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Capital Press Editorial Board.
May 5, 2017
All other commentary pieces are
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Opinion
Editorial Board
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O ur V iew
What’s Upstream maneuvers through legal loopholes
W
e are occasionally
reminded of this truism:
What’s right and what’s
legal are two different things.
The latest reminder came in
the form of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s Office of
Inspector General report on the
What’s Upstream smear campaign
against Washington farmers. The
inspector general’s job is to make
sure the EPA stays within the
bounds of the law.
In its report, the inspector
general found that EPA had
adeptly steered the campaign
through massive loopholes in
federal law.
For example, it is against
federal law to use EPA funds to
lobby state governments. What’s
Upstream used advertising and
mounted a letter-writing campaign
to convince Washington legislators
to pass a law requiring a 100-foot
buffer along every body of water
in the state.
According to the inspector
Capital Press File
One of the billboards What’s Upstream used to insinuate that Washington farm-
ers are polluting rivers and streams and to push for a state law requiring 100-foot
buffers. Such use of federal funds is legal, according to the state attorney gener-
al and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General.
general, however, this isn’t
lobbying. It looks like lobbying,
and its aim was the same as
lobbying, but, according to the
law, it’s not lobbying. To be
lobbying, there must be a bill in
the legislature, according to the
inspector general’s analysis.
That’s a distinction without
much of a difference. It is
clear that the intent of What’s
Upstream was to convince
legislators to pass a law requiring
buffers.
It is equally clear that nearly
$500,000 in EPA money went to
the Northwest Indian Fisheries
Commission and the Swinomish
Indian tribe, which spent it on a
smear campaign against farmers
and an online letter-writing
campaign to get a buffer law
passed.
What isn’t clear is why this
isn’t considered lobbying in the
eyes of the inspector general.
“It just leaves you shaking
your head,” Jay Gordon, a dairy
farmer and policy director of
the Washington State Dairy
Federation, told our reporter,
Don Jenkins. “When we read
common words, we expect
them to have a common
understanding.”
The inspector general says
the law must be interpreted as
narrowly as possible and the lack
of a specific piece of legislation
made What’s Upstream legal.
That’s like saying a bank
robber was innocent because he
didn’t get any money. He walked
into the bank, handed a note
to the teller and waved a gun
around, but ran off without any
money when the cops arrived.
That, according to the
Idaho wants to count
flood control releases
against water rights
O ur V iew
‘Muddy’
jeans
without
the work
e find ourselves this week at the
intersection of the rural-urban
divide and fashion.
In 1873, Levi Strauss and his partner Jacob
Davis received a patent for denim work pants
with metal rivets placed at stress points to keep
them from ripping. And so were invented the
blue jeans many of us know today, tough pants
for people who did tough work.
Blue jeans have long since been the essential
wardrobe of farmers, ranchers, tradesmen,
mechanics and, well, just about anyone who
makes a living with their hands. And over
the years blue jeans have become acceptable
wear for students, retailers and office workers.
Throw on a blazer and a nice shirt, and jeans
are good for a night on the town on Saturday
and church on Sunday.
So respectable and accepted are blue jeans
in all facets of life in the West that a colleague
originally from Long Island notes that in
Oregon an invitation to a “semi-formal”
affair means she wears her dark blue jeans
and a sweater, not the cocktail dress that is de
rigueur in similar East Coast settings.
There have long been expensive designer
jeans that, beyond being constructed from
blue denim, have shared little in common with
their work-a-day cousins. That’s OK, because
they’ve made no pretense to be practical
work pants.
Until last week, when Nordstrom,
the high-end department store, started
selling “muddy” jeans. Barracuda
straight-leg jeans from Portugal, to
be exact, spattered with caked on
“mud” for $425. A matching denim
jacket is similarly priced.
National Public Radio calls it
the “price of fake authenticity,” a play
on the store’s description of the product: “Heavily
distressed medium-blue denim jeans in a comfortable
straight-leg fit embody rugged, Americana workwear
that’s seen some hard-working action with a crackled,
caked-on muddy coating that shows you’re not afraid
to get down and dirty.”
Really? What kind of knothead would think that a
person wearing a pair of jeans caked in fake mud isn’t
afraid to get dirty? What kind of knothead would think
anyone would think that?
Most farmers and ranchers we know, actually most
any working person, would be mortified to show up
inspector general’s line of
reasoning, makes the robber
innocent.
Washington’s attorney general,
Bob Ferguson, also issued a free
pass to the What’s Upstream
campaign for the same reason.
Both the state attorney general
and the federal inspector general
appear to indicate that the laws
have loopholes in need of repair.
Any time public money is used
to smear farmers — or anyone
else, for that matter — in an
effort to push legislation, that is
wrong. Legal, but wrong.
Our hope is that members of
Congress and the Washington
Legislature will follow up and
close the loopholes in the federal
and state laws.
As for What’s Upstream, the
EPA has stopped sending checks
to the groups behind the smear
campaign.
In a warped legal environment,
that’s about all we could have
hoped for.
By ROGER BATT
For the Capital Press
A
W
Nordstrom.com
“Work jeans” for those who
don’t want to get their hands
dirty.
in public looking like this unless they had just pushed
the neighbor out of a ditch or pulled someone out of a
well.
“They’re not even fashion,” said Mike Rowe, of
“Dirty Jobs” fame. “They’re a costume for wealthy
people who see work as ironic — not iconic.”
They are expensive garments for wealthy urban
consumers who apparently have no idea how clothes
actually get really dirty.
If they spent a day working in the field, on the range
or in the factory, they could get authentic dirty clothes
and the satisfaction that goes with a hard day of labor.
What would their friends think of them then?
rrowrock, Anderson
Ranch and Lucky
Peak reservoirs hold
a total capacity of 983,000
acre-feet of water for irri-
gation, recreation and oth-
er uses. As of today, over
950,000 acre-feet of water
has been released for flood
control from these reservoirs
in a well-calculated manner
to protect our residents and
prevent catastrophic flooding
of the Boise Valley. Histori-
cally, seven out of every 10
years are years where flood
control is needed.
For over 60 years, the
Boise River reservoirs have
been operated for flood con-
trol and water storage under
a congressionally approved
plan that was developed by
the federal government, the
State of Idaho and Treasure
Valley water users. During
flood season (right now),
open space is maintained in
the reservoirs for flood con-
trol to capture high runoff
and control reservoir releas-
es and river flows through
the Treasure Valley. As the
risk of flooding subsides, the
reservoirs are filled to pro-
vide water for irrigation, rec-
reation and other uses.
It is important to note
that water released for flood
control is water that we are
not able to store for future
use. This is water that is sent
down to the ocean never to
be seen again.
So why should you care?
The reason: The State of Ida-
ho has developed a theory
that water released for flood
control should count against
you as water that you are us-
ing. That’s right. This water
that cannot be stored for fu-
ture use is now supposed to
count against your storage
water rights — the amount of
irrigation water you would
normally receive during the
hot summer months.
The argument is not about
whether water should be re-
leased for flood control, it is
about how those releases are
now being accounted for due
to the state’s theory and legal
position that is challenging
Guest
comment
Roger Batt
our irrigators’ storage water
rights. Numerous water users
in the Treasure Valley have
been asking, “Why is the
state challenging the validity
of our long-standing water
rights? How can water re-
leased for flood control pur-
poses (something necessary
to protect our community)
count against us as water that
is being used?”
During the time of year
when flood control releases
have been made there hasn’t
been a high demand for irri-
gation water for crops, golf
courses, gardens or yards.
Fields and canals were un-
der snow and ice when flood
control releases began in
mid-February.
Yet during this same time,
under the State’s theory and
legal challenges, those flood
control releases would be
counted against us as water
that is being used.
2017 weather conditions
and the state’s position are
creating the “perfect storm.”
Under the state’s theory, ir-
rigation water that has been
historically available for irri-
gation purposes would now
be exhausted due to flood
control releases.
Having little-to-no stor-
age water to use would have
obvious devastating con-
sequences for the Treasure
Valley and the state. In a
year like this one, under the
state’s theory our storage
water allotments would be
exhausted by the time nat-
ural flows in the river were
depleted in June or July.
The fact that the State of
Idaho simply disregards the
reservoir operating plan de-
veloped over 60 years ago is
very troubling.
No water user who agreed
to this plan would have done
so knowing that flood con-
trol releases would be count-
ed against their water rights.
Roger Batt is executive
director of the Treasure Val-
ley Water Users Association
in Idaho.
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