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CapitalPress.com
April 27, 2018
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
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Opinion
Editorial Board
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O ur V iew
Bitcoin miners may threaten NW’s low-cost power
T
he quest for bitcoins,
the cryptocurrency that
exists only in cyberspace,
probably doesn’t weigh heavily on
the minds of most farmers.
But it should.
Bitcoin “miners” are
proliferating around the world,
but the Pacific Northwest and its
low power rates make this region
particularly attractive. The miners
use racks crammed with power-
hungry computer servers to solve
cryptographic puzzles and ferret
out the cryptocurrency.
At stake for the lucky miners is
millions of dollars.
But while more miners are
joining the rush for bitcoins they
also may threaten the agricultural
economy, much of which is based
on low-cost hydropower. The
same power grid that supplies
megawatts of electricity
to the bitcoin
crowd also
supplies it
to food
processors,
packers,
irrigators
and
others in
agriculture.
The issue
has sparked a
debate in the Mid-
Columbia Basin of Washington
state. There, public utility districts
operate five dams that produce
massive amounts of electricity
that powers the region and,
through sales to other utilities,
other regions as well. Add in the
low-cost power produced by the
Bonneville Power Administration
you have the foundation
of the entire Pacific
Northwest
economy.
Currently,
bitcoin
miners have
requested 2,000
megawatts of
electricity —
about two-thirds
of the average
output of the Mid-
Columbia Basin’s five
dams.
The problem with bitcoin
miners is they are temporary. They
need lots of power today, or when
the value of a bitcoin or other
cryptocurrencies is high, but they
don’t need it at all when the value
drops. That happens on occasion,
as a bitcoin has ranged in value
from a few hundred dollars to
nearly $20,000. In fact, the value
of bitcoin has bounced between
$6,630 and $8,366 so far this
month. That’s down from $19,216
last December.
That calls into question to value
of cryptocurrency. It’s not backed
by any government or precious
metal; it’s just a digital halogram
of money. Paul Krugman, a
Nobel Prize-winning economist
and columnist for the New York
Times, called it a Ponzi scheme.
We won’t argue with him.
Because of the volatility of
cryptocurrencies the success of
miners could be fleeting, and their
ability to pay their power bills
could be, too.
In dealing with the requests
for power, the PUDs have take a
prudent course of reconsidering
their rate structures and
requirements for large power users
to pay for added transmission lines
and substations. They also are
being careful not to commit too
much power to temporary users
such as bitcoin miners and have
enough available for the expansion
of real economic operations such
as fruit processors.
The fear is that a bitcoin miner
might close down, leaving a PUD
and its customers holding the
bill for the power and expensive
equipment they no longer need.
Utilities should exercise
great caution in dealing with
cryptocurrency miners.
There’s an old adage: If it
sounds too to be true, it is.
That would apply to
cryptocurrency as well.
Ag practices can
support threatened
Willamette Valley bird
O ur V iew
By NILES BRINTON
For the Capital Press
R
USDA
SNAP electronic benefits cards from around the nation. The program is one of several non-agricultural programs that make up the lion’s
share of the farm bill — and spark the most divisiveness in Congress.
SNAP a wild card in new farm bill
R
epublicans in the House
Agriculture Committee last
week passed a draft of the next
farm bill on a partisan vote.
As in past years, the issues dividing
Republicans and Democrats are the
welfare components of the legislation.
Democrats want to take back the
House and the Senate in November.
To accomplish this “blue wave” they’ll
need to turn a lot of districts in farm
country — districts that voted for
Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
Both Democrats and Republicans want
to protect farmers, so you’d think it
would be a snap to pass a new farm
bill.
It turns out that rather than being a
snap, it is wrangling over SNAP — the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program — that led to the partisan
committee vote. SNAP, what used to
be known as food stamps, is a $68
billion a year program that accounts
for 69 percent of domestic food
programs. SNAP and other nutrition
programs make up 80 percent of what
we think is inaccurately called the
farm bill.
Republicans attached language in
the new bill that would require most
able-bodied SNAP recipients to either
work or be enrolled in a work training
program to qualify for assistance.
That’s a nonstarter for Democrats.
We won’t weigh in on the pros and
cons of asking those who are getting
assistance to make some effort towards
employment, though it doesn’t seem
like an entirely bad idea. Once again,
we have trouble seeing the benefits of
folding social welfare programs into
the farm bill.
Decades ago Congress decided
to put food stamp and school lunch
funding into the farm bill. The thinking
goes that urban legislators don’t really
care much for commodity subsidies,
crop insurance and dairy pricing, but
they do care about nutrition programs
that impact their constituents. Lumped
in with the welfare programs urban
legislators do care about, the farm
expenditures seem like small potatoes
that aren’t worth a fight.
We admit there was probably some
logic behind that thinking. But in
practice, the thing that was supposed
to grease the skids seems to always
throw the farm bill off the rails.
The 2008 Farm Bill was set to
expire in September 2012. In order
to avoid running into election season,
Democrats who controlled Congress
began working on a new bill in 2011.
It wasn’t until 2014 that a bill was
passed, mostly because of partisan
differences on how much to fund
nutrition programs.
It’s too early to tell if the “2018
Farm Bill” will suffer the same fate.
But it is another election year and
politics are even more divisive than
five years ago.
We can’t help but wonder, as we
did in 2013, whether farmers and
ranchers would be better served by a
relatively modest bill that stands on
its own than rather than being held
hostage by partisan wrangling over
welfare spending.
Readers’ views
Elk problems the
fault of wildlife
managers
Regarding the Capital
Press April 12, “Elk dis-
rupt farming in Northwest
Washington valley.”
Double O Ranch, Con-
crete, founded in early
1940s has always been
home to an abundance of
wildlife including deer and
an occasional elk.
There has never been
a elk herd until the fall of
2012 when we were inun-
dated with about 50 elk.
After more than 6 years
of feeding 30-60 head of
elk during late summer,
fall and winter we are ex-
periencing losses from di-
minishing returns.
Elk constantly over-
graze pastures, destroying
our grass production and
making it a continuous bat-
tle to restore hay and graz-
ing capacity.
This year alone we spent
$16,000 to purchase hay to
replace feed consumed by
elk along with 400 tons we
made.
When you add costs of
increased fertilizer, pasture
damage, fencing, purchas-
ing hay and spoilage from
torn bales, timber losses
and useless hazing it makes
it difficult for a small fami-
ly to continue ranching.
Another looming hazard
is threat of deadly hoof dis-
ease found in elk herds in
Skagit County.
I can go on all day about
our losses and struggles,
but the legality of the elk
invasion of our properties
lies at the core of the whole
elk issue.
As law-abiding, tax pay-
ing citizens of Washington
we should not be subject-
ed to undue hardships that
threaten our livelihood and
our safety.
Why have the Washing-
ton Department of Fish and
Wildlife and the Tribes ig-
nored state laws to the ex-
tent they have? We would
be subject to fines and jail
time.
After years of abid-
ing by laws and following
WDFW’s hazing and per-
mit recommendations for
elk removal with no relief
from damages, landowners
are faced with the dilem-
ma of how to protect their
property.
The lack of a plan by
co-managers has left us
with few solutions. If
WDFW does not present a
clear plan for removal, it
will be up to us to do so.
Why didn’t the co-man-
agers plan for this before
their negligence created
this problem?
Cindy Kleinhuizen
Concrete, Wash.
ecent Capital Press
articles (March 8 and
15) have covered the
lawsuit over the threatened
Streaked Horned Lark, a
ground-nesting grassland
bird found in the Willa-
mette Valley.
This lawsuit has set the
stage for a new opportunity
for producer participation
in the recovery of the Lark.
An interdisciplinary group
called The Lark Partner-
ship is seeking farmers and
landowners as partners in
testing a new suite of ag-
ricultural practices for the
Lark.
The group consists of
representatives from Wil-
lamette Valley farmers,
the Oregon Farm Bureau,
USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service, Ore-
gon Department of Fish and
Wildlife, American Bird
Conservancy, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and Pacific
Birds Habitat Joint Venture.
Based on input from
farmers, biologists and
ecologists, the agricultural
practices intend to improve
breeding and nesting suc-
cess for the Lark on work-
ing lands in the Willamette
Valley.
If successful, these prac-
tices should help the popu-
lation grow, a key condition
for removal of the bird from
the Threatened Species list.
The practices are de-
signed to provide farmers
with options depending on
what types of crops they
grow and what habitat fea-
tures occur in their fields,
such as gravel road shoul-
ders, drowned-out areas,
drainage ditches or gravel
ridges.
One general theme is to
provide disturbed patches
(ideal Lark nesting habitat)
in non-critical or low-yield-
ing areas, and then avoid
those patches to allow for
undisturbed breeding.
In other cases, certain
crops may provide suit-
able breeding habitat, and
practices simply involve
slight shifts in timing of
non-critical farming activi-
ties, which allows the bird
enough time to breed.
The practices will be
coupled with financial in-
centives, first funded by
grants, and then as a stan-
dard program through a
conservation organization,
the Partnership hopes.
But questions remain.
How effective will these
practices be at improving
breeding success? How
costly will they be, and
which practices will be
most cost-effective?
Importantly, what type
of reassurances can be
Guest
comment
Niles Brinton
provided to cooperative
landowners to protect their
farm from regulatory risk?
A Safe Harbor Agreement
is one tool used by the Fish
and Wildlife Service for
this purpose, and could be
initiated with interest from
producers and landowners.
To answer these ques-
tions, the Partnership is
seeking landowners that are
willing to pilot these con-
servation practices on their
farms.
The recent lawsuit filed
by the Center for Biological
Diversity has the potential
to upgrade the status of the
Lark to Endangered and to
remove the special 4(d) rule
that currently protects agri-
cultural operations from
prosecution for harming the
Lark under the Endangered
Species Act.
A decision will likely
take at least one year, and
if the lawsuit is successful,
the U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service will have to
re-evaluate the listing sta-
tus of the bird at that point
in time. Continued prog-
ress toward lark recovery
through landowner partici-
pation will support the case
for maintaining the agricul-
tural protections under the
4(d) rule.
Farmland and farming
practices provide the wide
open spaces and disturbed
areas the bird uses, but
farming activities during
the summer breeding sea-
son also create a risk of
disturbing nests, eggs or
young birds.
Today the Willamette
Valley harbors most of the
remaining Lark population,
and if there is to be any
hope of de-listing the spe-
cies, partnering with valley
farmers will be critical. The
Partnership remains com-
mitted to working collabo-
ratively to help recover the
Lark.
Farmers, landowners or
others who are interested
in the work on Streaked
Horned Lark conservation
can contact or join The
Lark Partnership.
For more information,
visit www.larkpartnership.
org or call Niles Brinton at
971-273-4813.
Niles Brinton is a
conservation specialist
with the Pacific Birds
Habitat Joint Venture who
works with landowners on
Streaked Horned Lark hab-
itat conservation. He lives
in Salem, Ore., and works
throughout the Willamette
Valley. Submitted on behalf
of The Lark Partnership.
www.larkpartnership.org