May 6, 2016
CapitalPress.com
9
Spud growers join Boise schools’ Potato Celebration Week
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BOISE — The Boise
School District’s new Pota-
to Celebration Week enabled
Rod Lake of Heyburn-based
Southwind Farms to get his
company’s fingerling potatoes
into a public schools market
he’s been trying to reach for
most of a year.
For the farmers and staff of
Potatoes USA and the Idaho
Potato Commission, the dis-
trict’s event provided an op-
portunity to educate the next
generation of consumers about
the versatility and nutrition of
their crop.
And district officials say
principals were elated for the
chance to have students with
limited knowledge on food
production interacting with
farmers.
Peggy Bodnar, the dis-
trict’s food and nutrition ser-
vices supervisor, explained
the schools’ celebration of the
state’s most famous commod-
ity stemmed from a phone call
she received from T.K. Kuwa-
hara of Potatoes USA. Kuwa-
hara inquired about opportu-
nities to team with the district
on nutrition education, and
Bodnar had recently learned
of Every Kid Healthy Week, a
healthy-living campaign spon-
sored by Action for Healthy
Kids.
Bodnar decided to ob-
serve the event district-wide
throughout the final week of
April, and to tie it with pota-
toes. She hopes the celebration
will become an annual event.
“Regardless of how strange
it may sound, a lot of kids
never have the opportunity to
know and understand where
their fruits and vegetables and
produce come from,” she said.
Bodnar said 13 low-income
elementary schools in the dis-
trict qualify for a USDA grant,
funding snacks to introduce
students to new fruits and veg-
etables. The district is required
to prepare educational materi-
al about the featured produce
item.
Though the district had ex-
hausted its program funds for
the year, Southwind Farms
donated 1,000 pounds of fin-
gerlings and Potatoes USA
prepared educational handouts
on spuds to provide a bonus
snack on April 26 in conjunc-
tion with the celebration.
At Kuwahara’s sugges-
tion fingerlings were cooked,
chilled and served with ranch
dressing. She said Potatoes
USA plans to work with addi-
tional schools to include spuds
in the USDA snack program,
and will provide educational
materials as an incentive.
Lake, who spoke to stu-
dents at Horizon Elementa-
ry School, said fingerlings,
typically served unpeeled,
cook quickly and require little
preparation time.
“We understand this is
a longterm process,” Lake
said of getting produce into
schools. “We’re taking baby
steps here and hope to get it
expanded.”
The April 28 lunch menu
for all 32 district elementary
schools included fresh pota-
to wedges, and Idaho potato
growers were scheduled to
help the lunch staff serve them
at several schools. IPC and
Potatoes USA donated Spud-
dy Buddy dolls and potato
cookbooks for kids as prizes
for a contest involving match-
ing names of potato varieties
with the correct pictures.
“We hope to reinforce that
Idaho potatoes should be an
essential part of their healthy
diet forever,” said IPC Pres-
ident and CEO Frank Muir,
one of the scheduled servers.
Kuwahara also arranged
for a display of several pota-
to varieties to be featured at
each school.
Bodnar said the district
would serve those specialty
varieties in the lunch lines at
its secondary schools.
Washington demands coal exporter cut carbon footprint in half
DOE suggests
carpooling
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Millennium Bulk Terminals proposes to build a coal export facility at a former aluminum smelter site in
Longview, Wash., along the lower Columbia River. The Washington Department of Ecology says the
company must submit a plan to cut in half the estimated carbon output from the project.
U.S. coal exports would
drive down the price of coal
in Asia, encouraging more
consumption and increasing
global carbon output, ac-
cording to the report.
If operating at full ca-
pacity, the terminal would
increase the world’s green-
house gas emissions by the
equivalent of 672,100 pas-
senger cars, according to
the study.
DOE demanded Millen-
nium submit a plan to cut
the net increase by 50 per-
cent.
DOE called its 50 per-
cent mandate “reasonable
and appropriate” based on
state laws regarding emis-
sion standards for new pow-
er plants and overall car-
bon-reduction goals.
Failing to present a sat-
isfactory carbon-reduction
plan won’t necessarily kill
the project, but it will be
significant, DOE spokes-
woman Lisa Copeland said.
Millennium needs 20
permits from eight differ-
ent local, state and federal
agencies, including six from
DOE, which falls under In-
slee’s authority. Inslee has
made climate change his
signature issue.
As a start to slashing car-
bon output, DOE suggest-
ed the company enforce a
“no-idling” policy for trains
and ships, and school loco-
motive engineers and heavy
equipment operators in
“fuel efficiency.”
The company also could
buy electric vehicles for its
fleet, install charging sta-
tions for employees with
electric vehicles, and en-
Wash. wolf managers present ideas for lethal-control policy
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington wildlife man-
agers Wednesday suggested
ways to motivate ranchers to
use state-approved tactics to
prevent wolf depredations.
Cooperative
ranchers
could be rewarded with high-
er compensation for livestock
losses. Also, the state could
move sooner to shoot wolves
in places where preventive ac-
tions failed.
WDFW staff members
floated these and other ideas
during a conference call with
the department’s Wolf Advi-
sory Group.
The group, whose mem-
bers represent conservation,
producer and other interest
groups, will meet May 10-11
in Ellensburg. The challenge
there will be to agree on a
new lethal-control policy for
the upcoming grazing season.
“It’s got to be done. The
producers need to know what
the rules of the road are,” said
Jack Field, Washington Cat-
tlemen’s Association execu-
tive vice president. “I hope
people can call the department
on the 12th and get answers to
their questions.”
WDFW has twice resorted
to shooting wolves, in 2012
and 2014, in the eastern one-
third of Washington, where
wolves are not federally pro-
tected.
Ranchers criticized WD-
FW’s decision-making pro-
cess as too subjective, too
prolonged and too uncertain.
Wolf advocates accused
the department of being trig-
ger-happy.
WDFW staff members,
including those who investi-
gate depredations, are trying
to come up with a clear policy
to cover dozens of scenarios.
“I think this will produce a
protocol that is intuitive, easy
to understand and will have
broad support,” said Donny
Martorello, WDFW policy
coordinator.
Currently, WDFW’s policy
is to use lethal control when
at least four depredations
have occurred, preventive
measures have been exhaust-
ed and attacks are likely to
continue.
The Cattle Producers of
Washington, whose mem-
bers include northeastern
Washington ranchers, with-
drew from the Wolf Adviso-
ry Group last fall, charging
WDFW with using the group
as a shield against taking
meaningful action.
The Cattle Producers’ vice
president, Stevens County
rancher Scott Nielsen, said
Wednesday that ranchers al-
ready are protecting their live-
stock, without signing agree-
ments with the state.
“They call them range-rid-
ers. We call them cowboys,”
he said. “Whether it’s four
depredations or whatever, no
responsible livestock owner is
going to leave their cows out
there to eaten by predators.”
Nielsen said WDFW-con-
firmed depredations don’t
provide an accurate count of
lost livestock.
“If you get to four depre-
dations, you have a lot more
than four dead cows,” he said.
“If you get one confirmed
depredation, you’ve probably
lost 10.”
voice support for Millen-
nium, the organization’s
CEO, John Stuhlmiller, said
in a written statement.
“Farmers and growers
understand the more op-
portunity Washington has
to export, the greater the
willingness there will be to
invest in the infrastructure
to support these exports,”
he said.
Utah-based Lighthouse
Resources Inc. and Mis-
souri-based Arch Coal own
Millennium. The company’s
website said Friday that it
began mining for permits
four years, two months and
17 days ago.
DOE will take comments
until June 13 on the study
that came out Friday. The
department is expected to
issue a final environmental
impact statement next year.
DOE says it already has re-
ceived 217,500 comments,
many of them from people
concerned about climate
change.
Business
and
labor
groups have rallied behind
Millennium, saying they’re
frustrated by the lengthy re-
view.
DOE’s
unprecedented
demand for Millennium
to mitigate carbon emis-
sions that occur elsewhere
in the world should terrify
any manufacturer or ship-
per looking to expand, said
Kathryn Stenger, spokes-
woman for the private trade
organization Alliance for
Northwest Jobs and Ex-
ports.
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The Washington Depart-
ment of Ecology on Friday
demanded a company pro-
posing to export coal submit
a plan to sharply shrink the
project’s expected carbon
footprint, raising questions
about the plan’s chances of
winning approval from Gov.
Jay Inslee’s administration.
Ecology
released
a
long-awaited study on the
environmental impacts of
building a coal-export ter-
minal in Longview along
the Lower Columbia River.
Millennium Bulk Termi-
nals, a partnership of two
coal companies, proposes to
export up to 44 million met-
ric tons a year to Asia.
The Washington Farm
Bureau has been among the
project’s strongest advo-
cates, arguing that expand-
ing the state’s port and rail
facilities will benefit agri-
cultural exports.
DOE’s study found
BNSF Railway and Union
Pacific will have to make
investments to accommo-
date 1.3-mile long trains
hauling coal through Wash-
ington from Montana, Wy-
oming, Utah and Colorado.
DOE found little reason
to be concerned about coal
dust or vessel traffic, but
was alarmed about green-
house gases.
courage workers to carpool,
according to DOE.
Millennium did not re-
spond to a request for com-
ment on whether the com-
pany could come up with
a plan to halve greenhouse
gases.
The company issued a
brief statement from CEO
Bill Chapman. “This ma-
jor milestone moves us one
step closer to creating fam-
ily-wage jobs in Longview,
while meeting Washington’s
strict environmental stan-
dards,” he said.
Todd Myers, environ-
mental policy analyst for
the
conservative-leaning
Washington Policy Center,
questioned DOE’s basis for
requiring Millennium to
cut projected emissions by
half.
“A regulator is supposed
to be clear and objective. In
this case, the regulation is
far from clear and far from
being an objective standard
and has become an arbitrary
tool,” he said.
Myers said DOE wrong-
ly assumes Asia won’t buy
coal from other countries if
U.S. coal isn’t available. He
said buying carbon credits
would be a lot more cost-ef-
fective than purchasing
electric vehicles.
“Ecology’s suggestions
are probably the most ex-
pensive things that you can
do and do almost nothing
for the environment,” he
said.
The Washington Farm
Bureau will continue to