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Daily Record - Fall 2021
Ag Journal
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Ag Journal Editor Michael Gallagher
Table of contents Challenging summer for water .....................................................................................P4
Publisher Heather Hernandez
Snarled supply chain is leading to less-nutritious school meals ...............P6
Advertising Contact us: Ag Journal 401 N. Main Street Ellensburg, WA 98926 509-925-1414
Beyond, Impossible join crowded plant-based chicken market...................P8
The Ag Journal is published three times a year by Kittitas County Publishing LLC. Contents copyrighted 2021 unless otherwise noted.
Illegal marijuana farms take West’s water in ‘blatant theft’ ......................P11 As drought worsens, California farmers are being paid not to grow crops ................................................................................P12 Crop-killing pest, is hitchhiking and hopping its way to the Midwest...................................................................................P15
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Challenging summer for water
Irrigation district adjusts to meet demands
One of the challenges irrigation districts faced this summer was dealing with more aquatic plants due periods of extreme heat in the Kittias Valley. By KARL HOLAPPA staff writer This summer brought numerous challenges when it came to delivering water to irrigators in the Kittitas Valley, but one local reclamation district rose to the challenge and made sure deliveries were met. The two major elements that affected water deliveries during the summer months were numerous power outages and record-breaking heatwaves, and Kittitas Reclamation District Manager Urban Eberhart said both issues created unique impacts on their ability to deliver water to certain parts of the valley. While high elevations received healthy amounts of snowpack over the past winter, Eberhart said one major factor that affected the beginning of the water
delivery season was that lowland fields that require irrigation received little of the winter precipitation that was experienced in the mountains. “While it was coming off of the Pacific and collecting up high, when you got into the lower elevations where we would normally have some snowpack, we didn’t have it,” he said. “We weren’t getting the rain. We had very dry conditions in the soil the further east we looked in Kittitas County, so even before the hot temperatures came, there was much higher than normal demand for the water.” With the abnormally high demand placed on water deliveries from the beginning of the season, Eberhart said the district was incredibly fortunate that the higher elevations received quality
snowpack levels, which translated to healthy reservoir levels throughout the season. “Those dry conditions continued throughout the summer,” he said. “Again, in the irrigated areas, we have been able to keep up, but it has been with high demand for water just so everybody can keep up without having the lowland snow and rainfall to kick us off.” Looking at the upcoming winter, Eberhart said it will again take significant snowpack in upper elevations to recharge the reservoirs and said it would obviously be helpful to be able to recharge soil moisture over the same time period at lowland elevations to start next year off strong. “We’re going to need a significant amount of precipitation just to get
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ourselves back to average and then build our supply from there,” he said. “We are hoping that the forecast we are seeing for this winter will be correct, and that we should be receiving a reasonable water supply, because we are going to need it.” SUMMER CHALLENGES As temperatures increased for sustained amounts of time over the summer, Eberhart said the district faced challenges beyond a high demand for deliveries. One major challenge was the accelerated aquatic weed growth in irrigation canals brought on by the heat. “The hotter it is, the more aquatic plants grow,” he said. “They start taking up the space within the canal system, so there’s not room for the water to flow.” Eberhart said the district set out on a vigorous routine of applying approved
methods of aquatic weed control during the heatwaves, but said the process was both time-consuming and expensive. “It cost quite a bit more money for the application of aquatic weed control measures applied to the canal system than we normally would have done,” he said. “That was a very direct impact.” A major challenge the district faced during the summer was dealing with multiple outages. One of the outages affected a pumping plant that feeds the lateral canals in the Badger Pocket area. Eberhart said the plant contains hydro turbines and booster pumps with electric motors that send the water uphill for deliveries, as well as electric-powered screens that help remove debris from the pumping plant. “The power outages made the screens stop working,” he said. “Obviously, the electric pumps wouldn’t work either. I was told the power outages were associated with high demand on air conditioners that were put on the distribution system.” Eberhart said the outages caused by high demand are a new concept to the district and said the wildfire that broke out near Kittitas over the summer also shut down systems in the eastern part of
the valley. “While the power was off for days, we took the chain drive off the electric motors up there and had a truck up there and people stationed 24 hours a day to rotate those screens with generatorpowered hand drills that would spin the electric motor with the drill. At the same time, we set up portable gasoline-powered pumps to pump water into devices to spray water at the screens while they were being rotated manually.” After dealing with the increased numbers of power outages over the summer, Eberhart said the district is working to adapt to the issue by preparing to install backup generator systems at the affected location. “We are certain that this is not going to be the last time we are going to have an extended heat event,” he said. “It’s not going to be the last time that the power’s going to go off. We are setting up the generator-powered capabilities so we can make it easier to get through one of those without having to station at least two people there 24 hours a day throughout a power outage.”
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Snarled supply chain is leading to less-nutritious school meals Deena Shanker Bloomberg News Supply-chain disruptions are making it difficult for some schools to get food for student meals that meets U.S. nutrition requirements. Labor scarcity and stock shortages throughout the food industry are leading to streamlining, which means that some foods are harder to find, said Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit group that represents individuals and companies that work in the field. Items like whole grain muffins and low-sodium, whole grain tortillas, for instance, may not sell well
enough for a food distributor to keep them stocked. “Sometimes those specialty items that schools are purchasing are the first to go,” she said, adding that labor crunches at warehouses and in trucking further compounds the problem. “Even if the food is in the warehouse, they’re having trouble getting it to the school.” The situation is forcing the government to temporarily relax requirements to comply with federal nutrition standards. That’s adding to the fallout from widespread food supply-chain problems — from staffing shortfalls to commodity inflation to production challenges —
that have also left some supermarket s h e l ve s b a re a n d re s t a u r a n t s scrambling to adjust operations. Nearly all school meal program directors said they’re worried about continued pandemic supply-chain disruptions, the School Nutrition Association found in a survey released in July. About two-thirds called it a serious concern. The most common problems cited by participants included menu items being discontinued or not available in sufficient quantities, significantly higher costs and late deliveries. Schools have been moving toward more-nutritious options since the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of
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2010 required America’s schools to serve children plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and limit added sugar and sodium in lunches. One recent study found that the quality of foods in schools had “improved significantly” by the 2017-2018 school year, more than other food sources. The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued another waiver Sept. 15 to prevent penalties for schools if they cannot comply with the 2010 act because of supply-chain disruptions. The Tuscaloosa County School System in Alabama has sought waivers, including when whole grain hamburger buns were in short supply.
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Donette Worthy, director of child nutrition for the schools, said food challenges have meant getting “very creative” with what’s available and staying in close touch with manufacturers. She and her staff are also working closely with the school nurses to make sure students with allergies can get the food they need. “We will run to the supermarket if we have to,” she said. Colin Schwartz, deputy director of federal affairs for the food industry watchdog Center for Science in the Public Interest, said he supports the waiver program, but hopes the
government will do more to support schools. “The USDA is doing the best it can, but I think they could do better at providing technical assistance and best practices for the states for addressing concerns about how cumbersome waivers can be and helping schools figure out supply-chain issues,” he said. Schools also need more funding to help “build back the labor force and cover the increased cost of food and packaging.” While Pratt-Heavner appreciates the USDA’s flexibility, she said it still adds to the workload of the already understaffed cafeterias. “It’s a lot of paperwork,” she said.
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Nathan Foot, R&D chef at Impossible Foods, takes its new meatless nuggets out of a deep fryer in the company’s test kitchen on Sept. 21, 2021 in Redwood City, Calif. The plant-based nuggets taste are designed to taste like chicken. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)
Beyond, Impossible join crowded plant-based chicken market
By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods found success with realistic plant-based burgers. Now, they’re hoping to replicate that in the fast-growing but crowded market for plant-based chicken nuggets. Beyond Meat said Monday that its new tenders, made from fava beans, will go on sale in U.S. groceries in October. Walmart, Jewel-Osco and Harris Teeter will be among the first to offer them. Impossible Foods began selling its soy-based nuggets this month at Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and other groceries. They’ll be in 10,000 stores by later this year. The rival startups, both based in California, helped redefine what plant-based burgers could be. Beyond burgers were the first to be sold in grocery aisles next to conventional meat in 2016; Impossible burgers joined
them a few years later. But this time, Beyond and Impossible will be stacked in freezers already bursting with plant-based chicken options. More than 50 brands of plant-based nuggets, tenders and cutlets are already on sale in U.S. stores, according to the Good Food Institute, which tracks plant-based brands. Some, like Morningstar Farms and Quorn, have been making plant-based meat for decades. But Beyond and Impossible have also spawned a host of imitators making realistic products marketed to omnivores, not just vegans and vegetarians. Fifteen percent of those 50 brands were new to the U.S. market in 2020, like Nuggs, from New York startup Simulate, and California’s Daring Foods. They’re all trying to grab a slice of the plant-based market, which is still dwarfed by the conventional meat market but growing fast. U.S. sales of frozen, plant-based chicken tenders and nuggets jumped 29% to $112 8 | 2021 Ag Journal - Fall
million in the 52 weeks ending Aug. 28, according to Nielsen IQ. Sales of conventional frozen tenders and nuggets rose 17% to $1.1 billion in the same period. Globally, retail sales of meat substitutes are expected to grow 2% to 4.6 million metric tons between 2021 and 2022, according to the market research firm Euromonitor. Processed animal meat sales are expected to stay flat in the same period, at 18.9 million metric tons. Tom Rees, an industry manager with Euromonitor, said plant-based meat sales were already growing before the coronavirus hit. In Euromonitor surveys, nearly a quarter of consumers worldwide say they are limiting meat intake for health reasons. But the pandemic gave plant-based meat a boost as consumers looked for new things to cook at home. Rees said meat shortages and coronavirus outbreaks at meat production facilities also made consumers think twice
about the animal meat market. Meat or no meat, breaded nuggets aren’t exactly a health food. One serving of Beyond’s chicken tenders have 12 grams of fat, 450 milligrams of sodium, 11 grams of protein and 210 calories. Impossible’s nuggets have 10 grams of fat, 320 milligrams of sodium, 10 grams of protein and 200 calories. By comparison, a similar size serving of Pilgrim’s chicken nuggets contains 14 grams of fat, 10 grams of protein, 460 milligrams of sodium and 220 calories. Impossible Foods Vice President of Product Innovation Celeste Holz-Schietinger said it was important to start with plant-based burgers because beef production is a bigger contributor to climate change. But Impossible spent the past year developing the plant-based tenders as part of a goal is to replace all animal agriculture with more sustainable alternatives by 2035. Beyond Meat has been experimenting with chicken for even longer. The El Segundo, California-based company launched chicken strips in 2012. But it pulled them from the market in 2019, citing the need to devote more manufacturing capacity to its burgers. Unlike the new fava bean-based tenders, Beyond’s burgers are made with pea protein. Beyond President and CEO Ethan Brown said the company has spent more than a decade researching various protein sources and their attributes and doesn’t want to limit itself to
just one. Dariush Ajami, Beyond’s chief innovation officer, said mimicking the fibrous texture and fat distribution in chicken was the biggest challenge with the new tenders. The company is still far from perfecting a plant-based chicken breast or a marbled steak, but has 200 scientists and engineers working on it, he said. “The goal is to reduce that gap between our product and animal meat,” he said. There’s also a price gap. Beyond Meat’s suggested retail price for an 8-ounce package is $4.99, while Impossible’s 13.5-ounce package costs $7.99. Tyson Foods sells a 2-pound bag of chicken nuggets at Walmart for $5.76. But it’s clear many people are eager to try plant-based foods. In July, Panda Express quickly sold out of Beyond Meat orange chicken in a trial run at locations in Los Angeles and New York. Panda Express says it’s exploring a wider rollout of the product, which was specially developed for the brand. Jasmine Alkire recently tried Beyond Meat orange chicken at a Panda Express in Los Angeles. Alkire became a vegetarian seven years ago, but the Beyond chicken tasted similar to the orange chicken she grew up eating. “It was flavorful and didn’t have a weird aftertaste or off-putting texture,” she said. For now, Beyond Meat has several advantages. It has partnerships with big brands like KFC and McDonald’s
and has already opened its first manufacturing plant in China, where Impossible’s products aren’t yet sold. Impossible is still waiting for regulatory approval to sell its burgers in Europe and China because they contain genetically modified ingredients. But Impossible’s chicken doesn’t contain those same ingredients. Both companies plan to sell their chicken overseas. Impossible is confident that consumers will gravitate to its nuggets. In company taste tests, it found that most consumers preferred its product to actual chicken. “It’s better for you, its better for the environment and it tastes better than the animal,” said Impossible Foods President Dennis Woodside. “So we think that’s a pretty strong value proposition.” Other brands insist they’ll defend their turf. Morningstar Farms, the current plant-based poultry sales leader in the U.S., launched a separate brand called Incogmeato in 2019 with products that closely replicate meat. Sara Young, the general manager of plant-based proteins at Kellogg Co., which owns Morningstar, said the brand has the biggest product portfolio and the highest repeat-buyer rate in the plant-based category. “We’ve been at this for a long time,” she said.
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Illegal marijuana farms take West’s water in ‘blatant theft’ By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press LA PINE, Ore. (AP) — Jack Dwyer pursued a dream of getting back to the land by moving in 1972 to an idyllic, treestudded parcel in Oregon with a creek running through it. “We were going to grow our own food. We were going to live righteously. We were going to grow organic,” Dwyer said. Over the decades that followed, he and his family did just that. But now, Deer Creek has run dry after several illegal marijuana grows cropped up in the neighborhood last spring, stealing water from both the stream and nearby aquifers and throwing Dwyer’s future in doubt. From dusty towns to forests in the U.S. West, illegal marijuana growers are taking water in uncontrolled amounts when there often isn’t enough to go around for even licensed users. Conflicts about water have long existed, but illegal marijuana farms — which proliferate despite legalization in many Western states — are adding strain during a severe drought. In California, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, there are still more illegal cannabis farms than licensed ones, according to the Cannabis Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “Because peak water demand for cannabis occurs in the dry season, when streamflow is at its lowest levels, even small diversions can dry streams and harm aquatic plants and animals,” a study from the center said. Some jurisdictions are fighting back. California’s Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors in May banned trucks carrying 100 gallons or more of water from using roads leading to arid tracts where some 2,000 illegal marijuana grows were purportedly using millions of gallons of water daily. The illegal grows are “depleting precious groundwater and surface water resources” and jeopardizing agricultural, recreational and residential water use, the county ordinance says. In Oregon, the number of illegal grows appears to have increased recently as the
Pacific Northwest endured its driest spring since 1924. Many are operating under the guise of being hemp farms, legalized nationally under the 2018 Farm Bill, said Mark Pettinger, spokesman for the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission. Under the law, hemp’s maximum THC content — the compound that gives cannabis its high — must be no greater than 0.3%. Fibers of the hemp plant are used in making rope, clothing, paper and other products. Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel believes there are hundreds of illegal grows in his southern Oregon county alone, many financed by overseas money. He believes the financiers expect to lose a few grows but the sheer number of them means many will last until the marijuana is harvested and sold on the black market outside Oregon. None of the new sites has been licensed to grow recreational marijuana, Pettinger said. Regulators, confronted in 2019 by a backlog of license applications and a glut of regulated marijuana, stopped processing new applications until January 2022. The illegal grows have had “catastrophic” consequences for natural water resources, Daniel said. Several creeks have dried up far earlier than normal and the water table — the underground boundary between water-saturated soil and unsaturated soil — is dropping. “It’s just blatant theft of water,” Daniel said. Last month, Daniel and his deputies, reinforced by other law enforcement officers, destroyed 72,000 marijuana plants growing in 400 cheaply built greenhouses, known as hoop houses. The water for those plants came through a makeshift, illicit system of pumps and hoses from the nearby Illinois River, which belongs to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, created by Congress to preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values. Daniel said another illegal grow that had 200,000 plants was drawing water from Deer Creek using pumps and pipes. He called it “one of the most blatant and ugly
A marijuana grow is seen on Sept. 2, 2021, in an aerial photo taken by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office the day officers raided the site in the community of Alfalfa, Ore. On the 30-acre property in the high desert they found 49 greenhouses containing almost 10,000 marijuana plants and a complex watering system with several 15,000-20,000 gallon cisterns. (Deschutes County Sheriff Via AP) things I’ve seen.” “They had actually dug holes into the ground so deep that Deer Creek had dried up ... and they were down into the water table,” the sheriff said. Dwyer has a water right to Deer Creek, near the community of Selma, that allows him to grow crops. The creek can run dry late in the year sometimes, but Dwyer has never seen it this dry, much less this early in the year. The streambed is now an avenue of rocks bordered by brush and trees. Over the decades, Dwyer created an infrastructure of buried water pipe, a dozen spigots and an irrigation system connected to the creek to grow vegetables and to protect his home against wildfires. He uses an old well for household water, but it’s unclear how long that will last. “I just don’t know what I will do if I don’t have water,” the 75-year-old retired middle school teacher said. Marijuana has been grown for decades in southern Oregon, but the recent explosion of huge illegal grows has shocked residents. The Illinois Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, where Dwyer lives, held two town halls about the issue recently. Water theft was the main concern, said Christopher Hall, the conservation district’s community organizer. “The people of the Illinois Valley are experiencing an existential threat for the first time in local history,” Hall said. In the high desert of central Oregon, illegal marijuana growers are also tapping the
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water supply that’s already so stressed that many farmers, including those who produce 60% of the world’s carrot-seed supply, face a water shortage this year. On Sept. 2, Deschutes County authorities raided a 30-acre (12-hectare) property in Alfalfa, just east of Bend. It had 49 greenhouses containing almost 10,000 marijuana plants and featured a complex watering system with several 15,000- to 20,000-gallon cisterns. Neighbors told detectives the illegal grow has forced them to drill a new well, Sheriff Shane Nelson said. The Bend area has experienced a population boom, putting more demands on the water supply. The illegal grows are making things worse. In La Pine, south of Bend, Rodger Jincks watched a crew drill a new well on his property. The first sign that his existing well was failing came when the pressure dropped as he watered his tiny front lawn. Driller Shane Harris estimated the water table is dropping 6 inches (15 centimeters) per year. Sheriff ’s deputies last November raided an illegal grow a block away that had 500 marijuana plants. Jincks’ neighbor, Jim Hooper, worries that his well might fail next. He resents the illegal grows and their uncontrolled used of water. “With the illegals, there’s no tracking of it,” Hooper said. “They’re just stealing the water from the rest of us, which is causing us to spend thousands of dollars to drill new wells deeper.”
As drought worsens, California farmers are being paid not to grow crops Ian James Los Angeles Times BLYTHE, Calif. — Green fields of alfalfa and cotton rolled past as Brad Robinson drove through the desert valley where his family has farmed with water from the Colorado River for three generations. Stopping the truck, he stepped onto a dry, brown field where shriveled remnants of alfalfa crunched under his boots. The water has been temporarily shut off on a portion of Robinson’s land. In exchange, he’s receiving $909 this year for each acre of farmland left dry and unplanted. The water is instead staying in Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, to help slow the unrelenting decline of the largest reservoir in the country. Robinson and other growers in the Palo Verde Irrigation District are taking part in a new $38-million program funded by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and other water agencies in Arizona and Nevada. The farmers are paid to leave a portion of their lands dry and fallow, and the water saved over the next three years is expected to translate into 3 feet of additional water in Lake Mead, which has declined to its lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s following the construction of Hoover Dam. “Honestly, I think I could make more money farming. But for the sake of the Colorado River, I think it’s the right thing to do,” Robinson said. “The river’s going through a bad time right now.” The arrangement is one of a growing number of programs that are springing up along the river to find water-savings in agricultural areas. As reservoirs continue to decline, managers of water districts are looking to start or scale up similar landfallowing programs in other areas, paying farmers not to farm temporarily on some fields and using the water to ease shortages. Although the program in the Palo Verde Valley amounts to a minuscule boost for the shrinking Colorado River, the approach has been praised by water officials and local growers as one way of adapting to a river that yields less after years of severe drought intensified by the warming
Old farm equipment stands at the edge of a field in Blythe, California on Sept. 7, 2021. climate. Robinson and other growers in water — approximately 70% — irrigates require water cuts in California. Palo Verde say they hope their participation farmland, and much of that water flows to Since 2005, Robinson and other farmers may encourage other water agencies to thirsty crops such as hay and cotton, which in the Palo Verde Valley have left portions start similar initiatives and enlist more are exported in large quantities. of their lands dry and unplanted under a farmers to fallow land to help address the Since 2000, the river’s flow has shrunk 35-year deal with the Metropolitan Water increasingly dire condition of the river. during one of the driest 22-year periods in District, which has paid them more than Even as they take part in the program centuries. Scientists have described the last $180 million for water that was sent though, some farmers remain suspicious of two decades as a megadrought, and one flowing through the Colorado River the powerful Metropolitan Water District that’s being worsened by the heating of Aqueduct to cities in Southern California. and its intentions in their community. The the planet with the burning of fossil fuels. Under the new deal, much of the water MWD has bought thousands of acres of Researchers have warned that long-term will instead be left in Lake Mead to try farmland around the town of Blythe over “aridification” of the Colorado River Basin to reduce risks of the reservoir falling to the years and has recently agreed to buy means the region must adapt to a river that critically low levels. more land, eliciting fears among farmers provides less water. For managers of the MWD, the program that the water agency in Los Angeles could The water level in Lake Mead has offers flexibility, enabling them to pay for one day seek to take more water and dry declined 27 feet since January 2020. The more land-fallowing in years when they up a larger portion of their valley. reservoir now stands at just 34% of full need more water. “They’ve got a large portion of this capacity, placing it at a shortage level that Each year, the MWD calls for a certain valley. Why do they need more?” asked will trigger mandatory water cutbacks next percentage of the valley’s farmlands, up farmer Charles Van Dyke. year for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. to a maximum of 28%, to be left fallow. The Colorado River has long been The lake’s water level is projected to Starting this year, the water from a portion chronically over-allocated, with so much continue falling. The latest estimates from of those lands is staying in Lake Mead. water diverted to supply farms and cities the federal government show the water in Similar programs have taken shape in that the river has for decades rarely reached Lake Mead could drop an additional 30 several areas along the Colorado River. the sea in Mexico. Most of that diverted feet by August 2023, a level that would Last year, the MWD began paying 12 | 2021 Ag Journal - Fall
1960. He now farms on about 3,200 acres around Blythe, including land he owns and leases. His fields produce cotton that is exported, alfalfa that is trucked to dairies in California, Bermuda grass that is baled to feed horses, and honeydews and other melons that are sold in supermarkets. “In a perfect world, a farmer wants to farm,” Robinson said. “But the reality of the situation is that we have a certain amount of population and people, and don’t have unlimited water. So we’re going to have to, the two sides are going to have to work together.” The fields that are left dry are rotated every one to five years. And for the farmers, the cash payments provide a stable chunk of income that isn’t subject to price swings. “We’re not getting rich off this. But it helps enough on the bad years,” when crop prices are low, Robinson said. “I’ve never laid anybody off because of the fallow program, and I never intend to do so.” The program is far from a cure-all, and will need to be combined with other steps, said Chuck Cullom, manager of Colorado River programs at the Central Arizona Project. For example, water agencies in Arizona and Nevada have offered to invest in a proposed water recycling project in Southern California. And Cullom’s agency has been investing in testing water-saving irrigation technologies on Arizona farms. “We all share the river. We all share risk,” Cullom said. “As the system becomes more vulnerable, we need all of the sectors to work together.” The sorts of deals that temporarily leave farmland dry help by adding flexibility to the water system, but they also raise questions as the West grapples with the effects of climate change, including hotter, more intense droughts, said Newsha Ajami, director of urban water policy at Stanford University. “If you’re experiencing drought after drought, and the droughts are getting hotter and drier, how long can you fallow land?” Ajami said. “I think it’s a Band-Aid. It’s a temporary solution to a more longterm problem we are having.” Some Arizona farmers are already facing cutbacks in water deliveries from the river because they hold the lowest-priority water rights. The farmers in Blythe, in contrast, hold some of the oldest water rights on the entire river, dating to 1877, when investor Thomas Blythe filed a claim to use water from the river. Based on that history, the growers of the Palo Verde Valley have a privileged first-priority position among
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farmers in the smaller Bard Water District not to plant water-intensive crops such as alfalfa in the spring and summer, while they continue growing higher-value winter crops such as lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. And the MWD’s board is considering paying for seasonal fallowing under another proposed agreement with the Quechan Indian Tribe, whose reservation borders Arizona, California and Mexico, and includes farms that produce hay and vegetable crops. Other initiatives are underway across the river in Arizona. Under agreements aimed at slowing the decline of Lake Mead, leaders of the Colorado River Indian Tribes have been leaving some farmlands dry, and landowners in the Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District have also been forgoing some water in exchange for payments. To support more fallowing of land in the Palo Verde Valley, the federal government is contributing half the funding — $19 million — while the rest is coming from the Central Arizona Project, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the MWD. “This is just the beginning,” MWD General Manager Adel Hagekhalil said when the deal was announced in August. “We’re working to develop other innovative ideas to keep as much water as possible in Lake Mead.” The program demonstrates how urban and agricultural water districts can work together to deal with shortages, said Bill Hasencamp, MWD’s manager of Colorado River resources. “A lot of other states and other regions are looking to those programs as examples of what can be done elsewhere,” Hasencamp said. “We want to set a good example of how farmland can be productive in the era of shrinking water supplies.” Reducing reliance on the Colorado River, he said, will require bigger watersaving efforts in cities and farming communities alike. The MWD supplies water to cities and water districts across Southern California that serve about 19 million people. The agency’s figures show that between 2011 and 2020, its total water use declined about 7% — in part thanks to the lasting effects of conservation campaigns during the 2012-2016 drought. Because the latest estimates show Lake Mead is likely to continue declining, Hasencamp said, “we’re going to need to do more.” Robinson, who is a board member of the Palo Verde Irrigation District, runs a family business that his grandfather founded in
Brad Robinson, a farmer in Blythe, California, walks on a field that he has left fallow as part of a program between area growers and the the Metropolitan Water District, on Sept. 7, 2021. The desert agricultural industry in Blythe draws water from the nearby Colorado River. The program allows farmers to leave fields dry in exchange for cash payments.
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California water districts and would be among the last in line for cuts. “We should be the last ones to worry about water,” said Bart Fisher, a farmer who is vice president of the irrigation district board. “But if there’s no water in the river, it really doesn’t matter.” Fisher, who runs a farming business that his grandfather founded in 1917, said even with such solid water rights, he and other growers have reason to be concerned about the river’s worsening crisis. “It looks grim, actually. I was born in Blythe and I’ve been here all my life, and we’ve never been so threatened,” Fisher said, looking across a dry field where bits of garlic, remnants of the last harvest, were scattered in the soil. He also grows broccoli, melons, wheat and hay, all of which rely on Colorado River water flowing through the canals. “We could conceivably come to a place on the Colorado River where there is not water for anybody’s needs,” Fisher said. “We’re going to diminish reservoir levels to levels that we haven’t seen before, and the question then is, how do we respond?” He said he hopes to see more deals emerge. If four or five other agricultural water districts pitch in, he said, their contributions could quickly add up to 10 feet or 15 feet of additional water in Lake Mead, which would make a big difference. But even as Fisher and other farmers continue to participate in the MWD program and receive payments, they’ve also voiced concerns. Under the deal, the MWD provided $6 million to establish a locally-run community improvement fund in Blythe that has provided grants and business loans in an effort to boost the local economy. Fisher said in retrospect, that one-time payment hasn’t been enough. Fisher drove down the main avenue, Hobsonway, where he passed shuttered businesses, including a motel, gas station, restaurant and several stores, all with boarded-up windows. “I think we would do it a little differently today,” Fisher said. “We would ask for more community support” from the MWD. To the farmers’ dismay, the MWD has bought large pieces of farmland in the Palo Verde Valley. The largest purchase, 12,000 acres in 2015, made the MWD the largest landowner in the irrigation district. The MWD says it now owns about 29,000 acres in the area. The agency leases the land that isn’t left dry to growers, offering reduced rent to farmers who plant crops that consume
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less water. The problem with the MWD owning so much land, Fisher said, is that it ends up paying less to landowners in the valley. He said this deprives the area of approximately $6 million to $8 million annually that would otherwise be going to local businesses and fueling the economy. “When [the MWD] fallows their own land, they keep the money. So it doesn’t make its way into our community. And it’s a lot for a little community like this,” Fisher said. Worried by the MWD’s land dealings, leaders of the Palo Verde Irrigation District sued the agency in 2017, but then dropped the lawsuit in 2018. Recently, farmers objected when they learned of an MWD proposal to buy an additional 702-acre property from Cox Family Farms. The MWD board endorsed the purchase last month. “We’ve told them that we think it’s a very bad idea. It’s bad for the community, and frankly, it’s a predatory practice on their part,” Fisher said. “It’s just disappointing. It’s sort of counter to the spirit by which we originally engaged with them to negotiate the fallow program.” At the MWD, however, officials have discussed the potential for additional purchases of farmland along the river in areas with high-priority senior rights as a way to reduce water use in agriculture and free up water for urban Southern California in dry times. “It would allow us to play a long game with climate change by holding and leasing land for decades,” Brad Coffey, manager of water resources management, said during a September committee meeting. Board members discussed whether to actively pursue future land purchases. “I believe that if someone wants to sell us that land, that we should always answer the door,” board member Larry Dick said. “We’ll do it responsibly. We’re not going to take that land and take it out of production forever.” Russell Lefevre, another board member, asked how the land purchases are viewed by the farmers. “They did express concern about us buying land,” Hasencamp said. “We are working with them to try to alleviate some of those concerns.” Lefevre said he would support seeking out other land deals. He said he wonders “if we can move this methodology to other areas,” such as the Coachella and Imperial valleys.
Adult spotted lanternflies are identifiable by their bright body and wing colors.
Crop-killing pest, is hitchhiking and hopping its way to the Midwest
By Frank Witsil Detroit Free Press DETROIT — A small, winged pest some people even think is pretty is getting a lot of attention online, as agriculture and natural resource experts warn that it can do considerable damage to grapes and, once established, is difficult to kill. Lycorma delicatula — better known as the dreaded spotted lanternfly — made its way from Asia to the United States at least a decade ago, and agriculture officials now fear it’s slowly making its way to Michigan and other nearby states. Adult spotted lanternflies are identifiable by their bright body and wing colors. “It’s a pest we are concerned about in the state of Michigan,” said Robert Miller, an invasive species expert with the state’s agriculture department. “We are asking the public to be on the lookout and to report it if they think they see it. I can’t say if and when it will arrive. But I think there’s a possibility we’ll see it eventually.” In the meantime, the internet is turning the insect into an evil Mothra. In the last few days, there have been multiple online reports and warnings. Many, if not most, of the headlines, invoke the language of violence and death. CBS: “There’s a beautiful spotted insect flying across the U.S. — and officials want you to kill it.” The New York Times: “Die, Beautiful Spotted Lanternfly, Die” Other publications got even more creative: The
Staten Island (N.Y.) Media Group mentions a squishathon, the Gothamist, also in New York, screams, “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boot,” and NJ.com wants you to watch a video of a guy who “killed thousands of spotted lanternflies in days.” It could be considered a lot of clickbait. But beyond the hype, the lanternfly is a real problem without much of a solution. Miller points out one of the consequences of global travel and trade is that insects, animals, and plants are increasingly ending up in places they shouldn’t be, and in many cases destroying the environments around them. Invasive species are not a new problem. When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 he initiated what historians now call the Columbus Exchange, a transfer of ideas, diseases, crops, and even populations between the New World and the Old World. The spotted lanternfly — what ag departments have been calling SLF — was first detected in southeastern Pennsylvania in 2014 but appeared to have been in the United States for two to three years already. They are about an inch long and half an inch wide, with eye-catching wings. When their wings are open they show a yellow and black abdomen and bright red hind wings with black spots transitioning to black and white bands at the edge. Egg masses look like old chewing gum, with a gray, waxy, putty-like coating. The bugs, which hop more than fly, likely arrived in America aboard a shipping container. 15 | 2021 Ag Journal - Fall
Since then, the bug has spread to Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, West Virginia, Connecticut, and Ohio. Earlier this year, one was spotted in Indiana. It was the farthest west the insect has been found. California, which produces many crops the spotted lanternfly could destroy, declared a quarantine to prohibit the introduction of the spotted lanternfly into the state. It’s not clear how much good that will do, but California said the most likely way for it to spread is through its egg cases. And New York has deputized residents in its fight to stop it, launching an app to log where they are found. Earlier this month, a kid in Kansas pinned one on a 4-H display at the state fair. If the spotted lanternfly enters Michigan, it could affect Michigan’s agriculture and natural resources, damaging more than 70 varieties of crops and plants including grapes, apples, hops, and hardwood trees. In subdivisions, it leaves a stick, stinky residue on trees that attracts mold and other critters. Pesticides can kill it, but it will also kill other things, too. In Michigan, if you find spotted lanternfly eggs, nymphs or adults, take photos, make notes of the date, time and location of the sighting, and report it to the state department of agriculture at MDAInfo@Michigan.gov or 800-292-3939. If possible, collect a specimen for verification.
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