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ENVIRONMENT Keeping legal pot farms legal in Southern Oregon Symposium to educate pot growers about water and environmental laws Comment By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Feb. 23, 2016 at 5:02 PM By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Feb. 23, 2016 at 5:02 PM --> IF YOU GO What: Southern Oregon Cannabis Growers Symposium When and where: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday at the Josephine County Fairgrounds off Highway 99 near Grants... » Read more X IF YOU GO What: Southern Oregon Cannabis Growers Symposium When and where: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday at the Josephine County Fairgrounds off Highway 99 near Grants Pass Who: Organized by the Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation District. The symposium will feature 22 speakers. Vendors also will be on hand. Cost: $30 per person or $45 per couple in advance, and $50 at the door Registration and information: Call 541-474-6840 » Social News Marijuana cultivators flocking to Southern Oregon to grow pot know pot farms are now legal, but it doesn't mean they know how to farm pot legally. The Josephine County Soil and Water District is offering a crash-course in environmental laws and other aspects of marijuana farming to keep growers from running afoul of laws protecting streams, fish and wildlife. More than 100 people have signed up for the one-day seminar Thursday at the Josephine County Fairgrounds, where there is room for 1,000 people who want to bone up on water-quality, water-rights and diversion laws, fisheries protection and other rules that regulate agriculture, including cannabis cultivation. "We want to give them some heads-up information to keep them from getting in trouble," district Manager Randi Omley-Tatum says. "They're not aware of some of these laws, and we know they're not aware." The symposium comes as environmental regulators look into a rash of reports about water-pollution and water-rights violations that could be linked to new marijuana operations on private lands. Many marijuana growers — ranging from out-of-state transplants to residents trying their hand at growing plants — need to know what they can and can't do to the environment, Omley-Tatum says. "You'd be surprised how many people think that just because they have water running through their property that they can use it," Omley-Tatum says. The state Department of Environmental Quality is investigating more than a half-dozen water-quality complaints in recent weeks involving rural creeks suddenly choked with turbidity, soap suds or other suspected violations of state and federal water-quality rules. "It's the soil-disturbing activities combined with rainfall," says Bill Meyers, DEQ's Rogue River Basin coordinator. "There's a spike in these kinds of land-disturbing events, but for what purpose we don't know." Meyers says the cases involve lands where no new permits have been issued for buildings or new roadways, nor have plans been filed with the Oregon Department of Forestry for logging, Meyers says. However, investigators have so far been unable to establish any direct links between the water problems and marijuana growing, Meyers says. There's also concern that the death of a protected Pacific fisher might have been linked to marijuana growing. The fisher, which appeared to be sick or injured, was captured Jan. 14 near Pinecrest Terrace in Ashland and taken to Wildlife Images Rehabilitation Center near Merlin, where it later died, says Steve Niemela, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who captured the fisher. A necropsy later found the fisher contained rodenticide, possibly from ingesting a rodent killed with the poison, according to the necropsy report. The report, however, does not say rodenticide poisoning killed the fisher. Rodenticides have been known to be used at illegal marijuana grows in the past, but it was unknown where this particular fisher came in contact with the rodenticide, Niemela says. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman . By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Follow @@MTwriterFreeman Posted Feb. 23, 2016 at 5:02 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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