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CapitalPress.com
August 5, 2016
USDA plans impact statement on deregulation of GE bentgrass
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
ONTARIO, Ore. — USDA
will prepare an environmental
impact statement that evalu-
ates a petition to deregulate a
genetically engineered creep-
ing bentgrass plant that es-
caped ield trials in 2003 and
has taken root in two Oregon
counties.
A notice of intent to pre-
pare the EIS was published in
the Federal Register Aug. 3,
and USDA’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service
will accept public comments
through Sept. 2.
The bentgrass, which is
resistant to applications of the
glyphosate herbicide, was de-
veloped by Scotts Miracle-Gro
Co. and Monsanto Corp. for
use mainly on golf courses.
It escaped ield trials in
2003 and has spread through-
out parts of Malheur and Jef-
ferson counties.
Farmers and water manag-
ers in those areas worry that
because the bentgrass is resis-
tant to glyphosate and is hard
to kill, it could clog irrigation
ditches and affect shipments
of crops to other nations that
don’t accept traces of geneti-
cally modiied organisms.
Some farmers in the af-
fected counties have criticized
a 10-year agreement USDA
reached with Scotts in October
that lays out the company’s
responsibilities to help control
the bentgrass.
They believe it essentially
allows Scotts to walk away
from its responsibility to con-
trol the grass after two years, a
claim the company and USDA
oficials deny.
Malheur County farm-
er Jerry Erstrom, one of the
most vocal opponents of the
agreement, said it’s critical
that growers comment on the
petition because the bentgrass
could have a major impact on
them.
“It’s very important to com-
ment because the people from
APHIS have no concept of
the impact it could potentially
have on Malheur County and
other counties downstream,”
he said. “We’re looking at the
possibility of a major econom-
ic and ecological impact. ...”
By law, USDA is re-
quired to conduct either an
environmental impact state-
ment or a less rigorous envi-
ronmental assessment of the
petition.
Because of the degree of
controversy involved, “We
thought it was in the best in-
terest of everybody to do an
environmental impact state-
ment,” Sid Abel, assistant
deputy director of APHIS’
Biotechnology
Regulatory
Services, told Capital Press.
The agreement USDA
reached with Scotts last fall is
“distinct and separate from the
request for deregulation” and
will not be impacted by it, Abel
said.
However, he added, the
information included in the
agreement will have an impact
on the EIS and will be the basis
for how it’s written.
Federal law requires USDA
to determine whether the creep-
ing bentgrass is a plant pest and
the agency will look at whether
it poses a risk to other plants,
agricultural production systems
and biological resources.
According to the Federal
Register, the petition for dereg-
ulation by Scotts and Monsanto
states the plant is “unlikely to
pose a plant pest risk and, there-
fore, should not be (regulated).”
A preliminary review has
determined the bentgrass likely
isn’t a plant pest, Abel said.
In its review, USDA will
also be looking at the agro-
nomic consequences of the
bentgrass out-crossing to
weedy species, including the
possible impact on crop rota-
tion practices, herbicide use
and tillage. It will also examine
the possible impact on farm
exports.
UI seeks partnership with Peru potato center
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho — The
University of Idaho is nego-
tiating a partnership with the
International Potato Center
in Lima, Peru, involving the
sharing of scientiic exper-
tise and providing UI’s pota-
to program better access to a
vast gene bank.
In addition to employing
top potato scientists, the Cen-
ter houses a gene bank with
more than 4,000 selections of
potato varieties, wild potato
relatives and ancient potatoes
cultivated thousands of years
ago in the Andes, dating back
to the Incas.
The ongoing discussions
stem from May 2015, when
UI plant science professor
Mike Thornton and Bob Hag-
gerty, international programs
director with UI’s College
of Agricultural and Life Sci-
ences, visited Peru as part
of a trade mission facilitated
by Idaho Gov. Butch Otter.
Thornton believes partnering
with the center, located in the
region where potatoes orig-
inated, would be a boon for
UI’s potato breeding efforts.
“If you’re looking for new
sources of genes to solve po-
tato problems — like late
blight, or potato cyst nema-
tode, you name it — that is
the most likely place you’re
going to ind those resources,”
Thornton said.
Thornton joined UI Exten-
sion potato storage specialist
Nora Olsen and Joe Kuhl, an
associate professor special-
izing in biotechnology, this
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Excavators breach a dike Aug. 1 in Skagit County, Wash., to
expose 131 acres of former farmland to Puget Sound salt water to
create ish habitat.
Washington breaches dike to
convert farmland to ish habitat
Courtesy of Mike Thornton
Barbara Wells, director of the International Potato Center, joins Peruvian farmers, showing off tissue
culture plantlets of native potato landraces they are working to preserve. University of Idaho is seeking
to partner with the center.
spring on a six-day return trip
to the center and nearby po-
tato farms. The UI oficials
were scheduled to meet again
with center personnel Aug. 2
during the Potato Association
of America meeting in Mich-
igan.
The center works close-
ly with native growers, who
conduct variety trials on their
small farms to evaluate mate-
rial. Kuhl said partnering with
the center would also provide
UI access to “individuals with
intimate knowledge of the
material that goes well be-
yond what might be available
in a database.”
In return, Thornton be-
lieves UI provides a diverse
set of potato scientists with
knowledge in virology, food
science, agronomy and other
facets of the industry.
“I think we’ve got as good
of a scientiic group as any-
where in the world, so I think
we can help them,” Thornton
said.
Thornton is interested in
partnering with a Prosser,
Wash., USDA scientist on a
nutrition screening of 17 col-
orful center varieties. Potato
pigments are linked with sev-
eral health beneits. The sam-
ples would be freeze-dried to
kill potential pathogens.
Kuhl hopes to get a special
permit to bring Peruvian lines
to Idaho to screen a popula-
tion of potatoes derived from
parents known to resist nem-
atodes.
The information would
help Kuhl isolate a genetic
marker for pale cyst nema-
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32-1/#17
tode resistance, aiding future
breeding efforts and provid-
ing insight into an area the Pe-
ruvian center is not equipped
to study.
Olsen would like to as-
sist the center in its mission
to feed the world’s poor by
“bridging information, tech-
nology, ideas and science
from developed countries to
developing countries.” She
foresees an eventual exchange
of scientists and graduate stu-
dents between the facilities.
Haggerty has set aside
funding to continue working
toward an agreement, noting
the center has locations in
other major potato produc-
tion regions, and a partner-
ship would also help UI build
its global network. He said
UI discovered it had reached
a memorandum of under-
standing with the center 25
years ago but did little to act
upon it.
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Sat., August 13th • 10 A.M.
• Unit 29
Luis Aguilar
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Babette Frutas
• Unit 166
Steven Shuck
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to refuse
any and all bids
legal-31-2-1/#4
More land likely to
be converted
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
CONWAY, Wash. — Exca-
vators breached a dike Aug. 1
that for more than a century had
protected farmland, furthering a
state and federal plan to convert
thousands of acres of agricul-
tural ields into salmon habitat
in the Skagit River Delta.
Excavators started digging
a gap in the 12-foot-high dike
in the morning. By late after-
noon, Puget Sound’s high tide
was spreading saltwater over
131 acres that previously grew
crops such as broccoli, red po-
tatoes and vegetable seeds.
Tiny ish were swimming at
the toe of a new dike farther in-
land on Fir Island, between the
river’s south and north forks,
which empty into the sound.
The head of a farm group
accepted the conversion of
cropland into a ish-rearing es-
tuary as a regulatory necessity,
but he wasn’t rejoicing.
“It’s not a celebratory time,”
said Brandon Roozen, director
of the Western Washington Ag-
ricultural Association. “There’s
been blood, sweat and tears
spent on that land to keep it
fertile.”
The agricultural associa-
tion represents a dozen diking,
drainage and irrigation districts
that serve farmers over 54,000
acres.
The association agreed sev-
eral years ago to a plan to con-
vert up to 2,700 acres of agri-
cultural land to create enough
habitat for 1.35 million en-
dangered chinook salmon
smolts annually.
In return, the districts will
be able to repair and replace
the tide gates that make farm-
ing in the delta possible, but
are seen by regulatory agen-
cies as blocking ish from
historical habitat.
Roozen said districts had
to compromise to have a
chance to maintain their sys-
tems.
“It’s the best we can pos-
sibly do, in my opinion,” he
said. “We’re caught between
a rock and a hard place.”
The dike breaching Aug.
1 climaxed a $16.4 million
project to create a marsh on
land the Washington Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife
bought in 1980. The depart-
ment purchased the property
for a winter refuge for snow
geese, but leased the ground
to farmers in the summer.
The new marsh is expect-
ed to create habitat for 65,000
to 320,600 smolts annually.
The state has other prop-
erty in the delta that it may
convert into ish habitat, but
eventually it likely will need
to buy private farmland to
meet the program’s goal.
“You add all (the state
properties) together and your
short maybe 1,000 acres. The
challenge will be to close the
gap,” said Bob Everitt, WD-
FW’s North Puget Sound re-
gional director. “The proper-
ty has to be in the right place.
It’s got to be along the bay
front.”
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service, National Marine
Fisheries Service and The
Nature Conservancy, a pri-
vate group, helped fund the
project. The federal govern-
ment contributed $2.31 mil-
lion, or 15 percent.
William Stelle, the West
Coast administrator for the
National Marine Fisheries
Service, said the agency
hopes Congress will fund
more such projects, which he
said will beneit farmers, as
well as ish advocates.
“We ish heads need farm-
ers on the landscape, and we
need to ind where the sweet
spot is for both communi-
ties and get to that place,”
he said.
SAGE Fact #132
The Columbia River Basin supports the best
onion yields of any growing area on earth.
The region offers ideal conditions with rich
low-bacteria soil, water for irrigation, and
long sunny days with cool nights.
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