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CapitalPress.com
January 23, 2015
Washington
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Federal Way Sen. Mark Miloscia speaks Jan. 15 in Oympia at a
press conference on legislation to gradually increase Washington’s
minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2019. Miloscia was the only
Republican to attend. Behind Miloscia are, from left, Seattle Sen.
Pramila Jayapal, Kirkland Sen. Cyrus Habib, Tacoma Rep. Laurie
Jinkins and Seattle Rep. Jessyn Farrell.
Wash. lawmakers
push for higher
minimum wage
not raising the minimum
wage in a vacuum,” Farrell
said. “The data is really clear.
You typically don’t lose jobs
because of a minimum wage
increase.”
Washington Farm Bureau
opposes a state minimum
wage different than the fed-
By DON JENKINS
eral
wage because produc-
Capital Press
ers compete nationally and
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Two internationally, according to
dozen legislators Thursday the organization’s assistant
presented a united
director of government
front and championed
relations, Scott Dilley.
gradually raising the
“Laws that increase
state’s minimum wage
wage rates and other
to $12 an hour by 2019
employment policies
and annually adjusting
place our farmers at a
the wage for inflation.
competitive disadvan-
“That is a modest
Rep.
tage,” Dilley said in an
Farrell
increase,” said Seattle
email. “Our growers
Rep. Jessyn Farrell at a
aren’t necessarily paid
press conference. Farrell and more for their products in the
other lawmakers argued a national and international
higher minimum wage would marketplace, yet their input
help the economy.
costs go up.”
“Putting money into the
Increasing the minimum
pockets of our workers goes wage would hurt food proces-
right back into our local busi- sors, according to Northwest
nesses,” she said.
Food Processors Associa-
Washington’s minimum tion’s director of government
wage increased Jan. 1 by 15 relations, Ian Tolleson.
cents to $9.47, the highest in
“Not only could it raise
the country, according to the the price of food, but it will
National Conference of State make Washington a less com-
Legislatures. The wage is petitive place for expanding
adjusted each year based on current operations here and
inflation.
detour investment of new
Lawmakers said a high- processing plants,” he said in
er minimum wage will more an email.
fairly compensate workers
The proposal will have an
and make them less depen- uphill climb in the Republi-
dent on government services. can-controlled Senate. The
“By raising the minimum only Republican at the press
wage, we’re responding not conference was Federal Way
only to the worker, but also Sen. Mark Miloscia, who was
the taxpayer,” said Sen. Pra- a Democratic lawmaker until
mila Jayapal, D-Seattle.
he switched parties last year.
A bill has not yet been
Kirkland Sen. Cyrus
introduced. Farrell said the Habib predicted the mini-
proposal won’t include an mum wage eventually will be
exemption for agriculture or raised.
provide for a training wage.
“We have a fight ahead of
“We’re not going to leave us, but I know we’re going to
workers behind,” she said.
win,” he said.
Seattle and SeaTac have
Farrell introduced a bill
embraced raising the mini- last year to raise the minimum
mum wage to $15 an hour. wage to $12 over three years.
President Barack Obama has The bill passed the House La-
proposed raising the federal bor and Workforce Develop-
minimum wage from $7.25 ment Committee, but was not
to $10.10 an hour. Ten states brought to the floor for a vote
and the District of Columbia by the full House.
raised their minimum wag-
Farrell said she will pro-
es in 2014, according to the pose phasing in the increase
NCSL.
over three years to give em-
“The great news is we’re ployers more time to adjust.
Farm Bureau warns
about putting
state’s producers at
disadvantage
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Rena and Jim Doornink are shown with the Northwest Cherry Growers’ Cherry King crown at the trade association’s Cherry Institute at
the Yakima Convention Center on Jan. 16.
Doornink named cherry king
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — A Wap-
ato cherry grower and long-
time chairman of the Wash-
ington Tree Fruit Research
Commission, Jim Doornink,
has been crowned 71st king of
the Pacific Northwest cherry
industry.
The honor was bestowed by
past cherry kings at the annual
Cherry Institute, in Yakima,
Jan. 16. Doornink was chosen
for years of commitment and
service to the industry.
Now 63, Doornink ran his
first cherry harvest at his fam-
ily’s orchard when he was 14,
thrust into the role one summer
morning when the ranch fore-
man quit.
Doornink worked on the
ranch through high school.
When attending Washington
State University, he would put
on his work clothes before leav-
ing Pullman so he could jump
right into work the moment
he was home, B.J. Thurlby,
president of Northwest Cherry
Growers, revealed in announc-
ing Doornink’s coronation.
“Put simply, our king has
a passion for God, family and
tree fruit,” Thurlby said, also
noting his enthusiasm for tech-
nology.
“It’s a great honor to get
some recognition from the in-
dustry you love,” Doornink
said in accepting the award.
“It’s been a great ride and I
hope to enjoy it for a long time
to come,” he said.
He then quickly issued three
decrees:
That 2015 is the year of the
cherry. That it will be a good
cherry year and that it won’t
rain on the crop.
Washington reps look to keep daylight savings hours
Public testimony
given on bill Jan. 22
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Washington legislators are
asking Congress to allow states
to keep daylight savings time
hours year-round.
HJM 4001, sponsored by
Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Col-
fax, and Rep. Derek Stanford,
D-Bothell, was scheduled for
a public hearing in the House
Committee on State Govern-
ment on Jan. 22.
The bill argues that chang-
ing the clocks twice a year has
a negative impact on agriculture,
and an extra hour of sunlight
would reduce crime and auto-
mobile accidents.
“I’ve had a number of con-
stituents ask me to start the con-
versation about this,” Schmick
said. “A lot of people (get) that
extra hour of light and say, ‘I
feel better if I could spend more
time in the natural sun-
Matthew Kotchen,
light.’”
professor of economics
The health viewpoint
in the School of Forestry
is Schmick’s primary
and Environmental Stud-
consideration, more than
ies at Yale University,
possible agricultural im-
studied electricity con-
plications.
sumption during daylight
“Most farmers I know Rep. Schmick savings time. He found
work from sun up to sun
that, contrary to the stat-
down — whenever that is, they ed goals of reducing electricity,
work,” he said. “They’re always demand for electricity actually
working the daylight hours any increases.
way, and then some.”
Kotchen said the public gen-
A state could decide to stay erally believes daylight savings
on regular time, authorized by time serves an agricultural pur-
Congress, Schmick said. But pose.
staying on daylight savings time
“Which is tremendously
year round requires approval by ironic, because traditionally,
Congress.
farmers have been those most
The bill has a big supporter opposed to daylight saving
in Connell, Wash., attorney and time,” he said. “If markets are
rancher Toni Meacham, execu- coordinated based on clock
tive director of the Washington time, they have to get up an hour
State Agriculture Legal Foun- earlier in the dark to milk the
dation.
cows or get their eggs to mar-
“Feeding animals in the ket.”
dark, you don’t get as good a
People are more likely to use
look at your animals,” she said. the extra hour at the end of the
“It’s very detrimental to agricul- day to pursue outdoor leisure
ture and animal health.”
activities, Kotchen said. He sus-
pects farmers would prefer more
daylight in the morning than af-
ternoon, depending on their lo-
cation.
Kotchen said it can be costly
for locations to not be aligned
with the states around them.
“It seems to me that if people
in a particular area, particularly
in a rural area, want to adjust in
ways that are more aligned with
the sun, just change the time you
open and close your stores, in-
stead of having it be so that the
clock in your house is different
from what it is in the rest of the
country,” he said.
If approved, the change is
not likely to occur this year.
“You know how fast Con-
gress moves,” Schmick said.
But he looks forward to the
discussion during the hearing.
The committee chair would de-
cide whether to move the bill
forward.
“It could move and it could
die,” Schmick said. “I think it
will really be a matter of what
the committee hears.”
New league chairman: Water project urgently needed
Johnson impacted
by declining aquifer
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The new chairman of the
Columbia Basin Development
League knows all too well the
importance of tapping the Co-
lumbia River to replace declin-
ing groundwater levels in the
Odessa Subarea.
4-7/#5
“We have three deep
Johnson farms 4,000
wells that went dry, quit
to 5,000 irrigated acres
pumping last August,”
north of Connell, Wash.,
farmer Orman Johnson
and east of Othello,
said. Though his wells
Wash. He raises potatoes,
may come back for a
onions, wheat and organ-
while this growing sea-
ic crops with his brother,
Johnson
son, “the urgency is there
nephew and son-in-law.
for the league, but even
Roughly 75-80 percent
more so for the farmers that are of his acreage is impacted by the
facing situations like we are.”
declining aquifer, he said.
Johnson was elected earlier
Johnson and his family
this month and will serve a one- members decided further drill-
year term as the league’s chair- ing of wells would be too ex-
man. The league supports the pensive, and rented ground with
development of the Columbia better water access.
Basin Project.
“The water you get when
4-2/#4X
Online
http: //cbdl.org/
you redrill is poorer quality,” he
said. “It’s a million dollars, it’s
hard to recover costs.”
Johnson said problems have
arisen during the last few years,
but last year was the first in
which his wells went dry.
He has also seen yields decline
because of less water availability.
He estimates the cost to his opera-
tion to be in the hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars each year.
Johnson hopes to soon be
able to replace well water with
water from the river. Construc-
tion is underway in the East Co-
lumbia Basin Irrigation District
extending the East Low Canal
from the river to the farm land.
The league hopes to obtain $25
million to $30 million in federal
funding to continue the project.
Johnson said the league’s
short-term goal is to speed the
process of getting water from
the Columbia River to deep-
well farmers. In the long term,
it hopes to get water to all land
slated for development in the
original federal Columbia Basin
Project. The project currently in-
cludes roughly 671,000 acres of
the 1.03 million-acre project in
east central Washington.
Johnson said 7,000 to 8,000
acres of farm land will receive
river water this year.
“Hopefully in 2016 there’s
some more acres and in 2017
there’s more acres being deliv-
ered to,” he said. “Our biggest
hope is to have water being de-
livered and in the process of ex-
panding to the other acres.”