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.