SALEM (AP) — The number of immigrants entering the United States is down nationally, but that isn’t reflected in the Salem area, the heart of Oregon’s Hispanic community.

Salem’s foreign-born population rose 11.9 percent last year but still is lower than it was three years ago, according to numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In Marion County, the immigrant population grew by 3.3 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, and increased slightly from 2005.

But the number of foreigners putting down roots in Polk County skyrocketed by 79.7 percent in 2007 from 2006, after an earlier significant rise from 2005.

The census said the numbers are hard to analyze because figures from 2005 do not include foreigners living in group quarters such as nursing homes, prisons and psychiatric facilities, as do 2006 and 2007 figures.

The national downturn usually is explained by a bad economy and a tighter border with Mexico.

Custody battle of deer rises to appeals court

PORTLAND (AP) — A Molalla couple who rescued a deer named Snowball say their pet should be returned but state officials have gone to the Oregon Court of Appeals to keep the animal with rare white fur.

The lawyer for James Filipetti and Francesca Mantei said that Oregon law requires the authorities to give back property it has seized if it isn’t needed for evidence.

The couple never has been charged with a crime in Snowball’s case, said lawyer Geordie Duckler, so the state should return the deer to them.

The couple rescued Snowball in 2001, paying for surgeries to repair her deformed hind legs.

But state wildlife agents said the couple broke the law by taking the deer from the wild and keeping her without a permit. They seized Snowball, now at Wildlife Safari in Winston.

A judge ordered the state to return Snowball, but the state appealed.

Last week, the couple settled a defamation suit against the state.

No damages were paid but state officials did sign an agreement that praised the couple for their compassion and offered regrets for suggesting they broke the law.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, Jake Weigler, says the couple’s argument during a hearing in Hillsboro on Tuesday could set a difficult precedent.

If the state seized a mountain lion or a cougar that a family rescued and was keeping at their home, for example, “the state would have to give that cougar back to the family, and that would probably not be a very good thing,” Weigler said.

The three-judge panel met at the Century High School auditorium to allow students and the public to see the court in action. The judges are not expected to issue a ruling for several months.

Weyerhaeuser, Seneca asked to end spraying

MARCOLA (AP) — When the sound of helicopter blades passes over the forestland near her rural home, retired Springfield schoolteacher Karen Asai gets nervous.

She and about a dozen other Marcola-area residents met Tuesday to protest the spraying of pesticides by timber companies Weyerhaeuser and Seneca in the private forests near their neighborhoods.

Weyerhaeuser confirmed that 30 acres near Marcola were sprayed with herbicides Tuesday morning, but said they were applied according to state and federal laws. A ground application is planned for later this fall.

Residents say they’ve long been concerned about the potential for pesticides to drift through the streams onto nearby schools and vegetable gardens. But this is the first time they have joined to fight it.

More than 100 citizens have signed a petition calling on Weyerhaeuser to end the use of pesticides, said Lisa Arkin, director of Oregon Toxics Alliance.

While spraying has gone on for decades, Arkin said some neighbors are tired of fretting about possible side effects.

The law requires that aerial pesticides come no closer than 60 feet of a riparian zone, but no such buffer law exists for schools, Arkin said.

The alliance hopes to draft legislation for the 2009 Legislature to create a pesticide-free zone around schools, she said.

Marcola Superintendent Rolla Weber said he plans to speak with school staff and the school board on the topic.

Weyerhaeuser filed an intent to spray form on July 30, and said herbicides glyphosate, imazapyr and aminopyralid would be used to kill vegetation to allow newly planted trees to grow.

State law requires private landowners to notify the state Department of Forestry when they plan to use herbicides, and the state makes that information available to anyone who asks and will mail notifications for a fee.

Weyerhaeuser does more than required of it to notify adjacent land owners by phone or in person, company spokesman Greg Miller said.

“These are highly emotional questions, which is why I believe we go the extra mile,” Miller said. “All I can tell you is we have safeguards in place because we have looked at the issue of drift.”

Weyerhaeuser applies the chemicals to federal labeling specifications, and all three herbicides are fairly standard, Miller said. Glyphosate’s brand names include Roundup and Rodeo.

According to a fact sheet at Oregon State University’s Environmental Health Sciences Center Web site, glyphosate is low in toxicity when eaten, inhaled or applied to human skin. It is practically nontoxic to fish, birds and bees.

Some Marcola residents say otherwise.

Parsons Creek Road homeowner Barbara Smith said she’s afraid the spray is exacerbating her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“We moved up here to get away from bad air and environment, and now all of a sudden there’s this, said Smith.

“Why didn’t they tell us?”

“The jury is still out on a lot of those compounds,” neighbor Peter Graham said. “It’s just this underlying nagging fear that I have.”

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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com