14 CapitalPress.com
June 17, 2016
Ranch’s Petition asks DEA to quit treating industrial hemp like pot
losses to
wolves
continue
to mount
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
LAURIER, Wash. —
Owners of the Diamond M
Ranch in northeastern Wash-
ington state estimate wolves
have cost their operation close
to $200,000 over the last sev-
en to eight years.
The ranch lost half of
that total in 2012, said Jus-
tin Hedrick, a partner in the
ranch with his grandfather,
Len McIrvin, and uncle, Bill
McIrvin.
The state killed seven
wolves in the Wedge Pack in
2012 to stop attacks on the Di-
amond M’s cattle.
Hedrick is also president
of the Stevens County Cattle-
men’s Association. He expects
wolf problems to continue to
be an issue for northeastern
Washington ranchers.
The losses include more
than the deaths of cattle to
depredation, he said.
“Wherever there’s wolves
and cattle in the same pas-
tures, there will be problems,
no way around it,” he said.
On pastures where there
are no wolves, about 1 per-
cent of cows fail to get preg-
nant, Len McIrvin said.
On pastures where wolves
harass the cattle, 15 to 20
percent are not getting preg-
nant, he said.
“It’s one of those hid-
den losses people don’t talk
about,” Len McIrvin said.
“The wolves chase these
cows and they’re so stressed
out they keep the bulls away.
They just aren’t breeding.”
The family has declined
to accept compensation from
the state for their losses.
“Compensation isn’t al-
ways received as goodwill,”
said Donny Martorello, wolf
policy lead at the Washington
Department of Fish and Wild-
life. “There are producers out
there who would rather not
have compensation. They
don’t raise their livestock to
be depredated or losses by
wolves or other large carni-
vores. We completely respect
that and understand it.”
Martorello said the depart-
ment would appreciate a call
to document direct losses —
livestock deaths or injuries.
It’s “just so we know that
event is occurring,” he said.
Martorello said loss esti-
mates can vary depending on
the operation, the livestock
and timing when the producer
goes to market.
“There can be several
thousand dollars tied up in a
single animal,” he said. “That
accumulates quickly.”
“Hidden” or “indirect”
losses are included in the
state’s compensation, Mar-
torello said.
The state ish and wildlife
commission has rules for sit-
uations resulting in “greater
than normal” losses, including
the unknown fate of animals
lost on the landscape believed
to be killed by wolves and
reduced pregnancy rates or
weight loss caused by wolves.
An advisory panel of ive
citizens, including people
with livestock and environ-
mental backgrounds and a
range expert, reviews claims
for indirect losses and makes
a recommendation to the de-
partment for payment or de-
nial.
An independent livestock
assessor works with the de-
partment to determine the val-
ue of the loss.
If a rancher was found to
be eligible for a $200,000 loss
payment, Martorello said he
would receive reimbursement
— eventually.
The state receives $50,000
per year for compensation
from a $10 surcharge on per-
sonalized license plates.
Whatever is unspent rolls
into the next year and car-
ries forward, Martorello said.
Under state law, claims that
exceed that amount can also
roll over into the next year as
more money becomes avail-
able.
A Portland attorney and
a Southern Oregon environ-
mentalist are asking the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Adminis-
tration to take industrial hemp
off the federal government’s
list of controlled substances.
The petition, iled June 13,
is the latest move by people
who believe industrial hemp
could be a viable agricultural
crop if the federal government
didn’t classify it as an illegal
drug. They have long con-
tended hemp can be used to
make food, medicine, cloth-
ing, lotions, construction ma-
terial, oils and other products.
Some states, Oregon
among them, allow licensed
hemp cultivation but keep it
tightly controlled. The peti-
tion notes that 30 other coun-
tries allow hemp cultivation,
including Canada. The peti-
tion letter says state econo-
Capital Press ile
This ile photo shows hemp growing in Oregon’s Willamette Valley
in 2015. A Portland attorney and a Southern Oregon environ-
mentalist are asking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to
take industrial hemp off the federal government’s list of controlled
substances.
mies, the environment and na-
tional security “would greatly
beneit from the re-commer-
cialization of industrial hemp
in domestic agriculture and
manufacturing.”
Industrial hemp is a va-
riety of cannabis, but lacks
the THC level that makes pot
smokers high.
The petition asks the DEA
to declare a cannabis plant is
industrial hemp, not marijua-
na, if its THC level does not
exceed 1 percent. THC is the
substance that gives users a
buzz.
Industrial hemp is low in
THC but has higher levels of
Cannabidiol, or CBD, which
some advocates say can be
used to treat seizures.
West Virginia uses the 1
percent THC content level as
its hemp deinition, while oth-
er states, such as Oregon, say
THC in hemp cannot exceed
0.3 percent.
The petitioners maintain
that keeping the THC limit
so low limits the number of
cannabis varieties that can be
bred and cultivated for traits
that may be desirable in cer-
tain uses or products.
In an attempt to steer
around controversy, the peti-
tioners’ letter to the DEA says
they take no position on the
legalization or decriminaliza-
tion of medical or recreation-
al marijuana, or on whether
CBD has medical uses.
The petition from Oregon
residents is the second to hit
the DEA in June. Earlier, the
Kentucky Hemp Industries
Council filed a petition to
remove hemp plants from
the Controlled Substances
Act.
The chief petitioners are
attorney Courtney Moran,
of Portland, and Andy Kerr,
a figure from Oregon’s spot-
ted owl timber wars who
now heads an Ashland con-
servation entity called the
Larch Company. Others
among the two dozen co-pe-
titioners include the North
American Industrial Hemp
Council, Oregon state Rep.
Floyd Prozanski of Eugene,
and Anndrea Hermann, a Ca-
nadian cannabis and hemp
technologies consultant who
also teaches an industrial
hemp course in the College
of Forestry’s Wood Science
Engineering Department at
Oregon State University.
Washington teen eager to become a farmer
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
EAST
WENATCHEE,
Wash. — Time’s a-wastin’ for
Ian McGregor.
At 12 years old he was
dabbling in corn. Now, at the
ripe old age of 15, he’s in his
second summer of his own
ield trials.
On three different small
plots in East Wenatchee, he’s
comparing various character-
istics such as insect resistance
and yields in hybrid ield corn
from seed producers Kuss-
maul, DeKalb and Pioneer.
He’s anxious to ind 20
acres of irrigated row crop
ground near Quincy that he
can rent next year and put
what he’s learning to work. Af-
ter all, he’ll be 16 in October,
able to drive and can make the
30 miles to Quincy in half an
hour. And, his grandpa started
farming pears in Wenatchee
when he was 14.
Time’s a-wastin’.
McGregor is busy in the
mornings, right now, ield
sorting doubles out of his
dad’s cherries in their East
Wenatchee orchard. But his
heart is in corn and potatoes
which he tends in afternoons.
“Grain corn is the biggest
crop in the United States and I
wanted to ind out what it was
all about,” he says.
It’s sort of the same with
potatoes. Washington grows a
lot, second only to Idaho. He
needed to ind out what that’s
all about.
He called the Washington
Potato Commission. Chris
Voight, executive director,
put him in contact with Com-
missioner Rex Calloway, a
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Augie Kooistra, a Kussmaul seed dealer, and Ian McGregor, 15, are shown in McGregor’s Kussmaul corn planting near East Wenatchee,
Wash., on June 8.
Quincy grower who showed
him his operation and gave
him some seed. The Callo-
ways took McGregor to the
Washington-Oregon Potato
Conference in Kennewick in
January.
“I got real interested so I
started planting them at my
mom’s house,” he says.
That’s close to Town Ford
and Costco in East Wenatchee.
He dug trenches and planted
seed by hand.
Residents at an assist-
ed-living facility next door
get a kick out of watching
McGregor work his potatoes
and corn near the heart of
town.
“One guy from Ohio rec-
ognized my DeKalb sign and
gave me some weed control
advice,” McGregor says.
Some of his biggest help
has come from Augie Koois-
tra, 66, owner of Augie’s Ag
Sales in Ephrata.
It was early 2015. Mc-
Gregor was online looking
for corn seed. He contacted
Eureka Seeds in Woodland,
Calif., which referred him to
Kooistra, who sells LG and
Kussmaul seeds.
Kooistra gave him a plot
bag of 20,000 seeds. This year
he gave him plot bags of four
LG hybrids and sold him, at a
discount, a full, 80,000-seed
bag of Kussmaul, enough to
plant 2.5 acres of ield corn.
“He’s a real sharp kid,”
Kooistra says. “In a letter of
thanks to me, he said he would
set the world on ire and plant
corn and potatoes from here to
the Oregon border.
“Most boys have their
heads in their iPhones, whil-
ing time away and he’s al-
ready working at being a
farmer. It’s pretty inspiring.”
McGregor say he may at-
tend Washington State Uni-
versity in agronomy. Right
now, he’s inishing Eastmont
Junior High, where his FFA
teacher, Jeff DeJarnett, calls
him the “corn guru.”
Groups petition state to address predatory ish in Delta
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Two
farm groups have joined a
broad coalition that wants
the state Fish and Game
Commission to address the
problem of non-native, pred-
atory fish in the Sacramen-
to-San Joaquin River Delta.
The California Farm Bu-
reau Federation and Western
Growers have teamed with
water districts and conser-
vation groups to petition the
state body, asking that fish-
ing controls for several types
of bass be loosened or lifted.
The groups say invasive
black bass, striped bass and
other predators are feeding
on threatened and endan-
gered salmon and smelt,
which are native to the Del-
ta region. From the farm
groups’ perspective, solv-
ing the predation problem
could lead to the easing of
pumping restrictions that
have deprived growers of
needed surface water in re-
cent years, said Cory Lunde,
Western Growers’ director
of strategic initiatives and
communications.
“Obviously our primary
interest is seeing that our
farmers in the San Joaquin
Valley receive adequate sup-
plies of water to water their
crops,” Lunde said. “We’re
asking that the government
consider other stresses im-
Courtesy of West Coast Advisors
A striped bass emerges from water. Farm groups have joined conservation groups in petitioning
California’s Fish and Game Commission to address the problem of non-native bass feeding on endan-
gered ish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, further imperiling the smaller ish and leading
to more pumping restrictions.
pacting the health of smelt
and salmon populations and
not just resort to turning
down the pumps.”
Other petitioners include
the Coalition for a Sustain-
able Delta, the California
Chamber of Commerce, the
Metropolitan Water Dis-
trict of Southern California,
the San Joaquin Tributaries
Authority, the State Water
Contractors and other water
agencies and organizations.
Fish and Game Commis-
sion officials did not return
a call from the Capital Press
seeking comment about the
petition.
Michael Boccadoro, a
spokesman for the Coalition
for a Sustainable Delta, said
he expects the commission
to take up the petition at a
future meeting and direct
employees to study alterna-
tives.
“This is a process that the
commission has put in place
to address these sorts of is-
sues,” Boccadoro said. “Ul-
timately, it’s up to the com-
mission.”
Predation has been named
as a factor in the continued
decline of imperiled fish
such as winter-run chinook
salmon and Delta smelt. De-
spite the tiny fish’s federal
listing in 1993, a key index
for smelt abundance hit zero
last year for the first time
since the survey began in
1959. Surveys for the smelt
this year have found fewer
than a dozen fish.
The smelt and salmon
have been at the center of
bitter water fights among
farmers, cities, fishing
groups and environmental-
ists for two decades. The
discord escalated during the
drought, as no federal water
was made available to south-
of-Delta farms lacking se-
nior water rights in 2014 and
2015.
The petitioners point to
efforts that are already in
place to protect endangered
salmon and steelhead pop-
ulations in the Columbia
River from being preyed on
by non-native bass, walleye
and catfish. The Washington
and Oregon fish and wildlife
agencies removed size and
bag limits of the predators.
The groups want Califor-
nia to take a similar measure
while also implementing a
comprehensive monitoring
program to learn more about
the predation problem and
make adjustments as needed.
“They have to,” Boc-
cadoro said. “All the other
Western states, at the peak
of the drought last year, took
action to address predation.
As native species are in de-
cline, if the state isn’t taking
all the steps they need to
take to protect species, we’re
going to have issues.”