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CapitalPress.com
October 13, 2017
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Idaho
High school restarts its ag ed
program after 50-year pause
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
CALDWELL, Idaho —
After a five-decade hiatus,
Caldwell High School has an
agriculture program again.
Caldwell, Idaho’s sixth
largest city, is located in Can-
yon County, one of the state’s
smallest counties in size but
in the top five when it comes
to farm cash receipts.
But CHS has not had an
ag program since the Cald-
well School District was split
in the 1960s.
Ag industry leaders wel-
comed the news and offered
to support the program and
help it grow.
“I think it’s great that
they’ve got the program go-
ing again. If they need it, I’ll
be glad to help in any way
I can,” said Darrell Bolz, a
retired legislator and former
University of Idaho agricul-
tural extension agent who
is involved with several
farm-related groups.
Bolz was among a hand-
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Kaycee Scherger, right, a Caldwell High School ag teacher,
speaks to Darrell Bolz, a retired University of Idaho agricultural
extension agent, and Christine Miller, a representative of Dari-
gold, Oct. 3 at the southwestern Idaho school. CHS has restarted
its ag program after a 50-year hiatus.
ful of ag industry members
who showed up for an Oct. 3
advisory committee meeting
at the school hosted by the
program’s instructor, Kaycee
Scherger.
All of them offered to as-
sist the program.
The idea to restart the pro-
gram started last year when
Shalene French took over as
district superintendent.
French, whose father is a
cattle rancher in East Idaho,
said she couldn’t believe the
school didn’t have an ag pro-
gram.
“When I realized Cald-
well didn’t have one, I ... was
surprised,” she said. “Why
wouldn’t we? This is one of
the main farming counties in
Idaho.”
Caldwell farmer Sid Free-
man helped French get the
program started.
“It’s fantastic that Cald-
well School District has
re-established its ag educa-
tion program,” said Freeman,
the National FFA Alumni
Council vice president for the
western region of the U.S.
He said an ag program is
not only for rural kids who
are more likely to understand
agriculture.
“It’s also for the city kids
who don’t know anything
about agriculture and where
their food comes from,”
Freeman said. “They need
to know. It will give them an
awareness of what’s driving
the economy right there in
their own back yard.”
Scherger, who was raised
on a cattle ranch in Wyoming,
moved to Idaho this summer
to oversee the school’s ag
program and started teaching
introductory classes in Au-
gust.
“I’m very excited about
this program and I have some
students who are very excited
about it,” she said.
The program has almost
200 students and about 15 are
active in FFA.
Scherger said the school
expects to get its FFA charter
next spring and she hopes to
have a greenhouse next se-
mester. She is the lone teach-
er right now, but she plans to
significantly expand the pro-
gram.
“We’re going to have a
big FFA chapter once we get
it going,” she said.
French said there is a lot
of industry support for the
program.
“I do think it’s going to
take off,” she said.
Scherger said she’s look-
ing for guidance and ideas
from local farmers and ag-re-
lated businesses. She can be
reached by email at kscherg-
er@caldwellschools.org.
Bureau will ask water board to help fund water storage study
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Lucky Peak reservoir is shown in this April photo. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is working with state
and local water officials to find ways to increase water storage capacity on the Boise River system. The
raising of Lucky Peak and the system’s two other reservoirs by small amounts is one option.
drainage is a board priority.
“We’re working with the
Bureau of Reclamation to
see if there is ... any way
we can find some additional
storage on the system,” he
said. “We can certainly use
some more water if we can
capture it.”
Creating more storage ca-
pacity is also a top priority
for farmers and other irriga-
tors in the region, said Roger
Batt, executive director of
the Treasure Valley Water
Users Association.
He said only about 25
percent of the water that
passes through the Boise
River is stored in the sys-
tem’s three major reservoirs,
which have a combined stor-
age capacity of just under 1
million acre-feet.
About 1.8 million acre-
feet of water was sent down-
river this year to prevent
flooding in the Boise area.
“That’s water we’ll never
see again,” Batt said. “We
would have liked to have
been able to capture at least
some of that.”
The population of the
Treasure Valley area in
southwestern Idaho is pro-
jected to grow from about
650,000 now to more than 1
million people in the next 25
years.
“We’ll always be advo-
cates for additional storage
SAGE Fact #145
Did you know that the Port of Morrow
Warehousing ships approximately 6,000
export containers, 7,200 domestic truck
loads and 1,200 rail cars annually.
41-3/100
BOISE — The U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation is
expected to ask the Idaho
Water Resource Board this
month to provide matching
funds for a proposed study
that would seek ways to
store more water on the Boi-
se River system.
The study would cost
$5.6 million and would re-
quire a 50 percent match
from non-federal partners,
such as the IWRB and irri-
gation districts.
IWRB Chairman Roger
Chase told Capital Press that
finding ways to store more
water in the Boise River
capacity,” said Clinton Pline,
president of the TVWUA’s
board of directors and a
farmer. “We may not need
it today but we’re going to
need it tomorrow.”
U.S. Army Corps of En-
gineers officials told water
board members last year
that the benefits of raising
Arrowrock Dam by up to
70 feet was the best option
for solving water supply and
flood risk problems in the
Boise River system.
But they also said the
benefits of the project didn’t
equal the cost and that $3.5
million study has been dis-
continued.
The Bureau of Recla-
mation has proposed con-
ducting a study that would
look at the possibility of
raising Arrowrock, Ander-
son and Lucky Peak dams
by several feet each, which
would add 60,000 acre-
feet of combined storage
capacity.
“The water board and
Reclamation are now look-
ing at whether to move for-
ward with a feasibility study
of these smaller raises,” said
Cynthia Bridge Clark, the
Idaho Department of Water
Resources’ water project
section manager.
Will Patterson, chairman
of the Nampa & Meridian
Irrigation District’s board
of directors, said the district
is working closely with the
bureau to try to find ways to
store more water.
“We think it’s very criti-
cal to find additional storage
capacity on the Boise River”
system, he said.
He said the district is
willing to contribute a por-
tion of the non-federal match
that is required for a study to
proceed.
41-1/101
Courtesy Bill Bitzenburg
Dry beans lie in windrows
waiting to be picked up in a
field near Twin Falls, Idaho, on
Sept. 25.
Bean
growers
racing
weather
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Much of Idaho’s dry bean
crop has been harvested and
looks good, according to
farmers and bean dealers who
grow and distribute the state’s
$70 million bean crop.
But a series of recent rain-
storms, coupled with a hard
frost, has some bean growers
worried about the remaining
crop, most of which is in the
field drying in windrows wait-
ing to be picked up.
“For us, yields have been
really good up to this point,”
said Gina Loehns of Trini-
dad Benham Corp. “But last
week’s turn of weather has us
concerned about the remain-
ing crop coming in.”
The low temperature in
Twin Falls, near where the
bean packaging and distribu-
tion company is located in the
Magic Valley of southcentral
Idaho, reached 22 degrees on
Oct. 3, 20 degrees colder than
normal.
“The quality from here to
the finish line is going to be
reduced,” Loehns said. “How
much depends on the rain and
cold.”
Twin Falls farmer Bill Bit-
zenburg is usually done with
his bean harvest at this time
but he’s only about halfway
through with his 2017 crop,
which he’s having a hard time
getting in because of rain-
storms.
He’s also concerned about
how his beans still out in the
field will fare.
“When it gets into Octo-
ber, your chance of damage
from frost or rain just increas-
es,” he said. “I’m giving our
stuff a 50-50 chance.”
Doug Huettig, who farms
near Hazelton in the Magic
Valley, has harvested about
three-fourths of his bean crop
but he’s usually completely
done with his beans by Octo-
ber.
“I should have been done
by now,” he said. “Our beans
are ready to harvest. It’s just
been the weather that’s hold-
ing us up.”
But like other dry bean
farmers and dealers in Idaho,
Huettig said the crop that has
come in looks good and at
good yields.
“Our crop looks pretty
good (and) I’ve had good
yields,” he said. “Everything
has been fine so far.”
“This year, everybody got
fantastic yields,” Bitzenburg
said. “There are some really
good beans that have been
harvested.”
John Dean, president of
Idaho Seed Bean Co. in Twin
Falls, said about 20 percent of
his crop is still in the field.
“For the crop I’ve gotten
in, the yields have been good
and quality looks good,” he
said.
In the state’s other
bean-growing region, in the
Treasure Valley of southwest-
ern Idaho, the bean crop is 60-
70 percent picked up and most
of the rest of it is in windrows
and ready to be picked up,
said Don Tolmie, production
manager for Treasure Valley
Seed Co. in Homedale.
He said bean harvest in
that region is about a week be-
hind normal due to a wet, cool
spring that delayed planting.
Bean harvest in the Treasure
Valley is typically wrapped
up by the middle of October.