Lack of rain drives up businesses’ costs, cuts into revenue

  • By Dan Catchpole Herald Writer
  • Thursday, August 13, 2015 7:54pm
  • Business

EVERETT — Businesses across Snohomish County are feeling the burn from this summer’s parched weather.

The statewide drought is driving up costs for some and cutting revenue for others. Some businesses are being squeezed on both ends.

This summer has seen record lows for rain, leaving grass lawns burnt brown.

Washington Lawns has seen new work dry up, said Zak Ventura, the Everett landscaping company’s co-owner.

The summer slowdown in landscaping work he usually sees has been twice as bad this year, he said.

In the past three weeks, Washington Lawns has only picked up two new clients. Last year, it was adding 10 or 15 clients every three weeks, he said.

“If I had started this year as a landscaper, I would have gone broke,” Ventura said.

The 3-year-old company grosses about half a million dollars a year, and has eight employees.

His business partner, Bryan Fosmark, who runs the field operations, keeps a close eye on their workers when the temperatures push past 80 degrees.

“We have to limit how hard the guys push themselves,” Fosmark said. “They will put themselves in the hospital” with heat exhaustion.

He figures he and his crew are 25 percent less productive on this summer’s hot, dry days. That means it takes longer to finish jobs, which means higher labor costs for Washington Lawns.

“If it was raining, we could just trudge along,” he said. “We’re not used to the heat.”

Logging companies have also seen productivity fall and labor costs go up.

Loggers have to follow a system of precautionary restrictions called Industrial Fire Precaution Levels and managed by the state’s Department of Natural Resources. When forest conditions become dangerously dry, the state can limit the type and duration of logging and other industrial work.

The hot, dry days of late summer came early this year, said Lisa Perry, community relations manager for Sierra Pacific Industries. The California-based timber company owns and manages about 250,000 acres of forest, including land in north Snohomish County.

“In June and July, we saw August conditions,” which meant less logging than in a typical year, she said. “You’re working either fewer hours or no hours during the day.”

She couldn’t put a precise number on the difference. The company logs different areas each year, so it is not easy to compare output, she said.

The drought also means trees won’t grow as much this year. It likely will have a tiny economic effect for loggers, but it is significant enough that it will be factored into the company’s modeling programs, Perry said.

The lack of water is quickly evident from a drive along I-5, said Cindy Mitchell, a spokeswoman with the Washington Forest Protection Association, which advocates for sustainable logging.

Wildfires also are curtailing logging around the state.

“Water and fire are the basic” factors affecting the industry, she said. “Fire is an immediate effect, water is more long term.”

Rivers and streams are low around Snohomish County and most of the state, according to U.S. Geological Survey water level gauges.

There is almost no snow pack in the mountains in the county. Rivers and streams depend on snow runoff to keep flowing in the hot summer months.

Low water levels and higher water temperatures are hurting salmon hatcheries in Washington, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages 83 fish hatcheries.

“We’ve lost about 1.5 million juvenile fish this year due to drought conditions at our hatcheries,” said Ron Warren, WDFW’s salmon policy lead. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen for some time.”

Spawning areas in Snohomish County rivers are threatened. Aside from the ecological effects, that could hurt fishing and tourism here.

Outdoor recreation generates more than $1.2 billion a year in the county, according to a study by Earth Economics and commissioned by the state’s Recreation and Conservation Office.

That is the third highest for all the state’s counties.

Much of that money comes from activities in the county’s forests, rivers and mountains east of the I-5 corridor, said Amy Spain, executive director of the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau.

Low stream flows are hurting river guiding businesses, she said.

This past winter, the low snowfall greatly shortened the ski season at Stevens Pass and other mountain ski runs.

The scant snowpack likely won’t affect power rates, though, said Kelly Wallace, senior manager of power scheduling for the Snohomish County Public Utility District.

However, the PUD might have less surplus power to sell, she said.

“We’re seeing about 25 percent less” power from Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies more than 75 percent of the PUD’s energy, she said.

The district also has cut back local hydroelectric generation because of low water levels in Spada Lake, which supplies much of the area’s drinking water.

This week, Everett’s public works department, which distributes Spada Lake’s water to about 570,000 people, asked people and businesses to stop nonessential uses of water. It is the second stage of a drought response plan adopted by the city, along with Seattle and Tacoma.

People have been using more water, 13 percent more than normal, in recent weeks.

The drought is not causing a crisis, but the PUD does have to manage its resources accordingly.

“It is drastic compared to what we normally see,” Wallace said.

Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.

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