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April 29, 2016 H-2A Grazing CONTINUED from Page 1 willows off the range or pre- vent the bull trout from recov- ering.” There’s no proof that “ex- ceedances” of stream tem- perature standards were caused by grazing, as high temperatures occur even in areas where grazing isn’t permitted, Horngren said. Impacts from grazing don’t rise to the level of causing unlawful harm to the bull trout’s critical hab- itat, he said. “Just because you cut a tree or graze a blade of grass does not mean there’s an adverse ef- fect.” More than 90 percent of the sites evaluated by federal regulators were in “proper functioning condi- tion or showing an upward trend,” the ranchers say. Before bull trout can re-occupy the allotments, the streams would have to be cleared of non-native fish and culverts that act as barriers for the species, the government argues. Federal regulators ex- amined every pasture in each of the allotments and found grazing to have in- significant effects, said Sean Martin, an attorney for the government. While the environmen- talists may disagree that grazing doesn’t adversely affect the fish, that doesn’t justify overturning the fed- eral agencies’ conclusion, the government claims. The environmental groups incorrectly argue that any federally sanc- tioned activity occurring in the bull trout’s critical hab- itat must improve the spe- cies’ chances of recovery, Martin said. “That’s absolutely un- workable,” he said. Grazing is generally a neutral activity that’s been ongoing in the forest since the 1860s and its effects are now regularly moni- tored by regulators, Martin said. “The Forest Service is doing what it said it would do.” Deer, elk and beaver also eat streamside veg- etation, such as willows, but such “browse” hasn’t been found to materially increase stream tempera- tures, he said. “To blame it 11 housing inspections and now it’s USCIS, Fazio said. “DOL has been responsive just short-handed. USCIS has not been responsive. We’re seeking a meeting with them,” he said. “We are working with six governmental entities, none of whom are responsible for the outcome.” Mark Zirkle, president of Zirkle Fruit Co., said his com- pany is two weeks late getting H-2A workers and that the holdup seems to be the Depart- ment of Homeland Security. USCIS is in that department. Gebbers Farms, in Brew- ster, hires about 1,600 H-2A annually through WAFLA and hasn’t had any delays, said Jon Wyss, company government affairs director. WAFLA has brought up 2,500 workers from Mexico since Jan. 1 and plans to bring 5,000 in May, its heaviest month, Fazio said. “Growers need workers because there’s dramatic short- age of domestic workers. We have a solid plan in place for contingencies if emergencies happen,” he said. WAFLA expects to account for 10,000 H-2A workers this year out of 15,000 total for the state, Fazio said. In the last two years there have been H-2A visa delays at the U.S.-Mexican borders not only for WAFLA but H-2A users in North Carolina and other states. Last season, 433 workers lost a combined 2,593 days of work due to visa printing problems at the border that began in May and peaked in June, according to WAFLA’s 2015 annual report. The Obama administration has been “very hostile” to the H-2A program, Craig Regel- brugge, senior vice president of AmericanHort in Washing- ton, D.C., said at the Wash- ington Growers League annu- al meeting in Yakima, Jan. 26. Dale Moore, American Farm Bureau Federation public policy director, said it seems odd DOL and USCIS request hard copy documents and operate by regular mail when most government pro- grams require things electron- ically. It’s very frustrating USCIS doesn’t have an online sys- tem, Fazio said. “They have to have orig- inal signatures on things. We FedEx to them and they snail mail back to us,” he said. Much of the problem was caused by DOL shortening the time period for H-2B applica- tions this year which resulted in it receiving three-fourths of them on Jan. 2, said Kerry Scott, program manager of masLabor, Lovingston, Va., the leading supplier of H-2A and H-2B-visa foreign guest- workers in the nation. “There was no way to keep up and they didn’t want to. They wanted to make it as difficult as possible, knew it would cause chaos and it did,” Scott said, adding he thinks the situation may be resolved now. Lee Wicker, deputy director of North Carolina Growers As- sociation, said there have been slight delays but that 4,500 H-2A workers arriving in the state since February mostly did so on time. Delays across multiple agencies confirm the need for improvements so farmers can have confidence they can get workers on time, Wicker said. AFBF received a few com- plaints and then took a survey and discovered H-2A-visa ap- plication delays in 20 states, Moore said. Farmers are requesting 13 percent more H-2A workers this year and the concern is delays could become a major problem in the next month, he said. It’s already resulted in Litzenburger Landscape in Harbor Springs, Mich., shut- ting down after 31 years in business. Owner Gow Lit- zenburger announced March 14 he was closing because he couldn’t get non-agricultural H-2B-visa workers he needed on time. The company did land- scape work at resort homes in Northern Michigan in April and May. It normally hired 65 workers, about half of them H-2B. “Our little town has just over 1,000 people and in summer explodes to 15,000. It’s impossible to find enough workers,” said a lead employ- ee who asked to remain anon- ymous. “The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island usually takes about 300 H-2B and it’s hav- ing trouble too,” she said. Three California straw- berry farms and a labor con- tractor sued federal agencies March 21 for failing to pro- cess H-2A applications on time. That resulted in appli- cations being expedited, the U.S. Justice Department said. Nationwide, growers requested 145,874 H-2A workers and DOL approved 139,832 in 2015, according to DOL. Generally, about 10 percent of farm jobs are es- timated to be filled by H-2A workers. The top state was Florida at 17,942, followed by North Carolina at 17,696, Georgia at 14,393, Washington at 11,844 and California at 8,591. Lou- isiana, Kentucky, New York, Arizona and South Carolina rounded out the top 10. on grazing goes too far.” It’s true that tempera- tures in some streams are too high, which is bad for bull trout, but “what’s speculative is which of the contributing causes is the culprit,” he said. Natural conditions in the region can cause “exceed- ances” of water tempera- ture standards, he said. For more than a decade, the Forest Service has part- nered with Oregon’s De- partment of Environmental Quality to restore eroded streambanks, replace cul- verts and otherwise en- hance water quality to en- sure compliance with the Clean Water Act, Martin said. “This is really for Ore- gon DEQ to administer, not for a group with an agen- da,” he said. CONTINUED from Page 1 face serious hurdles in getting visas,” Duvall said. Paperwork delays have created a backlog of 30 days or more in processing H-2A guestworker visa applications at the U.S. Department of La- bor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, he said. DOL and USCIS both are sending documents to farm- ers by regular mail instead of email which is “unacceptable in 2016,” he said. Duvall, state agriculture directors in Georgia and Mich- igan and farmers in Georgia, Michigan and California re- cently jointly expressed their alarm to media. DOL too often fails to com- ply with rules requiring it to re- spond to farmers’ requests 30 days before crews are needed, Duvall said. Farmers are missing har- vest windows and losing rev- enue and Congress needs to reform immigration laws to give farmers a legal and stable workforce, he said. Washington state was the fourth-largest recipient of H-2A workers in 2015, receiv- ing 11,844, according to DOL. Most of them worked in tree fruit. Of that number, the farm labor association WAFLA, in Olympia, provided 7,895 to growers by contracts. Zirkle Fruit Co., Selah, hired 2,889 directly from Mexico. Since early February, WA- FLA has been running one to six weeks late in getting work- ers to growers because of gov- ernmental delays. “We feel terrible about it. We’re working as hard as we can to solve it, but it’s not easy,” said Dan Fazio, WA- FLA executive director and CEO. Initially, DOL was a prob- lem, then it was state agency CapitalPress.com Dan Wheat/Capital Press H-2A-visa foreign guestworkers from Mexico head to their crew bus for a 9 a.m. break at Zirkle Fruit Co.’s CRO Orchard south of Rock Island, Wash., April 26. About 120 H-2A and 200 domestic workers are employed at the orchard right now. Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Ranchers, environmentalists and federal agencies recently en- gaged in oral arguments at the James A. Redden U.S. Courthouse in Medford, Ore., as part of a lawsuit over grazing’s effects on bull trout habitat in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. Celebrate June Dairy Month in Capital Press’ 32 ND Annual Dairy Industry SPECIAL SECTION June 3 RD , 2016 Our annual Dairy Special Section spotlights dairy operations and operators in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It features an in depth look at the situations and successes - needs and concerns of this dynamic industry. To reach our print and online readers, contact your sales representative or call 1-800-882-6789. Ad space reservation is by Friday, May 6 th . PO Box 2048 • Salem, OR 97308 (503) 364-4798 (800) 882-6789 Fax: (503) 364-2692 or (503) 370-4383 www.capitalpress.com ROP-15-4-2/#13 18-7/#17