July 13, 2018
CapitalPress.com
11
Washington’s wolf peacemaker ends her tenure
Money runs out
for contract
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
ELLENSBURG, Wash.
— High-profile mediator
Francine Madden this week
wrapped up her three-year
mission to corral the conflicts
humans have over wolves in
Washington.
Madden succeeded in get-
ting people with different
views to collaborate, but mon-
ey to fund her contract has run
out, Department of Fish and
Wildlife wolf manager Don-
ny Martorello said. Madden
teared up Tuesday after lead-
ing a meeting of the depart-
ment’s Wolf Advisory Group.
“I’m going to miss the
people in this state a lot,” she
said. “They are passionate,
hard-working and deeply com-
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Meeting leader Francine Madden talks to the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife’s Wolf Advisory Group on July 10 in Ellensburg.
mitted to their communities.”
Madden’s departure comes
as the department shifts the fo-
cus of the advisory group from
current policies to proposing a
plan to manage a stable state-
wide population of wolves.
The department’s current han-
dling of wolves continues to
be criticized by cattlemen and
conservationists.
The department signed
the Washington, D.C.-based
Madden to a nearly $1.2 mil-
lion contract in 2015 and to a
$425,000 extension last year.
Her in-person services cost
$8,000 a day, plus travel ex-
penses. She previously had an
$82,000 contract to write a re-
port for the department on so-
cial conflicts over wolves.
Madden’s work to rec-
oncile opposing views was
praised by people on different
sides, though the Cattle Pro-
ducers of Washington said the
department should refocus on
managing wolves, not people,
and left the advisory group in
2015.
The group, including its
members from conservation
organizations, agreed in 2017
on when wolves would be
killed to stop attacks on live-
stock. Environmentalists not
on the panel, however, argue
the policy violates the law be-
cause it didn’t undergo a for-
mal public review.
Madden said conflicts will
ebb and flow and cited her
neutral status in declining to
assess the state of discord over
wolves. “It’s not for me to
judge,” she said.
Martorello said the depart-
ment will look for money to
hire another person to lead
wolf meetings, though funding
is uncertain. In any event, the
agency is better able now to
preside over contentious talks,
he said.
“At some point, we wanted
to learn that skill set and take
it upon ourselves,” Martorello
said. “As (Madden) parts the
system, we will carry on the
strategies she has taught us.”
If the department allo-
cates money for a facilitator,
the position will be put out to
bid, Martorello said. Madden
didn’t rule out seeking a new
contract. “I can’t predict the
future,” she said.
The wolf advisory group
spent Tuesday roughly outlin-
ing steps toward submitting
a plan to manage wolves af-
ter they’ve been taken off the
state’s endangered species list.
Recovery appears to be at least
several years away.
“We are asking the (wolf
advisory group) to focus at-
tention on a post-delisting plan
because it is such a high priori-
ty for us,” Martorello said.
Some wolf advisory group
members said they wanted to
also talk about current policies.
“We can’t forget the people
who are being affected as we
discuss what we’re going to be
doing in five years,” said Gar-
field County rancher Samee
Charriere.
Kettle Range Conservation
Group director Tim Coleman
said the group should talk
about topics such as how the
department assigns depreda-
tions to packs and applies the
law that allows ranchers to
shoot wolves caught attack-
ing livestock. “I want to talk
about what’s going on now,”
Coleman said. “We need to
understand each other.”
Owyhee Irrigation
District eyes its
modernization
opportunities
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Washington State University wheat breeder Mike Pumphrey says the Hession fly is a growing problem in spring wheat varieties.
Hessian flies on the rise in
Washington spring wheat
Pest damages
spring wheat
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Hessian fly is on the rise
in spring wheat varieties, a
Washington wheat breeder
says.
“This year I’ve seen it pret-
ty much everywhere,” said
Mike Pumphrey, Washington
State University spring wheat
breeder.
The insects have continued
to increase in recent years.
They create abnormal
growth in the wheat plant,
Pumphrey said.
“They’re basically tell-
ing the wheat plant to feed
it, instead of the wheat
plant feeding itself,” he
said. “You won’t see any
chomping or typical sort of
predation, but you will see
abnormal growth, stunting
and weak stems due to Hes-
sian fly.”
Hessian fly is almost ex-
clusively a spring wheat pest,
affecting 30 to 80 percent of
farm income, although it can
affect winter wheat, reducing
yields by a bushel or two per
acre.
Some cropping systems or
rotations favor Hessian fly,
Pumphrey said.
Seed treatments with sys-
temic insecticides can have
an early impact, but resistant
wheat varieties are most use-
ful. Certain market classes
have some good varieties that
are susceptible, Pumphrey
said.
“We have some really
good varieties of spring club
wheat,” he said as an exam-
ple. “They get planted be-
cause there may be a premi-
um — they yield well, they
have good disease resistance
otherwise. Then all of a sud-
den Hessian fly comes in and
takes away any hope of a pre-
mium or maximizing profit.”
If primary weather pat-
terns continue, Pumphrey
said, Hessian fly resistance
should be a primary con-
sideration as farmers select
wheat varieties.
Pumphrey seeks resistance
in his breeding program,
screening materials to ensure
resistance and using different
types of resistance to avoid
losing it down the road.
New tariffs chill U.S. beef export potential
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Import tariffs on U.S. beef to Canada
and China are top of mind for the U.S. beef
industry.
Canada implemented a 10 percent tariff
on some U.S. beef products on July 1 after
the U.S. moved ahead with tariffs on U.S.
imports of Canadian steel and aluminum.
“Unfortunately we are the direct victims
of trade retaliation,” Kent Bacus, director
of international trade and market access
for National Cattlemen’s Beef Association,
said in the Beltway Beef podcast on Thurs-
day.
The tariff applies to prepared and pre-
served beef, representing $170 million of
the $800 million in U.S. beef sales to Can-
ada in 2017. They were a small but signifi-
cant part of sales to Canada, he said.
“It’s a tough situation for us,” he said.
A 10 percent tariff is not a lot but added
to a strong U.S. dollar compared to the Ca-
nadian dollar, it makes U.S. product more
expensive and less competitive, he said.
Associated Press File
New tariffs on U.S. beef will impact trade
with Canada and China, analysts say.
“So there’s a disincentive to buy Ameri-
can. If the whole point is to buy American,
this is not really going about it the right
way,” he said.
While it might bring some short-term
victories to the U.S. steel and aluminum in-
dustries, beef producers are going to carry a
big part of the retaliation, he said.
Across the globe, China raised its 12
percent import tariff on U.S. beef to 37 per-
cent on July 6. The tariff comes as the U.S.
is just starting to make inroads into Chi-
na’s grain-finished beef market after being
banned for 13 years.
It’s a small market, but U.S. beef was
doing a good job in taking market share
from competitors.
U.S. exports grew at a steady pace from
zero sales to $30 million in sales in just six
months, he said.
The U.S. Meat Export Federation was
forecasting those sales to grow to $70 mil-
lion in 2018 and reach up to $400 million in
three or four years.
“And that’s with all those restrictions
on hormones, beta agonists, traceability,”
he said.
Without those restrictions, USMEF
projects U.S. beef exports to China could
reach $4 billion annually in the next five
years, he said.
“That’s huge. Last year, we exported $7
billion total, and now we’re talking about
a market with that much potential. But
we’re not going to be able to realize that
as long as we’re going to be in the middle
of this tit-for-tat tariffs,” he said.
A study funded by a recent
grant aims to help the Owyhee
Irrigation District determine
how and where to modernize.
OID General Manager
Jay Chamberlin said the ap-
proximately $250,000 grant,
through Energy Trust of Or-
egon and Pacific Power &
Light, is funding the evalu-
ation by Hood River, Ore.-
based Farmers Conservation
Alliance.
“They are looking at ev-
ery aspect: hydro potential,
gravity pressurized sprinkler
potential, canal lining, water
conservation. … Really, the
project is being complete-
ly evaluated and assessed,”
Chamberlin said. “It’s almost
an inventory of what we are
doing now and what we can
do to improve.”
Farmers Conservation Al-
liance spokeswoman Marla
Keethler said Owyhee Irri-
gation District enrolled in
its Irrigation Modernization
Program, “and we are current-
ly working with them to un-
derstand their district’s needs
and goals as we work toward
developing a system improve-
ment plan and eventually a
modernization strategy.”
Chamberlin said the mod-
ernization study will help
identify the best opportuni-
ties to maintain and improve
function even as OID deals
with current facility needs and
some recent changes in how
customers use water.
After irrigation season
ends each fall, the Nyssa,
Ore.-based district starts proj-
ects such as repairing or au-
tomating infrastructure, and
replacing some sections of
open canal with pressurized
pipeline.
An upcoming major proj-
ect aims to stabilize more
than one-third of Malheur
Siphon, an above-ground, 80-
inch steel pipe that runs for
more than four miles north
to the Malheur River. Cham-
berlin said the approximately
$750,000 project is expect-
ed to start in early October
and conclude in early March,
ahead of the 2019 irrigation
season’s start.
“This phase will complete
the most difficult section of
repairs,” he
said.
The
pipe, whose
foundation
legs
have
been moving
in unstable
Jay
clay soil, is
Chamberlin wrinkled in
three different
locations, he said. Additional
phases will be completed lat-
er as OID builds its reserve
funds.
The Owyhee Irrigation
District serves about 120,000
irrigated acres and more than
1,200 customers in Oregon
and Idaho. Its annual budget
is about $4 million, funded by
a customer charge per acre of
$65 — up from $62 last year
and including $1.50 special
assessment for the siphon
project.
Chamberlin said the dis-
trict in the last decade has seen
client farms become fewer in
number, but larger overall.
“It really changes the dis-
tribution of water,” he said.
Many of the larger farms
grow one crop on 100 acres
instead of three or four, and
use pivot irrigation systems
that in the long term can re-
duce total water usage but in
the short term run frequently,
Chamberlin said. “With pivot
and sprinkler irrigation, you
can’t get behind because you
don’t have the deep percola-
tion.”
Similarly, drip irrigation
rarely shuts down altogether
as it moves water across dif-
ferent zones in large acreages.
Chamberlin said this constant,
level irrigation flow means
peak demand periods are less
pronounced and water can
stay longer in Owyhee Res-
ervoir.
Owyhee Reservoir was
about 60 percent full in
mid-July, the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation reported, in-
cluding water left from the
heavy snowmelt of 2016-17.
OID customers this year re-
ceived full allotments of wa-
ter, Chamberlin said, but the
district has tried to stay con-
servative and leave as much
in the reservoir as possible
in the event low snowpack
materializes again this year
in the large Owyhee River
drainage.
Washington agency looked, didn’t find underfed farmworkers
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A state agency was unable
to verify complaints last sum-
mer that meals served work-
ers at Sarbanand Farms in
northwest Washington were
meager and poor, according to
newly available records.
The Employment Securi-
ty Department started asking
workers about food shortly
before a worker’s death drew
other agencies into probing
conditions at the farm. The
ESD records do not include
a report summarizing the de-
partment’s findings, but an of-
ficial wrote that workers said
that they had enough to eat.
“We were unable to sub-
stantiate the concern regard-
ing the quality or quantity
of the food provided,” ESD
agricultural services direc-
tor Craig Carroll wrote in an
email sent last Aug. 7 to oth-
ers in the department.
Government agencies con-
ducted multi-part investiga-
tions at Sarbanand, a blueber-
ry farm in Whatcom County
owned by California brothers
David and Kable Munger. The
farm continues to be the target
of activists, a lawsuit filed by
Columbia Legal Services and
critics of the seasonal H-2A
guestworker program.
The Department of Labor
and Industries cleared the
farm of any wrongdoing in
the worker’s death and found
no evidence to support claims
that workers were exposed to
pesticides. L&I did fine the
farm for serving meals late
and missing rest breaks. A
judge last month ordered the
fine be cut in half to $74,825
The ESD documents, re-
leased in response to a pub-
lic records request from the
Capital Press, shed light on
allegations that meals for the
farm’s some 600 workers
were inadequate. L&I record-
ed complaints from workers
about undercooked food and
scant meals, and the pending
lawsuit includes allegations
that Sarbanand failed to pro-
vide sufficient food. Sarba-
nand denies the claim.
“Sarbanand tries to take
good care of all of its workers,
and someone is always going
to complain about food when
you’re feeding 600 workers,”
a farm representative, Tom
Pedreira, said Monday.
ESD received a sec-
ond-hand complaint about the
food at Sarbanand in late July,
according to department re-
cords. In response, ESD farm-
worker outreach specialist
Jennifer Lund talked to four
H-2A workers walking on a
road and all said they were re-
ceiving enough food.
“I talked with them inde-
pendently, and all of them
seemed confident in their re-
ply that the meals being pro-
vided were adequate,” she
wrote in a July 31 email to
colleagues.
According to Carroll’s
Aug. 7 email, Lund followed
up and spoke with other work-
ers, including many H-2A
workers who were fired after
going on strike. Lund wrote
in another message to col-
leagues, “I asked about the
food and indicated that I was
hearing concerns about not
enough food, but that I could
not find a worker that wanted
to file a complaint.”