WATER SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE
Capital
Press
The West s
Weekly
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015
VOLUME 88, NUMBER 6
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
Douglas
calls for
spring,
summer
moisture
Summer El Niño a
‘red fl ag’ for PNW
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
THE DAMAGE DONE
— AND YET TO COME
Pixabay.com
Even after it’s over, the months-long port
slowdown will continue to cost Western
agriculture tens of millions of dollars
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
T
Boshart
Boshart
Davis
ANGENT, Ore. — Stan Boshart was headed for a meeting with a rye grass grower when
he received a text from his daughter, Shelly Boshart Davis, vice president of international
sales of his export company.
Members of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union had walked
off the job again at the Port of Portland.
It meant Boshart’s nine trucks hauling rye
grass straw 54 miles from his straw press in Sa-
lem to the port for shipment to Japan and South
Korea would have to turn around.
It was the morning of Jan. 27. It wasn’t the
fi rst time he’d received such news.
“Instead of two (walkouts) a month, it’s turn-
ing into six a month. It’s really bad. It’s as if the
longshoremen are trying to fi gure out the most
effective way to hurt truckers,” Boshart said.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
“Sometimes it’s right after their (the longshore-
Mike Hajny, vice president of Wesco International, walks through the company’s Ellensburg,
men’s) morning break or right after lunch.”
Wash., yard on Jan. 29. Behind him are several of 50 loaded containers of hay for Japan
Boshart, 56, and his wife, Lori, own Bossco that are on hold because of the port slowdown.
Trading, Bossco Trucking and SJB Farms in Tan-
INSIDE
gent, Ore., a small town south of Portland that claims the title of “Grass Seed Capital of the World.” His
Container terminal
father started the farm in 1950. But the slowdown at West Coast ports over the past three months —
operators warn of
while longshoremen and terminal operators negotiate a new contract — has Boshart by the throat.
port shutdown
Turn to PORTS, Page 12
PAGE 12
SPOKANE — A celebrat-
ed weatherman predicts a
cool, wet spring and summer,
but a continued El Niño could
delay planting in the fall for
the Northwest region.
Art Douglas, profes-
sor emeritus
at Creighton
University in
Omaha, Neb.,
and a mainstay
at the Spokane
Ag Expo, ad-
Douglas
dressed farm-
ers at the event.
Douglas expects warm
temperatures to persist in the
western United States through
February, keeping precipita-
tion below normal levels.
“This is not a real good
pattern for trying to get some
much-needed rain into the
western U.S.,” Douglas said.
April is the best chance for
spring precipitation in the Pa-
cifi c Northwest, Douglas said.
Douglas predicts cool tem-
peratures and moisture in the
region through June and July.
Weather could delay planting
in the Midwest.
“I think prices are going
to get kind of wacko in ear-
ly summer, not because of
hot, dry weather, but because
they’ve planted too late and
it’s persisting to be cool,”
Douglas said.
Farmers will gradual-
ly start seeing an increase
in moisture, but the PNW
tends to be dry in the fall and
winter, easing in the spring.
Douglas expects cooler, wet-
ter weather in the spring and
early summer.
“Things probably look
more bleak now than what
they’re going to be looking
like as we get towards June,”
Douglas said. “Then we start
worrying about harvest con-
ditions in July. If July indeed
is cool and wet, then some
people are going to be com-
plaining.”
Turn to WEATHER,
Page 12
Environmental groups sue EPA over CAFOs
Regulators must restrict livestock facility emissions, lawsuit claims
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Environmental
groups
claim the federal government
has violated the Clean Air Act
by ignoring their pleas for
greater restrictions on emis-
sions from confi ned animal
feeding operations.
The Humane Society of
the United States and other
groups have fi led legal com-
plaints alleging the U.S. Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency
didn’t respond to petitions
Robert Young, 68,
checks the well-be-
ing of his hogs on
his family farm in
2012 in Buckhart, Ill.
fi led in 2009 and 2011 that
demanded CAFOs be regu-
lated as stationary sources of
pollution, similar to factories.
The plaintiffs claim EPA’s
lack of action violates a law
M. Spencer Green
Associated Press
Turn to EPA, Page 12
THIS WEEK IN THE CAPITAL PRESS
OREGON
Rules approved for hemp production
The Oregon Department of Agriculture is
optimistic the state’s fi rst industrial hemp
crops will be planted this spring.
Page 3
CALIFORNIA
Low snow readings
The season’s second snowpack
readings reinforce that drought this
year will be at least as severe as it
was in 2014.
Page 7
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