NORTH BY NORTHWEST: 70 year old manufacturing business leaving Northern California for Boise, Idaho.

It’s the end of an era. Price Pump has grown and thrived in Sonoma for 70 years. But before the end of this year, the manufacturer of high-tech pumps will pull up stakes and move its headquarters – lock, stock and pump – to Boise, Idaho.

“It has simply become too difficult and too costly to run a manufacturing business in Sonoma Valley,” said Price Pump President Bob Piazza.

“To pick up and move is traumatic,” he acknowledged. “Some of our employees have worked here for 45 years.

Piazza, 74, shares the emotions of his employees. He has lived in California his whole life and he will also move with his wife of 53 years to Idaho.

“I don’t love change,” he said, “But the way things are going, we don’t have a choice.”

Exit quote: “The government has all these progressive ideas but those measures have consequences… and the consequence here is us moving to Idaho.”

Who knew that such bad luck could come to beautiful Sonoma?