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CapitalPress.com
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
March 3, 2017
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editorial Board
Publisher
Editor
Managing Editor
John Perry
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O UR V IEW
Oregon’s wetlands system full of surprises
J
esse Bounds thought the
worst was over after a fi re
destroyed two barns, his
machinery and $500,000 worth of
straw last summer. In all, it was a
loss of about $1 million.
Then he tried to rebuild, and
found his troubles had only
begun. He dealt with the insurance
company and got the necessary
county building permits. But
then a neighbor complained, and
Bounds was told by the Oregon
Department of State Lands that
the 12 acres that had been farmed
for years was actually a wetlands
— a wetlands that didn’t appear
on the State Wetland Inventory
and had gone unnoticed. A permit
to mitigate the damage to the
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
Jesse Bounds of Junction City, Ore., was
caught up in the state wetlands system
when he sought to rebuild two barns after
a fi re.
wetlands would cost $57,000
per acre, a $684,000 extra bill to
restore the family’s livelihood.
Oregon landowners don’t
have a simple, reliable method to
fi nd out whether their property is
considered a wetland.
House Bill 2785 takes the
narrow approach, by exempting
the replacement of a farm building
“destroyed by fi re or other act
of God” from state wetlands
mitigation laws.
House Bill 2786 is more
expansive, creating an exemption
for any property that’s not
designated as a wetland under the
State Wetland Inventory.
We think Bounds should be
excused, and HB 2785 is clearly
written to remedy his situation.
Requiring mitigation of previously
undeclared wetlands to restore
what had been a going concern
could easily put a farm out of
business. Let’s give them a break.
We understand where some
people might think HB 2786 goes
too far, but the legislation begs a
legitimate question: If wetlands
are so important, why haven’t they
been identifi ed and mapped?
The Department of State
Lands doesn’t actively seek
out uncharted wetlands. Its
enforcement actions are based on
complaints. If neighbors hadn’t
complained, Bounds would have
rebuilt blissfully unaware of his
real trouble.
There is no defi nitive list
for county building offi cials to
consult. If a parcel is on the State
Wetland Inventory it’s a wetland,
but if it’s not it still could be?
O UR V IEW
THE FACE OF
STARVATION
U.S. has an obligation to do more in fi ght against hunger
T
his is the face of hunger. It’s
The United States of America is
save millions of lives.
hard to look at, yet if you have uniquely able to step forward and help.
Congress and the White House
a heart you should not be able
The U.S. already buys some food
need to recognize our nation’s
to look away.
for overseas aid programs, but it needs obligation to help the millions of
The little boy in the photo, Udai
to do more. According to USAID,
people who are facing starvation.
Faisal, died last year, and 1.4 million the federal agency that provides food
There is nothing we’d rather see than
other children like him in far-away
aid, 795 million people worldwide
U.S. Marines delivering shiploads of
places such as Yemen, Somalia,
suffer from chronic hunger. Although
wheat directly to the hungry people
South Sudan and Nigeria
of sub-Saharan Africa and
face the same awful fate.
We have been at war 15 years. In Afghanistan Yemen. On each bag should
Some 20.4 million people
and Iraq, we have sent our young men or be printed a U.S. fl ag and
are caught up in famine
the words: “From the People
women
into
harm’s
way
and
spent
more
than
across the region.
of the United States of
$4 trillion. We can certainly afford to spend a America.”
They need our help.
tiny fraction of that to save millions of lives.
We know the reasons
An additional outcome
— war, drought, political
of feeding people is they
corruption — but none of
will ultimately be able to
the victims were at fault.
fend for themselves and grow their
USAID already sends $2.5 billion
Last week, United Nations
own food, stemming the massive
in food aid to those in need, we as a
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
number of refugees flooding
nation can and should do more.
held out his hand and asked for
neighboring countries and the rest
It’s our obligation to humanity.
help. “We are already facing a
of the world.
We live in a land of plenty. Silos
tragedy; we must avoid it becoming
We have been at war 15 years. In
across the U.S. are bulging with
a catastrophe,” he said at a press
Afghanistan and Iraq, we have sent
excess wheat. According to the
conference. He said the U.N. needs
our young men or women into harm’s
USDA, 2.07 billion bushels of wheat
$4.4 billion by the end of March
were in storage as of December. Last way and spent more than $4 trillion.
to avoid that catastrophe. He has
We can certainly afford to spend a
year, U.S. farmers grew 2.3 billion
received $90 million.
tiny fraction of that to save millions of
bushels.
In Ethiopia alone, 10.2 million
The huge stockpile drags on wheat lives.
people are in need and about 2.1
Nobody, regardless of race
prices, which continue to hover at or
million are acutely malnourished,
or religion, deserves to die of
below farmers’ cost of production,
Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman threatening their livelihoods and
malnutrition, especially when we have
for the World Food Program, told the
the food and the resources readily
well-being. Economists estimate that
Los Angeles Times. She estimates her if nothing changes, wheat prices will
available to help them get through this
nonprofi t has only 5 percent of the
crisis.
remain low for up to fi ve years.
resources it needs in that nation alone.
Our hope is that Congress and
In a silo, that wheat is helping no
The U.N. and charities such as the
President Trump will work together
one.
World Food Program are fi ghting a
If the U.S. Congress and the Trump to provide more food aid for those in
losing battle. They need food, and they
need.
administration were to step forward,
need it now, to rescue men, women and
It’s the right thing to do, but it
buy that wheat and send it to sub-
children whose only mistake was to live Saharan Africa and other corners of
needs to be done now. Every minute,
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
the world gripped by hunger, it will
and every life, counts.
And determining whether a
piece of ground is a wetland isn’t
as easy as it might sound. In many
cases, a wetland can be bone dry
and is only identifi ed by expensive
soil tests. That’s why DSL
operates on a complaint basis,
and then places the onus on the
property owner to prove the land
is not a wetland. It’s an insidious
system.
It seems an understatement that
this system adds a certain amount
of uncertainty to the unsuspecting
property owner. It’s a mess the
state needs to fi x so that there are
no questions, no surprises.
Until then, Oregon property
owners are advised to keep peace
with their neighbors.
Readers’ views
Flood nonsense ers’ Views, Feb 17).
I agree with both about
in Klamath area labor,
trade impacting ag
On Feb. 8, the Oregon
Water Resources Depart-
ment, OWRD, issued a post
card to our farm/ranch lift-
ing water restriction in ar-
eas of the Upper Klamath
Basin.
The irony of this notice
is so obvious. The rivers are
at fl ood stage or very near
it, and OWRD fi nally lifts
the Tribal Call on the water.
As the notice indicates,
“This applies to all uses on
the listed water right, in-
cluding stock water, and do-
mestic.” This includes sur-
face water, (rivers, creeks
and springs), and ground
water (wells). Most all of
the rights list irrigation as a
listed use.
I guess this means that
those affected are now al-
lowed to also irrigate their
crops.
In other words, irriga-
tors, go forward, start your
pumps and irrigate your
crops, that is, if you can fi nd
them under all the fl ood wa-
ter. Timing is everything.
This is further evidence
of how one sided and dam-
aging the Klamath Adjudi-
cation currently is.
The local court still has
the fi nal say whether the
state’s “administrative law
judge” was correct in set-
ting such high, required in-
stream fl ows. (The admin-
istrative law judge is not in
fact a “real” judge.)
Even more recently, a
judge ordered the Bureau
of Reclamation to “fl ush”
additional amounts of water
out of Klamath Lake and
down the Klamath River to
help coho salmon. This was
being implemented as some
downstream roads were al-
ready under water. At the
last minute, this amount of
extra water was reduced,
only because of phone calls
from downstream residents
and representatives from
Congressman Doug LaMal-
fa’s offi ce.
This example is just an-
other case that defi es all
logic. A single judge and
our federal government
send extra water down the
Klamath River for fi sh in
the middle of a fl ood event.
You would certainly think a
fl ood event would contain
enough water for any fi sh
needs, including fl ush or
pulse fl ows.
It is absolutely necessary
that logic and true science
drive the decisions critical
to the survival of our local
economies.
Tom Mallams
Beatty, Ore.
Keep up the
good work,
Capital Press
Thanks for printing
Barry Flinchbaugh’s piece
(Trump a Mixed Bag for
Ag) as a response to Rebec-
ca Lampman’s letter (Read-
and share concerns that the
new administration’s pol-
icies may not align with
agriculture’s needs. During
the campaign the adminis-
tration was very clear about
what it wished to accom-
plish. So it is ironic that
agriculture, which voted
strongly for this adminis-
tration, is having second
thoughts.
In the Feb 17 issue of
the Capital Press, I learned
that the U.S. Department of
Labor estimates 70 percent
of agricultural laborers in
the U.S. are illegal. Wow!
Ag could be seriously hurt
by immigration policy! But
that statistic, 70 percent,
speaks to what the Capital
Press provides to the agri-
cultural community, name-
ly knowledge.
So keep up the good
work bringing the agricul-
tural news to us. It is our
job, the reader’s job, to
extract what we fi nd mean-
ingful. We need that knowl-
edge, unbiased facts, to
make informed decisions.
So keep it coming, guys.
And thank you!
David Duncan
Mount Angel, Ore.
Anti-GMO
commentary
reveals double
standard
The guest commentary
by Patricia Michl (“Studies
cast doubt on GMO food”
2/10/2017) exposes the dou-
ble standard that activists
continue to use in arguments
against good science and re-
search.
Michl states, “… that
GMO research results from
any university accepting
bio-corporate money are
suspect. Corporations with a
stake in biotechnology pour
copious amounts of money
into university programs.”
What the author fails to
realize is that without cor-
porate grants for research,
many universities would not
sustain their research pro-
grams, even to the benefi t of
activist causes, which many
universities openly support.
And, conversely, the au-
thor’s statement also implies
that any money for research
that comes from any an-
ti-GMO activist organiza-
tion is untainted.
This is at best a double
standard, and many in farm-
ing and ranching would ar-
gue the same point about ac-
tivist organization research
dollars being suspect in a
similar manner.
Michl spews the same
rhetoric that all activists
against GMOs spew, in that
only their research is valu-
able and should be treated as
gospel.
Norm Groot
Executive Director
Monterey Farm Bureau
Salinas Calif.