Capital press., July 07, 2017, Page 12, Image 12

12 CapitalPress.com
July 7, 2017
Wildfires: Leave ranchers critical of firefighting efforts
WILDFIRES from Page 1
“We got the cows to safe
pasture at the house. Without
moving them they’d probably
all be dead,” Linville said.
The next morning she found
three cows and their calves that
had been missing and marveled
that they had survived.
“There was no preparation
for what was going to happen
when the fire reached the val-
ley floor. No line being dug, no
water being put on it,” she said.
Linville said about 5,500
of 6,000 acres of pasture and
rangeland that she and her
husband, David, own, were
burned.
He works for a company
teaching nuclear proliferation
detection and was in the Do-
minican Republic, she said.
“Every time there’s a disas-
ter, he’s somewhere else, but
my neighbors take good care
of me,” she said.
She’s frustrated no attempt
was made to save her graz-
ing lands, but said the homes,
cattle and orchards that were
saved are more important.
Sachs, 32, helped Linville
dig fire breaks and protect her
hay stacks with water hoses.
Other neighbors did the same
at their ranches.
‘Unhappy people’
The fire could have been
stopped where it crossed the
road but Douglas County fire-
fighters blew a hose and re-
treated, Sachs said. They also
were squabbling over where
the fire district line ended, he
said.
Sachs lost a few bales of
hay and the edges of his al-
falfa field were scorched. He
blamed the leadership for fire
agencies missing “three op-
portunities” to stop the fire be-
fore it spread significantly and
reached Grant County.
“There are a lot of unhappy
people up here,” he said.
“I can’t address that. I don’t
know of any information to
lend either way. We have as
many resources organized as
we can. We run into different
opinions on most fires and are
always told we could do bet-
ter,” Nick Mickel, firefighter
spokesman, said when asked to
respond to Sachs’ comments.
“I know radio and cell cov-
erage in that area is pretty lim-
ited. There’s steep canyons and
gullies and communication
was a real challenge,” Mickel
said.
By Wednesday, June 28,
firefighters from many agen-
cies were on the scene.
“They had lots of crews
here willing to do fire lines and
stop places but were getting
no direction,” said Dave Bill-
ingsley, 74, a Palisades ranch-
er. He said all of the 37,891
acres burned in the Sutherland
and Straight Hollow fires was
public or private rangeland for
cattle.
‘We were fortunate’
“We were fortunate. A lot
of retardant drop (Wednesday)
kept it from spreading toward
Photos by Dan Wheat/Capital Press
The main parts of lightning-caused wildfires were still burning June 29 in rangeland above the mouth of Moses Coulee and State Highway 28, 15 miles southeast of
Wenatchee, Wash.
Wildfires burn 46,621 acres
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Palisades, Wash., rancher Justin Sachs swaths alfalfa in the Moses Coulee on June 29 after wildfires
in the area were under control. He’s critical of firefighting efforts.
our cattle. A fence burned,
otherwise we’re good,” Bill-
ingsley’s wife, Charlotte, said.
Thursday morning, ranch-
er Jan Biram stopped at the
Linvilles on her way down
coulee.
“We moved 78 (cows)
yesterday, short 16 with 10 of
those we think are OK but six
we don’t know about. They
weren’t in a good spot but they
may turn out fine,” she told
Linville, adding, “My hus-
band’s daughter in Eltopia has
pasture for six pair and you’re
welcome to it.”
After Biram left, Linville
said she’s not sure about board-
ing out her cows where she
can’t check them every day.
Eltopia is 100 miles southeast.
She said she’ll probably graze
them on 40 acres of grass that
was going to be hay.
“We won’t sell as much
hay as we normally do,” she
said.
Friday, Biram said five of
their other six cows and some
bulls were found. Her hus-
band, Mike, spent a couple
days riding range looking for
them.
They lost a lot of range-
land in Whiskey Dick Can-
yon that’s “pretty well burned
out,” she said.
Bill Sieverkropp, 58, a
rancher atop Monument Hill
south of Moses Coulee, said
one of his 150 mother cows
died in the fire.
“We feel pretty fortunate.
It could have been a lot worse.
We got the cows out as flames
were coming over the ridge,”
he said. “We moved them to
summer fallow where they
were safe.”
He said his cousin lost 50
to 75 acres of wheat and that
other neighbors had wheat
fields scorched on the edges.
“It was still green enough
that it wouldn’t get going.
Another week or two and it
would have a whole different
story,” he said.
Rangeland lost
Sieverkropp said he’s most
frustrated with the firefight-
ers’ lack of effort to put the
fire out.
“There were a whole bunch
of firefighters on Wednesday
sitting on roads watching
the fire, on Overen Road off
Organics: Fruits and vegetables
continue to lead way in food sales
ORGANICS from Page 1
Organic fruits and vegeta-
bles held onto the top position
in the organic line-up with
$15.6 billion in sales, 36.3
percent of all organic food
sales. Those sales were 8.4
percent higher year over year,
more than double the 3.3 per-
cent growth in their non-or-
ganic counterparts, and now
account for 15 percent of all
produce sales.
Organic meat and poultry
sales shot up 17 percent to
$991 million for the catego-
ry’s biggest gain ever. Meat
and poultry is one of the small-
est organic food categories,
but organic poultry moved
beyond many years of supply
shortages and grew at a rate of
23 percent — compared with
9.2 percent in 2015.
The other smallest catego-
ry, condiments, is not a head-
liner but is showing interest-
ing trends, according to OTA.
“Dips and spices both hit
home runs, recording the
U.S. organic food sales and growth
(Billions of dollars)
Year
Organic
food sales
Total
food sales
2007
’08
’09
’10
’11
’12
’13
’14
’15
2016
$18.2
21.6
22.5
24.1
26.3
29
32.3
36
39.8
43.1
$628.2
659
669.7
677.4
714
740.5
760.5
787.6
808
812.9
Organic percent
of total sales
2.9%
3.3
3.4
3.6
3.7
3.9
4.3
4.6
4.9
5.3
Source: Organic Trade Association 2017 Organic Industry Survey
Capital Press graphic
“Dips and spices both hit home runs, recording the highest
growth rates within the food categories.” — OTA
highest growth rates within
the food categories,” OTA re-
ported. Organic dips posted 41
percent growth in 2016 with
$57 million in sales, and sales
of organic spices increased 35
percent to $193 million.
The survey did note over-
supply in produce, poultry,
dairy and eggs in 2016. The
change in the organic mar-
ketplace from undersupply to
oversupply “simply exempli-
fied the ebb and flow of sup-
ply and demand as the indus-
try grows,” OTA stated.
“The biggest challenge
is how to grow at a rate that
allows for farmers to be paid
fairly for the extra work they
do in organic … while also
assuring stability of supply,
shortage versus glut, spikes in
prices versus drops in prices,”
said Matt Dillon, Clif Bar’s
director of agricultural policy
and programs.
Growth in the organic sec-
tor also continues to translate
into jobs across the supply
chain, OTA stated.
More than 65 percent of
organic farms sold product in
wholesale markets in 2016,
and more than 60 percent of
organic businesses with more
than five employees reported
an increase in full-time em-
ployment with plans to con-
tinue increasing staff in 2017.
“Organic offers in many
cases the choice for growth
and more viable, stable prices
for farmers and food manu-
facturers,” Batcha said.
WENATCHEE, Wash. — Small fires about 15 miles
south of Wenatchee caused by lightning strikes on June
26 grew together into larger wildfires the next two days,
threatening dozens of homes and burning 46,621 acres of
rangeland and sage grouse habitat.
The fires expanded rapidly because of wind and an
abundance of grass and brush, increased by cool spring
weather. Winds died down on June 29, a big help in con-
trolling the fires.
The Sutherland Canyon Fire, near Palisades in the
Moses Coulee in Douglas and Grant counties, was list-
ed at 47,500 acres but was downgraded to 29,433 acres
after it was determined it had not grown together with
the Straight Hollow Fire, which was 8,458 acres. They
came within a quarter mile of each other, fire officials
said. Both fires were under control by June 29 and listed
at 90 percent contained on July 2.
Baird Springs Road,” he said.
“I never saw one fire rig leave
the county road to go out and
even try to put the fire out. If
they could not fight the fire
with a bulldozer or airplane,
they were not going to leave
the county road to do it.
“I complained and said
we need to get brush rigs up
there. It fell on deaf ears. No
one would leave the road. In
the last conversation I had
with a fire boss, he said they’d
lost firefighters in the past and
have to think about safety. I
totally agree with that, but
you can still fight the fire and
be safe. They don’t seem to
understand that rangeland is
part of our livelihood.”
When fire jumped Overen
Road and burned a small
patch on the other side, fire-
fighters used a bulldozer to
build a line around it when the
job could have been done just
as well with shovels, he said.
He said a U.S. Forest Ser-
vice fire manager told him
that they want to know what
jurisdiction a given area is
before they fight fire because
they want to know where their
money will come from.
“It’s all about money. It’s
become a business more than
something you do to help your
neighbor,” Sieverkropp said.
“We need a change in fire
management philosophy. It
would be great to explain it to
The Donald (President Don-
ald Trump). He’s a kind of
down-to-earth, practical ‘let’s
get things done’ type of guy.”
Duvall: Trump affords
chance to achieve changes
DUVALL from Page 1
Duvall said he and other
AFBF staff will continue to
make sure members of Con-
gress and the Trump admin-
istration hear farmers’ stories
and about the issues import-
ant to them.
“But when you call them
and back it up, that means all
the difference in the world,”
he said. “We just need you to
play your part.”
Duvall, who has met with
Trump twice, told Capi-
tal Press that the president
“speaks our language in a lot
of ways. He’s a businessman,
he understands trade and
wants to make ... trade fair
for everybody. Trade is a big
issue for agriculture.”
He also said Trump is
“really heavy on regulatory
reform and getting rid of reg-
ulations that get in the way of
small businesses and farms
and ranches. That’s our kind
of language.”
He said Agriculture Sec-
retary Sonny Perdue, who is
also from Georgia, is only
the fourth of the 30 USDA
secretaries that farmed as an
adult.
“That means we’ve had
26 other ag secretaries that
have never done what you
do every day,” he told pro-
ducers at the Big D Ranch in
Meridian. “(Perdue) has the
credentials to be the best ag
secretary to ever serve this
country. I think you’ll be
pleased with his progress in
his role.”
EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt “is a farmer-friend-
ly person that understands
common sense and sound
science,” he added.
“We think there’s a great
opportunity between those
three and (Interior Secretary
Ryan) Zinke to actually get
some really good things done
and fix some of the problems
we’re facing,” Duvall said.
“We have people in place
that want to support us, that
want to make changes to help
us in rural America,” he said.
“So we’ve got to contin-
ue to call them, email them
and give them evidence that
we’re standing behind them
on those issues.”