January 8, 2016
CapitalPress.com
9
Washington
Wash. snowpack
is looking good
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — Moun-
tain snowpack looks a whole lot
better in Washington than it has
at this time the last two years,
and Yakima Basin reservoir
storage also is good.
Statewide snowpack was
120 percent of normal on Jan. 4
compared with 49 percent at this
time last year and 44 percent
two years ago.
But temperatures are about
to rise and precipitation will
slow down in keeping with an El
Nino weather pattern, said Scott
Pattee, water supply specialist at
the Washington Snow Survey
Office of the USDA Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service in
Mount Vernon.
“If we can get maintenance
storms and keep a buffer of
snowpack we will be OK. If it
totally shuts off and warms up,
I’m not saying we will be in
drought again but we would be
water short in some locations,”
Pattee said.
Snowpack constitutes two-
thirds of the irrigation supply
of 464,000 acres of farmland in
the Kittitas and Yakima valleys.
One-third is stored in five lake
reservoirs.
Odds are maintenance
storms will come and there will
be sufficient summer water, he
said.
As of Jan. 4, the Spokane ba-
sin snowpack was the lowest in
the state at 87 percent of normal.
The upper Columbia (Okanogan
and Methow rivers) was 129
percent. The central Columbia
(Chelan, Entiat and Wenatchee)
was 112, the upper Yakima was
113 and the lower Yakima, 120.
The lower Columbia was 118,
central Puget Sound (from Cas-
cade crest to lowlands) 115 and
the Olympics, 135.
All of those regions were
well below 100 percent a year
ago.
The first April to September
streamflow forecasts will be
around 100 percent of normal,
Pattee said.
The 2015 drought illuminat-
ed the criticalness of snowpack,
he said.
Rainfall and snowfall were
down in prior state droughts, but
2015 saw ample mountain rain
but little snow, he said.
“We were able to tie low
streamflows directly to lack of
snowfall. I don’t think any of us
knew how critical it is, but the
math is there now,” he said.
Meanwhile, the five reser-
voirs serving the Yakima Basin
are 124 percent of average for
this time of year. Keechelus,
Kachess, Cle Elum, Bumping
and Rimrock all total 55 percent
of capacity as of Jan. 3, said
Chris Lynch, hydrologist for the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s
Yakima Project in Yakima.
“Things look good,” Lynch
said. “We’re back into a more
normal mode for now. You
never know how the winds
will shift, but we hope we will
get some more winter and keep
building snowpack.”
Wilson Creek grain elevator
fire under investigation
Fire chief: Structures
are a ‘total loss’
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Grant County deputy fire
marshals are investigating a
fire at a Wilson Creek, Wash.,
grain elevator.
The fire was reported
shortly after 2 p.m. Jan. 2
at the Wilson Creek Union
Grain and Trading elevator,
said Scott Mortimer, chief of
Grant County Fire District 12.
Mortimer had not talked
with the company about the
cost of the damage. Manager
Nick Wride declined to com-
ment at this time.
The cause is still undeter-
mined, Mortimer said.
The fire occurred in a
wood-cribbed elevator and
binhouse containing wheat
and canola, Mortimer said.
Both are a “total loss,” he
said. At least one of the build-
ings had been in operation
since the 1940s.
“There’s a tremendous
amount of wood in these old
elevators,” Mortimer said.
Neither was completely full.
The elevator was more than
100 feet tall, Mortimer said.
Particularly at harvest,
grain stored unintentionally
with a high moisture content
can be subject to spontaneous
combustion, Mortimer said.
If a cause for the Wilson
Creek fire is ultimately deter-
mined, it could be due to the
structure, he said.
What remained of the
structure and its contents was
still burning Jan. 4, Mortimer
said.
“It’s likened to a major hay-
stack,” he said. “When you get
Photo courtesy Dan Bolyard
Crews battle a fire in the Wilson Creek Union Grain and Trading Co. grain elevator the afternoon of
Jan. 2 in Wilson Creek, Wash. Grant County deputy fire marshals are investigating.
Photo courtesy Dan Bolyard
A fire burns in the Wilson Creek Union Grain and Trading Co. grain
elevator the afternoon of Jan. 2 in Wilson Creek, Wash. Grant
County deputy fire marshals are investigating.
something of that size and that
amount of combustible, con-
versely you can’t put enough
water on it to extinguish it.”
The building is near a
BNSF Railway rail. A train
BNSF spokesman Gus Mel-
onas said the railroad tempo-
rarily closed the rail line to
inspect it.
“We had a train going by
simultaneously as the fire be-
gan,” Melonas said.
The railroad determined
it was safe to continue with
operations after a few hours
and resumed its normal traffic
flow.
The fire marshals were
slated to inspect the site, but
snow could slow the process,
Mortimer said.
“The snowfall we got
last night probably helped
in maintaining the perimeter
on the fire,” he said. “The
precipitation did not hamper
suppression efforts, although
icing created some potential
hazards as we applied several
hundred thousand gallons of
water.”
Grant County Fire District
5, the City of Ephrata Fire De-
partment, Grant County Fire
District 13 and Grant County
Public Utility District provid-
ed assistance, Mortimer said.
Direct seed conference covers soil, UAVs
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Snow-covered terrain along Interstate 82 lies between Yakima and El-
lensburg, Wash., on Dec. 30. The snowpack is 120 percent of normal.
Seattle’s minimum wage
moves toward $15 an hour
SEATTLE (AP) — Seat-
tle’s minimum wage took an-
other step toward $15 an hour
on Friday.
Depending on the size of
the business and whether the
employees have health insur-
ance, workers in Seattle now
make as much as $13 an hour
minimum.
In November, voters in Ta-
coma approved a graduated
increase to $12 an hour.
The statewide minimum in
Washington is $9.47 an hour
for the second year. It is no
longer the highest in the na-
tion, as Massachusetts and
California both increased to
$10.
Alaska’s minimum wage,
at $9.75 an hour, also is high-
er than Washington’s. Other
states with higher statewide
wages include Connecticut
and Rhode Island.
Wireworms, soil
acidity among
other hot topics
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The Pacific Northwest
Direct Seed Association’s
cropping systems conference
is Jan. 12-13 at the Three
Rivers Convention Center in
Kennewick, Wash.
The conference aims
to help growers overcome
problems and develop pro-
duction strategies, said Kay
Meyer, executive director of
the association.
Direct-seeding systems
seed and fertilize land di-
rectly into the crop residue
Online
http://www.directseed.org/events/annual-conference/
and root structure of the
previous year’s crop. Spe-
cialized equipment opens a
narrow seed row in the soil,
and plants grow through that
seed row. Other conventional
types of farming involve till-
age that turns over the soil.
North Dakota farmer
Gabe Brown is the keynote
speaker. He will talk about
his “regenerative soil” meth-
ods on his farm, using cov-
er crops, crop rotations and
cattle.
“He’s been able to reduce
all of his inputs except seed
and he has consistently been
over the county averages
in his yields,” Meyer said.
Brown will offer his rec-
ommendations for rotations
within the region.
A panel discussion will
cover the use of unmanned
aerial vehicles and offers
viewpoints from a farmer, an
agricultural business com-
pany and a manufacturer,
xCraft, based in Sandpoint,
Idaho.
Soil health and cover
crops are the hottest topics,
Meyer said.
“We’re trying to get those
cover crops really working
for us in our rotations and
the limited moisture we have
in the summer months,”
Meyer said.
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Pacific Northwest Direct Seed
Association executive director
Kay Meyer talks about her
organization’s Farmed Smart
certification program Jan. 22,
2015, during the association’s
conference in Kennewick,
Wash. This year’s conference
will cover soil practices and
unmanned aerial vehicle use.
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