The farm impacts of a recreational trail in Oregon’s Yamhill County weren’t properly analyzed, so the project must be reconsidered for a third time, according to a state land use board.

County officials failed to comply with a previous order to “make specific factual findings” whether the 3-mile trail Yamhelas-Westsider trail will “force a significant change in farming practices” in regard to pesticide spraying, the Land Use Board of Appeals has ruled.

“The farmers are not obligated to accommodate the trail by changing their accepted farm practices, even if that change is ‘reasonable, prudent and feasible,’” according to LUBA.

Yamhill County bought a 12.5-mile stretch of rail corridor for $1.4 million in 2017 and approved converting three of those miles between Yamhill and Carlton into a recreational trail the following year.

However, LUBA overturned that decision on procedural grounds in 2018 and then again due to farm impact concerns in 2019.

In the most recent ruling, LUBA has again found that county officials came up short in their analysis of the trail.

Farmers and the Oregon Department of Agriculture testified that spraying of gramoxone and parazone herbicides near the trail would be prohibited, which weighs heavily in the favor of the project’s opponents, the ruling said.

Meanwhile, Yamhill County’s conclusion that the trail wouldn’t affect use of these chemicals “is not supported by substantial evidence” or “countervailing expert testimony,” according to LUBA.

Likewise, farmers should not be required to impose a 10-foot setback for spraying the pesticides Lorsban and Yuma 4E on their own property, since it’s up to Yamhill County to accommodate farm use — not the other way around, the ruling said.

The county wrongly didn’t evaluate if the trail will change how farms are regulated under the federal government’s “application exclusion zone” for pesticides, the ruling said.

Even if no law prevents aerial spraying next to the trail, the county must still consider whether the project will adversely affect such applications, LUBA said. “The burden is on the county to demonstrate that its nonfarm use will not force a significant change. The county has not done so.”

Aside from the trail’s potential effects on pesticide usage, the county also failed to consider whether the project will “result in new drainage patterns and how the stormwater will be managed to avoid contamination of adjacent farmland,” the ruling said. “The findings simply dismiss the farmers’ concerns.”

It’s unclear whether fencing around the trail will prevent “trespass-related concerns” about pesticide exposure, “as well as weed seed, trash and feces contamination,” according to LUBA. The county’s analysis of fire risks, meanwhile, was “inadequate and not supported by substantial evidence.”

LUBA also agreed with the project’s opponents that Yamhill County’s process for authorizing the trail was flawed.

The county didn’t allow opponents to present oral testimony while discounting their written testimony as “not credible” based on its judgment of their attorney, the ruling said.

“In these unique circumstances, we agree with the petitioners that the county’s procedure prohibiting petitioners from testifying at the hearing prejudiced their substantial rights to submit their case and to receive a full and fair hearing,” LUBA said.