August 26, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Regulators prepare water diverters
for stepped-up reporting rules
Boise Farmers’ Market
vendors have no regrets
about 2013 split
Oicials hold a workshop
and ‘information fair’ to
prepare landowners
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Hun-
dreds of California farmers
and others locked to a state
water board “information
fair” on Aug. 22 to get an-
swers on how stepped-up re-
porting requirements for wa-
ter diversions will affect their
farms and ranches.
Water-rights oficials told
an overlow audience in a
meeting room at the Califor-
nia Environmental Protection
Agency headquarters that
state regulators will take their
operations’ unique character-
istics into account when ap-
plying the rules.
The goal, enforcement
section chief Kathy Mrowka
said, is to gather “accurate in-
formation” about how much
water is being used around the
state amid a drought now in
its ifth year.
The State Water Resourc-
es Control Board’s emphasis
will be on achieving compli-
ance, not necessarily the col-
lection of ines, said Michael
George, the watermaster for
the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta region.
“We are interested in learn-
ing from some of the experi-
mentation that’s already going
on” with regard to measuring
diversions, George said.
The all-day workshop
sought to bring together wa-
ter right holders, vendors and
other industry professionals to
discuss how to measure water
diversions. The workshop in-
cluded an overview of the reg-
ulations as well as segments
on measuring water stored
in small ponds or reservoirs
and measuring water from the
Delta.
Farmers and others packed
Wheat farmer
appointed to
WSU board
of regents
9
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Michael George, the California Water Resources Control Board’s watermaster for the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta, stands next to the San Joaquin River. He was one of the presenters at an Aug. 22
workshop on the board’s stepped-up regulations for reporting water diversions.
the meeting hall and an
overlow room to view the
sessions, which were also
streamed online.
In addition, more than a
dozen companies showcased
their measurement instru-
ments at booths in a hallway
near the meeting room.
The workshop followed
the board’s decision in Janu-
ary to ramp up reporting re-
quirements for California’s
roughly 12,000 landowners
and users who have rights
to divert surface water from
nearby streams.
The regulations require
annual reporting of water di-
versions rather than reporting
once every three years, as
previous law required of se-
nior right holders. Under the
new rules, anyone who takes
out more than 10 acre-feet of
water per year must measure
their diversions.
The requirements will be
phased in. Large diverters
with a claimed right to take
1,000 acre-feet of water or
more per year must have a
measuring device in place by
Jan. 1, 2017, while those with
rights for 100 acre-feet or
more have until July 1, 2017
and those with rights to take
10 acre-feet or more must
comply by Jan. 1, 2018.
Failure to comply with the
new regulations could bring
ines of up to $500 per day,
according to the board. The
emergency regulations were
required as part of legislation
that enacted the 2015-16 state
budget.
George told landowners
that he and members of the
board’s water rights division
were creating a mechanism
by which right holders could
seek extensions of their dead-
lines. But he advised people
not to “wait until the 11th
hour” to ask for more time.
“You’ll have to show good
cause, which … will vary ac-
cording to circumstances,” he
said, adding that applicants
will have to show they’ve
done the “due diligence” to
prepare but that they face ob-
stacles.
“By coming today, this is
a good start,” he said. “There
are a lot of vendors out there
who are eager to tell you what
they could set you up with.”
BOISE — Four seasons
after seceding from Idaho’s
largest farmers’ market, pro-
ducers who sell their prod-
ucts at the Boise Farmers’
Market say they have no sec-
ond thoughts.
“We did the right thing,”
said Meadowlark Farms
owner Janie Burns, chairman
of the BFM’s board of direc-
tors. “We think it’s working
out really well.”
About two dozen farm
vendors from Capital City
Public Market left and
formed their own market
in 2013 following the 2012
iring of Karen Ellis, who
founded the CCPM in 1994
and guided it to become Ida-
ho’s largest farmers’ market.
Ellis is now executive di-
rector of the BFM.
Burns, a founding vendor
of the CCPM, said the split
was tough at the time but
now both markets co-exist
well and even feed off each
other, with potential custom-
ers walking from one market
to the next, a span of about
four blocks.
“It’s not unlike a divorce
in which it’s very bitter at the
time,” she said. “But now
that we’ve had some time ...
we’ve come to a good under-
standing of each other.”
Ellis said BFM farmers
wanted to create a food-cen-
tric market focused more
on agriculture where people
go just to shop for food —
CCPM includes a good mix
of farm as well as non-ag
vendors — and that’s exactly
what happened.
Ninety-ive percent of the
products sold at the BFM are
local ag produce and food
items and 5 percent are non-
food items.
“We are truly the food
shopper’s market,” Ellis said.
“It’s the ‘foodie’ market.”
She said the market, in
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
People shop for produce at
the Boise Farmers’ Market on
Aug. 13.
its fourth season, has grown
every year and now includes
about 60 vendors during the
summer months and attracts
6,000 to 8,000 people each
Saturday, up from about
3,500 its irst year.
Farm vendors who stayed
at the CCPM, which remains
Idaho’s largest, have told
the Capital Press they aren’t
about to give up the potential
15,000 customers that the
market attracts each Satur-
day.
Lee Rice, owner of Rice
Family Farms and a Boise
Farmers’ Market vendor, said
a lot of people were confused
by the existence of the two
markets the irst few years.
However, “It’s hard to
ind somebody now who
doesn’t know there are two
different markets in Boise,”
he said. “When they want
certain things, they can go
to the Capital City market.
When they want to do their
main food shopping, they
can come to our market.”
Burns said the split has
worked out well, for farm-
ers as well as the public, and
she’s happy to point someone
to the CCPM if they can’t get
what they’re looking for at
the BFM.
“Enough time has passed
that we are able to differen-
tiate ourselves from the oth-
er market,” she said. “They
have their identity and we
have ours. We serve the pub-
lic well by having these dis-
tinctive (markets).”
John Deere Dealers
See one of these dealers for a demonstration
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Gov. Jay Inslee has appoint-
ed wheat farmer Brett Blanken-
ship to the Washington State
University Board of Regents.
The board is the university’s
governing body, responsible for
coordinating and managing the
WSU system. Blankenship’s
appointment is effective Oct. 1.
Blankenship, who farms near
Washtucna, said he submitted an
application to Inslee’s ofice. He
doesn’t have a personal agenda
in joining the board, he said.
“I don’t want to be seen as
the ‘agricultural representative,’
just as a person taking a seat
among the rest of the regents to
do our part and lay the ground-
work for a bright future for the
university,” he said.
During the search in which
new WSU President Kirk
Schulz was hired, several ag-
ricultural representatives ex-
pressed concern over whether
the industry would be adequate-
ly considered.
“I think the governor’s ofice
has heard the concerns and was
key on maintaining, certainly, a
perspective from agriculture on
the board,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship is a former
president of the National As-
sociation of Wheat Growers,
where he worked to increase
lawmakers’ understanding of
grower needs.
He received a bachelor’s
degree in music from Eastern
Washington University and a
master’s degree in music per-
formance and literature from the
University of Rochester.
Blankenship believes WSU
is entering a new stage.
“This will be an exciting
time ... (with) advances in ag re-
search, as well as the launch of
a new medical school,” he said.
“We want to make sure the foot-
print of WSU will be felt far and
wide.”
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