Transcription
Let me ask you guys a serious question, okay? If you irrigated a hay field and nobody in Olympia likes where the water fell, did you irrigate illegally? That's right, guys. Welcome back to Washington State, where an 85-year-old farmer just realized that the most dangerous thing on his property is not drought. It's not flooding, and it's certainly not inflation. What it is is a road.
Now, this is the same state, the same department of ecology that went after the King Ranch for cleaning up some stock watering ponds. Now, you might be thinking, "This is just another story about water." But this is a bigger story than that, guys. This is a story about paperwork pretending to be law and an agency pretending that they can make the laws.
Now, Bob Grafe is an 85-year-old hay farmer from Deer Park, Washington. His family has irrigated their farm since 1952. For those of you who are having a hard time figuring out how long ago that was, that's back in the times of Elvis on the radio, black and white TVs, before a lot of these environmental agencies even existed. And here's the thing about this is that Bob has senior water rights. And senior water rights out west are the creme de la creme. They're what everybody wants. All the ranchers want it. And if they have it, if a rancher or a farm has senior water rights, they're told to protect it like gold. And today, as you all know, senior water rights are worth a heck of a lot more than gold. Just ask all the dealers out there.
And yet, even with these senior water rights, the state came out and fined Bob $121,000. They placed a lien against his farm, his entire legacy has now been leaned for $121,000 and his water rights revoked on paper. That basically means that not only is his farm leaned, but it's worthless. And Bob himself has been labeled by the Washington Department of Ecology as an illegal irrigator.
Now, you're probably wondering, what did Bob do to be labeled as an illegal irrigator in the state of Washington? Well, guys, this is the really scary part because what Bob did was he actually watered on the wrong side of the road. This has nothing to do with watering with the wrong watershed, wrong river, wrong aquifer. It has everything to do with, you guessed it, a road. You see, at some point decades after Bob's family started farming, the state of Washington came in and came to the conclusion that their water rights were only valid for the north side of the road that runs through their property. The south side of the road has the same soil, has the same crop, same ownership, same irrigation system, same historical use. But on paper, the south side of the road is labeled as criminal activity.
Now, this is what farmers are running into everywhere. And this is not historically what water departments cared about. Historically, what mattered to them was whether or not the land benefited, whether or not the water was productive or productively used. And they also cared about the history of the parcel, whether or not it was historically irrigated, in which case we know that it has been since 1952. So do they. What matters now the most is whether or not the maps agree and whether or not the parcel ID has changed or been modified. They also really care about whether or not the PDF has been filled out correctly. As with Robert's case, you see the water didn't move, the hay didn't move, but the interpretation moved miles. This isn't something that we call conservation. This is what we call in agriculture clerical dominance.
Now, if that hasn't made you feel uncomfortable, let's get to what should make you feel uncomfortable. You see, outside of this law-making agency that thinks they have the right to make laws, the state of Washington laws are actually quite different. The state water laws actually allow seasonal water transfers. They allow point of use adjustments and they even allow administrative corrections for historical use like somebody who had been watering their farm since 1952. So to kind of put this down into plain English for you, similar to the type of thing we're dealing with with the King's Ranch, they could have fixed this without any fines at all. There's an alternative motive for those fines. According to water rights professionals who are familiar with this case, the state could have very, very easily provided a seasonal adjustment to how they allocated the water that he has rights to and they could have moved on. Instead, the state went after daily fines. They went after public shaming and then they decided to place a lien that threatens the existence of his entire legacy. That is not problem-solving. What it actually is is making an example out of him. Making an example out of an 85-year-old who can't defend himself. The Ecology's press release actually painted Bob as an environmental threat, a rebel. This is an interesting phrasing because there was no diversion that was built on Bob's land. There was no increase in acreage. There was no increase in water usage. He actually had the right to use the amount of water he used. No developer showed up on Bob's land to build something for Bob. The only thing that changed in Bob's scenario was the mood of enforcement from the Washington Department of Ecology.
See, this is a trick that we see often from these agencies. They like to go in and they like to reframe what is actually ordinary farming as an environmental harm after the fact because once that label sticks, the punishment becomes justifiable. Now, the most powerful weapon here isn't the fine in and of itself. It's the lien that they placed on his property. A lien does a lot of things. It blocks refinancing. It actually freezes farm succession. And obviously, that would discourage heirs from wanting to take over the land. It basically just bleeds the farm out of existence. No bulldozers needed, no eminent domain hearings needed, just a little bit of paperwork and somebody's signature and an accusation that he's done something horrible to the environment. This is how land leaves agriculture now. Quietly, politely, and administratively.
Guys, look. If an 85-year-old can lose his farm over irrigating on the wrong side of the road with water he has rights to, then no irrigated farm in America is safe. These farms aren't safe not because the water's gone, not because their land failed, but because their permissions changed. And that's the future that we're seeing being built. Farming by approval only, stewardship by exception. And of course, history that expires when the map changes.
Guys, this video is not anti-environment. It's anti-absurdity. Water law was supposed to balance use and protections, not simply erase farms with clerical lines and lies. The land still grows hay. The water still flows. Only the paperwork actually says it's illegal. And guys, when paperwork beats reality, farming becomes temporary.
Now guys, if this is all looking familiar or sounding familiar to you, it's because it's spreading. Which is why we need to stand up and ask Washington to intervene with the state of Washington and put an end to this nonsense from this haywire department. This is not the first case. There are many, many cases. It's not a matter of defending the right to farm or not. What it is is a matter of getting control over an agency that's using its power to abuse its citizens.
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