Soil Program Favors Mud Over Dust Oregon Farmers Get More Acres Than Spokane Growers

Washington farmers thought something smelled fishy when they learned that a national bid to renew 10-year land conservation contracts would reduce their idled acreage from 1 million to 400,000 acres.

Now they know why.

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said Monday that landowners would have competed better if the nation’s Conservation Reserve Program sign-up had promised to reduce the dirt flowing into the Columbia River, home of the endangered salmon, rather than the dust blowing into Spokane, home to 400,000 humans.

The department conceded that farmers in northern Oregon counties got more acres in the program by winning special consideration for cutting sediments that flow into the Columbia, where endangered salmon migrate.

“What’s most upsetting to me is that we weren’t dealt with fairly compared with other states,” said Karen Hemmer, whose request to renew a contract for 1,500 acres near Grand Coulee Dam was denied. “This is going to cost more soil erosion in Washington and the Columbia.”

Washington had a priority area, too, to protect 800,000 acres west of Spokane from strong winds that blow dust into the city.

But dust was given different weight than mud in the government’s formula for calculating the winners in a national bid to idle 16.1 million acres of crop land. Farmers will be paid to not grow crops on those acres, beginning in October, and return them to their natural state.

In Washington, 172,000 of 819,000 acres offered were accepted - an acceptance rate of 21 percent. That compared with 82 percent in Oregon and 83 percent in Idaho, making Washington the lowest among all U.S. farm states.

That distinction likely means the loss of $30 million in annual rental payments and a sudden increase in acres that will again be tilled. For some farmers, that means a significant adjustment to their business and lifestyles.

“We got the short end of the stick,” said Al Simchuk, whose 1,850 conservation reserves acres near Fairchild Air Force Base will now go back into production. “I’ll be 80 years old and I’m going to have to get a hydraulic hoist to get me up on the tractor.”

The USDA this year made water quality and wildlife habit a priority for the conservation program to comply with Congressional action to reduce spending and improve the environment.

Nationwide, the average contract will annually pay $39.40 per acre, compared with $41 in Washington.

As late as Friday, Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane held hope that the agriculture department would award more acres in Washington.

“I think USDA made a huge mistake, a huge calculation error,” the Republican congressman said. “So my understanding is that they are madly recalculating.”

But Monday, a USDA official said the Inspector General’s Office had confirmed the accuracy of the calculations.

“The calculations are correct,” said Lynn Brown, Washington state executive director of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which assisted farmers in preparing their bids. “There is no correction.”

Nethercutt was not available to comment Monday.

Brown said Washington landowners lost points in the bid because they were unable to seed more than one type of grass, legume or shrub on their land. Their soils also are less susceptible to water erosion than farms in Oregon, Idaho and elsewhere.

However, Brown is hopeful the government will give greater weight to wind erosion in the fall when it signs up another 3 million acres into the program.

, DataTimes