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CapitalPress.com
April 28, 2017
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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.
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