WOLVES: ADVISORY GROUP PONDERS MISSION, DECISION-MAKING

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015
VOLUME 88, NUMBER 51
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
As Congress dithers, parties
become resigned to KBRA’s demise
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore.
— While Congress dithers
over the Klamath Basin’s water
agreements, the parties to the
nearly 6-year-old deals are be-
coming resigned to their likely
collapse at the year’s end.
A panel of federal and
state offi cials, tribal members,
environmentalists and other
participants in the 2010 ac-
cords has set a conference call
for Dec. 28 to discuss termi-
nation of the Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement — an
ominous date for the deals’
proponents and a light at the
end of a long tunnel for their
detractors.
Pacifi Corp, whose plan to
remove its four hydroelectric
dams from the Klamath Riv-
er sparked much of the con-
troversy, is now resuming its
effort to relicense the dams,
company spokesman Bob
Gravely said.
With the Karuk Tribe — a
key water right holder on the
Klamath River — already
having walked away from the
pacts and the Klamath Tribes
signaling their intention to
do so, some of the irrigation
districts that had signed on are
also ready to walk away, said
Greg Addington, the Klamath
Water Users Association’s ex-
ecutive director.
The result could be what
many growers and others in
the basin have been dreading
— a return to drastic irriga-
tion shutoffs and cutbacks and
protracted court battles over
water rights.
“Our members have made
it clear,” said tribal chairman
Don Gentry, whose Klamath
Tribes have the most senior
of water rights in the Upper
Klamath Basin. “We’ve been
honoring the KBRA since
2010. It’s been fi ve years, and
our native fi sheries and Lost
River and shortnose suckers
are in worse condition now
than when we signed the
agreements.
“We agreed to provide wa-
ter at certain levels with the
idea that legislation would
move forward,” he said.
Turn to KBRA, Page 12
TROUBLED
WATERS
Washington dairies
face challenges over
manure-handling practices
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
F
ERNDALE, Wash. —
Whatcom County dairyman
Rich Appel credits his three
manure lagoons with keep-
ing the area’s water clean.
“They are absolute lifesavers to the
environment,” said Appel, who farms
near the Canadian border in northwest-
ern Washington. “They’re just winners.
Lagoons are great.”
Dairy farmers around the state say
much the same thing about lagoons.
And they aren’t the only ones. Lagoons
are the government-sanctioned way to
store manure and keep livestock waste
from fouling streams and aquifers.
That’s why dairy farmers have re-
acted with shock and disbelief at the
idea voiced by critics and regulators
that lagoons are under-regulated envi-
ronmental time bombs, seeping pollut-
ants into groundwater.
The critics’ case was bolstered in
January, when a federal judge, after
sifting through stacks of studies and
confl icting expert opinions, concluded
in a landmark Yakima County lawsuit
that the Cow Palace Dairy’s 9 acres of
lagoons may be the source of excess
nitrates found in the groundwater.
Turn to DAIRY, Page 12
Page 11
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Whatcom County, Wash., dairyman Rich Appel calls his manure lagoons
“lifesavers” for the environment. Manure lagoons are coming more
scrutiny by the Washington Department of Ecology and environmental
groups.
INSIDE
Supreme Court to resolve Clean Water
Page 3
Act confusion
Klamath Basin
restoration
project area
Klamath Basin
watershed
Dams slated
for removal
$2.00
La Pine
58
97
N
138
25 miles
CRATER
LAKE
NATIONAL
PARK
OREGON
97
5
Upper
Klamath
Lake
Klamath Co.
140
Klamath Falls
Crescent
City
139
John C. Boyle Dam
REDWOOD
NATIONAL
PARK
Iron Gate Dam
Copco dams 1 and 2
101
CALIFORNIA
89
Pacific
Ocean
Area in
detail
Eureka
Sources: U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service;
www.klamathrestoration.org
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
299
5
APHIS adopts
permit requirement
for GE wheat trials
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Crop trials of genetically
engineered wheat will re-
quire a permit under a strict-
er testing regimen adopted
by USDA’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service.
Reacting to discoveries
of unauthorized GE wheat
in Oregon in 2013 and in
Montana in 2014 that threat-
ened international markets,
APHIS said the permit
process will allow more
site-specific control over
field tests. Previously, vari-
ety developers were required
only to notify APHIS of tri-
als.
APHIS announced last
fall it was considering a per-
mit requirement and invited
public comment. The agen-
cy’s decision came this past
week.
Pacific Northwest grow-
ers generally agree the
APHIS decision is a reason-
able response given the GE
wheat scare in Eastern Ore-
gon two years ago, but pro-
ducers also are concerned
about increased regulation
and cost associated with per-
mits, said Blake Rowe, CEO
of the Oregon Wheat Com-
mission.
In a news release, APHIS
said the “difference between
authorizing field trials with
permits as opposed to notifi-
cations is small, but import-
ant.”
With permits, APHIS can
apply site-specific require-
ments based on science,
risk, local farming practices
and the “agro-ecology” of
individual fields, the agen-
cy said. The permit struc-
ture will allow APHIS to set
conditions that minimize the
chance GE wheat will spread
or persist in the environ-
ment, according to APHIS.
The agency said wheat
is capable of extended dor-
mancy. In dryland farming
Capital Press File
The federal government will
now require permits for trials of
genetically engineered wheat.
Previously, developers were
required only to notify the gov-
ernment of such fi eld trials.
regions such as Eastern Or-
egon and Eastern Washing-
ton, where there’s little rain,
commonly no irrigation and
where no-till practices pre-
vail, wheat seeds can sur-
vive in the soil more than
two years.
“It can take longer than
two years to assure you’ll not
have volunteer wheat come
up on a trial site when the
trial is finished,” Rowe said.
“I don’t dispute that’s prob-
ably accurate. The length of
time it can persist and come
up as a volunteer is probably
at the heart of it.”
APHIS said the permit
requirement will strengthen
U.S. wheat exports. It can
help prevent “possible unin-
tended mixing” with non-GE
wheat that can damage trade.
Carol
Mallory-Smith,
an Oregon State University
weed scientist, agreed the
APHIS decision is a rea-
sonable response, given the
market concerns.
About 90 percent of the soft
white wheat grown in Oregon
and Washington and about 50
percent of Idaho’s production
are exported to Asia, where it
is milled into fl our for cakes,
crackers and noodles.
Turn to WHEAT, Page 12
Lack of FAA rules
slowing drone
technology
Page 13
Heifer drive beefs up scholarship
Page 10
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