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10 CapitalPress.com June 3, 2016 N. Calif. rice growers wrap up near-normal planting season By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press Courtesy of NAWG Chandler Goule is the new CEO of the National Associa- tion of Wheat Growers. Wheat growers organization names new CEO The National Association of Wheat Growers has cho- sen a new chief executive officer. Chandler Goule, current- ly senior vice president of programs for the National Farmers Union, will take over as the new CEO for NAWG on July 5, the orga- nization announced. Goule will also become executive director of the National Wheat Foundation. “The U.S. wheat indus- try is poised to reach new heights in both production and quality,” Goule said in a NAWG press release. “I am thrilled and honored to have this opportunity to work alongside our nation- al wheat grower leaders in positioning NAWG and NWF as pre-eminent wheat advocacy and educational organizations as we begin to develop strategy for mak- ing wheat a major player in the drafting of the next farm bill.” NAWG conducted a na- tionwide search for a new CEO to fill the vacancy left by Jim Palmer, who an- nounced in April his inten- tion to step down to spend more time with family and on his Missouri farm. “With our industry at a critical juncture, we know that with Chandler’s guid- ance, NAWG will be in a great position to advocate on behalf of all wheat farm- ers,” NAWG president Gor- don Stoner said in the press release. Goule holds degrees from Texas A&M and George Washington University, and was a subcommittee staff director for the House Agriculture Committee be- fore moving to the National Farmers Union in 2009 as vice president of govern- ment relations, according to the NAWG press release. He was appointed senior vice president of NFU pro- grams in 2014. Online http://bit.ly/1U9nJX7 WILLIAMS, Calif. — Rice growers in Northern California are wrapping up what turned out to be a near-normal planting season, as spring rains enabled them to boost acreage. After the big storms in March, the state’s rice acreage will likely end up near 500,000, said Charley Mathews, a Marysville, Ca- lif., grower and USA Rice Federation executive com- mittee member. That’s up significantly from the National Agricul- tural Statistics Service’s pre- diction in early March that growers would seed rice on 427,000 acres, only 1 per- cent more than the acreage seeded last year. “Everything changed in about a two-week period,” Mathews said. The early estimate was based on a survey of grow- ers before the March rains materialized, Mathews said. Though many Northern California growers are get- ting their full allocations of surface water this year, re- Tim Hearden/Capital Press A rice field near Williams, Calif., is prepared for planting in late April. Spring rains have given most growers in the Sacramento Valley the water they needed for a near-normal planting season. duced prices and lingering uncertainty among water suppliers caused farmers to initially be conservative in their planting plans. However, thanks to the advent of improved rainfall and recovering reservoirs across the region, farmers now say they’re back to planting more of a normal crop this season, the Califor- nia Farm Bureau Federation reports. The plantings come even though a global surplus in rice is still weighing down prices and California farm- ers are facing more compe- tition from farmers in other parts of the world growing medium-grain rice, the Farm Bureau notes. Rice averaged $376.05 per metric ton in April, up slightly from $370.48 in March but down signifi- cantly from a peak of more than $600 per metric ton in 2011 and 2012, according to the Index Mundi online data portal. The near-normal plant- ings follow drought-di- minished seasons in 2014 and 2015, when growers in the Golden State plant- ed 431,000 acres and about 370,000 acres, respectively, according to NASS. Growers encountered occasional showers during this year’s planting, but they didn’t put the season signifi- cantly behind schedule. “Rain during the spring- time is spotty as some ar- eas get more than others,” Mathews said. “I think we’ll harvest on time. We’re a little later than last year planting-wise, but de- pending on what the sum- mer does I think we’ll be fine.” Workers paid in blueberry wage case By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Courtesy of Idaho Power Co. Idaho Power Co. crews maintain a cloud seeding generator in the mountains above Garden Valley, Idaho. The Idaho Water Resource Board and the state’s irrigators are stepping up their contributions to the utility’s program. Irrigators step up cloud seeding support By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press BOISE — Idaho water managers have stepped up funding to help Idaho Pow- er Co. continue building a cloud seeding program that’s already been credited with making sizable contributions to the state’s mountain snow- pack. The program releases silver iodide into the at- mosphere, either from 53 remotely operated ground- based generators or from three leased aircraft, to serve as additional ice nuclei in the clouds and enhance precipita- tion. Idaho Power estimates additional snowpack result- ing from the program, which it started in 2003, yields an average of 800,000 acre-feet of water — which is roughly half the volume of the Amer- ican Falls Reservoir and gen- erates enough hydro-power to supply 17,000 homes. Idaho Power engineer- ing leader Jon Bowling said heading forward, irrigation organizations, the Idaho Wa- ter Resource Board and Ida- ho Power will each shoulder roughly a third of the pro- gram’s cost. “We wouldn’t want our customers to bear the full cost of a program other stakehold- ers benefit from,” Bowling said. “I think we’ve had a pret- ty good reception to the collab- orative funding mechanism.” The board contributed 23-7/#5 $500,000 two years ago to help the program add infra- structure and followed with $200,000 last year toward adding an airplane on a pi- lot-project basis for cloud seeding in the Upper Snake River Basin, said Brain Pat- ton, Planning Bureau manag- er with the Idaho Department of Water Resources. Patton said the board voted May 20 to increase its Fiscal Year 2017 cloud seeding funding to $600,000, to be spread across the Eastern Snake, Boise and Wood River and Payette ba- sins. Idaho Ground Water Ap- propriators Inc. made its first commitment to the program this season, totaling $45,000. Water District 1, which en- compasses the Upper Snake system, contributed $200,000. It will continue to contribute to a county-supported program in Eastern Idaho using man- ual generators, run by High Country Resource, Conserva- tion and Development. Water District 63, which includes the Boise River system, and Wood River water users each contrib- uted $125,000. Lyle Swank, watermaster with Water District 1, said his district’s contribution toward Idaho Power’s cloud seeding program represents 20 percent of its total budget, but mem- bers voted to assess themselves and contribute, nonetheless. “When we can extract a little extra moisture from the atmosphere, that can be really helpful,” Swank said. Bowling said Idaho Power is working with the National Center for Atmospheric Re- search to develop a model guiding operations and pro- viding a cloud seeding benefit analysis. Shaun Parkinson, Idaho Power’s water resources lead- er, estimates this winter’s pro- gram added 11.5 percent extra snow-water equivalent in the Payette Basin and 9.4 percent more moisture in the Boise Basin as of April 15, plus 4 to 5.4 percent more mois- ture in the Upper Snake as of April 1. He anticipates adding about three more generators to the program next winter, and eventually expects to include a fourth plane. “It’s a new era in terms of collaboration and it remains to be seen who all will come to the table and join in,” Par- kinson said. 23-4/#7 KENNEWICK, Wash. — The U.S. Department of Labor has begun handing out checks to workers in Kenne- wick covered in a court settle- ment in a dispute over wages with Washington blueberry growers. The first of more than 1,000 workers received checks May 23 from $385,318 paid by Blue Mountain Farms LLC in Walla Walla and its affiliates. Earlier this year, a federal judge ordered the defendants to pay that amount in a con- sent judgment in favor of DOL on all counts. DOL is trying to find all the workers. DOL filed a lawsuit against Blue Mountain Farms in 2013 and later expanded it to in- clude affiliates Great Colum- bia Berry Farm and Applegate Orchards that DOL said sup- ply Blue Mountain’s packing shed with fruit and are owned or managed by the same indi- viduals: Ryan Brock, Shirley Lott and Brandon Lott. The suit claimed Blue Mountain unlawfully shipped “hot goods” into interstate commerce in 2013 because its blueberries were picked and packed in violation of minimum wage and overtime laws. The complaint also ac- cused the farm of failing to properly keep records and of retaliating against workers by laying off those who were in- terviewed by labor inspectors. Blue Mountain was accused of blocking DOL inspectors from entering its property. DOL threatened to use its “hot goods” authority to block shipment of blueberries but didn’t. Blue Mountain denied the allegations against it and said it tried to cooperate with DOL but that inspectors reneged on an agreement to minimize the disruption of harvest opera- tions. In the consent judgment, Blue Mountain admitted it systematically violated work- ers’ rights by not paying min- imum wage and overtime and allowing multiple workers to pick on a single ticket. “I know the growers in- volved. I find it hard to be- lieve that everything DOL was saying about them was true,” said Alan Schreiber, ad- ministrator of the Washington State Blueberry Commission in Pasco. “The family involved are reputable, good growers. It’s hard for me to believe any Washington blueberry grower is not doing their best to take care of their workers because workers are in short supply,” he said. “I don’t know the details or merits, but we’re talking back wages of about $100 per worker per year over three years,” he said.