Oregon's Outdoors In the News

Orchard depends on ground water, pesticide spraying

PETER WONG
Statesman Journal

October 22, 2007

With almost 60 years between them at TRW Inc., Vincent and Genevieve "Gene" Melynis decided the time had come to leave behind the aerospace business and Southern California.

They had friends who lived in Oregon, and they had plenty of equity from their previous home.

But they had not planned to settle in the Macleay area east of Salem until a real estate agent put something on a tour of other properties.

"Quite by mistake, the agent took us to see this place," Gene Melynis recalled. "We looked at each other and said this is it, we have a place."

There was one apparent catch: Their dream place had 700 filbert trees on 5 1/2 acres.

"I have a hard time telling a rose from a rose," Vincent Melynis said. "I thought we were going to have to take care of the trees."

Gene Melynis interjected: "I knew they would not be a problem."

Sixteen years later, the couple are happy with their choice -- and the filberts they harvest every fall.

"It's not just a hobby; it's a money-maker," Gene Melynis said. "It actually produces. We're the only ones around who have a product, which we have sold to the Blue Diamond cooperative."

They're hoping that voter approval of Measure 49 on the Nov. 6 ballot will help them keep it that way.

Others near them are "country farmers," raising horses, tending greenhouses, growing Christmas trees and feed crops.

The Melynises said theirs is the only commercial crop.

But if their neighbor to the east gets final approval for claims under the property-rights law that voters approved as Measure 37 in 2004, Vincent and Gene Melynis will end up with 19 new homes on 2-acre lots at the east edge of their filbert orchard.

The closest home would be only 50 feet away from their property line, instead of the normal setback of 200 feet.

"I think the farming would be canceled out because we'd have more lawsuits," Vincent Melynis said.

They contract the actual farm operations to someone else, who sprays the orchards several times each spring to control bugs, fungi and weeds, and who also prunes the trees.

The prevailing wind is usually from the west.

"When they spray that stuff, you don't want to walk through the orchard," Gene Melynis said.

The practices are similar to what Bruce Chapin does on his 300-acre orchard north of Keizer, in the Willamette River flood plain.

"They are similar issues, and we're doing the same things." said Chapin, who told his story in Sunday's Statesman Journal.

Then there is the matter of water supplies.

The Melynis orchard does not rely on well water, but their home does -- and they recently spent $10,000 to drill a new 280-foot-deep well when the original one went dry.

They say that 19 new homes, all dependent on wells, are likely to cause groundwater shortages.

"People do not understand that the water is not there," said Cindy Kimball, another neighbor. "If my well goes dry, what do I do? Do I sue the new homeowner or the county commissioners who allowed the new homes? I do not have $10,000 to pay for a new well."

Like other opponents of the new housing, the couple took momentary heart when the Marion County Planning Commission scaled back the proposed development to 10 homes on 4-acre lots.

But then the county commissioners granted the original request for 19 homes, immediately after approving a 33-lot claim elsewhere that drew protests from farmers.

"We were next," Gene Melynis said. "We looked at each other and said we did not have a prayer -- and we didn't."

Dissenting neighbors have sought a review by the state Land Use Board of Appeals, pending the election on Measure 49, which if passed would scale back the proposed development.

But having lived in Southern California, Vincent and Gene Melynis have resigned themselves to "progress."

"He has a right to do what he wants with his property," Vincent Melynis said. "I don't know what the answer is, to be honest with you. I don't even know if there is an answer."

pwong@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6745