4
CapitalPress.com
November 25, 2016
Judge penalizes anti-GMO activist group $320,000
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
An anti-GMO activist group was
fined $319,281 by a Washington
state judge Monday for violating
the same disclosure law that the pro-
cessed food industry broke during the
high-stakes 2013 initiative battle over
labeling genetically modified food.
Food Democracy Now’s failure to
report the names of some 7,000 cam-
paign donors can’t be excused as an
oversight, Thurston County Superior
Court Judge Gary Tabor said. “The
term that came to me was ‘sloppy.’”
The Iowa-based organization set
up a political committee, Food De-
mocracy Action, to support I-522,
which would have made Washing-
ton the first state to require labels on
products with GMO ingredients.
The political committee spent
$295,661, but didn’t disclose its con-
tributors until after the election.
Tabor agreed with the state attor-
ney general’s office that the group
should be fined the full amount it
spent. The added $23,620 was for
failing to timely file 18 reports with
the Public Disclosure Commission.
The judge noted that Food De-
mocracy had previously been politi-
cally active in California, Maine and
Connecticut.
“The fact is they were involved in
other state issues of a similar nature
and that would indicate they know
there are rules to follow,” Tabor said.
Tabor ruled in April that Food De-
mocracy was guilty. A non-jury trial
to determine the penalty was put off
for two months when Food Democra-
cy failed to show up for a hearing in
September.
Food Democracy was again ab-
sent Monday. Tabor went ahead with
taking testimony and then made a rul-
ing. The session lasted fewer than 90
minutes.
“I think it’s unfortunate there is
no one representing the defendants,”
Tabor said.
Reached by phone after the hear-
ing, David Murphy, Food Democra-
cy’s founder and executive director,
said he will appeal.
He said that Food Democracy
thought it was within the law. By
the time it learned it needed to file
reports, the paperwork was too over-
whelming to complete before the
election, he said.
“We at all times wished to comply
with Washington state law. This is
just an example of where justice has
not been done,” he said.
Murphy blamed his absence on
health problems, confusion on court
dates and a change of lawyers since
the April. “They just chose to railroad
this,” he said. “It is a miscarriage of
justice.”
No attorney has registered with
the Thurston County court to repre-
sent Food Democracy.
The judgment is one of the larg-
er penalties ever in a case involving
Washington’s disclosure commis-
sion. But it is dwarfed by the $18
million fine issued earlier this month
against the Grocery Manufacturers
Association by another Thurston
County judge.
GMA did not report until short-
ly before the election the food and
beverage companies that contributed
$11 million to defeat I-522.
GMA has indicated it will appeal.
If upheld, the fine will be by far the
largest ever in the U.S. for not re-
porting political activities.
I-522 was the most expensive po-
litical campaign in state history, at-
tracting a total of $42 million for the
“yes” and “no” campaigns.
Wet weather heralds busy
season for slug researcher
Capital Press
legal-48-3-2/#4
Attorney:
DAVID B. BECKHAM
319 Sixth Avenue SW
Albany, OR 97321
he said.
McDonnell assumed his
new position as an assistant
professor at OSU in mid-Ju-
ly, but autumn is when his re-
search began in earnest.
During the dry season, he
got his laboratory equipped and
met with farmers afflicted by
the prodigious mollusks.
The wet weather has now
allowed him to study the slug’s
life cycle with the aim of devel-
oping efficient ways to elimi-
nate the pests.
Slug activity peaks in fall
LEGAL
PURSUANT TO ORS
CHAPTER 87
Notice is hereby given that the
following vehicle will be sold,
for cash to the highest bidder,
on 11/28/2016. The sale will be
held at 10:00am by
COPART OF WASHINGTON INC
2885 NATIONAL WAY, WOODBURN, OR
2008 GRATD DANE TRLR
VIN - 1GRAA06258B701973
Amount due on lien $1,455.00
Reputed owner(s)
RELIANCE EXPRESS INC
LEGAL
CHERRY AVENUE
STORAGE
2680 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97301
(503) 399-7454
Sat., Dec. 3rd • 10 A.M.
• Unit 64 - Kristin
McDonnell
• Unit 98 - Mark Schuler
• Unit 179 - John Codner
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to
refuse any and all bids
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Derek Tilley, manager of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Plant Materials Center in
Aberdeen, Idaho, finds a dead milkweed plant along the banks of the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal. Tilley has
started research on maximizing milkweed planting and to provide weed-management recommendations to
canal managers for the benefit of monarch butterflies, which are a species in decline.
Aberdeen center studying
milkweed to benefit butterflies
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABERDEEN, Idaho — The
USDA’s Aberdeen Plant Ma-
terials Center has started trials
to determine the best planting
methods for establishing stands
of milkweed — a plant that fills
a critical life-cycle niche for de-
clining monarch butterfly pop-
ulations.
The center, run by the agen-
cy’s Natural Resources Conser-
vation Service, has additional
trials planned for next spring,
aimed at helping canal compa-
nies control vegetation along
their irrigation ditches without
harming milkweed.
Groups petitioned to put the
monarch on the federal list of
threatened species in 2014. The
Aberdeen center’s manager,
Derek Tilley, noted a listing
could lead to new restrictions
on public and private lands, as
well as on herbicide use.
“My thought is we get
ahead of this and start working
on monarch conservation be-
fore it becomes a major issue,”
Tilley said.
Monarchs lay their eggs ex-
clusively on milkweed, which
provides nectar for adult butter-
flies and imbues feeding cater-
pillars with a toxin that protects
legal-47-2-4/#4
48-4/#7
LEGAL
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT
OF THE STATE OF OREGON
FOR THE COUNTY
OF MARION
Probate Department
IN THE MATTER OF THE
ESTATE OF
Fran Bledsoe, Deceased
No. 16PB07260
NOTICE TO
INTERESTED PERSONS
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN
that the undersigned has
been appointed Personal
Representative of the above
estate. All persons having
claims against the estate are
required to present them to
the undersigned Personal
Representative in care of the
undersigned attorney at: 319
Sixth Street SW, Albany, OR
97321 within four months
after the date of the first
publication of this notice, as
stated below, or such claims
may be barred.
All persons whose rights
may be affected by the
proceedings in this estate
may obtain additional infor-
mation from the records of
the Court, the Personal Rep-
resentative, or the attorney
for the Personal Represen-
tative.
DATED and first published
November 25, 2016.
Personal Representative:
KYLE B. DILL
2735 Gilbert St. S.
Salem, OR 97302
Courtesy of Rory McDonnell
Oregon State University
assistant professor Rory
McDonnell specializes in slugs.
He’s currently helping Oregon
farmers find efficient ways to kill
the slimy pests.
Legal-47-2-4/#4
It’s the rainy season in Ore-
gon, which means there’s plen-
ty of work for Oregon State
University’s new slug expert,
Rory McDonnell.
With slugs emerging from
their underground hibernation,
McDonnell has found that Or-
egon’s reputation as a haven for
the slimy pests is well deserved.
“The populations are very
large,” he said.
The number and size of
slugs is greater in Oregon com-
pared to McDonnell’s previous
post as a research specialist
at the University of Califor-
nia-Riverside.
“Sometimes, in California,
I felt like I was trying to fit a
square peg into a round hole,”
and spring, so McDonnell is
out in the field, checking traps
to see which species are most
problematic in certain loca-
tions.
European brown garden
snails are the worst offenders in
nurseries, while gray field slugs
are the primary culprits in field
crops, he said.
The gray slug is likely
the most prominent slug pest
worldwide due to its ability to
adapt to a variety of environ-
ments and food sources, Mc-
Donnell said.
“It can be successful under
a wide range of conditions,” he
said.
In March 2015, OSU or-
ganized a “slug summit” in
Salem, where growers com-
plained that damage from slugs
has increased in recent years.
That complaint prompted
the university to seek additional
funding from Oregon lawmak-
ers to hire a slug researcher.
The Legislature provided an
addition $14 million to OSU
later that year, allowing the uni-
versity to fill the slug position
and several others.
McDonnell is exploring
strategies to fight the pests.
For example, farmers could
use extracts from food or slug
pheromones to attract them to
a certain area of a field that’s
treated with a hefty dose of
molluscicide. This approach
may kill the slugs more effec-
tively than spreading a lesser
concentration of molluscicide
across an entire field. McDon-
nell and other researchers have
identified slug attractants that
work in the laboratory, and they
plan to see if the substances
also work outdoors.
“What happens in the lab
isn’t necessarily what happens
in the field,” he said.
Another technique would
involve parasitic nematodes
that kill slugs, which are used
for biocontrol in Europe.
If the nematodes were found
in Oregon, researchers would
have to prove to the USDA’s
Animal and Plant Health In-
spection Service that the par-
asites don’t impact native spe-
cies.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
The star-shaped blossoms of showy milkweed provide food and
egg-laying sites for migrating monarch butterflies.
them from birds. According
to the petition, monarch pop-
ulations have declined by 90
percent since 1995 east of the
Rockies and by half since 1997
in the West. The petitioners ar-
gue declining milkweed pop-
ulations due to increased farm
use of glyphosate herbicide are
a primary reason for the mon-
arch’s struggles. In Iowa, for
example, the petition cites a
98.7 percent loss of milkweed
between 1999 and 2012.
Tilley intends to make a
pamphlet to educate canal
managers on monarch-friend-
ly weed control, based on his
planned spring research com-
paring effects of weed control
with mowing and light tillage
on milkweed productivity.
Regarding the seeding tri-
als, he hopes his findings will
help reduce the cost of milk-
weed seed and improve success
for farmers seeking to include
milkweed in pollinator plant-
ings. Tilley said growers have
been including milkweed lately
in pollinator field buffers to at-
tract predatory insects that feed
on crop pests. Some growers
are also selectively planting
milkweed in moist pockets
within Conservation Reserve
Program land, he said. Even
with seed prices of about $400
per pound, Tilley said vendors
have had a hard time keeping
milkweed seed in stock.
Tilley’s children helped him
collect milkweed seed along
canal banks for the trials. He’s
already direct-seeded a fall
milkweed planting at his cen-
ter’s man-made marsh, which
he’ll compare against a spring
seeding, rhizome planting and
transplanting of greenhouse
starts. The center also has a
contract to supply Yosemi-
te National Park with 30,000
milkweed plants for restoration
work.
Angie Babbit, a spokes-
woman with Kansas-based
Monarch Watch, said her or-
ganization prefers public and
private partnerships to bolster
milkweed populations to a
threatened species listing. Bab-
bit explained there are enough
resident monarch populations
that the species is under no
imminent threat of extinction.
Her group’s fear relates to the
continuation of monarch mi-
grations — including one in the
East and a Western migration
that heavily utilizes the Snake
River Plain through Idaho.
48-1/#7
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI