Capital Press
EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, November 19, 2021
Volume 94, Number 47
CapitalPress.com
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GO WITH THE
FLOW
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Marc Thalacker advises other irrigation districts,
pipe manufacturers and water managers in Oregon
based on what he has learned. Here, he is visiting a
new pipeline being installed in a nearby district.
Barriers to modernizing irrigation
systems and how to overcome them
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
S
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Ron Alvarado, state conservationist for USDA’s Natural
Resources Conservation Center, speaks to other state
water experts at the site of a fi sh screen in Three Sisters
Irrigation District. Marc Thalacker says NRCS has been
a great resource for helping his district modernize.
ISTERS, Ore. — When Marc
Thalacker fi rst walked into Cen-
tral Oregon’s Three Sisters Irri-
gation District Offi ce in 1988, he
was taken aback.
The dilapidated offi ce had no running
water, a sputtering oil stove and an out-
house. The offi ce served a district with a
canal system so old it had been built by
mule-drag.
“It was a real wild west show,” said
Thalacker.
His big laugh fi lled the room.
Many years, according to district
records, 50% of the water in the canals and
laterals was lost to seepage and evapora-
tion, farmers received only half their allot-
Supply chain issues to hit crop inputs
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
As producers plan for the
next growing season, chaos
in the supply chain has them
concerned about the cost and
availability of crop inputs.
By and large, producers
— other than fruit and vege-
table growers — didn’t face
the structural shifts in the
supply-chain when COVID-
19 hit in the spring of 2020
because they were already
in the middle of produc-
ted water and the local creek was dried,
stranding fi sh.
“I was overwhelmed with what I was
looking at,” said Thalacker.
He had come to the offi ce to volunteer.
Thalacker was a new farmer — he and his
now ex-wife had bought 400 acres near
Sisters that year to raise cattle and grow
crops. He wanted to understand more
about the local water system and how to
make it better.
Making it better is precisely what he
did.
In the past 24 years since Thalacker
moved into the role of district manager Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
in 1997, Three Sisters Irrigation District, Revenue-producing hy-
generators
or TSID, has been transformed through dropower
Three Sisters Irrigation
modernization.
District installed in its hy-
See Irrigation, Page 13 droelectric plant in 2014.
Scope of wolf protection
in the hands of judge
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press FIle
Most chemical ingredients for crop inputs are manufac-
tured in China. That means the backlog in shipping be-
tween Asia and the U.S. could impact farmers.
tion, said Allan Gray, direc-
tor of the Center for Food
and Agribusiness at Purdue
University.
He doesn’t think produc-
ers faced the supply-chain
fallout this year, either,
because agrochemical sup-
pliers had inventories on
hand.
“What’s happening now
is there’s no adjustment left
in the system; the invento-
ries are gone,” he said during
the latest “Farm Country
Update” podcast, presented
by Farm Journal.
It’s important to realize
the supply-chain problems
are a confl uence of several
factors, not just one or two
things, he said.
“The reality is it’s a very,
very complicated set of
See Supply chain, Page 13
Founded in 1945
by Farmers
and Ranchers.
The West’s tug-of-war over wolves
went via Zoom to a federal judge in Oak-
land on Nov. 4, as environmental groups
asked U.S. District Judge Jeff rey White to
restore federal protection to wolves along
the West Coast, and in the central Rockies
and Great Lakes states.
Attorney Kristen Boyles said the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service was abandoning
gray wolves outside the Northern Rockies.
Justice Department attorney Michael
Eitel said state boundaries shouldn’t dic-
tate how the agency carries out the Endan-
gered Species Act.
“This is not a case where Fish and Wild-
life is trying to skirt its obligations under
the ESA,” he said.
The lawsuits before White challenge
the Trump administration’s decision to
take gray wolves throughout the Lower 48
off the federal list of endangered species.
Wolves in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming
and the eastern one-third of Oregon and
Washington were already de-listed and are
not addressed in the suits.
The Biden administration has defended
Stock Image
A federal judge heard arguments Nov.
12 over the Trump administration’s de-
cision to remove endangered species
protections from gray wolves.
the Trump rule, arguing that gray wolves
aren’t threatened in the U.S. because
wolves are established in the Northern
Rockies, as well as the western Great
Lakes.
Ironically, however, the Biden adminis-
tration is also reviewing the ESA status of
wolves in the Northern Rockies because of
wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana.
WE WISH EACH OF YOU
a Wonderful Season
of Thanksgiving!
See wolf, Page 13
CALDWELL ONTARIO
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JED MYERS
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