OREGON EXPANDS SAGE GROUSE CONSERVATION AGREEMENTS Page 3
Capital
Press
The West s
Weekly
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2015
VOLUME 88, NUMBER 12
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
AT 80 YEARS AND COUNTING, STILL
TOO MANY REDS
$2.00
Eastern
Oregon
water
situation
getting
worse
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Red Delicious apples on tray ready for packing at Olympic Fruit, Moxee, Wash., Dec. 11. Washington tree fruit companies still pack more Reds than any other variety.
Though the variety is popular overseas, growers
say the industry’s future lies in other types of apples
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
W
ENATCHEE, Wash. — Washington’s iconic Red Delicious apple
lost its shine with domestic consumers decades ago but it remains
the industry’s dominant variety after 80 years.
Nowadays growers and marketers focus on Hon-
eycrisp, Fuji, Gala and newer varieties to please
consumers. Most of the state’s major apple
companies promote their own varieties as
the tastiest, juiciest and crunchiest.
Some in the industry would like to
see Reds go away altogether. That
was true 15 to 20 years ago,
when growers and consumers
had their fill of too many Reds.
It may be true again now with
oversupply from the record 2014
crop, low prices and buzz that a ma-
jor Red producer in the Yakima region
may want to sell. A co-owner of that op-
eration has denied it.
Nonetheless, Red Delicious is still pre-
ferred overseas and bought by enough domestic
consumers to hang on as Washington’s No. 1 apple variety in vol-
ume.
“Eighty years is not that remarkable” if you recall that people had
simple choices during most of that era, says Desmond O’Rourke, an
agricultural economist in Pullman, Wash. “You had a few standard
products. The Sunkist orange. A Chiquita banana. If you bought an
apple, you bought Reds.”
Washington Red Delicious vs.
other apple varieties in 2014
The peak percentage of Reds was in 1981 at 32.4 million boxes
or 72.3 percent of the total crop. The volume peak was in 1994
at 61.4 million boxes, 60.9 percent of the crop.
(Millions of 40-pound boxes)
Variety
2013
2014*
Percent
change
Red Delicious
Gala
Fuji
Granny Smith
Golden Delicious
Honeycrisp
Cripps Pink
Braeburn
Jonagold
Cameo
Other
Total
34.5
24.5
14.6
15.8
8.9
4.5
4
1.9
0.9
0.5
4.8
115.2
44.9
31.5
18.8
17.2
12.6
6.5
4
2.6
1
0.6
6
145.9
30.1
28.6
28.8
8.9
41.6
44.4
NC
36.8
11.1
20
25
26.7
*Estimate as of March 1. 2013 numbers are final.
Turn to REDS, Page 12
Source: Washington State Tree Fruit Association
Capital Press graphic
ONTARIO, Ore. — The
water supply situation for
farmers who depend on the
Owyhee Irrigation District
has gone from bad to worse.
The roughly 170 farmers
who showed up for the dis-
trict’s annual water supply re-
port March 17 were told they
could tentatively expect to
receive 1.3 acre-feet of water
this year.
That’s well below their
normal 4 acre-foot allotment
and even less than the 1.7 they
received in
2014, which INSIDE
was one of
the worst Droughts
water sup-
ply years in declared
the project’s
in two
80-year his-
tory.
Oregon
“ I t ’ s
worse than counties
I thought,”
See Page 7
Nyssa farm-
er Curt Sis-
son said following the meet-
ing.
Sisson and other farmers
in the region left a lot more
ground than normal idle last
year and planted more crops
that use less water.
“We’ll have to do that
again,” Sisson said.
The OID supplies water
for 1,800 farms and 120,000
acres of irrigated land in East-
ern Oregon and part of South-
western Idaho.
Despite sharply reducing
last year’s allotment, the sys-
tem still ran dry in August,
two months earlier than nor-
mal.
There were 182,000 acre-
feet of available water stored
in the Owyhee reservoir as of
March 17, about 40,000 acre-
feet more than this time last
year, said OID Manager Jay
Chamberlin.
However, there is vir-
tually no snow left in the
Owyhee basin and reservoir
in-flow levels are bleak, he
added.
Turn to DROUGHT, Page 12
Port traffi c improves, but backlog of problems remains
Loss of major shipping line at Portland sends containers to Seattle, Tacoma
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Cargo movement at most
West Coast container ports
has improved since a tentative
contract was reached between
longshoremen and terminal
operators a month ago, but
there are still problems and
shipping lines are boosting
rates to cover losses from
slowdowns.
It will be another two
months or more before con-
tainer fl ows are normal, said
Peter Friedmann, executive
director of the Agriculture
Transportation Coalition in
Washington, D.C.
Clearing congestion has
“The challenge now seems to be the amount they
can get on vessels because of terminal congestion.”
Mike Hajny, vice president of Wesco International
been slowed by Hanjin Ship-
ping’s withdrawal from the
Port of Portland, shifting
some 80 percent of its ex-
ports to the ports of Tacoma
and Seattle, Friedmann said.
Ongoing labor disputes at the
Port of Oakland have been an
even greater problem, closing
that port for most of four days
the second week of March, he
said.
Importers are upset at be-
ing charged late fees on cargo
that sits because of conges-
tion, he said. U.S. Labor Sec-
retary Thomas Perez remains
engaged in seeking solutions,
he said.
International Longshore
Warehouse Union leaders
will caucus March 30 and are
expected to recommend that
13,600 rank-and-fi le members
ratify the contract, Friedmann
said.
Hanjin quit Portland
March 9 because it was taking
too long to load and unload
ships. A company hauling Or-
egon agricultural exports to
the ports of Tacoma and Se-
attle is overwhelmed, Fried-
mann said.
ILWU members staged
a work slowdown at West
Coast container ports, reduc-
ing traffi c by about 50 percent
for several months before the
Feb. 20 tentative agreement
was announced, he said. The
situation is better now, but it’s
hard to say how much better,
he said.
“It’s not where it needs to
be for Northwest agricultural
exports to establish credibili-
ty with customers and regain
lost customers,” he said.
Turn to PORT, Page 12
Associated Press fi le photo
Terminal 18 at the Port of Seat-
tle is shown in this fi le photo.
12-1/#5