May 19, 2017
CapitalPress.com
15
Inslee nixes rural rail development bill
Veto disappoints
Farm Bureau
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Wesley Hipke, recharge program
manager for the Idaho Depart-
ment of Water Resources, said
aquifer recharge will be impacted
as irrigators become more effi-
cient. He spoke during a meeting
of the Idaho Water Resource
Board in Jerome on May 2.
OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay In-
slee vetoed a bill Tuesday to
loosen restrictions on industri-
al development near intrastate
railroads in rural Eastern Wash-
ington, disappointing groups
such as the Washington Farm
Bureau, which said the legis-
lation would help farm-based
economies.
Inslee sided with an envi-
ronmental group that argued
the legislation would actually
threaten farmland.
In a veto message, the gov-
ernor said the bill might help
rural counties develop, but at
a cost. “It would undermine
our longstanding commitment
to preserve working farms and
promote our agriculture econo-
my,” he stated.
House Bill
1504
would
have allowed
rail-dependent
industries
on
land that may
Gov. Jay
now be off-lim-
Inslee
its because of the
state’s Growth
Management Act.
Farm Bureau associate di-
rector of government relations
Mark Streuli said the bill would
not have harmed agriculture.
“We’re not talking about
prime farmland,” Streuli said.
“The land we’re talking about
is right along the railroad, not
real useful for growing stuff,
but it is useful for building stuff
that might be useful for agricul-
ture.”
The legislation stemmed
from a dispute over industrial
development in Clark County.
The bill was written to apply to
only Clark County west of the
Cascade Range, but all counties
east of the Cascades.
Amber Carter, lobbyist for
the Portland Vancouver Junc-
tion Railroad, said the bill
would have opened the way for
land along the railroad to be re-
zoned, potentially creating hun-
dreds of industrial jobs in Clark
County.
She said Tuesday that she
thought the bill was going to be
signed after it passed the Dem-
ocratic-controlled House and
Republican-led Senate by wide
margins.
The railroad’s president,
Eric Temple, said in a written
statement that rezoning prop-
erty near the railroad would
generate far more revenue for
government.
“The irony is, Gov. Inslee
promotes himself as a leader
who cares about the environ-
ment, wants to create family
wage jobs, and supports school
funding, as well as other essen-
tial services, all of which this bill
would achieve,” Temple said.
More
recharge
projects
planned Oregon dairy industry builds
in Idaho trade ‘pipeline’ to SE Asia
The environmental group
Futurewise fought the bill, and
Inslee’s veto message reflected
its arguments.
Futurewise state policy di-
rector Bryce Yadon said Tues-
day that the group was most
concerned that land official-
ly designated as agricultural
lands of long-term significance
would be lost.
“We’re not trying to prevent
rural economic development,”
he said. “Our concern is that
this would take away a resource
(land) that’s really at the heart
of a growing agricultural econ-
omy.”
The bill’s prime spon-
sor, Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas,
said Inslee put protecting the
Growth Management Act over
creating jobs.
“Gov. Inslee has once again
shown that job creation and the
economic vitality of those citi-
zens who live beyond what he
can see from the top of the Se-
attle Space Needle is just not
important to him,” she said in
a written statement.
Inslee stated he was
“committed to fully support-
ing the Growth Management
Act,” but also supported
reviewing the act to see
whether rural counties could
be given more flexibility to
develop.
The House and Senate
budget proposals both include
$600,000 for such a review as
part of creating a “road map to
Washington’s future.”
Washington Public Ports
Association Executive Di-
rector Eric Johnson said in a
letter this month to Inslee that
the bill would help short-line
railroads, which in turn would
help farmers and food proces-
sors move goods.
“Short-line railroad own-
ers and operators need anoth-
er tool to be able to pursue
business opportunities that
will lead to more diverse re-
gional economies.” he wrote.
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
JEROME, Idaho — While
the abundance of available wa-
ter this year proved a blessing
in the Idaho Water Resource
Board’s efforts to recharge
the Eastern Snake River Plain
Aquifer, there’s more work to
be done in the effort to restore
and maintain aquifer levels.
And that challenge is going
to become more difficult as ir-
rigators gain efficiencies that
reduce incidental recharge,
which currently accounts for
two-thirds of aquifer recharge.
“The more that happens,
the more managed recharge
has to pick up that slack,” said
Wesley Hipke, IWRB recharge
program manager.
Hipke gave an update on
this year’s recharge efforts and
current and potential recharge
projects during the IWRB joint
committee meeting last week.
Managed recharge for the
2016-2017 water year is ex-
pected to reach 340,000 acre-
feet, well above the 250,000
acre-feet annual goal.
Current recharge projects
include five in the upper Snake
valley and five in the lower
valley with a projected cost of
$8.9 million. Potential projects
for the next fiscal year include
four in the upper valley and
five in the lower valley, includ-
ing two using water from the
Big and Little Wood rivers, at a
projected cost of $4.7 million.
Projects in the lower valley
provide “more bang for the
buck,” with water for recharge
dependably available every
year — with the exception of
the Big and Little Wood rivers,
which have available water
every three to 10 years. The
Upper Valley comes into play
in 50 percent of the years, he
said.
Though water isn’t avail-
able in some areas every year,
“they’re very important in wet
years, and recharge sites need
to be scattered throughout the
ESPA — we want to benefit
the whole aquifer,” Hipke said.
“When water is available,
we want to be able to catch it,”
he said.
When current projects are
completed in the lower val-
ley, winter capacity for re-
charge will be 850 cubic feet
per second — about 170,000
acre-feet. That’s short of the
250,000 acre-foot goal, and
IWRB is looking at develop-
ing more capacity to capture
excess water in years like this,
he said.
The minimum needed to
reach the goal of 250,000 acre-
feet is 1,100 cfs capacity, but
Hipke would like to get capaci-
ty to 1,500 cfs to 2,000 cfs.
“I basically want to double
what I have now. These proj-
ects get me a whole lot closer,”
he said.
Potential construction proj-
ects in the lower valley have the
potential to add 600 to 800 cfs.
Capacity throughout the
ESPA when this year’s proj-
ects are completed is more
than 900 cfs, but it’s harder
to translate capacity to acre-
feet benefit in the upper valley
because available water is less
dependable and the recharge
period is normally only 30
days.
Capital Press
Representatives of Ore-
gon’s dairy industry recently
completed a trade mission to
Vietnam, Malaysia and Singa-
pore, where they were build-
ing a “pipeline” to sell artisan
cheese in Southeast Asia.
Dairy processors from Or-
egon, Utah and
Arizona, along
with govern-
ment officials
and other in-
dustry experts,
traveled to the
three countries Pete Kent
from April 22
to May 4.
“The trade missions are
part of a bigger picture. The
bigger picture is allowing
small- and medium-sized
firms to enter the export mar-
ket,” said Pete Kent, execu-
tive director of the Oregon
Dairy and Nutrition Council.
The council has organized
several trade missions to the
region in recent years — join-
ing with representatives from
nearby states — to meet with
food distributors and create a
critical mass of demand for
Western dairy products.
“We realized Oregon alone
is not going to have the vol-
ume, particularly in artisan
cheese, to build the market,”
said Kent.
Cheesemakers and other
dairy processors in Oregon
already export goods to Asia,
but these opportunities often
occur in isolation, he said.
The council is trying to
create an ongoing, reliable
connection between Oregon
dairy producers and consum-
ers in Southeast Asia, an area
with a newly burgeoning mid-
dle class and demand for pro-
tein-rich foods.
“Here we are, 12 hours
away from that,” Kent said.
Reducing the cost of ship-
ping U.S. dairy products
would make them more af-
fordable in the region, im-
proving their marketability,
he said.
Air freight is expensive,
so consolidating pallet loads
of dairy products from sever-
al companies would be more
cost-effective, Kent said.
Eventually, given enough
demand, transporting dairy
products on ocean contain-
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Water is released April 14 from Lucky Peak Reservoir on the Boise
River system for flood control.
Idaho Supreme Court to decide
Treasure Valley flood control issue
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Pete Kent/Oregon Dairy and Nutrition Council
Participants sample cheeses from the U.S. during an April 25 trade
show in Vietnam. Representatives of the Oregon dairy industry
recently returned from a trade mission to Southeast Asia, where
they visited food distributors in Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.
er ships could further bring
down the cost, particularly
for hard cheeses with a longer
shelf life, he said.
“By combining our efforts,
we can bring several cheese-
makers together,” Kent said.
Cheese isn’t a tradition-
al component of Southeast
Asian diets, so expatriates
from the U.S., Europe and
elsewhere would likely be the
initial target demographic for
artisan cheeses, he said.
However, the region has
experience with incorporating
foreign foods into domestic
cuisine. For example, Viet-
nam’s colonial past intro-
duced the country to French
baguettes and other breads.
Aside from cheese, the
council is also trying to export
U.S. ice cream and dairy in-
gredients such as lactose and
whey.
There also may be an op-
portunity to manufacture nov-
el products, such as flavored
butters and drinkable yogurts,
that are proving popular in
Southeast Asia, said Kent.
“What can we learn over
there that we can bring back
here?” he said.
Singapore is a particularly
attractive destination for Ore-
gon dairy products, given its
low barriers to trade and small
land base, which forces the
nation to rely on food imports,
Kent said.
Vietnam and Malaysia
have higher import hurdles
and their cooling and distri-
bution infrastructure aren’t as
developed, he said.
The two countries are
nonetheless appealing export
markets since their humid cli-
mates aren’t conducive to sus-
taining large domestic dairy
industries, he said.
As a follow-up to the
trade mission, the council
hopes to have dairy proces-
sors send four to six sample
shipments of their products
to the three Southeast Asian
countries.
Such samples could help
determine which goods are
popular among consumers
there and how they could best
be promoted, Kent said.
The council also wants to
hire a consultant — possibly
using a USDA grant — to co-
ordinate shipments to South-
east Asian distributors from
U.S. dairy companies, easing
the export process, he said.
“Being mostly family op-
erations, they’re doing two,
three, four jobs each,” Kent
said.
BOISE — The Idaho Su-
preme Court could decide this
year how Boise River system
reservoir water released to
prevent flooding should be
accounted for.
Treasure Valley irrigators
say water released for flood
control purposes should not
be counted against their reser-
voir storage rights.
The Idaho State Depart-
ment of Water Resources says
it should, and the two sides
have fought over the issue for
several years.
Judge Eric Wildman, pre-
siding judge of the Snake
River Basin Adjudication
Court, ruled in favor of the
state last summer.
Irrigators have appealed
that decision to the state Su-
preme Court, and both sides
say a decision could be issued
before the end of the year.
In a second, related deci-
sion that went in favor of the
irrigators, Wildman ruled that
a water right exists for water
that is stored in the reservoirs
following flood control re-
leases.
He sent that issue back to
a special court master to de-
cide the priority date of those
water rights. That ruling is
stayed until the Supreme
Court decides the major issue
of how flood control releases
should be accounted for.
The Treasure Valley Wa-
ter Users Association, which
is representing irrigators on
the issue, is using this year’s
unusually high river flows to
point out the danger the state’s
stance poses to irrigators.
TVWUA Executive Di-
rector Roger Batt pointed out
that more than 1 million acre-
feet of water has already been
released to prevent flooding
in the valley.
The system’s three reser-
voirs have a combined storage
capacity of 983,000 acre-feet.
The water releases began
when fields and canals were
mostly still under snow and
ice and too wet to work the
land, Batt said.
Irrigators in the region rely
on natural flow in the Boise
River until June in an average
year and then turn to water
stored in the reservoir to fin-
ish the season.
Under the state’s stance,
irrigators’ reservoir storage
rights would already be ex-
hausted, Batt told Capital
Press.
“Applying the state’s
theory, we would have zero
storage water for the irriga-
tion season (this year),” he
said. “If that came to frui-
tion, we would literally have
exhausted all of our storage
water rights because of flood
control releases this year.”
IDWR Deputy Director
Mathew Weaver said the de-
partment feels vindicated by
Wildman’s ruling. The many
public comments the depart-
ment used to receive on the
issue have mostly evapo-
rated since the decision, he
said.
In his ruling, Wildman
wrote that the arguments put
forth by water users “would
effectively transfer water
right distribution in the basin
from the (IDWR) director to
the federal government....”
Aside from being con-
trary to the prior appropri-
ation doctrine, Wildman
wrote, “this would cripple
the director’s ability to ef-
fectively distribute water
under our system of water
rights administration.”
Weaver said the depart-
ment is still hopeful the sides
can reach a settlement, but
Batt said any settlement offer
that includes subordinating
senior water rights to junior
rights is a non-starter.
Industry hopes for wheat yield increase as season progresses
Growers report
good moisture
conditions
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The USDA projects lower
wheat yields for Washington
and Idaho compared to last
year, but industry officials say
they are hopeful those num-
bers will improve by harvest.
Based on May 1 conditions,
the USDA National Agricul-
tural Statistics Service projects
the average winter wheat yield
in Washington will drop from
78 bushels per acre last year to
67 this year.
Washington Grain Com-
mission CEO Glen Squires
said a lower yield “totally”
makes sense. Last year’s aver-
age yield was nearly a record,
due to good weather.
“I don’t know that anyone
was anticipating we’d have
another near-record (year),”
Squires said.
But that 67 bushel estimate
could increase to around 70,
Squires said, noting it’s only
the USDA’s first yield esti-
mate.
With the exception of two
drought years, average yields
have ranged from 65 to 71
bushels an acre in recent years,
he said.
“It’s still a long ways to
harvest,” he said.
Mike Eagle, a Washington
Grain Commission member
who farms 1,200 acres north of
Almira, Hartline and Wilbur in
Eastern Washington, isn’t cer-
tain what yield to expect yet.
“Half of my wheat looks
good and the other half is in
need of some mild weather,”
he said. “We’ve got lots of
moisture, so there’s good po-
tential for a good crop.”
That moisture delayed Ea-
gle by more than a month. He
usually is in his fields around
April 1, but got started about
May 1.
“People are getting stuck
and it’s wet,” he said.
Eagle was spraying his
winter wheat for weeds and
stripe rust, and expected to
make a second application to
combat rust, which can reduce
yields.
“If you don’t, it’ll destroy
your crop,” he said.
Winter wheat yield in Ida-
ho was expected to average 85
bushels per acre, down about 9
bushels from last year.
Yield is expected to av-
erage 59 bushels per acre in
Oregon, up 9 bushels from last
year.
Farmers report the wheat
crop came through the winter
in generally good condition,
said Blake Rowe, Oregon
Wheat CEO.
“We are encouraged by
the good moisture conditions
we are seeing in Oregon,”
Rowe said. “It is too early to
speculate on the NASS es-
timates for the harvest, but
we hope they are correct. We
will just have to give it a little
more time.”
Eagle is cautiously opti-
mistic for the season.
“We just need some warm
weather — not hot weather,
warm weather,” he said. “I’m
superstitious, so I don’t like
to jinx myself.”