October 30, 2015
CapitalPress.com
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FEMA denies aid to residents in fire-ravaged counties
Agency OKs funds
to rebuild public
facilities
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Federal Emergency
Management Agency will
help rebuild public facilities
damaged by wildfires in Wash-
ington state last summer, but
won’t assist individuals who
sustained uninsured losses,
disappointing state officials
and rural residents reeling from
back-to-back record-breaking
fire seasons.
More than 1 million acres
burned in Washington after
June 1. The fires caused an es-
timated $42.49 million in dam-
age to roads, bridges, parks and
other public property. FEMA
has agreed to help repair pub-
lic damage in eight counties
and the Colville Reservation in
northeastern Washington.
FEMA, however, rejected a
separate request from Gov. Jay
Inslee to provide aid to indi-
viduals in Okanogan, Stevens
and Chelan counties, the hard-
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, right, and Public Lands Commissioner
Peter Goldmark, shown here walking in June in Olympia in a test
of their fitness to visit wildire scenes, say they are disappointed
that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has declined
to provide assistance to people who suffered uninsured losses
in wildfires this season. Inslee has appointed Goldmark to lead a
council on recovering from and preparing for major wildfires.
est-hit areas.
“This is very disappointing
news. This is the second time
in as many years that we’ve
been denied individual assis-
tance following a major fire,”
Inslee said in a written state-
ment. “We have homeowners
that have lost everything.”
Most of the damage oc-
curred in Okanogan Coun-
ty, one of the top agricul-
ture-producing counties in
the state. The 522,229-acre
Okanogan Complex fire
burned one year after the
256,000-acre Carlton Com-
plex blazed through the coun-
ty. Some 3,850 cattle were lost
in this year’s fire, according
to a preliminary estimate.
Being bypassed again by
FEMA is painful, said Jon
Wyss, chairman of the Carlton
Complex Long Term Recov-
ery Group and president of
the Okanogan County Farm
Bureau.
The recovery group issued
a statement saying its pleas for
FEMA aid fell on deaf ears. “It
would have made a world of
difference,” Wyss said of the
aid.
FEMA notified the gover-
nor of its decision in an Oct.
22 letter. The agency said the
damage suffered by individ-
uals wasn’t severe enough to
warrant assistance.
FEMA spokeswoman Cam
Rossie said the agency toured
fire-damaged areas to assess
property losses, disruptions to
daily lives and the availability
of volunteers in determining
whether it needed to provide
assistance.
“We’re not always the best
option for recovery,” she said.
The fires destroyed 146
homes and damaged 476.
Nearly two-thirds of the
homes were uninsured or un-
derinsured, according to the
governor’s office.
Agriculture is the main eco-
nomic driver in the hardest-hit
counties, according to a state
report submitted to FEMA.
“As a native of Okanogan
County, it is hard to over-
state the heartbreak and the
suffering the people of north-
east Washington have gone
through the past two fires,”
Public Lands Commissioner
Peter Goldmark said in a writ-
ten statement. “By refusing to
help, FEMA is letting down
communities that are in des-
perate need of assistance.”
Inslee said FEMA should
re-evaluate how it determines
eligibility for individual disas-
ter assistance.
“I will continue to fight for
greater federal support for di-
saster recovery particularly as
our state encounters hotter, dri-
er and increasingly devastating
fire seasons,” he said.
If FEMA had granted the
state’s request, individuals
would have been eligible to
apply for displaced worker
benefits, low-interest loans and
money for temporary housing
and to replace lost property.
The Western Governors’
Association last year adopted
a resolution calling on FEMA
to provide more help for indi-
viduals after disasters. Wash-
ington officials said Friday
that it’s unclear to them how
FEMA evaluates requests for
assistance.
Inslee also announced Fri-
day that he will form a wild-
land fire council to coordinate
recovery and prepare for future
fires. Goldmark will lead the
council.
FEMA approved federal
aid to repair public property in
Chelan, Ferry, Lincoln, Okan-
ogan, Pend Oreille, Stevens,
Whatcom and Yakima coun-
ties, as well as the Colville res-
ervation.
Nonprofit
organizations
that provide public services,
such as hospitals, schools and
homeless shelters, also will be
eligible to apply for money.
FEMA will fund up to 75
percent of the cost of repairs.
Assistance was not ap-
proved for Asotin, Columbia,
Douglas, Garfield, the Ka-
lispel Tribe of Indians, the
Spokane Tribe of Indians, and
the Confederated Tribes and
Bands of the Yakama Nation.
Idaho students continue FFA bus trip tradition WDFW sends report on
wolf shooting to prosecutor
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
By DON JENKINS
For the Mackay Junior-Se-
nior High School students who
make an annual bus trip to the
national FFA convention, the
journey is as memorable as the
event itself.
On Oct. 22, 21 of the Custer
County, Idaho, school’s 35
students loaded into an Eagle
commuter bus with nearly a
million miles on the odometer
for a 12-day trip, highlighted
by the national FFA convention
in Louisville, Ky., and stops in
Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and
Tennessee.
It marked Mackay’s 29th
consecutive bus trip to FFA’s
crowning event. As usual,
Mackay students offered seats to
FFA members from other chap-
ters, picking up 18 students from
Challis, Aberdeen and Shelley.
Normally, Mackay students
are charged $600. Many opt
to work off part of the total in
a school-run scrap metal recy-
cling operation, which helped
the FFA chapter raise money to
buy its bus several years ago.
This year, however, the cost
was just $100, thanks to Mack-
ay senior Hailey Hampton. She
won $10,000 toward the trip
through an agricultural-themed
essay contest sponsored by Cul-
ver’s restaurants.
“I talked about how we need
to have empathy for the Ameri-
can farmer,” said Hampton, who
addressed the abundance of mis-
information about agriculture
and the importance of setting the
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press
A Mackay Junior-Senior High School bus taking students to the FFA national convention in Kentucky
stops to pick up Aberdeen and Shelley students at the Blackfoot Walmart on Oct. 22. Mackay senior
Hailey Hampton, who is standing, won her FFA chapter $10,000, covering the cost of the trip for her
classmates, with an essay she wrote about agriculture.
record straight.
Hampton was recently sur-
prised to find her entire family
in attendance at a school assem-
bly — and to learn it was in her
honor, so Culver’s could prop-
erly announce her achievement.
Culver’s offered an extra $4,000
to fix the bus’s air conditioning
when the school’s agricultural
teacher, Trent Van Leuven, ex-
pressed concern about driving
through the Texas heat.
Jessie Corning, a senior mar-
keting manager with the Wis-
consin-based chain, said there
were 450 contest entries.
“It was an amazing thing to
discover such an awesome essay
had come from this. It’s a very
unique story and something we
just stumbled upon,” Corning
said.
During 80 hours of driving,
the students will stop for the
Louisiana State Fair, the Grand
Ole Opry, dinner and a Jake
Owen concert on Culver’s, a
Denver hockey game, two na-
tional parks and the site of the
Kennedy assassination.
About 150 Wichita Falls,
Texas, FFA students have orga-
nized a joint social and barbe-
cue for the Mackay group. The
students have also scheduled
agricultural tours, including
the Randal County Feed Yard
in Amarillo, Texas, the last
Mississippi farm with a work-
ing cotton gin, a catfish farm,
a horse rehabilitation hospital
near Lexington, Ky., and a tour
of the University of Missouri’s
agricultural programs.
As usual, Van Leuven said
they’ve packed 300 pounds of
fresh potatoes, to offer their tour
hosts. Many students who have
never left the West will experi-
ence 15 states.
“I love that we take the bus,”
Hampton said. “Other chapters
that fly probably have more
sleep than us, but we get to see
so many incredible things.”
Van Leuven has his fingers
crossed that the bus won’t expe-
rience mechanical trouble — a
fairly common occurrence in
past years. But, he said, chang-
ing the tradition is not an option.
“This is kind of a rite of
passage. The school board
members, nearly all of them
have been on the trip or driv-
en the bus coming back,” Van
Leuven said. “If I said, ‘Hey,
we’re not going to take the
bus to the national convention
this year,’ I’d probably get
quartered.”
For now, Portland, neighboring cities won’t expand into farmland
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Portland and neighbor-
ing cities won’t expand their
urban growth boundaries
any time soon, temporari-
ly easing the development
pressure on farmland in the
tri-county metro area.
Neither the population
growth forecast nor the
job growth forecast sup-
ports adding new land for
development, said Martha
Bennett, chief operating of-
ficer of Metro, the regional
land-use planning agency.
Metro’s elected council will
most likely adopt Bennett’s
recommendation in Novem-
ber.
Metro coordinates land-
use planning in Multnomah,
Washington and Clackamas
counties, which include the
cities of Portland, Hillsboro,
Beaverton and Gresham and
1.5 million people.
But the counties, Wash-
ington and Clackamas in
particular, also are strong
agricultural production ar-
eas. Farmers grow nursery
crops, Christmas trees, seed
crops, vegetables, fruit and
berries within short drives
of city limits, which makes
for contentious land-use de-
cisions.
Oregon’s land-use plan-
ning system was intended to
protect farmland from city
sprawl. Cities are required
to establish urban growth
boundaries, and expanding
beyond them requires a pub-
lic process often accompa-
nied by conflict.
Metro, which has an
elected council, attempted to
ease the repeated short-term
arguments by establishing
urban and rural reserves,
designating which land will
be developed and which land
will remain farm or forest
for the next 50 years.
Legal challenges have
prevented full implemen-
tation of the reserves plan,
however.
In the meantime, Clacka-
mas County commissioners
are pressing to redesignate
some land south of Wilson-
ville from rural to urban re-
serves. They’re opposed by
farm groups such as Friends
of French Prairie.
Given the uncertainty and
reduced population and job
growth expectations, Bennett
recommended Metro hold off
on urban growth expansion.
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She said the council should re-
visit the question in 2017-18.
Washington state wildlife
officers investigating the shoot-
ing of OR-14, a gray wolf col-
lared in Oregon more than three
years ago, have submitted their
report to the Columbia County,
Wash., prosecutor.
A Blue Mountains cabin
owner reported Oct. 11 that he
shot the wolf because he be-
lieved it was threatening his
dogs, his wife and himself, ac-
cording to a Department of Fish
and Wildlife report.
A WDFW sergeant has
discussed the case with prose-
cutors. The department hasn’t
said whether it will recommend
the shooter be charged with tak-
ing a state endangered species,
a gross misdemeanor punish-
able by up to a year in jail and a
$5,000 fine.
“We want to give the prose-
cutor a chance to look at the re-
port. Obviously, they’re going
to have to make the final deci-
sion anyway,” WDFW Capt.
Dan Rahn said Monday.
The prosecutor’s office did
not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Last year, WDFW recom-
mended charges be filed against
a Whitman County man who
pursued and shot a wolf in a
field. The shooter was charged,
but Whitman County Prosecu-
tor Denis Tracy dropped the
case when the defendant agreed
to pay $100 in court costs.
In the Columbia County
case, according to the WDFW
investigation, the shooter was
standing on his porch when he
fired a .22-caliber rifle 10 times
at OR-14. A shot through the
skull was likely instantly fa-
Courtesy of Oregon Dept. of Fish
and Wildlife
OR-14, shown when he was
fitted with a collar in 2012 by
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife, was shot and
killed Oct. 11 by a Columbia
County, Wash., resident who
told investigators he felt the
wolf was threatening his dogs
and family.
tal and dropped the animal 43
yards from the cabin, according
to WDFW.
The cabin owner told inves-
tigators that his wife saw the
wolf while she was calling their
two dogs into the cabin.
The man said the wolf
looked at him and seemed to
be coming his way. He said he
was carrying a rifle as a matter
of routine because of preda-
tors such as bears, coyotes and
wolves. He said he fired until
the rifle was empty.
WDFW Sgt. Paul Mosman
interviewed the couple that
evening.
“It became apparent through
talking to them that the entire
family’s sense of security at
their cabin had been shattered
by the appearance of a wolf
on their property,” the sergeant
wrote in his report.
OR-14 was known to cross
Interstate 84 into Washington
and had drawn the attention of
wildlife managers in both states
over the years.
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