Farm Fined For Plowing Illegal Hanford Reach Road

A Royal City farming operation has been fined for plowing an illegal road on an island within the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River.

Brown and Guis Farms, which owns half of Island No. 12, pleaded guilty to the charges.

The company was fined the maximum $1,000 and ordered to comply with a restoration plan developed by the state Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The farm’s owners could not be reached for comment.

Farm operators pleaded guilty March 5 in Benton County District Court to a charge of building a hydraulics works project without approval.

Brown and Guis built the road near the riverbed to transport equipment to a well it was building, said John Ziobro, a deputy prosecutor.

“As soon as the water levels came up, it would have washed away all that sediment,” Ziobro said.

The Hanford Reach is a prime salmon spawning ground and erosion of the road would have harmed the fish, Ziobro said.

“It strangles the eggs,” he said. “They need oxygen to hatch.”

The state’s Fish and Wildlife Department discovered the road last summer after a tip.

Brown and Guis wants to develop a 25-acre cherry orchard on its half. The other half is owned by the Bureau of Land Management.