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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 2017)
6 CapitalPress.com August 4, 2017 Editorials are written by or approved by members of the Capital Press Editorial Board. All other commentary pieces are the opinions of the authors but not necessarily this newspaper. Opinion Editorial Board Editor & Publisher Managing Editor Joe Beach Carl Sampson opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion O ur V iew NAFTA negotiations: Handle with care T rade agreements can best be compared to clocks in their complexity. Negotiated over years, treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement are as complicated as they are important to the signatories. Though they address many industries, their impact on U.S. agriculture are particularly important, since farm commodities and products represent a positive trade balance with many nations. From the perspective of U.S. agriculture, the results of NAFTA, which has been in effect 23 years, have been mixed. It has benefited some commodities the U.S. sells to one trade partner and hurt trade with the other partner Associated Press File Tom Vilsack told the House Agricul- ture Committee last week that Mexico is the largest export market for U.S. dairy products and the North Ameri- can Free Trade Agreement is why. in the deal. Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, last week laid out the impact NAFTA has had on U.S. dairy. The export of dairy products to Mexico since 1995 has increased tenfold. The nation now purchases $1.2 billion in dairy products from the U.S., including nearly half of all nonfat dry milk exports, 31 percent of cheese exports and 38 percent of butterfat exports. By any measure, that makes Mexico the most important export market for U.S. dairy farmers. Negotiators need to remember that as they rewrite NAFTA. At the same time, dairy exports to Canada have struggled under NAFTA. Canada has a unique dairy market setup whose underlying theme appears to be protecting the Canadian industry at the expense of U.S. farmers. The recent spat over ultrafiltered milk — which is left over after butter is made — illustrates that the U.S. and Canada are not on the same page when it comes to dairy trade. By reclassifying, and thereby repricing, ultrafiltered milk, Canadian regulators have effectively cut many U.S. producers out of that market. Canadians say the move isn’t addressed in NAFTA. U.S. producers say it should be. Other agricultural commodities have also had mixed results under NAFTA. U.S. apples, potatoes, wine, lumber, sugar and wheat have encountered trade problems with Mexico, Canada, or both. An effective NAFTA would have avoided those problems and others facing a variety of O ur V iew A mother cow stands near her dead calf in a grazing area in Stevens County, Wash. This sight has become increasingly common in northeast Washing- ton, which now has at least 15 wolfpacks. Good news from the ports he Pacific Maritime Association says it has reached a three-year contract extension with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. That’s good news for farmers in the Northwest. The shipment of feed, food and fiber to customers in Asia and beyond is fundamental to Western farmers. A long list of crops including hay, beef, pork, Christmas trees, apples, berries, potatoes and nuts are all shipped from West Coast ports. It was three years ago that a labor dispute at the ports led to a work slowdown that cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars because they couldn’t ship their crops. Perishable fruit had to be dumped, hay crops piled up and producer income fell. Worst of all, the disruption cost farmers market share as trading partners looked for new vendors. There are plenty of foreign competitors ready to step up. Japan started buying hay from Argentina. Korea found new sources of meat during the 2014-2015 port slowdown. Losses in meat exports alone were in the hundreds of millions of dollars each month. “Agricultural exporters are greatly relieved that we have now removed one of the primary motivations for the West Coast meltdown of a few years ago,” Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition in Washington, D.C., told Capital Press. The contract extension covers workers at all 29 West Coast container ports. It extends until 2022 the current pact, which is set to expire in 2019. In light of the damage it caused, the work slowdown was a misguided strategy. It hurt producers, manufacturers and retailers. It hurt port communities. It hurt the longshoremen. We hope the contract extension signals an end to the foolishness that nearly crippled Associated Press File this country’s agricultural trade with the Terminal 18 at the Port of Seattle. The International Longshore and Warehouse Pacific Rim. Union and the Pacific Maritime Association have extended their contract until 2022. T Idaho’s water accounting procedures protect state’s sovereignty By GARY SPACKMAN For the Capital Press O n May 4, some wa- ter user organizations and delivery entities predicted in a Capital Press guest opinion that there would be “little-to-no storage wa- ter” for Boise River irrigators this summer. They said, “this year’s weather conditions” and the State of Idaho’s water ac- counting procedures “are cre- ating a ‘perfect storm’” that will have “devastating conse- quences,” and irrigators’ “stor- age water allotments” will be “exhausted by the time natural flows in the river were deplet- ed in June or July.” As it turns out, all of those dire “predictions” were wrong. Let’s look at the facts: Flood control releases have ended, the Boise River Reser- voirs have filled, and the Bu- reau of Reclamation (USBR) confirmed on July 20 that all irrigators received full stor- age water allotments. There is more than enough water in Guest comment Gary Spackman the reservoirs for the entire ir- rigation season — for crops, for lawns, for golf courses, and for gardens — and to maintain instream flows in the Boise River. Further, since storage water use did not begin until well into the irrigation season, much of the stored water will not be used this year, but rath- er will be “carried over” for future use. Is this unusual in flood years? No. As common sense tells us, in flood years there is more than enough water to refill the reservoirs after flood control releases end. And, if operational decisions result in a failure to fully refill the res- ervoirs, the USBR makes up shortfalls in irrigators’ storage water allotments with water the USBR holds in uncontract- ed storage space. The dire predictions from last spring were based on alle- gations from some water user organizations that the state “developed a theory” of water accounting that “challenges our irrigators’ storage water rights” and “disregards the reservoir operating plan devel- oped over 60 years ago.” The state’s system of ac- counting for water storage and use in the Boise River Basin is not new — it was implement- ed more than 30 years ago and has accounted for water stor- age and use every year since implementation. The state’s accounting system protects all water rights and accommo- dates the “reservoir operating plan” by allowing the USBR to use flood water captured in the reservoirs to provide irri- gators with full storage water allotments. Some water users are ad- vocating for changes in the state’s accounting system that would injure other water users and put the federal govern- ment in charge of the use and development of Idaho’s water. The federal reservoir sys- tem is operated for two dis- tinctly different and often-con- flicting purposes — flood control under federal law, and storage of water under state law. The state’s accounting system reconciles the conflict and keeps legal control of the water in the state’s hands. The water user organiza- tions seeking change would give the federal government fi- nal authority to decide wheth- er water that could be used or stored in Idaho will be sent downstream to benefit other states or to satisfy federal pol- icies. Contrary to assertions by critics of the method of ac- counting, the issue is not about water shortage, it is about maintaining state sovereignty over Idaho’s water. We believe control over Idaho’s water should remain in the hands of the State of Idaho. Gary Spackman is the director of the Idaho Depart- ment of Water Resources. industries cited by the Trump administration in announcing its intent to revisit the agreement. The U.S. beef industry is perhaps unique in that it has thrived under NAFTA in both Mexico and Canada. That success also needs to be considered an preserved as negotiators open talks. For farmers and ranchers, there is plenty to talk about in renegotiating NAFTA. For other industries, there is plenty as well. Our hope is that, in re-opening those talks the progress that has been made under NAFTA is not lost in the shuffle. Trade deals are complex documents that must be handled with a clockmaker’s care. NAFTA is no different. Courtesy of Len McIrvin The merciful bullet By LEN MCIRVIN For the Capital Press Guest s I looked into the comment dark, pain-filled, Len McIrvin pleading eyes of the calf lying on the ground in a dense thicket, many calf, she could have lived thoughts flashed through for days, or lived until the my mind. This had been wolves came back and a strong, healthy heifer started eating her alive. calf (in human terms, she With tears in my eyes, I am would have been a 5- or asking all the good friends, 6-year-old girl — halfway neighbors and citizens in between birth and puberty, our area, state and nation with hopefully her whole for help in ending this sit- life ahead of her). uation. As I looked at the calf’s God has said He put ripped and torn, blood- man on earth to have do- soaked body, with her minion over the animals. shoulder ripped from its For those of you who be- joint, her hindquarters and lieve there is a Lord, you her back and upper leg must assume this responsi- deeply punctured and lac- bility and demand that this erated with dozens of wolf terrible carnage ends and bites, I had to ask myself, that our predators are man- “Why?” aged to the point that our Why is this becoming herds and flocks, our pets a commonplace event for and our wonderful herds of cattlemen and sheepmen game animals can survive. all over the West as they There are only 3 factors see their herds ravaged by involved in controlling wolves? the population density of The mother cow wolves: mournfully bellows to her 1. The first factor is dis- unmoving, fatally wound- ease and parasites, which ed calf. Her udder is swol- invariably come when len with milk but is never wolf population reaches its again to be suckled by her saturation point (these are baby. Showing her love transmittable to humans). and concern, the mother 2. The second factor cow stands watch over her is starvation. The starva- calf all day long, refusing tion factor kicks in at the to leave the area where it point when there is no food was attacked by wolves. source available. At this Her grief-stricken cries point, they become can- haunt me as she continues nibalistic and start eating to call to her dying baby. each other, thereby con- Once again I ask my- trolling their own popula- self, “Why?” Why this tion. terrible waste to satisfy the 3. The third factor and desire of a few people who the most viable and effec- just hope to hear a wolf tive population control of howl? wolves is man; but in to- I couldn’t help but think day’s political correctness, “Why” once again as the man has been taken out of state Department of Fish the equation. This is the and Wildlife officer asked scenario we are facing to- my grandson if he could day. dispatch the victim, stating As a cattleman who that he would then trans- has been involved with port the body to the dump. cattle all my life — nearly What a waste of a healthy, three-quarters of a centu- young calf to end up in that ry, I am asking for your place where she will rot or help as we deal with the be eaten by scavengers. consequences of an ex- I looked again at those ploding wolf population. dark, pain-filled and plead- Local control is the only ing eyes of the calf as my answer. Let’s do every- grandson compassionately thing possible to assure placed the Merciful Bul- that each county sheriff let between them. Even has complete control and though this is an experi- is totally in charge of all ence I have lived through the wolf predation that af- over 100 times, I still fects his citizens and their cannot accept this merci- property. less killing of our herd by Len McIrvin is a wolves. partner in the Diamond M Wolves kill whatever Ranch near Laurier, Wash. they want to kill, but death He’s a member of the Ste- by wolves is slow, and vens County Cattlemen’s horrible, and a long time Association in northeast- coming. In the case of this ern Washington. A