Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 2015)
LIVESTOCK & HORSE SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2015 VOLUME 88, NUMBER 49 WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM $2.00 Washington to appraise drought damage ‘Never seen anything like it,’ farmer says By DON JENKINS Capital Press The Washington State Department of Agriculture will survey fi elds and question producers to assess how much last summer’s drought cost farmers and ranchers, a look back that offi cials say will help them plan ahead. WSDA is scheduled to deliver a pre- liminary report by Dec. 31 to the state Department of Ecology, the agency that disburses drought-relief funds. WSDA will see how lingering drought damage affects 2016 production and submit a fi - nal report at the end of next year. The report will put fi gures on econom- ic and production losses by region and commodity, according to an agreement between DOE and WSDA. The study, ac- cording to offi cials, will identify the ar- eas and crops hardest hit by the drought and help policymakers direct relief. The assessment will attempt to measure the affect on yields and a wide-range of farm practices, including planting and har- vest schedules, labor costs and the expense of activating emergency wells and pumps. The state has not conducted such as- sessments after previous droughts. WSDA in May estimated the drought would sap $1.2 billion from Washing- ton’s $10 billion agriculture industry, a rough calculation based on the assump- tion that losses would be concentrated in Yakima Valley irrigation districts with ju- nior-water rights. The valley is the state’s top-producing farm region, and growers with junior-water rights faced cutbacks because of low snowpacks. Turn to DROUGHT, Page 12 Courtesy of Washington Department An orchard in Benton County in Central Washington suffers from the drought last summer. The Washington State Department of Agriculture will appraise 2015 drought losses, as assessment the state hasn’t done after previous droughts. GETTING ON TRACK W E.Wash. terminals handle effi cient, 110-car shuttle trains By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press FOUR LAKES, Wash. — hen HighLine Grain LLC’s new shuttle-train loading facility opens early next year, it will represent the latest addition to a network of transportation im- provements that help Washington farmers ship their nearly $1 billion wheat crop to market each year. With the new HighLine facility, there are now four high-effi ciency shuttle terminals that can han- dle the wheat grown across 2.2 million acres of Eastern Washington. Fifty miles southwest of HighLine’s terminal in Four Lake, Wash., is the Ritzville Warehouse Co.’s Templin terminal near Ritzville, Wash. About 35 miles to the southeast is the Co-Ag and Pacifi c Northwest Farmers Cooperative McCoy ter- minal. About 154 miles to the south is another facil- ity, owned by AgriNorthwest in Plymouth, Wash., near the Washington-Oregon border. The facilities represent a key transportation link for getting the region’s wheat to overseas markets. Each year during harvest, Pacifi c Northwest farmers truck their wheat to country grain elevators, where it is stored. When the elevators sell the wheat, they load it onto trucks or 26-car short-line trains to get it to the shuttle-train loading facilities. There the wheat is aggregated and loaded onto 110-car BNSF Railway shuttle trains, which take it to ports in Portland, Seattle or Tacoma. It’s then loaded onto ships for the trip across the Pacifi c Ocean to customers in Asia and elsewhere. Turn to TRACK, Page 12 Matthew Weaver/Capital Press HighLine Grain terminal superintendent Brad Wiley stands outside the facility during construction Nov. 6 near Four Lakes, Wash. The terminal is slated to open in late January. “A little bit of competition keeps everybody in line, I guess. We all get along pretty well out here in the country.” Stacey Hunt, grain manager Ritzville Warehouse Co. Calif. agency sets initial allocation at 10 percent Despite storms, reservoirs below 30 percent capacity By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press SACRAMENTO — De- spite early season storms and the prospects for a wet winter, California’s water agency has initially estimated it will deliv- er only 10 percent of requested allocations to State Water Proj- ect contractors. The allocation matches last year’s initial allocation and signals that the drought, which is entering its fi fth year, is far from over. The alloca- tions could be increased or decreased depending on how much rain and snow falls this winter, offi cials said. “No matter how hard it’s raining, we need to remem- ber to use water wisely and sparingly,” state Department of Water Resources director Mark Cowin said when an- nouncing the allocation Dec. 1. “Our historic drought has lasted for years and isn’t going to quickly be washed away.” Cowin and other offi cials say California still faces severe water shortages even after re- cent storms, including a wintry system just before Thanksgiv- ing that dumped up to a foot of snow in some areas of the Sierra Nevada. Lake Oroville, the State Wa- ter Project’s principal reservoir, was only at 26 percent of ca- pacity as of Dec. 1 and is near- ing its record low of 882,000 acre-feet set on Sept. 7, 1977, the agency reports. The reser- voir, which provides water for 25 million Californians and serves nearly 1 million acres of farmland, can hold up to 3.5 million acre-feet. Shasta Lake, the center- piece of the federal Central Valley Project, was at 29 per- cent of its 4.5 million acre- foot capacity and 49 percent Turn to WATER, Page 12 A shoe sits on the dry lake bed Oct. 27 at Fol- som Lake, in Folsom, Ca- lif. Despite recent storms, the state’s reservoirs remain below 30 percent of capacity. Rich Pedroncelli Associated Press 49-2/#5