Rich Appel farms just north of the Nooksack River in Ferndale. “Our family has been on that farm for about 55 years and my whole life,” Appel said. “I've been living on the river and been been around the river and over the last number of years we've ...
This is an op-ed column that was originally published in the Lynden Tribune Oct. 16, 2020. It was written by Greg Ebe, local engineer, third-generation seed potato grower and a board member of the Drayton and Bertrand watershed improvement districts. Salmon are an extremely important part of the history, legacy and ...
Christine Woodward is the chair for the Portage Bay Shellfish Protection District. “I think one of the first and foremost things about the partnership between farms and salmon is respect,” she said. Farmers play a very important role in Whatcom County, she added. They provide our food source, ...
This op-ed written by Rich Appel originally appeared in the Bellingham Herald on Nov. 13, 2020. Salmon are part of what makes Whatcom County such a beautiful place to live. Farms play a large role in protecting salmon, however, both farms and salmon are in peril. The Lummi Nation and ...
“The availability of water is vital to the future of agriculture in Whatcom County,” Lynne Rainey Wheeler said. She is a dairy farmer in Whatcom County. Her family’s farm, Coldstream Farms, is in the South Fork Valley. They have been farming there since 1978. In that time they ...
Farmers have been accused of not doing their part when it comes to preserving the environment on and around their farm. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Farmers in Whatcom County have taken many measures in recent years to not only improve their sustainability but also work toward the ...
This month marks the 3rd anniversary of the Drayton Harbor Shellfish beds reopening for commercial harvesting. Drayton Harbor suffered from pollution and it took years of effort to clean it up and get the OK for commercial harvesting. Initially 810 acres of shellfish beds reopened, but this year an additional ...
Should federal agency leaders be held accountable for blatant misrepresentation of the facts? (Some call this lying.) Below you will see three documents related to the 2012-2013 Yakima Nitrate Report. These are about the peer review and they conclusively settle the current argument with the Region 10 Administrator Chris Hladick. ...
Dairy farmers are appealing to EPA Director Andrew Wheeler to take long-delayed action on conducting a real peer review of the 2012-2013 EPA Yakima Nitrate Report. This follows a similar request submitted by Congressman Dan Newhouse of Yakima on June 26. After months of effort with new Region 10 Administrator ...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Farmers are protecting water in a number of ways. One of the most important is participation in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) administered by the Washington State Conservation Commission. In this program farmers receive financial incentives to take farmland out of production to support riparian buffers protecting streams. In ...
