In March, she again made the five-hour drive north to Salem, hoping her legislators would listen.

Seventeen months had passed since a helicopter repeatedly flew over Kathyrn Rickard's neighborhood in Curry County while spraying weed killers. She and more than 20 neighbors complained about being exposed to the chemicals.

Now, with the Legislature in session, lawmakers were closer to deciding whether to tighten laws for aerial sprays, used by timber companies to control weeds on clear cuts so trees can grow.

Along with her neighbors, Rickard, a 51-year-old studying to be a medical assistant, had become a voice for the risks the practice posed.

Her Rhodesian ridgeback mix, Mr. Leo, fell ill shortly after the October 2013 incident. The rescue dog soon lost 40 pounds and was put to sleep the following spring. Rickard's vet said the spray was likely to blame.

Rickard developed a sinus infection so severe she required two surgeries. Neighbors complained of severe sinus problems, dizziness and fatigue.

The incident attracted fresh attention to an issue that has festered for decades in coastal communities. In Oregon, timber companies spray chemicals from the air under the West Coast's weakest protections.

Rickard and her neighbors decided to take their complaints to the Capitol. What happened next reveals the ways industry lobbyists wield influence in Oregon as well as the long odds that ordinary citizens face when competing with the special interests that finance election campaigns.

It is the story of how Salem works in 2015.

Rickard hadn't made a campaign contribution in her life. She struggled to get lawmakers in Oregon's coastal caucus to even let her speak in March. The timber and chemical industries had already met privately with those legislators.

She asked for 40 minutes for herself and three others. They got 20. It wasn't much, but the opportunity was important. These lawmakers would cast key votes - if the measure got that far.

So Rickard drove to Salem for yet another night in a hotel to be on time for the 7:30 a.m. meeting in the Capitol. All to give a two-and-a-half minute speech to less than a dozen legislators.

Among the lawmakers at the caucus was Wayne Krieger, a tree farmer and Republican from Gold Beach. He is Rickard's representative, but she said he hadn't returned her calls and emails. Now, she'd finally gotten an audience with him, and at a vital time.

Just before Rickard walked into the conference room, Krieger got up and left.

Rickard and her neighbors weren't anti-timber - one is a former logger - but they knew they risked being seen that way.

They also knew any change was a long shot. Timber is no longer the state's dominant industry. But it remains highly influential in Salem, donating nearly $600,000 to state legislators in the 2014 election cycle.

"We knew we were going against a giant," said John Burns, a volunteer firefighter in Curry County who became one of the informal group's leaders. "And we were just a little ant."

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They found two sympathetic Portland-area Democrats: Michael Dembrow, a community college professor then leading the Senate's environment committee, and Ann Lininger, an attorney and state representative from Lake Oswego.

"I came to this issue because the affected people came to me," Dembrow said. "This was not an issue I sought out. But hearing these peoples' stories, I thought we needed to act."

During public hearings throughout 2014, Rickard spoke to legislators once, cramming her comments into two minutes. Dembrow and Lininger introduced Senate Bill 613 in February. It included three key provisions:

1. The state Board of Forestry would be required to set protective no-spray buffers around homes and schools. None exist today.

2. Timber companies would have to notify neighbors before spraying. Today, neighbors often must listen for approaching helicopters as their only warning.

3. Timber companies would have to disclose what and where they sprayed. Currently, companies must maintain those records and turn them over to the state only on request.

The timber and chemical industries recited a consistent talking point. The legislation was a solution in search of a problem. Stronger buffers wouldn't keep a rogue pilot from taking a shortcut.

What was needed, industry lobbyists insisted, were stricter penalties and better responses for illegal conduct.

This ignored that the issue was bigger than Rickard and her neighbors.

Though allowing the chemicals to drift onto another property is illegal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates 70 million pounds of pesticides are wasted each year around the country because of drift.

Residents throughout the Coast Range have complained about herbicide sprays for years. Far more complaints happen in Oregon than Washington, which has stronger protections.

Environmental groups made the spraying bill a top priority for the 2015 session. Their strategy was to get the bill assigned to the Senate committee that Dembrow, its author, was leading. Then it would go to a powerful joint committee for the heavy negotiations.

They avoided introducing it in the House, anticipating a cold reception.

State Rep. Brad Witt, a labor leader and Clatskanie Democrat holding a powerful committee chairmanship, was working closely on the issue with timber and chemical industry lobbyists. Witt has received $50,000 in campaign contributions from those special interests since 2008.

Along with Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, Witt invited every lawmaker to a Feb. 13 spraying demonstration on land owned by Starker Forests, a private timber company near Corvallis. A sack lunch (paid for by industry) was included.

The invitation described the tour as "a great opportunity for us to see forestry practices on the ground and deepen our understanding in preparation for bills coming before our Natural Resource Committees this year."

Environmental groups weren't invited.

The Oregonian/OregonLive determined that the invitation was written by Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an industry group funded by timber companies, aerial sprayers and herbicide manufacturers such as Monsanto and DuPont.

Clem said he wasn't involved in the planning but agreed to be listed as inviting his colleagues to the tour. Witt said he turned to the industry group to plan the event.

"When I look for a place to do a demonstration on aerial pesticides, I have no idea who's going to be flying a helicopter," Witt said. "I call the people who know. I called Oregonians for Food and Shelter, they lined up Starker Forests and gave us all the information."

The committee leadership change in the Senate was subtle - one Democrat for another. Its consequences wouldn't be.

As the 2015 session approached, Dembrow left the chairmanship of the environment committee.

Dembrow, who has received $400 in campaign contributions from the timber industry in the last seven years, was replaced by state Sen. Chris Edwards. The Eugene Democrat has received $25,000 from the industry since 2006 and once worked in it. One industry group, the Oregon Forest Industries Council, is Edwards' second-largest source of campaign funding.

Those committee changes matter. The chairman has the power to decide which bills get hearings. Without hearings, the bills die.

The leadership switch surprised environmental groups. They'd expected Dembrow to continue leading the committee and interpreted the change as Democratic leaders' disdain for Dembrow's high-profile aerial spraying bill.

Lisa Arkin of Beyond Toxics.

"I noticed a distinct change in his demeanor when that chair was not given to him," said Lisa Arkin, executive director of Beyond Toxics, a Eugene advocacy group deeply involved in the issue.

Dembrow said he had not sought the position again, instead taking a job leading another committee.

"If I had wanted to stay I could have," Dembrow said. "Part of me wishes I had."

Edwards convened a closed-door work group on Dembrow's bill and related legislation. Work groups give legislators a private forum where legislative compromises get worked out among hand-picked participants. Edwards said he wanted to ensure a bill emerged that could pass. He said he was interested in requiring advance notice about sprays.

Environmental advocates who participated said they felt Edwards listened. But Edwards still hadn't scheduled a hearing. And the April 10 deadline for doing that was nearing.

While Edwards' closed-door sessions made progress, Witt announced his own work group over in the House. The first meeting was scheduled at the same time as one of Edwards' - meaning interested groups had to be two places at once.

Environmental advocates took it as a slight to Edwards, who acknowledged being frustrated. It got rescheduled.

Witt was more hostile to spray reform advocates during his closed-door meetings, Arkin said. Anecdotes and news stories about people being sprayed weren't accepted as evidence, she said.

"It was a chilling effect," she said. "He created an atmosphere where we couldn't bring relevant information to the discussion."

Witt refused to support advance notice of spray operations. He said he couldn't decide between the safety of pilots, who might face eco-terrorist attacks if their plans were announced, and local neighbors, who want to shut their windows and bring in their animals.

His reason for inaction shocked the reform advocates. The last documented attack on a helicopter in Oregon came in 1981. The last spray complaint came in March.

"It became a question of whose safety concerns trumped somebody else's," Witt said. "I told the group I was unable to make that call."

The bills that emerged from Witt's group require buffers to be studied, not adopted, and focus on strengthening punishment and response to off-target sprays. That's what industry had sought from the start. Witt sided with industry, leaving out any notification requirements.

As Witt's sessions ended, Arkin tried a final pitch. At least, she asked, could lawmakers agree to impose a 100-foot buffer around homes and schools?

Industry wouldn't budge. The answer was no.

Arkin wasn't going to get the changes Curry County residents wanted. They'd taken on the timber and chemical industries. Though a last-minute amendment to Witt's industry-backed bills remains possible, it appeared they'd lost. Arkin was despondent.

"I was thinking of all the children of all the people who called me. They thought their elected leaders would listen to them," she said.

"I felt their shadows standing behind me and I just thought: I failed them."

Standing in the closed conference room in the Capitol, she began to cry.

Kathyrn Rickard arrived home from an internship around dinnertime on Friday, April 10. Nearly a month had passed since her two-and-a-half minutes with coastal legislators.

It was a key day in Salem: The deadline for bills to have hearings scheduled. Without one, SB 613 would be dead.

The light was flashing on Rickard's answering machine. It was a neighbor: Call immediately, the message said. She did.

"I have some bad news," the neighbor said. "They killed it. It didn't even go up for a vote."

Edwards hadn't scheduled a hearing. He said the bill didn't have a chance, so he didn't let it move forward. He could've sent it on to the powerful Ways and Means Committee, he said, shifting the responsibility to someone else. But it didn't have the votes there, he said.

Industry was happy with the outcome.

"We believe the proposed reforms will help citizens by increasing the capacity and coordination among agencies responsible for investigations," said Scott Dahlman, Oregonians for Food and Shelter's executive director.

Like Arkin, Rickard was devastated. All those trips. All the calls and emails.

"We'd worked so hard," she said. "It's modest changes we're asking for. We're not asking for timber to shut down - just to be responsible. We want to be healthy, and we don't want them poisoning us."

Rickard remembers growing discouraged about the way government worked after she got the runaround following the spray. Investigators didn't come to see what happened for a week. Residents weren't told for six months what they'd been sprayed with.

She regained hope after she met Dembrow. Maybe the system did work, after all. But she doesn't believe that, not anymore.

"I have no faith in my government at this point," she said.

"But I'm not going to stop fighting."

-- Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657