March 10, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Idaho
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Idaho lawmakers could soon be
asked to change law on hemp
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
East Idaho hay farmers
lose sleep over jackrabbits
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
PINGREE, Idaho — East-
ern Idaho hay farmer Dewey
Stander has enlisted employ-
ees and friends to patrol his
haystacks from dusk until
dawn, shooting at the hoards
of hungry jackrabbits that at-
tack during the night.
State wildlife officials say
jackrabbit population cycles
peak every decade or so, and
an excessive regional pop-
ulation this season has been
coupled with dense snow cov-
er restricting their access to
forage. When left unchecked,
jackrabbits chew through the
bases of the hay stacks, caus-
ing some to tip over or spill
when the twine is severed,
making bales difficult to load.
Damage can add up to thou-
sands of dollars.
Stander has spent more
than $3,500 on ammunition to
ward off the long-eared pests.
He’s maintained a constant
presence in his stack yards
through the nights for more
than five weeks. But he said
plenty of friends were eager
to take on the assignment, and
their vigilance has helped keep
the damage to a minimum.
After a few days of shoot-
ing, Stander said the rabbits
became wise to the sound of
approaching trucks.
“You’d pull in there and
there’d be thousands of rab-
bits,” Stander said. “You
couldn’t see the ground for all
of the rabbits leaving.”
Pingree-area grower Doug
Finicle said he’s purchased
40 boxes of shotgun shells
for jackrabbit control and has
only a few shells remaining.
Still, he estimates he’s lost
about 3 percent of his hay,
though the greater burden is
the labor involved re-tying
severed bale twine.
“When they were at their
worst, we were shooting
them four times per night,”
Finicle said.
Finicle also had trouble
with jackrabbits last year,
though this year’s pressure
has been far greater.
Jason Beck, regional land-
owner and sportsman coor-
dinator with the Idaho De-
partment of Fish and Game,
said some growers who have
accepted department funding
to fence hay stacks from deer
and elk have also asked the
department to provide mesh
for the bases of stacks for
jackrabbit protection. He said
the department has also aid-
ed USDA Wildlife Services
in responding to problems at
some area farms.
Todd Sullivan, district
supervisor with Wildlife
Services, said jackrabbits
are classified as “vertebrate
pests,” like voles and coy-
otes. In the 1980s, Sullivan
recalled communities with-
in Idaho’s Eastern Snake
Plain would come together
to help farmers with “bunny
bashes,” rounding them up
and striking them with bats.
Though the methods of the
past wouldn’t be condoned
today, Sullivan said his office
has provided growers relief
from jackrabbits this season.
Wildlife Services provides
growers zinc phosphide poi-
son and will aid in shooting
jackrabbits.
Snowpack in most SW Idaho
basins well above average
Capital Press
BOISE — Snowpack lev-
els in southwestern Idaho are
well above normal in many
areas and most irrigators in
the region can expect a good
water year in 2017.
“It looks like we’re going
to have a real good season,”
said Tim Page, manager of
the Boise Project Board of
Control, which provides irri-
gation water to 167,000 acres
and five irrigation districts in
southwestern Idaho.
Last year was a normal
water year and “we’re well
above what we were last
year” at this time, Page said.
Snowpack in the Boise River
basin is 144 percent of aver-
age, which means that even
if the basin receives no more
snow the rest of the winter,
the basin would still finish
with 114 percent of normal
snowpack.
Because of flood control
releases, 6,600 cubic feet per
second of water is being re-
leased from Lucky Peak Res-
ervoir, one of the Boise River
system’s three reservoirs that
provide water to more than
300,000 acres of irrigated
land.
At this time last year,
1,158 cubic feet per second
of water was coming out of
Lucky Peak, Page said, and
two years ago that number
was 459.
As long as the plentiful
snow in the basin doesn’t
melt too quickly, it should
be a good water year for the
Pioneer Irrigation District’s
5,800 patrons, said Pioneer
manager Mark Zirschky.
ROP-9-3-1/#4x
By SEAN ELLIS
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Erik Nelson speaks with Rep. Caroline Troy, R-Genesee, following Nelson’s presentation on industrial
hemp during the House Agricultural Affairs Committee’s Feb. 6 meeting. Idaho lawmakers could soon
be asked to change state law to allow industrial hemp to be grown in Idaho.
opportunities industrial hemp
offers.
“I think industrial hemp
should be legal in Idaho,”
he said. “I’m here to ask you
for your endorsement of that
idea.”
With depressed wheat and
corn prices, “there is a real
need to get some acres out of
wheat and corn,” Frei said. “I
do think it’s an alternative crop
we should look into.”
During a separate presenta-
tion, Boise resident Erik Nel-
son talked to lawmakers about
how Idaho farmers could ben-
efit from growing industrial
hemp and how it differs from
marijuana.
The 2014 Farm Bill allows
state departments of agricul-
ture and universities to grow
industrial hemp under a pilot
program for research.
To do that, though, state law
must define industrial hemp as
distinct from marijuana, which
Idaho law does not do.
Thirty-two states have done
that and 28 have hemp crops,
while seven states have li-
censed farmers to grow hemp,
Nelson said.
The U.S. imports more than
$500 million worth of hemp
products annually, he said,
and industrial hemp is used in
more than 25,000 products.
“I can stand up here for an
hour and not even scratch the
surface of what you can do
with hemp,” Nelson told law-
makers.
He said industrial hemp is
a low-maintenance crop and
the equipment used to harvest
it is similar to the equipment
used for corn and soybeans.
One acre of hemp can yield
700 pounds of seed, 22 gal-
lons of oil and 5,300 pounds
of straw, Nelson said.
“How do you like that as a
crop?” he asked members of
the House Agricultural Affairs
Committee, which is dominat-
ed by farmers and ranchers. “I
think this is an unparalleled
economic opportunity for Ida-
ho’s farmers...”
Frei said a major education
campaign needs to occur be-
fore legislators are asked to
change state law regarding
hemp.
“There is a bigger ground
game that has to happen be-
fore that,” he said.
Monsanto starting sage grouse research at corporate ranch
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
SODA SPRINGS, Idaho —
Monsanto officials say they’ll
use a large corporate ranch in
a phosphate-rich area of Car-
ibou County to research sage
grouse habitat restoration on
land used for agricultural ac-
tivities.
Monsanto has hired a re-
searcher involved in sage
grouse work and plans to
collaborate with university
researchers on projects at the
ranch, intended to help miti-
gate for the company’s planned
Caldwell Canyon Mine.
The mine is proposed with-
in public land classified as
general sage grouse habitat un-
der the Bureau of Land Man-
agement’s new land-use plan,
though it shouldn’t affect any
active leks, which are sensitive
areas where sage grouse per-
form elaborate mating rituals.
The company will seek
to improve about 320 acres
of sage grouse habitat on the
ranch, where sage brush and
other key native plants have
been removed for cattle graz-
ing. The research should also
be of interest to other compa-
nies and entities seeking to re-
habilitate land for sage grouse,
Courtesy of Monsanto
As part of planned research at Monsanto’s Caribou County ranch to
benefit sage grouse, a riparian area in the foreground will be con-
nected with grazing land on the hillside, where the company plans to
implement habitat improvements. The project will help the company
mitigate for its planned Caldwell Canyon Mine.
said Randy Vranes, mineral
operations business unit lead
for Monsanto’s Soda Springs
plant.
Monsanto intends to con-
duct additional research on
reclaiming mining land to
benefit sage grouse once oper-
ations cease in the early 2020s
at its current Blackfoot Bridge
Mine, said Vranes, who served
on a task force Idaho Gov.
Butch Otter created to draft
the state’s suggestions for sage
grouse management.
Vranes said studies thus far
have mostly focused on reha-
bilitating sage grouse habitat
following wildfires, but little
work has been done to assess
how to restore land cleared for
farming or grazing.
“A lot of these areas have
been agriculturally changed
— taken out of sage brush,”
Vranes said. “We have a sec-
tion of our ranch that falls into
that, and we’re going to do a
study to see if there’s a way to
bring sage brush back in those
areas.”
Vranes said researchers
may also work to optimize
mixtures of beneficial forbs
and grasses to grow beneath
the sage brush, and to establish
habitat corridors to connect
sage brush and riparian areas.
Vranes said Monsanto
consulted with conservation
organizations to develop its
plans. The Greater Yellow-
stone Coalition, for example,
encouraged Monsanto to focus
on improving habitat for wild-
life in general, and not just for
sage grouse.
“While we haven’t seen the
final details, we’re encouraged
by these steps and look for-
ward to everyone doing more
to help restore wildlife habitat
across Idaho,” said John Ro-
bison, public lands director
with the Idaho Conservation
League, who served on the
task force with Vranes and has
toured Monsanto’s ranch.
Monsanto has created a
pamphlet to distribute at pub-
lic meetings on Caldwell Can-
yon Mine highlighting its sage
grouse research, and how the
company has sought to avoid
impacts on sage grouse habitat
in its mining plan.
Rather than building a haul
road through sage grouse hab-
itat connecting the new mine
with Blackfoot Bridge, about
7 miles to the west, Monsanto
has agreed to ship phosphate
ore by rail from Agrium’s near-
by mine, which will be more
costly, Vranes said.
Monsanto also plans to
backfill Agrium’s open pit with
waste rock from Caldwell Can-
yon rather than building an ex-
ternal overburden pile, thereby
minimizing water contamina-
tion.
10-4/#4N
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Dead jack rabbits are strewn about the base of haystacks near
Pingree, Idaho. The hay farmer said he’s had to patrol for them
throughout the night for several weeks this winter to protect his
hay, shooting hundreds of the pests.
BOISE — The idea of
making it legal to grow indus-
trial hemp in Idaho, at least
for research purposes, has
been brought up several times
during the 2017 Idaho Legis-
lature.
A bill that would allow that
could be introduced during
the 2018 Idaho legislative
session.
Rep. Dorothy Moon,
R-Stanley, plans to craft a bill
that would change Idaho law
to allow industrial hemp to
be grown in the state for re-
search.
Moon said she has been
contacted by a lot of her con-
stituents, including farmers,
who are interested in growing
hemp.
“There are a lot of people
who want to grow it,” she said.
“I’m optimistic; I think it’s go-
ing to happen.”
Moon plans to discuss the
idea with farm groups after
this year’s session ends and
then craft a comprehensive bill
that she hopes to introduce in
2018.
“I really want some
thoughtful legislation on this,”
she said.
Mark Frei, an Idaho County
commissioner and farmer who
grows 3,000 acres of wheat,
barley, canola and lentils, re-
cently briefed Food Produc-
ers of Idaho members on the