WFB has been fighting to secure new water supplies, particularly for agriculture for years. Most notably we helped champion the 2006 Columbia River Basin Water Supply Development Program. Gov. Gregoire supported our package then, and it is time to continue pressing forward.

In relation to securing a stable supply of water for the Yakima Basin, Gregoire noted: “Now is the time. I want to get it done." at a stop in Yakima, during the first day of her two-day, agriculture-centered Eastern Washington trip, she promised, “I will go back personally to fight for this.”

We will fight alongside the governor to get the water so desperately needed to ensure the Washington farmers can produce the food, feed, fiber, and fuel the state, nation, and world need. We agree with the governor that we can meet this goal plus the goal of dramatically increasing our exports, “over the next five years” but, as she said, “We can't do it without water,"

Due to the natural variation of our climate, we know we must increase our ability to store water when it is available. Bring on the projects!

The Obama administration just named Will Stelle as head of the Northwest Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Stelle was director of the same office during the Clinton Administration and played a large role during the period when dozens of species in Washington were listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

With the appointment of Stelle, doubt is cast on a favorable conclusion to the litigation still active on the 2000 biological opinion (BiOp), which governs the operation of the Columbia River hydropower system, especially since Stelle was a main architect of the 2000 BiOp.

Capital Press reported this issue here.

This issue points out just how important it is to elect responsible leaders, since they in turn appoint officials such as Stelle. 

At its April 2010 meeting, the Washington Farm Bureau board of directors approved our own push back campaign. We call it Farm Bureau 911. Think of it this way -– when the fire alarm goes off do we run to the fire or away from it? Historically Farm Bureau members have run to the fire when our way of life is threatened as it is now.

“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
-- Thomas Jefferson

“What’s real in politics is what the voters decide is real.”
-- Ben Wattenberg

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