10 CapitalPress.com
May 6, 2016
Above-average fire year ahead
in Hawaii, Alaska, Southwest
By DAN ELLIOTT
Associated Press
Hawaii, Alaska and the
Southwest face an above-av-
erage threat of wildfires this
summer, but most of the
country should see normal or
below-normal problems, fore-
casters said Sunday.
The National Interagency
Fire Center’s outlook for the
spring and summer shows the
potential for significant fires
will be below average for
much of Texas, the South and
the southern Midwest. But
some regions will face active
fire seasons.
Here’s a look at specific ar-
eas with increased danger this
season:
Hawaii
Hawaii could face a long,
dry summer, with above-av-
erage wildfire potential from
May through August after
a drought intensified last
month, the fire center said.
The islands are entering a
typically dry time of year, so
the drought will likely persist
or even get worse, even with
normal precipitation, the out-
look said.
Southwest
An increased threat of
wildfires is expected in south-
ern Arizona in May, expand-
ing into southwestern New
Mexico and southern Nevada
and Utah in June.
By July and August, condi-
tions will improve in Arizona
and New Mexico, but a strip
near the California coast from
the San Francisco Bay to the
Mexican border could see
above-normal chances of fire.
California is vulnerable
because much of the state re-
mains in a drought, despite an
El Nino weather system that
brought near-average snow
and rain to the northern half
of the state and its northern
mountains.
Northwestern Nevada and
southeastern Idaho could also
see fire-prone conditions later
in the summer.
Alaska
South-central Alaska will
be vulnerable in May after
scant snow fell over the win-
ter.
Conditions should improve
by June, forecasters said, and
wildfire potential is expected
to be normal across Alaska for
the rest of the summer.
Last year, fires burned
nearly 8,000 square miles in
Alaska, more than half the to-
tal nationwide.
Overall outlook
U.S. Forest Service Chief
Tom Tidwell discussed it
with The Associated Press
on Wednesday while in Den-
ver for a conference on forest
health.
“We anticipate the severity
of the fire season will not be
at the same level as last year,
(but) we still expect to have
some areas that will be really
active,” Tidwell said.
“We’re ready for it,” he
added.
The improved overall out-
look is welcome news after
the 2015 fire season, when a
record 15,800 square miles
burned nationwide. Alaska
and the Pacific Northwest
were particularly hard-hit.
The Forest Service —
the nation’s primary wild-
fire-fighting agency —
spent more than $1.7 billion
fighting fires last year, and
Congress approved an addi-
tional $520 million for this
season.
IDWR approves
city mitigation plan
Capital Press
BOISE — Cities should
avoid curtailment this season
under the Surface Water Coa-
lition’s delivery call, following
the recent approval of a one-
year municipal mitigation plan
by the Idaho Department of
Water Resources.
Furthermore, it appears
likely the temporary city plan
will result in additional water
being injected into the aquifer
to boost declining groundwa-
ter levels, called managed re-
charge.
The coalition filed its call
more than a decade ago, ar-
guing well use had depleted
spring flows downstream from
Blackfoot, injuring senior sur-
face water rights. Until this
year, Idaho Ground Water Ap-
propriators had provided miti-
gation — the amount varying
by seasonal conditions — on
behalf of all well users, includ-
ing cities.
IGWA and the coalition
reached a settlement last sum-
mer, aiming to stabilize the
aquifer and provide well users
certainty during drought years.
IGWA’s settlement gives the
coalition 50,000 acre-feet of
annual mitigation water and
requires participants to reduce
their combined average annual
consumption by 240,000 acre-
feet.
IDWR planned to send no-
tice after May 3 to any Eastern
Snake Plain Aquifer irrigators
with rights dating to 1989,
based on current water condi-
tions, who haven’t opted into a
mitigation plan.
The 16 participants in the
short-term municipal plan —
led by the Idaho Association
of Cities, Pocatello and Idaho
Falls — have agreed to pro-
vide the Surface Water Coali-
tion 2,600 acre-feet of Upper
Snake River storage water this
year, buying them time to draft
a long-term plan.
IGWA had filed an objec-
tion to the municipal plan,
which it recently lifted after
the coalition sent IDWR a let-
ter vowing to use the water for
recharge if it’s not needed for
irrigation this season.
“The direct delivery of stor-
age water doesn’t do anything
to restore the aquifer,” IGWA
attorney Randy Budge said,
explaining any long-term mu-
nicipal mitigation plan should
include recharge or reduction
of groundwater use.
Brian Olmstead, general
manager of Twin Falls Canal
Co., said it’s likely the cities’
water won’t be needed for ir-
rigation this season and will be
used for recharge in proximity
to their borders.
“The real solution is to get
the aquifer stabilized,” Olm-
stead said.
Applebee Aviation
accused of ignoring
emergency order
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
TUALATIN, Ore. — An
aerial pesticide applicator is
fighting allegations of will-
ful misconduct from Oregon
farm regulators who want to
revoke his spraying license
for at least five years.
An administrative law
judge heard the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture’s case
against Mike Applebee and
his company, Applebee Avia-
tion, which are accused of ig-
noring an emergency order to
stop spraying last year.
Aside from license re-
vocation, Applebee and his
company could be subject to
$180,000 in civil penalties.
During the hearings, held
in Tualatin, Ore., on April 26-
28, the agency argued that Ap-
plebee Aviation had a pattern
of safety violations leading up
to the emergency suspension
but continued pesticide treat-
ments after the order was is-
sued in late September 2015.
Applebee countered that he
wasn’t properly notified of the
suspension and responded to
it belatedly due to an out-of-
state hunting trip from which
he didn’t return until the order
had been already effective for
several days.
The company also sprayed
cheatgrass on U.S. Bureau of
Land Management property
in Eastern Oregon because
ODA officials didn’t clearly
answer whether the suspen-
sion order prevented opera-
tions on federal land, accord-
ing to Applebee.
Dale Mitchell, manager
of ODA’s pesticide program,
said he could not comment on
the pending litigation against
Applebee but acknowledged
such contested cases are rare.
Companies have only
challenged roughly a dozen
pesticide violation citations
issued by ODA over the past
quarter-century, and most of
those did not involve license
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Applebee Aviation’s airport is shown near Banks, Ore. The company is fighting the Oregon Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s revocation of its license to spray pesticides.
revocations, he said.
The Applebee dispute has
erupted at a time of broader
controversy over aerial pesti-
cide applications in Oregon.
A prospective ballot initia-
tive filed for the 2016 elec-
tion would seek to ban aerial
spraying across the state.
Oregon lawmakers passed
a bill that increased no-spray
buffers and doubled fines for
pesticide violations last year,
but environmentalists argued
the legislation didn’t go far
enough.
Applebee’s case came to
public attention when a for-
mer employee, Daryl Ivy,
claimed to have been sprayed
with herbicides and released
videos allegedly depicting im-
proper aerial operations.
The ODA couldn’t sub-
stantiate that Ivy had actual-
ly been sprayed but found he
possessed “credible evidence”
of safety violations, such as
insufficient “personal protec-
tive equipment,” or PPE, ac-
cording to court documents
filed by the agency.
During the recent hear-
ing, Applebee testified that
he provided pilots with credit
cards to ensure the company’s
crews always had enough pro-
tection.
However, some employees
didn’t like using the equip-
ment, such as thick gloves
that made unscrewing chem-
ical containers difficult, he
said.
“The problem wasn’t the
PPE, it was getting people to
wear the PPE. That was the
problem,” Applebee said.
Applebee’s
testimony
was supported by some of
his current and former pilots,
who said personal protective
equipment was made readily
available.
“We always did things the
safest way possible,” testified
David McDaniel, who flew
for Applebee until December
2015.
That testimony was coun-
tered by witnesses called by
ODA, including former batch
truck driver Kevin Vander-
lei, who said the company
had a “minimal amount” of
PPE and pressured employ-
ees to finish spray operations
quickly.
Vanderlei said he was
terminated in 2015 for com-
plaining about leaking spray
nozzles, but another Applebee
pilot said he was fired for in-
subordination and vandaliz-
ing a company truck.
Rob Ireland, the attorney
for Applebee, said the com-
pany is currently challenging
the ODA’s original emergen-
cy suspension order in the Or-
egon Court of Appeals.
An administrative law
judge found that the emergen-
cy order should be overturned,
but the ODA later overrode
that decision, Ireland said.
If the Court of Appeals
agrees that the original sus-
pension was invalid, it would
undermine the agency’s case
for license revocation and
fines, he said.
Applebee Aviation has
been able to spray pesticides
in Oregon again for the past
six weeks because the com-
pany’s license was reinstated
while the litigation is pending,
he said.
ODA and Applebee have
until May 27 to submit their
closing arguments in the ad-
ministrative case on license
revocation. Administrative
Law Judge Jennifer Rack-
straw said she would try to
issue an order within 30 days
of their submission.
Despite drought, almond acreage rose 6 percent in 2015
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — The
drought has done little to slow
the growth of almond acreage
in California, as the more than
1.1 million overall acres in
2015 was 6 percent more than
the previous year.
Of last year’s total plant-
ings, 890,000 acres were bear-
ing and 220,000 acres were
non-bearing, and preliminary
bearing acreage for this year
is estimated at 900,000 acres,
the National Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service reports.
The increase came despite
removals of about 45,000
acres of trees in 2015 — much
of which occurred after har-
vest — and continues a trend
in which acreage has doubled
in the last 20 years, according
to government and industry
statistics.
However, the Almond
Board of California down-
plays the trend’s impact on
water resources, citing studies
that found most new acreage
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
A new almond orchard near Tracy, Calif., is in its first growing sea-
son. Overall almond acreage in California increased by 6 percent
in 2015, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
has replaced other irrigated
crops and the total amount of
water used by agriculture has
held steady since 2000.
“Almonds take up about
14 percent of the state’s irri-
gated farmland but use 9.5
percent of California’s agri-
cultural water — less than a
proportionate share,” board
president and chief executive
officer Richard Waycott said
in a statement. “Because of
the industry’s commitment to
research and efficiency, grow-
ers use 33 percent less water
to grow a pound of almonds
than they did two decades
ago.”
As lucrative prices have
continued to encourage grow-
ers to switch to nuts from oth-
er crops, the almond board
has fought diligently in the
past couple of years to rebut
critics who charge the indus-
try places too much of a bur-
den on the environment. Last
summer, the board set aside
$2.5 million in research into
water efficiency, honeybee
health and best practices for
the current fiscal year.
The board argues that al-
mond trees provide certain
benefits to the environment,
including groundwater re-
charge potential and carbon
sequestration.
Even as drastic cutbacks
in surface water during the
drought have prompted some
growers in the San Joaquin
Valley to remove trees, Kern,
Fresno, Stanislaus, Merced
and Madera counties still led
the state in 2015 in terms of
acreage, combining for 73
percent of California’s bear-
ing orchards, according to
NASS.
Nonpareils
continued
to be the leading variety
with 310,646 total acres in
2015, followed by Monterey
(102,299), Butte (86,152),
Carmel (81,449) and Pa-
dre (55,493), the agency
reported.
The estimates were based
on a voluntary survey sent to
about 6,000 almond growers
as well as almond nursery
sales and pesticide applica-
tion data maintained by coun-
ty agricultural commissioners
and the state Department of
Pesticide Regulation, NASS
explained.
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By JOHN O’CONNELL
Oregon pesticide applicator
fights license revocation
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