WENATCHEE (Washington) WORLD

June 12, 2008

One last season for cherry camp
New migrant housing project near Malaga will replace site near Pangborn airport

By Dan Wheat
World staff writer

EAST WENATCHEE — The Pangborn Cherry Harvest Camp opens Monday for its last season.

Funded by the state and operated by Douglas County, the camp provides housing for up to 350 migrant cherry workers, mostly pickers.

The county and state are reaching the end of a five-year contract. County commissioners don't want the camp there longer because they believe camps should be closer to the orchards they serve.

That is being accomplished with construction of new migrant housing south of Malaga by the Yakima-based Washington Growers League and the Chelan County-Wenatchee Housing Authority.

The Growers League represents growers in labor and farmworker safety, health and housing issues.

It plans to open the first phase of its facility, with beds for 126 people, in August, run it for a year and then most likely start on housing for another 126 beds, said Jesse Lane, Growers League housing program manager. With the Housing Authority building 128- to 160-bed facilities next door, eventually the entire complex will more than replace the Pangborn camp, Lane said.

But there is need for even more housing, he said.

The 380-bed migrant farmworker camp at Wenatchee River County Park in Monitor, funded by the state and operated by Chelan County, opened Monday and had 52 workers checked in by Tuesday morning, said Edmundo Gonzalez, camp manager. That camp is in the first year of a new five-year state contract.
While the Pangborn camp is solely for cherry harvest, the Monitor camp stays open until Nov. 1, virtually to the end of apple harvest.

Tuesday, workers were finishing putting up a dining tent at the Pangborn camp, 711 S. Union Ave., near Pangborn Memorial Airport. They were installing appliances in the kitchen and moving refrigerators into 50 tents that each house up to seven people. The 14-by-20-foot tents are made of fire-resistant vinyl and sit on concrete slabs. The tents have cots, plastic totes for food and clothing storage and picnic tables out front.

The state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development reimburses the counties to run the camps. The department reimburses Douglas County about $425,000 a year to run the Pangborn camp and leases the land from the Port of Douglas County for another $140,000 a year.

At the end of this cherry season at the Pangborn camp, tents will be taken down, the state will remove its modular buildings and the county will take out the concrete slabs, said Robert Knowles, camp manager.

Lane said the Growers League has a $2 million state grant and is borrowing $1 million to build the first phase of its Malaga project. The league plans to recoup costs and make the operation self-sustaining by charging growers $9 per night per bed, he said.

The league had hoped to have the first phase done in time for this cherry harvest, but construction fell behind schedule, he said.

The facility will include 21 modular cabins with heating and air conditioning that each house six people. Foundations have been poured and walls are going up for a kitchen, dining facility, laundry area, restrooms and a manager's residence.
It's the league's first migrant camp of structural housing. "We decided to get into it because the need was there and no one else was making a move," Lane said.
The league operates a tent rental program for migrants, mainly cherry workers, under a contract with the state. The league rented 250 tents to growers last year and will rent 326 this year.