PENDLETON — The Umatilla County Board of Commissioners in a Tuesday, April 20, meeting moved unanimously to declare a drought disaster in the county and are asking that Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack follow suit.

If the state declares a drought, local farmers could receive relief in the form of state or federal grants, officials say.

“We have a very large area in Umatilla County that is in the severe drought stage right now, with another equally large area in extreme drought,” Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran said in the meeting, adding that “the rest of the county is either in abnormally dry or moderate drought.”

Dorran said people in the agriculture industry have been reaching out to him and voicing concerns over the current conditions.

“Right now, there’s cattle farmers that are beginning to have to buy hay because of no early grass, and that’s a big worry,” Dorran said. “Dryland wheat farmers, where are they going to be and what kind of moisture are they looking at? Are they going to be able to sustain the crops they have until the next rain they get?”

Don Wysocki, a soil scientist for Oregon State University based in Umatilla County, said this year’s wheat crop is in dire need of rain.

“If we get rain too late, we can’t really recover,” he said. “I think it’s still at a stage where if we get rain, we’d have pretty good recovery. But another week or two and we’re going to be beyond good recovery.”

Counties like Baker and Union have already declared a drought as much of Central and Eastern Oregon is experiencing either extreme or severe drought conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Shafer said he expects even more counties to join Umatilla and declare droughts in the coming weeks.

“As the summer months are coming closer and closer, I think we’re going to see some serious problems for our farmers and I want to do everything we can to protect them,” he said.

Dry conditions

Some areas of the county have recently reported conditions that rival the driest in recorded history, according to Marilyn Lohman, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Pendleton. Other areas, like in the Blue Mountains, are not reporting drought conditions, but Dorran noted that’s mainly due to the county’s complex geography.

Despite the momentary relief brought by winter storms in February, the month of March in Umatilla County was the sixth driest on record in Pendleton and the second driest in Hermiston, according to Lohman. Since the first of October 2020, precipitation in both Pendleton and Hermiston has been reported lower than normal.

“January was below normal. December was below normal,” Lohman said. “Outside of February, most of our whole winter, and the season where we do normally see precipitation, has been well below normal.”

Lohman added that temperatures in the early winter were also higher than normal, which prevented soil moisture from making a full recovery during the winter months. Then, windy conditions in March “didn’t allow any moisture to soak into the soil and then pulled moisture out too,” she said.

Now, the month of April is shaping up to be one of the driest on record, though rain forecast this weekend could shift the county’s fortunes, Lohman said.

“If it starts raining, you’re going to hear the farmers go, ‘That’s a million dollar rain,’” Shafer said. “Because without it, it’s going to cost them a lot of money, but with that rain it’s going to bring in some money.”