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March 16, 2018 CapitalPress.com 7 Farmer mental health bill sent to Washington governor Counseling to be over phone, online By DON JENKINS Capital Press OLYMPIA — Farmers and farmworkers will receive free and bilingual mental health counseling over the phone or online under a bill passed by the Washington Legislature. The legislation, backed by $485,000 from the gen- eral fund, passed the Senate and House unanimously and has been sent to Gov. Jay In- slee to sign. Rep. J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm, said he introduced the bill after reading a newspaper article about the high rate of suicide among farmers. A study released in 2016 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at suicide rates by occupation. The study com- bined farming, forestry and fishing. The suicide rate of 84.5 deaths per 100,000 workers was the highest among 22 occupational cate- gories. The next highest was construction and extraction industries, with a rate of 53.3 suicides. The study was based on about 12,300 suicides in 17 states in 2012. The states in- cluded Oregon. Washington was not among the states. Don Jenkins/Capital Press The Washington Legislature has allocated $485,000 to support a bill that will provide free bilingual mental health counseling to farmers and farmworkers. The study speculated that social isolation, financial losses, unwillingness to seek help and access to lethal means contributed to the high rate of suicide among farmers. The bill had the support of farm groups and mental health organizations. Bill supporters told lawmakers at hearings that farmers face unusual pressures to sustain family businesses. Tierney Creech, a co-founder of the Washing- ton Young Farmers Coali- tion, told a House committee that the suicide of one of the group’s members focused at- tention on the problem. “Since then we have been inspired to raise awareness of farmer mental health and to seek out and publicize the mental health of resourc- es available to farmers, she said. The Department of Health will convene a task force made up of state agencies, farm groups and counselors. The task force will look at how to provide counsel- ing. The state will use the task force’s recommendations to contract with counselors for a “pilot project” to pro- vide bilingual beginning next March. The bill also calls for providing farms with information suicide prevention. A report from the task force on expanding the pro- gram will be due to the Leg- islature on Dec. 1, 2020. WAFLA announces new CEO, staff changes By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Center for Biological Diversity Environmental groups filed a petition Monday with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Siskiy- ou Mountains salamander to the endangered species list. Four environmental groups seeking protections for S. Oregon salamander Petition filed Monday for new ESA listing By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press Increased logging of old- growth forests is threatening the survival of a unique spe- cies of salamander that lives in the Klamath-Siskiyou re- gion of southern Oregon and northern California, accord- ing to a federal petition filed Monday by four environmen- tal groups. The organizations, includ- ing Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diver- sity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wild- lands Center and Environ- mental Protection Information Center, are asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Siskiyou Mountains salamander to the endangered species list, which would trig- ger protections for the am- phibians and their habitat. “This highly specialized animal can’t adapt to log- ging, so it will be pushed to the brink of extinction without Endangered Spe- cies Act protections,” said Jeff Miller, conservation ad- vocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The salamander is a unique indi- cator species of forest health in the Siskiyou Mountains. It deserves immediate pro- tection in the face of accel- erated logging.” The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is described as a long-bodied, short-limbed terrestrial salamander and is brown with white speckles. It lives only in isolated loca- tions along the Klamath Riv- er, on stabilized rock talus in old-growth forests covered with thick moss. Conservationists previ- ously petitioned for ESA protections for the sala- mander in 2004. While the species was not listed, the USFWS did conduct a status review in 2006 and later de- veloped a conservation strat- egy working with the Bureau of Land Management, which was intended to protect habitat for 110 salamander sub-populations on federal lands in the Applegate River watershed in southwest Ore- gon. However, the BLM ad- opted its Western Oregon Plan Revision for 2.5 million acres of forestland in 2016, which environmental groups argue will substantially in- crease logging in the region and undermine protections for the salamander. Josh Laughlin, executive director of Cascadia Wild- lands based in Eugene, Ore., said the BLM’s decision shrinks buffers in half for logging along streams, and does away with the policy of “survey and manage,” which required timber planners to look for salamanders before cutting in their habitat. “It’s clearly going to have a detrimental effect on the remaining population of Sis- kiyou salamanders,” Laughlin said. Cascadia Wildlands, along with five other groups, al- ready filed a complaint in late summer 2016 against the BLM, asking for an in- junction against the agency’s Western Oregon Plan Revi- sion. Laughlin said he expects oral arguments in the case this summer. The ESA petition filed Monday claims the survival of the salamander depends less on overall abundance than it does on habitat protections. The groups go on to argue that “very few populations are secure from habitat destruc- tion and alteration” related to increased logging. The Oregon Forest Indus- tries Council and American Forest Resource Council, meanwhile, issued a joint statement against the petition, calling it politically motivat- ed and accusing the groups of overwhelming federal agencies with petitions and litigation instead of working collaboratively with scientists and stakeholders to produce supportive research. OLYMPIA — An execu- tive of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development in Doha, Qatar, has been hired as the new chief executive of- ficer of the Washington farm labor association, WAFLA. Mohamed Dobashi will start work March 19 at the WAFLA office in Lacey, Wash., and handle daily op- erations, including WAFLA’s flagship program of hiring H-2A-visa foreign guest- workers for Washington or- chards and farms, said Kim Bresler, WAFLA spokes- woman. Dan Fazio, who has been director and CEO, will con- tinue in the top position as director overseeing the CEO, Bresler said. WAFLA announced the hiring of Dobashi and four other new management em- ployees and the departure of three managers in its March 6 newsletter. WAFLA Board Chairman Stacy Gilmore, marketing director of Cameron Nursery north of Pasco, did not return a Capital Press call seeking comment. According to Bloomberg and StrateSphere, a business development firm of which Dobashi is a partner, Dobashi has been chief operations of- ficer of Am- lak Holding, a subsidiary Mohamed of the Qatar Dobashi Foundation. He was re- sponsible for finance, admin- istration, legal, information technology and human re- sources. He has also been chief op- erations officer of Al-Faisal Holding Co. responsible for its subsidiaries, business de- velopment and local invest- ments. Dobashi was also an asso- ciate professor and associate dean at Carnegie Mellon Uni- versity’s Qatar Campus. Dobashi has a law degree from Northwestern Univer- sity in Chicago, a master’s degree in business admin- istration from Thunderbird School of Global Manage- ment, which is part of Ari- zona State University, and a double bachelor’s degree in economics and international business from Pacific Lu- theran University in Tacoma, Wash. WAFLA used a profes- sional recruiter to advertise its position and Dobashi re- sponded, Bresler said, adding that he was well vetted. According to the news- letter, Dobashi will assume some of the duties of former COO George Zanatta, who left on Feb. 28 to start a busi- ness in Mexico to train work- ers for the H-2A program. Rick Anderson, special projects director, retired at the end of January, and Heri Chapula, Kennewick field services director, is leaving about March 15 to work for a Tri-Cities-area agricultural employer. Chapula is replaced by David Guzman, who started Feb. 1 as Kennewick field services manager. 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