Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com 3
Drought declared in Klamath County
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
KLAMATH
FALLS,
Ore. — For the second
straight year, Oregon Gov.
Kate Brown has declared
a drought emergency in
Klamath County.
Brown signed an execu-
tive order March 31, citing
lack of precipitation and low
winter snowpack.
“Forecasted water con-
ditions are not expected to
improve, and drought is
likely to have significant
economic impacts on the
farm, ranch, forest, recre-
ation, drinking water and
natural resources sectors, as
well as impacts on fish and
wildlife and other resources
which are dependent on
adequate precipitation and
streamflow in these areas,”
the order states.
An emergency drought
declaration gives state agen-
cies the ability to expedite
water management tools for
affected producers, such as
emergency water permits,
exchanges, substitutions and
in-stream leases.
As of April 2, total pre-
cipitation for the water
year dating back to Oct. 1
was 70% of normal in the
Klamath Basin, and snow-
pack was 78% of normal,
according to the USDA Nat-
ural Resources Conservation
Service.
Much of Southern and
Central Oregon is mired in
severe to extreme drought.
The U.S. Drought Monitor
shows 12.5% of the state is
in extreme drought, includ-
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
The Klamath Basin.
ing the Klamath Basin, indi-
cating heightened risk of
wildfires, lower-than-nor-
mal reservoir levels, irri-
gation shortages and high-
er-than-normal
river
temperatures for fish.
The Klamath Project,
which provides irrigation
water for approximately
230,000 acres of farmland in
Southern Oregon and North-
ern California, is facing a
critical year, with record-
low inflows coming in to
Upper Klamath Lake.
Irrigators are now await-
ing their water allocation
from the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management. Jeff Payne,
deputy regional director for
the bureau, forecast 130,000
acre-feet of water for the
project at the beginning of
March — less than one-third
of historical demand.
If that occurs, it would be
the lowest allocation for the
project on record since the
shutdown of 2001.
On March 26, the Klam-
ath Water Users Associa-
tion sent a letter to Jared
Bottcher, acting manager of
the bureau’s Klamath Basin
Area Office, urging changes
to the agency’s interim oper-
ating plan for the Klamath
Project.
The plan aims to balance
the needs of agriculture with
the survival of endangered
fish, including shortnose and
Lost River suckers in Upper
Klamath Lake and salmon in
the lower Klamath River.
The letter, signed by
KWUA Executive Direc-
tor Paul Simmons, points to
“legal and technical defects”
in the interim operating plan,
which calls for both mini-
mum water levels in Upper
Klamath Lake for suckers
and high enough streamflows
in the lower Klamath River
for salmon.
But in a previous inter-
view, Payne said the bureau
does not expect to have
enough water this year
to meet either of those
thresholds.
“This will be a disastrous
year for the farm and ranch
families in the project, as well
as the wildlife and migratory
birds that depend on farm
and ranch land and two of
the most important wildlife
refuges in the nation,” the
KWUA letter states.
“The agricultural com-
munity is already compar-
ing this year to 2001, the
year when in April, Rec-
lamation announced zero
deliveries for the project due
to Endangered Species Act
restrictions. That event was
a shock to our rural commu-
nities. The impact cannot be
overstated.”
Oregon wetland restorations provoke controversy
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Clearing blackberry bushes and
leveling about 4 acres of land has
proven costlier than expected for
Oregon farmer Jack Scott.
Though Scott didn’t notice sat-
urated soils or standing water on
the parcel, state regulators accused
him of destroying a wetland.
Restoring the property to their
specifications would cost more
than it’s worth, he said. “It would
probably bankrupt me to have to
do it.”
Lawmakers recently decided
against moving forward with a
bill that would prohibit Oregon’s
Department of State Lands from
requiring landowners to enhance
wetland areas beyond their origi-
nal condition after a fill-removal
violation has occurred.
Instead of voting on House Bill
2246, the House Agriculture and
Natural Resources Committee will
form a work group that will recom-
mend another bill for next year’s
legislative session.
Such
wetland
restoration
requirements are “a small subset of
a significant problem” with DSL’s
fill-removal enforcement, said
Joshua Bessex/EO Media Group File
A wetland is pictured in this file photo. Oregon lawmakers have de-
cided against moving forward with a bill that would affect resto-
ration of wetlands after fill-removal violations.
Dave Hunnicutt, executive direc-
tor of the Oregon Property Owners
Association.
Landowners don’t have a reli-
able, clear-cut way to check whether
their property contains a wetland,
leading to costly fill-removal fines
and remediation, he said.
“It’s not sophisticated people
who develop land who deal with
this issue all the time. It’s typically
a problem for a farmer, a husband
and wife who own a piece of prop-
erty, who don’t really understand
Washington farm
groups: COVID
housing rules outdated
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Inslee administra-
tion has abused its powers
by sticking with emergency
farmworker housing rules,
ignoring the fact that work-
ers are being vaccinated for
COVID, farm groups claim
in a court filing.
The Washington Farm
Bureau and Walfa, a sup-
plier of foreign farmwork-
ers, petitioned Yakima Supe-
rior Court on April 2 to toss
out the 11-month-old rules.
A hearing is set for April 16.
The groups claim the
state has not bothered to
reconsider social-distanc-
ing requirements written in
the pandemic’s early days.
The rules reduced hous-
ing capacity in 2020 and
exposed farms to fines.
Wafla executive direc-
tor Dan Fazio said Tuesday
the rules should vanish when
farmworkers are vaccinated,
and that will happen soon.
Maintaining the rules
after that will be a slap at
farmers who hire and house
foreign farmworkers, he
said. “It’s not about work-
place safety. It’s about poli-
tics,” he said.
The petition was filed
against the Department of
Labor & Industries and
the Department of Health.
An L&I spokesman said in
an email Tuesday that the
department expects to renew
the emergency rules in May.
“At the same time, we’re
continuing to consider per-
manent rule changes. We’re
using what we learn during
the emergency rules process
to help inform the poten-
tial permanent changes,” he
said.
A health department
spokeswoman said the
agency could not comment
on a legal matter.
The state set the emer-
gency rules for farmworker
housing last May 13. Emer-
gency rules must be renewed
every 120 days. Labor and
Industries renewed the rules
in September and January.
The farm groups complain
the agencies have dodged
discussions about whether
the rules should be revised.
“I don’t see the rules
coming off,” Farm Bureau
CEO John Stuhlmiller said
Tuesday. “All they know is,
‘Coronavirus — bad, bad,
bad, and we have to live with
it for the rest of our lives and
be locked down.’
“We’re hoping the court
will finally say, ‘This could
be better,’” he said. “It’s
incumbent on the agencies to
stay current with reality and
science.
“There’s no way you can
have emergency rules for a
year.”
The emergency rules
require workers assigned to
units with bunk beds to be
isolated in groups of no more
than 15.
Farmworkers
with
COVID or symptoms must
be checked twice daily by a
licensed health professional,
a level of care not required
for the elderly in assisted-liv-
ing centers, the farm groups
note.
The farm groups are not
challenging rules that require
farmworkers to wear masks,
wash their hands and spread
out while working in fields.
Fazio said he expects all,
or nearly all, foreign farm-
workers to be vaccinated.
“We don’t tell them they
can’t come, but they well
understand that getting vac-
cinated is part of living in a
congregate setting.”
Medical Teams Inter-
national, a health organi-
zation, has been testing
farmworkers coming into
the state on H-2 visas. The
organization reported that
between Jan. 12 and April
5 it tested 7,183 workers
and 16 tested positive for
COVID, or 0.22%.
the law,” Hunnicutt said.
Inventories kept by county gov-
ernments and DSL often don’t
include areas that are later deter-
mined to be wetlands, even though
they appear to be ordinary fields, he
said.
“You end up with unsuspecting
property owners doing work, only
to find out subsequent to that, that
what they’ve done is wrong,” he
said.
Although DSL didn’t take a
position on HB 2246, the agency
said it already lacks authority to
require wetland enhancements.
“The department does not require
wetlands damaged by fill-removal
violations to be restored or miti-
gated to create functions and values
that did not exist prior to the fill-re-
moval activity,” said Bill Ryan, its
deputy director.
While removing invasive spe-
cies doesn’t violate fill-removal
law, it often involves excavation
or adding dirt, which are violations
that require remediation, he said.
The agency requires that land-
owners restore wetlands to their
original state, which typically
involves an investigation into the
property’s pre-violation condition
using aerial photos and other tools,
Ryan said.
“Sometimes people disagree
as to what that is, but there is an
administrative process to address
that,” he said.
The Oregon Farm Bureau has
found such wetland restorations
to be a “persistent problem” for
farmers because the work involves
planting native species on parcels
that were previously neglected.
“They’ve grown into noxious
weeds or vegetation we don’t want
on the property, so they’re asked to
replace it with something more or
different than what had been there
before,” said Mary Anne Cooper,
the group’s vice president of pub-
lic policy.
In Jack Scott’s case, he had
leveled and removed the vegeta-
tion from the property in prepara-
tion for a larger hazelnut-planting
operation.
In 2019, Oregon’s Department
of State Lands imposed a $6,000
civil penalty on him for altering
a wetland without a fill-removal
permit.
Though Scott has paid the fine,
he’s reluctant to comply with the
agency’s restoration requirements.
Scott said he’d have to revege-
tate about 6 acres of property with
native plants, maintain them for
five years and build a pond.
The Department of State Lands
said it’s inaccurate that Scott was
required to create a pond, only that
he’d have to replant the affected
wetland area.
Native plants are expensive to
buy and maintaining them is also
problematic, Scott said.
“You’d have to be out there
hoeing every year,” he said. “And
you’d have to irrigate to get them
going.”
We have a new crop
of materials for the
Worker Protection
Standard.
Protect your workers from pesticide
exposure with the WPS.
We have a bushelful of materials:
brochures, posters and more.
To learn everything that applies, go to
EPA.gov/pesticide-worker-safety
S238779-1