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8 CapitalPress.com April 28, 2017 Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters California Western Growers’ Nassif to be named Agriculturalist of the Year By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press SACRAMENTO — West- ern Growers chief executive officer Tom Nassif will be honored this summer as the California State Fair’s Agri- culturalist of the Year. Nassif, who took the helm at Western Growers in 2002, is being recognized for ele- vating the immigration reform debate to focus on the need for a reliable and legal workforce for agriculture, according to a news release. The fair’s Ag Adviso- ry Council also considered his work in pushing for a new specialty-crop title in the Farm Bill, helping to get the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement off the ground and opening Western Growers’ Center for Innova- tion and Technology in Sali- nas. Nassif said in a statement that he is “humbled” to re- ceive the award considering past recipients. Last year’s Dan Wheat/Capital Press File Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers, in his office in the association’s Irvine, Calif., headquarters. Nassif will be honored this summer as the California State Fair’s Agriculturalist of the Year. honoree was Sarbjit “Sarb” Johl, a founder of the Sacra- mento Valley Walnut Growers LLC. “Truly I owe my success to the pioneers of California agriculture who have come before me, and to the thou- sands of hard-working and ingenious men and women who are currently leading our industry into a new era of abundance and prosperity,” Nassif said. Nassif and others will be rec- ognized at the State Fair Gala on June 22 at Cal Expo, which raises funds for the Friends of the California State Fair Student Scholarship Program. The fair defines the Ag- riculturalist of the Year as someone who has contributed extensively and in a profes- sional capacity to Califor- nia’s agriculture industry. The nomination process is open to the public. Among other ag-related honorees this year: • Paul Draper, who re- cently retired after 46 years as the chief winemaker at the Cupertino-based Ridge Vine- yards, will receive the Wine Lifetime Achievement Award. He helped bring about a resur- gence of the old vine Zinfan- del in California. • Dutton Ranch Vineyards in Sebastopol will receive the Vineyard of the Year Award. The ranch grows 1,100 acres of premium wine grapes us- ing the Sustainable Wine- growing Program, which promotes practices that ben- efit the environment and are socially equitable as well as economically rewarding, according to the program’s website. Congressman fends off criticism of USDA budget, Oroville Dam crisis By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press REDDING, Calif. — Law- makers are working with Pres- ident Donald Trump’s admin- istration to soften the impact of a proposed 21 percent cut in the USDA’s budget, a key Western member of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee says. In particular, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., said he un- derstands concerns about how such a proposed cut would im- pact agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, but said it’s too early to form an opinion on the overall budget. “The budget is a proposal,” LaMalfa told the Capital Press. “It’s a long way to go as we work through the process.” He said President Donald Trump is listening to lawmak- ers’ concerns. “He wanted to propose a quality budget with numbers that work and that boosts the military, which I agree with,” said LaMalfa, who was in Redding on April 19 to hold a town hall meeting. T r u m p ’s proposal for the 2018 fiscal year would cut discretion- ary funding Rep. Doug to USDA by LaMalfa $4.7 billion to $17.9 billion. The current USDA budget in- cludes $25 million in discre- tionary spending for various programs, including Rural Development, food safety and the Forest Service. LaMalfa, who serves on the ag panel’s Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee, serves a vast northeastern California district that has suf- fered numerous devastating wildfires in recent years. In 2015, wildfires, most ignited by lightning, burned 186,300 acres of the Shasta-Trinity Na- tional Forest. Nancy Van Susteren, a re- tired USFS employee, said she worried the proposed cut would hamper the agency’s ability to fight fires, clear waterways to prevent flooding and complete other tasks. “I’m not sure LaMalfa sees the whole picture,” Van Suste- ren said in an interview. “My concern is for the firefighters. … If they cut the Forest Ser- vice by 20 percent, that means they’ll lose employees.” But LaMalfa said the blow could be softened if Congress passes bipartisan legislation that would treat catastrophic wildfires the same as other di- 17-2-#18 sasters when it comes to fund- ing and end the practice of “fire borrowing,” in which the Forest Service has to raid its manage- ment coffers when it exceeds its budget for firefighting. The proposal hasn’t made it out of the Senate in the past four years despite backing from then-President Barack Obama. “It would be much less of an issue” if the USFS could protect its operational budget against encroaching firefight- ing costs, LaMalfa said. Teacher Alysia Krapfel said LaMalfa opposed fixing the Oroville Dam spillway when he was in the state Assembly and asked if he would favor federal funding for repairs now. As a rice farmer LaMalfa might have had to help pay for the fixes, she said. LaMalfa said he agreed that overlooking the dam’s shortcomings was “a severe oversight,” adding that legis- lators voted based on assur- ances they received from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state De- partment of Water Resources. Courtesy California Department of Water Resources Water rushes into the diversion pool April 21 from the ravine carved out from the damaged Oroville Dam flood control spillway. The state Department of Water Resources is holding a series of meetings in Northern California to discuss repairs and reconstruc- tion of the spillways. Water agency to hold community meetings on Oroville Dam project By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press OROVILLE, Calif. — State officials are set to answer ques- tions from the public about the Oroville Dam spillway repair project during a series of com- munity meetings. Leaders from the Califor- nia Department of Water Re- sources and other experts will also take comments about the recovery process during the meetings, the first of which was this week at the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley. The meetings are part of an outreach effort that has also included communications with local leaders and interest groups, said Bill Croyle, the DWR’s acting director. “We are committed to push- ing as much information as we can out,” Croyle said in a recent news conference at the project’s command center in Oroville. The meetings will all have a similar agenda and format, beginning at 5:30 p.m. starting with presentations of informa- tion and continuing with ques- tions and answers. In addition to the Butte fairgrounds meet- ing, other gatherings will be held on the following dates: • May 2 at the Oroville Mu- nicipal Auditorium, 1200 My- ers St., Oroville. • May 3 in the Sierra Neva- da Room of the state Depart- ment of Transportation District 3 office, 703 B St., Marysville. • May 4 at the Oroville Church of the Nazarene’s fel- lowship hall, 2238 Monte Vista Ave., Oroville. • May 9 in Franklin Hall at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds, 442 Franklin Ave., Yuba City. • May 11 at the Chico Ma- sonic Family Center, 1110 W. East Ave., Chico. In addition, a similar meet- ing will be held at 1:30 p.m. May 15 at the Tsakopoulos Li- brary Galleria, 828 I St., Sacra- mento. The meetings come as the DWR on April 17 awarded a $275.4 million contract to the Omaha, Neb.-based Kiewit In- frastructure West Co. for per- manent repair work on the Or- oville Dam’s spillways, which is expected to continue through the summer. The agency wants to have its system operating by Nov. 1, the traditional start of the win- ter rainy season, officials have said. Kiewit’s bid beat out two others — Bozeman, Mont.- based Barnard Construction’s estimate of nearly $277 million and a high bid of $344.1 million from California-based Oroville Dam Constructors, according to the DWR. The agency’s latest cost es- timate for the project is $231.7 million. The state plans to fully re- pair or replace sections of the spillways, which will require multiple phases because of the enormity of the project and the fact that construction must be done during the dry months of the year, officials said. Crews have already begun to prepare ground for future phases, doing things like road construction and slope stabi- lization around future work areas. This preparation can be done regardless of spillway recovery design decisions, of- ficials said. rop-16-3-7/#5
