Washblog

I composed this letter several years ago and sent it to the Commissioners and obviously it was ignored. I'm sending it to you of the City of East Wenatchee as it is still appropriate. Our Commissioners think that turning farm land into developable land makes the County richer and is a benefit to their constituents, although that's a flawed philosophy, we have to live with it.

I am a life long grower and marketer of tree fruit (my own) and I'm against clustering and land segregation in all commercial tree fruit Ag areas. Any tree fruit horticulturist will agree that Douglas County buffers are grossly inadequate when it comes to spray drift; unfortunately that is exactly what we growers have to live with. I think it's 50, maybe 60, feet with a vegetative enhanced buffer or 100 feet with no vegetative buffer; mist from an airblast sprayer can easily travel 200 feet in a gentle breeze. Fruit growers are required to keep spray from drifting off target, a person with the Department of Agriculture acknowledged that this not possible without using a paintbrush, that's an exaggeration but not much of one. It is spray drift, people and the liability related to drift that is the big problem for those of us, like myself who will try to grow tree fruits next to a hiker/biker trail and it's the same issue with clustering where there's people present who are not familiar or associated with the unique problems of tree fruit agriculture.

However, with greater buffering distances, at least double what we now have, clustering might be accommodated, but those buffers need to be slaughter animal, forage, grain crop, and people free. For those who don't know and most don't, major insurers will not cover personal injury from spray drift and if you can find an insurer, the premium is prohibitively expensive, it's not inconceivable that a legal judgment could be rendered in the six or seven digit figure. That means the offending farmer (orchardist) loses everything. That risk to the grower is unacceptable, especially when the offended party has voluntarily (knowingly or unwittingly) moved or entered into harms way. That's one reason the challenge to the State Parks trail through the orchards of Bakers Flat continues and I'm sure everyone other than the rabid trail supporters understand that issue, clustering presents the identical problems as the trail proposal.

The justification for a farmer to be able to use the clustering tool, as I understand it (the counties reasons appear flawed), is as an aid in a short-term crisis so the operation can become solvent again and keep his farm operating for the long term (farmland preservation). This needs to be a one shot deal and not on going for a situation for what ever reason will not result in saving the farm. Maybe the farm operator is not a good farmer, maybe not a farmer at all, maybe hasn't kept the farm up to date with new technology and in the case of tree fruit hasn't replaced obsolete varieties with newer profitable ones, maybe the acreage is too small, maybe health problems, maybe can't live within his means, maybe marital problems, maybe under capitalized, maybe, maybe, maybe. One thing we know for sure is that this process was not designed to circumvent the Growth Management Act allowing unscrupulous developers or land speculators, which we do have in Douglas County, to come in and violate the goals of the GMA and buy farmland and make tidy development dollars because the land is cheap compared to urban development property. Water, sewer and other necessary infrastructures and police and fire protection are available and priced into the cost of urban developable property. Those are the places where development should occur. A residential development in a rural setting, sooner or later will have to have improvements to the existing rural infrastructure, Will the developer be there to pay for it down the line? Of course, jokingly, the taxpayers wouldn't be asked to pay for it, would they? Well probably they will years after the development is completed, the politicians out of office and the developer long gone with his money and those living there complain about the lack of facilities, that's a classic result of urban sprawl. For instance, look at the second access to Fancher Heights, it was supposed to be paid for by the homeowners after a certain number of homes were built. The second access was long overdue, who paid for it?

Creating more inventory of developable land by these so called innovative techniques has another dark side and that is farmland inside or just outside of the urban growth boundary in the path of development will be left behind in favor of cheaper land further out. I can also see the overall effect of this cheap land scenario as creating competition to urban property and reducing its value. It will also create sprawl and anyway you cut it, that's bad. Sprawl development is not cost efficient, statistics show for every dollar gain in property tax it takes a dollar and a half to support that dollars worth of tax.

The scenario of a farmer going broke and trying to sell his land for a nonfarm use should be compared to a business downtown. When that business is unprofitable and fails, sooner or later another business moves in to the vacated space. It should be the same in agriculture. When a farm fails, another farmer should have the opportunity to buy that land and it stays in Ag (true farmland preservation), but if we allow developers to move in and buy the land on the cheap and develop it, the opportunity for another farmer to increase his acreage, boost his productivity and efficiency to stay in business, is unfortunately lost and he too may fail, that does not lead to farmland preservation, quite the opposite, it's like a cancer that eventually kills the patient.

An issue with clustering that needs to be clarified is that it has the potential to increase property taxes for those who just want to farm. From my correspondence with the Douglas County Assessor, that issue is fuzzy. We don't need additional overhead expense for farm product producers; the profit margin is already very slim and that could be the straw that breaks the camels (farmers) back.

Just because this clustering tool is available doesn't mean we need or have to use it, I suggest it is better to leave things as they are (no clustering), for better or worse. However, I will admit that we could allow cluster development outside of tree fruit Ag areas for its justified purpose, to help in the case of a short-term emergency, like a chapter 11 bankruptcies where there's light at the end of the tunnel and a jump-start will get you through. If that one shot doesn't work then it's sad, but that's life, no guarantees, we older folks know that but many, if not most of the younger generation don't. When helping one landowner creates a hardship or distress for the adjacent landowner, that's unacceptable legislation.

All this said, Tree fruit Agriculture is very different from all other forms of agriculture in Douglas County and those areas where tree fruits are grown need to be identified and reclassified as a special situation with no clustering or incompatible agricultural uses allowed.

Respectfully, Jack Feil

CC; Douglas County Commissioners

(the above letter was reprinted with the writers permission)

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