June 30, 2017
CapitalPress.com
5
California to require Roundup labeled a carcinogen
Ingredient in popular
weed killer going on
list as cancerous
By SCOTT SMITH
Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. (AP)
— Regulators in California
took a pivotal step on Mon-
day toward becoming the first
state to require the popular
weed killer Roundup to come
with a label warning that it’s
known to cause cancer.
Officials announced that
starting July 7 the weed kill-
er’s main ingredient, glypho-
sate, will appear on a list Cal-
ifornia keeps of potentially
cancerous chemicals. A year
later, the listing could come
with warning labels on the
product, officials said.
However, it’s not certain
whether Roundup will ulti-
Rural Oregon landowners
accuse marijuana-growing
neighbors of racketeering
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A couple of rural Oregon
landowners are accusing their
neighbors of operating mari-
juana-growing operations in
violation of federal anti-racke-
teering laws.
The lawsuit filed by Rachel
and Erin McCart of Beaver-
creek, Ore., accuses 43 defen-
dants — including neighbor-
ing property owners as well as
affiliated marijuana growers
and retailers — of violating
the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act.
Because it remains illegal
under federal law, Oregon’s
“regulatory scheme” for mari-
juana does not protect the de-
fendants from RICO charges
for conspiring to grow, process
and sell the controlled sub-
stance, according to the plain-
tiffs.
“Given the strict federal
prohibitions against each of
those purposes, defendants
knew these purposes could
only be accomplished via a
pattern of racketeering,” the
complaint said. “In furtherance
of that goal, defendants pooled
their resources and achieved
enterprise efficiency that no
one defendant could have
achieved individually.”
Beginning in late 2014, the
defendants began installing
equipment to produce mari-
juana on two properties neigh-
boring the McCarts, who own
nearly 11 acres of fenced pas-
tures and forestland, the com-
plaint said.
While the neighborhood
was once quite and safe, the
marijuana operations have
drawn unwanted visitors who
litter nearby properties, play
loud music, ride loud all-ter-
rain vehicles and harass land-
owners, the plaintiffs claim.
The McCarts allege that
a narrow, one-lane easement
running across their proper-
ty is now a busy commercial
roadway traveled “seven days
a week, at all hours of the day
and night” by the marijuana
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Washington Depart-
ment of Ecology will appoint
an advisory group to evaluate
ways farmers and ranchers can
prevent water pollution, an
exercise viewed warily by the
state Farm Bureau.
Ecology is seeking experts
for the group, which is expect-
ed over the next year to help
the department develop a set
of best management practic-
es. Ecology says the measures
will be voluntary and won’t
become new regulations.
“I think it will be useful
guidance for people,” said Ben
Rau, Ecology’s manager of the
effort.
The initiative stems from
criticism the Environmental
Protection Agency made in
2015 about Ecology’s plan to
control pollution from urban
and rural runoff. The EPA said
Ecology’s plan to prevent pol-
lution from agricultural lands
needed “greater specificity.”
Ecology has approached
the subject carefully. It plans
to put together an advisory
group of 10 to 14 members
drawn from farm groups,
tribes, environmental organi-
1,300 public comments.
“We can’t say for sure,”
said Sam Delson, a spokes-
man for California’s Office
of Environmental Health
Hazard Assessment. “We’re
reviewing those comments.”
Glyphosate has no color or
smell. Monsanto introduced
it in 1974 as an effective way
of killing weeds while leav-
ing crops and plants intact.
It’s sold in more than 160
countries, and farmers use it
on 250 types of crops in Cal-
ifornia, the nation’s leading
farming state.
Attorney Michael Baum,
who represents more than 300
people who claim a loved one
became sick or died from ex-
posure to Roundup, says the
fight to protect Californians
is not over.
He said that the state’s
failure to set the proper
risk level would undermine
protections California put
in place by listing harmful
chemicals.
Scott Partridge, Monsan-
to’s vice president of global
strategy, said in a statement
that glyphosate does not
cause cancer and there’s no
need to list it as harmful in
California.
“This is not the final step
in the process,” Partridge
said. “We will continue to
aggressively challenge this
improper decision.”
Tobacco virus found in
Washington wine grapes
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Pamplin Media Group File
A Beavercreek, Ore., couple has
filed suit against their neighbors
and dozens of other related peo-
ple and businesses alleging they
broke federal racketeering laws
by operating a marijuana farm.
The plant is legal under state law
but illegal under federal law.
growers as well as their cus-
tomers, employees and build-
ing contractors.
“While passing plaintiffs’
property, these easement users
stared menacingly at plaintiffs,
directed obscene gestures at
them, peered into plaintiffs’
kitchen window (which looks
out onto the easement), open-
ly used marijuana, rolled their
windows down and blasted
loud music and dramatical-
ly accelerated or decelerated
when they observed plaintiffs
outdoors on their property,”
the complaint said.
These problems, as well
as the “unmistakable, skunk-
like stench of marijuana” and
the incessant barking of guard
dogs, have reduced the McCa-
rts’ property value and would
make it tough to sell at any
price, the lawsuit alleges.
“No one’s idea of a dream
home includes noxious odors,
invasive and persistent racket,
heavy commercial traffic, a lo-
cation next door to two illegal
drug manufacturing sites, or
aggressively obnoxious neigh-
bors,” according to the plain-
tiffs.
The McCarts seek com-
pensation for three times the
amount of damages caused to
their property in an amount
that’s not specified in the law-
suit, which has been assigned
to U.S. Magistrate Judge John
Acosta in Portland.
Washington Ecology seeks
advisers on farm practices
Letters of interest
are due on July 18
mately get a warning label.
Monsanto, the chemical’s
maker, has filed an appeal af-
ter losing in court to block the
labeling, arguing that Round-
up doesn’t cause cancer and
that the labels will harm the
company’s business.
State health regulators
must also decide if there’s a
high enough amount of the
chemical in Roundup to pose
a risk to human health. State
officials received more than
zations, academia, conserva-
tion districts, and government
agencies. Ecology has hired a
consultant, Ross Strategic, to
guide the meetings. “We want-
ed to have a third-party seen as
a neutral actor in the process,”
Rau said.
While the guidance won’t
be mandatory, it will help
Ecology identify how to best
spend federal money the state
receives for water-protection
projects, he said.
The Washington Farm Bu-
reau is concerned the guidance
will favor projects that call for
large buffers between fields
and waterways. “It takes way
too much land out of produc-
tion,” said Evan Sheffels, the
organization’s associate direc-
tor of government relations.
Despite Ecology’s assur-
ances that the guidance will be
voluntary, the Farm Bureau is
skeptical of the undertaking,
Sheffels said. “We’d rather
not go there, but Ecology has
decided they’re going to do it,
whether we want them to or
not.”
Ecology says it wants peo-
ple with on-the-ground expe-
rience and with scientific and
technical expertise.
Candidates should submit
letters of interest by July 18 to
Rau at ben.rau@ecy.wa.gov.
Ecology says it plans to pick
the panel by early August.
WAPATO, Wash. — A vi-
rus discovered in Virginia to-
bacco 90 years ago has been
found in Washington, in a
vineyard near Wapato.
When Andrew Schultz be-
came general manager of the
vineyard five years ago, the
owner asked him to figure out
what was wrong with his Gre-
nache wine grape vines.
Shoots were short and
stumped. Some collapsed.
Others grew poor fruit that
dropped. Some vines had
great canopies and no grapes.
Others had small grapes and
little canopy. The xylem, tis-
sue in stems conveying water
and nutrients, was discolored.
Schultz had never seen
anything like it, began map-
ping problem areas within the
3-acre block and called in his
former professor, Naidu Ray-
apati, Washington State Uni-
versity virologist and grape-
vine disease expert.
“It was quite surprising to
realize that we had this vi-
rus here in Washington state
in wine grapes,” Rayapati
said. “It took us three to four
months to figure it out, using
a variety of diagnostic tech-
niques.”
He used three different
methods to verify and is “100
percent sure” it is Tobacco
Ringspot Virus (TRSV), first
identified in Virginia tobacco
fields in 1927. TRSV is trans-
mitted by nematodes, varroa
mites and honeybees and also
can be by sap inoculation
and seeds. It has a wide host
range of crops, ornamentals
and weeds. It’s most common
symptom is chlorotic ring-
spots on leaves.
TRSV has been reported
in Florida, Mississippi, Ala-
bama, Oklahoma and Mich-
igan but never in the Pacific
Northwest, Rayapati said.
“There is a knowledge gap
in the distribution of this virus
and its economic impact on
different crops,” he said. “No
one is doing active research.”
At the request of the own-
er, Rayapati and Schultz are
not revealing the identity of
the vineyard. But Schultz said
it had been a pear orchard
Courtesy of WSU
Grapes from healthy Granache vines dwarf grapes from vines damaged by Tobacco Ringspot Virus.
Courtesy of WSU
Vineyard Manager Andrew Schultz and WSU virologist Naidu
Rayapati in May 2016.
with no fallow time between
tree removal and vine plant-
ing in 2006. The virus is in
nematodes and they think it
likely was present in the pear
orchard and may be undetect-
ed in other places in the lower
Yakima Valley.
TRSV is spotty, not per-
vasive, in the 3-acre block
but has spread some into two
adjoining 3-acre blocks over
12 years, Schultz said. Oth-
er things, like leafroll virus,
spread a lot faster, he said.
TRSV can cause plants to
become totally unproductive
and can render ground useless
for growing, Rayapati said.
But he believes the vineyard
can be salvaged.
Chemicals kill nematodes
but not completely. They
bounce back.
Rayapati and Schultz are
working on other means to
combat and contain it, in-
cluding testing different root-
stocks and grafts and predato-
ry nematodes to eat the ones
spreading the virus.
Schultz said Syrah and
other varieties may be less
susceptible than Grenache.
However even with the
infestation, the block has pro-
duced some great wine, he
said.
The discovery is a remind-
er to the industry to be vigi-
lant to test soil when switch-
ing crops and to use certified
virus-free plants, Rayapati
said.
WSU’s Irrigated Agricul-
ture Research and Extension
Center, near Prosser, is home
to the Clean Plant Center
Northwest which helps grow-
ers plant virus-free trees and
grape and hop vines.
Wine is a $4.8 billion in-
dustry in Washington with
60,000 acres of wine grapes
and more planted each year.
“It’s important to nip this
problem in the bud,” Rayapati
said. “Tobacco Ringspot isn’t
something that will wipe out
the industry, but we need to
make sure growers plant vi-
rus-free materials and there
are no risks in the soil itself.”
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