January 23, 2015
CapitalPress.com
3
Idaho case could impact dairies nationwide
Capital Press
A ruling by a federal judge
in a lawsuit alleging a Yaki-
ma, Wash., dairy violated the
Resource Conservation and
Recover Act could have sig-
nificant implications for dairy
operations nationwide.
U.S. District Judge Thom-
as Rice, on Jan. 14, applied
the federal law governing the
disposal of solid waste and
hazardous waste to manure
handling, an application that
has never been assigned in
RCRA’s near 40-year history.
The ruling could change
the way dairies and other
livestock operations handle,
store and apply animal waste,
requiring practices that could
prove economically unviable.
In denying Cow Palace
Dairy’s motion for summary
judgment in its favor, Rice
ruled its storage, handling
and application of manure,
which allowed nitrate to leak
into soils and contributed to
groundwater contamination,
constitutes “open dumping”
of “solid waste” that may
present an “imminent and
substantial” danger to the
public, in violation of RCRA
regulations.
The lawsuit brought by
Community Association for
Restoration of the Environ-
ment and the Center for Food
Safety in February 2013 is not
the first to allege livestock op-
erations violated RCRA, but
it is the first ruling to apply
RCRA to manure, said lead
attorney for Cow Palace, Deb
Governor seeks to expand
Oregon’s GMO authority
Farm regulators
could establish
‘control areas’
for biotech crops
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A bill proposed by Or-
egon Gov. John Kitzhaber
seeks to expand the authority
of state farm regulators over
genetically en-
gineered crops.
Until now,
the
Oregon
Department of
Agriculture’s
power to reg-
ulate geneti-
cally modified Kitzhaber
organisms ended
when the USDA lifted federal
restrictions on them.
Legislation introduced at
Kitzhaber’s request — Sen-
ate Bill 207 — would allow
the department to establish
“control areas” to separate
biotech crops from organic
and conventional crops if the
agency determines it’s “nec-
essary to avoid conflicts”
from cross-pollination.
Under state law, control
areas are intended to protect
crops from pests, diseases
and noxious weeds.
The ODA can create con-
trol areas for biotech crops
if the USDA regulates them
as potential plant pests, but
the state agency loses the
authority once they’re deter-
mined not to pose that risk.
However,
lawmakers
have specifically allowed
ODA to extend that control
area authority to canola.
Seed farmers in Oregon’s
Willamette Valley fear that
canola could cross-pollinate
with related crops and ruin
their market.
SB 207 would amend that
statutory language to include
control area authority for ge-
netically engineered crops.
The proposed bill re-
quires the agency to specify
the types of crops that are
regulated within the bound-
aries of control areas or ex-
cluded from them.
ODA must be “reason-
able and just” in how it uses
the authority and conduct a
“careful investigation” be-
fore creating control areas,
according to the bill.
Oregonians for Food
and Shelter plans to oppose
the legislation in its current
form, said Paulette Pyle,
grass roots director for the
agribusiness industry group.
ODA’s control area au-
thority was intended for
managing diseases and pests,
not biotech crops, she said.
“For now, it’s a no go for
us,” Pyle said. “Right now,
we don’t see any need for
it.”
Kitzhaber likely proposed
the bill to assuage GMO crit-
ics who opposed legislation
he introduced in 2013 that
pre-empted most local gov-
ernment from regulating ge-
netically engineered crops,
she said.
“He’s trying to make the
organic folks feel protect-
ed because they feel like
they’re not right now,” Pyle
said, noting that any bill will
be subject to amendments.
“We’re all going to be in-
volved.”
Richard
Whitman,
Kitzhaber’s natural resourc-
es policy director, said he’s
still consulting with mem-
bers of the governor’s task
force on genetic engineering
and other industry stake-
holders about GMO legisla-
tion.
The final language of the
bill hasn’t yet been nailed
down, but the basic con-
cept is to create a voluntary
process to resolve conflicts
between farmers who grow
organic, conventional and
biotech crops, Whitman
said.
The system would not be
foisted upon growers with-
out their agreement, he said.
“It’s not really trying to
dictate a particular result,”
Whitman said. “That should
be dictated by the people on
the ground.”
Friends of Family Farm-
ers, which supports stronger
biotech regulation, believes it
would be a good idea to make
clear that ODA retains the
ability to create control areas
for genetically engineered
crops after they’re deregulat-
ed by USDA.
“That seems like an im-
portant clarification of the
agency’s authority,” said Ivan
Maluski, its policy director.
Maluski said he can’t
comment on a possible vol-
untary coexistence process
for growers of biotech, or-
ganic and conventional crops
because he has not seen the
actual legislative language.
Any coexistence measures
between farmers are already
voluntary, he said. “I’m not
sure how it would be differ-
ent from the current system.”
Kristensen of Givens Pursley,
a Boise law firm..
She said manure was nev-
er intended to be covered un-
der RCRA, which has been
around since the ‘70s. EPA
has never gone after a farm
or dairy under RCRA, and
the application of RCRA to
manure has never before pre-
vailed in court, she said.
“This is the first case that
says that can happen,” she
said.
“It’s a precedent-setting
case,” said Bob Naerebout,
executive director of Idaho
Dairymen’s Association.
The application of RCRA
to manure could impact live-
stock operations nationwide,
regardless of size.
Kristensen agrees, saying
attorneys for environmental
groups are likely looking at
the judge’s ruling and deter-
mining “who they can go af-
ter.”
Rice ruled that RCRA
does not apply to agricultural
wastes to the extent the wastes
are “returned to the soil as fer-
tilizer or soil conditioners.”
Manure applied as fertilizer
is not considered “discarded
materials” under the act.
But, he noted that in ear-
lier rulings “this court found
that manure could plausibly
be considered ‘solid waste’
— as a legal matter — when
it is over-applied to fields and
managed and stored in ways
that allow it to leak into the
soil because at that point, the
manure is no longer ‘useful’
or ‘beneficial’ as a ‘fertiliz-
er.’”
Rice ruled that Cow Pal-
ace’s over-application of ma-
nure to fields, untethered to
the dairy’s nutrient manage-
ment plan and without regard
to the fertilization needs of the
crops, transforms the manure
to a “solid waste” without a
beneficial use and constitutes
a discard of the manure.
Rice also ruled the dairy’s
leaking lagoons — even as-
suming they were constructed
pursuant to Natural Resources
Conservation Service stan-
dards, which allow for per-
meability — convert what
otherwise would be a benefi-
cial product into a solid waste
under RCRA because the ma-
nure is knowingly abandoned
to the underlying soil.
Likewise, Rice ruled ma-
nure in the dairy’s unlined
compost area is a discarded
solid waste under RCRA,
leaching nutrients into the soil
and not being used for its ben-
eficial purpose as a fertilizer.
“Accordingly, a reasonable
trier-of-fact, given the evi-
dence presented, could come
to no other conclusion than
that the dairy’s operations
are contributing to the high
nitrate levels that are current-
ly contaminating — and will
continue to contaminate as
nitrate present below the root
zone continues to migrate —
the underlying groundwater,”
Rice ruled.
Trial is set for March
23 and will primarily ad-
dress remedies, impacts to
surface water and the de-
gree of liability of various
defendants.
High-tech cherry lines to keep growing
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE,
Wash.
— The West Coast cherry
industry has been revolution-
ized by electronic sizers and
sorters in the past two years
and packers will install many
more in the next two years, a
leading manufacturer says.
“I’m more than 25 years
in this business and I’ve
never seen such a revolution
in any other commodity in
which we work. This is very
fast,” said Luca Montanari,
vice president of Unitec,
Lugo, Italy.
Montanari spoke to sever-
al hundred tree fruit growers
at the North Central Wash-
ington Stone Fruit Day at the
Wenatchee Convention Cen-
ter, Jan. 20.
The rush to high-tech pack-
ing lines for cherries is be-
cause they pay for themselves
in about three seasons and in
the long run make packers a
lot more money than conven-
tional sizers, Montanari said.
It takes half the workforce
to operate an electronic sys-
tem at 18 tons per hour than
a traditional system, saving
$847,000 in a season, he said.
Another $756,000 is saved
by more accurate sizing of
fruit since there’s a wider dif-
ference in price between sizes
in cherries than other fruit, he
said.
But even greater savings is
realized by improved quality
of reduced bruising and better
appearance with longer shelf
life, he said. Those savings
are harder to quantify and not
readily shared by packers, he
said.
The computerized elec-
tronic system takes multiple
images of each piece of fruit
within fractions of seconds
and sorts for size, color and
internal and external defects.
It detects softness and sugar
content inside a cherry that
the human eye cannot see.
The result is a more consistent
pack, adjustable for size and
quality.
Unitec’s system has patent-
ed rotation of each cherry for
better imaging in sizing and
sorting. Unitec has installed
1,025 red and Rainier cherry
lines throughout the world.
The first electronic cherry
sizer was installed in Spain in
2002, Montanari said. The first
in Chile was in 2006 and the
first in the United States was in
2012, he said.
The systems have been
steadily improving and ex-
panding. OG Packing in
Stockton, Calif., added 32
4-2/#17
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Cherries ride conveyors into Unitec electronic sizer and defect
sorters “the big blue units” at Washington Fruit & Produce’s new
cherry packing plant in Yakma, Wash., June 13.
lanes to a 40-lane Unitec
electronic system a year ago,
making it the largest in the
world.
Northern Fruit in East
Wenatchee installed the first
in Washington state in 2012.
Stemilt installed one in
2013 and added a second in
Wenatchee and one at its plant
in Stockton in 2014.
“This year, we deliver a
40-lane system to Starr Ranch
Growers in Wenatchee and
they already have a 20-lane
system,” Montanari said.
Beside Unitec there are at
least three other manufactur-
ers who have installed about
two dozen electronic systems
for numerous West Coast
cherry packers. Unitec has in-
stalled half or more of them,
said B.J. Thurlby, president of
Northwest Cherry Growers,
an industry trade association
in Yakima.
A traditional bin dumper
is much rougher on cherries
than bin dumpers in the new
systems, Montanari said.
Gentler drops of water flumes
carrying the cherries through
the first part of the packing
line also reduces bruising, he
said.
The best mechanical sizer
can have up to a 25-percent
error rate while electronic siz-
ing has 1 to 4 percent errors, he
said.
Human sorters get tired and
miss defects while the elec-
tronic eye does not, he said.
In 2014, Chile exported
85,000 tons of cherries with
95 percent of them electron-
ically sized and sorted, Mon-
tanari said. Total U.S. produc-
tion was 326,000 tons in 2014
with 60 percent electronically
handled, he said, predicting
330,000 tons and 70 percent
for 2015.
4-4/#6