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4 CapitalPress.com Friday, February 1, 2019 Farm Bureau on board with orca recovery, By DON JENKINS Capital Press OLYMPIA — Distress over orcas has invigorated a push to give the Wash- ington Department of Fish and Wildlife more power to penalize landowners and immediately stop projects that might affect salmon. The Inslee administra- tion, environmental groups and tribes say the depart- ment has too little author- ity to prevent rock-lined shores, especially in Puget Sound, from damaging fish habitat and starving orcas. As it has been in the past, the Washington Farm Bureau is leery about where this is heading. The department already has broad authority to reg- ulate projects on dry land, Farm Bureau director of government relations Tom Davis said. “We support orca recov- ery,” he told the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday. “But when it comes to regulatory expansion, we would just ask for caution. Orcas are now the rally- ing point for previously pro- posed salmon policies. The hearing Tuesday was simi- lar to a 2017 legislative hear- ing, when orcas were not mentioned. At issue is how Fish and Wildlife enforces the law that prohibits property own- ers from damaging rivers and streams. In some cases, land- owners must obtain permits from the department. The Washington Supreme Court ruled last year that the department’s authority does not end at the water’s edge. Courtesy of NOAA Orcas, also known as killer whales, travel off the coast of Washington. The ruling affirmed that the department could require landowners to have per- mits before clearing brush or maintaining dikes. House Bill 1579, spon- sored by Democrats, would change the fine for breaking the state’s hydraulic code to $10,000 per violation. The fine now is $100 per day. The bill also would allow Fish and Wildlife to issue stop-work orders and end the requirement that the depart- ment issue permits for rock walls to protect waterfront property. The Legislature has con- sidered those policies in pre- vious years, but not adopted them. The policies are back this year and tied to orca recovery. “This is an opportunity to address the plight of the southern resident orca,” said J.T. Austin, policy adviser to Gov. Jay Inslee. Fish and Wildlife Assis- tant Director Jeff Davis said the department has his- torically enforced permits through criminal proceed- ings and wants more author- ity to first seek voluntary compliance and then issue civil penalties. “This is really a darn important bill from my per- spective to protect orca, pro- tect the investment you’ve all made in salmon recovery, as well as protecting our state and tribal fisheries,” he told legislators. The bill would declare any work that violates the state’s hydraulic code a public nui- sance, broadly defined as anything that annoys others. Another provision would require smelt dippers to get a fishing license. Salmon eat smelt. Davis said the Farm Bureau wasn’t an “absolute no” on the bill. He said the Farm Bureau might support the bill if it specified which projects Fish and Wildlife has control over. Right now, he said, its jurisdiction is vir- tually unlimited. “It goes from the top of Mount Rainier all the way down to the stream bed,” he said. “The changes in this bill do not just apply to the Puget Sound and our concern about orcas. They apply statewide, so people who live all across the state have an interest in what the impact of increased regula- tion will do to them.” Large crop depresses pear prices WENATCHEE, Wash. — Wenatchee and Yakima wholesale pear prices are significantly lower than a year ago mainly due to a 19.8 million-box crop that’s 25.3 percent larger than last year’s. The average of indus- try asking prices were $8 per box less than a year ago on Jan. 11 for U.S. No. 1 grade Bartlett and d’ Anjou, according to USDA tracking. The average was $22 to $28.90 per box on 70 through 90 pears per 44-pound box compared with $30 to $36 a year ago. Bosc sizes 70s and 80s were down $4 to $5 per box at $24 to $28.90. “This year with a big- ger crop, we expect pricing to slow but its lower than we’d like to see. We hope it comes up the last part of the season,” said Kevin Moffitt, president of Pear Bureau Northwest, the industry’s promotional arm. The season started with slow sales and early depressed pricing last August and September because California pears stayed in the market lon- ger and a record large table grape crop, Moffitt said. “Since November our domestic shipments have been good and we’ve made up some ground. It’s not harder to move, we just need to move more,” he said. The 15.8-million-box 2017 crop was the smallest in 20 years, which bolstered prices a year ago and con- tributed to a greater differ- ence with this year’s much larger crop, he said. Another hindering fac- tor is season sales to China have virtually stopped, down 95 percent, at 1,086 boxes as of Jan. 15, because of Chinese retaliatory tar- iffs, Moffitt said. Sales to China began in 2012, peaked at 204,750 boxes worth $4.8 million in 2014 and have fallen since to 29,800 boxes worth $916,000 last year, said Jeff Korea, Pear Bureau inter- national marketing director. They have fallen because of competition from Bel- gium and the Netherlands, he said. Dwight, Steven Hammond have their grazing rights restored their grazing rights restored. The Oregonian/Oregon- Live reports that former Inte- rior Secretary Ryan Zinke, in one of his last actions LEGAL STATE OF WASHINGTON Irrigated Agriculture Land for Lease Application No. 12-A74405 10 Year Lease Term The Department of Natural Resources offers for lease at Public Auction, a tract of land containing 80 acres, more or less, according to the government survey thereof, described as N1/2 of NW1/4, Section 36, Township 05 North, Range 01 West, W.M. Annual rent payment will be a cash rent due annually or semi annually. Lease covenants may be examined at Cowlitz County Courthouse in Kelso, the Pacific Cascade Region Headquarters located at 601 Bond Road, Castle Rock, Washington 98611 or the office of the Commissioner of Public Lands, Olympia, Washington. Sealed bid auction will be held at the Pacific Cascade Headquarters on February 15, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. For a bidder’s qualification packet call (509) 902-1620. HILARY S. FRANZ, Commissioner of Public Lands 5-3/999 before resigning, ordered the renewal of a 10-year graz- ing permit for Hammond Ranches Inc., run by Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven Hammond. The deci- sion was dated Jan. 2, but it wasn’t sent out until this week. Zinke ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Manage- ment to renew the grazing permit through 2024. Last year President Don- ald Trump pardoned the Hammonds, whose case had prompted the armed occu- pation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, led by two sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. In February 2014, the federal government had rejected the Hammonds’ Owyhee spillway repairs set By BRAD CARLSON Capital Press renewal application, citing their criminal convictions for setting fire to public land. “I find the pardons con- stitute unique and import- ant changed circumstances since the BLM made its decision,” Zinke wrote in the decision. The Hammonds had been convicted in 2012 of arson on land where they had graz- ing rights for their cattle. They were ordered back to prison in early 2016 to serve out five-year sentences in a case that incited right-wing militias and inspired the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wild- life Refuge, which abuts the Hammond family ranch. But on July 10, 2018, Trump pardoned the father and son. Repairs are expected to start by summer on part of Owyhee Reservoir’s “glory hole” ring-gate spillway. The system, built into a rock outcropping just upstream of the dam, moves runoff water through a concrete chamber and into the river below with help from a floating steel ring on rack-and-pinion gears. “We are having some superficial damage on the con- crete itself,” Owyhee Irriga- tion District Project Manager Jay Chamberlin said. “We’re going to have to go out there, do some demolition and knock loose portions off.” Crews in turn will find concrete reinforcement bars within the existing structure and begin to rebuild damaged areas. 5-3/106 WSU Northwestern Washington Research & Extension Center 5-2/106 16650 WA-SR536 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Water, Labor, Economic Viability, Innovation & Leadership Friday, February 8 th 9am - 4pm Free to public • No registration necessary Questions: 360-428-4270 or dmcmoran@wsu.edu. This Program Has Applied For Approval 2 WSDA Re-certification Course Credits. Platinum Sponsors: 5-3/101 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two ranchers who were convicted in 2012 of inten- tionally setting fires on pub- lic land in Oregon have had Courtesy Bureau of Reclamation The ‘glory hole’ at the Owyhee Reservoir funnels excess water into the spillway and out into the river below the dam. Access poses a challenge because the damaged area is halfway around the structure and facing the reservoir rather than the dam, he said. Most equipment will be small so it can get to the site on scaffold- ing attached to the ring-gate structure. Pneumatic pumps will carry concrete. “Logistically, it’s going to be very difficult,” Chamber- lin said. “You have the ver- tical drop and are out on the rock outcropping.” The system remains func- tional. The project’s start could be in May or June depending on how runoff sea- son affects access, he said. Cost will be determined based on further review of the project’s scope of work, Chamberlin said, but “we’re hoping to keep it under half a million dollars.” The U.S. Bureau of Rec- lamation owns Owyhee Dam outside Adrian, Ore. The dam is operated and maintained by OID, Owyhee Project South Board of Control and the Old Owyhee Ditch Improvement District. Snowpack was well below average in the Owyhee drain- age last year. It was around 99 percent of average Jan. 28, 2019, when Reclamation pegged the reservoir at 38 percent full and Chamberlin said Owyhee Reservoir con- tained about 240,000 acre- feet of water. The reservoir needs 500,000 to satisfy full allotments for all irrigated acres, he said. Maximum snowpack typ- ically occurs April 1, and “whether there is enough time to accumulate desired levels remains to be seen,” said Brian Sauer, just-retired water man- ager for Reclamation’s Middle Snake River region. “We are going to need a little help from Mother Nature. There is some snow in the long-range fore- cast, so that will help.” When Owyhee Reser- voir is full, he said, “barring any extreme drought, there is usually sufficient water for two years of adequate water supplies.” LEGAL OREGON TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING (OTAC) WHEN: February 14, 2019 12:30 pm – 4:00 pm WHERE: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 4034 Fairview Industrial Dr. SE Salem, OR 97310 For more information, or to arrange special accommodations for meeting attendees, please contact Julie MacSwain at 503-414-3250 or mail to: julie.macswain@or.usda.gov 5-2-3/999 By DAN WHEAT Capital Press 5-3/103
