Proposal Bad For Farms, Fish Save Family Farming Says

A new proposal from the Washington Forest Practices Board has many in the farming community concerned.  Save Family Farming said the proposal, which would set new standards for forest buffers on non-fish bearing streams, could set a devastating precedent for the state’s Ag industry.

The Timber Industry Is Already Hitting Their Goals

Dillon Honcoop with Save Family Farming said the argument this proposal will benefit fish downstream from these non-fish bearing streams does not hold up.

“The reality is the science shows they're already meeting those temperature targets," Honcoop said.  "They're actually well below the temperature targets for those kinds of streams. So, the question is, why do we need to cool the water down further? The only reason that the people pushing this are saying is because, well, when they harvest timber, they do notice a slight bump up in temperature in these streams. It's still below the targets, but they say they are now pushing for no change at any point in stream temperatures. Again, this is all to protect fish. And we're arguing, and it's pretty clear, this wouldn't help fish since the water's already cool enough.”

This Proposal Is Just The Beginning

Ben Tindall, Save Family Farming Executive Director, said "this Forest Practices Board proposal is a backdoor attack on the state’s agricultural future".

“Now suddenly, even though we've staved those off in the farming community, pointing out that the science doesn't support it, any purported benefit, if there is any, is not worth the devastation that it would cause to communities and ultimately would harm fish because you're pushing farms out of watersheds and encouraging development by making life tough for farming," Honcoop said.  "Now they're going back to foresters, again, pushing an unscientific, you know, shoot for the moon kind of proposal. And we know this is if they're able to set some kind of precedent of there should be no temperature change at any time in any place in the forest lands, they're going to come back and try this all over again with the rest of the farming community.”

The Forest Practices Board will consider this proposal at its November 12th meeting.  Save Family Farming is asking the Washington Ag Community to make their thoughts known.  Click Here to see the Coalition Statement on the proposal.

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