The last time Mariposa Farm in Everson got flooded, owners Joaquin and Liz Lopez spent about $100,000 replacing equipment, repairing infrastructure and writing off lost produce. That was just four years ago.
On Monday morning, they found themselves, once more, cleaning out their fields and tallying up damages.
“We were just recovering,” Joaquin said. “And this happened again.”
Over the past few days, farm owners and operators across Western Washington have been returning to their businesses after heavy flooding turned massive swaths of low-lying land into deep basins of water since the downpour began last week.
Farms up and down the I-5 corridor sustained losses, though for most of them, it’s too early to accurately account for damage. Some are still unable to reach their farms due to high water levels and road closures. Many don’t have insurance and those who do have it aren’t sure what it will cover. And the National Weather Service has forecast more minor to moderate flooding in the region through Friday.
“The impact is pretty varied,” said Melissa Campbell, executive director of Washington Farmland Trust, an organization that works to conserve farmland primarily in Western Washington. “We don’t know the full extent yet.”
Multiple factors affected how hard individual businesses were hit, including altitude, location, crop type and general preparedness.
For some, the fall harvest season had just wrapped up. With business closed until spring, the flooding is a disruption that will eventually retreat. But for others, the devastation is presently incalculable.
Tucked in a slight curve of the Nooksack River, Mariposa Farm lost at least $35,000 worth of produce, including winter squash, carrots, beets, seeds and cover crops, Lopez said. On top of that, there’s damage to the barn, vehicles, equipment and Lopez’s house, which is also on the farm. He’s still taking stock of what can be fixed, what needs to be replaced and how much it will all cost.
Many farms located in floodplains are used to moving quickly when major flooding is in the forecast.
“It’s one of those things as farmers we just know we’re going to have to deal with,” said Peter Bartelheimer, a fourth-generation farmer and owner of Sno-Valley Farms, which produces beef, pork, hay, grain and corn silage near the Snohomish River.
Earlier last week, Bartelheimer started moving equipment and animals to higher ground, triaging property by value. In doing so, he was able to protect his tractors, cattle and pigs.
Still, the flood swept up 700 plastic-wrapped bales of hay. He estimates that they were worth $60 a pop. That’s up to $42,000 in value that just floated away.
Just a few months ago, he had planted around 80 acres of winter canola and winter wheat, crops that he planned to harvest in the summer. Water itself isn’t an issue for his crops, but floodwaters often carry pollutants, which can be harmful. It’s too soon to say what the fate of those fields will be.
Bartelheimer has insurance, but he doesn’t know whether it will cover damage from flooding.
“It could have been so much worse,” he said.
Many were caught off guard by the speed and the severity of the flooding this time around.
On Thursday afternoon, Brian Marchello, operator of Flower World — which produces apples, pears and ornamental plants near the Snohomish River — was moving power tools to a higher floor in the farm building. Suddenly, the water level in the building began to rise rapidly, reaching 3 feet within an hour. He told his staff to leave immediately.
“You’re just in go mode,” he said. After the adrenaline of evacuating subsided, he started to grapple with the potential scale of what might be lost.
For the past two years, Flower World has been preparing to open up a new customer-facing market called Marshland Orchards, where it would sell produce, plants and other farm goods. Visitors would also have the option to pick their own fruit. Marchello had overseen the laying of fresh gravel roads and ordered trailers to transport customers.
All of that was submerged last week. As of Monday morning, the area was still under water.
“A couple years of work vanished in a heartbeat,” he said. Flower World doesn’t have flood insurance, because it’s too expensive for the company.
That’s a common story for farms in Western Washington.
Agriculture in the region largely comprises small, diversified farms that often sell directly to consumers or farmers markets. In King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, farms are typically 30 to 40 acres in size and may produce dozens of different fruits, vegetables and plants, said Campbell. By comparison, operations in Eastern Washington largely focus on a single commodity and can run up to 500 acres.
Between the volatility of revenue and the smaller scale of business, buying flood insurance doesn’t pencil out for farms.
“The euphemism is ‘being self-insured,’” said Petrina Fisher, owner of Skylight Farms, which produces leeks, carrots, beets, lettuce and other vegetables. The farm covers20 acres near the Snohomish River.
She has commercial liability insurance, which is a general form of insurance that protects businesses from lawsuits and operational risks. It does not cover flooding.
“For people who live in flood-prone areas, the cost of flood insurance reflects that,” she said. When Fisher was just starting out, she was quoted $40,000 for one flood insurance policy, a number that would have pulled her into the red.
After all, she only makes a couple thousand dollars in profit each year from her farm, which sells directly to customers through a business model known as community-supported agriculture. She packs whatever she grows into boxes, which go directly to buyers. Fisher works full-time as development manager at Washington Farmland Trust; farming is supposed to bring in supplementary income.
Not this year. The flooding destroyed virtually all the crops she had in the field, and now she has to pay for repairs.
Farms also have the option to buy crop insurance, an additional layer of protection against lost revenue from events like failed plantings, crop failures and natural disasters like flooding. But like flood insurance, it’s often out of reach for smaller farms, said Campbell.
That’s because it requires detailed documentation of lost revenue, which is easier to estimate for farms growing large volumes of one or two crops, rather than smaller farms growing many differently valued products.
Some farmers never got around to buying flood insurance simply because they never expected to be flooded.
Shelley Pasco, owner of Whistling Train Farm in Kent near Green River, has been a farmer for 25 years. She grows vegetables that she sells directly to customers through her CSA.
The lowest point of her property floods by about 6 inches every year.
But on Thursday morning, she noticed that the water kept rising beyond that point. Though she continuously monitored the gauges and outflow at the dam online, Fisher never received an evacuation order. At 3 a.m. on Sunday, the water started coming up fast, covering her driveway, and eventually entering her house. In a rush to evacuate, she couldn’t find her cats.
On Tuesday afternoon, she was able to check on her house and found one of them, Merlin Sheldrake. The other, Todd, is still missing.
Beyond the distress, she estimates that it’ll cost at least $50,000 to clean up, to repair or replace machinery and to disinfect her home
She’s also worried about the health of her soil. High-quality soil is typically dense with nutrients, she explained, and getting oversaturated for too long can disrupt its delicate balance of bacteria, microbes and other components.
“I’m worried about all the things I need to farm and live.”
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