12 CapitalPress.com
November 25, 2016
Growers have been moving away from flooding since late 1960s
IRRIGATION from Page 1
Unlikely partnerships of
agricultural landowners, con-
servationists, government of-
ficials and water managers are
behind efforts to keep farmers
flooding fields in Idaho, Ore-
gon, Washington and Califor-
nia. During the past year, Col-
son estimates the movement
has maintained flood irriga-
tion on roughly 4,000 acres
across the West.
“For 15 or 20 years or
more, the conservation com-
munity has been telling people
how wasteful flood irrigation
is and convert to sprinkler,”
Colson said.
Farmers have relied on
flood irrigation — using grav-
ity to spread surface water
across fields — for thousands
of years.
Since the late 1960s, how-
ever, growers have been mov-
ing away from flooding in
favor of more efficient sprin-
klers. On average, 120,000
acres in 11 Western states
were converted from flood
irrigation to sprinklers annu-
ally between 1995 to 2010,
according to a study of U.S.
Geological Survey water-use
data.
Unintended
consequences
Conservation
funding
sources, such as the Envi-
ronmental Quality Incentives
Program under the USDA
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service, have long sup-
ported sprinkler conversions
with water-efficiency grants.
But the pursuit of efficien-
cy has had unintended conse-
quences. Migratory wading
birds feed in flood-irrigated
fields, which have provided
an artificial alternative to the
natural marshes lost to riv-
er damming. And Western
aquifer levels have dropped
in correlation with the disap-
pearance of flood irrigation
— historically a major source
of incidental aquifer recharge.
In Idaho’s Eastern Snake
Plain, for example, officials
say the aquifer has been drop-
ping by 200,000 acre-feet per
year on average, due to in-
creased groundwater use and
reduced flood irrigation.
Zola Ryan, NRCS district
conservationist in Harney
County, Ore., says her agen-
cy’s goals of improving irri-
gation efficiency and preserv-
ing flood irrigation needn’t be
at odds.
Ryan explained efficient
sprinklers are ideal for irriga-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Amy Verbeten, front, and Sara Lien, both with Friends of the Teton River, join Driggs, Idaho, grower
Wyatt Penfold on a tour of a former marsh that has been dry in recent years due to declining ground-
water levels. They’re all part of a program to use flood irrigation to replenish a declining aquifer, and
help wildlife.
tors using groundwater, and
watering where benefits of
flooding aren’t as pronounced.
“There is a place and time
for flood irrigation and a place
and time for sprinkler irriga-
tion,” Ryan said.
The projects
Colson and his colleagues
have been working to under-
stand — and ultimately ad-
dress — the reasons growers
opt to stop flood irrigating.
Often, the problem is the
cost of replacing dilapidat-
ed head gates or improving
canals. Some producers say
flood irrigation is simply too
labor intensive.
“We’re working with some
vendors to develop automated
infrastructure, where they can
sit in their truck and use their
cellphone and open the valves
(to flood irrigate),” Colson
said.
In Eastern Oregon, Ryan
explained many growers quit
flood irrigating in the ear-
ly 1980s, after widespread
flooding damaged canals.
New wells and sprinklers are
becoming increasingly com-
mon, she said.
However, NRCS has since
2014 set aside $300,000 a
year for a special EQIP pro-
gram to preserve flood irriga-
tion for benefits to migratory
birds in Oregon’s Harney and
Lake counties. A half-dozen
projects are in the planning
stages, Ryan said.
Lake County rancher
Joe Villagrana will finish
NRCS-funded improvements
to retain flood-irrigation lat-
er this month. But he’s been
working with partners to up-
grade his flood-irrigation in-
frastructure for most of a de-
cade, initially with help from
Ducks Unlimited. Villagrana
said he’ll soon have the ability
to evenly flood irrigate 2,200
acres of meadow grass pas-
ture, and both grass produc-
tion and water fowl numbers
have already risen dramatical-
ly on his land.
Without the help, “I prob-
ably wouldn’t have done near
what I’ve done, and I would
have done it over 20 years,”
Villagrana said.
In Northern California,
Ducks Unlimited regional
biologist John Ranlett has
tapped U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service funds to help several
ranches install pipelines to
better deliver water for flood
irrigation. Ranlett has also
overseen the replacements of
weirs — shallow dams across
rivers that regulate water lev-
els entering flood-irrigation
canals.
“If their infrastructure
starts to fail, they’re going to
lose the ability to irrigate,”
Ranlett said. “Then all of a
sudden you lose habitat.”
The birds
A couple of years ago, Tim
Brockish considered installing
an irrigation pivot that would
replace failing flood-irrigation
infrastructure serving a 40-acre
field he owns near Rexburg,
Idaho.
Then he learned about the
plight of the white-faced ibis
— a migratory wading bird
known as a “marker bird” by
people in the Rexburg area, as
its presence marks flood-irri-
gated fields.
Brockish explained that
one of the world’s largest ibis
breeding colonies utilizes
nearby Mud Lake and Mar-
ket Lake, and the birds forage
in flooded fields by day. The
supply of flooded fields, how-
ever, is running thin, causing
problems for the ibis and other
migratory birds in one of the
continent’s most critical “stag-
ing areas.”
More than a decade ago,
experts discovered migratory
birds were stopping for a few
weeks along the Snake Plain in
Idaho and in Eastern Oregon,
Eastern Washington and North-
ern California to feed on insects
and grass seed from flood-ir-
rigated fields before heading
north to breeding grounds in
Canada and Alaska. Malnour-
ished birds often won’t breed.
Ultimately, Brockish chose
wildlife over improved irriga-
tion efficiency, partnering with
the Teton Regional Land Trust
to upgrade his flood system.
He obtained a U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service grant to re-
place metal head gates, rebuild
canals and build a dike to hold
flood-irrigation water longer on
the field,
Sal Palazzolo, private lands
program manager at the Ida-
ho Department of Fish and
Game, said preserving the
staging area is a goal of both
his agency and Ducks Unlim-
ited, which have a plan to help
water fowl by working with
the state’s managed aquifer
recharge program. Managed
recharge involves intentional-
ly injecting surface water into
the aquifer to rebuild ground-
water levels.
IDFG and Ducks Unlimit-
ed have asked the Idaho De-
partment of Water Resources
to design its recharge sites to
be more like marshes, spilling
shallow water over hundreds
of acres rather than deep wa-
ter over a smaller area.
“We’re definitely looking
into that,” said Wes Hipke,
IDWR’s recharge coordinator,
who also sees the potential to
combine resources with wild-
life organizations on future
recharge efforts. “It’s going to
have to be on a case-by-case
basis.”
IDWR has also agreed to
study the potential for a man-
aged aquifer recharge site
at the Market Lake Wildlife
Management Area.
Palazzolo said efforts are
underway to establish a sep-
arate EQIP fund in Idaho for
flood irrigation projects, and
NRCS is mulling an Eastern
Idaho water grant under the
Regional Conservation Part-
nership Program that would
cover flood-irrigation infra-
structure.
Teton Valley
experiment
Like many producers in
his area, Teton County Farm
Bureau Federation President
Stephen Bagley stopped flood
irrigating his ranch in the
southern end of Idaho’s Teton
Valley during the 1960s.
Now, Bagley is a leader of
a coalition working to restore
flood irrigation to the valley as
a means of resolving a water
shortfall that’s becoming in-
creasingly critical.
Groundwater levels have
dropped 55 feet in the valley
since the 1970s — before flood
irrigation was phased out in fa-
vor of sprinklers and neighbor-
hoods sprang up on farmland.
Miles of unlined canals went
unused that had previously re-
charged the aquifer with water
losses exceeding 40 percent.
As a result, surface irriga-
tion rights that once remained
in priority through late July
have lately been shut off at the
beginning of the month.
In December of 2015 irri-
gators hoping to improve their
own water outlook partnered
with Farm Bureau, local cit-
ies and counties, Friends of
the Teton River, Teton County
Soil and Water Conservation
District, Water District 1, the
Henry’s Fork Foundation and
others to form the Teton Water
Users Association.
The association is pursu-
ing funds to rebuild flood-ir-
rigation infrastructure, which
irrigators will use to flood pas-
tures within their existing wa-
ter rights during peak spring
flows. When flows subside,
they’ll resume using only ef-
ficient sprinklers. The water
they bank through canals and
flood irrigation should emerge
from springs about three
months later, when it’s needed
most, extending the irrigation
season, cooling the river for
native Yellowstone cutthroat
trout and replenishing dried
marshes.
“Hopefully, I’ll have anoth-
er week or two of irrigation be-
cause they won’t have to call
for my water as fast,” Bagley
said.
Driggs, Idaho, grower Wy-
att Penfold said operating mar-
gins are razor thin in the valley,
and saving a couple weeks of
costly storage water from res-
ervoirs would be a huge ben-
efit.
“The only way to keep the
lifestyle we’re all used to is to
work together,” Penfold said.
Rob Van Kirk, senior sci-
entist with the Henry’s Fork
Foundation, has modeled the
Teton Valley hydrology, calcu-
lating the association must in-
crease annual aquifer recharge
by 30,000 acre-feet to meet its
goal of restoring water levels
to 1975 conditions. The asso-
ciation will soon conduct an
assessment of priority sites on
which to restore flood irriga-
tion.
Sarah Lien, an attorney for
Friends of the Teton River, said
the program’s ultimate goal is
to apply about 260 cubic feet
per second of water from April
15 through June 15.
“If we’re successful, we’re
talking about 40 cfs increases
in the Teton River,” Lien said.
“It’s really new water.”
The project has been
awarded a $50,000 U.S. Bu-
reau of Reclamation WaterS-
MART grant to cover prelim-
inary planning. They also have
a pending $250,000 grant ap-
plication with the Idaho Water
Resource Board, which would
provide matching funds to tap
additional federal grants.
“The surface water every
year is gone sooner and we’re
more reliant on groundwater,”
said Driggs, Idaho, Mayor
Hyrum Johnson, who consid-
ers the association to be a tem-
plate for other Western water
users to follow. “I believe this
organization is a great exam-
ple of the way that water rights
can be managed proactively
around the state.”
‘I see (Save Family Farming) as filling a niche’ Maui County’s GMO
FIGHT from Page 1
reviewing complaints by Save
Family Farming and some
federal lawmakers that What’s
Upstream violated state and
federal lobbying laws.
After supporting and cri-
tiquing the project for five
years, the EPA distanced itself
from What’s Upstream last
spring under congressional
criticism. The campaign lives
on through a website and so-
cial media, even as the EPA’s
inspector general audits how
some $655,000 in EPA funds
were spent.
Baron said that Save Fam-
ily Farming will continue
to push for EPA adminis-
trators to be held account-
able, but also will respond
to other attacks against a
griculture.
Other groups, such as the
Washington Farm Bureau
and Washington State Dairy
Federation, already lobby
policymakers, so Save Fam-
ily Farming will focus on in-
forming the public, especially
environmentally conscious
millennials with unfavorable
impressions of agriculture, he
said.
“We believe there is a huge
need for that, and we don’t
believe that’s being effective-
ly addressed right now,” Bar-
on said. “I think there are too
many people susceptible to
that message, who don’t un-
derstand what farming is all
about.”
Hinkle approached Save
Family Farming about rep-
resenting it. Hinkle has reg-
istered to lobby in Olympia
for Save Family Farming,
but he and Baron said Hin-
kle’s job primarily will be to
meet with producers, agricul-
ture organizations and farm
suppliers.
“I see (Save Family Farm-
ing) as filling a niche in the
agricultural advocacy world
that isn’t being filled so well,”
Hinkle said. “Agriculture has
been under attack in some
way since I got into politics
in 1992.
“I think the What’s Up-
stream campaign has shown
people that there is a concert-
ed attack,” he said. “The next
step is for people to see it’s
not an isolated situation.”
Hinkle, a Republican who
lives in Cle Elum, represented
all or parts of Lincoln, Grant
and Kittitas counties in the
Legislature.
He was previously a Kit-
titas County commissioner.
After a decade in the Legisla-
ture, he didn’t run for re-elec-
tion in 2012.
After leaving the Legisla-
ture, he was the director of an
association of rental property
owners for three years and
for the past year has been a
contract lobbyist for several
groups.
SAGE Fact #135
ROP-40-42-4/#17
Downstream from Boardman on the
Columbia River, the John Day Dam contains
16 generators that produce enough electricity
to power two cities the size of Seattle.
48-2/#6
ban remains overturned
GMO from Page 1
Prohibiting states and local
governments from regulating
crops that were once consid-
ered plant pests would have
a “backwards effect” because
they can still regulate conven-
tional crops that “raise fewer
concerns,” the 9th Circuit
held.
“Such a holding would
have far-reaching practical
effects. Because a large per-
centage of commercial crops
grown in the United States are
GE crops, states and counties
across the nation would be
prevented from regulating an
enormous swath of agricul-
ture. We do not believe that
Congress so intended,” the
ruling said.
Even so, state and local
GMO bans cannot apply to
biotech crops that remain reg-
ulated by USDA, since the
agency retains jurisdiction
over them until they’re com-
mercialized, the 9th Circuit
said.
While the 9th Circuit ruled
in favor of biotech critics on
federal pre-emption, Maui
County’s GMO ban remains
overturned under its recent
ruling. The appellate court
found that the ordinance was
still pre-empted by Hawaii’s
comprehensive state laws and
rules that deal with the same
subject matter of potentially
harmful plants.
“By banning commercial-
ized GE plants, the ordinance
impermissibly intrudes into
this area of exclusive state reg-
ulation and thus is beyond the
county’s authority” under Ha-
waiian law, the 9th Circuit said.
The 9th Circuit’s opinion
is significant for nine Western
states under its jurisdiction
because counties in Oregon,
Washington and California
have GMO bans.
If the appellate court had
found that federal law pre-
empts local biotech regula-
tions, those ordinances would
have been affected.
“It’s a relief. Certainly, this
is not a worst-case scenario,”
said Paul Achitoff, attorney
for the Earthjustice law firm
that represented biotech crit-
ics in the case.
Even so, Achitoff said he’s
disappointed the 9th Circuit
ruled that state law pre-empts
the Maui ordinance, which he
characterized as “a loss for
Hawaii’s people.”
Local ordinances are nec-
essary in Hawaii, where bio-
tech breeding takes place,
because state regulations pre-
date GMOs and are essential-
ly a “vacuum,” he said. “The
state has not been protecting
people in that respect.”
The Monsanto Co., a bio-
tech developer that sued to
overturn the law, said it’s
proud to be part of the farm-
ing community in Hawaii,
where it has 1,000 employ-
ees, and understands that it
has a “responsibility to farm
sustainably and to work col-
laboratively,” according to an
emailed statement.
“We’re listening and we’ve
heard the concerns some peo-
ple have about GMOs and
today’s farming practices.
Our commitment to ongoing
dialogue with our neighbors
doesn’t stop today,” the state-
ment said.