August 28, 2015
CapitalPress.com
5
Water districts sue, blast feds over Trinity River releases
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
REDDING, Calif. — San
Joaquin Valley water districts
have sued to stop releases of
Central Valley Project water
down the Trinity River for fish,
and farm advocates say a federal
agency is sending mixed mes-
sages about the drought.
The U.S. Bureau of Recla-
mation on Aug. 21 announced it
would begin releasing as much
as 88,000 acre-feet of water
from Trinity Reservoir to pro-
vide cooler and higher water in
the Klamath River for returning
chinook salmon.
The Westlands Water District
and San Luis and Delta-Mendo-
ta Water Authority immediately
sued in U.S. District Court to
stop the releases, arguing that
more than 200,000 acre-feet of
water has already been flushed
down the Lower Klamath River
for fish in the last four years.
“It has a water-supply im-
pact to folks in our region,” said
Dan Nelson, executive director
of the 29-district San Luis and
Delta-Mendota authority. “A lot
of our water users this year got a
zero allocation from the Central
Valley Project, and the reason
they got a zero allocation was
there supposedly wasn’t enough
water in storage to be able to
dedicate for endangered spe-
cies and still be able to make a
delivery (to farmers) in this type
of year.
“On the other hand, all of
the sudden this water becomes
available for another use on the
Klamath side,” he said.
Nelson said federal officials
had cited a need to keep enough
water in the Sacramento River
for endangered salmon as the
reason no CVP water was allo-
cated for agriculture south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta.
However, the water sent
down the Trinity from the Lew-
iston Dam wouldn’t have been
available for the Sacramen-
to system this year if it hadn’t
been released, said Shane Hunt,
a Reclamation spokesman in
Sacramento, The Associated
Press reported. “It is water that
would have stayed in the Trini-
ty for next year for temperature
management and other project
purposes,” Hunt said. “It could
have been water we would have
moved over next year depending
on what happened this winter.”
The releases were requested
by the Hoopa Valley and Yurok
Tribes and Humboldt County to
prevent an outbreak of a gill-rot-
ting disease known as Ich —
short for Ichthyophthirius mul-
tifillis — which spreads in low
and warm water conditions.
Bureau officials said the
measure was necessary to stave
off a large-scale salmon die-off
like one that occurred in the
Klamath River in 2002, which
environmentalists blamed on
Reclamation’s decision to re-
store irrigation water to farms in
the Klamath Basin.
The move comes as Uni-
versity of California-Davis re-
searchers say California’s now
4-year-old drought will cost the
state’s agriculture $1.84 billion
in 2015 and cause the fallowing
of 542,000 acres — about one-
fifth more land than was forced
out of production last year.
For the second straight year,
the Bureau of Reclamation al-
located no water this year for
agricultural land without senior
water rights either north or south
of the Delta, leaving the bulk of
the CVP’s nearly 2 million acres
of irrigated farmland without
surface water.
“It’s frustrating to see water
that, when others have a zero
water allocation … may be a po-
tential opportunity for additional
water resources, and it’s literally
flushed out to the ocean,” West-
lands spokeswoman Gayle Hol-
man said.
Ryan Jacobsen, executive
director of the Fresno County
Farm Bureau, agrees. He said
“even a small fraction” of the
55 million acre-feet flushed
through the Delta for environ-
mental purposes in the last four
years would have “made a huge
dent” in the drought for farmers.
As it is, about 25 percent of
the farmland in Fresno County
— the nation’s top-producing
agricultural county — is fal-
lowed because of a lack of wa-
ter, he said.
“It’s a lack of leadership in
Washington, D.C., to change
some of these practices that are
taking place,” Jacobsen said.
The water districts have re-
quested a temporary restraining
order to stop the releases and
had not received a decision as of
the Capital Press deadline. Last
year a federal judge denied the
injunction sought by irrigators.
The bureau’s Hunt declined to
comment on the litigation.
The districts assert the water
planned for release is enough
to farm 31,000 acres of food
or serve more than 175,000 ur-
ban families for a year. Nelson
laments that the releases appear
to be becoming an annual occur-
rence even though the bureau
characterizes them as emergen-
cy measures.
“The bottom line is that this
is a very critical year,” Nelson
said. “There are a lot of agricul-
tural users who have absolutely
no allocations this year and ur-
ban folks are trucking in water.”
By DAN WHEAT
Oregon’s wine grape harvest
begins, and looks promising
Capital Press
By ERIC MORTENSON
Apple price recovery may take time, expert says
Capital Press
This year’s smaller U.S. ap-
ple crop will help prices recov-
er but it will still take time, says
a longtime industry observer.
“This will be a better year,
but not what we’re accustom
to. Not average prices of $22
per box,” said Desmond O’Ro-
urke, a private consultant and
retired Washington State Uni-
versity agriculture economics
professor.
A 234.8-million-box fresh
and processed U.S. apple crop
was forecast at the U.S. Apple
Association’s 120th annual con-
ference at Chicago’s Ritz-Carl-
ton Hotel on Aug. 20-21. More
than 300 people attended the
conference including 57 from
15 foreign countries.
The forecast is down 14
percent from 2014 and down 1
percent from the five-year av-
erage. Last year’s crop hit 272
million, 1994’s crop was 273
million, and the record was 277
million in 1998.
The forecast is 7.4 million,
42-pound boxes less than the
USDA’s Aug. 12 forecast due
to weather-related factors in
Washington state.
The biggest volume drop
from last year is in Washington,
where heat, drought and hail have
reduced the crop. It’s forecast, at
125.2 million fresh packed box-
es and 143 million fresh and
processed boxes, is down from
173.8 million last year.
New York is down 15 per-
cent at 26.2 million boxes and
Michigan is down just 2 per-
cent at 24 million.
Washington apple prices
tumbled to as low as $9 per
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
David Jimenez, foreman at Collins Orchard, Chelan, Wash., moves a bin of Gala apples to a loading
area Aug. 17, just three days after the orchard was singed by a wildfire. The industry hopes a smaller
national crop helps increase apple prices.
box for Red Delicious in the
past year, primarily due to the
record crop. Slowdown of ex-
ports through West Coast ports
and closure of the Russian mar-
ket also impacted prices.
“It takes awhile to persuade
retailers to move prices back
up. It’s hard to get them back
up in one year,” O’Rourke said,
noting Washington’s crop is
still forecast to be the third larg-
est in history.
Don Armock, president of
Riveridge Produce in Sparta,
Mich., said prices should be
better with a smaller crop. He
said heat is pressuring size and
harvest timing of Washington
apples.
Michigan and New York
marketers are concerned they’ll
have a harder startup because
of Washington’s early crop
beating them into the market,
Armock said.
Washington’s early crop
also is aided by a lighter crop in
California, O’Rourke said. Cal-
ifornia is forecast at 4.8 million
boxes, down 16 percent from
last year.
Canada’s apple crop is pro-
jected at 14.3 million boxes,
Eola Hills Wine Cellars
west of Salem began picking
grapes Aug. 26, marking one of
the earliest starts to the Willa-
mette Valley harvest on record.
The very early outlook: An-
other big harvest in terms of
yield, and quality appears good
as well, vineyard Manager Jim
Huggins.
Crews picked Chardonnay
grapes to make sparkling wine,
and may pick Pinor Noir grapes
for sparkling wine on Friday,
Huggins said.
Like multiple other Oregon
crops, wine grapes are coming
on about two weeks early due to
an unusually warm, dry summer.
If weather conditions hold,
the wine made from this year’s
crop may rival the 2014 vin-
tage, which winery managers
described as outstanding.
“Typically when we get a lot
of heat, the wines are big and
bright,” Huggins said. “It really
depends on how we end up the
season.
“If rain sets in, a fantastic
crop can turn into an average
crop in pretty short order.”
In response to the long string
of hot days, vineyard managers
kept more fruit on the vine so
the grapes wouldn’t ripen too
quickly, Huggins said. The
grapes are healthy, with very
little disease pressure, he said.
“We’re very optimistic it
will be a real nice year,” he
said. “Certainly a big year, be-
cause there’s a lot of fruit hang-
ing out there.”
Farther north, at Stoller
Family Estate vineyard in Yam-
hill County’s famed Dundee
Hills, vineyard manager Rob
Schultz reported a similar out-
look. Stoller also began picking
Wednesday, harvesting Pinot
Noir grapes for sparkling wine.
“Things look good,” Schul-
tz said. “We had no disease
outbreak, no sunburn, no vine
stress.
“I’m surprised,” he said.
“With all the heat I anticipated
more stress. But the vines are
really happy, they like it warm
and dry.”
Schultz agreed wine quality
could be excellent, based on
conditions now.
“I think if you liked 2014,
you’ll love 2015 – very similar
season,” he said.
down 26 percent from last year
while Mexico is forecast at
24.2 million, up from 16.6 mil-
lion last year and 26.2 percent
above its five-year average,
said Jon DeVaney, president of
the Washington State Tree Fruit
Association.
USDA surveying farmers on management practices
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The USDA is surveying
growers about their manage-
ment and conservation prac-
tices.
USDA’s National Agricul-
tural Statistics Service will con-
tact 2,100 winter wheat farmers
Sept. 1 through Dec. 2, includ-
ing 370 in Idaho, Oregon and
Washington, for its Agricultural
Resource Management Survey.
NASS will contact 24,000
farmers through Oct. 1 for its
Conservation Effects Assess-
ment Project.
NASS is also contacting
farmers in 11 states, including
Oregon and Washington, for
its Fruit Chemical Use Survey,
asking about pesticides and fer-
tilizers used, acres treated and
microbial food safety practices.
NASS will schedule inter-
views with growers, said Chris
Mertz, Northwest regional di-
rector in Olympia. The wheat
survey is estimated to take 35
minutes, while the CEAP aver-
ages 70 minutes.
“We’re catching them at a
busy time, so we try to sched-
ule it to meet their schedule the
best,” Mertz said. “We’ll work
with the producer to make it as
easy and quick as possible.”
The most precise informa-
tion possible is preferred, Mertz
said. NASS will review infor-
mation if it appears to be incor-
rect or is an outlier with other
reports, in order to explain why
something might be different
on a particular farm.
NASS hopes to determine
what nutrients, pesticides or
fertilizer applications were
made on specific winter wheat
fields during the growing sea-
son, Mertz said. Growers will
answer whether they used best
management practices, such as
no-till or planted earlier or later
to avoid weeds.
“There’s always new things
people are trying,” Mertz said.
“I give credit to farm producers
who research and look at new
ways to make their crops better,
more successful.”
CEAP is funded by the Natural
Resources Conservation Service.
Farmers will talk about their con-
servation plans, practices they’ve
adopted and crops they’ve grown
in recent years. NASS will ask
questions about pesticide, fertil-
izer and manure applications and
pest control measures.
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