Industrial farms could leave eastern Wash. with dry wells

Scott Collins’ family has been farming in arid eastern Washington since his great grandfather first homesteaded the 1,500-acre, dry-land wheat farm more than a century ago.

But the 58-year-old Collins fears he may be the last of four generations on the farm.

That is because the groundwater he and his family depend on could be in jeopardy if a proposed cattle feedlot and other industrial-sized projects like it are built in his rural Franklin County.

At issue is a proposal by Easterday Ranches Inc. to build a feedlot for 30,000 head of cattle that would withdraw a shade under 1 million gallons a day from the ancient Grande Ronde Aquifer during the driest months of the year. The proposal has touched off a wave of concern among local farmers, prompting Collins and about 20 of his neighbors to form the nonprofit Five Corners Family Farmers to fight the feedlot project and others that might come along behind it.

“I have one well that my great grandfather dug in 1900. If I lose it, I’m done,” Collins said.

NY Times