Administrative holds placed on 18 licenses after testing shows high levels of DDE a chemical that remains when DDT breaks down. Gnarly stuff.
It’s 18 in Okanogan now because they happened to be selected for more in depth testing after a pattern was discovered from random testing. That shit was used all over. I guarantee you the same issued will be found all over the state if testing for DDE becomes mandatory on the pest screen. Yakima, Benton and Walla Walla counties having the same issues would not surprise me at all.
4 Likes
Are there any Washington licensees here who want to chime in? I manage operations at one of the foremost testing laboratories in the State and we are actively brainstorming for the best way to tackle this issue. We have DDE and DDD standards on order and we are planning for some lightning-fast method development to at least get a “DDX screening panel” in place in the next few weeks. Our next annual ISO accreditation is late May so we plan to have something more robust in place that can be ISO 17025 certified along with the rest of our methods.
What do you all think the timeline will be rolling out these proposed rule changes? Has anyone been able to speak with any LCB representatives?
3 Likes
I was until recently. Benton County no less. Grew in pots w/o native soil but neighbors in native soil. If I was still a licensee I’d be wanting to send soil and plant samples immediately. Probably too late to pivot completely away from soil for this outdoor season but might be able to mitigate in some way at least. Neighboring orchards were still spraying Daminozide recently so no doubt DDT was used for years. LCB is always slow with this shit though. I imagine it starts with the LCB starting to do more random testing of products from other likely counties like the three I listed. I imagine the threshold for failure is gonna pretty tight considering the press this is getting in-state.
Distillate is gonna be hit really hard. I know for a fact that a lot of disty in the state was made in part of flower and trim grown in Okanogan and other likely contaminated counties. Walden in particular I remember from back then. Outdoor trim was the backbone of cheap disty in WA for the last few years.
So D9 prices might go up but people are gonna lose jobs and businesses with the margins in the state being what they are.
5 Likes