Washington Advantages

By Kris Polly

In our cover story this month, we speak with Jon DeVaney of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. He explains both why Washington State dominates the nation’s tree fruit industry—it has near-perfect conditions for growing apples—and why it faces challenges, mostly owing to drought and high costs. We review the potential for new technologies to aid the industry and discuss the possibility of public support for investments into these technologies.

Pete Hronis is a partner and the chairman of the board at Hronis Inc., a large family-owned agricultural producer in the Central Valley of California, and a member of the board of the Delano Earlimart Irrigation District (DEID). With one foot in private business and the other in an irrigation district, Mr. Hronis provides us a well-informed look at water issues in the area, highlighting DEID’s special accomplishments in groundwater stewardship.

Next, we turn to Modoc County in far northwestern California, where another family-owned business, Copp’s Irrigation, has been going strong for more than a half century. In a conversation with founder Jim Copp and his daughter, Julie Parlee, we learn about the business’s origins; its success; and Mr. Copp’s commitment to customer service, which includes individual deliveries of parts to customers via small airplane. We also discuss the status of the stalled Allen Camp Dam project and its potential to aid local irrigators.

Then, we speak with Mark Theetge, a cofounder of Krah USA, which has brought advanced Krah HDPE manufacturing technology to the United States and is engaged in multiple projects with Oregon irrigation districts.

The Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program (OGWRP) is a major project to bring surface water to irrigators in a part of Washington State that has long been waiting for the promised expansion of the federal Columbia Basin Project. In February, East Columbia Basin Irrigation District Secretary-Manager Craig Simpson led a tour of progress on OGWRP for a group that included some of the founders and visionaries of the project. We speak with several of them about their history with OGWRP and what they saw.

Last, we preview the future leaders of the irrigation and water sectors with a feature on the Daisy J. Hudson Scholarship, awarded by the BioResource and Agricultural Engineering Department at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Endowed by and named for a local legend who led the Saucelito Irrigation District for 30 years, the scholarship supports students pursuing hands-on programs that will launch them into the industry. We speak with staff from Cal Poly and the Saucelito Irrigation District and with students benefitting from the scholarship.

From San Luis Obispo in the south up through the Central Valley of California to Northern California and Central Oregon and Washington, irrigated agriculture remains a cornerstone of local economies. The businesses, educational programs, and major water conservation and conveyance projects described in this issue will play a big role in ensuring that this continues to be so.

Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and the president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.