April 3, 2015
CapitalPress.com
3
Wash. ag director resigns before confi rmation hearing
Bud Hover cites
family needs for
leaving post
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Washington
Agriculture Director Bud Hov-
er announced his resignation
Monday, the day before a Sen-
ate committee planned to hold
a confi rmation hearing on his
appointment.
But Hover’s path to con-
fi rmation may not have been
smooth.
“The agency is a mess,”
said Sen. Jim Honeyford,
R-Sunnyside, a member of the
Senate Agriculture, Water and
Rural Economic Development
Committee, which was to hold
the hearing.
Honeyford and Senate Ma-
jority Leader Mark Schoesler,
R-Ritzville, sharply criticized
the department last fall for
working on legislation to regu-
late manure spreading on crop
land without involving law-
makers and farm groups.
Honeyford said that was
“somewhat” of a problem for
Hover with senators.
“But I really think (the
problem) was the whole agen-
cy,” he said.
Honeyford declined to go
into further specifi cs.
Schoesler said that other
than the manure bill, which the
WSDA dropped, Hover’s ten-
ure was “not real controversial.”
Schoesler, however, de-
fl ected questions about wheth-
er Hover’s confi rmation was in
doubt.
“We didn’t have the hear-
ing,” he said. “I guess Bud
missed his farm, like some-
times I do.”
Hover’s
appointment,
though made two years ago
by Gov. Jay Inslee, had never
been confi rmed by the Senate.
Under Washington law, a gu-
bernatorial appointment can
serve unless rejected by the
Senate.
The committee chairwom-
an, Moses Lake Republican
Judy Warnick, said Monday
the hearing had long been
scheduled.
Efforts to reach Hover for
comment were unsuccessful.
Warnick declined to spec-
ulate whether Hover faced
opposition. She said Hover
has made contributions while
head of WSDA, particular-
ly in the area of the agency’s
ability to trace animal diseas-
es.
“I have seen good work
come out of his offi ce,” she
said.
“As a farmer himself, Bud has been a
tireless advocate for the average farmer,
making sure their concerns were heard
at the highest levels of government.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
Industry members were
looking ahead to who might
replace Hover, who said in a
letter to the governor that his
last day will be at the end of
the current legislative session.
Mike Gempler, executive
director of Washington Grow-
ers League in Yakima and
who served on Inslee’s transi-
tion advisory committee when
he became governor, said he’s
sorry to see Hover go.
“From a labor perspective,
he did a good job,” Gempler
said.
There were other good
candidates that the governor
could turn to now, Gempler
said of the fi eld of prospects
that were considered when
Hover was appointed.
“To have someone who
has run a farm business or has
been in the industry an ex-
tended period of time is a re-
ally important qualifi cation,”
Gempler said. “That’s some-
thing that’s irreplaceable, but
maybe someone else extraor-
dinarily talented would do a
good job. The administration
would be better served by
someone who comes from the
industry.”
Nicole Berg, past president
of the Washington Associa-
tion of Wheat Growers and a
Paterson, Wash., wheat farm-
er, said Hover will be missed.
“Bud served the wheat in-
dustry wholeheartedly,” Berg
said.
Hover had big issues to
deal with, Berg said, citing
avian fl u, port issues and a
dispute between grain ex-
porters United Grain Co. and
Columbia Grain Co., and the
International Longshore and
Warehouse Union.
State grain inspectors
needed police escorts to cross
ILWU picket lines to enter
facilities to inspect grain. The
state patrol escorted inspectors
for eight months. The wheat
industry criticized Inslee when
he pulled the troopers and
grain inspectors, putting pres-
sure on the companies to settle
with the union.
“I think he put his heart into
the job,” Berg said of Hover.
“It’ll be sad to see him go.”
Berg hopes Hover’s re-
placement will, like Hover, be
a farmer.
In his resignation, Hover
cited family needs, including
caring for his aging father-in-
law, as reasons to return to his
family farm near Winthrop in
the Methow Valley of Okano-
gan County.
Hover lost a re-election bid
as a Republican county com-
missioner in Okanogan Coun-
ty in 2012 before he was ap-
pointed by Inslee, a Democrat,
on April 1, 2013.
“I believe we have made
great strides in the past two
years in advancing new and
innovative solutions to help
solve some of the pressing is-
sues facing agriculture today
as well as making great strides
in improving effi ciency in the
department,” Hover wrote in
his resignation letter to Inslee.
Inslee thanked Hover for
his work.
“As a farmer himself, Bud
has been a tireless advocate
for the average farmer, mak-
ing sure their concerns were
heard at the highest levels of
government,” Inslee said in a
department news release.
“He provided key leader-
ship in implementing a state
of the art Animal Disease
Traceability program that will
better protect the state’s vital
livestock industry and provid-
ed important guidance in the
diffi cult situation we faced
with issues at our ports.”
Capital Press staff writers
Dan Wheat and Matthew
Weaver contributed to this
story.
Donald ‘Bud’ Hover
• Age: 60
• Residence: Winthrop, Wash.
• Education: Washington State
University, agricultural education;
master’s degree in public
administration, University of
Washington
• Employment: Director,
Washington State Department of
Agriculture
• Budget: 2013-2015 biennial
operations budget of $154 million
• Salary: $125,000
• Employees: 600-year-round
employees in six divisions —
commodity inspections, market
development, food safety and
consumer services, pesticide
management,
plant protection
and adminis-
trative
services
Capital Press
graphic
Rice growers to plant crop despite water-purchase offers
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
WILLOWS, Calif. — Most
rice growers with water appar-
ently plan to plant a sizable crop
despite offers from urban dis-
tricts to purchase their water for
as much as $700 per acre-foot.
California farmers told the
National Agricultural Statistics
Service they intend to seed rice
on 408,000 acres, or 6 percent
below the acreage seeded in
2014, the agency stated in a
fi eld plantings report released
March 31.
A 6 percent decrease might
be considered fairly meager
considering the lingering un-
certainty for many growers as
to the quantity and timing of
water availability amid a fourth
straight year of drought.
Larry Maben, a grower
here, said area farmers have
been told to expect 75 percent
of normal allocations, though
their water provider — the
Glenn-Colusa Irrigation Dis-
trict — is still working out
the details of deliveries. Ma-
ben is considering making
up the shortfall with well wa-
ter, though he’s wary of the
drought’s impact on aquifers.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Worker Chuck Pentz chisels a fi eld in preparation for rice planting
near Willows, Calif., on March 27. As rice growers in the Sacramento
Valley await their federal water allocations, some have considered
selling some of their water and leaving some fi elds unplanted.
“I’m sure it would be pretty
tempting (to sell water) because
you can get a pretty high price
for water,” he said. “I think I
can still get more from farming
rice.”
Among urban water agen-
cies eying farmers’ allocations
is the Los Angeles-based Metro-
politan Water District of South-
ern California, which decided
in early March to buy up to
200,000 acre-feet of Sacramen-
to Valley water in 2015 and to
secure conveyance and storage
water has been complicated by
the prospect of reduced alloca-
tions, Muir said. U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation offi cials have
said they’re unsure of whether
they’ll be able to send settlement
contractors along the Sacramen-
to River their full 75 percent
dry-year allotments, and State
Water Project contractors expect
to only receive 20 percent of
normal supplies.
“No pun intended but the
market may be drying up,”
Muir said. “They might be see-
ing reduced allocations. We’re
not sure how this is going to
actually develop with each
passing dry day. It’s going to be
quite a challenge to move any
water this year.”
Further, many water dis-
tricts have restrictions on how
much water can be transferred
— particularly in dry years, said
Charley Mathews, a Marysville,
Calif., grower and USA Rice
Federation executive committee
member.
“It could be that there won’t
be an opportunity to sell water,”
Mathews said.
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agreements with the state De-
partment of Water Resources
and other water districts.
The going price for water
is about $700 per acre-foot —
nearly triple the rate in 2010,
when the district purchased
nearly 90,000 acre-feet at a cost
of about $250 per acre-foot,
said Bob Muir, a Metropolitan
Water District spokesman. An
acre-foot is enough water to
serve two family households for
a year.
However, the availability of
Water shortages reduce plantings
Rice is among many Cal-
ifornia commodities that will
see declines in planted acre-
age this year, according to
NASS’ prospective plantings
report. Among other fi eld
crops:
• Corn growers expect to
plant 430,000 acres in the
Golden State this year, a 17
percent drop from 2014.
• California’s expected 1.23
million acres of productive
hay ground is down 11 percent
from last year as hay shortages
could persist throughout the
West. Nevada’s anticipated
Online
California and Nevada Pro-
spective Plantings for 2015:
http://www.nass.usda.
gov/Statistics_by_State/
California/Publications/Oth-
er_Files/201503crppd2.pdf
340,000 acres of hay would be
21 percent less than a year ago.
• The 430,000 acres of win-
ter wheet seeded in California
is down 7 percent from last
year, though another 60,000
acres have been seeded to
Durum wheat — 71 percent
above the amount planted in
2014, according to NASS.
• Cotton acreage in Cali-
fornia will consist of 110,000
acres of American Pima and
45,000 acres of Upland cotton,
each down more than 20 per-
cent from the acreage seeded
last year.
• Plantings of dry edible
beans (50,000 acres), oats
(120,000 acres) and sugar
beets (25,000 acres) will see
increases this year of 4 per-
cent, 9 percent and 3 percent,
respectively.
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