Muddy Waters

Tuesday evening at Whatcom County Council, a hearing on the formation of four new Watershed Improvement Districts will take place. A formality, this hearing precedes an upcoming vote by farmer—owners of open spaces qualified properties on whether to initiate WIDs over themselves, and join Bellingham, Whatcom County, the tribes, and the PUD as a tax assessing authority at the table of water negotiations.

In the local world of water rights, quality and quantity, this is a big development. Water is a big deal, and the prospect of farmers successfully organizing into a cohesive group is—well, shocking, kind of like a large brontosauros, waking up and looking long at your stilt house. Maybe the farmers will change the water game. Maybe not.

Having made a serious effort to understand the water issues, and participating as a small Whatcom County hobby farmer, I see several factors.

Funding is a central issue in determining water rules.

Money pays salaries and determines balances of power. City water managers, contract water managers, expert hydro-geological engineers, soil conservation regulators, tribal water system managers and lawyers, state and federal water oversight and grant agencies, NGO socio-environmentalist lobbies generally can count on funding with generous amounts of not water, but money.

There are some things funding can’t buy, such as children who work the soil for love of farming, foregoing the relative ease of urban living. Many big farmers in Whatcom County advise their children to not take on the increasingly onerous burden of perpetuating the family farm. Out of state and country corporations and individuals continue to buy up prime Whatcom County farmland.

Toughing it out, the average Whatcom County Farmer does not have the luxury of a staff of water experts to secure ditch cleaning permits, negotiate water rights, argue with Fish and Wildlife Agency activists, and lobby other recalcitrant government agencies, often staffed by planners who seem more concerned about their career peer legacies than walking a mile in the farmers’ shoes.

Then, there are native tribal customs. If you have opportunity to work in planning sessions with them, tribal leaders can be approachable. However, there is a huge ring of appointed bureaucrats, activist judges, government and non-government agency activists who hedge in the tribes, making finding local solutions a big headache.

If the farmers are not at the table, they will be on the menu. But do Whatcom farmers want to organize and represent themselves at the table of water negotiations?

After attending a significant number of farmer meetings, my observation is that farmers are highly independent, expect their virtues will protect them from activists, and thus are really not interested in collective funding or organizing, unless it is within their own crop sector. Farmers have traditionally kept their heads down and tried to fly under the radar. Most farmers choose partnerships with marketing boards, co-ops and corporations who will buy their product in one annual agreement, freeing them to roam their fields and have coffee with their friends. The people who grow our food generally avoid us.

Muddying this further are well meaning conservative small acreage holders. Not farmers themselves, they push back at the aggression of socio-environmental activists in NGO lobbies and local county agencies. Having the same adversaries, however, does not guarantee them understanding of, or standing with their big farmer neighbors.

Some of the Whatcom small acreage people have revived the state mandated WRIA 1 Water Planning Unit that was sidelined by the “Joint Water Board” about five years ago.

The Lummi and Nooksack Tribes formally abandoned the Planning Unit almost from the beginning. Contentious and dragged out legal and water engineering studies destroyed momentum and farmer interest in the Planning Unit, giving a cadre of well placed civic water officials the freedom to move water policy along socio-environmental activist lines.

Unofficially, the tribes and the civic officials have made a host of decisions behind closed doors. However, as conservative acreage holders began observing the public meetings of related county and city agencies, these plans were uncovered and challenged, and a movement to resurrect the oversight of the Planning Unit took place. Farmers looked at this with skepticism and open hostility.

Key civic officials scoffed at and sought to sabotage the Planning Unit revival. And, the Planning Unit advocates have duly noted the disinterest of the farmers in water rights issues for small acreage holders. On the other hand, big farm advocacy groups have supported the County appeal against the recent Futurewise lawsuit over “exempt” residential wells.

So, to sum up—on one side is a host of well funded (by the taxpayer, in various ways) non food growing “guardians” of water and land, and on the other side is a ragtag, conflicted band of farmers and small acreage conservatives.

Enter Watershed Improvement Districts. Central in water conflict resolution elsewhere in Washington State, Watershed Improvement Districts in Whatcom County have the legal potential to absorb irrigation and diking/drainage districts. Assessing a tax, WIDs will have more or less money to secure grants, and coordinate and carry out projects with other peer agencies with legal standing, whether county, state, or federal, whether volunteer or salaried.

Farmers have duly noted the sluggish agency staffers who soak up irrigation and diking/draining funds, and county administrators who transfer these funds to other contentious projects outside the initial scope of the tax assessments. Hence, there is a plan to create a joint WID board, representing the two existing and four proposed WIDs, and not with county staffing or administrative service.

What does it mean to improve a watershed? WIDs have a broader scope of endeavor than irrigation or diking districts. Assuming watershed responsibilities can be a headache, but has been looked on with significant favor by state legislators, who have provided very large financial grants to WID projects in other counties. The key is working out a watershed improvement plan acceptable to WID members and other entities such as tribes and cities.

This early October ballot will allow farmland holders in Whatcom County, whose land is in the “Open Spaces” reduced tax program to decide to organize as WIDs. In other words, the WIDs are being organized in a way that gives farmers control of their agenda.

A temporary committee of farmers, framers of the watershed “boundaries” have modified the initial boundary lines to increase the chances of the 2/3 approval needed to establish the WIDs. And, votes are based on acreage, specifically, 2 votes for every 5 acres enrolled in the boundaries. This “gerrymandering” has been contentious, not only with “yes vote” farmers who have been excluded, but also with “no vote” farmers who have been excluded.

My informal observation is that the volunteer boundary committee is pressed to the limit by lack of organizing staff and bare bones funding, just as the Planning Unit revivalists are struggle as County officials fund meeting facilitators handsomely, but provide relatively little staff or funds for Planning Unit members to carry out real life, non-meeting projects.

In other words, “gerrymandering” accusations seem to be largely fears that the WIDs will be a foe of legitimate Planning Unit processes, becoming a power center that overshadows the Planning Unit and further marginalizes rural non farm conservatives on the Planning Unit. Farmers and Planning Unit conservatives need patience and a servant’s mindset here. There is no perfect, eternally static balance of power or system of checks and balances. It is the open hand that undergirds community life. And, the consensus decision making process of the Planning Unit is onerous and notoriously slow.

What sets apart pretending and legitimate water curators here? 1) Children. 2) Growing food.

Thirty or fifty years from now, whose children will manage the water and land resources? Progressive partners have few children. Farmers’ children don’t stay on the farm. Many tribal children move off the reservation and out of the boats. Grey headed activists, environmental and conservative, rarely have their children and grandchildren engaged locally with them.

Perhaps, the greatest contribution towards good water policy will be farm sensitive youth living on food producing parcels, who can, in community and good faith, without endless overlays of urban officials, negotiate water use rules that provide balanced stewardship of natural resources.

Who provides food from the land and the water? It is the tribes and the farmers. Working the soil and the seas are the hard scrabble trusts that validate water policy expertise.

Maybe the WIDs and tribes can work together to sweep away the Seattle based, UN/federal agency funded NGO encrustments in Whatcom County, to model service based, not adversarial driven agreements. Again, the open hand gets things done. The closed hand destroys.

Maybe the big, local Whatcom farmers will pursue a model that allows global sales, yet also enables local urban and suburbanites and their children to again produce value added foods, to balance and preserve farming with businesses and cash flows, farms not so dependent on bank financing and government subsidies.

Maybe.

Food Fights

I am sitting in a hotel room tonight, soaking in the sounds of Haydn and Bach while unwinding after a day of meetings. 187 voting Farm Bureau delegates from 25 counties in Washington State are also settling into their hotel rooms in Yakima tonight. It was a busy, productive, well organized day.

Why would five hundred farmers, business owners, agency staffers and family members take three days out of their work week to sit in a large hall and craft agricultural public policies? Maybe it is the fine food? The pleasant talk of old friends? The entertainment? The world class convention center facilities? The fabulous salaries farmers [don’t] make?

Public policy. Do you think in the abstract? Can you draw a blueprint for a house? A diagram of your vegetable garden? Can you write a love letter? A song? A check? We go to school to learn to read, write and count. At least most of us.

Public policy is important to food. Is food important to you? Then you should care about public agricultural policy, words that define how your food will be grown.

Do you know the dad who grew your potatoes? The mom who keeps the family books for the farm that grew the grain that became flour for your bread? Do you know the children of the orchardist who harvested the apricots in the fruit smoothie you are drinking right now? Do you know the insurance man who paid out for the rain spoiled cherries that never got to your table this year?

Do you know the lobbyist and the senator and the lawyer who teamed up to pass legislation to fund a balanced water management plan? A plan that will provide river water for both irrigation and fish habitat in the Yakima valley in years to come? Do you know the representative who wrote the new law that requires Washington government agencies to fully footnote the “best science” that underpins their policies? What a novel thought!

Do you know how many successful joint tribal/farmer agricultural management plans are already or almost in place in Washington State today? Do you know how many upper river, flood controlling and water conserving dams tribal groups have committed to seeing built?

 Do you know how many diabetics today inject quality, low cost insulin harvested from genetically modified bacterial cultures? Do you know both the dangers AND successes of modern agricultural farm interventions? Do you know how farmers are successfully adapting to changing rainfalls, temperatures, and pest migrations? Can you see the tilth in the field your facebook page will never speed past?

Probably not!

Do you know the millionaire who tears at agriculture and industry with a knife of hostility? Do you know the news editor who prefers stories pitting tribal aquaculture against dairy farmers? Do you know the government agents who travel field and stream profiling farmers and loggers who MAY pollute—some day. Do you know the environmental activists whose frivolous listing of poorly defined endangered species is really designed to target, take and idle the farm land that was used to grow the food you ate today?

Do you know the government agents who drive an adversarial wedge between reluctant tribal elders and their neighboring towns? Do you know the tribal elders who are stepping up to mitigate the havoc easy government money and drugs are wreaking on their youth?

Do you know the college professors who demonize the people who grow your food and cut the wood for your shelter? Who teach for a day when property is not private and families are not traditional?

Maybe!

There was a day when public agricultural policy was a simple statement of what the whole culture lived out every day. The closest farms were just a mile or two from the towns they fed. The farmer was your dad, your uncle, or your brother. Then things changed. Now, growing food is a distant and dim reality, and public agricultural policy is often an ideological food fight in halls of power and education.

Today, with one hand the social activist eats the food we grow, and with the other hand they pen public policy which destroys us. Therefore, I am in Yakima with Washington farmers today, and we voted for policies that Farm Bureau lobbyists and legal foundations will promote in the Washington State House and Senate this next year.

Today, we considered the very real gap between public who eat our food in sanitized cities, and ourselves who secure that food in distant, harsh and unpredictable conditions. Today, we brainstormed for ways to penetrate the barrier set up by hostile media and educators and environmentalists between ourselves and tomorrow’s leaders, even our own children.

Today, we worked on public policy. Tomorrow, we will feed you. The next day? You may need to grow your own food. Now, having you or your children working in a field might be the best idea yet!

-- JK

You’re Invited To The Wedding!

Every now and then, it is good to take a break and do something different. Yesterday was that day. I went to a wedding—I mean, a daylong seminar on climate change and food production, sponsored by a consortium of local and regional marine, agriculture and geological agencies. The title, Recipe for Tomorrow: Climate Change and the Future of Food does have a special taste, doesn’t it? 
 

Have you ever been invited to a wedding? A strange wedding? Perhaps with customs imported from a foreign land or culture. You sit stiffly and smile, aware that what you see has meanings you cannot fathom. One or two of the hor’deurves looks good, and the rest look deadly. The music has a strange twang, and you can feel cautious eyes on your back. Welcome to the wedding!

Should there be a marriage of climate change and food production? Actually, this analogy was made during an afternoon panel yesterday, when several local farmers were explaining to a shocked moderator that climate change really was not a consideration for them. How could this be? What rock have they just crawled out from under? Embarrassed, one of the farmers made the point, “Coming here is like going to a very strange wedding.”

I am like the farmers. Our family has pasture, sheep, and an embryonic milking and creamery system. We make artisan cheese. When I tell people we are pay as you go, they nod knowingly. One day soon we hope to sell our cheese. But, from a distance, the climate change urgency seems to create more smoke than light.

I found this gathering very interesting. It got off to a rough start, with PowerPoint troubles. While the technicians fixed things, the moderator asked people to state their backgrounds. Of over one hundred participants, about ½ were agency staff or public planners, about ¼ were students, and of the rest, I counted four farmers, including me. This would be an interesting day.

One of my pet peeves is public policy changes hastily implemented, based on scientific studies that have not been peer reviewed and published. Often, the research had not been completed, and is legitimized with anecdotal consensus. Similar to this is perversion of the peer review process, such as the East Anglia IPCC “Climate-gate” debacle, where dissent over climate change models was (and continues to be) forcibly avoided.

The day was a mixed bag of fuzzy precautionism and focused reality. There were surprises, such as the story of tight consensus between the Chehalis tribe and the dairy farm community in the Chehalis valley and their proposal to build a large flood control dam on the upper river. When asked about the quality of agency input into their process, Dairy Federation President Jay Gordon gave a list of agency plan failures, from the early 1900’s right up to the proposed levees after the huge 2007 flood. Only when farmers and tribes began to drive the process together did trust build. Now, solid plans are being presented for federal funding.

It was worth my time to listen to shellfish and deepwater fish experts detail the marine biology problems they are seeing. But, as one panel member noted, land based food production is easy to monitor compared to underwater, marine food production. Full deep water marine monitoring takes very expensive boats and equipment, not always available to clamorous citizen activist tidal zone monitors. My question? Are the sea changes, the upwelling, the temperature and current changes abnormal? Or actually part of larger, several hundred year cycles we are just beginning to fathom. Lets not let social hyper-change agents spin an adolescent science as mature.

Craig Welch of the Seattle Times had great pictures and a chilling narrative if potential CO2 level lab trials are the norm. But—a big but—those lab test conditions do not yet exist in Puget Sound. Marriage to the precautionary principle skews reality and brings a gloomy dullness.

Most presenters were balanced. They qualified their claims carefully and left space for further discovery. There were some slips. When asked about the source of fecal coliform—human, farm animal or wildlife, longtime shellfish biologist Paul Williams said, “It does not matter—the shell fish are contaminated”. Well, it does matter—big time. If wildlife coliform is the contaminant, why prioritize mitigation on farm animal sites. As moderator Elizabeth Kilanowski followed up, “DNA coliform markers can point to the coliform source, but—those tests are very expensive.” So, should the farmer be penalized if the testing cannot be afforded by the monitoring or regulatory agency? Sounds like a shotgun wedding.

Interestingly, a presentation by Kirsten Feifel on PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) made a strong case that shellfish toxic blooms are primarily influenced by water temperature and not by land based nutrients. And, since Bellingham Bay is a relatively warm spot in the Puget Sound…?

The voices seem to echo in my ears—“…those farmers… someone has to bear the shellfish problems. Maybe even, just skip the peer reviews and publishing. Just mandate 100 foot agricultural buffers on all streams and ditches—those rich farmers can afford to not farm some of their land to “help the world”.” It seems that shellfish toxicity has become an environmentalist sword just like eco-policy driven wetlands takings, that ongoing conflict between agency short course experts and credentialed hydro geologists.

Four farmers in a large room full of agency personnel and student observers. What is wrong with this picture?

Ever been to a stereotyped, fundamentalist, evangelical wedding? (Full disclosure: I serve on a church board and believe in Biblical inerrancy). Gospel notes in the wedding program remind the un-churched that they need to make a “right choice.” Standing in the receiving line, the question is popped, “Are you born again?” Eulogies to parents include swelling sentiments of pious gratitude and patriarchal obeisance.

Yesterday, I attended a fundamentalist, environmental wedding. Guests included scientists whose first love is discovery of the mechanisms of life, health and food delivery. There were the technicians who enable the research. There were the professors who unwrap the facts to the world, and the fishermen and tribal advocates. There were also the agency staffers who get paid to plan and manage, to write and enforce policy. It was a thoughtful, well planned, useful meeting.

But, I think, it is the “true believers” who keep the farmers away. The Carrie Nations types who pop up on the floor, crying, “Are you born again? Do you believe in climate change? Why have you not met your mother earth goddess yet? You should be ashamed of yourself. We’ll cast you (nasty teabaggers) out, that’s what we’ll do.” Then they sweep away with final, wild cries, “Population control! Urban growth areas and wildlands forever! Love mother earth! Sue ‘em at the Growth Management Hearings Board for everything they have!”

A double wedding. Two couples. Farmers and land climate change. Seafood gatherers and oceanic climate change.

Climate change is real. But, whose climate change? As the farmer panel declared, farmers deal with climate change every day. Hot and cold years. Wet and dry. Old pests and new pests. Again, as Chad Kruger,  director  of the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources noted, research is showing that decreased “redundancy” (as farms get bigger and fewer) is a more present threat to the food supply than currently well managed, in his opinion, climate change induced stressors (heat, moisture, pests…)

Maybe the climate change, shellfish focused, fighting fundies should see and bridge the culture gap with farms and farmers like they do so with the tribes. Then, the farmers might come to the wedding.                  -- JK

Shellfish Advocates Target Nutrients And Ignore Water Temperature Research

Tribal Business Takes UGA Land Away From The City Of Ferndale; Full Federal Trust Title Insurance Credential Not Confirmed.

The “Grand” Deception.

Money That Bites

Money. There has been much bluster about outside money in Whatcom County’s 2013 election. The early, high profile, aggressive entrance of environmentalist big bucks from Washington Conservation Voters, and the more recent and quieter arrival of free market big bucks from proponents of the Gateway Pacific Terminal have raised eyebrows everywhere in Whatcom County.

Today I learned of a larger proposed influx of outside money into Whatcom County, $300,000 from the Puget Sound Partnership to “develop a stakeholder process”, facilitating the planning stage of repairing flood control levees. $300,000 for a contractor/facilitator to do something different than campaign against or for a bulk shipping terminal. A larger sum. A very quiet entry. An agreement recommended to County Council for approval. The second coming of the failed WIT / public planner driven process. A mercenary gauntlet thrown down to mock and demoralize the volunteer stakeholder process of the resurrected WRIA 1 Water Planning Unit.

Recently, I saw an interesting infogram. An iceberg was floating in the water. Visible above the surface was a layer labelled “The Exciting Green Marketplace”. The first layer below the water was labelled “Usable Social and Environmental Disasters”. Below that was a layer with three community ideals: 1) Social Equity 2) Public/Private Economic Partnerships, and 3) Sustainable Ecology. Finally, at the bottom was the philosophical foundation layer: eradicate individualism, capitalism and free markets, and implement communitarian groupthink with big government control of everything.

Did you get that last mouthful? Did I lose you there? I hope not.

What will happen in Whatcom County after this election? What is going on under the cover of election noise? Tuesday, County Council is scheduled to look at bill AB2013-335. It is proposed that Whatcom County enter into an agreement to receive $300,000 via the Puget Sound Partnership, the Washington State Governor’s flagship regional non-elected board tasked with “cleaning up” Puget Sound, among other things. Puget Sound Partnership is a regional board. How clean is clean? Who knows? How can voters hold the PSP board locally accountable? Ensure cleanup or “flood control” standards that don’t shift at the ratcheting whim of communitarian puppet masters.

Regionalism. In 2012, Stanley Kurtz published a book entitled, “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities.” An in depth researcher of community organizer infiltrations, Kurtz points out how unelected regional boards are the tool of choice to bring huge social change all across America.

Kurtz also brings to light a new network for White House community organizers. (Not a new network for UN based NGO Smart Growth activists). Traditionally, socialist community organizers have worked closely with liberal church groups to achieve their goals of inner city social upheaval. Recently, however, the newly minted agency Building One America (formed by leaders of the scandalized Gamaliel Foundation) has added a new social change sector—public sector employees sympathetic to the progressive goals of socialist community organizers. The Chicago-Alinsky molded friends of the Obama White house are noisily linking into the network quietly developed by the UN Smart Growth radicals. There will be more big government courting of local public planners. Liberal churches are passe.

In other words, in addition to religious social terrorists like Jeremiah Wright, the USA now will have public planner social terrorists to deal with. (Something Whatcom County has been dealing with for two decades—think multiple Resources lawsuits (Carl Weimer) and Futurewise and its unofficial first review privileges at the County Planning Department.  A key element of this movement is the shifting of governance from local elected councils to regional, appointed boards. Does this sound like Puget Sound Partnership? Kurtz’s book deals primarily with urban/suburban community tax base mingling. A few months ago, in a three part series of articles linked to in today’s news digest, Kurtz pointed out another critical mass development.

Students at Harvard recently “pressured” the administration to divest Harvard of the stocks of fossil fuel industry corporations. The uber progressive Harvard administration cheerily complied. Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn has also jumped on Bill McKibben’s bandwagon, instructing the city of Seattle to avoid holding these stocks as of now. Gas and oil stocks are hot commodities, and such actions will really do little to harm these corporations at this point.

BUT—and this is important, a generation of college students are practicing “killing”, imagining the death of industrialized society—studying fossil fuel stock divestment on their i-pads, texting about it on their i-phones, and dreaming about it while flitting about in their parents’ Toyota Prius cars—industrial enabled conveniences. At some point, “the mother of all dialectic struggles” will begin, and the industrial complex will be carved up and redistributed by a matured generation of millenials.

I finish with a nod to another recently released book, “This Town”, by veteran DC reporter Mark Liebovich. “This Town” humorously and cynically profiles the “Beltway Club”, bloated by both Republican and Democrat lobbyists, making fabulously huge salaries in K Street offices on the backs of tax payers. Has K Street come to Whatcom County in the form of PSP funded facilitators? Is the end of local volunteer government at hand?

Am I cynical? Yes. Is there a path through all this? Yes. “Let him that stole steal no more, but rather, let him work with his hands, that he may have to give to him who has need.” Will you or I learn to work and share from public planners whose environmentalist consultant/facilitator friends feed off planning grants from Puget Sound Partnership? Probably not. Could we learn to work under the tutelage of outside fossil fuel interests running at an environmentally sound bulk shipping terminal at Cherry Point? That would be more probable.

Even better, learn the ropes and start your own business. Avoid the philosopher king urge to “kill the masters” that give us lights and communications and wheels and wings. Question the establishment environmentalists. And, learn to appeal regional board grant driven power grabs. In the event of failed appeal, graciously hold your nose and work the bridges. Remember the hidden hand. All hard work brings a benefit.

And, please vote. Vote for candidates who will deprioritize the group think zoned high density urban globalist university talking head enclaves. Vote for candidates who will support work ethic building clean heavy industry and the sweat of the brow value added agricultural farmer (not just farmerless Ag land). Vote for the choice to work local and live local—in the whole county, not just in Bellingham. --JK

Candidates Who Support Farmer Sustainable Value Added Agriculture

The New Peasant Farming Communes Of Global Warming Prophet Bill Mckibben. To Get There? Divest Now Of Fossil Fuel Stocks.

City Of Seattle Blacklists Energy Stocks

$300,000 Grant Through PSP For Whatcom County Flood Control Planning. Should Big Money Legitimize A Regional, Unelected,Environmentalist Board?

Mark Leibovich Unmasks The D.C. Beltway Lobbyist Culture In This Town. Does Whatcom County Have A Consultant/Lobbyist Problem?

The WRIA 1 Planning Unit Meets. Who Is The Agricultural Water Caucus?

Last night a breath of fresh air blew in Whatcom County. Between seventy and eighty people gathered for the first meeting of the WRIA 1 (Water Resources Inventory Area One) Planning Unit since June, 2009. Don’t be fooled. Getting people to work together is complex, yet the primacy of water is simple.

Water is the stuff of life, and access to water is a death or life issue. He who controls water rights (and land/property rights) controls people. Free people work out their own water allocations. Captive people are dictated to. Recent Washington Growth Management Hearings Boards judgments treat Whatcom Citizens as their captive subjects. Even the Lummi and Nooksack tribes should be suspicious when state and federal governments play favorites. This is important stuff!!!

Civil, thoughtful, funny, testy—the discussion was productive and forward moving. The full meeting notes should be posted on the WRIA 1 website in a day or two. Some water caucuses were notably absent. Both tribal groups. The environmental caucus. The fisherman’s caucus. The purse seiner’s caucus. Diking and drainage. I also did not recognize very many of the recent WIT consortium in the observation seats. It was an evening meeting though, and paid government staff are often grudging about giving up their recreational time.

An interesting piece of theater was the body language of Doug Allen, Department of Ecology in Bellingham. He stood in the back for the first part of the meeting, then quietly went and took a place at the table. Do the major political stakeholders WANT local (water planning unit) governance to succeed? I have large suspicions that the planning unit is seen as an undesirable placenta that will challenge current recipients of federal and state grants, monies that largely undermine citizen governance concerns.

Our family has a stake in two caucuses represented last night. Agriculture and water associations. We do not have a well. (Well owners should be very on edge over recent events, given the threats to deny new wells in various areas in the county. The well owner’s caucus has probably been the most thorough in organizing for the planning unit re-start, but only about 1% of the 10,000 well owners voted on representation recently).

Was our water association represented last night? Sumas Rural Water Association did not send out any notification to us. Having followed this issue, I have been kept appraised by officials of other water associations or districts. Who takes care of your water? Who represents you in this process?

I am not a little burned over our agricultural water representation. Henry Bierlink sat at the table. He runs Farm Friends, and I am on the mailing and e-mail lists. I received no notification of this meeting. In fact, Farm Friends may send out one or two e-mails  a year. I did not vote for or against Henry Bierlink. Who sent him there? Who does he represent?

Landon Van Dyke was stated to be the ag water caucus alternate if Henry can not be there. He sits on the Whatcom County Agricultural Advisory Council. This council was spearheaded by Henry Bierlink and Chuck Antholt a number of years ago. We have been looking for the dates for the fall series of Ag Advisory Council meetings and they are no where to be found. Recently, Samya Lutz, the Whatcom County PDS staff person working with Ag Advisory moved on. Hello-o-o? Is anybody home?

We have lived here since 1994. We are a “small potatos”, value added, wannabee sheep dairy. We pay taxes and are subject to dictates just like the big guys. I could drill an illegal well and irrigate my dried out pasture in the summer, I suppose, but I have not done so. A neighbor told me that Henry Bierlink did him tremendous service a decade or more ago, in dealing with a very aggressive Ecology staffer, but it seems that Henry Bierlink is only concerned with the big boys now.

In fact, Henry is up to his eyeballs in working with Futurewise and Whatcom Land Trust, the “no land use” activists. I am also NOT sold on the Natural Resources Marketplace thing that Henry is pushing.  He had the gall to start out by saying last night, that he was not interested in participating in something that was not going to have authority. Does Futurewise represent me? Whatcom Land Trust? Absolutely not. Should my water, plant or wildlife property rights be separable from the land I live on? Who DOES Henry represent? Some one world government environmentalist capital funds investor in Stockholm?

The bottom line. Who is the agricultural water caucus? Where is the Soil Conservation Service in this? Whatcom Cattleman’s Association? The dairy and berry people? Who authorized Henry Bierlink to represent me? I would like some answers here.

Maybe Claire Fogelsong, City of Bellingham rep last night, was onto something in suggesting that the caucuses provide documentation of representing and reporting to their members. Henry, are you listening? Do you duly represent the agricultural water caucus? Are you engaged, farmers?

John Kirk, Sumas.

Local Farmers vs the Environmental Bureaucracy

Surprise Property Use Ruling Stuns Farmers, Emboldens Dept Of Ecology

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.SkjgkvpW.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.SkjgkvpW.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.SkjgkvpW.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.gkCKqYza.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.gkCKqYza.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.gkCKqYza.dpuf

The Washington State Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 against a Dayton, Wash., rancher who says the state failed to prove his cattle polluted a nearby creek.
The Washington Department of Ecology appealed a decision by a Columbia County superior court judge, who reversed an order by the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board that Lemire needed to build a fence to avoid pollution by his 29 head of cattle into Pataha Creek. Lemire argued that there was no evidence his cattle caused the pollution. - See more at: http://www.capitalpress.com/article/20130820/ARTICLE/130829971#sthash.gkCKqYza.dpu

Washington Cattleman Call Out DOE Windshield Surveys
The Washington Cattlemen’s Association (WCA) would like to submit the following comments on the 3DT BMP Implementation Approach, Teams 1 & 2 Recommendations to the Directors, DRAFT.  The WCA would like to voice its strong opposition to the 3DT DRAFT.  The WCA believes the 3DT Draft represents a new layer of regulation and bureaucracy that will result is massive economic hardships for livestock producers throughout Washington State without any clear expectation of improving water quality.


Read more here.


Business Hard Ball Decisions for Local Dairies.


Local Whatcom County Council Candidates Claim to Support Farms


Local "Sustainable" Farmers Endorse "Sustainable" Whatcom County Council Candidates


Whatcom County Condemns A Wetlands Project

Enjoying the views out his back deck, Joe decided to improve the wildlife habitat on his property. He didn’t apply for a grant or take taxpayer dollars. He just spent his own time and money to improve the habitat for the birds, amphibians, insects, and other critters by building a pond. He was careful in his pond construction. He did not interrupt the flow of a stream (also known as an “instream flow” violation).  State Fish and Wildlife biologists even reported that his pond was a clear and obvious wildlife enhancement project.

Read more here.

Whatcom Works Has Legs.

We have readers, and are getting affirming feedback. Thank you! It looks like this local “Drudge Page” has value. In conjunction with the theme of value added dairy, we want to say hello.

Whatcom Works  is produced by members of the John Kirk family. We live near Sumas, Washington, where we raise dairy sheep. Dad works a full time day job, and we are not being funded by any outside entity. We want to speak to multiple issues in local elections and public policy. Whatcom County has more needs than getting or denying a coal terminal.

We believe in the value of hard work, admire writers of well thought out works, and think that many Whatcom County traditional values work well.

We are publishing/editing with an eye to what we perceive as a intentional denial by local radio and news print outlets of local news and commentary that highlights and challenges recent local socialist initiatives and public policies that have failed so obviously in other parts of the world.

As a working family, we want to draw others into working for a happy life, with a focus on being net givers, not net takers. Thank you for your interest in our local “news”.

Dairy! Anyone who milks domesticated animals knows work. Anyone who leaves the urban refuge and acquires milking stock has several learning curves going simultaneously—a lot of home work.

After living with livestock since 1996, we think we understand the value of family members working with each other.

I remember attending a Sustainable Connections Seminar on local farm to institution food marketing opportunities several years ago. It was a great chance to network and find out how others were doing.

I came away with a sense of having met four distinct groups of people. There were the starry eyed 40 to 50 year olds, early retirees, having dropped a large portion of their assets into small farm acreages. They were so eager to get going with vegetables and “save the planet”.

There were the veterans of market gardening, more or less well beaten up, not wanting to ooze too much grimness, but having a hard time fantasizing with the newbies.

There were the local value added dairy farmers, some with big marketing bruises, some doing quite well, but for the most part making their dreams work.

Finally, there were the “operatives”. College types who smiled and ran the event, but were not farming. More like community organizers, shepherding “children” and setting up larger goals only marginally related to food, farming or sustainable land use.

Farm labor is expensive. In my discussions with other grow local/eat local value added food producers, there is a common haze of fatigue over trying to do as much as possible one’s self to make financial ends meet.

Some quit. Some finance. Some join co-ops. Some super specialize. Some take every grant that comes down the road. We all grapple with work loads.

A major benefit for our family has been an improved quality of life in food products. We really like the superior ice cream, yogurt, cheddar/manchego, cream cheese, feta—you name it. We also grow various fruits and have a good sized vegetable garden.

And, because we share the work load, life is good! However, for us, after a decade of learning and working, we still are not WSDA certified. We do not sell milk, or cheese to the public, or anyone. That may come very soon.

Our experience with local government officials has been mixed. The local WSDA dairy inspector has been very helpful. The Whatcom County planning and development department had a staff retraining program that almost took us out. We appealed and together found a solution.

Everyone wants to bring a good value to their community. In the debate of sustainable living and rural vision at the local level, I do not first question motives. However, I do usually keep an eye on local activists knowledge, experience and character.

Attending County Council Meetings over the last two years has made me a lot more cynical. There are deeper currents and quicksands than I thought possible.

Money and grants is a huge issue. Not just for farmers, but even more for the local integrating organizations and elected/appointed officials who manage them.

Wise use of grants is very good. But when grants and LIO institutions create dependency, innovation is stifled, prudent management of land and water is constricted, and timely farm to market adjustments are put off. 

Do socialism and market interventions really help? Can pencil oriented college type “stewards” and “baykeepers” really be trusted to keep their hands off the grant monies? When does a huge flow of grants cut off the legs of elected overseers and put unelected adventurers in the public policy driver’s seat.

Thank you for reading articles we recommend. Building a good local community takes constant education. Inattention to local public policy issues is deadly.

Read on! Share articles! Take heart! Take time! Take action!

John Kirk, Whatcom Works.

Local Whatcom County Council Candidates Claim To Support Farms

Local “Sustainable” Farmers Endorse “Sustainable” Whatcom County Council Candidates

 www.whatcomworks.blogspot.com/2013/07/comments-from-washington-cattlemens.html

 www.smllibertyroad.com/teamwork-101/

 www.whatcomexcavator.org/3/post/2013/06/nimbys-bananas-and-greens-chin-deep.html

 www.docs.google.com/file/d/0B379XgrtGXuUYUczdHUyaHVKNG8/edit?usp=sharing

Comments from the Washington Cattlemen’s Association regarding the 3DT BMP Implementation Approach, Teams 1 & 2 Recommendations to the Directors, DRAFT

To: Mr. Ron Shultz, Ms. Jaclyn Ford

From: Vic Stokes, President, Washington Cattlemen’s Association

Date: December 27, 2012

RE: Comments from the Washington Cattlemen’s Association regarding the 3DT BMP Implementation Approach, Teams 1 & 2 Recommendations to the Directors, DRAFT

The Washington Cattlemen’s Association (WCA) would like to submit the following comments on the 3DT BMP Implementation Approach, Teams 1 & 2 Recommendations to the Directors, DRAFT.  The WCA would like to voice its strong opposition to the 3DT DRAFT.  The WCA believes the 3DT Draft represents a new layer of regulation and bureaucracy that will result is massive economic hardships for livestock producers throughout Washington State without any clear expectation of improving water quality.  

The WCA is ashamed that the WSDA and WACC both supported a document that has such a strong bias against livestock grazing.  The 3DT DRAFT represents the kind of narrow minded thinking that regulatory agencies all too often have when they spend their time talking amongst themselves instead of engaging the regulated industry and obtaining key stakeholder input.  The WCA is extremely disappointed that all three agencies (Agriculture, Ecology and the Conservation Commission) would all support a document that demonstrates such a bias against livestock grazing and water quality.

The approach that the 3DT took clearly demonstrates the outcome the agencies hope to attain; regulations, restrictions and penalties.  The WCA believes this document is a slap in the face to the livestock industry and will fight this DRAFT legislatively.  Science was obviously something that the 3DT were not interested in; because there is no science or reference to research work conducted in the fields of managed grazing, soil science, plant physiology or livestock behavior or any other work conducted by WSU Extension.  Instead of utilizing science the 3DT DRAFT relies upon unfounded opinion that is anti-grazing.    

The 3DT DRAFT represents numerous examples of takings as the State Agencies (DOE, WSDA and WACC) all agree that limiting private property rights yields cleaner water.  Nowhere in the 3DT DRAFT is a reference to a funding mechanism to compensate private property owners for their losses now, and into the future.  This attempted deprivation of private property rights is a per se takings and will be fought to the end.  The 3DT DRAFT clearly demonstrates the State’s inability to clearly communicate with landowners and their true motives and intentions to exclude landowners in this critical process.  The 3DT DRAFT should wait until the Supreme Court Rules on the LeMire Case.  The Court’s decision on the LeMire Case will significantly impact water quality regulations one way or the other.  The State was told in Columbia County Superior Court in the LeMire Case that they (the State) must be able to prove pollution prior to regulating the landowner.  RCW 90.48.120 does not obviate the State’s requirement to prove pollution.  

The 3DT DRAFT as presented is inviting litigation from livestock producers against the State since BMPs that create a large economic hardship on landowners constitute a takings.  Buffers that take private property out of production and still require the private property owner to assume all costs associated with the maintenance and operation of the buffer (water, taxes, weed control, etc..) creates annual long term takings.  Unmanaged buffers bring with them many unintended consequences that are regulated by other agencies. 

The issues around buffers and private property were one of the main issues identified in the Ruckelshaus Center Critical Areas Ordinance discussions.  There was and remains agreement throughout all of agriculture that regulatory buffers were and are unacceptable to private landowners.  The 3DT DRAFT attempts to directly circumvent the Ruckelshaus Process by mandating unknown and potentially more restrictive BMP’s instead of allowing the Ruckelshaus Process to succeed.         

                   The WCA would like to know how landowners can be proactive when they do not know what the standards are they are trying to meet?  The key to achieving water quality improvement is having attainable goals.  Both landowners and regulators must know what the finish line looks like.  The State is mandated to protect existing uses in WAC 173-201A-600; Use designations — Fresh waters;   (1) All surface waters of the state not named in Table 602 are to be protected for the designated uses of: Salmonid spawning, rearing, and migration; primary contact recreation; domestic, industrial, and agricultural water supply; stock watering; wildlife habitat; harvesting; commerce and navigation; boating; and aesthetic values. 

                    

               WAC 173-201A-020 defines a "Nonpoint source" means pollution that enters any waters of the state from any dispersed land-based or water-based activities including, but not limited to, atmospheric deposition; surface water runoff from agricultural lands, urban areas, or forest lands; subsurface or underground sources; or discharges from boats or marine vessels not otherwise regulated under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program.  Why does the 3DT DRAFT only focus on livestock and none of the other non-point contributors?

The WCA believes the Department of Ecology (DOE) is abusing the authority granted to them under RCW 90.48.120 Notice of department's determination that violation has or will occur… as the DOE uses “windshield surveys” for regulation.  The WCA does not believe that the regulatory agencies understand cause and effect enough to be able to properly apply a simple “windshield survey”.  In photographs 11 & 12 (windshield survey) the same conditions presented occur in nature in areas that livestock have never been present.  The 3DT DRAFT would like livestock producers to believe that only livestock create water quality problems. 

The WCA requests that the State incorporate the 2008 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision in the case of National Pork Producers v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when they (DOE) interpret RCW 90.48.120.  The 5^th Circuit Ruling caused the EPA to withdraw its requirement for a Federal CAFO permit if a facility intended to discharge; this requirement needs to be incorporated into RCW 90.48.120.  The WCA believes the DOE should be required to apply the same case law that the 5^th Circuit passed down in 2008 in Pork Producers, DOE.  This would result in the DOE not being able to regulate “substantial potential to pollute”.  The 5^th Circuit Ruling requires a causal link to the operation and pollution.  The WCA believes that the Clean Water Act (CWA) provides a comprehensive liability scheme, and EPAs attempt to supplement this scheme is in excess of its statutory authority.  The Court declined to uphold the EPA's requirement that CAFOs that propose to discharge apply for an NPDES permit."  These cases leave no doubt that there must be an actual discharge into navigable waters to trigger the CWA's requirements and the EPA's authority. Accordingly, the EPA's authority is limited to the regulation of CAFOs that discharge. Any attempt to do otherwise exceeds EPA's statutory authority.   The result of the 5^th Circuit ruling is that EPA cannot impose a duty to apply for a permit on a CAFO that 'proposes to discharge' or any CAFO before there is an actual discharge."  RCW 90.48.120 poses a major challenge to livestock operators as it authorizes the DOE to regulate on a “potential violation”.  This concept is inherently flawed.  It is important to remember that the State is also obligated to maintain minimum flows to satisfy stockwatering requirements for riparian stockgrazing operations in RCW 90.22.040 and as a result livestock operations have a legal expectation that their livestock may access surface water for Stockwater uses.  In summary the WCA believes the State should adhere to the same standard and be required to demonstrate a causal link between pollution and a livestock operation prior to initiating a regulatory action.    

The WCA would like to know why the DOE does not abide by;

WAC 173-201A-310; Tier I — Protection and maintenance of existing and designated uses. 

 (1) Existing and designated uses must be maintained and protected. No degradation may be allowed that would interfere with, or become injurious to, existing or designated uses, except as provided for in this chapter.

We believe that natural conditions and all other source contributors must be identified (livestock, septic systems, agriculture, residential, etc…).  Once all contributing sources are identified, mutually agreed upon goals for addressing water quality can be set so the CRMP process can begin.  DNA could be one of the tools the State uses to identify sources.  RCW 90.48.120 does not alleviate the State’s requirement to prove a causal link between a livestock operation and pollution.

Sincerely,

Vic Stokes, President

Washington Cattlemen’s Association