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CapitalPress.com
April 15, 2016
Idaho
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Blackfoot forcibly annexes food processor
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BLACKFOOT, Idaho —
The Blackfoot City Council
voted April 5 to forcibly an-
nex a 17-acre parcel west of
the Snake River that includes
the Basic American Foods
potato processing facilities,
citing a need to facilitate “or-
derly growth” and build the
local tax base.
Attorneys and represen-
tatives from Basic American
— which had been in an un-
incorporated part of Bingham
County — testified before
the vote the company would
derive no benefit from annex-
ation, but it would add $38,000
to its annual tax burden.
The city, which first com-
menced its strategy of west-
ward growth through an-
nexation when it added land
in 2014, has also proposed
to soon annex a parcel of
light-industrial land south of
the Basic American facilities
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Lary Larson, an attorney for Basic American Foods, refers to a
map of his client’s property in Bingham County while responding
to questions from the Blackfoot City Council on April 5. The council
forcibly annexed the potato facilities into the city, which will raise
the company’s annual property taxes by about $38,000.
and several large potato cel-
lars north of State Highway
36.
Idaho, Indiana and Tennes-
see are the only three states
that allow forcible annex-
ation.
Mayor Paul Loomis said
Basic American gets work-
force and other benefits from
being adjacent to Blackfoot
and will now pay its fair share
of taxes, thereby lowering the
tax burden for other city busi-
nesses. Loomis said Black-
foot has the 10th highest tax
levy in the state.
Basic American operates
its main processing facility
and a flaked-potato facility
and leases a fresh potato shed
to another operator within the
newly annexed area.
“We’ve resisted annexation
for a number of years, and
we’ve moved into a situation
where we’re not attractive
to businesses,” Loomis said.
“What we are doing is taking
a logical step-by-step effort
to reduce the taxes in this city
and also serve the citizens of
this city.”
Loomis said the newly an-
nexed land had become en-
claved by other city land, and
Blackfoot is building a conduit
toward property where future
development is likely. The
annexed land also includes a
Nonpareil facility, an animal
clinic, a real estate company,
an investment business and
undeveloped property owned
by Garth and Julie VanOrden.
Holly Parsons, of the
Blackfoot Animal Clinic, said
her taxes will double, and she
fears the city’s chosen M1 zon-
ing designation would put her
business at risk in the event of
conflicts with future growth.
Basic American attorney
Lary Larson also voiced zon-
ing concerns, emphasizing
Bingham County zoning em-
phasized protecting industry
from residential encroachment
while the city’s M1 designa-
tion prioritizes the needs of
residential owners. City offi-
cials vowed to investigate a
zoning change.
Larson said state statute
allows annexation only when
it is “reasonably necessary
for the orderly development
of the city,” and he believes
those conditions are met when
development begins occurring
at a high density, necessitating
consolidated services to im-
prove cost efficiency.
“Those lots are not being
developed; they are devel-
oped,” Larson said. “There’s
no more cost efficiencies to
be achieved by annexing those
lots into the city.”
Larson also said Basic
American has its own wells
and treats wastewater in-house,
ultimately land applying it
on a 400-acre company farm,
and the city isn’t equipped to
handle the company’s utility
needs.
Loomis said the city is
currently upgrading its wa-
ter-treatment
infrastructure
and characterized the compa-
ny’s methods of operating as
business decisions.
Basic American technology
manager Brian Crawford said
annexation adds complexities
and costs at a time when the
company is already coping
with new federal environmen-
tal and food safety regulations.
Crawford emphasized Basic
American employs about 660
workers in the community and
is active in community service
— most recently, donating to
help Ridgecrest Elementary
School improve its student
drop-off area.
Processing facility IGWA, tribes reach long-term Idaho
specialty
to be built in Idaho water lease agreement
crop grant
program
modified
By JOHN O’CONNELL
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
WEISER, Idaho — De-
meter Bio-Resources, which
plans to turn feed barley and
a specialized tuber crop into
food ingredients, organic fer-
tilizer and alcohol, will build
its new processing plant in
Washington County in South-
western Idaho.
Kit Kamo, executive direc-
tor of the Snake River Eco-
nomic Development Alliance,
said the facility fits well with
two of the area’s targeted in-
dustries: value-added agricul-
ture and food processing.
“We’re in a highly agricul-
turally productive area and our
farmers are always looking for
other crops to put into rota-
tion,” she said. “We’d like to
process (those crops) here, too,
and get those jobs.”
Demeter, based in Eagle,
Idaho, has already purchased
30 acres in the Washington
County Industrial Park south
of Weiser and hopes to start
building the facility this year,
said Sot Chimonas, Demeter’s
chief operating officer.
Washington County has
42,000 irrigated acres and
its 559 farms generate $292
million annually in farm-gate
receipts on 79,500 acres, ac-
cording to the 2012 Census of
Agriculture.
“This is great news for
Washington County and Ida-
ho,” Washington County
Commissioner Tom Anderson
stated in a press release. “This
company is agricultural-based
and will fit into our community
well.”
The facility will process
feed barley and a proprietary
tuber-producing crop called
Sun Spuds. It will turn the
components of those crops
into human food ingredients
and other basic materials, such
as organic fertilizer.
Chimonas said the facility
would make about $26 million
worth of purchases annually
from the state’s farm sector.
The company had hoped to
build a food processing plant
with an ethanol facility near
Greenleaf in Canyon County
but county commissioners de-
nied a conditional use permit
needed to build the ethanol
facility last year after a large
outcry from people in that area
who said it would harm their
quality of life and property
values.
Chimonas said the Wash-
ington County facility will not
include a fuel-grade ethanol
component but will instead
produce beverage- and phar-
maceutical-grade alcohol.
The area where Demeter
plans to build the facility is
zoned industrial and no CUP is
needed to build the plant.
Chimonas said Washington
County welcomed the compa-
ny.
“They rolled out the red
carpet and were very accom-
modating,” he said.
Kamo said county com-
missioners asked her group to
recruit the company after read-
ing about its attempt to locate
in Greenleaf, which is about
40 miles from Weiser.
“They said, ‘This is some-
thing that would sit well in our
community,’” she said.
In the news release, De-
meter Chief Executive Officer
Fanton Chuck said, “The re-
gion has a strong agricultural
base with existing production
of tubers and small grains. It is
also close to customers of De-
meter’s products. ...”
According to the compa-
ny’s website, some of the food
ingredients the facility plans
to make include inulin and be-
ta-glucan, which are both nat-
ural texturing agents, as well
as protein concentrates for hu-
mans and livestock.
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FORT HALL, Idaho —
Idaho Ground Water Appro-
priators Inc. has agreed to
lease 45,000 acre-feet of stor-
age water over five years from
the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
to help meet a requirement of
a recent settlement agreement
with the Surface Water Coali-
tion.
The agreement, reached
last summer, requires junior
Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer
groundwater users to give the
coalition a flat 50,000 acre-
feet of mitigation water annu-
ally.
The seven coalition mem-
bers filed a water call about
a decade ago, arguing junior
well irrigation has contributed
to the decline of springs that
supplement surface flows in
Snake River reaches between
Blackfoot and Milner Dam.
Prior to the agreement,
IGWA’s annual obligation
fluctuated based on the water
outlook, and groundwater us-
ers risked curtailment if they
failed to find the necessary
water during a dry year.
IGWA members have also
consented to reduce their
yearly water consumption by
240,000 acre-feet — equal to
roughly a 13 percent reduc-
tion per groundwater user,
varying by priority date and
other factors.
IGWA Executive Director
Lynn Tominaga said the water
will come from tribal storage
rights in the American Falls
and Palisades reservoirs. It
must be delivered to the co-
alition within a few weeks
of when the final mountain
snowpack melts, known as the
“day of allocation.”
The tribes previously
leased the water to Idaho
Power, which used it for hy-
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By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press
The Snake River flows through Massacre Rocks State Park
downstream from American Falls Reservoir. Idaho Ground Water
Appropriators Inc. recently reached a five-year agreement with the
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to annually lease 50,000 acre-feet of
water, stored in American Falls Reservoir and Palisades Reservoir,
to meet an annual obligation to the Surface Water Coalition.
dropower production and
had allowed the water to run
downstream from Milner
without being put to an irri-
gation use. Idaho Power can
now produce electricity more
cheaply from its Langley
Gulch gas-fired peaker plant.
Tominaga said IGWA paid the
“market rate” for the water,
but the precise amount is con-
fidential.
Brian Olmstead, general
manager of Twin Falls Canal
Co., said he’s pleased the trib-
al water will now be used for
irrigation.
“I’m sure it wasn’t cheap,
but it’s really the only block
of water left that hadn’t been
allocated for irrigation,” Olm-
stead said.
Furthermore, he said the
water has an old water right
that’s in priority virtually ev-
ery year, providing IGWA
with certainty in even the
worst of drought years.
In wet years in which
there’s ample storage carry-
over, Olmstead said the co-
alition will use the water for
managed aquifer recharge —
injecting water into the aqui-
fer to reverse declines.
In drought years, the coa-
lition will award IGWA’s wa-
ter to the members that need
it most, which Olmstead said
could mean the difference be-
tween drought-stressed and
healthy crops. Olmstead said
his company has 42 percent
of the coalition’s water rights,
but relies heavily on natural
flow rights rather than stor-
age.
“We’re going to be one
of the first ones injured, and
most of the time injured the
largest, in a drought year,” Ol-
mstead said.
BOISE — Idaho’s spe-
cialty crop grant program
has been modified this year
but the state again expects to
award about $1.9 million in
funding to projects that im-
prove the competitiveness of
specialty crops in Idaho.
The Idaho State Depart-
ment of Agriculture program,
which is funded through the
USDA, has awarded $7.7
million to 93 projects since
it began in 2009. Those proj-
ects received an average of
$82,950 each.
The funding can be used
for such things as research,
enhancing food safety, con-
trolling pests and disease,
improving efficiency, devel-
oping new and improved seed
varieties and developing good
agricultural handling or man-
ufacturing practices.
“Idaho’s specialty crop
industry has seen technolog-
ical improvements and eco-
nomic benefits each year of
the program,” ISDA Director
Celia Gould stated in a news
release.
The funding has proved to
be a big benefit to some of the
state’s smaller crops that have
received several grants aimed
at promoting their industries
and conducting needed re-
search.
The wineries that form
the Sunny Slope Wine Trail
group in Southwestern Ida-
ho used a 2013 ISDA grant
to promote the region to
consumers in Boise and Salt
Lake City.
Child’s remains from 1981 tragedy found in Eastern Idaho canal
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
RIGBY, Idaho — Bureau
of Reclamation officials said
they reduced Upper Snake
River flows from 11 a.m.
April 7 to 8 a.m. April 8 at the
request of the Jefferson Coun-
ty Sheriff’s Office to facilitate
a search for human remains in
the Great Feeder Canal.
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Capital Press
Sgt. Mike Miller said the
search was spurred by the re-
cent discovery of a bone in the
canal that doctors consulted
by his office say belonged to
a young boy.
Miller said his office sus-
pects the bone was likely from
a 3-year-old boy who drowned
in a 1981 boating accident.
He said there were four adults
and two boys in the boat. The
boys, who were brothers, had
their life jackets torn off them
by the turbulence of the wa-
ter and were killed after be-
ing sucked through the canal
head gate. The body of the
5-year-old older brother was
found six weeks later, but the
3-year-old’s body was never
recovered.
Miller declined to offer
additional details, as family
members had not yet been no-
tified.
“There’s only a very few
people here who have been
around long enough to even
remember that case,” Miller
said, adding that DNA testing
results have not been returned.
According to the sheriff’s
office, more bone fragments
were found after the initial
bone was discovered.
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