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September 9, 2016 CapitalPress.com 5 Wash. Ecology mixes canola and crude oils in rail rule IDWR order targets Senate ag chair disappointed Raft River Basin ‘expansion’ water rights By DON JENKINS Capital Press By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press Don Jenkins/Capital Press Rail tankers stop on tracks in southwestern Washington. The state Department of Ecology has fi nal- ized a rule requiring railroads that haul vegetable oils to drill for spills like crude oil carriers. Ecology has pointed to a warehouse fi re last summer in Winlock that released vegeta- ble oil into a creek and killed hundreds of thousands of fi sh. Patrick Boss, the lobbyist for short-line railroads, noted that legislative hearings and Ecology documents focused almost entirely on the dangers of crude oil. “I fi nd it bizarrely humor- ous how they justify this,” he said. “There’s no spike in vegetable oil coming through the state. There’s no increased risk. “It’s completely ridiculous moving forward that food oils are going to be regulated like crude oils,” Boss said. Boss said he hoped legislators will review the rule next year. Senate Agriculture Com- mittee Chairwoman Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, proposed last session to re- move vegetable oils from the rule. She said she will talk with rail offi cials before deciding whether to try again during the 2017 session. The new rule takes effect in Oct. 1, but railroad companies will have several months to submit their plans. “I’m disappointed there wasn’t more of an exclusion for biological oils,” Warnick said. The rule will require railroad companies to hold spill-response drills. The com- panies must be able to deploy within hours enough crews and equipment to respond to oils spilling from every tanker, plus the locomotive. The state rule will be in ad- dition to current federal safety standards. Tim Kelly, chief operating offi cer of the Columbia Basin and Central Washington rail- roads, said he didn’t see a ben- efi t in the state rule. “It will make Ecology feel better, but the practicality of it will be somewhat limited,” Kelly said. Neither railroad hauls crude oil. The Columbia Basin Railroad hauls canola oil. The Central Washington Railroad hauls soybean oil blended into cattle feed and mineral oils for insecticide sprays. According to Kelly, the cost of complying with Ecolo- gy’s rule may exceed in some cases revenue from hauling the oils for farm use. Ecology estimated the rule will cost railroad companies between $73,000 and $256,000 over 20 years, though the department said the new de- mand for clean-up crews and equipment could drive up costs. West Nile on the rise in Umatilla County By GEORGE PLAVEN EO Media Group PENDLETON, Ore. — Though summer is wind- ing down, West Nile virus remains a concern in west Umatilla County. Not only have 23 samples of mosquitoes tested positive for the disease so far this year, but two horses near Umatilla also became infected within the last week. Neither horse was vaccinated, and one had to be euthanized, said Randy Gerard with the West Umatilla Mosquito Control District. Gerard said residents still need to protect themselves from mosquito bites, despite cooler weather over the holi- day weekend. “I don’t want people to let their guard down,” he said. West Nile was fi rst de- tected in Umatilla County this year on June 28, about a month earlier than usual. High temperatures hastened the cycle of mosquitoes in the area, which Gerard said has kept the district busy all season. “It seems like once you get that initial detection, you’ll be fi ghting it the rest of the summer,” he said. Another six mosquito samples are currently being tested at the Oregon State University Veterinary Di- agnostic Lab in Corvallis, which could bump up the number of positive tests. Neighboring Morrow County has had a total of seven pos- itive samples, and another eight samples tested positive in Baker County. West Nile is primarily a bird disease, with magpies, blue jays and crows especially susceptible. Mosquitoes become vectors by feeding on dead or in- fected birds and passing the vi- rus along to humans and horses when they bite. Gerard said horse owners are encouraged to check with their veterinarians for information on vaccinations. “We’ve been asking people to vaccinate their horses going on 10 years now,” he said. “It really helps.” Most people who become infected with West Nile do not become ill, though one in fi ve may experience mild fl u- like symptoms such as fever, headache and body aches. In rare cases, West Nile can cause what’s known as en- cephalitis, or infl ammation of the brain. Anyone experienc- ing severe or unusual head- aches should seek immediate medical care. Tips to reduce the risk of ex- posure to West Nile include: • Get rid of old tires or other containers where water can ac- cumulate and serve as a breed- ing ground for mosquitoes. • Flush or replace the water in horse troughs weekly. • Flush or add mosquito fi sh to ornamental ponds. • Avoid outdoor activities at dusk and dawn, when mosqui- toes are most active. • Wear long-sleeve shirts and pants when in mosqui- to-infested areas. • Use insect repellent while outdoors. • Screen doors and windows. Raft River Aquifer 39 American Falls Ri v e r 86 Rupert 84 Burley 27 Oakley River BURLEY, Idaho — Idaho Department of Water Resourc- es Director Gary Spackman has ordered groundwater users within the Raft River Basin to curtail 75 wells covering 6,800 acres irrigated with so-called expansion water rights. In his Aug. 26 order, Spack- man gave affected growers un- til Nov. 15 to designate a third of their expansion right-irrigat- ed acres to be curtailed during the 2017 growing season, al- lowing growers to incremen- tally implement the full curtail- ment over the course of three seasons. In 1963, the Raft River drainage was designated as a critical groundwater area due to troubling declines, restrict- ing any new development of water rights. However, some growers who converted from fl ood irrigation to more effi - cient sprinkler systems in the ensuing years sought to use the water savings to irrigate other land. The Idaho Supreme Court ruled such expansion water rights were unconstitu- tional in 1987. The Legislature subsequently passed a bill al- lowing the growers to contin- ue using them with a June 30, 1985 priority date, until two years after the completion of the Snake River Basin Adju- dication, at which time they would be required to submit a management plan to stabilize aquifer levels or forfeit their expansion rights. That two-year deadline has now arrived. Though growers in the Raft River Basin submitted a man- agement plan, Spackman deter- mined it was “not adequate to bring withdrawals into balance with recharge.” Todd Webb, chairman of the Raft River Groundwater District, said about 1,800 ex- pansion acres proposed for cur- Area in detail f t Washington railroads that haul vegetable oils must pre- pare for spills as extensively as carriers of crude oil, ac- cording to a new state rule, a mixing of commodities that a short-line railroad lobbyist calls “bizarrely humorous.” BNSF Railway, Union Pa- cifi c Railroad and seven small- er railroads must plan and drill for “worst-case” spills of all types of oils, according to the rule fi nalized Aug. 31 by the Department of Ecology. The rule stemmed from multi-part law that state law- makers passed in 2014 to regulate crude oil transported by rail, vessels and pipelines. Fears of crude oil explosions were recently reinforced in the Northwest by a fi ery derail- ment in June near Mosier, Ore. To the apparent surprise of some lawmakers, Ecology early this year proposed ap- plying a section of the law to railroads that don’t haul crude oil, but do transport canola, soybean and other plant or ani- mal-based oils. Small railroads and some lawmakers protested, but other lawmakers defended Ecology, and the Legislature didn’t act to clarify its intent. Ecology’s spill pre- paredness manager Linda Pilkey-Jarvis said Aug. 2 that the department didn’t see a dif- ference in the level of threats posed by crude oil and vegeta- ble oils. Vegetable oils spilled into water cause immediate and se- vere harm, she said. “It can be just as damag- ing,” Pilkey-Jarvis said. “It’s not innocuous.” Ra 84 Idaho Utah 30 N Capital Press graphic tailment aren’t being irrigated, anyway. Webb personally irri- gates 590 expansion acres. A Burley consultant the district hired to study the aqui- fer concluded the annual rate of depletion is about 50,000 acre-feet. Webb said his dis- trict’s growers proposed to offset about 40,000 acre-feet of decline in their management plan by drying 11,426 acres of irrigated land, conducting managed aquifer recharge and asking growers to reduce their water use by a combined 9,000 acre-feet. “We’ve gone back and forth with the department on this issue at length, and basically cutting acres doesn’t solve any problems whatsoever,” Webb said. “What needs to happen is we need to cut (water) vol- ume.” IDWR Water Compliance Bureau Chief Tim Luke said IDWR estimates the aquifer’s annual decline is as much as 108,000 acre-feet, based on a recent update of a 1966 U.S. Geological Survey water study. Luke further noted that 7,700 acres the Raft River manage- ment plan proposed for cur- tailment have been idled since 2011, so offering them poses no net gain. WE S P E CIA LIZE IN B U LK B AG S! 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