Countering Ecology’s focus on adjudication in Whatcom, leaders in the Yakima Integrated Water Plan explain cooperation and trust are essential to resolving water issues and show how litigation “stymied” progress on solving Yakima Basin issues for decades (LYNDEN, Wash.) The State Department of Ecology sponsored a “Solutions Showcase” on ...
Whatcom County routinely experiences widespread flooding in the winter months. But this past late fall and winter was one of the worst on record and caused an estimated $1 billion in damages in nearby Abbotsford, BC and about $100 million in damages and one death in Whatcom County. Loss ...
Governor Inslee, with the help of state legislators, has proposed two bills that, if enacted, would be farm killers. It offers some of the biggest buffer proposals we have seen in the last 30 years. While many parts of the bill are worded vaguely, it is clear the bills ...
PRESS RELEASE - January 5, 2021 Contact: Dillon Honcoop - dhoncoop@savefamilyfarming.org Whatcom Family Farmers president: “A comprehensive effort to pursue all possible solutions… must begin immediately” (LYNDEN, Wash.) As wide swaths of north Whatcom County continue to clean up and rebuild after November’s devastating flooding disaster, the local farming community ...
News of a newly-completed salmon habitat restoration project in the midst of farmland near Lynden is underscoring farmers’ commitment to the long-term collaborative restoration work needed to help critically-endangered salmon populations in the Nooksack River Basin. Farmers in Whatcom County have been saying they want to bring together the local ...
Farmers urge all parties to come to the table and begin collaborative work to safeguard both endangered salmon and local farming, as drought underscores risks of inaction As drought conditions worsen and stream flows plummet in the wake of an historic heatwave, Whatcom County farmers are calling for all parties ...
“This has to be a process of the community coming together. ... Hearing everyone’s concerns and working together to make real, long lasting solutions, rather than hashing it out in a courtroom where everyone is pitted against each other.” Governor Inslee recently signed his $59 million budget, which ...
(ACME, Wash.) Local farming advocacy organization Whatcom Family Farmers will represent farmers in the Nooksack River’s South Fork Basin in anticipated water settlement and drainage management talks. While six Watershed Improvement Districts (WIDs) united under the Ag Water Board of Whatcom County represent farmers in the main stem of the ...
In response to the state Department of Ecology's ongoing request to the state legislature for funding to begin the process of an adjudication in the Nooksack Basin, Whatcom Family Farmers has sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the budget committees in both state legislative chambers. An ...
Although some have suggested that adjudication is the best way to protect salmon runs, the reality is that it will put farms out of business, and put salmon in harm’s way. USDA data shows that Puget Sound has already lost 60% of its farmland since 1950 – ...
