NOAA Fisheries to participate in wheat grower tour

NOAA Fisheries to participate in wheat grower tour

Washington Ag Today March 21, 2011 Later this spring officials from several federal agencies involved with consultations under the Endangered Species Act will be touring eastern Washington farms. The Washington Association of Wheat Growers has put the mid-June tour together. Its Vice President Eric Maier says there will be officials from NOAA Fisheries Service, including Will Stelle, from the Environmental Protection Agency and hopefully also from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Maier: “We are going to three-day to four-day tour. We are going to make a loop through the PNW and Washington state basically. We are going to show them ground application, aerial application. We are going to show them some hesitation through center pivots. Kind of a broad overview of what the industry is in terms of transportation, marketing and those kind of things and the highlight of the tour will probably be a trip down to those Snake River dams with some salmon counts and a presentation by the Corps.”

The driving force behind this is the consultation process among federal agencies regarding crop protection chemicals and endangered fish which could lead to restrictive spray buffers.

Maier: “We are trying to be pro-active and trying to turn the ship a little bit here and get these chemicals moving a little faster through the system, the consultation process and making sure they are not going to be in jeopardy.”

A recent lawsuit could result in hundreds of chemicals being added to the consultation process. Also, earlier this month the National Marine Fisheries Service put out a draft plan to protect Pacific salmon from an additional six farm chemicals including 2-4-D, one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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