DESCRIPTION: Chris Ament, on dry land wheat farm of Columbia Basin where he has farmed for 33 years. “I won’t live to get the benefits of the water, but I hope to be able to see it.... If the government handles it right it will be a good thing, but my boy has a good piece of land down in the Yakima valley, he’s a good farmer, plenty of water, good soil, and he can’t make a go of it. Speculators and owners have come in here lately and bought up lots of this land for taxes. Some of it they got for a few cents an acre by way of back irrigation tax. One place over here was owned by a neighbor of mine. He went to Canada, paid his taxes here, but lost his place (160 acres) because of a $9 back payment on irrigation district tax. He never even knew about the tax—2¢ an acre.”