January 15, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Oregon farm regulators
approve dairy expansions
3
Oregon expects to issue new
industrial hemp licenses
makes pot users high.
Instead, advocates say
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The Oregon Department can be used to make cloth-
of
Agriculture expects to ing, food, rope, cosmetics,
dating
its
overall
Clean
Water
Proposals to increase herd
Act permit for CAFOs, which resume issuing licenses to plastics and other products.
will require other facilities to JURZLQGXVWULDOKHPSLQ They’ve long said hemp
sizes proved controversial
also comply with these mea- by the end of February, but could replace cotton or petro-
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
some problems continue to leum in some uses.
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Capital Press
Ag researchers say some
Friends of Family Farmers, dog the new crop.
The state issued 11 hemp conventional farmers might
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Oregon farm regulators
mitted comments about water OLFHQVHV LQ EHIRUH FXW- eventually be interested in
have cleared the expansion
quality concerns, is heartened ting off the process in August. growing hemp as a rotational
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that soil tests will check specif- Nine of the licensees planted crop, but for now the market
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ically for nitrates and that sam- a crop and three harvested a appears to involve small-
erations” over the objections
ples will now be taken more product, said Lindsay Eng, scale farmers who want to
of vegans and animal welfare
frequently, which is aimed at ODA’s program manager. But process hemp themselves to
proponents.
preventing excessive nutrient the crops of two other grow- make lotions or other prod-
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
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ers, one in Grants Pass and ucts.
buildup.
ies requested that the Oregon Arlene Webb, an opponent of several proposed dairy expansions
Eng said details in Ore-
“Those were all issues we one in Bend, are embargoed
Department of Agriculture ap- in Oregon, speaks during a Sept. 2 hearing in Salem, Ore., in this
KDGÀDJJHG:HZHUHPDNLQJ because the plants exceeded gon’s hemp law may need
prove changes to their waste &DSLWDO3UHVV¿OHSKRWRV7KH2UHJRQ'HSDUWPHQWRI$JULFXOWXUH
sure they weren’t engaged in the .3 percent THC limit re- tweaking by the Legislature
management plans, with four UHJXODWHV&RQ¿QHG$QLPDO)HHGLQJ2SHUDWLRQVXQGHUWKHIHGHUDO
a rubber-stamp exercise,” said quired under state law, Eng when it meets in February.
of those facilities seeking to Clean Water Act and has now approved the expansions.
Ivan Maluski, the group’s pol- said. The crops will have to $ VHFWLRQ UHTXLULQJ DFUH
increase their herds.
icy director. “I think it’s en- be destroyed or remediated hemp plots causes some
While such requests are antibiotic usage are outside its to test soil nutrients annual- couraging they included our in some way, she said, per- growers problems, as does a
usually routine, the expansion jurisdiction in enforcing the O\LQVWHDGRIHYHU\¿YH\HDUV suggestions.”
haps by using the plant stalks requirement that the plants
proposals attracted the atten- federal Clean Water Act.
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Any new regulatory re- ZLWKRXWWKHÀRZHUVRUVHHGV be directly seeded instead of
tion of critics who complained
“Most of the comments cally check the soil’s nitrate quirements create challenges
Industrial hemp is related started in greenhouse pots. In
the larger dairies will increase were not pertinent to our per- levels, in addition to total ni- for dairies, particularly smaller to marijuana, but doesn’t con- addition, it’s hard to obtain
pollution, harm air quality, mit,” said Wym Matthews, trogen and phosphorous levels. ones without many employees, tain nearly the level of THC, seed, Eng said. Canada is the
spur more antibiotic usage and manager of the agency’s
Dairies were previously but producers tend to be agile the chemical compound that most common source.
lead to animal welfare abuses. CAFO program, noting that required to only check for to- in meeting such standards,
Many of these objections this fact probably won’t ap- tal nitrogen and phosphorous, said Tammy Dennee, assistant
were heard during an ODA pease critics. “They probably but they must now break out director of the Oregon Dairy
public meeting in September will not be happy with our re- nitrates because federal stan- Farmers Association,
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dards set limits for that partic-
As for the controversy over
ted written comments about
However, the agency will ular soluble nutrient in drink- the expansions, Dennee said
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impose new conditions on the ing water, said Matthews.
it’s hard to say whether to ex-
In a response to comments, ¿YHGDLULHVZKLFKDUHORFDWHG
While these conditions will pect similar objections in the
ODA explained that it’s role is in Tillamook, Marion, Coos FXUUHQWO\DSSO\RQO\WRWKH¿YH future.
limited to water quality con- and Klamath counties.
dairies that requested waste
“Unfortunately, it was
cerns. Complaints about air
,Q ¿HOGV ZKHUH PDQXUH LV management plan changes, much to do about very little,”
quality, animal welfare and applied, the dairies will have ODA is in the process of up- she said.
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Okanogan Farm Bureau leader: Treatment
of Hammonds ‘outrageous, hypocritical’
By DAN WHEAT
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Ranches in several parts of
the county lost private timber,
grazing grounds, hay, barns
and equipment to agency
backburning that ranchers op-
posed.
Kuchenbuch, her husband,
Casey, and her father, Rod
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last summer and begged them
not to backburn 1,000 acres of
their private land.
The agency did it anyway
to protect homes but jeopardiz-
ing people and livestock and
destroying Haeberle Ranch
timber, miles of fencing, the
family’s mountain cabin and a
set of corrals.
“We were told afterward
that there is no restitution for
our losses,” Kuchenbuch said.
Backburning is so touchy
that agencies don’t talk about
it on their radios, rather com-
mands are given in person, she
said.
The homes could have
been protected had the USFS
allowed the Kuchenbuchs and
Gebbers Farms to continue
EXLOGLQJ D ¿UHEUHDN IURP SUL-
vate ranch land onto USFS
property, she said. But the
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offensively, only defended
homes, she said.
The USFS has said it
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not safe to do so but that its
goal in the Okanogan was to
put them out.
Protecting towns was the
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were spread so thin that rural
residents were left to fend for
themselves in many places,
Kuchenbuch said.
When that happens, they
don’t have time to wonder
whether a backburn they do or
other efforts are legal, she said.
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grouse and wolves. The En-
dangered Species Act. Some-
times they pay 10 times the
market value and every parcel
sold jeopardizes those left,”
Kuchenbuch said.
“We do not trust that they
will leave people alone, as
witnessed with the Hammond
family,” she said.
A couple dozen ranches
have been burned out by wild-
¿UHV WKDW EXUQHG PRUH WKDQ
million acres of Okanogan
County in the past two sum-
mers. State and federal graz-
ing allotments cover 50 to 80
percent of that, Jack Field,
executive vice president of the
Washington Cattlemen’s As-
sociation, has said. Ranchers
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ing land. One-third of 600,000
acres burned in the Okanogan,
Tunk Block and North Star
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agency backburning, Okan-
ogan County Commissioner
Jim DeTro has said.
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3-1/#17
OKANOGAN, Wash. —
It’s “outrageous and hypocrit-
ical” that the federal govern-
ment imprisoned two Oregon
ranchers for a backburn that
got away from them and
burned a little over 100 acres
of public land while federal
and state agencies backburned
thousands of acres of private
land in Okanogan County last
summer and were not held ac-
countable, the president of the
Okanogan County Farm Bu-
reau says.
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security is America’s ability to
feed itself. There is nothing
more important. America has
to stop the war on agriculture,”
said Nicole Kuchenbuch, 36,
Okanogan County Farm Bu-
reau president.
“If this nation’s farmers
and ranchers are forced out
of business, America has suc-
ceeded in staging her own
famine,” Kuchenbuch said.
“The media tendency is to
turn things into racial or so-
cio-economic issues and vilify
ranchers as a bunch of igno-
rant honkies. It’s important to
realize the American govern-
ment is oppressive to all colors
of people and everyone just
wants to be free, healthy and
prosperous,” she said.
Incidents such as ranchers
and militia occupying a sea-
sonally closed national wild-
life refuge near Burns, Ore.,
happen when people feel so
“abused” by government that
“they feel they have no other
choice,” Kuchenbuch said.
“I don’t agree with having
a standoff, but they captured
the attention of the United
States,” she said.
The re-sentencing of Har-
ney County, Ore., ranchers
Dwight and Steven Ham-
PRQG WR ¿YH \HDUV LQ SULVRQ
is just one of many examples
throughout ranching areas of
the West in the last several de-
cades of the heavy handedness
of federal agencies in acquir-
ing more land and squeezing
out ranches to satisfy environ-
mentalists who want a nation-
al park from the Yukon to Yel-
lowstone, Kuchenbuch said.
The government agencies
deny squeezing ranches.
It’s not coincidence that
agencies have bought many
Okanogan County ranches and
that there have been problems
between the government and
ranchers in Nevada and other
Western states, she said.
“We believe they are sys-
tematically squeezing us out.
They use every means possi-
ble. Direct buyouts, conser-
ROP-32-52-2/#17
Capital Press