WASHINGTON: VET STUDENTS GET HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE AT LAMBING SCHOOL
FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016
VOLUME 89, NUMBER 12
Feds
divvying up
Willamette
Valley dam
water
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Turn to WATER, Page 12
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
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FOODIE
FOOTHOLD
U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers faces
2017 deadline to
allocate water
Federal regulators are
again delving into the pro-
cess of dividing up roughly
1.6 million acre-feet of wa-
ter stored behind 13 dams
in Oregon’s Willamette
Valley.
Those dams perform
fl ood control during the
rainy winter months but
also hold water during the
spring and summer that’s
designated for joint use by
irrigators, municipalities,
industries, recreationists
and fi sh.
Exactly how much wa-
ter is allocated for each use
is currently undefi ned, but
the T.S. Army Corps of
Engineers — which oper-
ates the dams — is under
an internal deadline to ra-
tion it out by mid-2017.
The agency recent-
ly restarted the earliest
“scoping” phase of the
allocation process, which
involves collecting infor-
mation from the public on
water needs.
Future irrigation de-
mands calculated by the
Oregon Water Resources
Department and Oregon
Department of Agriculture
will be considered by the
Corps.
The process of allocat-
ing the water was previous-
ly undertaken in the 1990s
but was postponed by a “bi-
ological opinion” that ana-
lyzed the impact of dams
on several fi sh protected
under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act, said Mary Anne
Nash, public policy counsel
for the Oregon Farm Bu-
reau.
“It halted the process
while they did that work,”
she said.
Tnder a biological
opinion completed in
2008, the amount of wa-
ter slated for irrigation is
capped at 95,000 acre-
feet, but the Oregon Farm
Bureau and other irrigator
groups hope to increase
agriculture’s share under
the Army Corps’ allocation
process.
Currently, irrigators in
the Willamette Valley have
contracted with the federal
government to use 74,000
acre-feet of the water avail-
able.
Page 4
In a city serious about food,
OSU innovation center is at home
P
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
ORTLAND — An agricultural experiment
station might seem an unlikely resident of
this city’s upscale Pearl District, which has
gone from gritty warehouses and railyards
to gain a self-described “worldwide repu-
tation for urban renaissance.”
But Oregon State Tniversity’s Food Innovation
Center has been perched along Naito Parkway since
2000. And in hindsight, the decision to open the FIC
in what became arguably the foodie capital of the
T.S. seems an inspired choice.
“Lucky, maybe,” laughs Thayne Dutson, who
was dean of OST’s College of Agricultural Sciences
at the time.
Nonetheless, the FIC was OSU’s fi rst foothold in
Portland, where OST and the Tniversity of Oregon
increasingly scrap for attention, money and students.
The FIC may have been the fi rst agricultural exper-
iment station — still its technical designation — to
open in an urban area. It marked a major and con-
tinuing collaboration with the Oregon Department
of Agriculture, which leases space in the FIC for its
marketing, trade and laboratory services.
Staff at the FIC help Northwest food entrepre-
neurs with product development, manufacturing,
safety, packaging, labeling, shelf-life and more. Its
sensory science specialist can measure consum-
er acceptance of new products, and another re-
searcher is working on the use of radio frequen-
cy identifi cation technology (RFID) to track
products as they move from processor to
plate.
Clients range from hundreds of
small entrepreneurs learning how to
take their idea to market, to giant, un-
named food corporations that pay to test
products with sophisticated Portland consum-
ers.
Turn to FOODIE, Page 12
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Sarah Masoni, product development
manager at the Food Innovation Cen-
ter, checks ingredients assembled
for test batches of a granola bar.
Annual budget: $900,000 from
OSU, $550,000 from client fees,
grants and lease payments.
Employees: 10, increasing to
11 this fall. Oregon Dept. of
Agriculture leases roughly half
the building, staffed with 11
marketing and 18 laboratory
services personnel.
Mission: Provide startup food
entrepreneurs and corporate
clients help with product
development, marketing,
packaging, shelf-life, recipe
formulation, consumer
acceptance and food safety.
Location: 1207 N.W. Naito
Parkway, Portland, Ore.
Website: fic.oregonstate.edu
USDA won’t regulate biotech wheat variety
Cultivar modifi ed to
‘knock out’ mildew-
susceptible gene
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A wheat variety rendered mil-
dew-resistant through the targeted
“knockout” of a gene can be commer-
cialized without clearing TSDA regu-
latory hurdles for biotech crops.
The agency’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service has found
that the cultivar doesn’t fall under its
jurisdiction for regulating genetically
engineered crops, which is limited to
possible plant pests and pathogens.
While the wheat was developed
with genetic elements from dis-
ease-causing bacteria, they aren’t
Capital Press fi le
Wheat is shown in this fi le photo. The
Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service has found that a new mildew re-
sistant wheat cultivar doesn’t fall under
its jurisdiction for regulating genetically
engineered crops.
contained in the crop and thus it’s
not subject to TSDA’s deregulatory
process, which includes environ-
mental analysis and public comment,
according to APHIS.
Most biotech crops commonly
grown in the T.S. have undergone de-
regulation, and in some cases, lawsuits
over the adequacy of this process have
delayed their commercialization.
Calyxt, a subsidiary of the biophar-
maceutical company Cellectis, devel-
oped “MLO_KO” wheat with genetic
sequences from bacteria and corn that
remove a gene that suppresses the
plant’s defenses against powdery mil-
dew.
The wheat’s DNA is repaired
during natural cellular processes and
no foreign genetic material remains.
“It does not change the wheat’s
basic biology or produce a plant that
would directly feed on, infect, parasit-
ize, or contaminate plants, or adverse-
ly affect other organisms that are ben-
efi cial to plants,” Calyxt said in a letter
to APHIS.
The gene eliminated by Calyxt is
involved in the plant’s biological pro-
cesses but the mildew fungus also re-
lies on it to “trick” and penetrate the
wheat crop, said Luc Mathis, the com-
pany’s CEO.
Even without the gene, the wheat’s
biology remains unaffected due to
other genes that perform duplicative
roles, he said. “When you remove this
function, the plant behaves normally.”
Though the TSDA has decided the
wheat cultivar can be commercialized,
Mathis said he doesn’t expect the crop
to be sold to farmers until 2022.
Calyxt must first conduct trials to
ensure the trait is reliable in the field
while simultaneously incorporating
the mildew resistance into geograph-
ically suitable wheat varieties, he
said.
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