July 8, 2016
CapitalPress.com
3
Irrigation district accused WSDA director ousts state vet
leaves ‘big hole’
of cheating Oregon farmers Vacancy
for livestock industry
Lawsuit seeks injunction,
$2.9 million in damages
for lost water
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Several growers in North-
east Oregon are accusing the
Westland Irrigation District of
cheating them out of water to
beneit larger farms.
A federal complaint claims
the district unconstitutionally
deprived the plaintiffs of water
and seeks $2.9 million in dam-
ages as well as an injunction re-
quiring the Westland Irrigation
District to enforce the plain-
tiff’s water rights and properly
deliver water.
Plaintiffs include ELH LLC,
Oregon Hereford Ranch LLC,
Paul Gelissen, Maurice and
Lucy Ziemer, Frank Mueller,
Craig and Cynthia Parks and
Richard and Kristine Carpenter.
Mike Wick, the district’s
general manager, said it would
be premature for him to discuss
the lawsuit.
“Our board hasn’t had a
chance to meet to discuss the
complaint,” he said.
The Westland Irrigation
District will hold a special ex-
ecutive session about the litiga-
tion that’s scheduled for July 5
in Echo, Ore.
According to the complaint,
the district “facilitated large
scale theft” over the past six
years from 10 farms with se-
nior water rights, which own
between 58 acres and 837
acres each, to deliver water to
three operations with more than
5,000 acres.
The lawsuit claims those
three farms with junior water
rights — L&L Farms, Eagle
Ranch and Amstad Farms —
diverted more water than they
were allowed.
The district used several
methods to make the over-
pumping possible, including
fraudulent accounting and im-
proper contracts, the complaint
said.
“Defendant’s misappropri-
ation of plaintiffs’ senior water
rights has deprived plaintiffs of
the opportunity to double crop
their farms and shifted that lu-
crative opportunity to junior
water rights holders in violation
of Oregon water rights law.”
Capital Press was unable to
reach a representative of L&L
Farms as of press time.
David Prior, whose family
owns of Eagle Ranch, said he
hadn’t heard about the litiga-
tion.
“We don’t have any infor-
mation because we’re not in the
lawsuit, so I can’t comment,”
he said.
Skeeter Amstad, whose
family owns Amstad Farms,
said it’s too early for him to
comment on the lawsuit but
said his company is transparent
in its water use and has done
nothing wrong.
“We work extremely hard to
get water through all the legal
channels,” he said.
Dixie Echeverria, co-own-
er of plaintiff ELH LLC, said
she was alerted to the problem
when her company didn’t re-
ceive all the water to which it
was entitled during the spring.
Westland Irrigation District
didn’t provide answers to her
questions and the Oregon Wa-
ter Resources Department’s
local watermaster refused to in-
tervene in the dispute, she said.
The lawsuit was iled to en-
sure senior water rights in the
district are protected, Echever-
ria said.
Litigation iled by farmers
against their own irrigation
district is rare, according to
an Oregon water law attorney
who didn’t want to be named.
An irrigation district’s
board of directors is supposed
to ensure proper water allo-
cations, but these governing
bodies are often dominated by
the largest landowners, the at-
torney said. “That’s potentially
a problem.”
If the board’s directors
refuse to take action or are
accused of wrongdoing them-
selves, farmers have few alter-
natives aside from litigation,
the attorney said.
State watermasters regulate
at the point of diversion from
a public water source, but they
aren’t involved in internal wa-
ter distribution, the attorney
said. “They leave that to the
district to manage.”
The same plaintiffs who
iled a federal lawsuit against
Westland Irrigation District
have also iled a state lawsuit
demanding that the Oregon
Water Resources Department
regulate water rights within
the district.
Organic premiums prone to volatility
Prices for organic food
higher, but how much
varies
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Joe Baker was dismissed
Tuesday after 20 months as
Washington state veterinar-
ian, apparently falling short
of Department of Agriculture
Director Derek Sandison’s
expectations.
Sandison evaluated Bak-
er and decided to make a
change, a WSDA spokesman
said.
The department gave no
other reason for Baker’s dis-
missal. Efforts to reach Baker
were unsuccessful.
The spokesman said the
department has not named an
acting state veterinarian.
As state veterinarian,
Baker managed WSDA’s An-
imal Health Program, a vital
government ofice for the
livestock and poultry indus-
tries.
During his tenure, WSDA
was faced with containing
bird lu, guarding against
livestock diseases circulat-
ing in the West and imple-
menting changes in how the
state traces the movement of
livestock in case of a disease
outbreak.
Washington Cattlemen’s
Association Executive Vice
President Jack Field said he
was surprised by Baker’s dis-
missal.
“I thought he did well,”
Field said.
Field, however, said he
thought Baker was handi-
capped in his ability to leave
Olympia to meet producers
because of a vacancy in the
assistant state veterinarian’s
position.
“I think that might have
been a challenge,” Field said.
“Obviously, that reduces vis-
ibility. Whether it’s the state
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Joe Baker sits in his ofice in Olympia in this ile photo from
2015. Baker was dismissed July 5 after 20 months as Washing-
ton state veterinarian.
veterinarian or our own vet,
when you have a chance to
interact, you can build a bond
and have a closer relation-
ship.
“I think we need both a
state veterinarian and assis-
tant state veterinarian, so we
have the Olympia ofice cov-
ered, and the ability for the
state veterinarian to get out,”
he said.
Field said he hoped
WSDA will ill the position
quickly.
The vacancy “leaves the
industry in a big hole right
now. We’ve get a lot going
on,” he said. “The good news
is we have a strong core of
regional vets.”
The Washington State
Dairy Federation had a good
relationship with Baker, Jay
Gordon, the group’s policy
director, said.
“I always thought Dr.
Baker did a pretty fair job,
but for whatever reason, the
department wants to go in a
different direction,” Gordon
said.
Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Col-
fax, said he too was sur-
prised by Baker’s dismissal.
Schmick and another law-
maker recently asked Baker
to meet with ranchers in Pull-
man to talk about bluetounge
virus.
Schmick said Baker had
valuable experience respond-
ing to disease outbreaks in
New Mexico.
“I think his addition to
that meeting was very valu-
able,” Schmick said. “He
brought a lot to the table.”
Baker earned a bachelor’s
at Washington State Univer-
sity and then his doctorate
from WSU in 1977.
Before coming to WSDA,
he had spent much of his ca-
reer in New Mexico, includ-
ing a stint as interim state
veterinarian.
He also had been a ield
veterinarian; headed New
Mexico’s Food Safety, Meat
and Poultry Inspection Divi-
sion, and had held positions
with the New Mexico Live-
stock Board.
He joined WSDA in
November 2014, hired by
then-Director Bud Hover, who
resigned ive months later.
Baker was a strong advo-
cate for vaccinating horses
against West Nile virus and
in a recent interview was crit-
ical of the horse industry for
not following health require-
ments when transporting
horses between states.
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By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
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Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Workers pack organic red peppers at the Organically Grown Co.’s
warehouse in Portland, Ore. Organic foods are consistently priced
20 percent or more above their conventional counterparts, though
the premiums luctuate over time.
conventional price.
In some cases, though, there
was a downward trend. The
premium for spinach fell from
about 55 percent to less than 10
percent while the premium for
canned beans dropped from 100
percent to under 60 percent.
It’s possible that farm-
ers achieved a more eficient
“economy of scale” with certain
foods, allowing supplies to rise
and sales to grow while prices
declined, said Carlson.
Even so, it’s unclear why the
premiums for other products did
not also decrease even as they
became more popular, she said.
Given the volatility of sup-
ply and demand in fresh fruits
and vegetables, prices are also
prone to vary sharply, said Da-
vid Lively, vice president of
sales and marketing at the Or-
ganically Grown Co., a produce
distributor.
“Our prices deinitely whip
all over the joint,” said Lively.
There are times when the or-
ganic market is affected by con-
ventional prices, such as when
conventional prices for a certain
crop get so high that organic
farmers sell through conven-
tional channels, he said.
However, this type of
“re-routing” can be logistically
challenging and risks disap-
pointing existing customers,
Lively said.
For the most part, though,
the organic and conventional
markets are essentially parallel,
with their own supply and de-
mand dynamics, he said. “They
don’t necessarily relate to each
other.”
The USDA study tracked re-
tail prices, but those don’t neatly
square with the prices received
by farmers, Lively said.
Some larger grocers are will-
ing to sell certain organic foods
for a lower proit margin to attract
customers, he said. “Retailers can
really have a big impact on it.”
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Organic foods consistently
cost more than their conven-
tional counterparts, but the size
of those premiums can luctuate
widely, according to a USDA
study.
The organic label was asso-
ciated with premiums of 20 per-
cent or higher for most of the 17
products analyzed in the recent
USDA Economic Research Ser-
vice study, which tracked price
differences between 2004 and
2010.
However, the price premi-
ums for most products tended to
bounce up and down rather than
increase or decrease over time,
even as organic sales expanded.
“The basic conclusion is
there really isn’t a trend,” said
Andrea Carlson, an ERS econo-
mist who co-wrote the study.
Premiums for organic prod-
ucts often tended to rise and fall
regardless of price changes for
conventional foods, suggesting
the two markets may operate
independently of each other, she
said.
Fresh fruits and vegetables
are the largest organic sector by
sales and also had some of the
greatest swings in price premi-
ums.
Potato premiums, for ex-
ample, ranged from 10 to 35
percent above the conventional
price, while salad mixes ranged
from 40 to 60 percent above the
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