BUSINESS & AG LIFE
B2 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 2021
A drought like no other, NOAA scientist says
Drought covers almost entire Western U.S.
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
SALEM — The West
has been so dry and so hot
for so long that its current
drought has no modern
precedent, according to
a National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administra-
tion meteorologist.
For the fi rst time in 122
years of record-keeping,
drought covers almost the
entire Western U.S. as
measured by the Palmer
Drought Severity Index,
said Richard Heim, a
drought historian and an
author of the U.S. Drought
Monitor.
“It’s a very simple ‘yes,’
in terms of this drought
being unprecedented,” Heim
said.
The Palmer index esti-
mates relative soil mois-
ture based on temperature
and precipitation records.
Unlike the Standard Precip-
itation Index, which mea-
sures water supply, the
Palmer index also takes into
account heat-driven demand
for water.
Utah was never drier,
while Oregon and Cali-
fornia were at their second
driest on record. Idaho and
Arizona were at their third
driest ever, and Nevada was
at its fourth driest.
Washington was at its
10th driest, while Montana
and New Mexico, where
recent monsoons have
brought relief, were at their
17th driest.
Oregon and Washington
state climatologists gave
their qualifi ed endorse-
ment for calling this drought
“unprecedented.”
“I’d be slightly cautious
about calling it ‘unprece-
dented,’ but that’s probably
a fair description,” Oregon
State Climatologist Larry
O’Neill said. “It’s borderline
unprecedented, or at least
among the worst.”
The cumulative eff ects of
the West’s current drought,
illustrated by low major res-
ervoirs, gives credence to
calling it unprecedented,
Washington State Climatol-
ogist Nick Bond said.
“I don’t have any real
quarrel with using that
term,” he said.
‘It’s borderline
unprecedented’
Some stage of drought
In June, about 97% of
the West — Arizona, Cal-
ifornia, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, New Mexico,
Oregon, Utah and Wash-
ington — was in water-
defi cit territory, according
to the Palmer index.
The Drought Monitor, a
partnership between NOAA
and the USDA, has been
mapping drought in the U.S.
since 2000. The percentage
of the West in “exceptional
drought,” the worst cate-
gory, has never been higher.
U.S. Drought Monitor
More than 95% of the nine
Western states is in some
stage of drought.
Heim said the combina-
tion of prolonged above-av-
erage temperatures and
below-normal precipitation
set this drought apart from
two multiyear droughts
that spanned the 1930s and
1950s.
The U.S. entered another
extended dry episode in
1998, he said. The drought
has eased periodically, but
never really went away and
reasserted itself beginning
last spring, he said.
A 24-month period that
ended June 30 was the
driest such two-year period
ever in the West, according
to records dating back to
1895. The same time period
was the sixth warmest.
Other two-year dry
periods, such as 1976 and
1977, were not as hot, Heim
said.
“I would defi ne this
(drought) as still part of a
20-plus-year drought,” he
said. “In the last year and
a half, we have been on an
intensifying trend.”
The drought’s depth,
duration and cause varies
by state, making compar-
isons between the cur-
rent drought and past
droughts imperfect.
way,” Bond said. “There are
diff erent fl avors of drought.”
Washington’s 1977
drought was much worse
judged solely by the precip-
itation index. About 90% of
Washington was in excep-
tional drought in June 1977,
compared to less than 1%
this June.
Idaho and Oregon also
were in deeper droughts in
June 1977 than this year,
according to the precipita-
tion index. California, how-
ever, is worse off this year.
Long dry spells lead to
hydrological droughts, when
streams and reservoirs are
low and wells are dry.
Southern Oregon has
fallen into a hydrolog-
ical drought, and it will
Long dry spells
In measuring drought,
“there is no simple best
take a long time to recover,
O’Neill said.
“Even if we get normal
precipitation in the winter,
we would expect to be in at
least moderate hydrological
drought next year,” he said.
The federal Climate
Prediction Center says
that odds favor a La Nina
forming next winter. The
climate phenomenon gen-
erally means a good snow-
pack in Washington and a
poor snowpack in Northern
California.
In Oregon, La Nina often
has less pronounced eff ects,
O’Neill said. The dividing
line between good and poor
snowpacks in La Nina years
falls about Roseburg, he
said.
“I think the bottom line
is we can’t necessarily
depend on La Nina for
saving us from drought,” he
said.
Washington’s 2015
drought started with a warm
winter and low snowpack
during an El Nino, which
has the opposite eff ect from
a La Nina.
The “snowpack drought”
led to low stream fl ows.
The drought this year was
brought on by a dry spring.
Melting snow continued to
supply streams.
The 2015 drought was
worse for Washington irri-
gators and a “better example
of a climate-change
drought,” Bond said.
“It’s going to be the kind
of drought we’re going to
have because of climate
change,” he said.
Coalition seeks relisting of 9th Circuit rejects challenge
gray wolves in U.S. West to beef promotions
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund questions
legality of state beef councils’ promotions
By KEITH RIDLER
The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — Wildlife advocates
last week petitioned federal offi cials to
restore federal protections for gray wolves
throughout the U.S. West after Idaho and
Montana passed laws intended to drastically
cut their numbers.
Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth
Guardians and others sent the petition to the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency
is supposed to respond within 90 days on
whether there is enough information for a
potential listing under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act.
The groups cite unregulated hunting,
poaching and genetic problems involving
small wolf populations.
“Wolves remain completely absent
from suitable habitats or perilously close to
extinction in many western states, and the
handful of states surrounding Yellowstone
National Park are now driving the larger
populations toward extinction — endan-
gered species listing — by ramping up wolf
killing and stripping away hunting and trap-
ping regulations in Montana, Idaho, and
Wyoming,” said Erik Molvar, executive
director of Western Watersheds Project.
In May, Idaho Republican Gov. Brad
Little signed a measure lawmakers said
could lead to killing 90% of the state’s 1,500
wolves through expanded trapping and
hunting. It took eff ect July 1.
Lawmakers pushing the measure, backed
by trappers and the powerful ranching
sector but heavily criticized by environ-
mental advocates, often said the state can
cut the number of wolves to 150 before fed-
eral authorities would take over manage-
ment. They said reducing the population
would reduce attacks on livestock and boost
deer and elk herds.
A primary change in the new law allows
the state to hire private contractors to kill
wolves and provides more money for state
offi cials to hire the contractors. The law
also expands killing methods to include
trapping and snaring wolves on a single
hunting tag, using night-vision equipment,
chasing wolves on snowmobiles and ATVs
and shooting them from helicopters. It also
authorizes year-round wolf trapping on pri-
vate property.
The state Department of Fish and Game
reported in February that the wolf popu-
lation has held at about 1,500 the past two
years. The numbers were derived in part by
using remote cameras.
Now Open for Dine In
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service, File
This Nov. 7, 2017, photo provided by the National
Park Service shows a wolf in Yellowstone National
Park, Wyoming. Wildlife advocates on Thursday,
July 29, 2021, petitioned federal offi cials to restore
federal protections for gray wolves throughout
the U.S. West after Idaho and Montana passed laws
intended to drastically cut their numbers.
About 500 wolves have been killed
in the state in each of the last two years
by hunters, trappers and state and fed-
eral authorities carrying out wolf control
measures.
Wildlife authorities in Montana, fol-
lowing new laws, have been looking at
changes such as increasing the number of
wolves an individual can hunt to between
fi ve and 10. A decision is expected in
August.
Authorities said this year they expect
the state’s wolf population to decrease from
around 1,150 to between 900 and 950 fol-
lowing a particularly successful hunting
season. Over 320 wolves were harvested
during the 2020 hunting season — signifi -
cantly more than the preceding eight-year
average of 242 wolves per year, according to
a report released by the department in June.
The petition seeks to protect wolves in
those two states as well as Wyoming, Utah,
Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California,
Nevada and northern Arizona. The peti-
tion said those states are part of the range of
wolves.
“These wolves are at risk of extinction
throughout all of their range, and unques-
tionably are at risk of immediate extinction
in signifi cant portions of their range,” the
63-page petition states.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
didn’t immediately respond to a request
for comment.
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SALEM — Promo-
tions funded by state beef
councils aren’t an unlawful
form of compelled speech,
even if third parties are
paid to produce the adver-
tisements, according to a
federal appeals court.
The 9th U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals
has determined that such
promotions are govern-
ment speech, not private
speech that’s forcibly sub-
sidized in violation of the
U.S. Constitution’s First
Amendment.
While people can’t be
required to subsidize pri-
vate speech, the govern-
ment’s own speech isn’t
subject to this prohibi-
tion because it’s “subject
to democratic account-
ability” through the polit-
ical process.
The Ranchers-Cat-
tlemen Action Legal Fund,
or R-CALF, challenged
the legality of promo-
tions issued by state beef
councils, which are partly
funded by “checkoff ”
dollars collected from
ranchers.
R-CALF claimed that
state beef councils sup-
port advertising that’s
contrary to the interests
of independent beef pro-
ducers and isn’t protected
as “government speech,”
since it doesn’t refl ect
the government’s actual
views and is often created
by third parties.
The 9th Circuit has
now rejected that argu-
ment, upholding an ear-
lier ruling that concluded
state beef council promo-
tions are ultimately under
the authority of USDA
— even when third par-
ties develop the adver-
tisements without preap-
proval from the agency.
Promotions that are
preapproved by USDA
and explained in bud-
gets submitted to the
agency eff ectively receive
“fi nal approval authority”
from the federal govern-
ment, so they’re “there-
fore plainly government
speech,” according to the
9th Circuit.
Even third-party pro-
motions that aren’t sub-
ject to preapproval are
“eff ectively controlled” by
USDA because Congress
envisioned that industry
nonprofi ts would imple-
ment promotions under
the beef checkoff pro-
gram, the ruling said.
Federal regulations
still require third-party
promotions to “strengthen
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the beef industry’s posi-
tion in the marketplace”
without mentioning
brands or trade names,
using deceptive prac-
tices or infl uencing gov-
ernment policies, the
ruling said. The USDA
also reviews state beef
council expenses and can
participate in their board
meetings.
Though R-CALF
claimed such “safe-
guards are insuffi cient,”
the deciding factor is that
the government has the
“ability to control speech,
even when it declined
to do so,” the 9th Cir-
cuit said. The USDA
can “decertify” state
beef councils from using
checkoff dollars if it dis-
agrees with how those
funds are spent, providing
“unquestioned control”
over that money.
According to case law,
the USDA does not need
to “write the copy of the
beef advertisements” to
make such promotions
government speech, the
ruling said.
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