Friday, July 30, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
Water: ‘It is a drop in the bucket compared to the needs we have’
Continued from Page 1
development grants was
replenished
with
$30
million.
In light of the huge
investments required for
water supply development
in the state, $30 million
in grants “doesn’t go very
far,” Snell said. “It is a drop
in the bucket compared to
the needs we have.”
However, without the
added $30 million, only $3
million would have been
left remaining in the grant
fund, said Racquel Ran-
cier, policy manager for the
Oregon Water Resources
Department.
“We wouldn’t have been
able to provide much assis-
tance after that $3 million
was allocated,” she said.
Jeff Stone, executive
director of the Oregon
Association of Nurseries,
said the Legislature should
clarify that the grants are
meant to fund storage proj-
ects, such as reservoirs that
save winter runoff for irri-
gation use.
Stone said the grants
have mostly gone to con-
servation projects, which
are helpful, but getting seri-
ous about climate change
will mean extending water
resources.
“It’s not doing what we
created it to do,” he said.
Lawmakers devoted $1
million to study the realloca-
tion of water behind 13 fed-
eral dams in the Willamette
basin.
Though the dams are
administered by the federal
government, water transfers
and wildlife impacts come
under the jurisdiction of
state regulators.
The money will allow
state regulators to study how
the transfers should be car-
ried out, which will involve
input from irrigators, cities
and environmental groups,
said Mary Anne Cooper,
vice president of public pol-
icy for the Oregon Farm
Bureau.
The money will hope-
fully resolve conflicts over
water transfers “on the front
end,” so farmers don’t have
to litigate to protect their
interests, she said.
If not for the influx of
federal funding, the outlook
would have been gloomy for
irrigators, since the state’s
Water Resources Depart-
ment was expected to lay off
staff, said Snell.
For various water trans-
actions, “that would result in
slower processing times and
certainly not an improve-
ment in work,” she said.
The agency was set to lose
eight positions — from 178
to 170 — under Gov. Kate
Brown’s biennial budget,
but lawmakers increased the
number to 209 positions due
to better-than-expected tax
revenues and federal dollars.
“It was great to see the
budget turn-around,” Ran-
cier said. “The water issues
we’re seeing are incredibly
complex and the easy water
solutions are gone.”
In sum, the 2021 legis-
lative session moved the
state in the right direction
toward having a more resil-
ient water system, Stone
said. “People finally started
talking with one another, not
at one another.”
Lawmakers spent $5 mil-
lion for planning work and
$11 million for data col-
lection and technology
improvements, which nat-
ural resources groups say
are necessary steps for the
future.
About $2.4 million was
specifically allocated to
study all 18 major hydro-
logic basins with new tech-
nology that measures evapo-
transpiration and assistance
from the U.S. Geological
Survey.
Those
studies
will
allow regulators to bet-
ter understand groundwater
resources across the state,
which is meant to prevent
over-allocation.
“We need to iden-
tify those areas of concern
before they get critical,” said
Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane.
“The current way we’re
managing the groundwater
resource is not beneficial to
anyone.”
Measuring
groundwa-
ter is more complex than
surface water, relying on
observation wells that act
as “straws” instead of more
readily visible stream flows
and reservoir levels, he said.
“We’re shooting in the
dark, looking through a cou-
ple straws,” Owens said.
Parker: ‘Alice is an icon — for all of agriculture’
Continued from Page 1
inches of rainfall a year, was
replacing that well water
with more plentiful Colum-
bia River water.
But the problem was how
to get the water from the
river to the farms. Doing that
would require both political
and financial support.
That’s where Parker
came in. She was at the cen-
ter of those efforts, meet-
ing with policy makers and
state and federal lawmakers
to cobble together support
for building the massive net-
work of pumps and pipes.
“I had so many peo-
ple tell me back when I
was working in those early
days, ‘You’ll never live long
enough to see any more
water out there,’” she said.
“They’re wrong. I’m still
here.”
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Alice Parker and Jed Crowther, development coordinator for the East Columbia Basin
Irrigation District, in front of irrigation pipe.
Starting out
Parker and her husband,
Ike, grew up 9 miles apart
in Colorado dryland farm
country. Farming was in
their blood.
“My oldest sister and his
oldest brother were mar-
ried,” Parker said. “They
used to take us places. ... He
didn’t want to have anything
to do with me and I didn’t
want to have anything to do
with him. After they got mar-
ried and left us alone, we
just finally started dating and
ended up getting married.”
The couple married in
1952. Ike died in January
2002. They have three chil-
dren, 10 grandchildren and
16 great-grandchildren.
They moved to Royal
City, Wash., from Colorado
in January 1965.
The Parkers’ farm was
part of Block 81, the last irri-
gation block of the Colum-
bia Basin Project to be devel-
oped on the Royal Slope.
Ike’s cousins had already
bought several 80- to 200-
acre farming or ranching
units in Washington, and con-
vinced the couple to make
the move to farm full-time.
The soil was so light when
they arrived that it could have
easily blown away, Parker
said.
“Those first three years,
we farmed to get that ground
tied down, not to make
money,” she said.
They developed their
320 acres of sagebrush and
cheatgrass, raising field corn,
sweet corn, peas, sugar beets,
carrot seed, turnip seed,
alfalfa, wheat and dry beans.
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Alice Parker in front of the surge tank in the EL47.5
pumping station, the East Columbia Basin Irrigation
District’s newest water delivery system.
The Parkers put in their
first irrigation system in
1975. Before that, they relied
on siphon tubes, wheel lines
and corrugated hills dug into
the soil.
“Oh, man, if we would
have had center pivots back
when we first started, it
would have been a godsend,”
Parker said.
Then and now
When Congress autho-
rized the Columbia Basin
Project in 1943, it was
designed to deliver water to
1.03 million acres of farm-
land. Only about 671,000
acres ever received water,
about 65% of the total.
In 1964, the Columbia
Basin Development League
— a group of the region’s
business and agricultural
leaders — was formed to
push for completion of the
project.
“They said (it would
take) 75 years. I was in
hopes we could get it
quicker than that,” Parker
said.
In the meantime, in the
mid-1970s, the Washing-
ton Department of Ecol-
ogy allowed farmers in the
Odessa Subarea to drill
irrigation wells to provide
water temporarily until
another major portion of
the project, the East High
Canal, could be built.
But that canal, with a
price tag of more than $1
billion, was never built.
Instead, the groundwa-
ter pumping continued, and
today those wells are run-
ning dry.
The first big addition
to the system in nearly 50
years is now operating. The
East Columbia Basin Irriga-
tion District’s $20.8 million
EL 47.5 station supplies
enough Columbia River
water to irrigate 8,521 acres
that previously depended
on deep-well pumping. It
began operation last spring
and has the capacity to serve
10,500 acres of farmland.
Another development,
in the Wahluke Slope
near Mattawa, was com-
pleted the 1970s, said Jed
Crowther,
development
coordinator of the irrigation
district.
Parker believes the
entire Columbia Basin
Project will eventually be
completed.
“But when, who knows?”
she said.
Parker says she never
lost hope.
“No, I don’t think so,”
she said. “Bull-headedness,
I guess.”
She recalled a farewell
party when she and Ike left
Colorado.
“This one guy, he was
an old German guy, he said,
‘Ah, I give you six months
and you’ll be back,’”
she remembered. “And I
thought, ‘OK, gotta prove
him wrong.’”
Joining the league
In Parker, Development
League executive director
Chan Bailey found an ally
and an effective proponent
of the project. He often
asked her to testify at legis-
lative hearings in Olympia,
partly because she farmed
and partly because of her
connections to Women
Involved in Farm Econom-
ics (WIFE).
As WIFE’s national
president in 1988-1989,
Parker also made numer-
ous trips to Washington,
D.C., speaking on behalf
of farmers with members
of Congress.
She said her husband,
Ike, and her parents
were prime examples of
farmer advocacy.
“They instilled in me
that your surroundings are
only as good as you your-
self try to help make it
be,’’ she said. “Ike was a
great supporter and a great
pusher. He kept pushing
me, making sure I was free
to go and do those kinds of
things.”
When Bailey retired
as the league’s executive
director in 1992, the board
asked Parker to step in.
The organization installed
a second phone line so she
could work at home.
She retired in 2012,
but remains active in the
league.
“They said, ‘No, you’re
not going anyplace,’” she
remembered. “They didn’t
let me go.”
Parker is on the league’s
board of trustees and exec-
utive committee.
She hopes to step down
from the executive com-
mittee during the next elec-
tion, she said, but she’ll
continue to work as long as
someone is needed.
“When you get to be
my age, it’s kind of time
to start letting some of the
younger people take over,”
Parker said.
people, very genuine, pas-
sionate about her beliefs and
what she wanted to accom-
plish,” Sandison said. “She
was a tireless advocate for
that, but you really enjoyed
working with her. That’s a
special set of skills, to be
both the advocate and the
good partner.”
Parker’s status as a life-
long farmer meant peo-
ple knew she was a straight
shooter and could be
trusted, said Clark Kagele,
an Odessa farmer and sec-
retary of the league.
“Everybody
knew
Alice,” Kagele said. “You
could walk into a room with
Alice and the comfort came
quicker, immediately. You
could sit down and have a
real conversation.”
“Alice is an icon — for
all of agriculture but cer-
tainly for water, irrigation
and the Columbia Basin
Project,” said Vicky Schar-
lau, the league’s current
executive director. “Her
voice continues to be one
of the most important and
meaningful for the league
and for our work. She
should be nominated for
the State Medal of Merit,”
an annual award the gover-
nor presents to exceptional
Washingtonians.
‘Advocate, partner’
Parker’s many connec-
tions with farm organiza-
tions and legislators were
vital, leaders say.
“She’s
the
corner-
stone of the development
league,” said Dale Pome-
roy, a retired farmer and
commissioner of the Port
of Warden. “People went to
her from everywhere, ask-
ing, ‘How are we going to
fix this?’ It was a big puz-
zle, and she quietly sat
there and had a lot of the
pieces put together.”
The state and federal
agencies involved have all
gone through several lead-
ership changes over the
decades, Pomeroy said.
“What’s been handed
down to them, a lot of it
comes from Alice, indi-
rectly as well as directly,”
he said.
Parker’s
groundwork
allowed the agencies to get
moving relatively quickly
and make early progress,
said Derek Sandison, former
director of the state Depart-
ment of Ecology’s Office of
the Columbia River and now
director of the state Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
“She’s one of the nicest
Persistence pays
From her home atop the
Frenchman Hills, Parker
can look out across the
Royal Slope “and see what
everybody’s doing.”
“Which is really enjoy-
able to me, to see all the
new things, new ideas and
new ways of farming ... that
the farmers are coming up
with,” she said.
The benefits of the new
pump station in Warden
extend beyond the farmers
receiving water all the way
to the people who will eat
the food that those farm-
ers grow, Parker said as
she walked around the f
acility.
“It just amazes me what
people can do and what
they have done,” she said.
“The entire Columbia Basin
Project from the get-go,
from Grand Coulee all the
way down. It’s just beyond
comprehension.”
She paused for a
moment.
“It really pleases me
to see this all happen-
ing, under my watch,” she
said with a laugh. “I didn’t
get it started but I worked
on it.”
Survey: ‘Now that the price is high, do we want to keep planting and planting?’
Continued from Page 1
Nearly one-third of all
U.S. Christmas trees come
from Oregon. Most trees are
grown in the Willamette Val-
ley, particularly Clackamas
and Marion counties.
Higher prices are great for
growers, Grogan said, but the
industry must be careful not
to make trees so expensive
that consumers opt for artifi-
cial ones instead.
After a five-year hiatus,
Grogan is pushing the indus-
try to conduct the survey
every other year. The goal is
to provide information that
allows farms to make better
planting decisions, and even
out the industry’s boom-and-
bust cycles.
“We can give the con-
sumer a more consistent
price, season to season,”
Grogan said.
The most recent over-
supply peaked around the
time of the Great Recession
in 2009-10, Grogan said.
Then there were 1,633 farms
growing Christmas trees in
Oregon. Five years later, that
number had plummeted by
more than half.
“We were selling trees
for less than the cost of pro-
duction. As a result, we lost
at least half of the growers
in the Northwest,” Grogan
said. “The ones that did stay
in, they significantly reduced
their acres. They couldn’t put
“That’s what we want to
keep an eye on,” Grogan
said. “Now that the price
is high, do we want to keep
planting and planting? I’m
really trying to get peo-
ple to take a look at what
we’ve done in the past,
and not make the same
mistakes.”
According to the National
Agricultural Statistics Ser-
vice, growers expected to
plant 5.83 million trees in
Carl Sampson/Capital Press 2021. It takes 6-10 years for
Christmas trees climb a hillside along the eastern rim of new seedlings to reach matu-
the Willamette Valley.
rity, depending on variety.
Extreme heat and drought
the trees in like they used to.” growers planted approxi- is also expected to take a toll
Now, plantings are inch- mately 4.2 million trees. In on this year’s crop, espe-
ing back up as the industry 2020, they planted 6.1 mil- cially the younger trees,
has corrected itself. In 2016, lion trees.
Grogan said.
“It was challenging for
us, to say the least,” he said,
referring to the “heat dome”
that enveloped the North-
west earlier this summer. “I
think quite a bit of growers
are going to be cutting fewer
trees than they anticipated.”
That being said, Grogan
does not expect there will be
a tree shortage come winter.
“Most of the trees are in
good shape and there will
be plenty of trees for harvest
this year,” he said.
It is common, Grogan
said, to have mortality in
younger seedlings. While
he expects the mortality rate
will be higher this year, he
did not have an immediate
estimate.