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B4 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019 USDA undercuts Washington state’s hemp testing policy By DON JENKINS Capital Press The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposed hemp rules would toss aside a testing policy that advo- cates hoped would fi nally make Washington a top hemp-producing state. The USDA says the test- ing protocol it recently out- lined would best measure the level of the intoxicating chemical THC in harvested hemp plants. The proce- dures, however, differ from ones Washington planned to implement next year to keep hemp from testing “hot.” Exceeding the USDA’s limit of 0.3% THC would cause a hemp crop to be considered marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law and would then have to be destroyed under the new USDA regulations. The Washington Depart- ment of Agriculture will adapt to whatever the USDA settles on, said Jes- sica Allenton, assistant director for the Commodity Inspection Division. “We’re working on a plan that con- forms with the USDA’s requirements,” she said. Testing procedures are among the details that must be worked out as hemp moves into mainstream agriculture. When and how hemp is tested will infl u- ence whether the plants exceed the THC threshold and must be destroyed. Washington lawmak- ers this year approved test- ing procedures favorable to low THC results. The USDA protocol would lead to more plants failing, said Bonny Jo Peterson, execu- tive director of the Indus- trial Hemp Association of Washington. “That’ll put farmers in jeopardy. I think it will cause a lot of farmers to not grow,” she said. Key differences include what part of the plant would be tested. Washing- ton planned to measure the THC as a percentage of the whole plant. USDA pro- poses to test just the fl ow- ering part. The USDA also has proposed laboratory pro- cedures that can result in higher THC levels. Differ- ent methods and laborato- ries can come up with dif- ferent results. One hemp sample that tested hot in Spokane was re-tested by the state agriculture depart- ment in Yakima and passed, Allenton said. Another key difference would be when plants are tested. The USDA pro- poses testing plants within 15 days of harvest. Wash- ington planned to test plants sometime after they’re harvested. The USDA says it wants plants to be tested as close to harvest as possible. The longer the plants grow, the higher the THC level. A 15-day window will allow for delays caused by weather and equipment breakdowns, according to the USDA. That could cause a back- log as many farmers seek to harvest at roughly the same time. Operating under interim rules, three Wash- ington inspectors this year collected samples within 30 days of harvest and submit- ted them to a private labora- tory in Spokane. With less time for test- ing, the state may need more hemp inspectors and may need to contract with more laboratories, Allenton said. The USDA will take public comments on the hemp rules until Dec. 30. Snohomish, Washing- ton, farmer Julian Sib- ley was among the early commentators. Sibley said in an inter- view that his farm hopes to plant hemp for the fi rst time next year. He said the USDA’s testing proposal was too strict, especially in a state with legal marijuana. “If people want THC, they’re not going to buy hemp,” he said. This year was Wash- ington’s fi rst sizable hemp crop. More than 100 farm- ers registered to grow about 6,000 acres of hemp. The state will not require farm- ers to report how much they actually grew. Washington lags far behind Oregon in hemp production. Peterson said she had expected Washing- ton to close the gap next year because Oregon has opted for stricter testing procedures. “Next year would have been at least a 10-fold increase,” she said. David Zalubowski/AP Photo Male greater sage grouse perform mating rituals. Sage grouse court order trims energy lease auction in Nevada By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press RENO, Nev. — Federal land managers have with- drawn more than 500 square miles of public land from a swath of eastern Nevada where oil and gas drill- ing leases go to auction this week after a judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to ease protection of sage grouse habitat. The acreage pulled from Tuesday’s scheduled sale — more than half of what the Bureau of Land Management originally planned for auc- tion — roughly corresponds to priority habitat desig- nated in a 2015 federal sage- grouse plan completed under President Barack Obama for Nevada and northeastern California. The move won the agency rare praise from conserva- tionists who secured the fed- eral court order in Idaho last month. “Taking sensitive sage- grouse habitats off the auc- tion block is the right thing for the BLM to do, because public lands that aren’t leased for fossil fuel extraction don’t suffer from future industrial impacts,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and exec- utive director of the Western Watersheds Project. The Trump land-use plans fi nalized in March had removed the most protective sage grouse habitat designa- tions across millions of acres. Administration offi cials also dropped requirements to pri- oritize leasing for oil and gas outside sage grouse habitat and allowed more waivers for drilling. But last month, U.S. Dis- trict Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise, Idaho, granted a temporary injunction sought by the Western Watersheds and others to block those plans after concluding such activities left unchecked were likely to harm the strug- gling bird species in seven Western states. His Oct. 16 order required the adminis- tration to revert to the more stringent rules adopted under Obama. The Bureau of Land Management posted for- mal notice Sept. 13 for the Tuesday auction of leases in Nevada covering 263 par- cels across about 850 square miles. Kemba Anderson, chief of the agency’s branch of mineral resources, formally removed more than half of the proposed lease area from the auction “for further anal- ysis” on Oct. 28 in order to comply with the judge’s order. Leases for the remain- ing 380 square miles still are scheduled to be auctioned Tuesday. Developers must possess leases before seek- ing permits for energy explo- ration on federal land. The conservation groups said in a statement last week that despite minimal industry interest in drilling, the Trump administration has fueled a speculative frenzy by leas- ing hundreds of thousands of acres of sensitive public land in Nevada critical to grouse. Many areas taken off the auction block, at least for now, are within the tradi- tional homeland of the Sho- shone and Paiute tribes, including the head of the Ruby Valley and the neigh- boring Maverick Mountains, the Egan Range and neigh- boring Steptoe Valley, in the headwaters of Spring Valley and in Jakes Valley. “The BLM’s partial reprieve for this beauti- ful, imperiled bird is a good fi rst step,” said Patrick Don- nelly, the Center for Biolog- ical Diversity’s Nevada state director. “But this leasing frenzy needs to stop. Leasing Nevada’s public lands out for oil and gas threatens the sur- vival of greater sage-grouse, as well as our scarce ground- water and our chance at a liv- able climate.” The Trump rules affected public land in Idaho, Wyo- ming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California and Ore- gon. Sage grouse territory in Montana, Washington and the Dakotas was not affected. 2019-2020 | 30TH SEASON COLUMBIAFORUM Tuesday, November 19, 2019 Tom Hallman, Jr. award winning writer, The Oregonian Tom Hallman Jr., a senior reporter at The Oregonian, is considered one of the nation’s premier narrative writers. During his career, he has won every major feature-writing award, including a Pulitzer Prize. The author of four books, he also contributes to Readers Digest and the Saturday Evening Post magazines. A common thread in all of Hallman’s stories is the exploration of the character’s heart and soul. HOLIDAY SUBSCRIPTION SPECIAL START YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW, AND GET THE PREMIUM THANKSGIVING EDITION DELIVERED TO YOU! Get all of the holiday events, Holiday Gift Guide, Coast Weekends and holiday shopping inserts from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Plus receive a FREE Pictorial History of Astoria book (valued at $39.95) S 8 WE E K for 95 $ 19 CALL TODAY 800-781-3214 He believes that readers are bombarded and overwhelmed with facts, the answers to nearly any question found on the internet. What we long for, though, is meaning. To discover it, we must turn to story, which allows readers to grapple with our inherent longings for community, authenticity, mystery and meaning. Hallman will share some of his favorite stories, explain how he found them, and what he — and you — will learn from them. Hallman was born and raised in Portland. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1977. He’s worked at a car wash, a grocery store, a greyhound racetrack, and volunteered at a VA hospital. He was once an answer on “Jeopardy,” the television quiz show. His book, “Dispatches from 1320” — a collection of his work — is available on Amazon, and it will for sale at the event. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 or order online at DailyAstorian.com/subscribe-now and use promo code: XMAS Columbia Forum Sponsors: • The Astorian/Coast River Business Journal • KMUN • Cannery Pier Hotel and Spa • Craft3 • OSU Seafood Lab 6 pm Appetizers 6:30 pm Dinner 7 pm Program Lecture-only attendees arrive 6:45 pm COLUMBIAFORUM 2019-20 RSVP by Friday, November 15, 2019 For reservations, to become a member or be added to contact list: Call 503-325-4955 or email forum@dailyastorian.com Forum to be held at Chef Chris Holen’s NEKST EVENT 175 14th St., Ste 100 Astoria Foot of 12th St. Use back-in parking To Attend: Members: Dinner & Lecture $25 each; Lecture only free. Non-Members: Dinner & Lecture $35 each; Lecture only $15 each Appetizers available at 6pm. Dinner will be served at 6:30pm. Lecture will begin after dinner.
