COSMIC CRISP APPLE TREE ORDERS SKYROCKET Page 5
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
EPA head
‘distressed’
by What’s
Upstream
campaign
Feds to investigate
advocacy campaign
By DON JENKINS
VOLUME 89, NUMBER 17
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
USING EVERY DROP OF USDA
faulted
for
biotech
loophole
WATER
Current regulations
limited to plant pests
Capital Press
The Environmental Pro-
tection Agency has suspend-
ed funding What’s Upstream,
as the Offi ce of the Inspector
General probes whether the
advocacy cam-
paign broke any
laws.
EPA Admin-
istrator
Gina
McCarthy told
the Senate En-
vironment and
Gina
Public Works
McCarthy
Committee on
Tuesday that
her agency was “distressed”
by the campaign.
“We have put a halt to any
reimbursements of funds,”
she said. “We have told our
contractor (the Northwest In-
dian Fisheries Commission)
we need to have a full discus-
sion and review before addi-
tional monies are spent.”
The EPA has fi nanced
What’s Upstream since 2011
with grants to the fi sheries
commission, a consortium
of 20 Washington tribes. The
media campaign was de-
veloped by the Swinomish
Indian tribe, Seattle public
relations fi rm Strategies 360
and several environmental
groups.
The ongoing campaign
seeks to rally public support
for stricter regulations on
Washington state agriculture.
The campaign’s tactics and
claims have angered farm
groups and some federal law-
makers.
At a hearing on EPA’s bud-
get, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.,
said the campaign’s website
and billboards have “villain-
ized farmers and ranchers.”
Fischer compared What’s
Upstream to the EPA’s stealth
promotion of its new Waters
of the United States rule. The
Government Accountability
Offi ce concluded last year the
effort was an unauthorized
use of federal money.
“The fi nancial assistance
that your agency gave to
fund this lobbying campaign
(What’s Upstream) is a bla-
tant violation of federal law,”
Fischer told McCarthy.
“At what point did your
agency become aware of the
misuse of the EPA funds for
the What’s Upstream cam-
paign and what role did EPA
have in reviewing that bill-
board and website?” Fischer
asked.
$2.00
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Recharging, recycling
among steps taken to
ensure water supplies
By TIM HEARDEN, SEAN ELLIS
and MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Aquifer recharge basics
Recharging an aquifer requires getting more water into the ground
than is taken out. The most common forms of recharge occur
naturally and artificially:
Natural recharge
Rain, snowmelt and streamflow
soaks into the ground and
underlying aquifer
Snowmelt
Precipitation
A
s El Nino was producing some power-
ful storms this winter, offi cials from a
water district serving farms just outside
Sacramento got an idea.
They opened the gates of a swelling Cache Creek
and let the fl ood waters fl ow into the Yolo Coun-
ty Flood Control and Water Conservation District’s
system of irrigation
canals.
The canals’ dirt
lining is porous
enough to allow the
water to seep into the
aquifers, recharging a
groundwater supply
that’s becoming more
and more important
to growers.
“Normally in win-
tertime they keep the
side gates closed,”
said Rachael Long,
a University of Cal-
Courtesy City of Pendleton
ifornia Cooperative Bob Patterson, public works direc-
Extension farm ad- tor in Pendleton, Ore., stands next
viser in Yolo County. to Aquifer Storage and Recovery
The project is one Well No. 4. The well head and the
of many throughout 250 horsepower pump motor are
the West aimed at next to him.
making the most of
every drop of precipitation that falls on farms and cit-
ies as it becomes clear that the West’s ambitious state
and federal water projects no longer meet every need,
as they used to.
On a grand scale, the West’s massive water proj-
ects — from the Snake River’s 25 dams to Califor-
nia’s iconic Central Valley Project and State Water
Project — aim to take water where and when it’s wet
and use it where and when it’s dry. But population
growth, drought and environmental regulations have
exposed the projects’ limitations.
Turn to WATER, Page 12
Streamflow
Lake
Artificial recharge
Recharge ponds are the most common method of artificial
recharge. Large surface basins are flooded with water that
slowly infiltrates the soil and underlying aquifer.
Recharge ponds
Water source
Injection wells use high-pressure
pumps to force water into
underground aquifers.
Pump station
Injection well
Source: Stanford University
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
“ The key to aquifer storage and recovery is it doesn’t work everywhere. ”
Bob Patterson, the Pendleton, Ore., public works director
Turn to EPA, Page 13
A gauge shows the depth of water in the Warner Basin in Anaheim, Calif., one of the Orange County Water District’s ground-
water recharge basins. The district is responsible for managing the vast groundwater basin that provides most of northern
and central Orange County’s drinking water.
Courtesy of Calif. Dept. of Water Resources
The U.S. Government Ac-
countability Offi ce has faulted
the USDA for regulating only
those biotech crops contain-
ing genes from plant pests.
Current USDA biotech
restrictions only apply
when genetic material from
a plant pest, such as a bacte-
ria or virus, is inserted into
the crop.
Plants modified with
gene editing and other al-
ternative methods, howev-
er, are not subject to USDA
oversight during field trials
or deregulation procedures
that involve environmental
analysis.
A recent report from GAO
said the approach has resulted
in “a gap in USDA’s current
regulatory coverage” that’s
persisted even though the
agency’s had the authority to
update its genetic engineering
rules for years.
“USDA acknowledges that
its regulations overseeing GE
crops have not kept pace with
these technological develop-
ments and do not cover all GE
crops,” the GAO report said.
While the USDA plans to
propose new regulations for
biotechnology by September
2016, the GAO said the lack
of a timeline with fi rm mile-
stones will make it hard for
managers to track the agen-
cy’s progress.
The Biotechnology In-
dustry Organization, which
represents developers, isn’t
commenting on the GAO’s
conclusions until it’s done re-
viewing the recent report, said
Karen Batra, its director of
communications.
Critics of the government’s
rules for genetically modifi ed
organisms are skeptical that
USDA’s plans will actually
result in stricter oversight.
“They want to get out of
the business of regulating
these crops,” said Bill Fre-
ese, science policy analyst for
the Center for Food Safety, a
nonprofi t that’s critical of US-
DA’s biotech regulations.
In a response letter to
GAO, USDA Secretary Tom
Vilsack said he disagreed with
the report’s characterizations
of new technology as “inher-
ently more risky” and the “in-
correct impression” that crops
were able to “escape USDA
regulation” by using alterna-
tive methods.
The agency fi rst determines
that a crop developed with
alternative techniques isn’t a
plant pest before informing de-
velopers that it’s not subject to
regulation, he said.
It’s the characteristics of
the crop — such as its poten-
tial as a plant pest or noxious
weed — that pose a possible
risk, and not the technology
used to develop the variety,
Vilsack said.
Turn to USDA, Page 13
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