Lifelong rancher discusses agricultural lands, climate impacts, more

COEUR d'ALENE — Kootenai County lost 23% of its farmland from 2017 to 2022 as the population continued to grow.

“If this trajectory continues, there could be no farmland in Kootenai County in 20 years," lifelong farmer, rancher and Rathdrum resident Laurin Scarcello said, speaking at the Coeur d'Alene Rotary Club's Friday meeting at The Coeur d'Alene Resort.

"I find that unacceptable," he said.

This bodes ill for North Idaho and the very thing protecting the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer: Soil.

"Soil is your filter," Scarcello said. "You also need to think about soil as your reservoir, because soil or organic matter traps moisture. An inch of topsoil spread out over an acre holds like 7,000 gallons of water."

“Soil is everything,” he said. “That’s your life. Soil isn’t much good without water, of course. But we are taught to value that resource, bar none. It’s the foundation of everything.”

He said researchers at the University of Idaho are working to understand plant density and water retention.

"I recently attended a soil symposium and the main topic was, 'It's not the rain you get; it's the rain you keep,' which, more and more, rain is getting to be a factor," Scarcello said. "We used to have timely, sustainable, general rains. Now we exist more on sporadic showers."

Storms that do come through the region are often accompanied by extreme winds, he said. Weather is a main topic at Farm Service meetings, Scarcello said, as it impacts crop success and failure, crop insurance and overall yields.

When farmland is lost, or just one producer is no longer able to produce, it has a domino effect, Scarcello said.

"We can no longer act like water is an unlimited resource," he said, quoting Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke's words in a November 2024 Press opinion.

Scarcello said climate is a little like religion, with its believers and deniers.

"But it is a fact, it’s quite real," he said. "This year is a prime example of that. This is our fifth drought in 10 years; 2015 and 2021 were megadroughts and I said all along this year was every bit as dry as those megadroughts, partially because during ’21 and 2015, the inflow to Fish Creek, which is a primary inflow of Twin Lakes, was 3 cubic feet per second.

“That’s exactly where we are today,” he said. "This is serious stuff."

The U.S. is on a trajectory similar to the Dust Bowl era, he said. Droughts run in cycles, but as they return to "normal" levels, those normal levels are not so normal. It's not a favorable trend, he said.

"We see this in the Twin Lakes drainage, that our snowpacks are not as resilient, they're not as dense and the timing of the melt," Scarcello said.

Scarcello serves on several boards, including the Kootenai-Shoshone Soil and Water Conservation District, Kootenai County Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer Protection District, Kootenai-Shoshone Farm Bureau, Kootenai Stockmen’s Association, the Kootenai-Shoshone 4-H Stock Sale Committee and the Farm Service Agency board of the USDA Department of Agriculture, among others. He also runs a calf and cattle operation on his 113-year-old ranch.

He said one doesn't have to look far to find issues with the aquifer, which is closely tied to farmland and open space.

"This is a gravity-based water system — you get out of it what you put in," he said. "More and more we are increasingly reliant on the resiliency of a resource, being the aquifer, that may become increasingly less (reliable), in terms of our snowpack or in terms of our drought, temperatures, evaporation, wildfires, etc."

"To continue as if our watersheds and aquifers are too big to fail is shortsighted at best," Scarcello said. "We need now more than ever to think long term and be proactive, not reactive."

    Laurin Scarcello shared this image from Rathdrum Mountain that shows houses encroaching on farmland across the Rathdrum Prairie.