Friday, December 31, 2021
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Survey: ‘If we’re concerned about the will of the people,
it’s certainly the will of the people to keep the dams in place’
Continued from Page 1
“People are being told
that their neighbors essen-
tially support dam breaching,
and I don’t think that’s the
case,” he said. “It’s import-
ant for the public to know
it’s only a smaller minority
that believes this would be
good policy for the Pacific
Northwest.”
Miller hopes policy mak-
ers such as Inslee and Mur-
ray pay attention to the sur-
vey’s findings.
“We want to find the most
productive ways of help-
ing salmon without harming
society,” he said. “If we’re
concerned about the will of
the people, it’s certainly the
will of the people to keep the
dams in place.”
Miller believes the sur-
vey results show residents
understand the energy chal-
lenges ahead, citing 100%
clean energy objectives, ini-
tiatives for electric cars and
other forms of transpor-
tation and the loss of fos-
sil-fuel resources such as
coal and natural gas genera-
tion plants.
“I think what people see
there is that resources that
are carbon-free and can pro-
duce electricity 24-7 are
going to be really import-
ant in the region’s future,” he
said. “I think people can do
the math.”
Efforts to breach the
dams, especially Inslee’s and
Murray’s proposed initiative,
represent a “significant clear
and present danger” to the
future of the dams, and even-
tually the entire hydropower
system, Miller said.
“A lot of the arguments
that are made in favor of
breaching the lower Snake
River dams are often not
based on complete informa-
tion, or even (based on) inac-
curate information,” he said.
“Our concern is that those
same questionable argu-
ments will be applied to other
dams if these dams go.”
Northwest RiverPartners
serves not-for-profit, com-
munity-owned electric util-
ities in Oregon, Washing-
ton, Idaho, Montana, Utah,
Nevada and Wyoming and
represents partners that sup-
port clean energy, low-car-
bon transportation and agri-
cultural jobs.
Ports: Price of shipping exports from U.S. is skyrocketing
Continued from Page 1
apples to Idaho potatoes —
is feeling the pinch.
Shipping containers that
once sat on the docks for 3
to 8 days are now waiting a
month or longer to be loaded
onto vessels, depending on
their destination.
In some cases, carriers
are foregoing Asia-bound
exports altogether, opting
instead to send empty con-
tainers back to Asia, where
they are loaded with high-
er-priced merchandise such
as clothing, footwear and
kitchen appliances. Crit-
ics of the practice describe
it as a money grab, with the
industry reporting record
profits this year of more
than $200 billion.
The price of shipping
exports from the U.S. is
also skyrocketing. Jacob-
son said general rates that
once ran $400 to $500 per
container are now as high as
$2,000 to $2,500.
While that added cost
can be tacked onto the
prices of most consumer
goods, farmers are largely
price-takers, meaning they
cannot pass along higher
costs.
Peter Friedmann, exec-
utive director of the Agri-
culture
Transportation
Coalition, a trade group in
Washington, D.C., that rep-
resents U.S. agricultural
exporters, said he has heard
from at least one member —
a hay grower in Washington
— who did not bother cut-
ting hay for the first time
because he could not get his
product through the ports.
Delayed and canceled
shipments hurt agricultural
exporters in another way,
too. Once international cus-
tomers turn elsewhere for
products, Friedmann said
U.S. producers risk losing
them forever.
“If we can’t deliver it
affordably and depend-
ably, our foreign customers
will go somewhere else,”
he said. “The reality is,
there is nothing we produce
here in the U.S. agricultur-
ally ... that can’t be sourced
from somewhere else in the
world.”
Experts say the logjam at
ports will likely persist well
into 2022, though new leg-
islation and infrastructure
improvements may help to
alleviate the problem.
‘Self-inflicted wounds’
Friedmann said there
are several “self-inflicted
wounds” that led to the cur-
rent crisis.
Most terminals along
the West Coast, he said,
were built to accommo-
date smaller ships that car-
Northwest Seaport Alliance
All eight cranes work two ships at the Husky Terminal in Tacoma, Wash.
Tom
Bellerud
Rep. Shelly
Boshart Davis
ried 7,000 containers at a
time. Today’s largest ves-
sels are almost a quar-
ter-mile long and carry
from 18,000 to more than
22,000 containers.
“There’s no place to
store this stuff when it gets
off (the ship),” Friedmann
said. That’s especially true
in cities where the docks are
surrounded by busy down-
town areas.
Friedmann said the U.S.
also has some of the lowest
allowable truck weights in
the world, with California
interstate highways capped
at 80,000 pounds gross
weight. Instead of hauling
loads in one or two truck-
loads, he said it takes two
or three, contributing to
the shortage of chassis and
drivers.
The American Trucking
Associations estimated the
driver shortage would hit
a record high of more than
80,000 drivers by the end of
the year.
Although these prob-
lems had been festering in
the U.S. for decades, Fried-
mann said, the coronavirus
pandemic brought them to a
head in 2020.
COVID-19 caused shut-
downs at ports and facto-
ries in China, which limited
the production and move-
ment of products. Mean-
while, more Americans
were stuck at home and
shopping online, amping up
demand for imported con-
sumer products.
That created the per-
fect recipe for delays. Last
month, a record 111 con-
tainer ships were anchored
off the Southern California
coast, waiting to dock and
unload their cargo.
“It’s complete confu-
sion,” Friedmann said,
Todd
Fryhover
Peter
Friedmann
adding that carrier ser-
vice
schedules
have
become
“completely
undependable.”
In a recent survey, Agri-
culture Transportation Coa-
lition members reported
losing 22% of their export
sales due to supply chain
problems.
‘Shipping fatigue’
At BOSSCO Trading,
Jacobson, the international
sales manager, and Shelly
Boshart Davis, vice presi-
dent of international sales,
say they are left exhausted.
“There’s this shipping
fatigue that’s really start-
ing to set in,” said Boshart
Davis, who also serves as a
Republican representative
in the Oregon Legislature.
“We pride ourselves on
being flexible, but it feels
like we’re putting out fires
every day, every hour, all
the time.”
BOSSCO Trading mar-
kets straw from about 40
grass seed farms around the
Willamette Valley.
Once the seed crop is
harvested,
BOSSCO’s
crews arrive to rake and
bale the leftover straw,
which then goes to a hay
press in Salem. The bales
are loaded into shipping
containers and sent to ports
in Seattle, Tacoma and Port-
land via truck and rail.
Normally,
BOSSCO
Trading handles 2,200 con-
tainers in a year. However,
Jacobson said it is becoming
harder to find containers, as
they are stuck on ships or at
docks. Bookings from some
carriers have also been can-
celed for months — called
“vessel voids” — leaving
products stranded.
Boshart Davis estimates
their costs are up 100%
to
150%
between
increased
rates
and
fees, to say
nothing of
the mental
Tracey
and emo-
Chow
tional toll.
“When you can’t be pro-
ductive and efficient ... it
costs a lot of money when
you’re scrambling all the
time,” she said.
Todd Fryhover, pres-
ident of the Washington
Apple Commission, said his
members are under similar
pressure.
Apples are Washington’s
most valuable agricultural
commodity, with $2.1 bil-
lion in sales in 2020. About
30% of the state’s produc-
tion is exported, though
Fryhover said port conges-
tion has producers concen-
trating this year more on
North American markets as
opposed to overseas.
But that also has a cost.
For every 1 million boxes
of fresh apples shifted into
the U.S. domestic mar-
ket, the price drops about
50 cents per box as supply
begins to overtake demand,
Fryhover said.
“The entire supply chain
as been affected,” he said.
“It’s not easy to point at
one place and say, ‘Fix this
and everything will be bet-
ter.’ That’s certainly not the
case.”
Increasing capacity
The vast majority of
marine cargo in the North-
west is handled by the ports
of Seattle and Tacoma,
Wash., governed by the
Northwest Seaport Alli-
ance. It is the fifth-busiest
container gateway in the
U.S., behind the ports of
Los Angeles, Long Beach,
New York-New Jersey and
Savannah, Ga.
Tom Bellerud, chief
operations officer for the
seaport alliance, said agri-
culture is a dominant
exporter in the region.
Congestion has cer-
tainly hampered the Seat-
tle-Tacoma gateway, Bel-
lerud said, though he sees
signs that pressure may be
letting up somewhat. The
number of ships that were
once backed up in Seattle
— albeit not as extreme as
Southern California — is
now the lowest it has been
“in a very long time,” he
said.
Bellerud credited a few
factors that have helped to
relieve the bottlenecks.
First, he said both Seat-
tle and Tacoma are utiliz-
ing alternative container
yards, freeing up valuable
space on the terminal docks
and allowing products to
move more efficiently. The
Port of Seattle identified an
additional 40 acres at Ter-
minal 46, and the Port of
Tacoma opened an addi-
tional 20-acre yard.
“We have the luxury
of having some additional
land and space near our ter-
minals that can offer greater
utility to the overall opera-
tions,” Bellerud said.
The biggest upgrade,
however, will be the reopen-
ing of Terminal 5 in Seattle,
Bellerud said.
The 185-acre terminal
has been under construction
for several years. It is slated
to go into service in phases
beginning in January, with
more than $500 million in
improvements.
“That will open some
space and relieve some con-
gestion at Terminal 18,”
Bellerud said.
Bellerud said he is not
aware of any other major
port operation bringing this
much new capacity to the
marketplace.
“We’re very proud of
that,” he said.
New legislation
Solving the supply
chain crisis is expected to
take time, but agricultural
groups are encouraged by
a bill they say will crack
down on shipping lines’
unreasonable practices and
improve transparency for
exporters.
The Ocean Shipping
Reform Act of 2021 passed
the U.S. House of Repre-
sentatives with bipartisan
support on Dec. 8. Law-
makers have said the bill
will ensure maritime ship-
ping remains competitive,
reciprocal and protect busi-
nesses from price gouging.
Tracey Chow, federal
government affairs special-
ist for Western Growers,
said the bill is not a silver
bullet, but as the shipping
crisis eases it will allow the
industry to ensure a level
playing field for agricul-
tural exporters.
“We want the commerce
system to work for both
sides,” Chow said.
For example, West-
ern Growers — which rep-
resents vegetable, fruit and
tree nut farms in Califor-
nia, Arizona, Colorado and
New Mexico — has called
out the practice of ocean
carriers sending empty
containers directly back
to Asia instead of sending
them inland to be loaded
with agricultural goods for
export.
Carriers are able to
charge upward of $20,000
per container for imports
from Asia, enticing them
to skip agricultural exports
altogether.
“From a business per-
spective, it’s hard to com-
pete with that,” Chow said.
“You can’t just keep bring-
ing in imports and not have
reciprocity for exports to
leave.”
The Ocean Shipping
Reform Act would prohibit
carriers from declining U.S.
exports “unreasonably,” as
determined by the Federal
Maritime Commission.
It would also require
common carriers to report
to the commission total
import and export tonnage,
and loaded versus empty
containers per vessel each
quarter.
To incentivize efficiency,
Chow said ocean carriers
and ports may charge what
are known as “detention
and demurrage” fees if con-
tainers are not unloaded or
returned quickly. The fees
can be as much as $500 per
day per container.
But with congestion
at the ports, Chow said
exporters may not have the
flexibility to avoid getting
hit with penalties.
It is typically up to the
invoiced party to dispute
whether these charges are
reasonable. The bill would
shift that burden of proof to
the ocean carrier.
“(This crisis) has brought
attention to how imbal-
anced the maritime ship-
ping industry is becoming,”
Chow said. “Everybody
understands this is an issue
that needs to be addressed.”
Looking ahead, Fried-
mann, with the transporta-
tion coalition, said the cri-
sis at ports could drag into
2023 before ocean carriers
can provide more ships and
containers, and demand for
imported consumer goods
starts to abate.
“As long as people are
staying home and buy-
ing these huge volumes of
imported goods, and every-
thing we own and play with
is made overseas, this is
going to continue,” he said.
Snow: ‘It’s unlikely we’ll have as bad of conditions as we did last year’
Continued from Page 1
100% to 126% of average.
“It’s unlikely we’ll have
as bad of conditions as we did
last year,” said Bond.
However, Bond said, to
make up for deficits, cli-
mate models predict it would
require 140% to 150% of nor-
mal precipitation levels to
continue for six months to end
the drought — “a tall order.”
Bond predicts La Nina, a
weather event that chills the
Northern U.S., may bring
a cool, wet spring to help
replenish water supplies.
Though the outlook is pos-
itive for irrigation districts,
Bond said farmers running
non-irrigated pastures and
dryland crops will struggle
in 2022 unless there’s more
low-elevation rainfall in the
coming months, something
that’s not associated with La
Nina.
Oregon
West of the Cascades,
snowpack is good, though
experts say it could take a
few years of above-average
precipitation to refill some
basins.
Scott Oviatt, snow sur-
vey supervisor for Oregon’s
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service, said to fill res-
ervoirs and improve stream-
flows, substantial snowpack
and precipitation are needed,
which could be disrupted if
there’s an early spring melt-
out or dry period in the mid-
dle of winter.
As of Dec. 26, the
snow-water equivalent in
the Willamette Basin was
153% of average, and the
snow-water equivalent in the
Rogue-Umpqua was 187% of
normal.
“That’s really great. The
trend is towards recovery,”
said Larry O’Neill, Ore-
gon state climatologist and
professor at Oregon State
University.
But in Central and Eastern
Oregon, where precipitation
had been below-average this
fall, drought may continue
unabated.
“There’s probably going
be an East-West divide this
year,” said O’Neill. “Even
though a lot of times you
hear the Pacific Northwest is
doing great this winter, Cen-
tral Oregon probably isn’t
going to recover this year. I
want to make sure people are
prepared.”
Southern Oregon, experts
say, is a wild card. Snow and
rainfall levels vary across
the region, and complex
water-management
issues
in the Klamath Basin are
intertwined.
“A good water year is not
going to solve the problems
there,” said Bond.
Idaho
Bill Wojcik, meteorologist
for the National Weather Ser-
vice in Boise, said Idaho is on
track for a better water year
but has a long way to go.
“We had quite a deficit
and we’re making up some
ground,” said Wojcik.
According to SNOTEL
data Dec. 27, the South-
ern portion of the state bor-
dering Nevada and Utah has
below-average snow-water
equivalent levels, the Owyhee
and Upper Snake basins are
at 95% of average, the Boise
River Basin is at 125% of
average and Payette is at
122%.
Though things are looking
up, experts say it still would
probably take 120% of aver-
age snowpack all winter to
refill crucial reservoirs.
California
Jeanine Jones, drought
and interstate resources man-
ager at the California Water
Resources Department, said
it’s “simply too early to tell”
how the recent Sierra Nevada
snow storms will impact next
year’s water supplies.
Nevertheless, she said the
situation looks positive.
“Currently, Sierra Nevada
snowpack is well above aver-
age, which is great. Will that
continue?” she said. “I will say
we’re much better off than we
were at this time last year.”
Jones said it will take sig-
nificant precipitation to bring
many reservoirs back to nor-
mal levels. Although some
watersheds are doing well,
Jones said others — including
Shasta and Oroville — started
the season “very, very low”
and are still low.