July 6, 2018
CapitalPress.com
5
Solar rules raise potential for controversy
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Community To Community
Farmworkers who walked out and were then fired from Sar-
banand blueberry farm in Whatcon county, Wash., march in
protest last summer. A judge has reduced by half the state fine
levied against the farm for missed meals and breaks.
Record state farm fine
slashed in half by judge
L&I disappointed
with reduction in
Sarbanand penalty
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A record fine levied
against a northwest Wash-
ington blueberry farm for
missed rest breaks and late
meals has been cut in half by
a judge.
Whatcom County Dis-
trict Judge Pro Tem David
Cottingham last week re-
duced the amount Sarba-
nand Farms will pay in state
and county fines to $74,825.
The state Department of La-
bor and Industries originally
imposed a penalty that to-
taled $149,650.
“We’re disappointed in
the court’s decision,” L&I
spokesman Tim Church
said. “Late meals and
missed breaks are serious
violations that affected hun-
dreds of workers over sever-
al days.”
The fine stemmed from
investigations L&I began
in August 2017 after a sick
farmworker, Honesto Silva
Ibarra, was taken by ambu-
lance for medical treatment
and died four days later at
a Seattle hospital of what
officials said were natural
causes.
Activists accused the
farm, owned by California
brothers Kewel and Bal-
dez Munger, of mistreating
Ibarra, 28, of Mexico and
callously firing about 70
farmworkers who staged a
one-day protest.
L&I concluded Ibarra’s
death was not work-related
and that the farm was not
at fault. The department
also found no evidence to
support claims that workers
were exposed to pesticides.
L&I did find, based on
company records, that work-
ers either missed breaks or
received meals late 13 times
during a two-week period in
July.
Sarbanand did not con-
test the violations, but did
challenge the severity of the
penalty, according to court
records.
The late meals took place
on days that workers were
on the job for at least 11 1/2
hours, according to L&I re-
cords. Workers must be giv-
en a 30-minute meal period
every five hours. The missed
breaks occurred on 12- to
13-hour workdays. The law
requires 10-minute breaks
every four hours.
Sarbanand said in a writ-
ten statement Wednesday
that workers received two
rest breaks, but should have
received a third.
“The people at Sarba-
nand Farms take seriously
their responsibilities with
respect to worker safety
and well-being, so in coop-
eration with L&I, we have
updated our meal and rest
break policies to ensure con-
tinued compliance with all
applicable laws and regula-
tions,” a Sarbanand spokes-
man said.
The Lynden Tribune re-
ported that Cottingham in
court cited the farm’s re-
cord-keeping in reducing
the fine, noting that the re-
cords allowed L&I to docu-
ment the violations.
L&I’s options for pe-
nalizing Sarbanand ranged
from $513 to $2.95 million,
depending on how the fine
was calculated, accord-
ing to department records.
L&I settled on a fine that
a spokesman said was a
middle course and that de-
partment records said was
influenced by publicity over
Ibarra’s death and the strike.
L&I announced that the
fine was the largest ever
imposed by the department
for employment standard
violations. It was unclear
Wednesday whether the re-
duced fine is still a record.
Sarbanand cooperated
with L&I investigators and
immediately took steps to
prevent future violations,
according to L&I records.
The fired workers were
Mexican nationals issued
H-2A visas to work for Sar-
banand. A class-action law-
suit pending in U.S. District
Court for Western Washing-
ton alleges the workers were
wrongfully dismissed, as
well as underfed and over-
worked. Sarbanand says the
allegations are unfounded.
The lawsuit was filed by Co-
lumbia Legal Services and a
Seattle law firm.
SALEM — Oregon energy
regulators recently got a pre-
view of some controversies
likely to arise over regulating
multiple solar arrays as one
large facility.
The potential regulations
will be debated by a “rulemak-
ing advisory committee,” or
RAC, that was approved by Or-
egon’s Energy Facility Siting
Council at its June 29 meeting
in Salem, Ore.
When solar projects take up
more than 100 acres of farm-
land or 320 acres of other land,
they come under the EFSC’s
jurisdiction and are analyzed
for noise and environmental
impacts, among other factors.
Solar energy on farmland
has increasingly become con-
troversial in Oregon as farm
and conservation advocates
oppose projects they argue will
disrupt agricultural productiv-
ity.
The RAC will consider
whether several solar projects
“functionally aggregate” to
have the same impact as a larg-
er facility — for example, sev-
eral arrays in close proximity
that are each smaller than 100
acres but together surpass that
threshold.
Capital Press File
An Oregon advisory committee will consider new rules for solar
installations.
The committee will also de-
cide whether the possibility of
such “aggregate” solar facilities
would justify new regulations
to avoid projects from being
broken up into smaller compo-
nents to avoid EFSC’s current
jurisdiction.
One potentially thorny con-
sequence of new rules would
be EFSC taking control of
projects that would otherwise
fall under local government
authority.
Counties are more famil-
iar with the local landscape
than EFSC officials in Salem
and can make decisions more
efficiently than that regula-
tory body, said Don Russell,
chairman of Morrow County’s
board of commissioners.
“We would be an advocate
for having as much of this
done at the local level as pos-
sible,” he said.
In Central Oregon, there’s
a perception that solar projects
will get done faster and in a
“business-friendly” manner if
they don’t fall under EFSC’s
jurisdiction, said Betty Roppe,
a council member and mayor
of Prineville, Ore.
“We want those things to
proceed because we desperate-
ly need the electricity,” Roppe
said.
Another problem raised at
the meeting was unfairness to
landowners when one solar fa-
cility is developed after anoth-
er — the first project may not
come under EFSC’s purview,
but the second one on a neigh-
boring property might.
The council was also
urged not to discourage the
“co-location” of solar proj-
ects that can rely on existing
transmission facilities, thus
preventing the fragmentation
of wildlife habitat.
The scope of the RAC’s
mission should be narrow
and well-defined, said Rikki
Seguin, policy director for
Renewable Northwest, a non-
profit that supports renewable
energy.
Demand for solar energy
is increasing but the potential
for new regulation can cre-
ate uncertainty in the market,
Seguin said. “The industry
doesn’t have time for another
rulemaking that takes years.”
Due to the controversial
nature of the rulemaking, the
RAC was proposed to have
about 25 members represent-
ing a variety of interests.
While some councilors and
attendees called for additional
representatives to be added,
the large number of members
raised concerns about the com-
mittee becoming unmanage-
able.
“I can’t imagine getting any-
thing scheduled with this many
people,” said Marcy Grail, a
council member and employee
of the International Brother-
hood of Electrical Workers.
Firefighters battle central Washington sagebrush fires
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
GEORGE, Wash. —
Wildfire burned about 3,800
acres of sagebrush and grass
between George and Quin-
cy, Wash., on Sunday night,
about 24 hours after another
fire burned 100 acres some
20 miles to the south along
Frenchman Hills.
Neither fire damaged struc-
tures or crops or resulted in
injuries, said Anthony Leibelt,
deputy chief of Grant County
Fire District 3 in Quincy.
The causes of both fires are
under investigation, Leibelt
said, while declining to say ei-
ther was suspicious.
The Sunday fire started
about 5 p.m. in a recreation
area on the west side of Quincy
Lake, he said.
A vehicle was seen leaving
the vicinity but it is not known
if it had anything to do with the
fire, he said.
Strong wind fanned it
quickly southeast along the
northern side of Burke Lake.
No roads led close enough
for firefighters to initially reach
the fire and they hoped Burke
Lake would stop it. But the fire
jumped the lake and burned
south to Evergreen Lake.
The fire jumped that lake
also.
It was finally contained at
Road 2 Northwest and an ir-
rigation canal about 2 miles
northwest of George, he said.
Residents of about 10
homes were temporarily put on
evacuation standby, but they
did not have to move, he said.
A third fire in the same vi-
cinity about three weeks earlier
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Firefighters watch a wildfire at the east end of Burke Lake between George and Quincy, Wash., at 5:46
p.m. July 1. They lacked roads to reach the fire until it jumped the lake and spread farther south.
burned 75 acres and was not of
suspicious origin, Leibelt said.
A firefighter lost a finger in that
fire, he said.
“Firefighter safety is a big
concern in these rocky areas,”
he said. “Conditions are hot
and dry, and with winds off
they (fires) go.”
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