Friday, August 13, 2021
CapitalPress.com 7
Ecology resets schedule for new CAFO permits
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Inciweb
A fi refi ghter unrolls hose while working the Bootleg
Fire in Southern Oregon.
Simplot cattle operation
evaluates Bootleg Fire impact
pairs.
“Neighbors are up
there, too,” Basabe said.
Simplot Land & Live- “Everybody went into, ‘get
stock Group continues the cows out of the way’
to assess cattle and graz- mode. We all went to work
ing-ground losses from the trying to get the cows away
ongoing Bootleg Fire in from that fi re.”
southern Oregon.
Simplot and neighbor-
The company is
ing ranchers “were
the country’s larg-
all up there side-
est holder of fed-
by-side,” he said.
eral grazing per-
“Everybody was
mits,
President
trying to help each
Tom Basabe told a
other.”
Leadership Idaho
They worked
Agriculture Con- Tom Basabe together to gather
gressional Aides
and count cows,
Tour audience Aug. 10 calves and bulls as best
at its Grand View, Idaho, they could given danger,
headquarters and feedlot.
poor visibility from smoke
The Bootleg Fire has and other challenges.
had a major impact on fed-
Basabe said Simplot
eral grazing ground on and other producers are
which Simplot and other still working to deter-
permittees operate, he said. mine how many cattle
The National Wildfi re have been lost. For Sim-
Coordinating Group said in plot, “hopefully the total
an Aug. 10 InciWeb report is not more than a couple
that the 413,765-acre fi re hundred, but I don’t know
was 98% contained. Light- that yet.”
ning started it July 6 in the
The Bootleg Fire dis-
Fremont-Winema National placed cattle.
Forest about 15 miles
“We’re trying to fi gure
northwest of Beatty, Ore. out what to do next spring
It later merged with three and next summer,” Basabe
other fi res and impacted said. “I’m going to have to
state and private land.
make some decisions as to
The
Bootleg
Fire where and how many cows
started roughly in the that this fi re has displaced,
middle of Simplot’s ZX and where I am going to
Ranch, Basabe said in an put them.”
interview.
Simplot manages 16
The 1.2 million-acre ranches in Idaho, Nevada,
ranch includes U.S. For- Utah, Oregon and Wash-
est Service, U.S. Bureau of ington. It is the only U.S.
Land Management, state company in the top 10 in
and private land. Simplot both cow-calf production
runs about 10,000 cat- and cattle feeding capac-
tle there, including many ity, second and seventh,
summer-grazing cow-calf respectively.
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
The Washington Depart-
ment of Ecology will revisit
how it regulates dairy
cow manure, guided by an
appeals court decision in
June that found fault with
the current water-protection
rules.
Ecology plans to host
public meetings in the fall
to begin complying with
the ruling by the Court of
Appeals Division II. The
court said Ecology should
require more monitoring to
ensure manure isn’t con-
taminating surface water or
groundwater.
The ruling went against
some positions held by dair-
ies, but Washington State
Dairy Federation policy
director Jay Gordon said
Friday he was happy Ecol-
ogy won’t appeal to the state
Supreme Court.
The appeals court ruling
was vague, and Washing-
ton’s high court was unlikely
to clarify anything in a way
favorable to dairies, he said.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
The Washington Department of Ecology will rewrite
conditions for a Confi ned Animal Feeding Operation
permit to conform with a court ruling that directed the
department to require more water-quality monitoring.
“It would have likely gotten
worse.”
Every fi ve years, Ecol-
ogy rewrites the terms of
its Confi ned Animal Feed-
ing Operation permits. The
state Department of Agri-
culture is the primary regu-
lator of dairy manure. Ecol-
ogy’s CAFO permits are
another layer of oversight
that’s required of dairies
that have discharged pol-
lutants into water.
Dairies and other live-
stock operations also may
obtain CAFO permits to
guard against lawsuits. Ecol-
ogy has issued 26 CAFO
permits. Washington had
340 licensed dairy herds
in 2020, according to the
USDA.
The dairy industry wants
to keep CAFO permits from
bankrupting the dairies that
must have them. Environ-
mental groups contended
the permits are too lax and
were by cheered the court’s
opinion.
The ruling, however, will
delay new rules. The current
permits were due to expire
in March 2022. Ecology was
about to propose new permit
conditions when the appeals
court ruled.
“We pressed pause,”
Ecology spokeswoman Col-
leen Keltz said.
The agency anticipates
having a proposal out next
spring and adopting new
permits by the end of 2022.
In the meantime, the old per-
mits will stay in eff ect.
Jean Mendoza, execu-
tive director of Friends of
Toppenish Creek, one of
the environmental groups
that brought the case to the
appeals court, said she sup-
ported Ecology’s revised
schedule.
“This is going to be a
diffi cult process, and it’s
going to take a lot of back
and forth to get a reasonable
proposal,” she said.
Beef, pork exports fi re on all cylinders
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
U.S. red meat exports
closed the fi rst half of
the year on a strong note.
Although volume and value
eased from the hefty totals
posted in April and May,
total export value was still
the highest on record for
June.
In addition, beef and
pork export volumes in
the fi rst half of the year
established a record pace,
according to the U.S. Meat
Export Federation.
“USMEF had expected
a continued strong perfor-
mance in June for both beef
and pork exports, despite
signifi cant
headwinds,”
Dan Halstrom, USMEF
president and CEO, said in
a press release accompany-
ing the latest data.
This year has presented
formidable challenges for
the U.S. industry, including
a tight labor situation, logis-
tical obstacles and foodser-
vice restrictions in many
key markets, he said.
“So the fact that fi rst-half
exports reached record lev-
els speaks to the loyalty of
our international customer
base, strong consumer
demand for high-quality,
nutritious U.S. red meat and
the U.S. industry’s ability to
adapt to a challenging and
rapidly changing business
climate,” he said.
U.S. exporters have also
seen a welcome rebound in
beef and pork variety meat
volumes, which were down
last year due to the pan-
demic, he said.
June beef exports at
112,249 metric tons were
up 42% from a year ago
when exports were still
hampered by a COVID-re-
lated slowdown in produc-
tion. Those export values,
at $804.4 million, were up
68% from a year ago and
the third-highest on record
after April and May of this
year.
First-half beef exports
reached 700,087 metric
tons — up 18% from a year
ago — valued at $4.64 bil-
lion, up 28%. Compared to
2018, the record year for
U.S. beef exports, fi rst-half
results were up 6% in vol-
ume and 15% in value.
Beef exports were led by
an exceptional performance
in South Korea, rapid
growth in China, strong
demand in Japan and Tai-
wan and a rebound in ship-
ments to Mexico and Cen-
tral and South America.
Beef exports in the fi rst
half of the year accounted
for $359.49 per U.S. head
slaughtered and 13.6% of
total U.S. beef production.
Pork exports reached
238,935 metric tons in
June, up 15% from a year
ago, while export value
climbed 35% to $696.8 mil-
lion. First-half pork exports
topped last year’s record
pace by 1% at 1.58 million
metric tons and were valued
at $4.33 billion, up 7%.
While China/Hong Kong
remains the largest destina-
tion for U.S. pork in 2021,
fi rst-half export growth was
led by Mexico and Central
America, along with a sharp
increase in shipments to the
Philippines and Colombia.
Pork exports also increased
to Japan and South Korea.
Pork exports in the fi rst
half of the year accounted
for $67.04 per U.S. head
slaughtered and 31.4% of
total U.S. pork production.
June exports of U.S.
lamb were 37% below
last year at 1,083 metric
tons, but still managed a
slight increase in value to
$1.6 million.
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