18 CapitalPress.com
October 30, 2015
Farm groups flood DOE with
comments on manure lagoon regs
Environmentalists
urge Ecology Dept.
to hold firm
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — The Wash-
ington Department of Ecology
compiled comments totaling
5,000 pages on its proposal
to regulate manure lagoons, a
policy that agriculture groups
and individual farmers warn
will bankrupt some produc-
ers, particularly small dairies.
Environmentalists largely
praised DOE for increasing
the number of producers who
would need permits to confine
any number of livestock for at
least 45 days over 12 months.
Only 10 producers have
permits now for concentrat-
ed feeding operations. Under
DOE’s preliminary proposal,
all producers with unlined la-
goons would need a permit.
Permit holders wouldn’t nec-
essarily have to line lagoons,
but would be required to take
all “known, available and
reasonable methods” to pre-
vent manure from polluting
groundwater, surface water or
row crops.
Hundreds of producers
would be saddled with an
“unattainable
requirement
that will leave permit hold-
ers wide open to litigation,”
wrote Jack Field, Washington
Cattlemen’s Association ex-
ecutive vice president, in one
of 91 letters submitted by 168
groups and individuals.
DOE said the policy it
floated in August was a pre-
lude to a final proposal due
out early next year. DOE of-
ficials acknowledged the pro-
posal needs revisions, includ-
ing ways to reduce the burden
on smaller farms.
“We expected to have some
things to work on,” said Jon
Jennings, an administrator in
DOE’s water quality program.
“It was a rough statement of
our thinking.”
The Western Environmen-
tal Law Center, writing on
behalf of 13 organizations,
urged Ecology to stand up
to agriculture. “You should
not be bullied into abdicating
your statutory responsibilities
to protect water quality and
public water,” the law firm
wrote.
The Washington State
Board of Health support-
ed DOE’s assumption that
all unlined lagoons pollute
groundwater and thus should
be regulated similar to waste-
water discharged from a man-
ufacturer’s pipe. “We feel this
is a step in the right direction
to protect human health for
those that reside near CA-
FOs,” the board’s chairman,
Keith Grellner, wrote.
The overwhelming num-
ber of comments came from
farmers and agriculture
groups. Many said DOE’s
blanket indictment of unlined
lagoons was scientifically
unsupported and that the pro-
posed rule would lead to loss
of farmland.
Fewer dairies will mean
less wildlife habitat, fewer
sources of organic fertiliz-
er and more urban sprawl,
according to the Washing-
ton State Dairy Federation.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Dairy cows graze in Western Washington. Agriculture groups and
individual farmers warn that a state Department of Ecology proposal
to regulate manure lagoons will drive small dairies out of business.
“We are not being irrational-
ly alarmist,” the federation
wrote. “Land conversion out
of dairy is a very real option
that producers are already
pondering.”
Idaho’s warm fall
a mixed blessing
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Rick Miller, professor emeritus of range ecology and management at Oregon State University, points out plant species to other partici-
pants on a range tour of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management Jarbidge Field Office in south-central Idaho on Oct. 23.
The tour was part of the Rangeland Fall Forum organized by the University of Idaho Rangeland Center.
Rancher: Living with wildfire is about balance
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
TWIN FALLS COUNTY,
Idaho — Third-generation sheep
and cattle rancher Mike Guerry
knows first-hand the challenges
of wildfire on south-central Ida-
ho’s high desert rangelands.
Between 2004 and 2012, his
public lands grazing allotments
were hit with five major wild-
fires, with the largest burning
660,000 acres, and he’s lost his
winter grazing permit for seven
of the last 12 years.
Wildfires “created some
immense challenges and some
changes” in how he manages his
operation, he told those attending
last week’s Rangeland Fall Fo-
rum, organized by the University
of Idaho Rangeland Center.
Fire has always been a major
component in maintaining sage
brush steppe in the Jarbidge — a
vast area of public land managed
by Bureau of Land Manage-
ment. But historically, fires were
smaller and provided a landscape
mosaic that helped guard against
devastating fires, he said.
A large fire in the area in
the 1970s was 3,000 to 10,000
acres but they grew to 200,000
to 660,000 acres by the 2000s,
he said.
Ranchers and land managers
recognize the benefits of fire, in-
cluding prescribed burns, to pre-
vent large wildfires and restore
rangeland health, he said.
“Life and living with fires is
all about balance. We’re trying
to make a living and restore that
balance,” he said.
The balance is a three-legged
stool comprised of rangeland
utilization and manipulation and
fire suppression, he said.
Managing fuel loads
Utilization is grazing the land
to manage fuel loads, an effec-
tive tool that has been hindered
by wildfire, environmental law-
suits, and federal land-manage-
ment policy, he said.
Fire takes grazing off the
list due to federal policy that
requires rest periods that don’t
necessarily consider local range-
lands, he said.
That was the case when
Guerry lost a winter grazing
permit due to fire and the range
burned out a second time before
he ever got back on, he said.
“We need to come up with
rules to let people back on after
one season,” he said.
In another case, a judge’s rul-
ing in a lawsuit brought by en-
vironmentalists limited grazing
for two months in the spring.
“Fire went through and
burned it all off, and there was
nothing mosaic about it,” he said.
But the landscape and ranch-
ers have benefited by temporary
non-renewal permits issued by
BLM to address particular con-
ditions, he said.
Resistance and
resilience
Manipulating the landscape
to restore native plant species
and create a mosaic of fire stops
is another part of the balance,
and BLM has been a strong part-
ner, Guerry said.
“We’ve been very creative in
the Jarbidge because we’ve had
to be. We know in this resource
area, as productive as it is, we’re
going to have fires,” he said.
Mowing, harrowing, plant-
ing green strips, putting in
brown strips and burning fence
lines all have a place. But they
all have issues as well, he said.
“You’ve got to weigh the
pros with the cons and pick ar-
eas that are most likely to be a
problem,” he said.
Fire reduction
As for suppression, firefight-
ing resources are the biggest
issue, but land-management
policy has also proved challeng-
ing. Agencies’ inability to most
effectively fight large fires due
to environmental restrictions has
caused frustration for the agen-
cies and ranchers, he said.
It was a matter of not being
allowed to disturb a little sage
brush only to see a lot more
burn. But those handcuffs have
been removed, taking away a lot
of the frustration, he said.
There’s also been an issue of
ranchers not being allowed to
participate in firefighting activi-
ties once the agencies arrive, due
to liability, he said.
The creation of rangeland
fire protection associations —
which provide training, funding,
some equipment and the legal
status to assist firefighters — has
gone a long way in the Jarbidge
to remedy that, he said.
RFPAs also provide addi-
tional resources in manpower,
equipment, water storage, land-
scape knowledge and on-the-
scene communication, he said.
Eastern Idaho growers say
an unseasonably warm fall
has been a mixed blessing,
expediting fall grain develop-
ment, harvest time and field
work but posing challenges
with diseases, insects and
storage conditions.
University of Idaho Exten-
sion cereals pathologist Juliet
Marshall said the fungal patho-
gen stripe rust has been con-
firmed in wheat in Blackfoot,
American Falls, Preston, Soda
Springs and Arbon Valley.
Marshall said the warm
fall has resulted in an abun-
dance of volunteer wheat,
which is harboring stripe rust.
She said infections have also
been found in some soft white
winter wheat fields, planted in
susceptible varieties.
“I would recommend
spraying susceptible varieties
in the spring,” Marshall said.
She also advises growers
to plow under or chemically
control volunteer grain.
Marshall said the warm
fall has also contributed to
higher aphid pressure and the
likelihood of barley yellow
dwarf disease returning as a
problem in winter grains next
season.
Idaho Wheat Commission
Executive Director Blaine Ja-
cobson worries warmer falls
are becoming a trend in Idaho.
“In all of the crops and
even forestry management,
we’re seeing diseases migrate
north — diseases that general-
ly occur in warmer weather,”
Jacobson said. “Stripe rust
we’re seeing more and more,
whereas 10 years ago, it was
not as prevalent.”
According to the National
Weather Service, the average
date of the first 28-degree low
temperature throughout the
Eastern Snake Plain ranges
from Sept. 30 through Oct. 5.
The first killing frost has been
weeks late this season. In Po-
catello, for example, National
Weather Service meteorolo-
gist Greg Kaiser said the first
temperature below 28 degrees
didn’t arrive until Oct. 28, and
it didn’t produce a killing frost.
Kaiser said Pocatello was
on pace for its third warmest
October, tying or setting re-
cord highs at 83 degrees on
Oct. 10, 79 degrees on Oct. 15
and 81 degrees on Oct. 16.
Kaiser attributes the
warmth to high pressure in
the upper atmosphere pushing
cold air north. He said colder
temperatures should arrive
Nov. 2.
Vance Ward, a dryland
farmer in southeast Idaho’s
Arbon Valley, said thanks to
the warm fall, his winter grain
is “coming up and looking
good.”
“It’s been a long time since
I remember (the fall weather)
doing this,” Ward said.
Idaho Falls grower Marc
Thiel said some volunteer
fields in his area have already
produced heads, and he’s had
the unexpected opportunity to
graze one of his volunteer bar-
ley fields.
Warm temperatures, how-
ever, have made it more
challenging for Thiel to cool
spuds headed into storage.
Thiel fears there may be more
problems this season with
spuds breaking down in his
cellars, as a result.
“After you dig spuds, you
always rely on those 30-de-
gree nights and cooler to get
those cooled down,” Thiel
said. “There were some that
were dug pretty warm.”
Aberdeeen spud farm-
er Ritchey Toevs has had to
change his storage methods
this season due to the heat.
Typically, the fans in his po-
tato cellars automatically ac-
tivate when outside tempera-
tures drop below 55 degrees.
This fall, Toevs has utilized
temperature sensors within
potato piles, increasing the
number of hours his fans are
running.
Toevs said storage rot is
“definitely a concern” this
season.
Washington State bread lab plants wheat, barley at governor’s mansion
Farmers, researchers
look to raise
awareness of crops
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Research-
ers from the Washington State
University bread laboratory
have planted wheat and barley
at the governor’s mansion in
Olympia.
They planted a new WSU
bread wheat variety, Skagit-09,
and two Oregon State Univer-
sity food barley varieties in
plots at the mansion.
The lab wants to release
the wheat variety this fall. It is
bred specifically for the west
side of the state, said director
Stephen Jones. The lab is in
Mount Vernon, Wash.
Roughly 1 percent of the
wheat grown in Washington
comes from the west side,
Jones said. The majority of
Washington’s wheat is export-
ed to other countries, but the
new variety will be used only
by bakers in the region.
“It’s important as a rota-
tional crop,” Jones said. “Our
goal is to add some value to
that part of the rotation. Any-
thing we can do to get some
value to the farmers, that’s our
job.”
Brigid Meints, a doctoral
student at the lab, is breeding
food barleys for the region.
The barley plot includes a strip
of the OSU variety Streaker
and a mixture of Streaker and
a new variety, Buck. She said
she wants to increase aware-
ness of barley as a food crop.
“These are the first winter
barleys that are hull-less, and
so you can eat them without
any additional processing
steps,” Meints said. “Most
people don’t eat barley as a
food product, (but) they obvi-
ously will drink it often in their
beer or whiskey.”
Streaker and Buck are
available to farmers, Meints
said. She is also planting sev-
eral experimental lines, and is
working on creating new lines
adapted to Western Washing-
ton.
“Just because there hasn’t
been much research done on
food barley, there’s not much
available,” she said.
The plots are 3 feet-by-15
feet. They’re the first wheat
plots planted at the governor’s
mansion, Jones said.
“There has been wheat in
the White House garden, but
I’m not aware that it’s been
here,” he said.
Does it do anything for the
industry?
“It doesn’t hurt,” Jones
said. “Just to have people
talking about wheat is great,
wherever it is.”
Representatives from the
lab and Washington Associa-
tion of Wheat Growers were
at the mansion Oct. 27 for a
planting and baking demon-
stration.
Courtesy photo
From left, Washington State University Bread Lab resident baker Jonathan Bethony in apron, Wash-
ington First Lady Trudi Inslee, Washington Association of Wheat Growers past president Nicole Berg,
WAWG President Larry Cochran and bread lab director Stephen Jones mark the planting of wheat and
barley plots at the governor’s mansion Oct. 28 with a baking demonstration.