May 15, 2015
CapitalPress.com
9
Beef packers apply for DEQ permit to build plant
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
J.R. Simplot Co. and Tex-
as-based Caviness Beef Pack-
ers are seeking an air quality
permit to construct a $100
million beef processing plant
near Kuna, Idaho, from the
Idaho Department of Environ-
mental Quality.
The joint venture, under
the name of CS Beef Packers,
was announced in January.
The proposed permit would
regulate emissions from the
beef packing and rendering
facility, according to DEQ.
Pending
permit
ap-
proval, construction of a
300,000-square-foot plant on
Cole Road at the corner of
Barker Road seven miles from
Kuna is expected to begin soon.
Processing is expected to begin
in the third quarter of 2016, ac-
cording to the application.
The proposed facility will
be capable of processing
1,700 head of cattle a day with
an expected operating sched-
ule of five to six days per
week. It will produce a range
of products including meat
and bone meal, dried blood
meal, tallow and hides.
In announcing the proposed
plant in January, Simplot stated
the primary purpose of the plant
will be to harvest cull cows and
bulls from Northwest dairies
and Intermountain West cat-
tle ranches. The operation will
also include hide and rendering
processing and have the ability
to process niche fed beef.
The plant will reduce the
need for dairy farmers and
ranchers to ship cull cattle out
of the area for processing while
filling beef demand, which is at
an all-time high, Simplot stated.
The plant is expected to
create up to 600 new jobs.
The facility will use an
anaerobic digester as part of
its wastewater treatment sys-
tem and use the methane gas
byproduct to fuel two of the
plant’s four boilers, according
to the application.
DEQ received the permit
application on April 30 and
posted notification to the pub-
lic on Monday, stating a 30-
day public comment period
will be provided if a written
request is submitted to the
agency by May 26.
Requests for a comment pe-
riod can be submitted by mail
or email to Tessa Stevens,
Air Quality Division, DEQ
State Office, 1410 N. Hilton,
Boise, ID 83706 or tessa.ste-
vens@deq.idaho.gov
For more information:
www.deq.idaho.gov
Lawmaker bemoans ‘farcical’ Fruitland FFA chapter surprise
recipient of raffled antique tractor
defeat of farmworker bill
By TIM HEARDEN
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — A
state lawmaker bemoaned as
“farcical” an Assembly pan-
el’s party-line defeat of his
bill to give workers certain
rights in cases when the state
imposes contract mediation
on a farm.
Assemblyman Jim Patter-
son, R-Fresno, said Demo-
crats on the lower chamber’s
Labor and Employment com-
mittee left farmworkers like
those at Gerawan Farming
Inc. with no recourse against
perceived overreaches by the
state’s Agricultural Labor Re-
lations Board.
Patterson’s bill — which
came in response to a more
than two-year labor dispute at
the Fresno-based Gerawan —
would have enabled workers
to attend mediation sessions
to gain an understanding of
the terms of their contract and
then vote on whether to ratify
the contract.
Assembly Bill 1389 would
have also required the ALRB
to nullify a contract if the
union abandons the workers
for three or more years.
But a majority on the com-
mittee sided with the United
Farm Workers, which argued
the legislation would conflict
with decades of California ag-
ricultural labor law and sub-
ject farmworkers to further
intimidation from employers,
according to an Assembly bill
analysis.
“We really saw a farcical
circus today, where farm-
workers who were pleading
for justice … were basically
patronized, patted on the head
and sent out the back,” Pat-
terson told reporters after the
panel’s May 6 decision.
“These individuals here (on
the committee) simply said to
these very good people, ‘Shut
up and go away,’” he said.
“That’s unconscionable.”
UFW officials did not re-
spond to an email from the
Capital Press seeking com-
ment about the bill’s defeat.
Gerawan and the UFW
have been locked in a legal
battle, as the fruit producer is
challenging the constitution-
ality of the ALRB’s move to
force a labor contract on the
company.
Many of the workers at
Gerawan are trying to decer-
tify the UFW, which won rep-
Capital Press
Courtesy of Assemblyman Jim Patterson
Farmworkers demonstrate at a rally at the California Capitol for a
bill that would have given workers more of a voice in state labor
proceedings. The bill was defeated in an Assembly committee.
resentation at the farm in 1990
but never negotiated a con-
tract. The union reappeared
in 2012 but failed to reach an
agreement with the company,
and the matter was put before
a mediator.
Workers voted in Novem-
ber 2013 on whether to be
represented by UFW, but the
ballots were impounded pend-
ing a state investigation of ir-
regularities that were alleged
during the petition drive.
More than 100 witnesses
testified at a hearing before a
state administrative law judge
which concluded in March,
and a decision on the matter
may be issued by late May or
early June, according to Paul
Bauer, an attorney for Silvia
Lopez, one of the workers try-
ing to oust the UFW.
Meanwhile, the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals is
considering a motion to dis-
miss Lopez’s year-old federal
lawsuit alleging the ALRB vi-
olated the civil rights of work-
ers by refusing to count the
ballots, Bauer said recently.
While Lopez and her al-
lies say a vast majority of
Gerawan workers want to be
rid of the UFW and the pros-
pect of paying union dues, the
farm’s employees have been
conspicuous on both sides of
a public-relations battle that
has gained national attention.
On May 5, some Gerawan
workers were joined by other
farmworkers and labor leaders
at a UFW-sponsored protest
at the Washington, D.C. head-
quarters of the Americans for
Tax Reform, which was be-
hind a series of billboard ads
in the Fresno area in support
of the anti-union effort.
The following day, Lopez
and dozens of other workers
held a rally at the state Capi-
tol in support of AB 1389, the
Fair Contracts for California
Farmworkers Act, and then at-
tended the committee hearing.
“If there’s nobody out
there to help us … I don’t
know what’s going to hap-
pen with all the farmworkers,
thousands of farmworkers,”
Lopez said at the news con-
ference, from which video
footage was distributed by
Patterson’s office. “It makes
me a little bit disappointed.”
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FRUITLAND, Idaho —
Fruitland High School’s FFA
chapter is the surprise owner of
a restored 1946 John Deere GM
tractor that was raffled off to raise
scholarship money for Idaho
FFA students.
Instead of writing their own
name on the back of the winning
ticket, the person who purchased
it wrote “Fruitland FFA chapter.”
That’s the first time that has
happened during the tractor raf-
fle’s five-year history and Fruit-
land ag science teacher Mike
Tesnohlidek didn’t believe it
at first when he received a text
from a student telling him the
school won the tractor.
“I was like, ‘whatever,’” he
said. “Two minutes later I got
a text from (fellow ag science
teacher Troy Wright) and I real-
ized it was true.”
Wright and Tesnohlidek said
they considered selling the trac-
tor but decided its sentimental
value and practical uses would
be more valuable to the school’s
agricultural sciences program.
“There are all kinds of things
we can use it for,” Wright said.
That includes raising aware-
ness of the FFA program by
showing it off during parades
and community events, teaching
non-farm students to drive it and
educating students about basic
tractor maintenance.
The tractor also has a sprayer
and can be used to teach students
about the basics of spraying.
“It would be pretty good
to go through it with the stu-
dents and teach them about the
components and what it takes
to drive a tractor,” Tesnohlidek
said.
Twin Falls area farmer Ralph
Breeding, who donated the trac-
tor, said he was happy to hear it
was put to good use.
“It’s nice to know it’s still in
good hands,” he said. “They can
keep it for awhile, do whatever
they want with it, and then sell
raffle tickets for it again if they
want.”
The annual tractor raffle
was started by Middleton farm-
er Sid Freeman and his wife,
Pam, in 2011. Five tractors built
in the 1940s and early 1950s
have been raffled off since then
and this year’s tractor raised
$24,000.
That is enough to provide
14 $1,000 scholarships and two
$2,000 scholarships for ag ed-
ucation majors. The rest of the
money will go to support FFA
programs.
The raffle has sold between
2,400 and 3,700 $10 tickets
each year but the goal has al-
ways been 5,000, which would
be enough to provide 30 schol-
arships, Freeman said.
Based on a survey of ag ed-
ucation teachers last year that
asked them how that 5,000
ticket goal might be achieved,
Freeman decided to buy a new-
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Twin Falls area farmer Ralph
Breeding stands in front of a
1946 John Deere GM tractor he
donated for a raffle that raises
scholarship money for Idaho
FFA students. The winner of the
tractor anonymously donated it
to the Fruitland FFA chapter.
er model with more practicable
uses.
Next year’s tractor is an
early 1980s model Massey Fer-
guson 275 with a loader and
blade.
The ag education teachers
“said, maybe if you used a
little newer model, then you
could sell more tickets,” Free-
man said. “We’re going to see
if that theory works.”
The $7,000 cost of the
tractor and loader will be off-
set by business sponsorships
the program has sold for each
of the nine tractor banners
used by FFA chapters during
various events.
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