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Letter to Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles |
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Letter to Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles |
19 April 2000
TO: Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles
Olympia, WA
FR: David E. Ortman
7043 22nd Ave N.W.
Seattle, WA 98117
(206) 789-6136
As a constituent I am concerned that you cut off discussion of the proposed
Gypsy Moth Spraying at last night's forum at Adams Elementary before
additional facts about the proposed spraying could be presented. I am also
concerned about your unwillingness to challenge many of the obvious
"misstatements" made by WSDA and the Health Department (e.g. the
representative of the Seattle/King Co. Health Department who made the flat
statement that B.t.k. is "non-toxic" when he knows that it is Foray 48B
that is being sprayed and that this formulation is certainly toxic to
various insect species.) as well as your refusal to help Ballard and
Magnolia citizens fight this spraying.
The following are additional examples of how WSDA has deliberately mislead the public and lied about this project.
The WSDA lied. The WSDA had signed the SEPA environmental checklist on 2 February. The SEPA determination of nonsignificance was signed by WSDA on 11 February. The public comment period was already running when WSDA was telling the public that the checklist was unavailable. In addition, WSDA made no effort at their 16 February "informational" meeting to even make available a signup sheet for the members of the public who expressed an interest in receiving a copy of the environmental checklist.
The Department of Ecology was even more hostile. In a 23 March 2000 letter response for a copy of the environmental checklist and an explanation of why the proposal could not be located on Ecology's hard to use SEPA Register website, Mary Kautz of Ecology's Northwest office wrote, "SEPA does require posting in the SEPA register by the lead agency, and any additional public notice would be redundant and a waste of funds."
As evidenced by the 3 April 2000 Everett Herald article below. Ecology has already admitted that they do not enforce against pesticide application water quality permit violations by WSDA. In addition, Ecology does not require that any wind measurement devices be used to make sure that spraying applications do not take place when the wind is in excess of 10 miles per hour.
". . .the study by Oshodi and Macnaughtan (1990) is somewhat unusual. After inhalation exposure to Foray 48B, the numbers of viable B.t.k. spores recovered from the lungs [of exposed mammals] did not decrease substantially during a 28-day observation period."
Neither WSDA or the Seattle/King Health Department have made this study known to the public or explained the results of this test.
In conclusion, when employees of the WSDA lie to the public and when the Department of Ecology admits that they do not enforce conditions of permits they issue to WSDA, the offending employees should be fired. They are not protecting either the public or the environment and render the entire public process a sham. WSDA has failed to establish a need for its proposed multiple spraying of Ballard and Magnolia and our elected representatives in Olympia have failed to oversee, overhaul or reform either WSDA or Ecology. We request that all our elected officials contact Governor Locke and demand that this proposed spraying be halted and that an immediate investigation be carried out on the actions of WSDA and the inactions of Ecology.
cc: Rep. Helen Sommers
Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson
Members of the Seattle City Council
Members of the King County Council
Encl. Article below
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3 April 2000
Everett Herald
State oversight of weed spraying criticized - Rules not enforced, environmentalists say
By SUSANNA RAY Herald Writer
Environmentalists claim the state is failing to keep an eye on how weedkiller is sprayed on mudflats, including hundreds of acres near Stanwood, potentially harming clams. At issue is a weedkiller called Rodeo, used to control spartina, a reedlike, noxious weed that is taking over large areas of Puget Sound, Port Susan, Skagit Bay and other waterways across the state. Spartina ruins near-shore habitat for salmon, shellfish, birds and other wildlife.
Nearly 700 gallons of Rodeo were sprayed into Snohomish and Island county waters last year to control the weed. Spraying season starts again June 1. Last week the state Department of Ecology received a letter from a group of 18 environmental organizations and citizens demanding that the state enforce the conditions of a water quality permit issued last year to the Department of Agriculture, which in turn allows licensed property owners and agencies to spray.
The letter charged Agriculture Department officials with failing to provide proper public notice, failing to report toxic or allergic responses and applying pesticides without a license. "When Ecology issues a permit with conditions and then looks the other way when another state agency violates those conditions, how can the public or the regulated community have any confidence that Ecology's permit issuance process is anything other than a sham?" wrote David Ortman, an environmental consultant. (deom@jps.net)
State officials say they might have made some minor procedural errors, but they corrected them and no harm is being done to clams or the people who eat them. Rodeo's active ingredient is glyphosate, which is also the main ingredient in the popular Roundup weedkiller used by gardeners.
But while Roundup users are warned to keep the spray away from bodies of water, Rodeo is safe because it has an additive that makes it stick to plants rather than fish, said Blain Reeves with the Department of Agriculture. "Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world," Reeves said, citing numerous studies that point to its low level of toxicity.
That's not good enough for Ortman, who provided copies of his own studies showing the potentially negative effects of glyphosate. "(Rodeo and Roundup are) designed to kill things, but they're constantly claiming that these chemicals are safe," Ortman said.
Last year, the Department of Fish and Wildlife discovered a small amount of glyphosate in clams that were found dead on a shellfish farm in Willapa Bay, on the coast of southern Washington. Ortman believes there is a connection between Rodeo and the clams' deaths, but David Eaton, a professor of toxicology with the University of Washington, said the minute amount of glyphosate found in them wouldn't have been fatal to the clams or anyone else.
"It would be unlikely that consuming clams contaminated with glyphosate would be a significant threat to humans," Eaton said, adding that a person would have to eat 12 pounds of them every day for years before reaching a level of concentration that would be considered even remotely unsafe.
The environmental groups recognize the need to get rid of the spartina infestations and realize the options are few, Ortman said, but they would like to see a minimum of chemicals used and make sure that safety conditions for using them are observed.
They could have a fight ahead, considering the government bureaucracy involved. Ecology officials said it's their job to determine who gets the water quality permits, and the rest is up to the Department of Agriculture. "We issue a permit and then we have to trust another state agency to comply with the law," said Curt Hart, an Ecology spokesman. "It's not a good use of our resources to monitor another regulatory agency," Hart added. "We have very limited funding to go out and do day-to-day monitoring."
And Agriculture Department officials said their duty is to oversee who is spraying Rodeo where, not to monitor how it's done. "Ultimately the responsibility and all the legal onus (to uphold state law) is on them (the actual applicators)," Reeves said. Ecology officials plan to respond to Ortman's letter today.