Saturday, February 04, 2012
Click here for RSS feedOLYMPIA -- A measure aimed at protecting people from pesticide drift moved out of committee with a do-pass recommendation in a party-line vote on Feb. 3. The original bill, sponsored by Rep. Chris Reykdal, D-Tumwater, had called for a half-mile buffer around aerial and air-blast applications. An a ...
Friday, February 03, 2012 10:37 AM
Agriculture in parts of Eastern Washington's 4th congressional district feel a bit disenfranchised by the state's new redistricting plan. The plan, set for legislative adoption by Feb. 7, was put together by a bipartisan commission. The plan moves three Eastern Washington counties from the 4th Di ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 10:00 AM
DRYDEN, Wash. -- Alex Toban moves quickly, instinctively knowing his next lopper cut with the merest glance of the eye. At 56, he's pruned, thinned and picked pears in the Wenatchee Valley for 30 years. This year, Toban and pruners throughout Central Washington are two to four weeks ahead of sch ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 10:00 AM
OLYMPIA -- Two bills in the Washington Legislature would require labels on genetically modified food, but many proponents talk more about food than labels, a senator says. Reflecting on a hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Water and Rural Economic Development Committee, Sen. Mark Schoesler, R ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 2:00 PM
LONGVIEW, Wash. -- Although a labor contract has not been signed, rank-and-file members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have approved an agreement with the EGT grain terminal. The terminal has been the epicenter of a dispute between its owners and the ILWU since it began operat ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 2:00 PM
OLYMPIA -- A unique program that exempts some small farm interns from wage laws could be expanded. Nine people worked last season as farm interns under a pilot program in two counties authorized by the Washington Legislature in 2010. New legislation would expand the program to eight counties. Se ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 10:00 AM
OLYMPIA -- A bill giving counties more control over groundwater does not affect the exemption for stock watering, its backers say, but spokesmen for farmers and ranchers aren't so sure. State statute allows the unlimited withdrawal of groundwater for watering livestock. That exemption was upheld ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 2:00 PM
OLYMPIA -- A state legislator wants to reduce the amount of paperwork required for several standard timber practices. In a public hearing before the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Rep. Ed Orcutt said his bill would drop a requirement that costs the state, taxpayers and for ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 3:00 PM
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Fred McMechan Plath, owner of Washington Fruit and Produce Co., one of the state's largest tree fruit companies, died Jan. 25 in Yakima. He was 89. Plath was president of the company in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, decades that saw strong growth. The company was started by his fathe ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 2:00 PM
Range managers from around the world will meet Jan. 29-Feb.3 in Spokane, Wash. The Society for Range Management holds its annual meeting at the Spokane Convention Center and Red Lion Hotel at the Park. Jack Alexander, president of the society and a rancher near Belgrade, Mont., said the meeting ...
Thursday, February 02, 2012 3:00 PM
OLYMPIA -- A handful of bills intended to modify the state's minimum-wage law has failed to make it out of committee. Prime sponsor Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, said the five bills were intended to encourage the hiring of more employees. In introducing his legislation to the House Labo ...
Wednesday, February 01, 2012 4:54 PM
SEATTLE (AP) -- The Labor Department says Washington Beef has agreed to pay $50,000 in back wages to a former employee who was fired for taking medical leave from the packing plant at Toppenish. Investigators found the worker was unlawfully terminated in violation of the Family and Medical Leav ...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:32 PM
ELLENSBURG, Wash. (AP) -- Every year, members of the Eaton family, who ranch about 15 miles southeast of Ellensburg, recreate an Old West tradition with a real cattle drive. Family members on horseback drive cattle 5 or 6 miles on the Yakima river Canyon Highway, also known as Highway 821. The ...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:51 AM
SEATTLE (AP) -- The U.S. Agriculture Department has designated 15 Washington counties as primary natural disaster areas due to extreme weather conditions in the first seven months of 2011. Sen. Maria Cantwell says farmers in those areas are eligible to apply for USDA emergency assistance. ...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 7:41 AM
Oregon Potato Co. will pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a $66,235 penalty for failing to report an anhydrous ammonia release at the company's facility in Warden, Wash. "When unintended chemical releases occur, every minute counts if it is an emergency," Wally Moon, an EPA manager in Se ...
Monday, January 30, 2012 10:59 AM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Brothers from Idaho and Washington and another man face a federal charge they conspired to commit bank fraud. Roger Spangenberg, of Post Falls, Idaho and brother David Spangenberg, of Spokane, owned three now-closed D&R auto dealerships formerly located in Hermiston a ...
Saturday, January 28, 2012 2:28 PM
SEATTLE (AP) -- In Olympia, it's not all that often that immigrant advocacy groups and farmers are on the same side of a proposed bill. But the unlikely allies have teamed up this session to push a measure aimed at stopping more cities and counties from adopting a federal program that che ...
Saturday, January 28, 2012 2:18 PM
LONGVIEW, Wash. -- The Port of Longview approved a settlement agreement Friday with EGT (Export Grain Terminal) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union settling unresolved legal issues between the parties. The port also approved an amendment to its lease with EGT agreeing that the ter ...
Friday, January 27, 2012 5:08 PM
With two-thirds of Washington's counties taking part in a new Voluntary Stewardship Program, the next step is obtaining funding for it, according to the state Conservation Commission. Participating counties can protect habitat in areas used for agriculture through the voluntary program rather t ...
Friday, January 27, 2012 10:17 AM
WOODLAND, Wash. (AP) -- Cowlitz County animal control authorities say two Rottweilers that had just killed two pet goats turned on a Woodland property owner who tried to chase them away. The woman jumped in her car for protection Tuesday and called for help. The Daily News reports ( ...
Friday, January 27, 2012 8:47 AM
Several farm groups and animal rights organizations oppose federal legislation setting a national welfare standard for egg-laying hens. HR3798, introduced this week by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and three California co-sponsors, embodies a July agreement between United Egg Producers and Th ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 10:00 AM
Few people would expect to tear up at a museum exhibit about soil, but it's happened. Siobhan Starrs, project manager for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said viewers have become emotional as they watched a video on the problems caused by soil degradation, such as the 1930s Du ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:00 PM
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- The USDA removed many of the potato industry's objections as it developed new standards for the national school lunch program, a nutrition expert says. Nutritionist Dayle Hayes said the new standards, which first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack introd ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 10:00 AM
WENATCHEE, Wash. -- A few more fruit trees in Central Washington will die this coming season from the pre-Thanksgiving Day freeze of 2010, a Washington State University tree fruit specialist says. "It takes a while for them to understand they don't have a trunk," Tim Smith told growers at the Nor ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 11:00 AM
WENATCHEE, Wash. -- Continued grower vigilance next spring is needed to keep little cherry disease under control, a Washington State University research scientist says. Cool, wet springs for two years in a row has increased visibility of the virus, which in warmer years mostly hides from growers, ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 11:00 AM
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Some Washington state wheat farmers have thrown their support behind legislation requiring labeling of genetically modified foods, giving food safety advocates fresh hope that lawmakers also will get behind the bill. They haven't been receptive to the idea in the pas ...
Thursday, January 26, 2012 3:36 PM
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