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Wednesday, September 5, 2012 | 75 cents
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Sumner re-ups moratorium on medical marijuana biz
What’s Inside News .......................... Pages 3-5 Views..................................Page 6 Sports............................. Page 10 Classifieds ........... Pages 16-21
Daniel Nash
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Boot: Filled
E a s t Pierce Fire and Rescue col lec ted more than $20,000 d u r ing their annual Fill the boot Campaign for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
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Today, Wednesday, should bring sunny weather with a high near 78. The night will be mostly clear with a low around 54. Sunshine is expected to continue through the weekend.
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Terry McNabb of AquaTechnex displays some of the Eurasian milfoil pulled from Lake Tapps Aug. 29. Photo by Brian Beckley
One weed at a time: Milfoil attack goes hands-on in Tapps By Brian Beckley
A
Staff Writer
fter two successful summers of chemical treatment to remove the eurasian milfoil in Lake Tapps, Cascade Water Alliance is taking a more targeted approach this year: pulling out the invasive weed by hand. “We’re hoping from here on out it will just be maintenance,” said Jon Shimada, capital projects director for Cascade. Beginning this past week, divers from AquaTechnex are patrolling the lake’s shores and yanking out what milfoil remains. According to
Aquatic Biolgist Terry McNabb, two years worth of herbicides have made “huge strides” in battling milfoil, which can be dangerous to swimmers in large quantities, as well as the ecosystem of a body of Eurasian milfoil water. “People tend to forget that two years ago there was a bay this size you couldn’t see the water,” McNabb said Wednesday
See Milfoil, Page 5
Sumner’s City Council voted unanimously Aug. 20 to enact a sixmonth moratorium on businesses related to medicinal marijuana. It is the third time Sumner has enacted such a moratorium since July 2011. The moratorium was passed again due to a continued ambiguity regarding which marijuana distribution methods are allowed under state law, City Attorney Brett Vinson said. “This matter has come before the council on several different occasions,” he said. “So whenever the moratorium was put in place, it’s been allowed to lapse in hopes of clarification from the state. “When the issue has gone to the legislature, occasionally it’s come back a little more muddled.” An initiative allowing the use and possession of medical marijuana by patients of certain conditions was originally passed in 1998. The law did not extend amnesty against possession charges, but rather allowed an affirmative defense to patients who received a note from an approved health care provider and registered with the Department of Health. The law allows for designated providers of medical marijuana, essentially patients who also provide the plant to another patient and are thus allowed to have double the approved amount of plants and/or harvested cannabis. But the law says nothing about the distribution or sale of medical marijuana; effectively, approved patients may have marijuana, but the means of obtaining it remain illegal. The state legislature has revised the law several times, most recently
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