Friday, March 19, 2021
CapitalPress.com 3
Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival returns in 2021
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
TULIP FESTIVAL
WOODBURN, Ore. — Iver-
son Family Farms in Woodburn,
Ore., announced Monday it will
resume its annual Wooden Shoe
Tulip Festival — one of Oregon’s
most popular agritourism events
— this spring.
The event will kick off Friday,
March 19, and continue through
May 2. Blooms are expected to be
at peak the second and third weeks
of April. This year, visitors must
buy tickets online in advance and
follow new safety protocols.
The Iversons say they’re
thrilled to renew the event, which
was canceled last year due to the
pandemic. When COVID-19 hit
last March, the Iversons canceled
the festival for the fi rst time in 36
years.
Karen Iverson Bever, one of the
festival’s coordinators, estimated
the farm lost “well over $1 million”
in revenue. The festival drew more
than 150,000 visitors from around
the world the previous year.
“We are so thrilled to be able to
invite guests to experience the color
and beauty of our tulip fi elds this
year,” Bever said Monday.
At the farm this year, guests will
be able to explore 40 acres of tulip
Festival dates: March 19 to May
2, 2021
Hours of operation:
Monday through Friday 9 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to
7 p.m.
Capital Press File
The Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival near Woodburn, Ore., will reopen this year after COVID-19 forced its
closure in 2020.
fi elds and 80 acres of other outdoor
spaces. Iverson Family Farms, with
Mount Hood as its backdrop, grows
about 1,200 acres of grass seed,
tulips, winegrapes, vetch seed and
industrial hemp.
At this year’s festival, state
COVID-19 protocols permitting, the
farm will off er hot air balloon trips,
tram and hay wagon rides, wine tast-
ing, an event garden and food vendor
off erings.
Washington farm groups
seek ‘seasonality’ in OT bill
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Washing-
ton farm groups hope an
agricultural overtime bill will
be amended in the House,
raising the threshold before
farmworkers become eligible
for time-and-a-half during
peak harvest weeks.
The bill that was passed
by the Senate on March 9
blocks back-pay lawsuits and
phases-in overtime pay. By
Jan. 1, 2024, all farmworkers
would be paid time-and-a-
half after 40 hours in a week.
A tentative agreement
allowing growers to choose
12 weeks a year to pay over-
time after 50 hours, instead
of 40, fell out of the bill
shortly before the Senate
voted 37-12 to send it to the
House.
Some Republican sen-
ators criticized the bill
for excluding “seasonal-
ity.” Hawaii, one of a few
states with overtime pay
for farmworkers, raises
the threshold to 48 hours
for 20 weeks picked by the
employer.
If seasonality isn’t in the
bill, growers may be per-
manently locked into pay-
ing time-and-a-half after 40
hours during peak harvests,
Washington Farm Bureau
associate director of govern-
ment relations Breanne Elsey
said.
“I do think it needs to be
included in the fi x this year,”
she said.
Senate Bill 5172 has been
referred to the House Labor
and Workplace Standards
Committee. No hearing has
been scheduled.
The bill requires dair-
ies to begin paying overtime
immediately, simply affi rm-
ing a ruling in November
by the Washington Supreme
Court.
Overtime pay for all
other farmworkers would be
phased-in, beginning Jan. 1,
2022. The threshold would
be 55 hours initially, drop-
ping to 48 hours in 2023 and
fi nally to 40 hours in 2024.
Washington State Tree
Fruit Association President
Jon DeVaney said the bill
accomplished his organiza-
tion’s primary goal.
“It did appear that we
were going to see overtime
spread to the rest of agricul-
ture through court actions.
It was preferable that it be
phased-in, rather than hap-
pen overnight as happened to
dairies,” he said.
“We still think there needs
to be seasonal fl exibility, and
that’s still under discussion,”
DeVaney said.
The bill also achieves the
dairy industry’s top priority
by prohibiting the court’s 5-4
decision from being applied
retroactively. Dozens of law-
suits have been fi led since the
ruling, seeking up to three
years’ back overtime.
The DeRuyter Brothers
Some activities will be canceled
this year due to COVID-19, includ-
ing the pony rides, photo cut-out
boards and cow trains.
Visitors must buy day tickets or
season passes online rather than
at the gate this year. The farm will
honor any unused tickets purchased
in 2020 and will continuously
release tickets available for purchase
seven days in advance of each visit
date.
Further arguments loom in
Klamath re-quantifi cation ruling
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Washington farm groups
hope lawmakers will raise
the overtime threshold
for peak harvest weeks.
Dairy in Yakima County was
excluded from lawsuit pro-
tection. A class-action law-
suit against the diary led
to the court’s overtime rul-
ing. The lawsuit is ongoing,
and lawmakers did not want
to intervene, a spokesman
for Senate Democrats said
Thursday.
Most Republicans, includ-
ing many from agricultural
regions, voted against the
bill, while other Republi-
cans grudgingly voted “yes,”
acknowledging the court left
little leverage for employers.
Two weeks ago, the bill
would have immediately
granted overtime pay to all
farmworkers after 40 hours
and still left farmers open to
retroactive claims.
“We’re overall pleased
with the outcome, consid-
ering where we were when
negotiations began,” Elsey
said.
Senate
Democrats
embraced the bill, saying in a
press release it would correct
an “historic injustice” and
make Washington the fi rst
state to “bring the 40-hour
work week to agricultural
workers.”
If the overtime law dis-
courages longer hours, farm-
workers may have to work at
more than one farm to main-
tain their incomes, DeVaney
said. Growers, meanwhile,
may try to hire more work-
ers to spread out the hours or
automate, he said.
Washington agriculture
already says there is a labor
shortage, forcing farmers to
hire foreign seasonal work-
ers on H-2A visas.
California has been phas-
ing in overtime for farmwork-
ers since 2019. All farms will
be required to pay time-and-
half after 40 hours beginning
Jan. 1, 2025. Farms with 26
or more employees will have
that obligation Jan. 1, 2022.
New York farmwork-
ers are paid time-and-a-half
after 60 hours in a week. The
threshold in Minnesota is 48
hours.
Another provision that
fell out of SB 5172 proposed
to give farmworkers a one-
time $5,000 payment to set-
tle back-pay claims.
Farm groups balked at
contributing to an account,
estimated to total $400 mil-
lion, that implied farmers
have been wrongly under-
paying workers.
“We absolutely refused
to put money into a fund,”
Elsey said. “It would be
against everything that was
honest.”
Emily Iverson, who’s helping
run the event, told the Capital Press
the farm plans to require masks and
limit the number of guests each day
in order to follow state guidelines.
Iverson estimated that the festival
will have about 50% of its usual pre-
COVID attendance.
Iverson said her family has been
closely watching how the Oregon
Zoo, farmers markets and annual
food festivals are operating and tak-
ing cues from them.
The farm has also raised its ticket
prices this year to help make up for
last year’s losses.
“Due to hardships in 2020 and
the struggle of our family farm, we
have made the decision to increase
the prices for our tulip festival,” the
farm said in a statement.
During 2020, the farm pivoted,
selling more than 10,000 fl ower
pots and delivering fl owers to senior
homes. Iverson said the farm intends
to deliver fl owers to seniors again
this year and plans to partner with the
Alzheimer’s Association and Relay
for Life. Iverson, whose grandpar-
ents died of Alzheimer’s and cancer,
said supporting these causes means
a lot to her.
Iverson said she’s excited to
resume the festival and continue
delivering fl ower pots “for years to
come.”
An Oregon judge has
agreed to hear further legal
arguments over his ruling
that tribal water rights in
the Klamath basin must be
re-quantifi ed.
Because the judge’s legal
opinion from last month
hasn’t yet been reduced to an
order, that means the Klam-
ath tribes can enforce their
water rights to shut off irriga-
tion in the meantime.
In February, Klam-
ath County Circuit Judge
Cameron Wogan broadly
upheld fi ndings by state reg-
ulators that the Klamath
Tribes had time immemo-
rial water rights in the basin
that hadn’t been abandoned
or diminished.
These are the oldest
water rights in the basin,
which the tribes can enforce
to cut off irrigation water to
junior users when stream
fl ows get too low.
The judge disagreed with
the Oregon Water Resources
Department on a potentially
important legal point, though:
Wogan said the agency hadn’t
properly considered the
Klamath Tribes’ “moderate
living standard” in quantify-
ing their water rights.
The opinion created
an opening for farmers
and ranchers in the Upper
Klamath basin to argue that
reduced stream fl ows could
still satisfy tribal hunting
and fi shing treaty rights,
thereby freeing more water
for irrigation.
While Wogan has agreed
to vacate the OWRD’s quan-
tifi cation of tribal water
rights, he hasn’t yet issued
an order that would make
the opinion’s determinations
binding.
Due to a “water call”
from the Klamath Tribes, the
agency has already begun
issuing regulation orders to
cease irrigation diversions
from the Williamson and
Sprague rivers in the Upper
Klamath basin this month.
Until the court rules oth-
erwise, OWRD said it must
enforce tribal water rights
according to its adminis-
trative fi ndings from 2013.
Those administrative fi nd-
ings are now being adju-
dicated in state court by
Wogan.
The Klamath Tribes have
asked the judge to clarify his
opinion as to the quantifi ca-
tion of water rights, argu-
ing that his conclusion was
inconsistent with other deter-
minations in the ruling.
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