Whatcom Family Farmers joins coalition calling on Inslee to save key conservation program

On Thursday, August 24th, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced that they will be restructuring or canceling up to 334 Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) contracts with working landowners across the state beginning October 1, 2023. Whatcom Family Farmers, together with a coalition of farmers and environmental advocates, are ...

Tell lawmakers to support stewardship and farming

Washington state lawmakers in both the Senate and the House will be holding executive sessions and recommending whether or not to pass two important bills, SB 5353 and HB 1421, that consider re-opening enrollment and adding funding to the Voluntary Stewardship Program (VSP). We are asking you to contact ...

Ecology’s Water “Solutions Showcase” Highlights Keys to Success in Yakima Basin

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 ...

National Expert: Collaborative Process Best to Deliver Nooksack Water & Flood Solutions, Certainty

New report from former Asst. Solicitor to US Dept. of Interior says process not only would solve Nooksack water rights issues, but also support needed conservation and infrastructure projects impossible under litigation (LYNDEN, Wash.) Salmon habitat restoration, water supply infrastructure, flood prevention and other crucial work needed in the Nooksack ...

Community Collaboration Can Solve Whatcom Water Crisis, Bring Legal Certainty

We’re fortunate that spring rains and snowpack this year have kept streams from dropping to the record low levels we saw during last year’s drought. But the reality is that stream flows still aren’t where they could be if our community came together to get desperately-needed infrastructure ...

Whatcom farmers share north Whatcom mayors’ concern over Ecology’s misleading statements, stalled collaboration

Farming community joins other local leaders’ calls to reinvigorate county-wide collaboration on flooding, water access solutions (LYNDEN, Wash.) Whatcom Family Farmers agrees with the mayors of five Whatcom cities, who are expressing their concerns about the Washington Department of Ecology’s troubling efforts to promote a harmful legal action against local ...

Whatcom County Council agrees unanimously to support collaboration

Whatcom Family Farmers is encouraged by Whatcom County's support for a collaborative approach to the Nooksack River Basin's ongoing water crisis. Last year's drought closely followed by record-setting flooding only a couple of months later clearly demonstrated the basin's water crisis results from a failure of water management, not ...

Nooksack River water management solutions must address twin problems

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 ...

Farming community calls for comprehensive fixes to Whatcom flood, water management problems

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 ...

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