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8 CapitalPress.com February 12, 2016 Washington Bills rise from ashes of wildires Fight fire with fire, some state lawmakers say By DON JENKINS Capital Press OLYMPIA — Washing- ton’s legislators are picking through scores of ideas for preventing and ighting wild- ires, though many propos- als face opposition and even modest policies are projected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The million-acre ire sea- son in 2015 was Washington’s worst ever and cost the state $164 million in unanticipated suppression costs. The ires also have inspired more than a dozen bills. Proposals include more controlled burns, letting local ire agencies spend state mon- ey without prior approval, and raising taxes to train and equip more ireighters. Courtesy of TVW Washington state Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, holds up a copy of the Wenatchee World newspaper while testifying Feb. 3 in front of the Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee. Parlette and many other legislators have introduced bills respond- ing to last summer’s wildires. “In the end, because there are so many bills, I bet there be will one giant bill,” said Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee. The Department of Natu- ral Resources, the state’s ire department for wildlands, has asked lawmakers for $24 mil- lion for various programs, in- cluding training, equipment, ire prevention and grants to ire districts. Here are some legislative proposals: • Send help or send mon- ey: If a local ire agency asks for state help to attack a new wildire, DNR would be re- quired to provide an answer within 30 minutes, according to one proposal. If DNR couldn’t send ire- ighters, local ire oficials could muster available re- sources at the state’s expense. Proponents say the policy would give ire districts, es- pecially small ones, the ca- pabilities to douse small ires before they escape. Skeptics question wheth- er 30 minutes is long enough for DNR to have an answer and how much leeway local ire districts should have in spending state money without oversight. DNR estimates that admin- istering the program — re- sponding to calls for help, re- imbursing districts — would cost $957,000 the irst year. That would be in addition to whatever the state spends ac- tually ighting ires. • Controlled burns: Sev- eral bills are intended to en- courage more controlled ires to thin blaze-fueling under- growth. This would require, in some cases, relaxing air-qual- ity and outdoor burning rules. Supporters of the idea rea- son that a little more smoke from controlled burns is bet- ter than massive amounts of smoke from raging wildires. But to authorize more con- trolled burns, DNR says it will have to revise the state’s smoke management plan, which hasn’t been updated since 1998. DNR warns reopening the plan could have unin- tended consequences. Feder- al air-quality rules are more strict than in 1998 and chang- ing the plan will invite scru- tiny from the U.S. Environ- mental Protection Agency. Also, rewriting the plan will require a consultant and cost $1.5 million, DNR esti- mates. • Fire prevention: Legisla- tion would encourage coun- ties to adopt uniform building codes for rural structures. The codes require features such as in-home sprinklers and on- site water tanks. Lawmaker: Let ranchers save animals from ires Law association opposes bills By DON JENKINS Capital Press OLYMPIA — A law enforcement association Wednesday said ranchers shouldn’t be allowed to risk their lives to rescue livestock from wildfires — to which a legislator responded, yes, they should. “Many times the rancher knows the country — knows the draws, knows the ravines — better than anyone else there, including law enforce- ment,” said Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake. “We need to allow them some latitude.” House Bill 2925, intro- duced by Dent, would free ranchers to venture onto burning public lands to re- trieve or care for their ani- mals without official inter- ference. Dent, whose occupa- tions include crop duster and rancher, said he’s heard complaints over the years from ranchers who were blocked from reaching their livestock. He told the House Agri- culture Committee that the ranchers were trying to save a inancial investment and fulill a moral commitment. “Good animal husbandry practices dictate that I care for my animals,” Dent said. “That’s a responsibility that we have.” The state Department of Natural Resources, the state’s firefighting agency, was cool to the idea. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Dan Wheat/Capital Press A cow killed in the Carlton Complex ire in July 2014 lies dead near Twisp, Wash. A Washington legislator has proposed that ranchers be allowed onto public lands to rescue their animals from wildires, even if oficials think it’s too dangerous. Don Jenkins/Capital Press Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, shown here during a House Ag- riculture and Natural Resources Committee meeting in 2015, has proposed that ranchers decide for themselves whether they will risk rescuing their animals from wildires. was outright opposed. “When it’s not safe, we want to be able to prevent folks from going into the danger zone,” the associa- tion’s policy director, James McMahan, said. “The challenge with this bill is it allows access, re- gardless of the danger, and that not only puts the live- stock owner in danger, but also the first-responders who will have to rescue them if something goes bad,” he said. McMahan said he knows ranchers have a lot at stake when fire threatens their livestock. But, he said, “none of that is worth a hu- man life.” Responded Dent: “I un- derstand your position — it’s not worth a human life. My position is — it is, if (the animals) were mine. … I’ve been charged with their care.” Dent’s bill would hold authorities blameless if a rancher was hurt or killed while trying to save his live- stock. Washington Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President Jack Field said the bill is important to livestock producers. “It makes legal the ac- tions that every cattleman I’ve ever talked to who’s been involved in a fire takes, regardless of permission from the sheriff, the fire boss. They go in and try to get their livestock,” he said. “I understand the need and absolute importance of protecting human health and safety, but if a livestock pro- ducer is aware of the risks associated with trying to gather his or her livestock, I certainly think we need to give them the ability to do that,” Field said. Okanogan County Com- missioner Ray Campbell, himself a rancher, also asked lawmakers to support the bill. “It’s natural for us to want to protect our live- stock and animals. If there’s a fire, we’re going to be out gathering (our animals), re- gardless,” he said. “We’d like to without breaking the law.” The bill may have support from the House Agriculture Committee, but with sheriffs and police chiefs opposed, the legislation could have a hard time passing. Low wheat prices to continue, economist predicts $5 a bushel seen as average price By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press SPOKANE — Northwest wheat farmers will have to rethink the deinition of a “good” price during the next few years, a Washington State University economics profes- sor says. Farmers were not happy with wheat priced at $5.99 per bushel last year, said Ran- dy Fortenbery, professor and small grains economist at WSU. Fortenbery However, USDA fore- casts average wheat prices at roughly $5 per bushel this year. “When you see prices much above that, even if they may not be the kind of price you would have taken two or three years ago, that might actually be a sales opportuni- ty,” Fortenbery said. “When you see prices below that, you might want to be more patient, because if USDA is right, the price should average $5. Something below that could be beaten sometime during the marketing year.” The problem is a large global supply of wheat, plus a strong U.S. dollar in compar- ison to competing countries’ currencies, putting the U.S. at a disadvantage on the export market, Fortenbery said. “In many cases, we are the most expensive person selling wheat in the world market,” he said. Fortenbery expects pric- es to remain low for the next two years. If weather proves to be beneicial for national and global production, it will nega- tively affect prices, Fortenbery said, because it will add to the supply while demand is low. Farmers are storing their wheat in hopes of seeing high- er prices, Fortenbery said, but any increases aren’t likely to cover the cost of storage. “This is the year where that’s probably not going to pay,” he said. “You’re not go- ing to get rewarded for stor- age unless something really unexpected happens.” A weather problem, animal health crisis or political issue would potentially create sell- ing opportunities for U.S. pro- ducers, Fortenbery said. Fortenbery recommends farmers consider selling wheat they store during brief price rallies. Vegetable oil bill barely clears low hurdle By DON JENKINS Capital Press 7-4/#5 OLYMPIA — A bill to ex- empt vegetable oil from new railroad safety rules narrowly slipped through a Senate com- mittee last week, but the close vote indicated substantial sup- port among Democrats and state agencies for regulating shipments of canola oil along with crude oil. The Republican-led En- ergy, Environment and Tele- communications Committee passed Senate Bill 6576 on Feb. 4 along party lines. The bill would stop the Department of Ecology from mandating railroads that haul vegetable oils to develop spill-response plans, which will be required from crude oil car- riers. If approved by the full Sen- ate, the bill would still have to pass the Democratic-con- trolled House and be signed by Gov. Jay Inslee. The Senate energy committee’s hearing on the bill foreshadowed opposi- tion from both Democrats and Inslee’s administration. The committee’s Demo- crats agreed with DOE and the Don Jenkins/Capital Press A bill to exempt vegetable oil from new railroad safety rules stemming from the crude oil boom faces substantial opposition in the Washington Legislature. Department of Fish and Wild- life that vegetable oil spills are a danger to ish and birds. “This is a signiicant hazard and there should be contingen- cy plans as this product moves through,” the committee’s top Democrat, John McCoy of Tu- lalip, said. The Legislature in 2015 moved to regulate the move- ment of crude oil by trains, vessels and pipelines. The multi-part law re- sponded to a study by DOE on the hazards of potentially ex- plosive crude oil coming from North Dakota. The law’s provisions re- garding vessels and pipelines applied only to petroleum products. The rail portion, however, referred simply to “oils.” The energy committee’s chairman, Doug Ericksen of Ferndale, said no one brought up vegetable oil last year. “During the whole course of this ongoing debate on crude (oil) by rail, this never came up,” said Ericksen, who negotiated the bill with House Democrats. “Nobody ever came up and testiied saying, ‘Yeah, we have … very volatile canola oil that we have to regulate more,” he said. “I’m con- cerned it didn’t come up at all last year, and all of a sudden, people ind themselves in the middle of it.” A DOE oficial noted that vegetable oil released in a warehouse ire killed tens of thousands of ish last summer in southwest Washington.
