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CapitalPress.com
November 10, 2017
Washington
Late wildfire damages apple orchard
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE,
Wash.
— A Foreman Fruit Co. or-
chard sustained an estimated
$50,000 to $100,000 in dam-
age from a 1,100-acre wildfire
northwest of town on Nov. 1.
It was the latest fire in the sea-
son of any size in the area in
recent memory.
Some apple trees in the
100-acre Panorama Orchard
were seared, probably dam-
aging buds of next fall’s crop,
but the more significant dam-
age is labor and materials
needed to remove numerous
partially burned, 100-foot-tall
poplar trees that were wind
breaks on the orchard’s edges,
said James Foreman, compa-
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
ny manager.
Firefighters spray water on hot spots along burned fenceline and poplar trees on the edge of Pan-
“We’ll have to take them orama Orchard northwest of Wenatchee, Wash., on Nov. 2. A wildfire burned 1,100 acres, mostly
down this winter because grassland, the day before.
they’re a safety hazard. We
don’t want them falling into Foreman, a Wenatchee attor- man, candidate for governor spots along the poplars on
the orchard when workers ney. Dale Foreman is a former and Washington Apple Com- Nov. 2. Eduardo Sanchez and
another orchard worker were
are working,” said Foreman, state House majority leader, mission board chairman.
Firefighters watered hot loading empty apple bins on a
son of company owner Dale state Republican Party chair-
17 th Annual
WILLAMETTE VALLEY
truck, the harvest of Autumn
Glory apples having finished
the day before the fire. San-
chez estimated half a mile
of 8-foot-tall deer fencing is
damaged or destroyed.
Fence replacement is
about $16,000 to $26,000 per
mile, depending on terrain,
James Foreman said. Some
irrigation pipe might also be
damaged.
Foreman said damaged
poplar trees will have to be
tipped away from the orchard
when cut and removed before
the fence is replaced, as they
are inside the fenceline. He
will have to decide whether
to maintain a wind break with
new trees, he said.
“Standard orchard (insur-
ance) policy doesn’t cover
deer fencing, so unfortunate-
ly I don’t expect any claim
to help us out,” he said, esti-
mating damage at $50,000 to
$100,000.
Foreman and 10 workers
helped fight the fire on the or-
chard edge.
Sandison ‘optimistic’ U.S., Canada
will renegotiate Columbia River Treaty
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
3 Big Days!
Tues • Wed • Thurs
MOSES LAKE, Wash. —
The director of Washington
state’s agriculture department
says he is optimistic the U.S.
and Canada will be able to suc-
cessfully renegotiate the Co-
lumbia River Treaty.
“We’re pretty close on a lot
of things,” said Derek Sandi-
son, director of the state De-
partment of Agriculture and
former director of the state De-
partment of Ecology’s Office of
the Columbia River. He spoke
Nov. 2 during the Columbia
Basin Development League an-
nual meeting.
The 60-year-old agreement
is designed to coordinate flood
management and optimize hy-
dropower generation by Co-
lumbia River dams.
Under the treaty, the U.S.
paid Canada $64 million to
construct three dams in British
Columbia in exchange for 8.94
Looking
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Back by Popular Demand: Wed. Evening
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Meetings: Oregon Farm Bureau Luncheon (by invitation)
Training: CORE No registration required - 2 to 4* credit hours (Repeated Thursday)
• 10:30-11:30AM • Andony Melathopoulos; Going Soft on Pollinators and Hard on Pests (1 CORE)
This session will have an easy-to-apply set of rules to help you judge how to apply pesticides with
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• Lunch Break
• 11:30-12:30PM • Janet Fultus; Worker Protection; Standards Update (1 CORE)
• 1:30-3:30PM • Andy Steinkamp; Practical Sprayer Calibration (2 CORE)
Covers the importance of sprayer calibration, sprayer calibration methods and dry bait calibration
methods. It will cover step by step e xamples using basic math. There will be a best practices discussion
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Meetings:
Training:
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15
Pennington Seed Growers Breakfast (by invitation)
• 10:30- 12:15PM • CPR/AED/ Standard First Aid Training (advanced registration required):
CPR: Participants will review and practice emergency procedures that prepare responders to act in
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• 1:30-2:45PM • Standard First Aid: Participants will review skills to recognize and respond to
sudden illness and emergencies. Training will culminate with skills practice and testing. Certification
awarded upon completion. $30 for CPR/AED/First Aid Training; $15 for First Aid Training only
• 1:00 – 3:00PM Forklift Certification Training: Includes classroom, workbook, written knowledge
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while tickets last.) Ticketed progressive, hearty dinner event featuring food and products from
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wine and brew!
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16
Training: CORE training – Repeated from Tuesday, November 15th, 2016
• 10:30-12:30PM • Andy Steinkamp; Practical Sprayer Calibration (2 CORE)
Covers the importance of sprayer calibration, sprayer calibration methods and dry bait calibration
methods. It will cover step by step e xamples using basic math. There will be a best practices
discussion and time for questions. Does not cover specific controller brands and operations.
Lunch Break
• 11:30-12:30PM • Janet Fultus; Worker Protection; Standards Update (1 CORE)
• 2:30-3:30PM • Andony Melathopoulos; Going Soft on Pollinators and Hard on Pests (1 CORE)
This session will have an easy-to-apply set of rules to help you judge how to apply pesticides with
minimal impact to pollinators.
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Linn County Fair & Expo Center
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3700 Knox Butte Rd.
I-5 @ Exit 234 • Albany, OR
Consultant to study
costs, scope
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
MOSES LAKE, Wash.
— Stakeholders are seeking
millions of dollars in feder-
al support to help widen or
replace 10 bridges that cross
an Eastern Washington canal
system that is part of a mas-
sive expansion of the Colum-
bia Basin Project.
Of the 17 bridges on the
East Low Canal system,
five are adequate, Melissa
Downes, technical project
lead for the state Department
of Ecology’s Office of the
Columbia River, said during
the Nov. 2 Columbia Basin
Development League annual
meeting.
The East Columbia Basin
Irrigation District has already
replaced the Leisle Road
www.wvaexpo.com
45-3/100
million acre-feet of assured
flood storage.
In 2024, assured storage
converts to “called-upon” and
“effective use” storage. The
U.S. would first have to make
effective use of its reservoirs
for flood control before calling
on Canada to store snowmelt,
drawing down the dams to
make as much flood volume as
possible, Sandison said.
“That’s an arrangement
we’re not particularly fond of,”
he said. “You’re hammering
bridge and increased the ca-
pacity to convey water under
the Calloway Road bridge.
The Leisle Road Bridge cost
$732,000 and the Calloway
Road Bridge cost $797,000,
Downes said.
Ten remaining bridges
need modification or replace-
ment.
The East Low Canal is
being widened as part of an
effort to replace wells with
water from the Columbia
River. Nearly 700,000 acres
within the federal Columbia
Basin Project are irrigated.
The league supports complet-
ing the 70-year-old project by
bringing river water to the re-
maining 300,000 acres.
The stakeholders will seek
federal funding for the 10
bridges, owned by the state or
the counties.
“Bridges are a little bit
different than the water con-
veyance system,” said Mike
Schwisow, director of govern-
ment relations for the devel-
opment league. “They’re not
a canal, a siphon or something
that carries the water. They’re
part of the regional transpor-
tation system, so they have a
little different characteristic.
... But all of them need to get
fixed in order for us to finally
fully develop this project.”
The bridges are “pinch
points” on the canal system
limiting water flow, said Ste-
phen McFadden, director of
the Adams County Develop-
ment Council.
The stakeholders are seek-
ing grants from the U.S. De-
partment of Transportation’s
Transportation Investment
Generating Economic Re-
covery and Infrastructure
for Rebuilding America for
the bridges, and employ-
ing a consultant to conduct
cost-benefit analyses and
outline the scope of work to
replace the bridges, McFad-
den said.
Scientist: Weed control needs refinement
Capital Press
(20 Minutes South of Salem)
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Derek Sandison, director of the
Washington State Department
of Agriculture, said he expects
movement on renegotiating the
Columbia River Treaty.
U.S. reservoirs in the hopes that
your March forecast is right and
there will be water late (in the)
irrigation season to make up
what you’ve pushed out to the
ocean.”
As part of the Canadian en-
titlement, Canada receives 50
percent of the power generated
downstream. Sandison said the
treaty uses an outdated formula
that doesn’t factor in modifica-
tions made in 1993 to address
the Endangered Species Act
and protected fish.
U.S. and Canadian negotia-
tors agree the Canadian entitle-
ment is too high, Sandison said.
“They don’t want any more
than they’re entitled to,” he
said. “That’s what they said, I
take them at face value.”
The regional recommenda-
tion on the U.S. side called for
a recalculation of the power
entitlement to reflect the actual
value, re-establish some level
of assured flood control and
fully consider the ecosystem.
Stakeholders seek funds for
bridges in canal widening project
By DAN WHEAT
CORE Pesticide
Training
The fire was first reported
at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 1. It started
on the shoulder of U.S. High-
way 2/97 just west of the town
of Monitor, about five miles
northwest of Wenatchee.
The cause was determined
to be sparks from a passing
vehicle, possibly from a bro-
ken tail pipe or trailer chains
dragging, said Phil Mosher,
chief of Chelan County Fire
District 6 in Cashmere.
“The big issue was the
grass and sagebrush compo-
nent of fuel and wind and per-
cent of slope. The wind just
took it and ran it up the slope.
It was blowing 20 mph on top
the ridge,” Mosher said.
Ten firefighters, three brush
trucks, an engine and one ten-
der were on the initial attack.
“The big challenge was
resources because summer re-
sources had been released and
a house fire in East Wenatchee
was tying up firefighters,”
said Rich Magnussen, Chelan
County Emergency Manage-
ment spokesman.
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Management of invasive plant
species is still too much like
surgery by bludgeon instead
of scalpel, says Dean Pearson,
research ecologist at the U.S.
Forest Service Rocky Moun-
tain Research Station in Mis-
soula, Mont.
“We’re getting good at tak-
ing out the target weed but not
much good beyond that. Better
restoration tools is where the
big need is right now,” Pearson
said in his keynote address at
the Washington State Weed
Association’s 67th annual con-
ference at the Wenatchee Con-
vention Center, Nov. 1.
Pearson
said
he’s
found 168
studies of the
management
of invasive
plants with
only 38 of
Dean Pearson those look-
ing at what
happened
beyond the weed.
“In those 38, we found 96
percent suppressed the target
weed, so that’s success. But
the primary response to the
control was secondary inva-
sions, 89 percent of the time
by a noxious invasive weed.
That’s not what we want to see
happen,” he said.
The key in handling inva-
sive plants with herbicides is
aiming to get to a place of sur-
gical precision with minimal
disturbance to the ecology, or
pushing it in the right direc-
tion, he said.
Broadcast reseeding is the
most cost effective restoration
tool but effectiveness is like a
lottery because weather plays a
big role, he said.
Invasive plants can alter
an ecosystem for a long time,
Pearson said. He showed pic-
tures of a Missoula hillside in
the early 1970s with Balsam-
root, Lupin and Paintbrush and
a picture of the same area dras-
tically altered by Knapweed
30 years later.