CBDL elects 2014 leadership

Milton Johnston of Ellensburg was re-elected chairman of the Columbia Basin Development League (CBDL) at their December trustee’s meeting in Moses Lake with Orman Johnson of Othello re-elected vice chair, Jake Wollman, Jr. of Warden treasurer and Jeff Schibel of Odessa secretary. Ron Fode of Moses Lake, continues on the board as past chairman.

Alice Parker of Royal City, Dale Pomeroy of Warden, and Heath Gimmestad of Moses Lake will remain on the Executive Committee along with newly appointed at-large executive committee member Kevin Kyle of Cunningham. All positions will hold throughout the year until elections are held in December.

At the meeting, the trustees also appointed Chet Pedersen, an agronomy consultant from Quincy, to an open position on the board joining the other two new board members Matt Hawley and Mark Stedman.

Hawley works for Lamb Weston/ConAgra Foods, and Stedman is a Lincoln County commissioner.

Pedersen owns Columbia Ag Consulting and grew up on a family farm near Ellensburg, where his father raised row crops. He graduated from Washington State University with a bachelor’s degree in agronomy and soil chemistry. He is one of the founders of Quincy’s Farmer-Consumer Awareness Day celebration.

Other board members re-elected at the league’s annual meeting were Steve Connors of Warden, Clark Kagele of Odessa, Rick Miller of Pasco, Reid Phillips of Ritzville and Eli Stahl of Ritzville.

The CBDL promotes the orderly extension of irrigation infrastructure to eligible lands within the Columbia Basin Project. Recent focus of the league is to prevent economic and environmental disaster by replacing Odessa Subarea Aquifer groundwater withdrawals with project water.