January 5, 2018
CapitalPress.com
3
USDA supports forced cranberry cutbacks
Agency proposes 15
percent reduction
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
The Liberator chair lift operates at Mission Ridge Ski Area south of
Wenatchee, Wash., on New Year’s Day. With a 29-inch snow base
at the 6,820-foot summit, the resort needs more snow, as do the
Cascade Mountains in general at 93 percent of normal.
Washington snowpack,
reservoirs in fair shape
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. — Wash-
ington state’s overall snow-
pack is 93 percent of normal
and Yakima Basin reservoir
storage is more solid at 133
percent of average.
Those are Jan. 1 readings
from the Natural Resourc-
es Conservation Service and
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
While the five mountain
reservoirs serving 464,000
acres of farmland in the Ya-
kima Basin are doing well at
56 percent of their 1 million-
acre-foot capacity, 700,000
acre-feet more will be needed
from the snowpack to meet
farmland irrigation needs.
Snowpack is a big deal and
needs to be better, but Scott
Pattee, the NRCS water sup-
ply specialist for Washington,
isn’t worried.
“It’s early. During La Nina
(warm, wet weather cycles)
the season tends to start slow
and then build and become
closer to normal by the end of
February,” Pattee said.
The northern half of Wash-
ington is best in snowpack
and northern Idaho and Mon-
tana are doing well, he said.
But Oregon and California
are more problematic, being
below the jet stream and too
warm for much snow, he said.
“The latest CPC (Climat-
ic Prediction Center) models
puts most of Washington on
equal chances for normal pre-
cipitation and temperatures for
January, and the three-month
outlook is for below-normal
temps and above-normal pre-
cip, which means good snow-
fall,” Pattee said.
Snow water equivalent
snowpack in the Spokane
basin was 101 percent of
normal on Jan. 2. The upper
Columbia Basin (Okano-
gan and Methow rivers) was
113 percent. The central Co-
lumbia (Chelan, Entiat and
Wenatchee) was 88 percent,
the upper Yakima was 81 per-
cent and the lower Yakima 90
percent. Walla Walla was 61
percent, the lower Snake Riv-
er was 92 percent, the lower
Columbia was 77 percent,
south Puget Sound (from Cas-
cade crest to lowlands) was 84
percent, central Puget Sound
86 percent, north Puget Sound
123 percent and the Olympics
105 percent.
A storm right after Christ-
mas dumped 20 inches of
snow in the upper Chelan Ba-
sin putting Lyman Lake, 6,000
feet, at 90 percent of normal
and Harts Pass, 6,500 feet be-
tween Methow and Skagit, at
126 percent.
Stevens Pass, at 3,950 feet
elevation at the SNOTEL
(snow telemetry site), is 104
percent of normal and Blewett
Pass, 4,200 feet, is 74 percent
of normal.
Chris Lynch, U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation hydrologist in
Yakima, said he’s grateful for
increased precipitation in the
last days of December.
“We were kind of hurting
before that. We’d been below
30 percent of average precip-
itation most of the month,” he
said.
While snowpack has been
hurting Yakima Basin reser-
voirs have been doing well
from rain, he said.
Snowpack lagging
statewide in Oregon
Forecast calls
for average
temperatures,
precipitation
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Mother Nature has some
catching up to do if Oregon
expects to have adequate water
supplies heading into summer.
Snowpack is lagging sig-
nificantly across the state
heading into 2018, at just 42
percent of normal levels. That
is a stark contrast to last year,
when January snowpacks
surged to 124 percent of nor-
mal levels statewide.
Despite another La Niña
winter — which usually pre-
dicts colder and wetter weath-
er in the Pacific Northwest
— temperatures are actually
hovering above normal, espe-
cially in Southern Oregon. The
highest levels of snowpack are
in northeast Oregon, where
the Umatilla, Walla Walla and
Willow basins are just 55 per-
cent of normal, and the Grande
Ronde, Powder, Burnt and Im-
naha basins are 53 percent of
normal.
Scott Oviatt, snow survey
supervisor for the Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service,
said it is still too early to tell
what the water year will look
like, but he would like to see
more snow accumulating in
the mountains.
“The closer to normal con-
ditions, the more assurances
you have adequate water sup-
plies closer to irrigation sea-
son,” Oviatt said. “Obviously
as time passes, we’ll have a
better feel of what the trends
and storm impacts look like.”
Not only is snowpack be-
low normal, but overall pre-
cipitation is also down state-
wide at 89 percent of normal,
compared to 105 percent of
normal three weeks ago. The
difference between this year
and last year’s “snowpoc-
alypse” has left Oviatt and
weather forecasters scratching
their heads.
“We’re really seeing this
extreme variability in the last
five to 10 years, where these
trends don’t represent what
we’ve seen historically,” Ovi-
att said.
Marilyn Lohmann, hydrol-
ogist with the National Weath-
er Service in Pendleton, Ore.,
said each La Niña has its own
spin, and the odds of having
two winters like 2017 back to
back are usually pretty slim.
Over the next three
months, Lohmann said, the
weather should shift back to
normal temperatures and pre-
cipitation. “Sometimes we
do get the bulk of our snow
in that February and March
time frame in the mountains,”
Lohmann said. “It does look
like hopefully we will be able
to regain some of what we’ve
lost.”
While statewide stream
flows were less than 65 per-
cent of normal at the end of
December, the Oregon Water
Resources Department says
reservoir levels are above nor-
mal for this time of year, which
may mitigate some impacts of
a drier-than-usual winter.
According to OWRD,
central Oregon reservoirs are
between 44 and 88 percent of
capacity, and eastern Oregon
reservoirs continue to hover
between 36 and 65 percent
of capacity. Willamette and
Rogue basin reservoirs also
remain on track to fill.
The USDA proposes to let
the cranberry industry with-
hold 15 percent of the 2017
crop to halt a slide in prices
paid farmers and handlers.
Cranberries, whole and in
juice concentrate, would be
diverted to charities, animal
feed and other uses that won’t
add to a supply that’s roughly
twice the demand.
“With the laws of econom-
ics, it has to help. How much
it helps is another question,”
Bandon, Ore., cranberry
grower Charlie Ruddell said.
The proposal, published
Tuesday in the Federal Reg-
ister, is based on a recom-
mendation by the Cranberry
Marketing Committee, made
up of growers and handlers.
The order would apply to
about 1,100 farmers and 65
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
handlers, mostly in Oregon,
Washington, Massachusetts, Blane Saunders harvests cranberries Sept. 19 on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. The USDA pro-
poses volume controls to reduce the supply of cranberries and increase prices for farmers and handlers.
New Jersey and Wisconsin.
The marketing committee
also has asked the USDA to has doubled in the past five take doing something for on consumer demand for
cranberries, according to the
mandate a 25 percent re- years. Without volume con- next year’s crop, too.”
duction in the 2018 crop. A trols, the 2017 crop would
Even with the a 15 per- agency.
USDA spokesman said the swell the inventory to 115 cent reduction in the 2017
The cranberry indus-
agency is still considering the percent of the yearly demand crop, the surplus would re- try, which can’t easily wind
of approximately 950 million main large. The volume re- down production in bogs to
request.
Since the 2017 crop has pounds, the committee esti- duction would not apply to fit the market, has turned to
about 210 million pounds of volume controls before, most
been harvested, handlers mated.
Some farmers who were foreign-grown cranberries recently in 2001. The USDA
would be charged with dis-
posing of excess fruit. Han- receiving 30 cents a pound expected to be imported into rejected the marketing com-
dlers would be able to meet in 2011 are now getting 10 the U.S.
mittee’s
recommendation
up to half their obligation by cents a pound, while the cost
Volume reduction is a to withhold a portion of the
diverting fruit concentrate, a of production has risen to 35 short-term step to cut the 2014 crop. The agency said it
byproduct of making sweet- cents a pound, according to surplus, said Tom Lochner, was concerned the committee
ened, dried cranberries.
the marketing committee,
executive director of the Wis- was colluding with Canadian
The marketing order
Neither the committee consin Cranberry Growers producers.
USDA-approved volume
would not apply to organic nor the USDA projected how Association, whose state pro-
cranberries, a small percent- a 15 percent cut in the 2017 duces roughly two-thirds of reductions are intended to
age of the market. Handlers crop would impact prices.
U.S. cranberries.
stabilize prices for farmers.
who receive fewer than 12.5
“The long-term solution Critics, such as the Heritage
Long Beach, Wash., farm-
million pounds of cranberries er Malcolm McPhail said the has to be increasing markets Foundation, contend volume
or dispose of all their fruit reduction could boost prices to match the supply and de- controls interfere with the
by $1 or $2 a barrel. A barrel mand,” he said.
also would be exempt.
marketplace and amount to
The USDA said it does price fixing.
Cranberry farmers have equals 100 pounds.
The USDA will take pub-
“I’m all for it. We’ve got not expect volume reduction
been producing record crops,
but demand has been fairly to do something to get things to reduce consumption. Re- lic comments on the proposal
flat. The cranberry surplus under control,” he said. “It’ll tail prices have little effect until Feb. 1.
Oregon governor ‘confident’ in wolf shooting investigation
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
will apparently not ask state
agencies to reopen their in-
vestigation into the killing
of a female wolf Oct. 27 in
Union County, despite con-
cerns from several conserva-
tion groups.
Brian Scott, 38, of Clacka-
mas, reported that he shot the
wolf in self-defense while elk
hunting in the Starkey Wild-
life Management Unit west of
La Grande. The wolf, he said,
was charging at him. Wildlife
advocates dispute his claim,
pointing to the bullet’s trajec-
tory and other discrepancies
in the physical evidence.
A coalition of groups —
18 in all — wrote to Gov.
Brown asking her to reopen
the state’s investigation,
In her reply, dated Dec. 1,
Brown said she has confi-
dence in the outcome after
consulting with the Oregon
State Police, Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish & Wildlife and
Union County District Attor-
ney’s Office.
“While Oregon is working
toward wolf recovery, any
wolf mortality is a serious
concern that deserves a full
ODFW
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has told conservation groups that she
is confident of the thoroughness of a state investigation into the
shooting of a wolf near La Grande.
and rigorous investigation,”
Brown wrote.
Scott told investigators he
feared for his life when he
shot the wolf at a distance of
27 yards. He described see-
ing two animals flank behind
him, while a third came run-
ning directly toward him.
The groups, however,
argue that the bullet passed
through the wolf’s shoulders,
perhaps indicating it was
standing broadside to Scott
and not charging. Scott has
said he cannot explain the
trajectory, and does not know
if the wolf veered sideways
before he shot. The Union
County District Attorney’s
Office declined to press
charges.
Steve Pedery, conserva-
tion director for Oregon Wild,
said the group will continue
to put pressure on the gov-
ernor and agencies regarding
wolf poaching investigations,
and ensure those protections
are taken seriously.
“We now have, I think
by anyone’s standards, an
epidemic of wolf poaching
around the state,” Pedery
said. “That’s a situation that
should be deeply concerning
for anyone who cares about
wildlife in this state.”
In her letter, Gov. Brown
reiterated that killing wolves
is illegal everywhere in Or-
egon, and remains a federal
crime west of highways 395,
78 and 95.
“Too many wolves have
been found shot in Oregon
where the shooters have not
been identified,” she wrote.
“Oregon State Police is ap-
propriately
investigating
those cases, supporting their
federal counterparts, identi-
fying poachers and ready to
assist in their prosecution.”
ODFW is also in the pro-
cess of revising its Wolf Con-
servation and Management
Plan, which Brown said will
“keep wolves on the path to
recovery across the entire
state, focus on efforts to re-
duce wolf-livestock conflict
rather than merely respond-
ing to it, and incorporate
the best current science into
its management practices.”
Oregon had 112 confirmed
wolves as of the end of 2016.
An updated 2017 population
report is expected in March.
Weekly fieldwork report
Ore.
Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA)
• Days suitable for fieldwork (As of Nov. 26, 2017) 3.6
• Topsoil moisture, surplus
15%
• Topsoil moisture, percent short
24%
• Subsoil moisture, surplus
4%
• Subsoil moisture, percent short
25%
• Precipitation probability
Normal/above
(6-10 day outlook as of Jan. 2)
normal
Wash.
Idaho
Calif.
3.9
13%
12%
6%
13%
Normal/above
normal
4.1
7%
6%
4%
32%
Above
normal
6.7
NA
25%
NA
35%
Above
normal