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March 23, 2018
CapitalPress.com
5
Trapper who shot, killed wolf avoids poaching charge
Plea entered Feb. 26
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
The Union County District
Attorney’s Office in northeast
Oregon has dismissed poach-
ing charges against a 58-year-
old wildlife trapper who shot
and killed a juvenile female
wolf caught in one of his traps
last December.
David Sanders Jr., of El-
gin, Ore., appeared Feb. 26 in
Union County Circuit Court
where the state agreed to dis-
miss one count of unlawfully
killing a “special game status
mammal” stemming from the
incident. Sanders did plead
guilty to one additional count
of using unbranded traps, and
was sentenced to 24 months
bench probation, 100 hours
of community service and a
$7,500 fine.
Sanders will also have his
hunting and trapping licens-
es suspended for 36 months,
forfeit his firearm and all
trapping-related items seized
during the investigation, and
pay $1,000 to the Oregon De-
partment of Fish & Wildlife.
Sanders declined to com-
ment when contacted by the
Capital Press.
According to Oregon State
Police, a trooper first discov-
ered the trapping site off High-
way 204 west of Elgin on Dec.
10 in the Umatilla National
Forest.
The trooper observed and
identified Sanders as the indi-
vidual who set the traps.
Eight days later, the trooper
returned and found a dead wolf
that appeared to have been shot
not far from the traps. Sanders
later admitted he shot the wolf
after he found the animal in his
trap, though he insisted he was
only attempting to trap bob-
cats, not wolves.
Wolves have been removed
from the state endangered spe-
cies list in Eastern Oregon,
though it is still illegal to shoot
them except in specific cases,
such as if a rancher finds a
wolf attacking livestock or in
defense of human life.
Sanders was also using un-
branded traps, for which he
had a previous violation out of
Baker County Justice Court in
2016.
Union County District At-
torney Kelsie McDaniel said
the state did not view the case
as an instance of poaching, but
rather illegal trapping. Based
on the investigation, she said it
was clear that Sanders was not
out to illegally hunt wolves, but
made a bad choice regarding
his trapping activities. Sand-
ers should have called ODFW
right away, McDaniel said.
The
incident
further
demonstrates the fact that the
problem with wolves is not
going away, McDaniel added.
In October 2017, 38-year-old
Brian Scott, of Clackamas,
Ore., shot and killed a wolf in
Union County during an elk
hunting trip, which he told au-
thorities was charging at him.
No charges were filed in that
case.
“We are seeing more and
more incidents of wolf pre-
dation and human interaction
in Union County,” McDaniel
said in a statement. “This issue
has long been a challenge for
local ranchers, and with the
number of wolves in the area
more visible, people are en-
gaging in recreation and hav-
ing dangerous and accidental
encounters as well.”
Rob Klavins, northeast
Oregon field coordinator for
Oregon Wild, said McDaniel’s
comments were troubling, and
appeared to frame poaching as
a wolf problem rather than a
human problem.
Klavins, who lives and
works in neighboring Wal-
lowa County, also questioned
whether the punishment Sand-
ers received was sufficient to
act as a deterrent in future cas-
es. He said the state needs to
get more serious about tackling
poaching, especially when it
comes to wolves, which he said
are often persecuted and misun-
derstood.
“We know poaching is a
serious problem in Oregon,”
Klavins said. “For far too long,
poachers have been able to es-
cape justice in Oregon.”
While poaching is widely
seen as a reprehensible crime,
he said the conversation tends
to shift in some communi-
ties around native carnivores,
with the prevailing attitude of
“shoot, shovel and shut up.”
“It starts there,” Klavins
said. “We see the problem
then continue on through un-
derfunded law enforcement,
insufficient penalties and de-
cisions left in the hands of
local elected officials who see
poaching as a wolf problem.”
Ecology starts inquiry into best farm practices
Farm representatives
still hopeful about
ultimate outcome
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
New reservoir in use as
Roza irrigation water flows
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
SUNNYSIDE,
Wash.
— The Roza Irrigation Dis-
trict, serving 72,000 acres
— mostly farmland — from
Selah to Benton City, began
filling its 95-mile-long main
canal on March 15.
It normally takes more
than four days for water to
flow from one end of the ca-
nal to the other and five to
seven days for it to be fully
charged, said Scott Revell,
RID manager in Sunnyside.
Water deliveries began about
March 21, he said.
Other irrigation systems
throughout Central Wash-
ington also are starting their
seasons.
But this year water to the
lower 40 miles of the Roza
Canal is arriving a couple
days sooner. For the first
time, water was spilled into
the canal from the district’s
new $31 million, 1,600-acre-
foot re-regulation reservoir
in Washout Canyon, five
miles north of Sunnyside.
It’s 55 miles downstream
from the canal start and di-
version from the Yakima
River at Roza Dam. Water
also flowed into the canal
from a smaller re-regulation
reservoir 30 miles down ca-
nal from Washout Canyon.
The season outlook is
good with the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation forecasting
100 percent water supply for
junior and senior water right
holders in the Yakima Basin,
Revell said.
A cool and wet spring
is likely, but if warm, dry
weather takes over it could
change the outlook, he said.
Orchardists want water
now for frost protection.
Wine grapes and hops won’t
need it for awhile, he said.
More than nine miles of
lateral canals were piped this
past winter.
The district used grants
from the state and federal
government to seal cracks
in more than a 1.5 miles of
concrete lined sections of
the main canal. Over a half-
mile of geotech liner was
installed in the canal at Ter-
race Heights. All the work
reduces leakage and allows
for more efficient water use,
Revell said.
Beside 95 miles of main
canal, the district system has
more than 350 miles of lat-
erals serving 1,700 growers.
The U.S. Bureau of Rec-
lamation is paying 65 per-
cent of the Washout Canyon
project and the state Depart-
ment of Ecology and Roza
district are each paying 17.5
percent.
The district uses about
300,000 acre-feet of water
annually.
When a grower in the
lower part of the district or-
ders water it takes two days
for it to arrive from the dam.
By then the weather may
have changed and the grow-
er may not need as much.
Water that isn’t used goes
into one of several waste-
ways that take it back to the
Yakima River, Revell said.
The new reservoir allows
the district to pump such
excess water from the canal
into the reservoir and hold
it for later use in the lower
half of the district instead of
dumping it into the waste-
ways. It enables the water
master at the dam to fine-
tune diversions, saving wa-
ter and providing more equal
shares to everyone in the dis-
trict, Revell said.
The Washout Canyon res-
ervoir is about half full with
water from last season and
will be brought up to a near-
full operating level within a
few days of the start of this
season, he said.
The state Department of
Ecology has begun a long-
planned look at the best ways
Washington’s farmers and
ranchers can prevent water
pollution.
The review was triggered
by criticism from the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency
that the state’s plan to control
agricultural runoff was too
vague. In response, Ecolo-
gy has formed a 26-member
committee that includes farm
groups, environmental orga-
nizations, tribes and conser-
vation districts.
Ecology says the com-
mittee will look at 12 broad
categories — such as storing
manure or planting stream
buffers — to identify pollu-
tion-control measures that are
effective, practical and volun-
tary.
The Farm Bureau’s repre-
sentative on the committee,
Evan Sheffels, the group’s
water-policy expert, said the
exercise might benefit farm-
ers by making Ecology more
flexible in funding on-farm,
pollution-control projects.
Nevertheless, he said he
remains leery that what will
start as voluntary guidelines
will someday be held up as
mandatory measures.
“Am I being paranoid?
Maybe,” he said. “We’re hop-
ing this is about science and
what the farm can implement,
and it doesn’t get political.”
The review stems from a
plan Ecology presented to the
EPA in 2015. The plan makes
Ecology eligible to receive
federal funds to protect wa-
ter. While approving the plan,
EPA said Ecology should “de-
scribe a process for engag-
ing stakeholders” to develop
“best-management practices.”
Separately, Portland-based
Northwest
Environmental
Advocates in 2016 sued the
EPA, alleging it should cut off
federal funds until Ecology
implements best-management
practices. The lawsuit is pend-
ing in U.S. District Court for
Western Washington.
Ecology has tackled the
EPA-assigned task cautious-
ly. It spent more than a year
planning how to proceed. A
consultant reported that pro-
ducers were worried the prac-
tices that emerged would be
Don Jenkins/Capital Press File
Dairies will be among the focuses of a Washington Department of Ecology committee considering
best-management practices for the state’s farms and ranches.
onerous, uneconomical and
de facto regulations. Envi-
ronmentalists said they were
frustrated by the pace of iden-
tifying the practices.
The committee that has
emerged from that planning
has met twice.
Washington State Dairy
Federation policy director Jay
Gordon, who’s on the com-
mittee, credited Ecology with
good intentions.
“I am feeling much more
comfortable,” he said. “I am
hopeful and optimistic.”
Washington Cattle Feeders
Association Executive Di-
rector Jack Field, also on the
committee, said he too was
sanguine about how the effort
was shaping up.
“I think we have a good
chance of having a positive
outcome out of this process,”
Field said.
The committee will split
into two work groups for
meetings over the summer.
One group, largely made
up of scientists, will evalu-
ate which pollution-control
methods are most effective. A
second group, which includes
farmers and environmental-
ists, will consider whether the
methods are practical.
Natural Resource Conser-
vation Service standards will
figure in the talks, but the
work groups will look at other
standards, too.
The work groups will be-
gin with two categories: soil
stabilization and sediment
capture, and tillage and resi-
due management. Reviewing
those two topics may take the
rest of the year, according to
Ecology.
Categories on deck in-
clude controlling pollutants
from livestock in pastures and
when confined, and protecting
streams with buffers. Ecology
has no timetable for working
through the 12 categories.
12-3/106
Roza Irrigation District
Water spills from Roza Irrigation District’s new re-regulation
reservoir north of Sunnyside, Wash., into the main Roza Canal
for the first time on March 15. Many miles upriver, the canal was
also being charged at Roza Dam.
12-3/102