravel, persistent use of herbicides and aesthetic considerations.

With a little creative thinking, our county could spur greater generation of carbon-free electricity without sacrificing either farmland or our breathtaking views.
For example, the county could leverage state dollars to upgrade the capacity of power lines in areas of lower-value soils, so arrays could be installed there. And it could require all farm tracts to feature solar arrays continue to be actively farmed.

The county also has the ability to waive permit fees for new residential and commercial buildings in exchange for incorporating solar arrays. For existing buildings, the county could waive property taxes for 10 years in exchange for new on-site arrays.

On another front, Yamhill County could match the state goal for carbon-free energy by becoming more efficient.

In rural areas, an older, less-insulated home might use 200 kilowatt-hours of PGE electricity a month for heating and lighting. If the county devoted state carbon tax dollars to upgrading insulation, windows and lights, it could cut usage in half.

Adaptation in Yamhill County would require preparing for longer summers and shorter winters. For example, we could reverse the forecasted trend toward lower summer water levels in rural wells and streams by using abundant winter rainfall to recharge our aquifers. The water would re-emerge in summer as a filtered product.

Water management would require helping farmers, rural residents and county public works crews re-vegetate and maintain ditches and field edges. We could also slow down the water that emerges from farm drain tile outlets, allowing it to infiltrate swales lined with native plants.
Adaptation also means fireproofing our buildings as our wildfire risk increases.

Helping homeowners on the urban-wildland edge maintain a defensible perimeter and convert siding and roofing to non-combustible materials would serve to prevent wildfires from becoming structure fires. Providing incentives for maintaining on-site water storage for firefighting would also help.

Developing a countywide fire district would reduce wildfire loss by boosting manpower, thus reducing response time. Conducting prescribed burns under the direction of trained fire managers would help foster greater safety and a proactive county culture.

Ultimately, adaptation requires we acknowledge water is a precious resource that must be conserved in our county, and that fire is an inevitable factor in our landscape.

For farmers and foresters, adaptation also means a switch to new crops and trees. The USDA has a great resource at the NW Climate Hub, found at climatehubs.oce.usda.gov/hubs/northwest.

Sequestration is the easy part for us, as we are really good at growing plants, and absorb pull carbon from the atmosphere for storage in stable forms. An acre of mature Douglas-firs sequesters 120,000 pounds of carbon all on its own.

I propose our county contract with the Miller Woods native plant nursery to provide trees and shrubs to homeowners, farmers and rural residents, and assist them in planting field edges, yards and rights-of-way. There are many fields in our county that would benefit from conversion to forestland, an idea codified in our comprehensive land use plan.

Farmers have a role to play in sequestration, as soil can store tons of carbon in decay-resistant compounds. All it takes is planting cover crops for carbon storage.

And planting shade-loving native plants under and beside solar arrays would further our sequestration, adaptation and mitigation goals.

As residents of Yamhill County, we are already experiencing the effects of climate change. We need to seize the opportunity to innovate together for a better, more resilient future.