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There are three major focus areas of District capital projects included in the budget to achieve more redundancy in 2022: 1) completion of the Bettas Substation, 2) rebuilding and installing sections of feeder between Parke and Jenkins substations and 3) splitting the Parke feeder serving the town of Kittitas and the Badger Pocket area. Power quality and system losses should improve when these projects are finished along with providing additional “load-shifting” capabilities for operations.
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Table of contents n Crabbers get early start to season, haul in bounty of Dungeness crab off state coast ........................................................P4 n Despite California groundwater law, aquifers keep dropping.................................P6 n California’s drought reckoning could offer lessons for the West.........................P8 n 6 grocery items that experts say will get more expensive ......................................P11 n Chicago’s last farm — now also a high school — celebrates 175 years ............P12 n Salmon to swim free as infrastructure money flows ..................................................P14
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Cooked, whole Dungeness crabs from British Columbia are selling for $24.50 a pound at Pure Food Fish Market in the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Crabs average about two-pounds each, on Dec. 30, 2021. (Alan Berner/Seattle Times/TNS)
Crabbers get early start to season, haul in bounty of Dungeness crab off state coast
Hal Bernton The Seattle Times Some 60 vessels in Washington’s oceangoing crab fleet worked through a stormy December to bring in more than 4.69 million pounds of Dungeness in a strong start to the annual harvest. For fishers, processors and retailers, this is a welcome change from the past six years when the season hasn’t started until Dec. 31 or later due to the lack of meat in the crabs or the presence of domoic acid, a marine biotoxin. The Dungeness crab, as well as
shrimp and razor clams, have benefited from improved ocean conditions of the Northwest coasts with strong cold-water upwellings of the past year bringing nutrients and helping to strengthen the base of the marine food web. “It’s an exciting time to be a shellfish biologist with all these species doing well,” said Daniel Ayres, coastal shellfish manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “It’s fun for a change.” The ocean harvest has unfolded in a stretch of coastal waters from Klipsan Beach south to the Columbia River. Catches, as is typical, were strongest
during the first few days after the Dec. 1 opening, and then dropped off. Fishers also have had to endure some tough, chilly weather during the final weeks of 2021. “We’re all from Alaska so it seems pretty normal to us,” said Daniel Crome, who was raised in Petersburg, Alaska, and fishes out of Westport with a five-person crew that — as the catch rates dropped off — was cut to four. Back at the docks, these Dungeness have fetched $4.75 a pound or more. For crabbers, this continues an upward trend in prices from a half decade ago, when the first month’s catch brought an average
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of less than $2.90 a pound, according to WDFW statistics. Dungeness also are being caught in tribal harvests, as well as by commercial crabbers in Puget Sound, Oregon and British Columbia. OPEN WATERS On Jan. 11, a larger swath of the Washington coastal waters will open for Dungeness and bring more commercial boats into the fishery, which retains males that must meet a minimum length. This will expand supplies in Northwest markets for those craving fresh-caught
Dungeness to help usher in what will hopefully be a healthier year. In December, retail prices varied. In the week before Christmas, a Seattle Safeway on First Avenue West offered the whole cooked Dungeness for a sale price of $7.99 a pound, discounted from $14.99 a pound. Seafood lovers snatched them all up and as of Monday were still awaiting more crab, according to Konstantine Tigishvili, meat manager of the Lower Queen Anne Safeway. At Pure Food Fish in the Pike Place Market, Dungeness crab last week sold for $24.50 a pound, which can push the price of a whole crab past $40. Neal Brebner, Pure Food’s manager, said that the December fresh crab have been a welcome change from years past when Pure Food has only had frozen crab to offer customers. “They are beautiful, nice and full, and we are buying them from wherever we can get them,” said Brebner, who expects retail prices will dip in January as supplies expand. The Dungeness harvest will continue deep into 2022 but catches decline sharply later in the season, and many crabbers will move on to other harvests.
PILLAR OF INDUSTRY In Washington, Dungeness remain a pillar of the seafood industry. From 201419, coast-caught Dungeness was worth an annual average of $45 million, according to WDFW. In the 2017-18 season, Puget Sound commercial Dungeness crabbers’ catch was valued at $13 million. The Dungeness also are important to Washington tribes. They have treaty rights affirmed by court decisions to 50% of the harvestable shellfish in their usual and accustomed fishing grounds that encompass about half of the Washington coastline. WDFW manages the commercial and recreational harvests in cooperation with tribal harvest officials. In recent years, Pacific Northwest Dungeness sales have been buoyed by demand from China and other Asian markets. This year, Asia sales have been more difficult due to COVID-19 restrictions and delays in overseas shipping amid clogged ports and container shortages. “Most everything is going into domestic markets,” said Mike Cornman, president of Westport Seafoods, who operates a crab processing plant employing 40 people. n
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Construction on a 1,300-foot-deep well is underway in the Central Valley town of Terra Bella, California. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Despite California groundwater law, aquifers keep dropping
Ian James Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — It emerged during one of the worst droughts in California history, when rampant agricultural pumping was causing groundwater levels to plummet and hundreds of Central Valley wells were going dry. Signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was intended to address overpumping, halt chronic water-level declines and bring long-depleted aquifers into balance. More than seven years later, however, those goals are still a long way off. The law, known as SGMA, prioritized water management decisions at the local level and laid out a timeline of implementation that spanned more than two decades. Even
in farming areas with the most severe problems of groundwater overdraft, the local agencies charged with combating the declines have until 2040 to achieve their sustainability goals. In the meantime, a frenzy of well drilling has continued on large farms across the San Joaquin Valley. Growers have been pumping heavily during the drought, and groundwater levels have continued to drop. As a result, shallower wells supplying nearly a thousand family homes have gone dry this year. Families with dry taps have been left relying on plastic tanks and trucks that roll through the valley hauling water. Some of the architects of the legislation now acknowledge it contained flaws. “Looking back on it, probably the timeline was too long,” said former state Sen. Fran Pavley, a Democrat who helped
draft the 2014 law. “But who knew there would be another severe drought so quickly? And that people wouldn’t selfmanage how much water they were taking out, knowing the impacts.” Pavley said she has also been disappointed to see how some local agencies seem to be waiting rather than embracing steps toward sustainability. “They’re going to wait to the end. And a lot of average people, whether they’re families or small family farmers, are going to get hurt,” Pavley said. “And the state of California is left shipping water to homeowners who can’t compete in the race to the bottom.” COMPROMISES NEEDED Given the contentiousness of California water politics, the law needed to include
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compromises, Pavley and others said. One compromise was putting local agencies in charge instead of adopting a topdown system of state regulation. Another was granting the new groundwater sustainability agencies 20 years to reach their goals. SGMA wasn’t meant to bring about an instant change, said Felicia Marcus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and former chair of the state water board. It was intended to be “a long-term reach to assure that people’s kids and grandkids would be able to farm,” she said, and to prepare for the worsening strains that climate change is putting on water resources. Marcus said that local water agencies face a massive undertaking in working toward sustainability in 20 years, and that their progress developing plans so far has
been encouraging. “There are a lot of them that have actually been working hard and trying,” she said, “even if their plans aren’t quite up to snuff yet.” The California Farm Bureau opposed the legislation and pushed for making the process locally driven. Danny Merkley, a fourth-generation farmer who lobbies for the Farm Bureau as its director of water resources, said he and others were pleased that the finished product was “much more manageable, much more realistic in what could be implemented in the real world.” “A lot of people wanted it done yesterday. And I liken it to the Queen Mary. You’re not going to turn it around like a speedboat,” Merkley said. “It’s too big and the consequences would be too devastating.” State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who was Brown’s natural resources secretary when the law passed, said the timeline turned out to be longer than he would have liked. “But that’s what it took to pass it,” he said. “I hoped that the time between the enactment and the 2040 date, people would only make progress, that we wouldn’t be stepping back.” Laird said there has been progress with the creation of local agencies but he has been disappointed by the “continuing drilling and continuing extraction that keeps some basins way out of balance.” SUSTAINABILITY AGENCIES Under SGMA, 260 groundwater sustainability agencies have been formed, and each agency must draft a plan that includes “measurable objectives” and “interim milestones” every five years while working toward the sustainability goals over 20 years. Under the law, sustainable groundwater management is defined as managing water supplies in a way that can be maintained without “causing undesirable results,” such as chronic declines in groundwater levels or “significant and unreasonable” depletion, adverse effects on surface water, degraded water quality or land subsidence. Sinking ground has become a costly problem in some areas. According to a recent state report, the land in portions of the southern San Joaquin Valley has been sinking as rapidly as 1.5 feet per year. The collapsing ground is affecting infrastructure, reducing the water-carrying capacity of the California Aqueduct, the Delta-Mendota Canal and other canals, which will require expensive fixes. The state has budgeted an initial $100 million for fixing damaged canals.
Under SGMA, the state has designated 21 groundwater basins as being in “critical overdraft.” Of these, 11 are spread out across the farming areas of the San Joaquin Valley. Researchers with the Public Policy Institute of California have estimated that addressing the groundwater deficit in the San Joaquin Valley could require taking at least half a million acres of farmland out of production. To prepare for this transition, the state this year budgeted $50 million for a land “repurposing” program, to help in converting farmland to other uses. While local agencies begin to work toward their plans, some observers have warned that many more wells are at risk. In a study last year, researchers found that thousands of household wells are vulnerable to going dry in the Central Valley. Lead author Rich Pauloo and his colleagues estimated that a “business as usual” scenario of declines would cause between 5,966 and 10,466 domestic well failures by 2040. They found that progressive implementation of plans between 2020 and 2040 would significantly reduce the number of well failures. As the process continues, Marcus said, state officials have a vital role to play as a backstop, using their authority to step in when local agencies fail. She likened it to the role of an umpire. “The question is going to be, will the state call balls and strikes the way it needs to?” Marcus said. “They’ve got to make those hard calls.” State officials have been weighing in when they deem local plans inadequate. INCOMPLETE PLANS This month, the Department of Water Resources notified agencies in six areas of the San Joaquin Valley that their plans are incomplete, saying they didn’t address how continuing declines in water levels will likely cause many more wells to run dry. The department said many plans also lacked details about how overpumping will probably continue to cause sinking ground and worsening effects on drinking water quality. “The standard in the law is ‘significant and unreasonable’ effects on their groundwater users,” said Paul Gosselin, deputy director of the department’s sustainable groundwater management office. “I think if you have your water supply shut off, that’s pretty significant.” Advocates with the nonprofit Community Water Center have called for local agencies to establish programs to
mitigate impacts to domestic wells, and for the state to ensure that people aren’t left without drinking water. “Domestic well users are paying the biggest cost,” said Erick Orellana, a policy advocate with the Community Water Center. Some have struggled to pay tens of thousands of dollars to fix failing wells, he said, “because their neighbor next door is very focused on maximizing their profit on their pistachio farm.” Orellana said predominantly Latino communities in the Central Valley have been hit especially hard by well failures, yet these residents — many of them farmworkers — have had too little voice in the process as the boards of many local groundwater agencies have been dominated by farm owners and other agricultural representatives. He said that while large corporate farms continue pumping, these Latino communities are dealing with the effects. “We see that as an inequity and a disparity that needs to be addressed,” Orellana said. “And so we cannot have wealthy white farmers thinking that they have the right to water, they have the right to their land, more so than Latino communities.”
Others are seeking protections for smallscale farmers, who are struggling to cope with the costs of adapting as groundwater levels decline. Large farms have planted vast expanses of almonds and pistachios to capitalize on rising global demand. And the unchecked pumping is affecting the wells small farmers rely on. “There’s no protection for small farmers in the law at all,” said David Runsten, policy director for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. “They’re being heavily impacted by these investment groups that drill these deep wells and irrigate their nuts.” Runsten said his organization is seeking to convince state officials to help pay for small farmers’ costs when they must lower their pumps. Back when the legislation was being drafted, counties insisted on retaining their authority to issue well-drilling permits, he said. “The result is, people just keep drilling wells and going onto new land and expanding the agricultural footprint,” Runsten said. “People just want to keep doing what they’re doing until they can’t do it anymore.” n
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into its underground aquifers, instead of pumping treated water into the Pacific Ocean. Some communities are trying to improve their stormwater capture systems, while others are exploring turning ocean water into drinking water. San Diego County has the largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere, and other communities are considering following its example.
Two people brave the rain and clouds to visit Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park on Dec. 9, 2021, in Los Angeles, as a brief storm system moves through California. After two years of drought, the Golden State can offer its Western neighbors insight into water conservation in a changing climate. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
California’s drought reckoning could offer lessons for the West
Matt Vasilogambros Stateline.org MONTEREY, Calif. — The golden hills of California have turned green in recent weeks after a series of storms delivered much-needed rain and snow to a state suffering from two years of drought. But state officials and water policy experts are still urging caution even in these wet conditions, pushing for watersaving measures as the drought is expected to continue throughout much of the West. “Even with those rains and with that massive snowpack, the larger issues of drought in California are not resolved,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College
in Claremont, California. “No one talks about water when it’s raining. We need to have the conversation now.” California remains in the grip of a dry period that has substantially depleted the state’s reservoirs, facilitated some of the largest wildfires in state history and led officials to add new restrictions on water use. This past water year (a measure that takes into account total winter precipitation), which ran from October 2020 through the end of September, was the driest in a century. Just three months into the new water year, California already has surpassed 2021’s precipitation levels. The drought has laid bare some of the challenges that California and other states face in managing their water
supplies. A California conservation law being implemented over the next two decades, along with a range of actions by communities across the state, provide a preview of difficult policy choices communities across the West will have to grapple with as climate change pushes water shortages to crisis levels. While some communities, such as Marin County just north of San Francisco, have debated building a multimillion-dollar emergency pipeline to bring in water, other communities have sought approaches that rely on reuse and recycling. Orange County now is home to the world’s largest groundwater replenishment site, a treatment plant that purifies wastewater and injects that water back
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INFRASTURE LAW The infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in November includes $82.5 billion for critical water investments nationwide, including grants, studies and federal projects. But the problems these policies attempt to address are daunting. California and other states swing from extreme wet to extreme dry conditions, which will only be exacerbated by the worsening climate crisis. There’s also a lack of reliable long-term weather forecasting that could predict precipitation levels throughout an entire wet season, instead of just two weeks. “These days, it’s all about being more efficient in water management,” said Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager at the California Department of Water Resources. “You need better forecasts to be more efficient.” In long dry spells, communities and farmers in many states also draw heavily on underground aquifers, many of which are being overdrafted, even in average rain years. California’s Central Valley, the heart of America’s produce industry, is literally sinking because of its depleting and overpumped aquifer. Big measures are needed now to address many of these challenges, said Andrew Ayres, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based nonprofit. California has generally lagged other Western states in having comprehensive groundwater plans, Ayres said. Arizona, for example, enacted its groundwater management act in 1980. The legislation mandated water conservation from businesses throughout the state and sought to manage groundwater consumption in five counties where overpumping was historically an issue. But some water experts have called for an update to the law to address groundwater supply issues in rural Arizona. California policymakers enacted a law in 2014 that they hoped would increase
CHALLENGES There are massive challenges: Overdrafting of the state’s aquifers has been exacerbated by drought, engineers have detected cracks in aqueducts and shallow wells are drying up in some rural areas. And as reservoirs dry up, there are no other major rivers to dam. Californians can do their part, said Cooley, including by upgrading old appliances (such as dishwashers and toilets), removing grass lawns and replacing them with climateefficient plants, and fixing leaks. Some communities, from Encinitas up to Santa Clara County, have added requirements for home and business owners to replace inefficient appliances. California’s State Water Resources Control Board last week ordered local governments to stop using drinking water to water ornamental grass on street medians. Similar policies are being implemented in other drought-ridden states. Neighboring Nevada banned strictly ornamental grass on office parks, outside malls and on road medians. Further, the state needs to improve its timely access to data and information on water levels and consumption by consumers, said Nell Green Nylen, a senior research fellow with the Wheeler Water Institute at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. But, she admits, this is challenging in such a complicated management system. It’s even more challenging to manage a water system that also keeps in mind ecosystems and essential habitats for fish and wildlife, she said. Last year, nearly all the endangered winter-run chinook salmon juvenile population died in the warm Sacramento River, unable to receive cold water from snowmelt. But all potential solutions require a drastic cultural shift and change of approach that entails sacrifice, Cooley said. “That shift takes time,” she said. “I think people are making it, but there’s more we can do.” n
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WATER RESTRICTIONS Over the past year, the state has added other restrictions for water use, including a call by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for residents to voluntarily cut their water consumption by 15%, but the state fell far short of that goal. Newsom has resisted a politically fraught statewide water conservation mandate. In 2015, thenGov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, ordered communities to cut water consumption by 25%. The cuts ended after a year when heavy rain saturated the state and eased the drought. Last week, the state also issued emergency regulations that target water waste by residents, including hosing down sidewalks or watering lawns soon after it rains. These measures have been necessary even after the recent rain and snow brought some relief. The deluge of the past month soaked much of the Golden State, replenishing dammed reservoirs and underground aquifers, and revitalizing streams that until recently laid dormant and dusty. For a state with nearly 40 million residents in need of drinking water and the country’s largest agricultural industry that provides a tenth of the nation’s crops and livestock, this weather has been essential. Throughout much of the past year, dangerously depleted reservoirs and lakes fell way below water lines, beaching boats and raising alarm statewide. Reservoirs, though many remain well below their historical average, have risen substantially with recent precipitation. When considering drought conditions and the low reservoir and groundwater levels going into this winter, the state
is still significantly behind healthy water levels, said Michael Dettinger, a research associate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Drought recovery depends on what Californians and the state does now, said Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based think tank.
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aquifer levels through conservation efforts that not only decrease the amount being pumped but also increase water seeping back underground. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is still being implemented, as communities and water rights-holders have until 2040 to reach sustainable groundwater levels. But the law’s outcome is not certain, Ayres said. Water management is a complex web of state and local water authorities, long-held water rights and uncharted legal territory, he said, and the next two decades of implementing this new law will lead to difficult negotiations and sacrifices by both agricultural and urban consumers. “There’s a lot of uncertainty around solutions and what they will look like,” he said.
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CNBC reported that beef and veal prices have risen by 20.1% during the past year. (Dreamstime/TNS)
6 grocery items that experts say will get more expensive
Nancy Clanton The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The pandemic might have stopped us from traveling or hanging out in large groups, but we still have to eat. And thanks to the coronavirus, that could be getting more expensive. According to the health and wellness site Eat This, Not That, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and overall high demand across the country have been said to contribute to an impending consumer price hike. To help consumers better prepare, the site found six staple foods that will see a price increase in 2022. Steaks CNBC reported that beef and veal prices have risen by 20.1% during the past year. It suggested the pandemic caused a major slowdown in beef production that extends to all types of meat, including seafood and pork. President Joe Biden has met virtually with independent farmers and ranchers to
discuss initiatives to reduce food prices by increasing competition within the meat industry. The “consumer demand for meat and poultry products has never been higher,” Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO of the Meat Institute, said in a December press release. “Members of the Meat Institute are producing more meat than ever before under extraordinary circumstances to keep our farm economy moving and to put food on American’s tables.” Chicken Chicken prices also increased during the pandemic, although not as much as steak. In a December 2021 news release, National Chicken Council president Mike Brown addressed the reason behind chicken’s increased price. “A 9 percent year over year price increase for chicken is barely outpacing inflation … on top of a labor shortage,” he said. “It’s Economics 101.” When you throw in truck driver
shortages and shipping delays, Eat This, Not That wrote, it’s a safe bet that chicken prices will continue to climb. Mayonnaise The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Kraft Heinz Co. is set to tell “customers that it would raise prices across many of its products … with some items going up as much as 20%.” Shoppers should be prepared since the price of mayo is set to change very soon, Eat This, Not That wrote. Eggs In November, CNN reported egg prices had increased 11.6% over the previous year. “ … We’ve chosen to increase our prices for the time being. We recognize that this is a difficult time for everyone and higher grocery bills can only contribute to that …” organic egg company Pete and Gerry’s said when addressing its price increase. “In the egg world, the cost of high-quality organic ingredients for our hens’ supplemental feed has reached an all-time high.”
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The company noted that it was led “to make some difficult decisions,” because of the pandemic’s strain on operations, which is still going on. Cereal The price of a box of cereal was 5% higher in the fall of 2021 than in fall 2020. CNN reported that in a letter to a wholesale supplier, General Mills stated it will raise prices on a number of items, including “Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charm’s, Wheaties, Reese’s Puffs, Trix and more.” The price hike is expected sometime this month. Vegetables “Potatoes, celery and other heavier vegetables will have higher price tags next year in part because of higher freight costs …” the Wall Street Journal reported in December. The reason for increases, Mashable explained, is because the COVID-related issues other companies are facing are “still wreaking havoc on the food industry” and will for a while. n
Chicago’s last farm — now also a high school — celebrates 175 years Tracy Swartz Chicago Tribune
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CHICAGO -- Some 40 years ago, the historian for the Mount Greenwood Chamber of Commerce led a movement to save Chicago’s last farm. The Chicago Board of Education was considering selling the land to real estate developers, so Joe Martin organized a letter-writing campaign, petition drive and media blitz because, he said at the time, the community “would feel a great loss if the farm ceased to produce necessary food.” Not only did the board decide to keep the property at 111th Street and Pulaski Road, it opened an agricultural high school to ensure more generations of growers would harvest vegetables there. Now the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences is celebrating the 175th anniversary of the farm, which has survived Chicago Public Schools financial woes, brutal winters and deadly pandemics since the deed was executed on Dec. 11, 1846. “I look at the pictures of the farm 100 years ago, and there’s cattle and there (are) pigs and there (are) chickens,” Principal William Hook said. “We’re still growing corn. We still have a market garden. We still have a farm stand. All of those things that they were doing, you know, over the last 175 years, we’re still doing. We’re just doing it in a different way with technology, and we’re doing it with different people. We have students who are interested in agriculture instead of people who are full-time farmers.” Hook said the land has not “fundamentally changed” since 1846, though the community surrounding it certainly has. Mount Greenwood — in the far southwest corner of the city — was first populated in 1830, but didn’t
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experience a notable influx of settlers until the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, according to Martin’s records. Martin, the Mount Greenwood historian, credited the “farsighted” Board of Education with “visualizing the extension of the city limits to distant points where schools would be needed” in purchasing the 129-acre farm for $79 in a sheriff ’s auction. GERMAN IMMIGRANTS Two German immigrants were the first farmers to arrive, in 1863. They each leased 80 acres for the annual price of 50 cents per acre. They cleared the land and built homes while also suffering hardships such as pest-infected crops and difficult travels into the city. The century that followed saw new families rent the land, which was carved and sold to the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Chicago Park District and others. The farm is now just under 79 acres, Hook said. Peter Ouwenga had been growing and selling tomatoes, onions, corn and other vegetables for decades there when the board made noise about dumping the site as it faced fiscal crisis. Martin, a Hungarian immigrant who founded the Mount Greenwood Historical Association, formed the Citizen’s Committee to Save Chicago’s Last Farm and urged the board to consider the “extreme importance historically” of the land. Thousands of people expressed support for the yearslong campaign, and the board announced in 1983 it did not wish to sell the farm. A new plan formed. Ellen Summerfield Russell said she was working in CPS’ central office when she was approached by a district official about becoming principal of a
new high school. “And I said, ‘Well, what kind of a high school is it?’ I had just passed the principal’s exam, and I had just gotten my Ph.D. So he said, ‘Well, it’s agricultural science,’” Russell recalled in a recent phone interview with the Tribune. “And I said, ‘Well, what is that?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s about plants and animals.’ And I said, ‘Well, I have an urban garden behind my condo in Hyde Park. I like gardening.’ And I said, ‘I like animals, so, I guess, yeah, I’d be interested.’ That’s how I said yes.” Russell said she was given a year to design the curriculum, hire teachers and recruit students. Walter Biddle Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences in Philadelphia — the first of its kind in the United States — was the model for Chicago’s school and the inspiration for the creation of its agribusiness advisory council, which Russell said led the way for campus expansion. POPULAR FROM THE START For its first year, in 1985, the school was said to have received more than 500 applications for about 150 freshmen spots. School officials at the time touted the number of girls who signed up. Many of the students endured long commutes to the farm, which Russell calls the “land laboratory.” “It’s just like a real surprise to see this tract of land right on the boundary of the city,” she said. Russell said the school offered college prep and vocational education, with coursework devoted to horticulture, food science, landscape design and other agriculture topics. She left her position in 1987. Martin died shortly after the school opened, at the age of 80. Hook, a longtime CPS employee, became principal in 2007. He didn’t have an agricultural background either when he took the reins — he said his wife joked at the time that he couldn’t grow a 5-by-10foot garden — but the school’s handson approach was a selling point. Years later, he found himself doing much of the work on the farm when the COVID-19 pandemic began and the school’s 800 students transitioned to remote learning. “For the first few months I was feeding the animals, picking up after the animals and watering the plants, and it was a full day just doing that
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences junior Karime Beltran spends time with a calf named Biscuit in the school’s barn on Dec. 2, 2021. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS) kind of stuff. But we got it done, and we started slowly going back to normal,” Hook said. He blamed the coronavirus for the subdued farm anniversary celebration. He said some students re-created historic pictures of the farm — by posing on a tractor, in front of hay bales, with cows — that were featured on large poster boards for display. The then-and-now photos reminded Hook that not much has changed in 175 years. The high school “opened because the community wanted to make sure that they didn’t lose the farm,” he said. “To think that people in the community had the foresight to make sure they maintain this precious piece of land in the city of Chicago … they were wise beyond their years at the time to be able to realize that it was an important thing to maintain. And I’m glad to be part of a group that’s helped maintain it over the years.” n 13 | 2022 Ag Journal - Winter
Salmon to swim free as infrastructure money flows Alex Brown Stateline.org SEATTLE — The $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure package creates a new billiondollar program designed to open thousands of miles of congested transportation corridors. Those choked thoroughfares aren’t roads and bridges, however. They are creeks and streams used by migrating salmon when they return from the ocean to reach their spawning grounds. Salmon are born in freshwater, then travel downstream to the ocean where they spend most of their lives. At the end of their lifespan, they swim back up the rivers and streams where they were born to lay the eggs that will become the next generation. But across the United States, much of that spawning habitat is no longer accessible. States, cities and counties have built roads over those waterways, funneling the streams through narrow pipes, called culverts, that often create impassable obstacles for fish. Many states have tens of thousands of these culverts, rendering tens of thousands of miles of creeks and streams inaccessible to salmon. Salmon are known to scientists as a keystone species because their journey upstream — and eventual death — bring vital marine nutrients into inland ecosystems and support plants and animals throughout the food chain. Salmon also are a cultural, spiritual and economic resource for many Native American tribes, and they support fishing industries that are a major employer in many states. But culverts, dams, pollution, warming waters and the myriad other human-caused disturbances are leading salmon populations to dwindle. The federal infrastructure law, with its new culvert program and an assortment of other funding sources, takes aim at that problem. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime funding opportunity for salmon restoration,” said Jess Helsley, director of government affairs at the Wild Salmon Center, a group that works to protect rivers in the North Pacific area. “This is our last best chance.” The Wild Salmon Center estimates that as much as $11 billion of the funding in the infrastructure package, signed into law last month by President Joe Biden, could be used for salmon-related work, including the $1 billion allocated for the new culvert replacement program. FUNDING BOOST The law also includes a major funding boost for federal salmon recovery grants on the Pacific Coast and creates a new program to clear
barriers to fish passage. It bolsters programs that work to restore coastlines and estuaries. It provides more grant funding for climate resilience projects that can improve habitat. And it invests billions in wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, which can help reduce pollution in streams and rivers. “I don’t know that there’s a silver bullet to salmon recovery,” said U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, a Washington Democrat who helped push for salmon funding in the law. “It may be more like silver buckshot. But we’re trying to pull as many levers as we can.” Removing culverts is perhaps the most direct lever advocates can pull to restore salmon. “There is a lot of habitat out there that’s in pretty good shape for salmon, but they just can’t reach it,” said Michael Milstein, public affairs officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries’ West Coast Regional Office. “One of the most costeffective things we can do is to provide them that access.” Washington state is central to the culvert issue, and its congressional delegation, including Kilmer and Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, led the fight to include the new culvert program in the infrastructure law. Every member of the state’s congressional delegation supported the efforts to add culvert funding to the measure, though Republican members voted against the final bill itself. In 2018, 21 Native American tribes won a court case forcing Washington to eventually remove hundreds of culverts on state-owned roads. The barriers block salmon from reaching areas where the tribes have treaty-protected rights to fish. The cost of replacing those culverts is nearly $4 billion, and state lawmakers have yet to fund culvert replacement at a pace that complies with the 2030 court deadline. “It has been frustrating to see that the state hasn’t been able to get the funding schedule to line up with what the court prescribed,” said Leonard Forsman, chair of the Suquamish Tribe, which was among the tribal nations that sued the state over the culvert issue. “It’s unfortunate that the federal government has had to come in and supplement this.” ADDRESSING CULVERTS Kilmer said he was well aware of the budget problems culverts are causing the state, and he wanted to make sure the federal government had “skin in the game” in upholding treaty rights and restoring salmon. The culvert funding won’t just be reserved for Washington state, and salmon and other migratory fish in many states face similar obstacles. But the court order
has put Washington ahead of the pack in the painstaking work to locate culverts, identify barriers and lay out priorities for which projects can open the most habitat. City and county governments have done similar preparatory work as well, anticipating that they might also find themselves on the receiving end of a tribal lawsuit. “We know where we have problems and what needs to happen,” said Carl Schroeder, government relations advocate with the Association of Washington Cities. Schroeder said his group’s inventory work has so far identified roughly 1,500 barriers on cityowned roads in Washington, with a removal price tag of about $2.5 billion. King County, the state’s most populous, has inventoried about 3,000 culverts and found 650 of them are blocking salmon. But it needs to replace only about 100 to open two-thirds of the blocked habitat. Across all jurisdictions, Washington estimates it has about 20,000 fish-blocking barriers statewide, mostly culverts, which would cost $16 billion to remove. Not all culverts block fish, and some barriers are created by other kinds of infrastructure. But the vast majority of salmon impediments are the culvert pipes running under roadways. The Washington State Department of Transportation is responsible for removing most of the culverts under the court injunction. The agency has about 400 culverts and $3 billion of work remaining, but leaders acknowledge salmon need more than just the court-mandated projects. “There are so many fish passage needs in our state, beyond just WSDOT, so we hope this funding will continue,” said Kim Mueller, the agency’s fish passage delivery program manager. Leaders in Washington state insist the federal culvert program isn’t a handout to get the state off the hook for its legal obligations to the tribes. Officials say they intend to coordinate applications across state, county and city roads to open high-priority watersheds. After all, removing a state culvert to comply with the court mandate won’t do much good if a county barrier remains in place downstream. “This money is intended to be in addition to what we’re doing [to comply with the injunction],” said Erik Neatherlin, director of the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office, which coordinates the state’s efforts to restore salmon populations. “This is an opportunity to pump more money into salmon recovery.” State Rep. Debra Lekanoff, a Democrat, has long pushed her colleagues to invest in culvert replacement and comply with the court order.
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But Lekanoff, a member of the Tlingit tribe, said it would be a mistake to use the federal funding solely to check the mandatory boxes. STATE NOT ALONE “If we are going to invest in culverts, we need to do it holistically,” she said. “We need to meet our legal obligation, but we need to provide money, so cities, counties and tribes are replacing their culverts.” Washington isn’t the only state with a culvert problem. “If you look at salmon habitat on the West Coast, you’re going to find culverts wherever you look,” said John DeVoe, executive director of WaterWatch, a river conservation group in Oregon. “We’re going to need to solve fish passage issues across the range of salmon, and that’s going to be an expensive proposition.” While Washington has more shovel-ready projects, proponents of the new federal funding hope it will reach other states as well. Kilmer, the Washington lawmaker who pushed for the culvert program, acknowledged that his home state will be poised to collect a good portion of the early funding, but hopes to see the program expanded and extended. The program, which will be carried out over five years, was authorized at $4 billion, but lawmakers have made only $1 billion available initially. Oregon has more than 40,000 barriers blocking fish passage, according to Shaun Clements, deputy administrator of the Fish Division with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The 600 blockages atop the agency’s priority list close off nearly 24,000 miles of stream habitat. “We have a general sense of the magnitude, and it’s huge,” said Clements. “If we can secure even a small portion of this funding, it will really help move the needle.” Clements said the state now can replace about 20 to 30 barriers per year. He cautioned that the federal funding doesn’t necessarily guarantee there will be enough work force available. In Maine, a conservation group called Project SHARE has conducted about 300 projects to improve Atlantic salmon passage by replacing culverts and other barriers at road crossings. Other groups and agencies have undertaken culvert surveys in the state. But as the program gets underway, all eyes will be on Washington, where the state is scrambling to meet its treaty obligations to the tribes and restore its dwindling salmon runs. W. Ron Allen, chair of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, said he’s hopeful that the federal funding will begin to turn the tide. n
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