Jason Vander Kooy, Skagit County Dairy Farmer and Save Family Farming Vice President, issued the following statement regarding the news that the Supreme Court of Washington will consider farmer Ron Fode’s case fighting Washington State Department of Ecology penalties against him in violation of state law

“Finally, a state agency that’s routinely persecuted farmers and abused the law will have to face a reckoning at Washington’s highest court for its irresponsible and harmful actions.

“It’s a shame that the many family farms that the Washington State Department of Ecology’s draconian and capricious regulatory practices have ended can’t be brought back, but we hope justice will finally be served for the unwarranted harm this out-of-control agency has caused the Fode family.

“Ron Fode’s story exposes what so many farmers have sadly experienced first-hand: a state agency that acts as thought it can make up the rules as it goes, aggressively enforcing arbitrarily interpreted policies and then punishing farmers for failing to comply with standards that seem to shift at the agency’s whim—all with no benefit to the environment or the citizens of Washington state.

“We hope this case marks the beginning of the end of Ecology’s bureaucratic power trip that has contributed to the Washington state farming community’s unfolding viability crisis.

“As Washington farmers continue to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year thanks in part to the state’s skyrocketing compliance costs and regulatory burdens, we need a Department of Ecology that can come alongside farmers in partnership to steward our state’s rich natural resources, not an agency that treats producers as adversaries and measures success by the number of enforcement actions it can pursue.

“Our desire is to see the Supreme Court of Washington hand down a decision that not only prevents Ecology from ever treating a farmer this way again, but also sparks a movement of change within a department that desperately needs fundamental reform.”

Press Contact: Dillon Honcoop, dhoncoop@savefamilyfarming.org