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CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 16, 2021
AgForestry leader to
depart after six years
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Matt Kloes will leave
the Washington AgForestry
organization at the end of
September after six years as
its executive director.
Kloes will be a senior
market
research
analyst for
Northwest
Farm Credit
Services,
where he
previously
worked for Matt Kloes
nine years.
“It was an incredibly
diffi cult decision because
AgForestry is so close to
my heart,” Kloes told the
Capital Press.
Kloes graduated from
the leadership program in
2015. Farm Credit spon-
sored him. The company is
paying Kloes’ salary from
July through September as
an “in-kind” gift of Kloes’
time through the transition.
The AgForestry lead-
ership development pro-
gram lasts 18 months.
It includes 11 multi-day
seminars. Participants also
spend one week in Wash-
ington, D.C., and up to
two weeks in a foreign
country.
Participant cost is
$6,000. The program
spends
approximately
$20,000 per participant.
The cost to each partici-
pant is subsidized by part-
ners and in-kind donations.
Kloes is proudest of
how the AgForestry team
navigated through the
COVID-19
pandemic,
which he refers to as “our
fallow year.” Traditional
programming paused, and
the program focused on
improvements and a webi-
nar series.
AgForestry was founded
WASHINGTON
AGFORESTRY
LEADERSHIP
PROGRAM
http://agforestry.org/
programs/
in 1978. Kloes said the pro-
gram must continue to rec-
ognize how the agriculture
industry has evolved.
“There were a very large
number of mid-sized pro-
ducers,” he said. “As the
years have gone on, produc-
ers have been forced to get
larger in scale or stay small
and fi nd a niche.”
The leadership program
was designed to develop
future leaders who could
eventually give back to it.
“The
game
has
changed,” Kloes said. “It is
more diffi cult to fi nd pro-
ducers to participate. Some
of that is being afraid a little
bit of the time commitment
— they are doing more with
less — and also simply a
game of numbers, where
there are just fewer people.”
The organization is look-
ing at ways to reduce the
time commitment by using
online resources.
“But also, folks need to
think about what AgFor-
estry means to their
development,”
Kloes
said. “Some of it is folks
needing to realize the
commitment is worth the
time.”
A search committee
has convened to fi nd his
replacement. Kloes said
there’s no specifi c time-
line to bring a new leader
on board.
He will continue to vol-
unteer his time after Sept.
30. The organization’s
board is also in the midst
of a strategic planning
process.
Wikipedia
The confl uence of the Walla Walla and Columbia rivers.
Stakeholders continue work on
plan for Walla Walla watershed
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Stakeholders are working on prior-
ities for the 1,760-square-mile Walla
Walla River watershed identifi ed in a
strategic plan for improving the water-
shed over the next 29 years.
Over the last decade, stakeholders
have worked to increase streamfl ows
and protect the amount of water that
farmers need, said Judith Johnson, for-
mer chair of the Walla Walla Watershed
Management Partnership.
“What we’ve discovered is that, par-
ticularly in a drought situation like this
year, there simply isn’t enough water to
meet both needs,” she said.
The fact that the watershed includes
stakeholders in both Oregon and Wash-
ington adds an extra level of complex-
ity. It includes the Touchet River and
Mill Creek in Washington.
The Walla Walla River fl ows from
headwaters in the mountains of Ore-
gon through Washington, where it
empties into the Columbia River near
Wallula. Water availability for people,
farms, and fi sh is a problem in the sum-
mer when demand is highest, accord-
WALLA WALLA WATER
2050 STRATEGIC PLAN
https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publi-
cations/documents/2112011.pdf
ing to the Washington Department of
Ecology.
Adjustments need to be made to the
regulatory framework to address diff er-
ences in state laws, Johnson said.
“What farmers are looking for are
predictability and security in their
water supply,” she said.
“We have drought conditions in
the Walla Walla every year; they’re
just not always caused by drought,
they’re caused by overallocation,” said
Chris Marks, water rights policy ana-
lyst for the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla. “On the Oregon side we’re
over-allocated, on the Washington side
we’re over-allocated. We’re over-allo-
cated on surface water, alluvial ground-
water and basalt groundwater. It’s a
very tenuous situation. The urgency is
only growing.”
Farmers relying on surface
water could fi nd themselves draw-
ing water from alternate sources,
Marks said.
That could be from the Columbia
River or surface water reservoirs, said
Scott Tarbutton, leader of the project
for Ecology’s Offi ce of the Columbia
River.
The combined eff ort allows stake-
holders to request federal, state and
local funding, Tarbutton said. Costs
vary depending on the strategy fol-
lowed, he said, with estimates reaching
up to $500 million.
“These projects are expensive,” he
said. “We’re all going to need to be
speaking and cheering for the same
things, and asking for funding that are
focused on the same strategies.”
Funding requests would likely begin
in late 2022, Marks said.
The Washington Legislature allo-
cated $3 million for the 2021-23 bien-
nium to help fund a groundwater study
on the Washington side of the water-
shed, continue the fl ow study that’s
already begun and begin the move to
Phase 2 of the plan, said Joye Red-
fi eld-Wilder, communications manager
for Ecology.
Crop residue burning jumps in Idaho
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
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Idaho producers burned
nearly three times as many
acres of crop residue in the
fi rst half of this year com-
pared to the fi rst six months
of 2020.
“Last year, burn days
were limited due to wildfi re
smoke,” state Department
of Environmental Quality
Smoke Management Ana-
lyst Tami Aslett said. That
postponed some burns from
fall, 2020, when peak wild-
fi re season intensifi ed on
high temperatures and high
winds, to this year.
Crop rotations also factor
into year-to-year changes in
total acres burned, she said.
Aslett
said
agricul-
tural producers burned just
over 9,400 acres in the Jan.
1-June 30 period the depart-
ment calls spring season.
That’s up from just below
3,500 acres a year earlier
and is the highest spring
total since 2012’s nearly
15,000 acres, a record. The
2016-20 spring average is
about 4,300 acres.
Idaho DEQ
A 2020 crop residue burn in Boundary County, Idaho.
For all of 2020, acres of
crop residue burned in Idaho
exceeded 48,000.
Aslett said fall season,
July 1-Dec. 31, typically has
higher volume. Burning usu-
ally picks up in late July after
harvest of early crops such as
small grains and grasses.
“A challenge is wildfi re
smoke at the same time, so
air quality is monitored very
closely,” she said.
Most burning involves
wheat and barley stubble,
Kentucky Bluegrass and
corn, Aslett said. Pasture
grass is among other crop res-
idue that is burned. Farmers
removing ground from fed-
eral conservation programs
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and putting it back into pro-
duction also may choose to
burn.
“Bluegrass in our area has
to be burned, or it won’t pro-
duce seeds the next year,”
Nezperce Prairie Grass
Growers Association Presi-
dent Greg Branson said. That
usually occurs in August or
September.
“With the drought we
are experiencing and all the
wildfi res we have going on
right now, I foresee bluegrass
residue burning to be put on
hold until some of this clears
out,” he said. “And that will
aff ect our bluegrass yields
in a negative way. What we
really need is some rain to
put out the wildfi res and also
to help us for the crops next
year.”
Branson, who farms in the
Nezperce-Craigmont area
of north-central Idaho, said
burning “is one of the most
economical ways to pre-
pare our fi elds for seeding in
the fall, and it also helps to
manage herbicide-resistant
weeds.”
Idaho DEQ manages the
program largely to minimize
or reduce smoke-emission
impacts, Aslett said. Field
staff monitor site weather
conditions, and smoke emis-
sion and dispersal.
“Burning crop residue
produces signifi cant emis-
sions if not managed prop-
erly,” she said.
Fields within three miles
of an institution with a sen-
sitive population, such as
a school, hospital or assist-
ed-living center, are sub-
ject to specifi c permit con-
ditions. Aslett said burning
at those sites may be pro-
hibited based on the direc-
tion and speed of sustained
winds.