November 24, 2017
Lawyer:
Forest bill
allows tribes
to grab
county power
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — While
intended to improve forest
management to reduce the
threat of wildfires, the Resil-
ient Federal Forests Act also
allows the federal government
to supplant the voice of coun-
ties with that of Indian tribes
in managing some federal
lands, a constitutional attor-
ney says.
“It’s a mystery to me why
this passed out
of the Repub-
lican House
with this lan-
guage intact,”
said George
Wentz, a con-
stitutional
George
lawyer
and
Wentz
former Reagan
administra-
tion official. He spoke at the
Washington Farm Bureau’s
annual meeting in Yakima on
Nov. 15.
The act, HR 2936, which
the House passed 232-188
on Nov. 1, includes a section
allowing the secretary of the
Interior or the secretary of
Agriculture, at the request of
a tribe, “to treat federal for-
est land as Indian forest land
for purposes of planning and
conducting forest land man-
agement” … if it “is located
within, or mostly within, a
geographic area that presents
a feature or involves circum-
stances principally relevant to
that Indian Tribe.”
This includes land ceded to
the U.S. by treaty, federal land
within a current or former res-
ervation or land adjudicated
to be tribal homelands.
Authority is limited to
planning and conducting
management and “shall not be
construed to designate feder-
al forest land as Indian forest
land,” the bill states.
Currently, federal forest
lands are under the dual ju-
risdiction of counties and
the federal government, said
Wentz, a partner in Davillier
Law Group in New Orleans
and Sandpoint, Idaho.
The bill removes county
jurisdiction and replaces it
with tribal jurisdiction at the
discretion of one of the de-
partment secretaries, he said.
“With regard to planning,
this would make the tribe the
dominant party interacting
with the Forest Service on
land rather than the county.
Think of the impact on issues
like harvesting timber and
water rights,” Wentz said.
“This could be used, along
with the Antiquities Act, to tie
up vast areas of the West,” he
said. “How does the federal
government have the right or
power to remove land within
a county from the jurisdiction
of the county and suddenly
treat it as tribal land? People
in the county have no voice
in the decision to remove it.”
Rep. Raul Labrador,
R-Idaho, has said he will try
to fix it in conference com-
mittee with the Senate, “but
there’s no certainty it can be
fixed at that point and I can’t
understand why 17 Republi-
cans put it in there,” Wentz
said.
The bill was sponsored
by Rep. Bruce Westerman,
R-Ark., and co-sponsored
by 16 Republicans and two
Democrats. Republicans in-
clude Reps. Cathy McMorris
Rodgers and Dan Newhouse
of Washington and Greg
Walden of Oregon. Labrador,
Newhouse and Walden did
not respond to requests for
comment.
A McMorris Rodgers aide
pointed to a Seattle Times op-
ed piece by McMorris Rodg-
ers and Jim Boyd, chairman
of the Colville Confederated
Tribes, written in 2015 after
the bill passed the House the
first time.
They noted that summer’s
fires burned 15 homes and
250,000 acres of tribal lands
and said the bill “would
grant authority to tribes to
treat surrounding land like
they do their own” for bet-
ter management to prevent
fires.
CapitalPress.com
9
Industry leaders: Wheat crop one of the best
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho’s wheat
growers this year produced
what many people are call-
ing one of the state’s highest
quality crops ever, if not the
best ever.
“In the 15 years I’ve been
here, this is, in terms of
quality, the best wheat I’ve
seen statewide,” said Idaho
Wheat Commission Execu-
tive Director Blaine Jacob-
son. “The whole state had a
good crop.”
That quality was excel-
lent across the state is unique
because growers in North
and South Idaho grow dif-
ferent classes of wheat for
different markets, said Cathy
Wilson, director of research
collaboration for the IWC.
“It was not the biggest
crop but the quality was ex-
ceptional,” she said. “There
were very few discounts tak-
en this year.”
Idaho farmers produced
Courtesy of “Genesee” Joe Anderson
Hard red winter wheat is harvested on Joe Anderson’s farm in the
Lewiston, Idaho, area. State wheat officials report an exceptionally
high quality crop this year.
90.7 million bushels of
wheat in 2017, which is 12
percent less than last year’s
total of 102.8 million bush-
els.
A total of 1.1 million
acres of wheat was harvested
in the state this year, down
slightly from 1.13 million
acres last year. Yields aver-
aged 82.2 bushels per acre
statewide in 2017, down
from last year’s record of
91.4 bushels.
What Idaho’s wheat in-
dustry lacked in total produc-
tion in 2017 was made up for
in quality, industry leaders
and growers said.
“Our harvest this year was
generally pretty good. The
quality was especially good,”
said Jerry Brown, a southeast
Idaho farmer.
Yields were all over the
board, but quality was su-
perb, said “Genesee” Joe An-
derson, a North Idaho grower.
Problems in past years with
quality such as falling num-
ber scores, test weights and
protein levels were not an is-
sue this year, he said.
“Everything we’ve had
trouble with (in past years)
is right where the customers
want it this year,” Anderson
said.
Dennis Capson, a mer-
chandiser for Scoular Co., a
marketing company that spe-
cializes in grain, said, “Over-
all, especially the proteins of
wheat in Idaho were fantastic
this year.”
During the IWC’s regular
quarterly meeting last week,
Columbia Grain Manager
Brian Lorentz stressed to
the commission’s grower
board members how import-
ant it is for them to continue
to grow a consistently high
quality crop.
“We have the markets
we have and we’re making
the money we’re making
currently because we have
good quality wheat,” he said.
“We’re not growing junk va-
rieties.”
The quality of the entire
Pacific Northwest soft white
wheat crop was great this
year, said Steven Wirsching,
vice president of U.S. Wheat
Associates’ West Coast of-
fice.
“The soft white grain in
the Pacific Northwest this
year is really good quality,”
he said. “Overall, it’s going
to average a No. 1 grade.”
Wirsching said the prob-
lems some wheat farmers in
the Pacific Northwest have
had in recent years with fall-
ing numbers scores didn’t
materialize this year.
“This year, falling num-
bers is not a problem,” he
said. “We just got good
weather and good falling
numbers to go with it.”
Idaho Potato Commission takes steps to address quality concerns
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
FORT HALL, Idaho —
The Idaho Potato Commission
is collaborating with research-
ers, major buyers, growers
and shippers to address recent
quality concerns about some
of the state’s fresh potato ship-
ments.
Much of the discussion
during IPC’s Nov. 14 Big Ida-
ho Potato Harvest Meeting,
hosted at the Shoshone-Ban-
nock Hotel and Event Center,
focused on the need to reduce
bruising and other imperfec-
tions in fresh shipments.
IPC President and CEO
Frank Muir explained the
commission is partnering with
Walmart and a major food ser-
vice buyer to learn more about
the causes of quality problems,
in response
to an increas-
ing number
of customer
complaints
since the 2015
harvest.
Mike
Muir said
Thornton
IPC also plans
to
conduct
quality-improvement work-
shops for growers and ship-
pers, is developing a hand-
book outlining best practices
for handling potatoes and has
commissioned University of
Idaho potato researchers Nora
Olsen and Mike Thornton to
study the supply chain and de-
termine causes of damage.
“When you have a pre-
mium brand, it has got to be
backed up with premium qual-
ity,” Muir said, after reading
complaints from buyers left on
social media and IPC’s voice
mail. “We can’t rest on our
laurels. We have got to always
be improving.”
Muir cited statistics show-
ing rapidly growing demand
for Idaho potatoes. Last season
the state shipped a record vol-
ume of fresh potatoes, up 12
percent from the prior year. He
said he’d hate to see any per-
ceived quality problems affect
that growth trend.
Armand Lobato, IPC’s
food service and promotion
director for the West, said he’s
most concerned about cus-
tomers who aren’t complain-
ing but may simply shift their
business.
“For the most part, we’re
pretty darned good, but if
we’re at all tempted to com-
promise that quality, that’s let-
ting our opponent back in the
game,” Lobato said.
Olsen and Thornton start-
ed their special project for
the commission in August.
The researchers gathered data
during potato harvest using a
ball with sensors to simulate
bruising. They’ve also stud-
ied reports from retailers who
rejected Idaho potato ship-
ments during 2016 to identify
commonalities, and they have
used their data to develop a
list of 10 ways growers and
shippers can reduce bruising.
They advised the industry to
take steps such as adding pad-
ding to harvesting equipment,
reducing the height from
which potatoes fall within
equipment, harvesting when
soil conditions are appropriate
and paying close attention to
humidity and temperature in
storage.
The researchers plan to
track several potato shipments
from throughout the season,
working closely with retailers
and buyers and meeting ship-
ments at their destinations to
evaluate where problems may
be occurring.
“As the 2017 crop is
shipped, we will go to distribu-
tion centers and look at quality
when it is shipped from Idaho
and look at quality when it ar-
rives,” Thornton said.
Thornton believes ex-
treme temperature fluctuations
during recent harvests could
be complicating matters. He
also noted farms now harvest
higher-yielding crops from far
more acres.
“We’re using bigger equip-
ment,” Thornton said. “We’re
pushing this crop harder and
harder.”
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