(The Center Square) – A Washington state farming advocacy group says a Yakima-based activist organization received nearly $500,000 in Climate Commitment Act funds, and then used the funding for political attacks on farms in the state.
“The reality for Washington drivers is that some of the money they’re paying when they fill up is being funneled directly to activist groups like Yakima-based We Are ELLA, which has made a name for itself by pushing misleading and outright false accusations against farmers,” noted a news release from Save Family Farming.
Save Family Farming Executive Director Ben Tindall explained his group’s position further in a Tuesday interview with The Center Square.
“One of the areas where we kind of saw the red flags in these videos was as they were presenting this manipulative or false message, they would then put the Department of Health logo at the end of their video, which caused us to really question, is this being sponsored by the Department of Health?” he said.
Tindall said they alerted the office of Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and then the Department of Health about the We Are ELLA messaging several months ago, and received a response two weeks ago.
“We finally received a response from the Department of Health, in essence saying they had reviewed the videos in question,” Tindall said. “They reached out to We Are ELLA and they requested that those videos be removed or adjusted to remove the logo.”
“And they are assuring us that they did not sponsor this while, at the same time, acknowledging We Are ELLA did receive a grant for nearly half a million dollars to craft videos and in their words ‘community storytelling around issues of environmental justice,'” Tindall added.
He said DOH confirmed the agency was aware that some of the footage or material that was being produced through the grant was going to be used for some of the subsequent material that was put out.
“The bottom line is that some of the extra cash you spend at the pump, thanks to the state’s fuel surcharges, is being used for political purposes by activist groups hand-picked by the state,” Save Family Farming said in the news release.
“In the case of We Are ELLA, part of your gas budget is being weaponized to falsely attack hardworking WA farmers,” the release stated.
Tindall told The Center Square that DOH told We are ELLA to remove state agency logo’s from their material, but the DOH logo has not been taken down.
In this Facebook post, the DOH logo remains at the end of the video.
“You can still go on their site; their Facebook page or social media and the videos are still up. And again, at the end of that video highlighting these anti-farming lobbyist activities, they’re still splashing up the Department of Health logo.”
The Center Square reached out to We Are ELLA and DOH about the CCA funding and how it was spent. We Are ELLA did not respond. DOH said they could not provide comment by the publication deadline.
Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, who raises bison and grows hay on his ranch, told The Center Square that finding out the state gave an activist group CCA funding that was used to push an anti-agriculture message is not surprising.
“It doesn’t surprise me that somebody has [found] some way to get the money to continue this war,” Dent said. “It’s just so frustrating that we can’t understand where our food comes from, right?”
“The state of Washington just seems to have this war on agriculture. They just want to attack us for everything we do because everything is bad, right?” he added.
“Fertilizer is bad. Any pesticides we use are bad. We can’t have a dairy because we’re going to get in the groundwater,” he said.
Dent said Washington farmers and agriculture producers are struggling with some of the highest suicide rates and crushing financial pressures, forcing many of them to give up.
“We make them do things that other states don’t have to do,” he said. “Our labor costs are like 400% higher than the rest of the country. How are we gonna make any money? This is as bad as agricultural has been in 100 years.”
As previously reported by The Center Square, We Are ELLA came under fire late last year when the group held a raffle giveaway to encourage people to vote in the Nov. 4 general election. The raffle prizes included a television and other high-value giveaways.
Yakima County Republicans said the raffle constituted an “illegal inducement” under state election laws that prohibit giveaways of monetary value connected to ballot activity.
The Yakima County elections manager reviewed the incident and suggested it could be a problem, but the Yakima County Prosecutor declined to file criminal charges, instead issuing a warning letter to We Are ELLA.
