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January 9, 2015 CapitalPress.com 17 National FFA leaders visit Idaho schools By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press AMERICAN FALLS, Ida- ho — FFA’s national offi cers were received by an eager crowd of younger members Jan. 6 here — the third stop on a week-long tour of eight Idaho high schools organized to test the leaders’ new workshops and speeches. A national FFA offi cer at- tends each state’s convention, and sometimes state FFA weeks, and must be prepared with a workshop and keynote address. Never before, however, had all six national offi cers visited the Gem State. The Idaho high school stu- dents say the chance to play guinea pig for FFA role models is an opportunity of a lifetime. The offi cers — college students chosen through a rigorous inter- view process who must take a John O’Connell/Capital Press FFA students at American Falls High School gather around Victoria Maloch, national FFA secretary from Arkansas, while she presents her workshop, Branding Your Life. The national offi cers were scheduled to visit eight Idaho high schools from Jan. 5 to 9 to prac- tice the speeches and workshops they’ll present to FFA chapters throughout the country this year. year off school to focus on FFA duties — were scheduled to visit FFA chapters in Rigby, Black- foot, American Falls, Burley, Kimberly, Jerome, Middleton and Kuna, rotating workshop and keynote address duties. FFA members from other regional schools were also invited at each stop. “It’s a really big deal,” said Riely Geritz, American Falls High School FFA chapter pres- ident. “This is the fi rst time that Idaho and American Falls High School have had anything this big, so we’re pretty excited.” The FFA offi cers’ annual statewide practice event, called Experience State Week, had typ- ically rotated between Tennes- see and Arkansas. To increase interest, FFA opted to accept bids from other potential host states. Casey Zufelt, Idaho FFA ex- ecutive director, added a leader- ship conference and legislative breakfast to Idaho’s proposed itinerary to heighten its appeal. She expects 150 FFA students from throughout the state to at- tend the mini-conference, which was scheduled for Jan. 9-10 at Boise’s Red Lion Hotel. Zufelt hoped a breakfast Jan. 9 at the Red Lion, would give lawmakers who voted to increase agricultural education funding a chance to witness the benefi ts. FFA will provide a free bus to accommodate Northern Idaho students, missed by the tour of high schools. Zufelt said the Takasugi Family Founda- tion, representing the family of the late Idaho lawmaker and FFA supporter Patrick Takasugi, donated $12,000 to cover the majority of costs for the week. “I wish I would have met a national offi cer when I was a freshman,” said Clancy John- ston, Idaho FFA’s state secretary who attends Boise State Univer- sity. “It’s an incredible opportu- nity to inspire FFA members and to really put a spark on Idaho FFA.” The slate of offi cers includes: Andy Paul, president, of Geor- gia; Victoria Maloch, secretary, of Arkansas; Ruth Ann Myers, eastern region vice president, of Kentucky; Kristen Schmidt, central region vice president, of Colorado; Stephen McBride, southern region vice president, of Tennessee; and Caleb Gustin, western region vice president, of New Mexico. Some of the members, in- cluding Paul, the FFA president, are studying agricultural educa- tion. “The average American cit- izen is around three genera- tions removed from the farm,” said Paul, who considers im- proving agricultural literacy to be the industry’s greatest challenge. Workshop activities and discussions emphasized team- work, personal character and leadership. Water allocations based on snowpack, reservoir levels Idaho Ag Expo, potato conference set By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press POCATELLO, Idaho — A seminar at the upcoming 47th Annual Idaho Potato Conference will quiz partic- ipants in a new curriculum designed to teach the state’s fifth-graders about the his- tory and nutritional value of potatoes. The two-day conference — hosted at Idaho State University’s student union from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Jan. 21 and 8:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Jan. 22 — includes 45 sessions highlighting the latest in potato issues and research. Seventy-two ven- dors, including some of the major farm chemical compa- nies, will staff booths at an accompanying trade show in the student union. Further- more, the 36th Ag Expo, fea- turing 100 vendors and the major manufacturers of po- tato equipment, is scheduled for ISU’s Holt Arena from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 20-21 and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 22. Admission to conference sessions is $25 at the door, but the trade show and expo are free. During their conference session “Are you Smart- er than a Fifth-grader?” UI Extension professor Rhea Lanting, of Twin Falls, and Martha Raidl, a UI nutrition specialist based in Boise, will quiz participants on the middle-school spud curric- ulum they designed, with funding from UI and the Ida- ho Potato Commission. Lanting explained UI’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is helping to convert their curriculum into four interactive video lessons, designed for iPads. Lanting hopes to pilot the potato curriculum in three Idaho schools. She said IPC will promote the program, which she hopes will even- tually be taught in 40-50 schools. “Really the goal to me is promoting Idaho products and telling the health ben- efits of potatoes,” Lanting said. Opening remarks at the conference will be delivered by John Foltz, dean of UI’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Key issues to be discussed include the rise of kochia weed resistant to glyphostate herbicide in Western Idaho and a late-season late blight outbreak in Eastern Idaho. Conference co-chairwoman Pam Hutchinson said her lecture will offer tips on managing for the control, prevention and delaying of herbicide resistance, in re- sponse to the kochia finding. Co-chairman Phil Nolte will provide an update on the late blight outbreak, caused by heavy August rainfall. “Fortunately, it didn’t do a whole lot of damage. It just got everybody’s attention,” Nolte said. “The big ques- tion now is are we looking at some kind of a pattern that could repeat?” Other sessions of note in- clude antioxidants in baby potatoes, new sources of potato virus Y resistance for potatoes, research on remote sensing of potato fields, new varieties of Russet Norko- tahs, watering supplies and growing conditions in the future climate and an over- view of the 2014 Farm Bill. In addition to the op- portunity to network with customers, American Falls farmer Jim Tiede is eager to hear the latest research on zebra chip disease, which first arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 2011. Spectra Productions own- er David Beale, who runs the Ag Expo and conference trade show, said the latest in- novations in potato equipment will all be on display under one roof at the Expo. Beale said the events have become an international draw, and he expects a couple of thousand people to visit the Ag Expo. SACRAMENTO — As runoff from December’s storms continues to trickle into California’s reservoirs while the snowpack remains light, predicting how much water will be available this summer is tricky, offi cials say. Anticipated reservoir lev- els are key to determining how much water the State Wa- ter Project and federal Cen- tral Valley Project ultimately deliver to contractors, said Dave Rizzardo, the state De- partment of Water Resources’ chief of snow surveys. Growers could be in for a rude awakening if the Central Valley gets more rain than normal this winter but snow- packs remain meager — an incongruity that Rizzardo ac- knowledges could be “a bit of a public relations nightmare for us.” “We had a couple of won- derful storms that shook the trees really well with lots of wind … but didn’t really produce any snow,” Rizzar- do said. “This is what the perspective is when you’re looking at reservoir operation. It would seem simple enough that no matter how the water’s getting into the reservoir … you can’t store any more than X amount. “The drier the scenario, the more you can store … but the wetter the scenario, the less you can allow (to be stored) because you need room to catch all that runoff,” he said. “Most of that we assume is snowpack … although it real- ly hasn’t been snow but rain.” In other words, if storms fi ll reservoirs too quickly, wa- ter has to be let out to leave room for runoff from what would normally be an abun- dant snowpack. If that runoff never materializes, reservoirs could be left with too little water to sustain their users’ needs through the summer. Of course, reservoir opera- tors could account for the light snowpack and keep more of the rainwater — particularly if it trickles in, alleviating the Tim Hearden/Capital Press Boats are docked at Bridge Bay Resort on Shasta Lake in Northern California on a recent morning. The lake was only at 42 percent of capacity as of midnight Jan. 4, according to the state Department of Water Resources. need for fl ood control, Rizzar- do said. But anticipating the water that ultimately comes from runoff can be diffi cult because California has been known to get some unexpected, cold spring storms that dump snow in the Sierras, he said. “Normally it’s necessary to top off the reservoirs in the spring,” said Maury Roos, the Department of Water Re- sources’ chief hydrologist. “As fl ood control require- ments are eased, you want to fi ll them up as close as you can from spring snowmelt.” The snow usually accounts for about one-third of Cali- fornia’s usable water supply, Roos said. Water offi cials and Nation- al Weather Service forecasters have said California needs at least 150 percent of normal precipitation — including 150 percent of normal snowpack — to avoid a fourth straight year of drought in 2015. Achieving such an abundant snowpack appears unlikely, said Michelle Mead, a NWS warning coordinator here. The DWR and cooperat- ing agencies conduct manu- al snow surveys each month from January to May, provid- ing a basis for determining allocation levels for state and federal water contractors. The meager snowpack was a key reason the DWR initially es- timated in December it would deliver just 10 percent of re- quested allocations to State Water Project contractors. As of Jan. 5, the Golden State’s major reservoirs held nearly 62 percent of their average amounts of storage for the date, according to the DWR’s California Data Ex- change Center. Shasta Lake, the center- piece of the federal Central Valley Project, was at 42 percent of capacity and 66 percent of its normal level as of Jan. 5 — an improvement over the 24 percent of capaci- ty it held in late October. And Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s chief reservoir, was at 39 percent of capacity and held 62 percent of its normal contents this week, up from its level of 28 percent of ca- pacity in late October. Unfortunately, California has seen a lull in precipitation statewide since before Jan. 1, threatening to erase the gains made in northern areas in the fall against the three- year drought. Northern Cal- ifornia’s next chance of rain appears to be next weekend, Reservoir levels Here are the percentages of total capacity and average for this time of year for major California reservoirs, according to the state Department of Water Resources’ California Data Exchange Center. Totals are as of Jan. 5. Trinity Lake: 34 percent of ca- pacity; 50 percent of average Shasta Lake: 42 percent; 66 percent Lake Oroville: 39 percent; 62 percent Folsom Lake: 45 percent; 91 percent New Melones: 23 percent; 40 percent Don Pedro: 39 percent; 59 percent Exchequer: 7 percent; 16 percent San Luis: 43 percent; 62 percent Millerton Lake: 35 percent; 64 percent Pine Flat: 13 percent; 31 percent according to AccuWeather. The federal Climate Pre- diction Center’s three-month outlook for Northern Califor- nia continues to be warmer and wetter than normal. Funds sought to study rail interchange improvements FAA grants permits for Crowther said. The changes Connell come from the north, ag, real estate drones Connell interchange would end a “pinch point,” and must go south roughly 35 Area in detail 90 Site of proposed 26 railroad interchange 24 project 395 Othello 26 Connell Co l b ia u m 240 395 R er State legislators and city administrators hope to obtain federal funding to improve a railroad interchange at Con- nell, Wash., that would re- solve a bottleneck in moving agricultural commodities. Offi cials want to recon- fi gure the Connell Rail Inter- change to accommodate more traffi c from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and the Columbia Basin Rail- road. The Columbia Basin Rail- road line intersects at the in- terchange with BNSF’s Lake- side Subdivision line, which links Spokane and Pasco, Wash. The interchange was built roughly 100 years ago. “The confi guration is out- Moses Lake er Capital Press 28 Richland iv By MATTHEW WEAVER Wash. Pasco ak e serves $2 billion in ag goods Sn Kennewick 221 12 N 82 h. Was e. Or Alan Kenaga/Capital Press dated and ineffi cient, and it needs to be upgraded,” said Jed Crowther, Connell city administrator. As currently proposed, the interchange would be moved south to an industri- al zone, away from vehicle and pedestrian crossings, he said, increasing effi ciency and allowing timely delivery of products moving through the region. About $2 billion in agricultural products are shipped by rail through the re- gion, he said. Rail lines from the inter- change serve Moses Lake, Wheeler, Schrag, Warden, Bruce, Othello and Connell. Crowther said the Columbia Basin Railroad hauls more than 10,000 rail cars annually carrying agricultural commod- ities and industrial freight. “As (Burlington North- ern) increases its capacity, it doesn’t do any good to have a bottleneck,” said Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg. “Connell will be a bottleneck if we don’t fi x it.” The current confi guration of the interchange allows lon- ger trains to enter Connell only from the south, said Pat Boss, public affairs consultant for Columbia Basin Railroad. Most of the trains entering miles to Pasco to turn around and return to Connell. “If we can confi gure it correctly, the trains that are coming from Spokane could directly access the Connell interchange and not have to go all the way down to Pasco and turn around again,” Boss said. Stakeholders formed the Connell Rail Interchange Co- alition in December. Connell city council members on Jan. 5 directed staff to prepare a state Community Economic Revitalization Board plan- ning grant application to determine the cost of the im- provements. The coalition also wants to work with other communi- ties whose interchanges have similar issues to apply for federal grant money, Man- weller said. “We’ve got a 21st-century economy running on 1920s train lines,” Manweller said. “Something’s gotta give here.” By JOAN LOWY Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administra- tion on Tuesday issued permits to use drones to monitor crops and photograph properties for sale, marking the fi rst time permission has been granted to companies involved in agricul- ture and real estate. The exemptions to the current ban on commercial drone fl ights were granted to Advanced Aviation Solutions in Star, Idaho, for “crop scout- ing,” and to Douglas Trudeau of Tierra Antigua Realty in Tucson, Arizona. Advanced Aviation Solutions plans to use its 1.5-pound, fi xed-wing eBee drone to make photographic measurements of farm fi elds, determine the health of crops and look for pests. The aim is to save farmers time walking through fi elds. The drone also can carry sensors that pick up information invisible to the naked eye, which can help determine which fi elds need watering. Trudeau’s exemption au- thorizes him to fl y a Phantom 2 Vision+ quadcopter to “en- hance academic community awareness and augment real estate listing videos,” the FAA said. Real estate companies have been eager to gain permission to use drones to photograph and make videos of pricey properties. The permits require that drone operations include both a ground “pilot” and an ob- server, that the pilot have at least an FAA private pilot cer- tifi cate and a current medical certifi cate, and that the drone remains within line of sight of the operator at all times. Before these approvals, the FAA had granted 12 exemp- tions to 11 companies involved in the oil and gas, fi lmmaking, landfi ll and other industries.