January 1, 2016
CapitalPress.com
5
Irrigators anxious over spotted frog lawsuit
voirs in a harmful manner
before it completes a required
consultation about the effects
on the frog.
Binomial name: Rana pretiosa
An adverse ruling in the
Appearance: Medium-size frog ranging from 1.75 to 4 inches long. Body
case could have a huge im-
color varies with age. Adults appear brown to reddish brown with black
pact on nearly 1,000 farmers
spots with ragged edges.
in the North Unit Irrigation
Courtesy of U.S. Fish
Range: British Columbia, Washington,
District, which in dry years
and Wildlife Service
Oregon
and
California
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
relies on the Wickiup Reser-
Habitat: Found in or near
Capital Press
voir for nearly 100 percent of
perennial bodies of water that
A lawsuit over the effect of include zones of shallow
its water.
water reservoirs on the threat- water and vegetation.
Even in years with healthy
ened Oregon spotted frog Status: Threatened
snowpack and precipitation
could result in irrigation dis- Reasons for decline:
levels, the district gets rough-
ruptions for more than 4,600 Habitat loss, competition
ly half of its water from the
from non-native species,
farmers.
reservoir.
predation
Growers in two Central
“To return it to a natural
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Oregon irrigation districts are Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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nervously watching the case,
at best, without harming local
which pits the Center for Bi- form such an order may take. irrigation, other egg masses farmers and ranchers,” said
ological Diversity environ-
“We’re just sort of waiting along their margins are dried Mike Britton, the district’s
mental group against the U.S. to see what their next move up, the complaint alleges.
general manager. “How that
Bureau of Reclamation, the is,” said Shon Rae, communi-
5LYHUÀRZVDUHUHGXFHGDV would be accomplished, we
agency operating the Crane cations manager for the Cen- water accumulates in the res- really don’t know.”
Prairie and Wickiup reser- tral Oregon Irrigation District, ervoirs, stranding adult and
The Central Oregon Irri-
voirs.
which depends on water from juvenile frogs on dry land and gation District’s 3,650 grow-
The lawsuit alleges the the Wickiup Reservoir.
isolating their populations, ers use water from the Crane
reservoirs have altered natural
According to the Center resulting in in-breeding, the Prairie Reservoir to supple-
ZDWHU ÀRZV LQ WKH 'HVFKXWHV for Biological Diversity, the group claims.
ment their irrigation needs
River to the point of interfer- IURJ¶VHJJPDVVHVDUHÀXVKHG
The Center for Biological during the early and late parts
ing with the frog’s life cycle. out when the water levels in Diversity contends that the of the season, depending on
While the complaint asks a the reservoirs rise rapidly.
federal government has vio- ULYHUÀRZV
federal judge for injunctive
When water is later re- lated the Endangered Species
Oregon spotted frogs have
relief, it doesn’t specify what leased from the reservoirs for Act by operating the reser- survived in the area even
Reservoir
operations blamed
for lifecycle
disruptions
At a glance
Oregon spotted frog
though the reservoirs were
created nearly 100 years ago,
Rae said. They’ve also de-
veloped a large population
surrounding the Crane Prairie
Reservoir.
“Essentially, we’ve created
habitat for them,” she said.
Noah Greenwald, endan-
gered species director for
the environmental group, ac-
knowledged that the frog lives
on the margins of both reser-
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stored water.
However, the reservoirs
have to be managed with few-
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quick buildups and releases
of water are chaotic for the
frogs, he said.
“They can still deliver wa-
ter to the irrigators, they just
need to do it in a more careful
way,” Greenwald said. “They
have to do things more grad-
ually and at different times of
the year.”
Such changes in manage-
ment would inevitably hurt irri-
gators, said Mike Britton of the
North Unit Irrigation District.
More water would be
stored in the reservoir during
irrigation season, reducing the
amount diverted for agricul-
ture, and more water would be
allowed to pass through dams
during the winter, decreasing
storage levels, he said.
“It’s quite a conundrum,”
he said, noting that lower riv-
er levels in summer would
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are other species to be consid-
ered, not just the frog.”
Irrigators want to help the
frog by replacing irrigation
ditches with pipes, which
saves water and makes them
less dependent on the reser-
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irrigation practices will also
help in this respect.
Although the irrigation
districts aren’t named as de-
fendants in this lawsuit, the
Waterwatch of Oregon en-
vironmental group has said
they’ll be named as defen-
dants in another spotted frog
case that will also include the
Tumalo Irrigation District.
Such litigation threatens
to distract irrigators’ focus
and sap resources from such
improvements, she said.
“It would be great if they
wouldn’t sue us so we could
just complete the process.”
Raw milk’s growth expands WSDA’s workload
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
TUMWATER, Wash. —
Raw milk dairies have weath-
ered recalls, illnesses and
warning labels to enjoy “tre-
mendous growth” in Wash-
ington, creating a large gap
between licensing fees the
dairies pay and the money the
state spends on testing unpas-
teurized products, according
to the state Department of Ag-
riculture.
Federal authorities ban
interstate raw milk sales and
brand unpasteurized dairy
products as unsafe and with-
out nutritional advantages.
Washington, however, has
largely supported raw milk
dairies, adopting laws to spur
the industry’s growth and as-
sessing dairies a fraction of
the costs for inspections, tests
and emergency responses.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington State Department of Agriculture microbiologist Fonda
Olsen holds up a raw milk sample at the department’s microbiology
lab in Tumwater. Despite sicknesses, recalls and warnings, raw
milk dairies have thrived in Washington. WSDA has asked the
Legislature for money to hire another microbiologist to keep up with
the workload.
At WSDA’s request, Gov.
Jay Inslee’s budget propos-
al to the 2016 Legislature
includes $125,500 from the
general fund to hire anoth-
er microbiologist to test raw
milk.
WSDA had asked for twice
that amount to hire two mi-
crobiologists.
WSDA’s only other fund-
ing requests were to control
Asian gypsy moths, a threat to
Christmas trees and nurseries,
and apple maggots, a menace
to the state’s most valuable
farm product.
WSDA’s request for more
microbiologists to test raw
milk came after it studied
how much the department’s
food-safety programs spend
monitoring raw milk.
Although raw milk makes
up only 10 percent of the sam-
ples sent to WSDA’s microbi-
ology laboratory, it accounts
for one-third of all tests run at
the lab.
Besides the tests conduct-
ed on pasteurized milk, raw
milk undergoes additional
VFUHHQLQJDQGSRWHQWLDOO\¿YH
more tests for illness-causing
pathogens, the laboratory’s
director, Yong Lui, said.
WSDA estimates it spends
$460,000 a year licensing, in-
specting, and collecting and
testing samples from 40 raw
milk dairies.
The department also says
LWUHVSRQGVWRRQHWR¿YHFDV
es of contaminated raw milk
each year, spending $4,666
per incident.
Raw milk producers pay
the standard $250 dairy plant
license fee, raising about
$10,000 a year.
The study concluded that
the assessment for raw milk
dairies would have to be more
than $12,000 to cover the de-
partment’s expenses.
“Since many raw milk pro-
GXFHUV DUH YHU\ VPDOO ¿UPV
with only a few cows, an an-
nual assessment of that mag-
nitude would be extremely
challenging for most raw milk
licensees to absorb,” accord-
ing to the study’s conclusion.
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention warn against con-
suming raw milk or unpas-
teurized dairy products.
Washington is one of 12
states, which also include
Idaho and California, that
allow raw milk to be sold in
retail stores, according to the
National Conference of State
Legislatures. Some 19 other
states, including Oregon, al-
low raw milk to be sold di-
rectly to consumers, such as
at dairies or farmers’ markets.
WSDA has issued 15 raw
milk recalls in the past eight
years. Nevertheless, the num-
ber of licensed dairies has in-
creased to 39 from seven in
2007.
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Capital Press staff
Vic Jaro, the retired
president and CEO of Ida-
ho-based
Amalgamated
Sugar, has been named the
sugar industry’s man of the
year for 2015.
Jaro received the inter-
national Sugar Club’s Dyer
Memorial Award on Dec.
9 during a dinner in New
York City.
Jaro joined Amalgam-
ated, the nation’s second
largest processor of sugar
beets, in 1973 as a mechan-
ical engineer with the com-
pany’s Twin Falls plant, ac-
cording to a press release.
Amalgamated process-
es beet sugar from Idaho,
Washington and Oregon.
By 2002, he was vice
president of agriculture,
and he was president in
2006, until he retired ear-
lier in 2015, following a
42-year career with Amal-
gamated.
Jaro also served on the
board of trustees of the
U.S. Beet Sugar Associa-
tion and as chairman of the
Sugar Association.
Jaro graduated from
the U.S. Merchant Marine
Academy, serving as an of-
ficer in the Merchant Ma-
rine and Naval Reserve pri-
or to joining Amalgamated.
The press release credits
Jaro with playing a major
role in introducing geneti-
cally modified beets engi-
neered to resist Roundup
herbicide, and with es-
tablishing National Sugar
Marketing, which is a joint
venture with Sucden Amer-
icas to market Amalgamat-
ed’s sugar.
He also led efforts to
modernize beet pile man-
agement, helping the com-
pany reduce sugar losses,
helped implement practices
that boosted yields and im-
plemented an improvement
plan that increased profit-
ability at three Amalgam-
ated factories, according to
the press release.
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