4
CapitalPress.com
October 21, 2016
What’s Upstream has until Dec. 1 to answer new allegation Oregon
Save Family
Farms organization
expands its
complaint
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Washington Pub-
lic Disclosure Commission
has extended until Dec. 1
the deadline for What’s Up-
stream to answer allegations
by a farm group that it broke
the law by failing to report its
federally funded political ac-
tivities.
The PDC previously had
expected a response by Oct.
17, but pushed back the dead-
line after Save Family Farm-
ing leveled more allegations,
an agency spokeswoman said
Tuesday.
The farm group complained
in September that What’s Up-
stream failed to register as a
grass-roots lobbying organiza-
tion trying to inluence legisla-
tion by appealing to the public.
Save Family Farming
amended the complaint Oct.
Courtesy of Save Family Farming
An advertising sign on a Whatcom County, Wash., transit bus promotes an Environmental Protection
Agency-funded campaign to get the state Legislature to mandate 100-foot buffers between all farm
ields and waterways. A group of farmers has complained to the state that the campaign constituted
lobbying and political activities.
14, claiming that What’s Up-
stream also should have regis-
tered as a political committee
planning a ballot initiative.
The farm group, in a let-
ter to the PDC, cited newly
released Environmental Pro-
tection Agency records as the
basis for the new complaint.
The complaints stem from
the use of federal money by
the Swinomish Indian tribe,
Northwest Indian Fisheries
Commission and several envi-
ronmental groups to lobby for
stricter regulations on farming
in Washington.
The EPA funded the media
campaign between 2011 and
2016 through a grant to the
isheries commission.
The EPA withdrew its sup-
port last spring after coming
under ire from some federal
lawmakers.
The EPA’s inspector gener-
al is auditing how the isheries
commission and the tribe spent
the funds, which potentially
totaled about $655,000, ac-
cording to EPA records.
The tribe contracted with
Seattle lobbying irm Strat-
egies 360 to poll voters and
craft a media campaign. The
What’s Upstream website was
revised shortly before the 2016
Legislature to urge the public
to write lawmakers in support
of mandatory 100-foot buffers
between farm ields and water-
ways.
EPA records show that the
tribe’s environmental policy
director, Larry Wasserman,
proposed using EPA funds in
2013 to run a ballot initiative
and that federal money already
had been spent testing messag-
es to sway voters.
EPA oficials had concerns
about the proposal, and Was-
serman dropped the idea, ac-
cording to EPA records.
Save Family Farming al-
leges that What’s Upstream
should have disclosed its po-
litical activities to the state no
later than 2013.
The farm group’s complaint
also named Strategies 360 and
EPA Northwest Administrator
Dennis McLerran, though the
PDC has named Wasserman
as the only respondent.
Agency too slow on H-2A applications, farm labor director says
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — A federal
agency involved in processing
H-2A visas for foreign farm-
workers to harvest U.S. crops
remains uncooperative in
making that process work, the
director of a farm labor organi-
zation says.
The U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (US-
CIS) “was unable to substan-
tively answer questions” and
only provided a generic de-
partment email address at an
Oct. 12 conference in Dallas,
Texas, said Dan Fazio, director
and CEO of WAFLA, former-
ly the Washington Farm Labor
Association.
The conference was offered
by the departments of State,
Labor and Homeland Security,
all involved in approving and
issuing H-2A visas. USCIS is
part of Homeland Security.
Capital Press did not get a
reply from USCIS when asked
for a comment.
A State Department oficial
pledged to make H-2A work
smoothly. Labor and Customs
and Border Protection ex-
plained what they do and pro-
vided contact information, but
three USCIS oficials refused
to provide any contact infor-
mation other than the generic
email address, Fazio said.
He said he presented a letter
outlining the agency’s inability
to process H-2A applications
and asked for the name of
someone with whom to follow
up. He was given no name.
In his Oct. 3 letter to USCIS
oficials Donald Neufeld and
Maria Odom, Fazio requests a
Dec. 5 or 6 meeting with them
and said in past years the agen-
cy was able to process H-2A
applications on time and with
few errors.
That changed this year with
Dan Wheat/Capital Press FIle
Francisco Trinidad, an H-2A-visa foreign guest worker, thins Gala apples at Zirkle Fruit Co.’s CRO
Orchard south of Rock Island, Wash., last summer. WAFLA, an organization that helps growers apply
for foreign H-2A workers, says one federal agency delays applications.
delays of more than six weeks,
Requests for Evidence (RFE)
issued in error and no response
to inquiries from applicants or
members of Congress, Fazio
said.
The most serious problem,
he wrote, is the agency won’t
communicate by email or tele-
phone, only by regular mail.
H-2A workers were de-
layed for a blueberry grower
by an RFE questioning wheth-
er blueberry harvest is seasonal
work, Fazio said. The grower,
“one of the largest blueberry
producers in the world,” was
LEGAL
CHERRY AVENUE STORAGE
2680 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97301
(503) 399-7454
Sat., Nov. 5th • 10 A.M.
• Unit 4
Jeremy VanDyke
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to refuse
any and all bids
legal-43-2-1/#4
43-2/#7
aided by his access to a “pow-
erful” lobbyist but average
employers lack that access, he
said.
The “saddest” case was an
Oregon grower who lost mil-
lions of dollars in high-value
fruit because USCIS would
not approve the transfer of
H-2A workers from Washing-
ton in a timely manner, Fazio
said.
He did not identify either
grower.
WAFLA helped approx-
imately 200 employers hire
9,000 H-2A workers this year.
They were mostly in Wash-
ington but also in Oregon,
Idaho, California, Nevada and
Michigan.
OREGON CAPITAL
INSIDER
Get the inside
scoop on state
government
and politics!
We’re investing in Salem
coverage when other
news organizations are
cutting back.
OregonCapitalInsider.com
Obtaining the visas re-
quires working with four fed-
eral agencies and, in Washing-
ton, two state agencies.
Delays also occurred in
2015, when the State Depart-
ment said it had computer
problems printing visas.
The Department of Labor
is required by regulation to de-
cide H-2A applications at least
30 days before the applicant’s
date of need but there is no
similar requirement for US-
CIS, Fazio said.
USCIS has a two-week
goal but in many cases with
WAFLA it took four weeks or
more, guaranteeing workers
would be late, he said.
The government should
want to make H-2A work as
an alternative and deterrent to
illegal immigration, Fazio said.
Employers and workers have
to make decisions counting on
certainty of work dates, he said.
“It is cruel to routinely
cause a very poor farmworker
to wait, without a job, when he
or she could be earning sub-
stantial sums of money to sup-
port their family,” Fazio wrote
in the letter.
irrigation
district urges
dismissal of
water lawsuit
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The Westland Irrigation
District in Northeast Oregon
has asked a federal judge to
dismiss a lawsuit accusing it
of cheating smaller growers
out of water.
In June, seven farms rang-
ing from about 60 acres to 800
acres iled a complaint alleging
the district stole their water to
beneit three operations with
more than 5,000 acres.
During oral arguments on
Oct. 18, attorneys for the dis-
trict told U.S. District Judge
Michael Simon in Portland,
Ore., that the lawsuit belongs
in state court, not federal court.
“They’ve failed to exhaust
the underlying state remedies
that would make their claim
ripe in federal court,” said
Nicole Hancock, attorney for
Westland.
The hearing focused on ju-
risdictional issues rather than
the merits of the complaint,
which claims the district used
fraudulent accounting to make
water available to the larger
operations at the expense of
the smaller growers, who have
senior water rights.
The lawsuit belongs in state
court because it deals with in-
terpretations of Oregon con-
tract law and water law, said
Hancock. “It’s going to be a
combination of those.”
Julie Weis, attorney for
the plaintiffs, said it would be
more eficient to resolve the
case in federal court, partic-
ularly since iling a new law-
suit in state court may drag the
dispute into the 2017 irrigation
season.
The lawsuit belongs in fed-
eral court because it will likely
entail water contracts with the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
and the impact of the Endan-
gered Species Act on water al-
location, said Michael Haglund,
attorney for the plaintiffs.
“There may well be inter-
sections with federal law in this
case,” Haglund said.
The judge signaled that he’s
inclined to rule the lawsuit be-
longs in state court, since the
case doesn’t neatly meet the
legal standards for trying it in
federal court.
Though he does have the
authority to make an exception,
there would need to be a valid
reason — other than his per-
sonal preference, said Simon.
“That’s no way to run a legal
system.”
It also wouldn’t make sense
to try the case in federal court
only to later refer a question
of law to the Oregon Supreme
Court, he said.
Simon said he expects to
rule on the jurisdiction issue
by mid-November or early De-
cember.
If the plaintiffs are worried
about delay, they can in the
meantime ile a state lawsuit
against the district, Simon said.
If he decides the case belongs
in federal court, the state law-
suit can then be dismissed.
“That will have absolutely
no bearing on what I do here,”
he said.
W E S P ECI ALI ZE I N BU L K BAG S!
HAY PRESS
SUPPORT:
• Hay Sleeves
• Strap
• Totes
• Printed or Plain
• Stretch Film
(ALL GAUGES)
WAREHOUSE
PACKAGING:
• Stretch Film
• Pallet Sheets
• Pallet Covers
LOCATIONS:
Albany, Oregon (MAIN OFFICE)
Ellensburg, Washington
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Phone: 855-928-3856
Fax: 541-497-6262
info@westernpackaging.com
.......................................................
CUSTOMER SERVICE
IS OUR TOP PRIORITY!
w w w. w e s t e r n p a c k a g i n g. c o m
43-4//#5
43-7/#5
BAGS:
• Seed Bags
• Fertilizer Bags
• Feed Bags
• Potato Bags
• Printed Bags
• Plain Bags
• Bulk Bags
• Totes
• Woven Polypropylene
• Bopp
• Polyethylene
• Pocket Bags
• Roll Stock & More!