10 CapitalPress.com
February 24, 2017
Washington
Study to focus on wolves’ effect on other predators, prey
Researchers to
collar ungulates,
carnivores
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A new study will deter-
mine the impact wolves have
on other predators and their
prey.
Researchers from the
Washington
Department
of Fish and Wildlife and
University of Washington
will capture and radio-col-
lar deer, elk and cougars in
northeastern Washington to
monitor their movements.
“We have this situation
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and University of
Washington researchers will study the impact wolves have on other
predators and their prey. Results of the study are due in five years.
where we have an increasing
wolf population,” said John
Pierce, chief wildlife scien-
tist at the department. “What
we’re really hoping to learn
is, how is having wolves on
the landscape changing or
not changing effects on the
animals that already live
there?”
The study area includes
parts of Ferry, Stevens and
Pend Oreille counties.
Researchers began cap-
turing and collaring animals
in December. They will track
and monitor the animals over
time, Pierce said.
Pierce wants to find out if
wolves add to cougar depre-
dations that are already oc-
curring, or if cougars alter
their behavior and reduce
their depredation as a result
of the wolves’ presence. Re-
searchers will also study the
Stemilt builds advanced
fruit shipping center
Capital Press
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Steel framing for Stemilt Growers’ automated storage and shipping facility is erected in Wenatchee,
Wash. The photo was taken Feb. 16.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Stemilt Growers’ 42,700-square-foot corporate office building, built
in 2014, at its Olds Station packing plant in Wenatchee, Wash.
$50,000 in wages, benefits
and training.
New conventional storage
costs about $115 per square
foot and ASRS systems cost
about $170 per square foot,
according to cold storage or-
ganizations.
ASRS not only saves on
labor, but energy, fire sup-
pression and space. By rack-
ing fruit higher, up to three
times the storage density of
a conventional facility can be
achieved.
Stemilt’s ASRS will be
somewhat denser than con-
ventional storage but really
higher, Pepperl said. It may
rack as high as 10-pallet
stacks, he said.
A pallet position is where
one full pallet can be racked
and stored. A multi-layer
racking system will allow
more than 16,000 pallet posi-
tions, Pepperl said.
The new facility is most-
ly steel framing right now
to the immediate north of
Stemilt’s Olds Station plant.
The 479,000 square feet in-
cludes a new concrete build-
ing, already up, for 11 rooms
of controlled atmosphere pear
storage.
Construction began last
fall and will be completed in
various phases over the next
12 months, he said. Stemilt
is not disclosing the cost, he
said.
Mathison said he’s really
proud of the vendors working
on the project.
Beside storage and ship-
ping there will be robotic pal-
letizing of all fruit from the
Olds Station plant’s two-year-
old, state-of-the-art apple
packing line, a one-year-old
optic-sizer, multi-color cherry
line and an older dark sweet
cherry line.
In time the palletizing,
ASRS and shipping will serve
the former Dovex complex,
acquired by Stemilt several
years ago, across U.S. High-
way 2 and south of the Olds
plant, Mathison said. The
Dovex complex has two new-
er cherry lines, two apple
lines and a pear line.
Packed fruit will move
from the packing plants to
the palletizing, ASRS and
shipping center through en-
closed conveyor systems.
There will be 22 truck bays
at the shipping dock with
room to expand, Pepperl
said.
The place where the new
facility is being built former-
ly held thousands of empty
apple, pear and cherry bins
when they were not in use.
They will be stored now in
other locations, some closer
to orchards, he said.
Stemilt built a new,
three-story, 42,700-square-
foot corporate office building
and cafeteria for all employ-
ees at the Olds Station plant
in 2014.
Stemilt packs, sells and
ships about 20 million box-
es of apples, pears, cherries,
stone fruit and blueberries an-
nually. Stemilt receives fruit
from independent growers
and owns, partners and man-
ages more than 14,000 acres
of tree fruit. Partners include
Douglas Fruit Co., Pasco, and
Peshastin Hi-Up northwest of
Wenatchee.
Stemilt acquired Califor-
nia cherry producer Chinchi-
olo Fruit of Stockton in 2003.
Stemilt packs, sells and ships
a large percentage of Wash-
ington’s organic apples and
pears and has about 1,500
full-time employees.
are we seeing on the ungu-
late population, and wheth-
er they’re able to maintain
themselves or the level of
depredation is forcing that
population to decline,” he
said. “Then we’d be looking
at management options to try
to arrest that decline.”
The state will use past
records on cougar depre-
dations before wolves to
compare them to the study
results, Pierce said.
Funding
includes
$400,000 from a 2015 state
legislative
appropriation;
$450,000 in federal funds;
$150,000 of department
funds and $900,000 in Na-
tional Science Foundation
grant funds.
WSDA estimates
2015 drought damage
topped $700 million
Estimate is
conservative, report
writer says
By DAN WHEAT
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Stemilt Growers LLC, one of
the largest non-citrus tree fruit
companies on the West Coast,
is building likely the largest
and most advanced automated
packed fruit storage and ship-
ping center in the state.
The 479,000-square-foot
facility will be able to store
almost 1 million packed box-
es of fruit and will allow more
efficient handling, palletiz-
ing, storage and shipping of
product, said Roger Pepperl,
Stemilt marketing manager.
Automated Storage and
Retrieval System (ASRS)
involves movement, storage
and retrieval for shipping of
packed boxes of tree fruit us-
ing robotic cranes, automat-
ed dollies and computerized
tracking for efficient flow and
significant labor savings.
Matson Fruit Co. in Selah
installed such a system three
years ago. Reggie Collins,
general manager of Chelan
Fruit Cooperative, said the co-
op considered an ASRS when
rebuilding its plant in Chelan
that was destroyed by a 2015
wildfire but decided the cost
outweighed labor savings.
“We designed our build-
ings so we can do it in the
future, but the systems are
millions of dollars and only
eliminated 75 percent of our
forklift drivers. That’s only
six to eight paychecks right
now,” he said.
West Mathison, Stemilt
president, said he doesn’t
know how much labor sav-
ings to expect and looks for-
ward to better understanding
the opportunity.
But most ASRS sys-
tems eliminate forklift driv-
ers and require only one
or two people per shift to
monitor components of the
system.
Collins said he thinks Mat-
son has the only tree fruit
ASRS in Washington and that
there are some in California.
It is more common in Europe
and in the frozen food indus-
try.
In 2013, several cold stor-
age industry organizations
estimated an ASRS system
saves $2.7 million per year
for a plant with 18 workers
for each of three shifts and
each employee costing about
effect on the populations of
the animals they prey upon.
So far the department has
observed predator success in
a limited, “qualitative” way
to see if things are changing,
Pierce said.
“We don’t have any
smoking gun,” he said. “We
felt we needed to look at it
closer.”
The study is slated to last
five years, including rough-
ly three to four years of data
collection and a year of anal-
ysis.
The results could influ-
ence the state’s management
recommendations,
Pierce
said.
“It’s going to come down
to, how much of an effect
The 2015 drought caused
$703 million in economic
damages to Washington farm-
ers, according to an estimate
by the state Department of Ag-
riculture released Wednesday.
The report cited difficulties
in pinpointing losses and stated
the damage likely ranged be-
tween $633 million and $773
million, a 10 percent margin of
error either way.
Even with the leeway,
WSDA scientist Kelly McLain
said the report likely under-
states the drought’s impact.
“I do believe the report is
conservative in estimating the
economic damage,” said Mc-
Lain, who led the study along
with WSDA hydrologist Jac-
lyn Hancock.
The Department of Ecol-
ogy commissioned the study,
the state’s first-ever attempt to
measure a drought’s economic
impact on agriculture. In May
of 2015, WSDA estimated
drought losses in the coming
summer could reach $1.2 bil-
lion if no emergency measures
were taken.
“But much was done, by
state and federal agencies,
agriculture industry organiza-
tions, irrigation districts and
farmers themselves,” WSDA
Director Derek Sandison
wrote in an introduction to the
report.
Ironically, USDA reported
late last year that Washington
agriculture set a production
record in 2015, with crops and
livestock fetching $10.7 bil-
lion, topping by 5 percent the
record set in 2014.
WSDA didn’t attempt to
assess the overall agriculture
economy, but focused on loss-
es and expenses absorbed by
farmers due to heat and water
shortages. The report doesn’t
measure the effects of higher
commodity prices.
The department recom-
mends in its report mapping
out water rights that could
be transferred in the next dry
year to farmers vulnerable to
drought.
“We need to be responsive
and on top of it,” McLain said.
In compiling the report,
WSDA surveyed and inter-
viewed farmers, visited fields
and consulted with several
organizations. The report also
draws on figures from USDA’s
National Agricultural Statistics
Service.
Among the findings:
• A majority of the damage,
$501 million, was attributed to
lower production for 15 crops
that take up 77 percent of the
state’s planted acreage.
The crops that suffered the
most economic damages were
wheat, $199.4 million; apples,
$61 million; cherries, $38.8
million; feed corn, $36.4 mil-
lion; and hay, $31.2 million.
• Farmers in the Roza Ir-
rigation District in the Lower
Yakima Valley suffered dam-
ages totaling $75.78 million.
The losses could have been
worse. Farmers activated 45
emergency wells. The wells
hadn’t been used in 10 years.
Maintaining and operating the
wells cost farmers an estimat-
ed $972,000.
The irrigation district spent
$190,000 a day to lease water
and add 14 days of irrigation.
The cost of leasing the water is
not reflected in the report.
• Dairy farmers reported
buying more feed, leasing
more grazing land and getting
less milk. WSDA estimated
their damages at $33.27 mil-
lion.
WSDA received few re-
sponses to surveys sent to cat-
tlemen and did not estimate
damages suffered by beef
producers. Poultry losses also
were not assessed.
• Farmers in the Wapato
Irrigation Project in Yakima
County suffered damages to-
taling $32.96 million. Most of
that, $20.6 million, was in lost
apple production. The Bureau
of Indian Affairs manages the
district.
• Farmers in the Kittitas
Reclamation District in the
Kittitas Valley saw damages
totaling $11.4 million, mostly
in sharply reduced Timothy
hay cuttings. The Roza and
Kittitas districts are made up
of water-right holders who had
their supplies severely cur-
tailed by the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation.
• Skagit County farmers
suffered economic damages
of $27.2 million, according to
an estimate supplied by Wash-
ington State University Ex-
tension. Farmers grow a wide
variety of vegetables, berries
and seed crops in the Western
Washington county.
• The drought reduced the
yield, size and quality of ber-
ries. Red raspberry growers
suffered $13.9 million in eco-
nomic damages, while blue-
berry growers suffered $7.76
million in losses, according to
WSDA.
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