14 CapitalPress.com
March 31, 2017
Labels, restrictions proposed for neonicotinoid pesticides
Proponents of two
bills argue pesticide
class harms
pollinators
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Neonicoti-
noid pesticides, which critics
blame for death and illness
among pollinators, would be
subject to new restrictions
and labeling rules under two
bills before the Oregon Leg-
islature.
Labels would be required
for pesticides containing ne-
onicotinoids, as well as seeds
and raw crops treated with the
chemicals, under Senate Bill
928.
The entire class of neonic-
otinoid insecticides would be
restricted under Senate Bill
929 to be available only to li-
censed pesticide applicators,
farmers and veterinarians.
The measures are neces-
sary because neonicotinoids
have been implicated in large-
scale die-offs of pollinators,
as well as long-term health
problems for the species, ac-
cording to proponents.
A March 27 hearing on
the two bills before the Sen-
ate Environment and Natural
Resources Committee at-
tracted an overflow audience,
including some supporters
adorned with insect antenna
headbands, wings and striped
black-and-yellow outfits.
Proponents of the bill ar-
gued that studies have linked
neonicotinoid pesticides to
the decline of honey bees and
other pollinators, adversely
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
A honeybee pollinates blueberry flowers. The entire class of ne-
onicotinoid insecticides would be restricted under Senate Bill 929
in Oregon to be available only to licensed pesticide applicators,
farmers and veterinarians. Supporters say the chemicals can hurt
bees.
affecting their biological pro-
cesses even when the expo-
sure isn’t lethal.
“When exposed, an entire
plant becomes toxic, includ-
ing the pollen and nectar,”
said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ash-
land, a sponsor of the bills.
It makes sense to limit
neonicotinoid availability to
farmers and others who are
trained to use them judicious-
ly, since many retail buyers
don’t carefully read pesticide
instructions and often assume
more is better, she said.
“We have to take action
and we have to do it now,”
Marsh said.
Opponents of the bill argue
the threat of neonicotinoids
to pollinators is overstated,
since they’re unlikely to come
across the chemicals in the
field at the same high concen-
trations they would in labora-
tory experiments.
Raw agricultural and hor-
ticultural commodities would
be labeled under SB 928 as
being treated with neonico-
tinoids even if they contain
no residue of the chemicals,
said Scott Dahlman, policy
director of the Oregonians for
Food and Shelter agribusiness
group.
“They do break down over
time,” he said.
An exemption in SB 929
allows farmers to use the in-
secticides but doesn’t explain
who meets that description,
Dahlman said. “There’s no
such thing as a farmer card to
prove you’re a farmer.”
Neonicotinoids do pose a
risk to pollinators, but restrict-
ing their usage would likely
have unintended effects, said
Paul Jepson, director of Ore-
gon State University’s Inte-
grated Plant Protection Cen-
ter.
Jepson said he’s neutral on
the bill but asked lawmakers
to consider the trade-offs of
the legislation. Without ac-
cess to neonicotinoids, many
backyard gardeners would
probably substitute organo-
phosphate and pyrethroid
insecticides that also kill
insects but are more toxic to
humans, he said,
“I urge you to consider the
consequences of using a blan-
ket approach,” Jepson said.
Floodwaters overwhelm
N. Idaho drainage districts
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BONNERS FERRY, Ida-
ho — Pumping snowmelt into
the Kootenai River is an annu-
al spring chore for Tim Dillin
and the others who farm in his
area of Northern Idaho.
Dillin explained that grow-
ers who work the roughly
45,000 acres of rain-fed agri-
cultural land in the Kootenai
Valley face a unique infra-
structural challenge. Earthen
dikes block most of the moun-
tain streams — which are rout-
ed into drainage ditches across
their farms — from the river.
When river flows are high, the
farmers must close the grav-
ity-fed drains on their ditches
and turn on pumps to evacuate
the water.
This spring, however, the
pumps haven’t kept pace with
the runoff, which has inun-
dated vast expanses of farm
ground. Dillin expects planting
will be delayed by at least two
to three weeks.
“Our best spring wheat we
get in by April 20-25,” Dillin
said. “This year, I think a lot of
fields people won’t get planted
until the end of May.”
Courtesy of Tim Dillin
Water is evacuated by pumps and a gravity drain from drainage
ditches in Northern Idaho’s Kootenai Valley. Farmers in the valley
say they have to pump water every spring, as mountain streams
are blocked from flowing directly in the river by dikes, but flooding
has been extensive this spring.
He’s also concerned his
late-planted canola may flow-
er in July, when hot weather
could reduce yields.
Snowpack in the region
was about 115 percent of nor-
mal, but low-elevation snow
melted rapidly and was fol-
lowed by heavy March rains.
“The last time we’ve had
this much water was the winter
of 1996 to 1997,” Dillin said.
In Southern Idaho, grow-
ers form irrigation districts
to supply water for farmland.
Bob Olson, however, serves
as a commissioner with a dis-
trict filling an opposite role in
the Kootenai Valley — pro-
viding drainage infrastruc-
ture. Olson’s district oversees
7 miles of drainage ditches,
a pump house and a portable
pump. Since the late 1930s,
Olson explained, growers in
his area have received pay-
ments toward pumping costs
under a treaty with operators
of Kootenai Lake, located
downstream in Canada. Lake
operations often back up wa-
ter into the Kootenai flats,
raising river levels above the
ditch drains. The situation
is complicated when Libby
Dam, located upstream from
the valley’s growers, makes
flood-control releases.
“Most seasons we have to
pump, but not like this year,”
Olson said. “It’s going to de-
lay us.”
Wes Hubbard, an Idaho
barley commissioner who
farms at the opposite end of
the valley from Olson and
Dillin, said his son flew him
over the area when he was
home on spring break. He de-
scribed what he saw as a “di-
saster.”
“From the air, it looks to
me as much as 50 percent
is under water right now,”
Hubbard said. “We’re always
pumping, especially this time
of year with spring runoff, but
we’re usually preventative,
keeping ditches down to keep
things flowing.
“There’s nothing preventa-
tive about this.”
Washington member of Congress opposes grizzly bear restoration
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
The National Park Service
and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice are moving forward with a
plan to restore and reintroduce
grizzly bears in the North Cas-
cades without supporting sound
science or adequate public
meetings, says U.S. Rep. Dan
Newhouse, R-Wash.
Newhouse, whose 4th
congressional district encom-
passes part of the North Cas-
cades ecosystem, sent a letter
to Karen Taylor-Goodrich,
superintendent of the North
Cascades National Park Ser-
vice Complex, on March 27
expressing his “firm opposi-
tion” to the plan.
“I believe such deci-
sions should be made with
substantial local input and
support from the local com-
munities that will be most
impacted,” Newhouse wrote.
The general consensus
of people attending a March
2015 forum in Okanogan
on the issue was “that their
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Dan Newhouse
concerns were not being tak-
en seriously by federal offi-
cials,” Newhouse wrote.
As a result, Newhouse
brought the issue to the at-
tention of NPS Director
Jonathan Jarvis and USFWS
Director Dan Ashe during
House Natural Resource
Committee hearings in
March 2015.
While the directors as-
sured him that public meet-
ings would be conducted
Courtesy of Chris Morgan, Grizzly Bear
Outreach Project
There are believed to be about
20 grizzly bears in the North
Cascades of Washington with
no reported interaction with
ranchers or livestock.
appropriately, it subsequent-
ly came to his attention
that recent public meetings
in Okanogan were held in
the same manner as those
in 2015 “where many res-
idents were not allowed to
express their concerns and
were treated in an unaccept-
able manner by the NPS and
USFWS employees conduct-
ing the session,” Newhouse
wrote.
He noted that the last con-
firmed sighting of a grizzly
in the North Cascades was in
1996 and that the agencies’
draft environmental impact
statement found it “highly
unlikely that the area con-
tains a viable grizzly bear
population.”
Proposed restoration also
may violate a 1995 state law
banning transplanting or in-
troduction of the bears, he
said.
“I believe the federal
government should defer to
the will of state and local
communities on species re-
introduction issues. … There
are issues of higher priority
that NPS should address…
such as the roughly $12 bil-
lion maintenance backlog on
NPS lands,” he wrote.
Many ranchers in Okano-
gan County, which includes
part of the North Cascades
Ecosystem, oppose grizzly
bear reintroduction.
Some say Idaho could lead immigration reform discussion
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — During a March 22 press
conference, national leaders involved in
immigration reform efforts said Idaho is
in a unique position to lead the nation in
that discussion.
Idaho is one of the most conservative
states in the nation and its vibrant rural
economy, which is driven by agriculture,
stands on the shoulders of foreign-born
labor, said Ali Noorani, executive direc-
tor of the National Immigration Forum,
which is based in Washington, D.C.
His point, made during a press confer-
ence sponsored by the Idaho Dairymen’s
Association, is that Idaho is in a position
to understand many people’s desire for
stronger border security but also the re-
ality of how important foreign-born labor
is to the economy.
“So as one of the most conservative
states in the country whose economy is
so closely linked to the immigrant work-
force, I think that (the Idaho) delegation
can really change the debate,” Noorani
said. “I think that the Idaho delegation
has an incredible opportunity to lead the
nation forward in fixing our immigration
system.”
Noorani’s stance was supported by
Charlie Garrison, founder of the Garrison
Group, a Washington, D.C.-based firm
that deals with federal policy issues and
represents the IDA on immigration.
Two of Idaho’s four-member Republi-
can congressional delegation, Sen. Mike
Crapo and Rep. Raul Labrador, sit on
their chambers’ judiciary committees,
which have jurisdiction over immigration
issues, Garrison said.
Rep. Mike Simpson has a lot of se-
niority in the House and is chairman of
the subcommittee on appropriations and
Sen. Jim Risch “knows agriculture as
well as anybody in the state knows ag-
riculture,” he said. “So the Idaho delega-
tion is uniquely positioned to understand
and ... be helpful on the issue because of
their roles in the House and the Senate.”
IDA officials recently traveled to D.C.
to deliver the results of an Idaho peti-
tion, signed by 3,100 people, that calls
for comprehensive immigration reform
to members of the state’s congressional
delegation.
The petition and press conference are
part of the dairy association’s ongoing
efforts to elevate the issue of immigra-
tion reform and pressure congress to act,
said IDA Executive Director Bob Naer-
ebout.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake,
listens to a staff report before testifying in front of a House com-
mittee March 28 in Olympia on a bill to reopen rural Washington to
new household wells. The bill, introduced by Warnick and backed
by the Washington Farm Bureau, passed the Senate but has an
uncertain future in the House.
Alternatives to Senate’s
Hirst bill receive airing
Plans depend on
new government
committees
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Two state
agencies indicated support
Tuesday for setting up dozens
of “mitigation committees”
to make sure new domestic
wells don’t draw water from
fish, a proposal that a Wash-
ington Farm Bureau lobbyist
called too complicated and
too costly.
The watershed-level com-
mittees — made up of tribal,
county and state officials —
would approve projects to off-
set new well withdrawals.
The projects, funded by
drillers of new wells, would
respond to the state Supreme
Court’s Hirst decision. The
court ruled in October that
each landowner must prove
and each county must verify
that a new well won’t take
water from other uses, partic-
ularly stream flows for fish.
Counties, builders, bank-
ers, real estate agents and
anguished would-be rural
homeowners say the court
set an impractical standard.
Environmentalists and tribes
defend the decision as neces-
sary to keep new wells from
cumulatively harming fish.
The House Agriculture and
Natural Resources Committee
on Tuesday held a hearing on
a bill passed by the Republi-
can-led Senate that would roll
back the Hirst decision.
The committee, however,
also has before it two sep-
arate but similar proposals
from majority House Demo-
crats. Each proposal calls for
the Department of Ecology
to create mitigation plans
and committees for water-
sheds, supported by fees of
up to $7,500 to drill a well.
“Both of those (bills)
don’t fix Hirst at all,” Farm
Bureau associate director of
governmental relations Even
Sheffels said. “So we’re very
nervous about what the com-
mittee will do.”
The court’s 6-3 ruling up-
set Ecology’s practice of al-
lowing new domestic wells.
Household wells use less than
1 percent of the water con-
sumed in the state, according
to an Ecology study.
Ecology has shown no
support for returning to the
pre-Hirst policy.
Ecology water resources
manager Dave Christensen
said that a proposal by Rep.
Larry Springer, D-Kirkland,
balances development and
fish protection. “We believe
that, however small, cumula-
tive impacts matter,” he said.
Springer introduced a
Hirst bill that resembled the
Senate-passed bill. But it has
been reworked and now more
closely resembles a propos-
al by Rep. Derek Stanford,
D-Bothell.
“We think (the propos-
als) are too complicated, too
costly, too dependent on these
watershed groups,” Sheffels
said.
Department of Fish and
Wildlife water policy lead-
er Michael Garrity said the
Springer and Stanford plans
“seem to be on the right
track.”
“They offer assurances
that mitigation will be ac-
complished in a scientifically
sound and protective man-
ner,” he said.
Senate Bill 5239 would
be a simple solution, said
the bill’s prime sponsor, Sen.
Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake.
Warnick said her bill would
not infringe on Ecology’s au-
thority to protect stream flows
and fish.
“It just gives a green light
to a homeowner who has a
few acres who would like
to build a home there, a few
acres to raise their family,”
she said.
The Hirst decision halted
building plans for landowners
throughout that state. Some
of them urged lawmakers
Tuesday to act swiftly to re-
open rural Washington to new
wells.
No bill, however, is likely
to emerge soon.
Environmental
groups
argue the Hirst decision pro-
tects agricultural water rights,
as well as fish.
Growers are unconcerned,
said Jim Halstrom, lobbyist
for the Washington Tree Fruit
Association and Washington
State Horticultural Associa-
tion.
“We believe the potential
for this is vastly overstated,
and it’s not a concern for any
of us,” he said.