10 CapitalPress.com
March 13, 2015
Washington
Mathisons continue quest for more cherry ground
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. — It
may take years, but the Mathi-
son family is pursuing its desire
to acquire or lease a section of
state land high in the Stemilt
Basin south of Wenatchee for
future cherry orchard.
West Mathison, president
of Stemilt Growers Inc. of
Wenatchee, talked about more
conservation easements with the
Stemilt Partnership on March 4
as a means of moving the proj-
ect forward.
The partnership, a coalition
of people and interest groups
wanting to preserve Stemilt Ba-
sin, indicated a willingness to
learn more but wants a transfer
of the land between state agen-
cies to occur first, said Mike
Kaputa, Chelan County Natural
Resources director. That may
take five years, he said.
The partnership endorsed an
agreement between the state de-
partments of Natural Resources
and Fish and Wildlife to transfer
Sections 16 and 22 from DNR
to WDFW within five years,
Kaputa said.
“It may take several state
funding cycles and land avail-
ability to come up with the right
deal,” he said.
The agencies agree over do-
ing it, but are just trying to figure
out the best way in keeping with
their different missions, he said.
Mathison said he has no
defined timeline and will con-
tinue to engage the partnership.
“Some areas are best for elk and
some could be suited for cherry
orchards with proper mitiga-
tion,” he told Capital Press.
“We will continue to devel-
op our private land into cherry
orchards with assistance from
wildlife biologists to properly
mitigate impacts to the land,”
Mathison said.
A year ago, the Mathison
family wanted to create 450
acres of cherry orchard on Sec-
tions 16 and 22. Last October,
the family revised its plans to
trade 218 acres of prime elk hab-
itat on Section 21 for 218 acres
of flatter, more open terrain on
Section 16 to develop 134.5
acres of cherry orchard there.
Orchard on part of Section
16 would fit with orchard the
family is planning on portions
of adjoining Section 9 that it
bought from a private owner.
Section 21 is better elk habi-
tat than Section 16 and would
consolidate land uses to create
larger areas of habitat, Mathison
said.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
West Mathison, president of Stemilt
Growers Inc., is shown at the Stemilt
Partnership meeting on Oct. 20, 2014.
Beekeepers lobby for lower taxes, more forage Spokane conference
Bills stem from
study commissioned
by Legislature
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Full-time
beekeepers and hobbyist api-
arists were on the Capitol
Campus Thursday to draw
attention to the plight of the
honeybee.
The good news, according
to Central Washington bee-
keeper Tim Hiatt, is that only
alarmists think honeybees will
go extinct and humankind will
follow. The bad news, he said,
is that bees in Washington lack
forage, which has economic
consequences for pollinators
and their customers.
Hiatt said he’s spending
more than ever nourishing
his bees, $205 a year on each
hive. He has 12,000 hives.
If the Washington bee in-
dustry falters, it will show up
in the cost of pollinating ser-
vices, he said. Right now, his
bees are pollinating almonds
in California, where the de-
mand is high and hives will
fetch $160 to $170 for the
season, he said.
Soon, the hives will come
north to Washington to polli-
nate fruit trees. Hiatt, a Ephra-
ta resident, said he expects to
get $40 to $50 per hive.
“We would like a steady
supply of beekeepers for pol-
linators in Washington,” he
said.
Toward that end, beekeep-
ers, who set up displays out-
side the Legislative Building
for “Honeybee Awareness
Day,” are lobbying for two
bills.
Senate Bill 5017 would
permanently give beekeepers
the same favorable tax treat-
ment enjoyed by agricultural
producers. For tax purposes,
beekeepers and their services
and products are not defined
as part of the state’s agricul-
tural industry.
The bill would cut taxes
on income from pollinating
services and bee products,
such as honey. Other tax ben-
efits would include being able
to buy and repair equipment
without paying sales taxes.
The bill, sponsored by Ya-
kima Valley Republican Jim
Honeyford, passed the Senate
Agriculture, Water and Ru-
ral Economic Development
Committee, but has not won
approval from the Senate bud-
get committee.
The tax exemptions would
cost state coffers $85,000 and
local governments $27,000 a
year in lost revenue, according
to an estimate by the Office of
Financial Management.
promotes social
media ‘agvocacy’
AgChat leader:
Reach out to counter
different viewpoints
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Honeybees are displayed March 5 on the Capitol Campus in Olympia.
An argument for the bill is
that out-of-state beekeepers
pollinate and leave without
paying business taxes, putting
in-state beekeepers at a finan-
cial disadvantage.
“If everybody paid the tax,
I wouldn’t care,” Hiatt said.
House Bill 1654, spon-
sored by Edmonds Democrat
Strom Peterson, would re-
quire the state Noxious Weed
Control Board to evaluate the
advantages of replacing pol-
len- and nectar-rich noxious
weeds with plants with sim-
ilar benefits for honeybees.
The bill passed the House on
Friday on a 67-31 vote. Yaki-
ma Valley Republican David
Taylor warned that planting
forage could unwittingly in-
troduced new noxious weeds.
Dayton beekeeper Paul
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Hosticka, who has about 100
hives in the southeast corner
of the state, has been produc-
ing honey for 40 years. He
said his bees have been los-
ing forage to grass and that
he needs a lot more forage
than small-scale planting can
provide. “We’re talking about
square miles, not square feet,”
he said.
Hiatt was on a 12-member
group set up by the Legisla-
ture to make policy recom-
mendations to help the bee.
The tax and forage bills grew
out of the report.
The study group did not
cite as a major problem ne-
onicotinoids, a class of pes-
ticides banned in a handful
of cities because of their pur-
ported harm to honeybees.
The study group concluded
the scientific evidence did
not warrant banning neonic-
otinoids.
Registration is open for the
AgChat Foundation’s region-
al meeting April 27-28 at the
Northern Quest Casino in Air-
way Heights, Wash.
Marie Bowers-Stagg, vice
president of the AgChat Foun-
dation, said the organization
helps farmers tell their story
on social media such as Face-
book, Twitter, Instagram and
Pinterest.
“We have tons of legislation
that could potentially majorly
impact my farm,” said Bow-
ers-Stagg, a grass seed, wheat
and meadowfoam farmer in
Harrisburg, Ore. “If we tell the
people who are on social me-
dia a little bit about why we’re
(farming) — we’re actually
feeding people and doing good
for the environment — that
oftentimes changes a lot of
minds.”
Bowers-Stagg said that
through conversations, peo-
ple with a different viewpoint
eventually come around to be-
ing more open-minded toward
Online
http: //agchat.org/PNW
farming and ranching, she said.
“It’s gained awareness,” she
said. “The other day, there was
a hearing and I was tweeting
about my position and inter-
acting with people I probably
wouldn’t have interacted with
on a normal basis.”
She’s also been able to con-
nect with other farmers who
have questions about issues.
Bowers-Stagg hopes the
public will seek out farmers
and ranchers for more informa-
tion about things they see in the
media. Producers also need to
reach out to consumers as well,
she said.
“It makes the world small-
er,” Bowers-Stagg said. “I
know I’m not going to reach
the mommy bloggers, but I
may be able to reach out to a
career woman who wants to
be successful in the business
world, just like I do.”
This will be the second re-
gional conference for the foun-
dation in the Pacific Northwest,
following a meeting in Port-
land last year. The Spokane
area was selected in hopes of
drawing farmers from Eastern
Washington, Idaho and Mon-
tana.
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