LB Parks Staff Will Test, Compare & Publicly Report On Alternatives to Herbicide "Round-Up," Responds to Advocacy By Ann Cantrell

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LB Parks Staff Will Test, Compare & Publicly Report On Alternatives to Herbicide "Round-Up," Responds to Advocacy By Ann Cantrell
Includes "Amnesia File" segment

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(Mar. 20, 2016) -- LB's Dept. of Parks, Recreation and Marine staff told LB's governing Parks & Recreation Commission on Mar. 17 that it will test, compare and publicly report to the Commission on alternatives to using "Round-Up," the Monsanto-produced herbicide. LBREPORT.com provides on-demand audio below.

The action follows advocacy by park protection advocate Ann Cantrell and other volunteers following the Sept. 4, 2015 public notice by the California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) that it intends to list glyphosate -- a key ingredient in Monsanto's weed-killing "Round-Up" -- among chemicals the agency has identified as [agency text] "known to the state to cause cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65)."

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To view the state agency's notice, click here.

Monsanto disputes the state agency position, has filed suit to halt the state action and the company has a webpage devoted to glyphosate at this link.

For weeks, Ms. Cantrell provided Parks and Rec staff with photographs and narrative text detailing her concerns about the herbicide and also offered alternatives. In response, staff publicly agendized Ms. Cantrell's correspondence for a March 17 report to the Parks & Rec Commission.

Hurley Owens Acting Manager of LB Parks/Rec Maintenance and Development Bureau indicated that over the coming weeks, staff plans to test and compare the effectiveness and costs of three different herbicides alongside Round-Up -- over a period of roughly six to eight weeks and publicly report back to the Commission on its findings. In response to a follow-up question from Ms. Cantrell, Mr. Owens indicated three other products are Avenge, Suppress and Fiesta.

The Commission invited Ms. Cantrell to provide a presentation...and she did. In addition to photos and information she previously provided, Ms. Cantrell brought poster boards displaying photographs and narrative to support her position.

Commissioners examined Ms. Cantrell's photos and narrative.

In her Commission testimony, Ms. Cantrell suggested that LB Parks & Rec add mulching to their weed control study, arguing that spraying any kind of herbicide, organic or chemical, around a tree to kill the vegetation is harmful to the tree. She added that pine oil and vinegar are two other methods of organic weed control which the city might consider.

Volunteer Anna Christenson also testified and suggested using volunteers to remove weeds "the old fashioned way" by pulling them.

To concerns by Commissioners and staff that pulling the weeds would require human resources and costs, Ms. Cantrell said in a subsequent email: "There are students who need community service hours that could be used for this job."

The Commission voted without dissent to "receive and file its staff's report, effectively letting staff's planned action (its side-by-side test of alternative herbicides with a public report back to the Commission) go forward.

Parks & Rec Commission meeting audio isn't routinely available on the city's website, but LBREPORT.com recorded audio of this item and in the public interest makes it available on demand here. (The Commission's meetings don't use audio amplification so we only have ambient audio.)

Within hours of the Commission meeting, Ms. Cantrell went to the internet, researched the alternate products to be tested, and said in an email that the products indicate they're not for use in water and "therefore they can not be used for control of the reeds/bullrushes/tules in the streams."

Developing. Further to follow on LBREPORT.com.

LBREPORT.com "Amnesia File": Among other chemicals that CalEPA's Office of environmental Health Assessment now says deserve a Prop 65 notice are tetrachlorvinphos, parathion and malathion. Malathion was the chemical sprayed on some southland communities in the 1980s and 1990s in efforts by other Sacramento agencies to eliminate the Mediterranean fruit fly, a threat to the agriculture industry. In 1981, B.T. Collins (appointed by then-Governor Brown to run the CA Conservation Corps) drank from a cup of malathion, purporting to show CCC members that it was safe. Mr. Collins died from a heart attack about a decade later at age 52. Controversy over malathion continued for years, including lawsuits by some cities to try and halt the spraying while state officials and various toxicologists asserted its safety.