20 CapitalPress.com
December 11, 2015
Idaho defends flood control accounting
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — The Idaho De-
partment of Water Resources
says the counting of flood con-
trol releases from Boise Riv-
er system reservoirs against
stored water rights is not a new
practice but dates to 1986.
The Treasure Valley irriga-
tion community, which oppos-
es that practice and has clashed
with IDWR in court over it,
disputes that claim.
Irrigators who get wa-
ter from the reservoirs claim
IDWR has recently decided
to count flood control releas-
es against the rights of water
stored in the reservoirs.
They have challenged the
practice in a special district
water court, and in an IDWR
administrative hearing, and
have vowed to seek a legisla-
tive fix if necessary.
IDWR Deputy Director
Mathew Weaver said the de-
partment has counted flood
control releases in Basin 63
— the Boise Valley basin —
as satisfied water rights since
1986, when the basin switched
to a computerized accounting
program.
Despite claims this is a new
practice, “That’s simply not
the case,” Weaver said. “The
basin has been administering
(water rights) this way for 30
years.”
Weaver said claims that the
practice could lead to water
being shut off to farmers and
other irrigators in early sum-
mer, resulting in an economic
catastrophe, are also incorrect.
Since 1986, there has only
been one year — 1989 —
when the practice had a det-
rimental effect on water right
holders, he said. That year,
they were impacted by about
65,000 acre-feet.
“A catastrophe is not im-
minent” and 30 years of data
show that, he said.
But those who represent
Treasure Valley irrigators
opposed to the department’s
practice dispute that the IDWR
has administered stored water
rights in the basin this way
since 1986.
Dan Steenson, a Boise wa-
ter attorney who represents
irrigators on the issue, said
water users submitted plenty
of evidence during the court
case, including from the Army
Corps of Engineers and Bureau
of Reclamation, to prove that
flood control releases from Boi-
se reservoirs were never count-
ed against stored water rights.
“This has been an integral
concept in the operation of
our reservoirs and the admin-
istration of water rights in our
valley for ... as long as these
reservoirs have been in exis-
tence,” he said.
A special court master of
the Snake River Basin Adju-
dication Court agreed with the
arguments of Treasure Valley
water users and recommended
the presiding court judge rule
in their favor. IDWR has chal-
lenged that recommendation.
Lee Sisco, who was Basin
63 watermaster from 1986 to
2008 and worked for IDWR
for 19 years before that, tes-
tified during the recent legal
proceedings that flood control
releases from the system’s
reservoirs have never been
counted against stored water
rights.
The switch to the comput-
erized water rights accounting
system in 1986 changed noth-
ing, he told the Capital Press.
“All we did was go from
doing it by hand with a spread
sheet to ... going to a new
computer system program,”
he said. “The basic premise of
how water rights are account-
ed for never changed. We’ve
been doing this for the last 60-
plus years.”
‘Farm hall’ addresses outside influences on ag Strategist:
Industry reps
emphasize impact
on viability,
economy
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
RICHLAND, Wash. —
Washington Sen. Judy War-
nick plans to introduce legis-
lation early next year that will
protect farmers from outside
influences.
Industries seek to locate in
areas where ground is open
and affordable, said Warnick,
a Republican from Moses
Lake, Wash. She wants to
see the Washington State De-
partment of Agriculture more
involved in development in
agricultural areas.
“Sometimes the industries
that come in have effects on
farmland (and) farm crops
that are not foreseen,” War-
nick said. “I’m trying to pro-
tect the farmers from those
effects.”
Warnick and Sen. Sharon
Brown, R-Kennewick, held a
“Farm Hall” meeting Dec. 8
in Richland, Wash., to discuss
the impacts outside factors
can have on farmers and food
processors.
Warnick, Brown and Sen.
Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville,
shared a table with represen-
tatives from the Washington
Cattlemen’s
Association,
Washington State Dairy Fed-
eration, Washington State
Farm Bureau, Washington
State Potato Commission,
Photos by Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Washington State Cattlemen’s Association executive vice president Jack Field listens as Washington
State Dairy Federation executive director Dan Wood makes a point Dec. 8 during the “Farm Hall”
meeting in Richland, Wash. Franklin County hay farmer Steve Cooper, second vice president of the
Washington State Farm Bureau, listens at right.
Washington Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, center, addresses
the “Farm Hall” meeting Dec. 8 in Richland. Sen. Sharon Brown,
R-Kennewick, and Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washing-
ton State Potato Commission, listen at Schoesler’s side.
Washington Association of
Wheat Growers and North-
west Processors Association.
The event was designed
to serve as a town hall-type
meeting for the farming com-
munity, Brown said.
The speakers talked about
the effects of regulations,
possible removal of tax ex-
emptions, labor slowdowns
at ports, wolves and concerns
about drought, water avail-
ability and water quality,
among other issues.
Franklin County hay farm-
Washington Sen. Mark
Schoesler catches up with
former Washington Association
of Wheat Growers president
Nicole Berg Dec. 8 following
the “Farm Hall” meeting in
Richland, Wash.
er Steve Cooper, second vice
president of the Washington
State Farm Bureau, said he
reduced his hay acreage from
1,000 to 300 due to low prices
and the labor slowdown at the
Port of Portland, switching
into other crops. He still has
500 tons of hay from the 2014
crop, sold and partially paid
for, on his farm.
“Markets are less, prices
are lower and it’s really not a
time to regulate and tax farm-
ers more,” Cooper said.
Each year, new bills or
regulations are introduced
that chip away at conven-
tional agriculture, based on
bad information, said Chris
Voigt, executive director of
the Washington State Potato
Commission.
“As our Legislature be-
comes even more urbanized,
they don’t understand agricul-
ture, the practices why and re-
percussions if you don’t con-
trol weeds or insects,” Voigt
said. “They don’t recognize
the full spectrum of possibili-
ties when you eliminate some
of these technologies.”
Dan Wood, executive di-
rector of the Washington
State Dairy Federation, said
the issues all tie into wheth-
er the state will enhance its
efforts to protect the viability
of agriculture and its ability to
compete with other states and
countries.
“If we raise taxes, have
more agencies developing
regulations, if we don’t con-
trol the predators, if we bring
back a larger death tax — all
of these things make it a less
friendly place to do the busi-
ness of agriculture and food
processing in Washington
state,” Wood said. “That hurts
our farms, food processors,
exports and state economy.”
Company recalls celery-and-onion mixes
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — A
California company is try-
ing to rebound from a pub-
lic-relations crisis as its cel-
ery-and-onion salad blend
was suspected of having
sickened 19 people in seven
states.
Taylor Farms Pacific Inc.
of Tracy, Calif., recently re-
called 71 products citing “an
abundance of caution” after a
celery-and-onion mix tested
positive for a strain of E. coli
in a sample taken by the Mon-
tana Department of Public
Health, federal regulators say.
The mix was sold for use
in Costco’s rotisserie chick-
en salad, which had been
linked to an outbreak of E.
coli illnesses in California,
Washington, Colorado, Mon-
tana, Missouri, Utah and
Virginia and removed from
Costco stores, the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration
reports.
Federal officials said Tues-
day further testing was unable
to confirm the presence of E.
coli in the onions and celery
used to make the Costco sal-
ads. But the Montana public
health officials who did the
initial testing said Tuesday
that doesn’t mean their earlier
findings were invalid, The As-
sociated Press reported.
The U.S. Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention
said the onion and celery mix
from Taylor Farms Pacific
has not been ruled out as the
source of the E. coli outbreak
that made 19 people sick in
seven states and sent five peo-
ple to the hospital.
The CDC and the Food and
Drug Administration contin-
ue searching for a definitive
cause of the E. coli outbreak.
But that becomes more diffi-
cult the further they get from
the outbreak, which started
in late October, Jim Murphy,
the Montana health agency’s
communicable disease divi-
sion chief, told the AP.
Taylor Farms on Nov. 26
recalled several products con-
taining celery from Costco as
well as snacking trays, salad
mixes and other products sold
at 7-Eleven, King Soopers,
Pantry, Raley’s, Savemart,
Safeway, Albertsons, Vons,
Tony’s Finer FoodTs, Star-
bucks, Target, Walmart and
Sam’s Club, according to the
FDA.
Taylor Farms officials
did not return several phone
calls from the Capital Press.
A recorded message on its
food-safety hotline said the
products that were recalled
contain “celery sourced
from one ranch in Califor-
nia” but does not name the
ranch.
Bruce Taylor, chairman
and chief executive officer of
Taylor Farms in Salinas, told
the Monterey Herald that fed-
eral and state officials jumped
the gun in linking the E. coli
that caused the illnesses to
celery processed by Taylor
Farms.
Taylor told the Herald that
Montana health officials gen-
erated a “presumptive posi-
tive,” meaning they identified
the strain of E. coli 0157 H7
from samples taken from ill
consumers as the same strain
found on his company’s cel-
ery products.
However, it hasn’t been
determined yet that it is ac-
tually the same bacteria — a
match that can only be made
when DNA testing is com-
plete, Taylor told the Herald.
Further, the bag that Montana
health officials tested was
manufactured Nov. 13, well
after the end of the outbreak
from the Costco salads, Tay-
lor told the newspaper.
Murphy said his scientists
definitely found bits and piec-
es of the DNA from the E. coli
157 bacteria in the vegetable
mix sample they took from a
Montana Costco.
Public-private partnerships bolster U.S. wheat breeding
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
NAMPA, Idaho — World
wheat production is increas-
ing while U.S. production is
declining and the domestic
industry needs a new model to
reverse that trend.
That’s what Frank Curtis,
executive vice president of
Limagrain Cereal Seeds, the
world’s fourth largest seed
company, told Idaho-East-
ern Oregon Seed Association
members Dec. 2 during the
group’s annual meeting.
Federal and state funding
for wheat research is declining
and fewer wheat variety royal-
ties are going back into breed-
ing programs because farmers
are growing less wheat, he
said.
U.S. wheat production to-
taled 65 million metric tons
in 1980 but only 55 million
metric tons now, while world
wheat production has in-
creased from 440 million to
725 million metric tons during
that time, he said.
According to USDA pro-
jections, he said, the U.S. share
of world wheat exports will
fall from about 22 percent now
to 15.6 percent in 2021.
“Wheat production is de-
clining in the United States be-
cause it’s less profitable than”
other crops such as corn and
soybeans and that’s a symptom
of decreased wheat research,
Curtis said.
According to Curtis, about
34 percent of royalties from
the sale of wheat varieties goes
back into wheat breeding pro-
grams in the U.S. That’s com-
pared with 93 percent in the
United Kingdom, 92 percent
in France and 85 percent in
Australia.
The declining wheat pro-
duction in this country is a
result of a “lack of investment
in one of the world’s biggest
crops,” Curtis said.
To reverse that trend, he
said, the industry needs to
develop more public-private
partnerships, such as the one
developed four years ago be-
tween Limagrain, the Univer-
sity of Idaho and the Idaho
Wheat Commission.
Such partnerships allow
each party to take advantage of
the strengths of the others, he
said, and ultimately will direct
more money toward breeding
programs by producing supe-
rior varieties that farmers will
want to purchase.
“The university can do
things Limagrain can’t do and
Limagrain has access to things
that the university doesn’t,”
said Cathy Wilson, director of
research collaboration for the
commission. “That synergy is
the thing that makes this really
powerful.”
Curtis believes such part-
nerships will result in the U.S.
wheat seed market increasing
from 750,000 metric tons in
2015 to 1.5 million metric tons
in 2020.
“That is an achievable po-
tential for the industry given
that the public-private partner-
ships will facilitate the (devel-
opment of new varieties) that
will offer agronomic benefits
for growers,” he said.
Limagrain has access to a
huge genomics data base and
has billions of genetic marker
data points, Curtis said.
But that information on its
own is of little value without
the agronomic scores, yield
and disease resistance, plant
maturity, respiration rates and
other information that univer-
sities possess through their ex-
tension programs.
Limagrain’s
partnership
with UI and the wheat com-
mission is already producing
results. The company will re-
lease four new wheat varieties
next year that work well in the
Pacific Northwest, Curtis said.
Wilson said the partnership
sped up the development of
those varieties by about two
years. Royalties from the sale
of those varieties will go back
into UI’s breeding program.
“This idea of public-pri-
vate partnerships is not a pipe
dream,” Curtis said. “It is hap-
pening now.”
U.S., ag
positioned
to weather
recession
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — The
world is due for another reces-
sion and when it happens the
U.S. and its agriculture will be
positioned to come through it
better than many countries,
a geopolitical strategist told
Wa s h i n g t o n
tree fruit grow-
ers.
The future of
Washington tree
fruit is bright,
Peter Zeihan, of
Austin, Texas,
Zeihan
told attendees
at the annual meeting of the
Washington State Tree Fruit
Association at the Yakima
Convention Center, Dec. 7.
The prolonged strength
of the U.S. dollar working
against exports and an end
to cheap migrant labor from
Central America in 15 years
are the two biggest challeng-
es the apple industry faces, he
said.
Zeihan began his career
with the U.S. State Depart-
ment and started his own firm
in 2012 helping businesses
and industries prepare for the
future. He studies internation-
al relations, particularly as in-
fluenced by geography.
The U.S. became a super-
power partly because it has
13,000 miles of navigable
water with the Mississippi
River as a great transportation
system to carry grain to New
Orleans for export to the rest
of the world, Zeihan said. The
U.S. is protected by oceans
and by lakes and timber to the
north and deserts to the south,
he said.
“We have the single most
securable piece of real estate
in the world. We can’t mess
this up. So even if we have a
third term of Obama or Trump
or years of bouncing back
and forth between Bush and
Clinton dynasties, we will be
fine,” he said.
The U.S. has led in creat-
ing and protecting global free
trade since World War II, but
commitment to it is fading on
the American political right
and left, Zeihan said. Hillary
Clinton negotiated the Trans
Pacific Partnership as secre-
tary of state but is walking
away from it as a presidential
candidate, he said.
The U.S. is the only coun-
try in the world with the mon-
etary capacity to fight the next
recession, it has an uptick in
population as other countries
contract in population and
the U.S. will be strongly po-
sitioned with an abundance of
shale oil and natural gas that
will make it energy indepen-
dent in a year or two and for
years to come, he said.
South Africa as a modern
economy is “dead” because it
can’t train up skilled labor, he
said. Japan, Korea and Brazil
have aging populations inca-
pable of consumption growth,
he said.
China’s economic stim-
ulus is “not stable and sus-
tainable,” and China is within
three years of collapse that
will take down its agricultur-
al production, leaving it more
dependent on ag imports, he
said.