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November 3, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Idaho
Treasure Valley farmers share guidance through soil health group
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By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MIDDLETON, Idaho — Tyson
Meeks and his father, Emery, got
the idea for Soil Keepers a couple
of years ago, while attending a soil
health symposium in Ontario, Ore.
The speakers who came from
out of town were knowledgeable
about the general subject matter, but
weren’t familiar with the local chal-
lenges, such as dry and alkaline soils
and the prevalence of old-fashioned
furrow irrigation, Meeks explained.
So Meeks and his father, both of
Middleton, decided they’d organize
their own forums, highlighting ac-
tual practices that have worked for
area farmers and ranchers.
“Listening to some of the ques-
tions and comments from the audi-
ence, my dad picked up that there are
a lot of efforts and ideas here in the
valley that are more specific to our
problems,” Meeks said.
A retired local sheep rancher, Don
Wilkinson, helped them organize the
first meeting, which they hosted Oct.
Idaho Land
Board could
vote on
change to state
grazing rate
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — The Idaho Land
Board could decide as soon as
Dec. 5 whether to establish a
new grazing rate formula on
state endowment lands.
An Idaho Department of
Lands subcommittee and advi-
sory group has been reviewing
the methodology of the state’s
grazing rate formula, which
hasn’t changed since 1993.
Five alternatives are on
the table, including one that
would retain the state’s current
grazing rate formula, which
resulted in a grazing rate of
$9.01 per animal unit month
this year.
An AUM is the amount of
forage needed to feed a cow
and calf for a month.
The average grazing rate on
private land in Idaho was $18
in 2017.
The IDL manages 1,139
grazing leases on 1.4 million
acres of state endowment land,
representing a total of 257,370
AUMs.
A review of the alternatives
by the University of Idaho’s
Policy Analysis Group shows
that the alternatives, not in-
cluding the status quo choice,
would result in a state grazing
lease rate ranging from $9.21
to $15.94 per AUM in 2017.
Those findings were pre-
sented to the advisory group
Oct. 25.
The analysis deemed the
status quo alternative as insuf-
ficient, which was criticized as
biased by Idaho Farm Bureau
Federation Director of Gov-
ernmental Affairs Russ Hen-
dricks, a member of the sub-
committee.
“Contrary to what was pre-
sented today, there is plenty of
evidence that the status quo
formula is providing a steady,
stable return to the beneficia-
ries of the endowment,” he told
Capital Press later.
He pointed out that of the
118 comments submitted to
IDL during a public comment
period, 102 supported keeping
the current grazing rate formula
while only 16 percent support-
ed a change.
“The feedback we got was
overwhelmingly in support of
the status quo,” said IDL Direc-
tor Tom Schultz.
A total of 78 of the com-
ments were standardized form
letters submitted by IFBF and
only three of those were from
actual lessees, according to IDL
officials.
Of the 31 comments re-
ceived from lessees, 17 sup-
ported the status quo and nine
supported a revised version of
the existing formula.
“If you take out those
(IFBF) comments, there was
still overwhelming support for
the status quo,” Hendricks said.
He said much of the discus-
sion about the issue has cen-
tered on public land grazing
rates not tracking with private
land grazing rates over the
years.
Courtesy Don Wilkinson
Levi Gibson, left, and Deanne Vallad lead a discussion Oct. 13 in Fruitland, Ida-
ho, during the first meeting of a new group of farmers called Soil Keepers. The
group will meet again on Nov. 11.
13 at Farmers Mutual Telephone Co.
in Fruitland. About 25 food produc-
ers attended the first meeting, and
they’re expecting a crowd of at least
50 when they meet again Nov. 11.
Additional meetings will be hosted
every few months, featuring presen-
tations by local volunteers on a des-
ignated topic. Anyone interested in
the meetings may contact Meeks at
soilkeepersgroup@gmail.com.
Meeks, who was among the
presenters at the initial meeting,
farmed conventionally until about
eight years ago, when he decided to
begin incorporating no-till farming
and cover crops. Initially, his fami-
ly had a hard time finding guidance,
learning by adapting practices de-
signed for the Midwest, and through
trial and error.
“When we started looking at
these ideas, we were stumped,”
Meeks said.
By next season, all of Meeks’
fields will be no-till, and he’s
beginning to notice signifi-
cant improvements in disease
and pest pressure and soil water
retention.
Deanne Vallad, who farms and
ranches in Ontario, Ore., spoke
about the practices she’s imple-
mented to cut her production costs
in half in a single year, without
sacrificing productivity. Vallad has
been planting cover crops that have
enabled her to build soil organ-
ic matter while providing forage
for her cattle and biofumigation of
pests. Chemicals naturally released
from her mixture of forage turnips
and radishes, planted late in the
season after she harvested triticale,
helped her control a gopher prob-
lem, for example.
“I want my cows out there graz-
ing more days than I’m feeding
them,” said Vallad, who now sells
cover crop seed.
Middleton farmer and rancher
Levi Gibson addressed the crowd
about his use of forage corn to
provide winter grazing for his cat-
tle. Gibson direct seeded the corn
into stubble after baling a mix
of barley and forage peas for his
cattle. Gibson likes that his cat-
tle can still access forage corn in
heavy snow.
“There’s no reason we can’t be
profitable even in bad years if we
share ideas and work together,”
Gibson said.
Bureau will study feasibility of raising three Boise River dams
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — A proposed
major study to determine the
feasibility of storing more
water on the Boise River sys-
tem by raising three dams by
several feet each is moving
forward.
The Idaho Water Resource
Board on Oct. 24 committed
up to $3 million toward the
$6 million U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation study, which re-
quired a 50 percent non-fed-
eral match to proceed.
The bureau will look at
the possibility of raising An-
derson Ranch Dam by 6 feet,
Arrowrock Dam by 10 feet
and Lucky Peak Dam by 4
feet.
Combined, that would
create an additional 60,000
acre-feet of storage capacity
on the Boise River system,
which can currently store just
under 1 million acre-feet of
water.
Southwestern Idaho irri-
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will conduct a $6 million study
to determine if it’s feasible to raise Arrowrock Dam — shown in
this aerial view — and two other dams on the Boise River system
by several feet each. That would add 60,000 acre-feet of water
storage capacity to the system.
gators have talked about the
need for additional water
storage capacity for quite
awhile, said Roger Batt, ex-
ecutive director of the Trea-
sure Valley Water Users As-
sociation, whose members
represent 320,000 acres of
irrigated land in the region.
“Sixty thousand acre-feet
(would be) a good start,” Batt
said. “We applaud the water
board’s efforts in getting in
front of this issue. Hopefully,
we can find a few more proj-
ects as well.”
Roland Springer, who
manages the bureau’s Snake
River area office, told Capital
Press that staff from his agen-
cy and the Idaho Department
of Water Resources have
done a lot of preliminary
work on the idea.
“There are irrigators who
are very interested in having
something like this happen,”
he said. “It’s a great posi-
tion to be in now and I think
we’re all ready to roll up our
sleeves and start working.”
Though the IWRB vot-
ed 7-0 to authorize up to $3
million toward the project,
they also expressed con-
cerns about committing that
much money toward a study
when there is no guarantee
the dams will actually be
raised.
The board also provided
matching funds for a U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
study that determined raising
Arrowrock by up to 70 feet
was the best option for solv-
ing water supply and flood
risk issues on the Boise sys-
tem. Doing that would have
added 100,000 acre-feet of
storage capacity.
But the corps said the
benefits of that project didn’t
match the $1.2 billion cost
— a requirement to move
forward with construction
— and the IWRB terminat-
ed that $3.5 million study in
January.
“We’re really committed
to doing these projects but
we’re also wondering, are we
ever going to have success?”
board chairman Roger Chase
told Springer.
Chase told Capital Press
later the board is “frustrat-
ed because we’re spending
hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
The board is really concerned
about these studies that just
seem to go on.”
But he said board
members also realize the
fast-growing Treasure Valley
area will need additional wa-
ter supplies in the future and
the only place to get them
from is the Boise River sys-
tem.
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