4
CapitalPress.com
November 11, 2016
Western weather a month ahead of calendar USDA
Western U.S. drought
to revise
conditions
predator
control
studies
Capital Press
Is it Christmas yet? The
weather patterns rolling
across the Pacifi c Northwest
and Northern California seem
out of sync with the calendar,
an environmental science pro-
fessor said.
Gregory Jones, a Southern
Oregon University professor
who tracks weather and cli-
mate data, said the past year
was seemingly off by a month
in temperature — March was
like April, June was like July,
and so on. And the storms and
rain of October were more
typical of November.
Things usually balance out
over time, but the amount of
snow and rain that fell in Oc-
tober was 150 percent to 400
percent of normal in many
parts of Oregon, Washing-
ton, Idaho and Northern Cal-
ifornia, Jones reported in a
monthly update he emails to
(As of Nov. 1)
Legend
D0-Abnormally dry
D1-Drought (moderate)
D2-Drought (severe)
D3-Drought
(extreme)
D4-Drought
(exceptional)
Intensity of drought by percent area affected
Date
Current
3 mo. ago
1 yr. ago
None
44.7%
27.6
27.1
D0-4
55.3
72.3
72.9
D1-4
25.3
32.2
54.5
D2-4 D3-4
11.2 5.7
11.1 6.1
39.2 22.4
D4
2.8
2.8
6.9
Source: National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
subscribers.
The best result of the del-
uge is that signifi cant portions
of the four states “have all
seen drought conditions re-
moved,” Jones said.
The USDA’s Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service
tweeted that one of its auto-
mated monitoring stations,
on the North Fork of the Bull
Run River on the fl anks of
Oregon’s Mount Hood, mea-
sured 33.5 inches of rain in
October — 298 percent of
normal. The previous October
Capital Press graphic
record at that spot was 23.2
inches, in 1990.
The October rain and snow
fl ushed out and reinvigorated
river systems and recharged
soil moisture, Jones said.
Reservoir levels jumped and
water levels in farm storage
ponds increased as well, he
said.
“Hopefully we’ll have
more of that in winter and a
reasonable snowpack, too,”
he said.
Jones said the extreme
wet pattern probably won’t
last. Statistically, a wet ear-
ly winter is followed by dry
conditions in the second half
of winter, he said. Dry con-
ditions often lead to hard-
er freezes and frosts, which
could be a concern to North-
west farmers after fairly “be-
nign” springs the last several
years, he noted.
Meanwhile, climate scien-
tists and weather forecasters
are keeping an eye on con-
ditions in the North Pacifi c
Ocean, where colder water
is building. A colder ocean
would likely mean a cold-
er and wetter winter for the
northern tier of the U.S. from
California’s Bay Area east to
the Mid-Atlantic, Jones said.
Record farm income during drought a puzzle Winegrape
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
A sprinkler shoots water over a fi eld in southwestern Washington in the
summer of 2015 during a severe drought that hit the entire state. Nev-
ertheless, the value of Washington’s agriculture production reached an
all-time high of $10.7 billion that year, according to the USDA.
drought’s negative effects.”
“There are a lot of reasons
farm income could have in-
creased in 2015. It would take
a more detailed study,” he said.
“It could be that net farm in-
come would have been higher”
without the drought.
The USDA did not attempt
to assess drought effects. Gains
and losses in crop values were
as diverse as the state’s agricul-
ture.
46-1/#4X
Washington state set a re-
cord in 2015 for farm pro-
duction, even though the state
suffered a historic drought —
creating a paradox for econo-
mists, producers and policy-
makers to puzzle over.
The USDA recently released
its annual statistical bulletin for
Washington, a report on yields,
prices, acres harvested and live-
stock sold in 2015. The state’s
agricultural production totaled
$10.7 billion, topping by 5 per-
cent the record $10.2 billion set
in 2014.
Apple prices were a big
reason. The drought lessened
the harvest, but higher prices
pushed the value of the crop to
$2.4 billion, about $500 million
more than in 2014.
But even without apples, the
state’s aggregate farm economy
held up, defying expectations
that the drought would infl ict a
heavy overall loss.
Washington State Univer-
sity Extension economist Mi-
chael Brady said other factors
may have “sort of swamped the
“Every one has a little bit
of a story,” said Chris Mertz,
Northwest director of the
USDA National Agricultural
Statistics Service.
Heading into the 2015
growing season, the Washing-
ton State Department of Ag-
riculture projected that crop
losses would total $1.2 billion,
a fi gure widely reported to
highlight the potential severity
of the drought.
The number was based pri-
marily on anticipated water
shortages in the Yakima Valley,
the state’s most valuable farm
region.
The losses did occur, said
Urban Eberhart, manager of the
Kittitas Reclamation District
based in Ellensburg.
Yakima Valley farmers with
senior water rights received full
supplies, but growers in the Kit-
titas district and elsewhere with
more junior rights received less
than half their normal allotment
from the Bureau of Reclama-
tion.
“You have negative impacts
on half the users and the other
half is doing OK,” Eberhart
said. “There were signifi cant
economic losses to a lot of in-
dividual growers in our district.
There’s no question about it.”
The state Department of
Ecology — the lead agency in
organizing drought relief for
fi sh, cities and farms — has
asked WSDA to assess farm
losses, including in the Yakima
Valley irrigation districts vul-
nerable to water curtailments.
A fi nal report is expected by
February.
ROP-40-42-4/#17
Capital Press
producers
say vintage
good despite
weather
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Oregon’s vineyard and
winery operators are by nature
an optimistic, glass-half-full
bunch, and their assessment of
the 2016 harvest is no excep-
tion.
The Oregon Wine Board’s
annual harvest report said the
fruit produced throughout the
state was marked by “won-
derful concentration and com-
plexity with characteristic nat-
ural acidity” despite numerous
quirks in the growing season.
An unusually warm spring
produced a grape bud break two
to four weeks earlier than nor-
mal, and a following hot spell
condensed the fl owering period
and caused a smaller fruit set
for most producers, wine board
Communications Manager Mi-
chelle Kaufmann wrote. Aver-
age conditions prevailed during
the summer, causing smaller
berry size but “a higher concen-
tration of fl avors,” according to
the Nov. 8 report.
The 2016 vintage produced
“practically immaculate fruit”
with few disease or pest prob-
lems, according to the report.
Yields statewide were a mix of
higher and lower than average.
Crop production was down
slightly in the Willamette
Valley but up in Southern
Oregon and Eastern Oregon,
Kaufmann said.
The harvest report includes
accounts from growers and
winemakers throughout the
state’s regions. In Eastern Or-
egon, viticulturist Jason Mag-
naghi of Figgins Family Wines
described the vintage as one of
the most interesting in his 16
years.
LEGAL
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
The USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS)
announces a meeting of the
Washington State Technical
Advisory
Committee
on
November 22, 2016 from
9:30 am to 3:00 pm, 316 W.
Boone Ave., Suite 450,
Spokane, WA. Remote access
is also available.
For more information
contact Bonda Habets,
(509) 323-2900. 46-1/#4
46-1/#7
By DON JENKINS
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The USDA Wildlife Ser-
vices division has agreed to re-
vise environmental studies that
underpin its predator control
program under the settlement
of a legal dispute.
Wildearth Guardians, an
environmental group, original-
ly fi led a complaint against the
agency in 2012, claiming its
predator control practices were
based on a “woefully outdat-
ed and inadequate” environ-
mental study from 1994, even
though conditions have since
changed.
Now that USDA must rely
on newer data, the nonprofi t
expects the agency will re-as-
sess its strategies for predators
across the U.S., said Bethany
Cotton, wildlife program di-
rector for the group.
“I would hope they’d look
at much more recent peer-re-
viewed science and adopt a
more
conservation-minded
and non-lethal approach,” Cot-
ton said.
Capital Press was unable to
reach a USDA spokesman for
comment.
In its lawsuit, the group ar-
gued that the 1994 study “fails
to take into account recent re-
ports on the risks and ineffi -
ciencies of Wildlife Services’
activities, dramatic changes in
public perceptions and values
pertaining to wildlife, and new
biological and scientifi c infor-
mation.”
Despite the study’s fl aws,
USDA has “tiered” more re-
cent predator control decisions
upon those fi ndings, including
the state program for Nevada,
where the lawsuit was fi led,
according to the complaint.
The recent settlement ap-
plies to all predator manage-
ment plans in the country, not
just in Nevada, said Cotton.
USDA has already begun re-
vising its studies for several
states, she said.
In 2013, the USDA initially
convinced U.S. District Judge
Miranda Du to dismiss the
case because Wildearth Guard-
ian lacked the legal standing to
pursue the lawsuit.
However, the 9th U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals over-
turned that decision last year,
ruling that the environmental
group had suffered enough
concrete injury from Wildlife
Service’s actions to qualify for
standing.
After months of negoti-
ations, the USDA and Wil-
dearth Guardians have reached
a settlement under which the
agency will phase out “any
reliance” on the 1994 environ-
mental study and replace all
decisions “tiered” to it.
LEGAL
CHERRY AVENUE STORAGE
2680 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97301
(503) 399-7454
Sat., Nov. 26th • 10 A.M.
• Unit 37 - Elizabeth or
James Shoemaker
• Unit 196 - Debra Ireland
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to refuse
any and all bids
legal-46-2-4/#4
46-1/#7
By ERIC MORTENSON