March 27, 2015
CapitalPress.com
7
Canal-clearing job requires
precise backhoe maneuvering
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Early Spring Spraying
Region’s irrigation
districts begin
water deliveries
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Russell Gilmore backs a dump truck up to a backhoe run by Andy
Sanders to clean rocks out of Highline Canal 100 feet or more
above Cashmere, Wash., March 19.
27 years.
He’s adept at backing the
dump truck along the narrow
road by keeping just an eagle
eye on the driver door mirror.
Sanders runs the back-
hoe, scooping rocks out of
the 10-foot-wide canal and
dumping them in the bed of
the truck.
Gilmore uses a rope tied
to the side of the truck to
scramble down into the five-
foot-deep canal bed with a
shovel. He scoops rocks and
mud that the backhoe bucket
misses and tosses them in.
The canal road isn’t open
to the public. Some people
who try to drive it find they
don’t like it, Gilmore said.
“It takes them forever.”
The canal dates back
to 1902 and carries water
from the Wenatchee River at
Dryden some 34 miles down
valley, through Wenatchee
and in a pipe across the
1908
Columbia
River
bridge to East Wenatchee.
GE wheat settlement excludes OSU
Monsanto will give land grant univer-
sities in seven states $50,000 each
to settle a class action lawsuit. Or-
egon State University, whose weed
scientist identifi ed the GE wheat, will
not share in the settlement.
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Monsanto Co. will pay
$50,000 each to agricultural
colleges in seven states as part
of a settlement of class action
lawsuits fi led after the May
2013 discovery of genetically
engineered wheat in Eastern
Oregon.
The settlement contains
no money for Oregon State
University, however. It was
OSU weed scientist Carol
Mallory-Smith who con-
firmed the wheat found
growing in the Eastern Ore-
gon was “Roundup Ready,”
meaning it could withstand
Monsanto’s trademark her-
bicide. No GMO wheat has
been approved for commer-
cial use.
The discovery touched
off an uproar that threat-
ened Pacific Northwest soft
white wheat exports to Asia,
where it is used for noodles,
cakes and crackers. Japan
and South Korea temporar-
ily suspended purchases as
inspectors with the federal
Animal and Plant Health In-
spection Service, APHIS, at-
tempted to trace the wheat to
its origin. The investigation
ended a year later without a
definitive answer.
In the meantime, growers
in multiple states filed suit
against Monsanto, alleging
they’d been harmed by the
discovery even though in
most cases they grow differ-
ent wheat varieties and sell
to different markets. The
settlement announced March
18 involves wheat farmers in
Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Oklahoma, Texas, Louisi-
ana, and Mississippi,
Monsanto said it would
give $50,000 to the agri-
cultural school at the land
grant university in each state.
Growers and their attorneys
will be reimbursed an undis-
closed amount for a portion
of the expenses and fees they
incurred in the case, the com-
pany said in a news release.
In a prepared statement,
Monsanto attorney Kyle
McClain said, “Rather than
paying the costs of protract-
ed litigation, this agreement
puts that money to work in
research and development
efforts for the wheat indus-
try. Resolution in this man-
ner is reasonable and in the
best interest of all of the
parties.”
Oregon, Washington and
Idaho growers were not par-
ticipants in the suit, and are
not parties to the settlement.
Their claims were covered
in a previous $2.357 million
settlement.
Oregon State University, a
land grant university, did not
receive compensation.
Dan Arp, dean of OSU’s
College of Agricultural Sci-
ence, said the school had
some “modest expenses” re-
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
lated to testing the GE wheat,
but had not sought nor been
offered compensation.
“We jumped in in our role
as a land grant university, and
we applied our knowledge
and expertise,” Arp said.
Tree fruit growers through-
out Central Washington are
scrambling to spray trees to
control pests and diseases
sooner than usual because of
an early spring warm-up.
It’s more of a logistical nui-
sance than a problem for some
orchardists to have to rely on
wells to fi ll their spray tanks
until the irrigation districts be-
gin delivering water.
Tree fruit bud development
is 14 to 17 days ahead of nor-
mal throughout the region be-
cause of warm weather, said
Tim Smith, Washington State
University tree fruit specialist
emeritus in Wenatchee. Apricot
trees were blooming March 14
in Wenatchee and full bloom
of Red Delicious apples may
beat the record of April 11 set
in 1934, Smith said.
“Mites, scale and powdery
mildew are the big things in
apples right now,” he said,
adding that scale and mites
in cherries and pear psylla in
pears were also being watched.
The main concern with an
early spring is a longer peri-
od of potential frost or freeze
damage from a sudden dip in
temperatures. It also means
farmers in the Columbia Basin
probably will take irrigation
water as soon as they can, said
John O’Callaghan, manager of
the U.S. Bureau of Reclama-
tion’s Columbia Basin Irriga-
tion Project in Ephrata.
The project is the largest
water reclamation project in
the U.S., serving three large
irrigation districts and 680,000
acres from Coulee City south
110 miles to near Pasco. There
are 331 miles of main canals
and 1,339 miles of laterals.
The project is on normal start-
up schedule, O’Callaghan said.
Water was released into the
southern district on March 2,
Quincy district on March 18
and the east district on March
23, he said. It’s about two
weeks from those dates before
farmers can get water, he said.
“In cold, wet years, no one
wants it right away,” he said. “I
suspect guys will be more ag-
gressive this year.”
Growers pay a base assess-
ment and extra at the end of
the season if they’ve used ex-
tra, he said.
The project averages 2.6
million acre-feet of irrigation
water annually, pumped from
the Columbia River’s Lake
Roosevelt behind Grand Cou-
lee Dam, through Banks Lake
and into the canal system. The
lowest usage was 2.2 million
acre-feet in 1997 because of
heavy snows and rains. High-
est usage was 2.9 million acre-
feet in 2014. It was a dry year
and there was more double
cropping, he said.
The Roza Irrigation Dis-
trict serves 1,700 growers on
72,000 acres of the Lower Ya-
kima Valley. It began charging
its canals March 16, which is
normal, and started delivering
water to growers about March
23, said Scott Revell, the man-
ager.
The Roza is usually one
of the fi rst districts affect-
ed by drought and has shut
down early because of it.
The weather in the next two
months will determine the se-
verity of this year’s drought,
Revell said.
Some growers planning to
replace orchards in the next
year or two are saying they
may remove them this season
if the drought is bad, he said.
Some orchards have been
converted to hops because of
strong hop prices, he said.
The Wenatchee Reclama-
tion District is on track to be-
gin charging its system April 6,
one day ahead of last year, said
Rick Smith, superintendent.
The Greater Wenatchee Irri-
gation District, serving part of
East Wenatchee, Brays Land-
ing north of Orondo and How-
ard Flat near Chelan, may have
water available April 1, about
10 days early, said Michael
Miller, district manager. Early
warm weather allowed early
completion of winter mainte-
nance but there’s still good soil
moisture right now, he said.
BUYING 6” and UP
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STATEMENT OF NO ACCEPTANCE
For The ECBID-USBR “Normative” Financing Proposal
For the Delivery of Surface Water to the Odessa Subarea
TO:
Mr. Estevan Lopez, Commissioner, USBR; Ms. Lorri Lee, PNWO Regional Director, USBR;
Board of Directors, East Columbia Basin Irrigation District
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
As major land owners, along with our financial/technical representatives, working to build surface water
distribution systems from the East Low Canal, for Systems North/South of I-90, we convey to the USBR
and ECBID managers a Statement of No Acceptance for the District’s “normative” financial proposal for
surface water delivery from the Canal.
The financial strategy proposed by the District will lead to overall development time delays and
increased costs, thus eroding the objective of transferring as much irrigated acreage as possible from
groundwater to surface water; and diminishing the financial resources already allocated by Ecology-WA
and the USBR to expedite source water conversions.
The District’s financial strategy retains several flaws:
•
The District’s financial proposal does not “add acres,” but distributes costs across all
acres regardless of location to the ELC; increasing system(s) costs across more acres. The end
effect is to discourage participating acres.
•
Without accepting legally authorized state water spreading, total system costs
cannot be overcome by ”normative cost zoning” (everyone pays for everything). The
configuration and normative cost scheme affects irrigators’ willingness-to-pay and an ability to
aggregate individual farm acreages at a sufficient level to pay for system(s) costs.
•
The District’s LID revenue bonding strategy, where the District is not obligated for
the new system(s) debt, is: 1) unproven and speculative; 2) does not offer any annualized cost
advantage, if attainable; and 3) does substantially increase total debt service.
•
For System 1, the Participants’ direct, private sector financing agreement is a proven
tool to build large-scale irrigation systems; the pre-construction engineering is completed, and
financing is secured. This is a turn-key project, where operational control is transferred to the
District with construction completion; this model may be applied to all systems.
•
By using the System 1 Participants’ (and other systems) private capital as leverage,
the Washington State legislative leadership is poised to allocate an additional $20 million to
complete Canal modifications below Lind Coulee. This funding will allow surface water access to
be obtained by the System 5-6 Participants. But the legislators will not act without the USBR
execution of the water service contract for System 1.
The System 1 Participants’ economic model stands in stark contrast to the District’s approach, where
system configuration is determined by individual irrigators paying for their own marginal system costs;
and where the System 1 Participants have already secured $40 million of financing to initiate project
construction, with USBR water service contract approval. Every effort should be made by the USBR-
District-Ecology to allow the private sector to move forward with system(s) development, while the
District focuses on direct canal modifications.
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CASHMERE, Wash. —
It’s not a job for the faint
of heart, but you wouldn’t
know that watching Rus-
sell Gilmore and Andy
Sanders.
Every year about this
time, they operate a back-
hoe and dump truck along
a narrow canal road that
runs 100 to 400 feet above
the fl oor of the Wenatchee
Valley and the town of
Cashmere.
They’re removing rocks
and mud from a 12-mile
segment of Wenatchee Rec-
lamation District’s Highline
Canal. Rocks fall into the
canal off steep hillsides when
snow melts. This year, there
were fewer rocks than usual
because there wasn’t much
snow.
The backhoe is eight feet
wide and there are places
the canal road is no wider,
although most of the time
there’s a couple of feet to
spare on either side.
“It’s quite the drop. I don’t
want to go over. I probably
wouldn’t survive,” Gilmore
said, noting there are a few
spots that makes him ner-
vous. He’s done the job for