Document ID: EPA-HQ-OPP-2010-0265-0002
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2010-04-28T04:00Z

To: The Personal Attention of Lisa P. Jackson 

From: Pesticide Poisoning Victims United, a Division of The Pitchfork
Rebellion,

	a Forest-Dwellers Support Group Movement based in Rural, Lane County,
Oregon.

Our Webpage: pitchforkrebellion.com

E-Mail:   HYPERLINK "mailto:greenlion@pitchforkrebellion.com" 
greenlion@pitchforkrebellion.com 

Mail: C/O Day Owen, Box 160, Greenleaf, OR. 97430 

Petition to Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator, US EPA

from Pesticide Poisoning Victims United,                                
                     A Division of The Pitchfork Rebellion

The Topic of this Petition:

“A Call for Help Via Three Proposed Actions                           
                                  from Forest-Dwelling Oregonians

who Have been Harmed by Timber Industry                                 
          Aerial-Sprayed Pesticides”

Note: These three proposals are so intimately related as to form one
unit and thus one petition

The Three Proposed Actions

PROPOSED ACTION ONE:

The EPA Should Conduct an Unbiased Study to Determine What Would be an
Appropriate Aerial Spray Buffer Zone for the Specific Conditions Found 

along the Highway 36 Corridor in Lane County, Oregon.

MAIN FACTS RELATED TO PROPOSED ACTION ONE

Fact One: There is no existing aerial spray buffer zone in Oregon.

Fact Two:  Members of Pesticide Poisoning Victims United have been
harmed by exposure to pesticide drift from timber industry aerial spray
near our homes, a fact that has led to large public protest rallies in
Lane County, Oregon, and our effort to see established an aerial spray
buffer zone. The protest rallies, led by rural forest-dwellers, have
been the largest protest rallies on any

topic in Oregon for the past several years, and have featured the
testimony of persons poisoned by the aerial sprays, including children,
as well as mock trials of pesticide CEO’s and government agencies that
are perceived to be under their thumbs. [News articles about these
rallies and our forest-dwellers movement are included in the appendix
section. We were recently voted ‘Best Green Cause’  by the readers
of Eugene Weekly. We mention that here simply because it is important
for people in Washington DC to understand that this issue has become BIG
news in Oregon and must be dealt with NOW.]

Fact Three: Current EPA data on spray drift is largely based on
unreliable data provided by the pesticide industry via the Spray Drift
Task Force, a group of 42 companies.                                    
                                                                        
                                                         

Fact Four: Not only is the drift data relied upon by the EPA unreliable
due to its source – the very people who profit from pesticides – but
it is too generic to pertain to the specific conditions found along the
Highway 36 corridor of Lane County, Oregon.

Fact Five: The unique conditions along the Highway 36 corridor are as
follows:

	a) A heavily logged coastal mountain range wherein the mountain tops
and high slopes 		are typically owned by private timber companies and
operated as industrial tree farms 

	featuring clearcuts and aerial sprayed pesticides while the lower
slopes and valleys are 

	owned by residents who reside in homes impacted by the sprays;

	b) The sprays are thus typically done at a higher elevation than the
nearby homes, 	sometimes with homes virtually directly beneath sprays;

	c) The coastal mountain range along the Highway 36 corridor is a
temperate rain forest

	and is thus extremely wet; this wetness results in a multitude of
springs – water seeping 

	out of the soil to run downhill in streams to empty into Salmon-bearing
Lake Creek – as 	well as almost daily extreme fog. The fog seems to
come right out of the mountain itself, 	hovers near ground level for
much of the day, and is in almost constant movement from 	one
‘property’ to the next, respecting no borders and carrying pesticide
drift due to the 	fact that timber industry helicopters routinely spray
over these banks of moving fog 	clouds [the Oregon Department of
Forestry], which monitors timber industry sprays, 	whenasked by us
whether or not spraying directly above wet, moving fog is a violation of
	the label law that prohibits applying pesticides on water, replied that
they do not know];

	d) The specific conditions include factors that result in unusual wind
patterns, often 	changing repeatedly within a few minute time-span, a
situation that results in the inability 

	of helicopter pilots to accurately predict wind patterns prior to
beginning a given spray 

	operation.

Fact Six: Upon our request, neither government nor industry has been
able to point to drift studies that have been done in conditions that:
a) mimic our Highway 36 corridor 	bioregion conditions described above,
and b) include analysis of the movement of pesticides – including
their inert ingredients and when used in ‘cocktails’ – sprayed on 
these types of fog banks and low moist clouds when sprayed almost
directly above homes in a region of unpredictable, repeatedly-shifting
wind patterns.  

Fact Seven:  Due to the above stated facts, determining the appropriate
amount of protection that should be given residents of the Highway 36
corridor – and similar bioregions – in regard to the establishment
of a specific distance of aerial spray buffer zone is problematic in
that insufficient, unreliable, and non-site-specific scientific data is
currently all that is available to the EPA, a fact that can be rectified
only if the EPA itself conducts an unbiased study of the specifics
listed above, as is called for by this PROPOSED ACTION ONE. [By
‘unbiased’ and ‘conducted by the EPA itself’ we mean that every
aspect of the study should be under the auspices of EPA, not private
industry, including the contracting of the helicopters used in the
study, which should be the same type helicopters and same type spray
nozzles currently commonly employed in this bioregion. We suggest that
the pesticide companies foot the bill of these studies and that private
contractors unaffiliated with the pesticide industry be hired to do the
physical testing, overseen by EPA.]

NOTE:  For additional material in support of Proposed Action One see the
attached Appendix One: Cover Story of Eugene Weekly on The Pitchfork
Rebellion. That article describes the 2005 beginnings of the
forest-dweller support group movement called The Pitchfork Rebellion
that, in 2009, was voted Best Green Cause. The article gives essential
background information to Proposed Action One. Please read it in its
entirety. 

PROPOSED ACTION TWO:

Until The Study Described In The Above Proposed Action One is Completed 
and an Appropriate Pesticide Aerial-Spray Buffer Zone for the           
                 Highway 36 Corridor has Been Determined and Lawfully
Established,

the EPA Will Mandate an Aerial Spray Buffer Zone

Around Properties with Homes or Schools of One Mile, 

First Along the Highway 36 Corridor

and Subsequently in Other Regions that are Found to Have Similar Risks

According to a Risk Model that will be Created by the EPA 

MAIN FACTS RELATED TO PROPOSED ACTION TWO

Fact One: In support of this Proposed Action Two, Pesticide Poisoning
Victims United, a Division of The Pitchfork Rebellion, will provide
evidence that our bioregion, the above described heavily-logged,
extremely wet, Highway 36 Corridor located in Lane County, Oregon,

is a known trouble-spot in regard to aerial-sprayed pesticide exposures
and thus deserves immediate attention and protection. That evidence will
include:

Testimony of individuals who have been poisoned by timber industry
aerial sprayed

       pesticides;

Evidence from various Oregon government agency meetings that demonstrate
a sort of ‘hot spot’ of complaints related to aerial-sprayed
pesticides in the Highway 36 Corridor. 

Fact Two:  It is proverbial common-sense and scientific truth that
‘one shoe does not fit every foot’. It is equally true that one
aerial-spray buffer zone does not appropriately fit the need of every
diverse bio-region and sub-region of Oregon. A region like the Highway
36 Corridor where constantly-changing wind patterns, almost daily low
flying fog moving rapidly a few feet above the ground, rain-forest wet
conditions, and, significantly, residential homes dotted throughout
industrial managed ‘tree-farm’ forests that feature clear-cuts and
aerial sprays, with the homes at lower elevations than the nearby
sprays, warrants a different, more extreme buffer zone, than most other
regions or sub-regions. Thus, the EPA, if it is to fulfill its
obligation to protect the public from over-exposure to pesticides, must
develop regional and sub-regional analysis for risk management that
includes models for regions like the Highway 36 Corridor described in
this petition. Such a model should include all of the factors listed
above, and any others that are pertinent. Such a model might label our
described region as ‘Extremely High Risk’ and legally mandate that
regions receiving that designation have a more extreme aerial-spray
buffer zone, or, in some cases, permanently ban aerial applications in
certain conditions. A region where the land is flat, wind patterns more
stable, conditions not so wet, might receive another label such as
‘Moderate Risk for Aerial Spray’ or ‘Low Risk’ etc. Currently,
there is no aerial spray buffer zone at all in Oregon; we not only want
one, we want a scientifically-based multi-pronged model that recognizes
the very real differences in risk according to diverse conditions from
one region or sub-region to the next. In our view, anything less is
criminal negligence.

Fact Three: As documented in the attached Appendix Two: Testimonials of
Highway 36 Corridor Residents who Have been Poisoned by Aerial Sprays
More than a Quarter Mile Away, a one mile buffer zone is prudent in this
and similar high risk zones. Read that appendix!

PROPOSED ACTION THREE:

A Call to Investigate the Significance of the Influence of              
                                                                   Big
Business on the US EPA

over the History of the US EPA                                          
                                                                        
                           Prior to the Beginning of the Obama
Administration with                                                     
                   A Special Look at How that Influence has Impacted the
Laws and Policies that 

Have Resulted in Current Aerial Spray Practices Along the Highway 36
Corridor                                                        in Lane
County, Oregon

MAIN FACTS RELATED TO PROPOSED ACTION THREE

Fact One: We, the petitioners, in our effort to see an unbiased,
science-based aerial spray buffer zone established in the State of
Oregon, have interacted with various government agencies and departments
for about seven years; in that time, we have become convinced that Big
Business – especially ‘Big Agriculture’ – has enjoyed undue
influence over every State and Federal government agency and department
that we have examined, including the Oregon Department of Forestry, the
Oregon Department of Agriculture, The U.S. Department of Agriculture,
the U.S. Department of the Interior (and its dozens of sub-units
including the Bureau of Land Management), and the US Environmental
Protection Agency. 

Important Note: After our forest-dwellers support group movement, The
Pitchfork Rebellion, held community meetings to gather testimonials from
people who had been harmed by aerial sprayed pesticides, we then
contacted various government agencies – including the EPA – with one
simple request: We asked each of a dozen agencies to please come
interview the people in our community who claim to have been harmed by
aerial sprays. At this point, we were naïve; we did not yet know that
these agencies were heavily influenced by Big Agriculture. However, when
not one agency would even interview the people who claim to have been
poisoned – including families who had multiple children rushed to the
hospital after sprays – we smelled something ‘fishy’. And so we
launched a three-year investigation called, The Pitchfork Inquiry on the
Influence of Big Business on State and Federal Government Agencies. The
results of that investigation were shocking and received extensive media
coverage in Oregon. In regard to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, we discovered that the chief administrator at that time  for our
Region Ten, Elin Miller, was a former pesticide company CEO (Arysta Life
Sciences) – she also formerly was an executive of Dow Agro – and
that she was more interested in protecting the profits of Big Pesticide
than protecting the environment of the Pacific Northwest. Though our
movement became the largest forest-dweller movement of any kind in the
State of Oregon, and though we tried for several years to get a meeting,
phone conversation, or at least an exchange of letters with Elin Miller,
we never succeeded in talking to anyone but her public relations
officers. As we further investigated the EPA, we discovered that this
was not an isolated event; rather, Big Business in general and Big
Agriculture in particular, had, since the inception of the EPA during
the Nixon administration, exercised what is clearly UNDUE INFLUENCE over
every aspect of the EPA, INCLUDING THE CRITICAL ‘SCIENCE’ ON WHICH
POLICIES AND LAWS HAVE BEEN BASED.

Fact Two: We believe that we have gathered indisputable evidence to
support the above ‘Fact One’ and the assertions made in the above
‘Important Note’, but we do not ask that the EPA simply acknowledge
or deny our assertions of UNDUE INFLUENCE; rather, we request that our
assertion be investigated by an unbiased team appointed by administrator
Lisa P. Jackson, and that the motive of the investigation be honest
self-assessment by an agency that is currently in better hands than has
previously been the case; the opportunity for authentic reform may not
come again.

Fact Three: This ‘Proposed Action Three’ is not unrelated to the
first two proposed actions of this petition to Lisa P. Jackson. In
truth, having seen what we have seen, the petitioners believe that the
chances of our receiving justice at the hands of the EPA would increase
if an unbiased study commissioned by the EPA were to find that the EPA
had, throughout its history, been unduly influenced by Big Business,
including the insertion of certain structural flaws at its inception
designed to handcuff the agency – as was boldly and accurately
described by Ms. Jackson before a congressional committee in the Fall of
2009 – and a special look at how that history of undue influence has
resulted in the current aerial spray practices legally permitted in the
home district of we petitioners. We believe that the fact of undue
influence by Big Agriculture is entirely related to the fact that the
EPA – the agency in charge of regulating pesticide use – permits our
community to be attacked by the air by helicopters spraying poison WITH
ABSOLUTELY ZERO LEGAL BUFFER ZONE, sending our children to the hospital.

Only in the fresh air and bright light of honest self-assessment of its
own past history can the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency move on
and upward to be what American’s want it to be: the protector of our
environment rather than the protector of the profit of the polluters. It
is no mere coincidence that The Simpson’s Movie portrayed the EPA as
the tool of Big Business; rather, that has become the public perception
for very valid reasons, as will be shown by an unbiased study such as
the one we are calling for in our ‘Proposed Action Three’.

Important Note: The reason that our ‘Proposed Action Three’
specifies that the unbiased historical study of the influence of Big
Business on the EPA should cover the years from its inception up to the
inauguration of President Obama – thus not including the Obama era –
 is not because we desire to spare the Obama administration from this
scrutiny. Rather, the reason is practical: it is simply too soon to
attempt an analysis of this administration’s actions. We do, however,
believe that President Obama has clearly made initial appointments that
signal an intent to go in the direction of a science-based EPA that is a
public servant rather than a corporate servant. His appointment of Lisa
P. Jackson, in light of her subsequent words and actions, is viewed by
us as a positive sign, but it is still too early to make definitive
analysis of the Obama EPA such as is called for in our ‘Proposed
Action Three’. 

Fact Four: We, the petitioners, wish to make clear that when we refer to
the ‘undue influence’ of Big Business over government agencies such
as EPA, we are not asserting that Big Business should not have a seat at
the ‘Table of Stakeholders’; rather, we are asserting that they have
successfully captured more influence than is healthy for ‘the
environment’ that the EPA is called to ‘ protect’, including the
Highway 36 Corridor where we, the petitioners, are being assaulted by
poison from the sky as though we were enemy combatants, a degree of
unhealthy influence that we forthrightly term UNDUE.  When a revolving
door between industry and the EPA results in pesticide CEO’s serving
as key administrators of the EPA – who then leave government and join
the Board of Directors of the Monsanto Corporation and other pesticide
makers –  and when the ‘science’ related to aerial spray drift
relied upon by the EPA to make ‘science-based’ law comes exclusively
from The Spray Drift Task Force – 42 pesticide companies –
situations like that which exists along the Highway 36 Corridor where we
are routinely subject to aerial chemical warfare will remain legal.     
                                                                        
                                                        

Note: In support of Proposed Action Three please see Appendixes Three
and Four. 

Appendix One to Petition to EPA

Article About Petitioners in Eugene Weekly

  

 

 

The Pitchfork Rebellion

Country folk wage an uphill battle against herbicides sprayed on private
forestland.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KERA ABRAHAM

 

A clearcut hill off Highway 36

Drive west along Oregon's Highway 36, past Triangle Lake into the
Blachly-Greenleaf-Deadwood area, and you'll find yourself in coastal
mountain country. Cows amble on green pastures; barns set down next to
wooden houses; farmers and loggers pick fights in roadside bars. 

It should be pretty. But the clear-cut hills that rise steeply from the
highway are an eyesore, like ill-placed hair plugs on the balding scalp
of a beautiful man. Families own the lowlands, but city-based timber
companies hold deeds to most of the hilltops. They manage them for
short-term profit, clear cutting swaths of forest on 15-year rotations,
then dousing the naked slopes with herbicides to regenerate neat rows of
Douglas fir. You'll likely pass more logging trucks than cars on the
highway. The sound of helicopters is as regular as birdsong. 

It's been this way for decades. As more than a few loggers'll tell ya,
it's a living.

But something snapped in Blachly recently, and it wasn't just a tree
under the weight of a mudslide. You could see it on the side of the
highway on Feb. 11, at the base of a particularly homely clearcut. About
50 folks in jeans and baseball hats held hand-printed cardboard signs
reading "No Spray" and "Health is Wealth." They took turns at a staticky
microphone, lambasting big timber and pesticide companies for poisoning
them for profit, politicians for failing to pass substantive laws to
protect their farms and families, and media for not noticing. Their
mantra: "We're mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore."

This, they announced, was the beginning of something big. An uphill
battle, but one absolutely necessary to protect their land and their
families. 

This was the launch of the Pitchfork Rebellion.

 

Rebels with a cause

If Lane County's major timber companies — Weyerhaeuser, Roseburg,
Rosboro, Swanson — are Goliath, then it's not hard to imagine David
Owen's role. Two years ago, he left his natural food store in Veneta to
move to Blachly with his wife Neila and her two school-aged children.
They raised up a home and a small organic farm, complete with chickens
and goats, and he became the minister of a country church. Wearing his
trademark denim overalls, with a long white beard and small sharp blue
eyes, he resembles a farmer Santa. 

 

Fred Mentzer

Last fall, Owen began hosting monthly meetings for neighbors concerned
about the herbicide operations. He invited expert guests to lecture on
the science of herbicides, the laws governing their use and citizens'
tools for reform. 

Then the stories started percolating in, like groundwater into a
mountain creek. The neighbors noted that one local man breaks out in
sores every time there's a nearby spray. A young father told how he had
bad stomach pains, and his dog lost half of its fur, after a timber
company doused the hill behind his house. A mother noted that two
Triangle Lake High graduates died of testicular cancer in their 20s and
30s. Several locals said they feel depressed, aggressive or moody during
the spraying season. Organic farmers noticed changes in their crops and
wondered if they were being contaminated by chemical drift.

Cheryl Smith, a goat rancher, said her animals had a "freakish year" of
miscarriages and birth defects. Pam Benson, a self-described recluse,
said she once inhaled a lungful of herbicide out the car window; her
throat began to bleed, one of her lungs filled up with fluid, and she
was incapacitated for several weeks.

Nancy Weiler, the owner of a country diner off Highway 36, said she
noticed customers with the same medley of symptoms — sore throat, dry
mouth, itchy eyes — around spraying time. "I'm selling food here and
they spray right behind me," she said. "You can't tell me it's not
dropping down right onto us."

 

Governing Goliath

It's hard for the state of Oregon to say which ailments of the body or
mind are caused by herbicide exposure. But one thing's for sure: Timber
companies spray the bejeezus out of West Lane County. In just one
section, where Highway 36 meets Nelson Mountain Road in Blachly, timber
companies sprayed more than 1,000 acres of forestland with few dozen
herbicides between January 2005 and March 2006. 

 

Lynn Bowers

So when Blachly folks come down with sore throats and stomachaches,
there's no easy way to pinpoint what exactly caused it. They can't
likely look to state forester Paul Clements, the West Lane Oregon
Department of Forestry's unlucky spokesman, for quick answers. Clements,
who talks with a slight drawl and wears jeans to work at the ODF's
Veneta office, manages to come across as blunt while talking circles
around direct questions. 

When people call the West Lane ODF to ask herbicide-related questions
— What're they spraying above my land right now? Will it get into my
creek? Is it unhealthy? — Clements navigates them through a maze of
rules, regulations and agencies that govern private forestry practices
in Oregon. 

The 1971 Oregon Forest Practices Act (FPA) was the nation's first law
regulating private forest operations. But 35 years after its creation,
Oregon's FPA has fallen behind neighboring states' to become the weakest
forestry law in the Pacific Northwest. It allows landowners to clearcut
forested patches up to 120 acres, provided they leave two trees standing
per acre, and spray herbicides to within 10 feet of streams if applied
from the ground, or 60 feet if applied by helicopter. They can log steep
slopes bare, but must spare 100-foot buffers next to streams and a
"visual corridor" of trees next to scenic highways.

The FPA assumes that when timber operators follow these rules, they'll
be in compliance with federal laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean
Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. The FPA also charges the ODF
with ensuring that forest operators follow rules from other state
agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture, the Department of
Environmental Quality and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Timber companies reserve the right to spray any EPA-approved herbicide
in whatever quantity and frequency they choose, so long as they follow
the pesticide's label. And if they submit a written plan, they can ask
state foresters to waive any of those pesky Forest Practices Act
restrictions.

Spokesmen from Weyerhaeuser and Rosboro (Roseburg wouldn't return our
calls) insist that their forest operators follow the FPA to a tee, and
even take additional voluntary precautions to protect people and the
environment.

"We use procedures that are so exact," said Weyerhaeuser spokesman Mike
Moskovitz. "It's all computerized in terms of measuring the wind,
distance, everything."

"We do use approved chemicals and herbicides, so hopefully the
scientists and the people who are smarter than me have determined that
they are not a problem," said Rosboro Lumber spokesman Jim Enright.

Judging by the ODF's enforcement records, West Lane forest operators
must be just about perfect. Or something. Thousands of forestry
operations occur in West Lane County every year, but the Veneta ODF
office has issued exactly 30 penalties — totaling $13,362 — between
January 2002 and March 2006. Only four of the penalties were assessed to
big timber companies. Weyerhaeuser got the highest fine: $2,225.

Safe as they wanna be

Timber reps and industry lobbyists insist that when forestry herbicides
are used correctly, there's no cause for alarm. But they can't prove
that the 'cides are safe any better than Blachly-area farmers can prove
that they're dangerous. The state's data has more holes than the cheese
in Swiss Home. 

 

Pam Benson

The state DEQ has 30 years of water quality data on Lake Creek, a
protected chinook salmon run and the domestic water source for hundreds
of Highway 36-area residents. But the DEQ has never specifically tested
the creek for herbicides, leaving that task to the ODF.

The ODF, for its part, has published a few studies that skirt the
question of whether forestry herbicides are degrading the state's water
sources. An April 2002 ODF report concluded that forest operators
complied with 96 percent of the FPA rules and 98 percent of the state's
chemical application rules. But the study's authors did no chemical
testing of the water.

A 2000 ODF study analyzed water samples from 26 "volunteered" forestry
herbicide and fungicide application sites, none of them in Lane County.
The study reported that, on the whole, water contamination was minimal.
But hexazinone and 2,4-D — two of the most toxic forestry herbicides
— were found at trace levels in several of the samples. "Chemical
monitoring is a low priority for the Forest Practices Section," the
study concluded. "[N]o changes are recommended to the forest practice
laws." 

And that seems to be that. The ODF hasn't studied the effects of
herbicides on timberland communities since. "If we had more resources,
we would do more monitoring and collect more data," said ODF policy
analyst Brad Knotts. "We try to do what we can with the resources we
have."

Clements said he takes about 12 "calls of concern" about herbicides per
month. "I don't think they pose any risk to the public health beyond
what is known of their effectiveness," he said. "Of course, there are
people who aren't satisfied with the mechanisms that are available. Some
people don't like handguns either."

 

Poison is as poison does

It might be easy to pass the Pitchfork Rebels off as hysterical country
folk. But many of the symptoms that they describe match up with existing
information on herbicide poisoning.

David Owen quickly made allies with Lynn Bowers, an activist who
launched a campaign against herbicide spraying on south Eugene
timberlands around 2003. Her group, Forestland Dwellers, interviewed
dozens of herbicide exposure victims and compiled a list of the
recurring symptoms, ranging from the annoying (coughs, rashes,
headaches) to the disturbing (aggression, abnormal menstruation, hair
loss) to the critical (infertility, attention deficit disorder,
Parkinson's disease, a range of cancers). 

 

Richard Mentzer

The herbicides sprayed over the Blachly area span a wide arsenal of
weed-killers, including hexazinone, glyphosate, sulfometuron methyl,
triclopyr, imazapyr, atrazine and 2,4-D. Although the EPA allows these
chemicals to remain on the market, their persistence, toxicity and
health effects are still largely unknown.

According to the Pesticide Action Network's online database (  HYPERLINK
"http://www.pesticideinfo.org"  www.pesticideinfo.org),  several of
these forestry herbicides are particularly toxic. Hexazinone is a
persistent water contaminant; atrazine is a suspected endocrine
disrupter and carcinogen; both are toxic to aquatic organisms. 2,4-D,
made infamous as one of the two active ingredients in Agent Orange, is a
possible carcinogen and suspected endocrine disrupter that has been
linked with a spectrum of sinister health effects.

The ODF points to studies indicating that herbicide use on private
forests has practically no impact on water quality, but the Northwest
Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides cites studies showing the
opposite. In 1996, U.S. Forest Service tests on streams and groundwater
in the Stanislaus National Forest found that hexazinone can persist in
water sources for up to a year after sprayings. In 2000, lab tests
sponsored by the Alsea Citizens' Monitoring Committee detected atrazine
and hexazinone from forestry operations in streams at levels dangerous
to aquatic organisms.

Neither side is convinced by the other's data. But for Blachly's Nancy
Weiler, the answer is right there on the herbicide label. "What happened
to common sense?" she asked. "What about the fact that anything that
says '-cide' means 'kill'?"

Symptoms? What symptoms?

In the absence of definitive soil and water data, the Pitchfork Rebels
turn to health records. Do clusters of common symptoms appear after
herbicide operations? 

Enter Oregon's Pesticide Analytical Response Center (PARC), established
by executive order in 1978 to assemble health data related to pesticide
exposure. State law requires physicians to report cases in which they
believe a patient was affected by pesticide exposure to the Department
of Health, which passes the info along to PARC. 

 

David Owen

Department of Health Services epidemiologist Michael Heumann, who sits
on the PARC board, says that pesticide poisoning cases are probably
under-reported. Only a fraction of people who are exposed to herbicides
see a doctor; only a fraction of those doctors are able to recognize
symptoms of pesticide poisoning; and only a fraction of them report
those cases to the state. "Either the patient doesn't know it or the
doctor doesn't recognize it," Heumann said. "The fact is that pesticide
cases are seen so infrequently by doctors that it's easy for them to
miss it."

PeaceHealth Medical Director Gary Young said his physicians report all
pesticide-exposure cases to the state. But PeaceHealth doctors didn't
file a PARC report after Jim Freire, a Greenleaf man who believed he'd
been poisoned by herbicides, was checked in for cardiac arrest (see
Chemical Refugees at end of article). 

McKenzie-Willamette physician Ben Bronciel said that herbicide exposure
cases are often too fuzzy to pin. "We don't have a protocol to deal with
it," he said. "People will come in with respiratory complaints, and
that's managed symptomatically. There's no individual test that can be
done to detect if someone's been exposed to herbicides."

PARC has also been hobbled by internal meltdown. The Legislature
stripped the agency of its funding in 2003 and restored it again in
August 2005. PARC director Chris Kirby admitted that without the
funding, PARC has a limited ability to assess the health impacts of
pesticides.

"Documentation is needed, and without that, it's hard to make a
reasonable conclusion," Kirby said. "At the same time, PARC is not
funded to go out and do research. Perhaps folks would see that as a
disconnect. But if there isn't data, then where are we?"

The Blachly town doctor, Richard Mentzer, hasn't reported any cases to
PARC. "I really can't say I've seen disease that I can directly trace to
herbicides, but over the years I've had a lot of people complaining that
they get sick from it," he said. "I probably wouldn't know herbicide
poisoning if I saw it. The only way for me to find out would be to drink
a glass of it."

 

Nancy Weiler, Cheryl Smith, Patrice Johnson and Neila Owen.

But that doesn't mean he's comfortable with the spraying. "I feel
strongly that we can't keep pouring poisons on the earth and have a good
outcome," Mentzer said. 

So he and his brother Fred harvest and mill their own timber from 200
acres of forest that they cut selectively, without herbicides. The
Mentzer brothers are certified for sustainable forestry and have been
managing their forest for 30 years — longer, Fred noted, than
Goracke-Templeton Timber Company has owned the bald hump across the
highway. 

 

Alternatives

On a drizzly March afternoon, five Pitchfork Rebels sat around a table
at Nancy Weiler's diner, hashing out strategies for fighting the
herbicide operations. A cardboard Betty Boop waitress stood beside them,
waiting to take their order.

The Pitchfork Rebels made four demands. They want the ODF to review
forestry herbicides for their safety and necessity, and investigate
safer alternatives. They ask that elected officials not beholden to the
timber industry hold public hearings on forestry practices. They demand
an immediate halt to herbicide use within one mile of schools. And they
call for the replacement of clearcutting with sustainable, selective
logging practices.

It's an uphill battle. By and large, Owen explained, his neighbors don't
trust the ODF any more than they trust Weyerhaeuser. They aren't
inclined to subscribe for spraying notifications or submit written
comments to the ODF, much less report their medical concerns to the
state. "We don't even know who we're supposed to call to complain," Owen
said. "The feeling is that these ODF guys are in the pocket of the
timber industry."

Owen said that funny things happen to folks who speak up against the
timber industry: Water pipes get smashed, houses get torched, choppers
spray homes directly, tax appraisers come knocking. The fear of
retaliation is as real as the conviction that the sprayings make people
sick. "Whether it's true or not, people believe it," Owen said.

But as the Forestland Dwellers of south Eugene have shown, it helps to
be loud. In 2003, the Dwellers launched a campaign to get more neighbors
to sign up with the ODF for spray notifications. They wrote letters to
the editor and contacted their elected representatives. In March 2004,
the Dwellers negotiated an agreement with Rosboro Lumber; the company
committed to harvesting a nearby property without aerial herbicide
applications. Rosboro then sold the property to local environmentalist
Tom Lininger, who replanted it and now uses it as a demonstration site
for herbicide-free forestry. "They know that we're watching 'em," Bowers
said. 

 

Paul Clements

"They understood that we were the private landowners, and they weren't
there to kick us out or call us bad guys," company spokesman Jim Enright
said. "Once you come to the table with those understandings, you're more
likely to work things out. And we did." 

Bowers and the Oregon Toxics Alliance are now working with state Rep.
Paul Holvey on several bills that would tighten restrictions on timber
industries. "There have been a lot of complaints about spraying, and
we're really worried about the effects this is having in our
watersheds," Holvey said. "These bills would make us accountable for
what kinds of herbicides we are spraying so we can monitor what's
getting into our water." 

Holvey says that public complaints and medical cases filed with the ODF,
DEQ and PARC will help him build a case for legislative change. "I'm
hoping to get a good arsenal of data to identify that there is a problem
in our rivers, groundwater and rural areas," he said. "I need to hear
these things and move forward."

Gary Kutcher, director of the Sustainable Forestry Network, isn't
waiting for legislative reform. He wants to take the issue straight to
the people of Oregon. He is proposing a ballot initiative that would
require private timber companies to leave two-thirds of the trees on any
given acre standing. Clearcutting and herbicide use would be banned. 

It may be a long shot — Kutcher's last ballot initiative, in 1998,
only got 20 percent of the vote after the timber industry outspent his
campaign 100-to-1 — but he's undaunted. "Laws are meant to be
changed," he said. Kutcher is also challenging Faye Stewart's seat on
the Lane County Commission.

Meanwhile, off Highway 36 in Blachly, Fred and Richard Mentzer are
harvesting and milling selectively cut, herbicide-free wood from their
own timberlands. This is, after all, what the Pitchfork Rebels say they
want: not an end to logging, but sustainable forestry that creates jobs
and keeps wealth local while protecting the community's air, soil and
water.

That gave Neila Owen, brainstorming with the Rebels at Eat at Joe's, an
idea. "I feel a boycott of some sort is in order," she said. "We don't
need to support the companies that poison us. Let's buy our wood from
the Mentzers."    

Chemical Refugees

Jim and Tammy Freire and their two youngest children lived for 10 years
in a Greenleaf home off Highway 36. Tammy did the record-keeping for the
town doctor and ran an herbal nursery; Jim installed home theater
systems and grew cacti in a greenhouse. The Freires custom-designed
their house with the notion that they would grow old there. 

 

Jim Freire

In 1999, after an electric company sprayed a utility pole in his yard,
Jim went into cardiac arrest. He was rushed unconscious to PeaceHealth,
his chest cracked open and an angiogram performed on his heart. He was
diagnosed with arteritis (inflammation of the arteries) and had a triple
bypass. He was 40 years old and uninsured. The family filed bankruptcy.

Less than a year later, Jim's oldest son Ryan, then 21 and in college at
the UO, came home for a four-day visit. A helicopter flew overhead, just
barely turning off its sprayers before swooping over the house. "The
herbicides hit everything in our yard, including us," Tammy said. When
Ryan returned to Eugene, he felt ill. Within an hour he was in the
hospital in cardiac arrest. 

"I broke Einstein's law getting to town," Jim said. "I looked at my son
and he was the color of the walls — pale white with a blue tinge. He
flatlined right in front of me and they had to paddle him back." Ryan
recovered and was diagnosed with arteritis, like his dad.

Jim called the Oregon Department of Forestry to complain about the
incident. Officers from the ODF and the Oregon Department of Agriculture
took a few plant samples, found them free of herbicides and closed the
case.

But the Freires' health problems continued during subsequent sprays. Jim
realized that the herbicides from operations on the hills above them
were sifting eastward, right into the little dell where they lived.
Tammy kept getting a skin rash and irregular periods, and developed
upper respiratory problems. Their daughter got stomach cramps and
rashes. Their yard plants burned up. Their pet dove Hootie went from
male to female. "If it can do that to the bird, what can it do to my
kids?" Tammy asked. "I'd like to be a grandma someday!" 

In early 2000, after a spray, Jim and Tammy's 8-year-old son started
having chest pains. He grasped at his left arm and gasped for breath. He
went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to Sacred Heart, where he was
given an anti-inflammatory and recovered. 

In March of this year, the Freires reluctantly pulled up their Greenleaf
roots and moved to Springfield. "I knew that if I stayed out here much
longer, I would get my wish — I'd be buried out here," Jim said. "But
much sooner than I care to be."

When he spoke about leaving the home and the land where he'd hoped to
retire, Jim choked up. "I'm really pissed that we have to leave," he
said, sitting on the last piece of furniture in his Greenleaf home,
hands gripping his knees. "But unless they make this a less toxic
environment, we can't live here." — Kera Abraham

 

  

 NOTE: the above article is from 2006, the early stages of The Pitchfork
Rebellion Forest Dwellers movement. The legislative efforts described in
the article were all squashed by an industry front group called
Oregonians For Food and Shelter, which consists of dozens of timber and
pesticide corporations including Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow Agro. They
squashed the bills in the agriculture committee, which they completely
control. The bills never got out of that committee and never will.

Appendix Two

Testimonials of Highway 36 Corridor Residents who Have been Poisoned by
Aerial Sprays                                                       More
than a Quarter Mile Away

(This article is in support of Proposed Action Three’s proposed aerial
spray buffer zone of one mile)

Until and unless unbiased testing as called for in this petition’s
Proposed Action One determines a scientifically based distance for an
aerial spray buffer zone, our proposed  buffer zone of one mile is
prudent and reasonable based on the empirical evidence that many Highway
36 Corridor residents have been gravely sickened by aerial sprays done
between a quarter mile and a half mile of their homes. Again, as argued
in the text of our Proposed Action Two, the reason that residents of our
coastal mountain range are impacted at such long distances is the set of
circumstances that exist in this bioregion, including daily wet fog,
constantly changing wind patterns, and, most significantly, the fact
that our homes are located in the valleys directly beneath the mountain
tops and slopes being sprayed. 

Here follows several testimonials; we can easily produce more. Also, for
sake of space, we provide here brief excerpts from what are much longer
testimonials. The longer versions are available upon request. 

Testimony of Neila Crocker-Owen

On October 12, 2007, I was milking goats on my 35 acre organic farm.

A helicopter began spraying pesticide on the clearcut mountain across
the street from my property. I was later told by the Oregon Department
of Forestry that the distance was about a quarter mile from my home.
Because the helicopter seemed far enough away that I did not think I
would get exposed, and, because I really can’t quit milking the goats
once I have started, I continued working. The spray went on for three
hours while I worked outdoors with my farm animals.

Suddenly I became very ill. I was nauseas and had pain in my chest. My
muscles became so weak that I could not lift the milk pale the way I
normally can. I went and told my husband what was happening. By that
time he was also very sick. He had been outside as well. We went to the
doctor. My husband could barely drive but fortunately the doctor’s
office is only a few miles from our house. My husband’s life signs
were off the charts and he was having dry heaves. Later he and I both
vomited.

This exposure caused my menstrual cycle to be radically altered from its
normal, which also happened to my daughters after their exposures, and
which also happened to neighbor women. Whatever is in the pesticide
affects all of us local women’s menstrual cycles when we get exposed.
We have all noticed that.

My muscles had extreme pain for some days and then that pain moved
deeper into my joints. For months I was in severe pain, and it took a
year for most the pain to leave.

Testimony of David ‘Day’ Owen

When my wife Neila was milking the goats and hollered to me that the
helicopter flying a quarter mile from our home (higher elevation than
our home) was spraying pesticide, I got my video camera and, standing on
my own property, began to film. I didn’t think the helicopter was
close enough for me to get exposed. But less than a half hour into my
filming I noticed I could taste a nasty chemical taste in my mouth. Then
my whole face felt like it was on fire, and also the top of my head. I
began to feel very sick to my stomach. I wanted to throw up but was just
getting dry heaves.

We went to the doctor’s office and I had to lay on the ground in the
waiting room. My life signs were way off the chart. We don’t have
health insurance and the doctor told us that there was nothing that
could be done by going to the hospital anyway. So we went home and laid
in bed sick for a couple days. I had red streaks on my arms and legs
which we video taped. (video available on request). I developed terrible
feaver and the dry heaves became actual vomit. The burning sensation on
my skin went away but on top of my head where it had burned I developed
some sort of polyps (weird pimple-like things) that have not gone away.
For several days I had uncontrollable extremely painful muscle cramps in
my legs; those turned into muscle spasms.

On the first day of our exposure we called PARC, the task force of the
Oregon Department of Agriculture that Oregonians are told to call to
report pesticide exposures. I begged them to come out and test our land
for traces of pesticide, and to test our clothes which I had placed in a
plastic bag in the freezer. I also saved a urine sample and begged them
to test that. They refused to come to our property. I later found out
that they are controlled by the same companies that make the pesticides.
When I compared my experience with that of many neighbors, they all had
similar experiences with PARC (Pesticide Analytical Response Center).   
                      

Testimony of Maya Gee

In 2008 I was exposed to pesticide from a clearcut that is around a half
mile from our 55 acre property. Although it sounds like that is a far
distance, much of that distance is up: the clearcut is at a much higher
elevation, and, what goes up must come down.

I was sick to my stomach and terribly ill. I had horrible diarrhea. My
menstrual cycle was thrown way off, which is a symptom that seems to
happen to all the neighbor women who get exposed to these sprays. I had
never been sick like this before. It took me many months to recover my
health.  Fortunately, being an herbalist and yoga practitioner, I was
able to regain my health. One of my elderly neighbors was exposed to the
same spray and was even sicker than I was, being an old person.

Testimony of Alena Crocker

In the Spring of 2008, while a junior in High School, I got woke up
around 6:30 am by a very loud noise. I went outside to see what was
happening. It was a helicopter spraying poison on a clearcut on the
mountain across the street from our house. Where it was spraying is very
near my school bus stop so I told my mom. She came out and watched the
spraying with me and we watched as a cloud of fog moved from the spray
location to our property and clung to some of our trees in our yard. My
mom didn’t want me to go to the bus stop so she drove me to school. I
was feeling somewhat ill on the way to school but I had an important
test and did not want to miss it. But after I got to school I got sicker
and sicker and was taken to the doctor at noon. I had trouble breathing
and pain in throat and had excruciating pain in my spine and muscles.
The doctor wrote in his report that I had a pesticide exposure. That day
my dad called PARC and asked them to come test our property for
pesticide. They refused. They also would not come see me and test me. A
year later my Dad was curious and asked PARC to send him a copy of the
incident report they had written about my exposure. Their report said
“Unlikely Exposure” even though my doctor’s report said I had been
exposed and even though they never saw me and never came to our
property. When my dad asked how they could write in their report that my
exposure was “unlikely” even though they never saw me and my doctor
said I had been exposed, they replied that “they just don’t believe
that herbicides can drift a quarter mile.” My dad got suspicious of
PARC and investigated them. He found out that they are part of the
Pesticide Division of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and are
controlled by the pesticide industry. My dad also found out that the
pesticide investigator for PARC who spoke with my dad, Mike Odenthal, is
the ex head of a pesticide company. My pesticide exposure was from the
same clearcut as when my parents got exposed, but a different year: they
got exposed in 2007, me in 2008. When I got exposed so did my younger
sister but she didn’t go to the doctor because she didn’t get as
sick at school. Her main symptom was feeling sick to stomach, headache
and numbness and tingling in arms. Both her and me had our menstrual
cycles thrown out of our normal, which also happened to our mom and
neighbor ladies.  

Testimony of Eron King

In the Fall of 2009 Weyerhaeuser sprayed a clearcut around a quarter
mile to half mile from my home. I was made sick and called PARC to
complain. They never came out to my house. The surprising thing was that
the spray was done on an extremely wet, foggy morning. The fog was so
thick you couldn’t see more than a short distance and the fog was
moving rapidly. Also the spray was at a higher elevation than my home 

NOTE: All the above persons and other residents with similar stories are
available to be interviewed by the EPA in regard to this petition. Each
of these persons were exposed to spray that was done a quarter to a half
mile from their homes, thus we are calling for – in Proposed Action
Two of this petition –  a prudent one mile aerial spray buffer zone in
our high risk Highway 36 Corridor and in other similar bioregions,
pending the results of the study called for in proposed Action One.

Appendix Three to Petition

Note: This article relates to our Proposed Action Three

Register-Guard Newspaper

Guest Viewpoint

by Day Owen

Foxes Guard Pesticides Henhouse 

Three years ago the Pitchfork Rebellion, a forest dwellers support group
movement  concerned about pesticide use in forests near our homes,
announced "The Pitchfork Inquiry Into the Influence of Big Business on
State and Federal Government Agencies." We launched that investigation
because we thought it bizarre that we could not get a single government
agency to come out and interview people in our community who allege that
they have been sickened by herbicide sprays. 

Two years ago in this newspaper, we announced some of our preliminary
findings, including the fact that the head of the Environmental
Protection Agency for the Pacific Northwest, Elin Miller, was a former
CEO of a multinational pesticide firm. 

In brief, our inquiry found that things are much worse than we had
suspected. For example, the agency that Oregonians are instructed to
contact "to report pesticide impacts to health and/or the environment"
is the Pesticide Analytical Response Center (PARC). It is part of the
Oregon Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Division, which has a
clause in its mission statement that reads: "To protect people while
maintaining the availability of pesticides." 

Our ongoing effort to establish a buffer zone limiting how close a
helicopter can spray pesticide next to a home must make it through the
House Agriculture Committee. That panel is under the thumb of the
state's most powerful lobbying group: Oregonians for Food and Shelter.
Our report found that its members include many of the largest
multinational corporations in America, including pesticide makers
Monsanto and Dow Chemical. 

We investigated the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. The
wing that studies pesticides related to forest practices is called the
Vegetation Management Research Cooperative. We discovered that they have
exactly three "supporting members": Dow Chemical, DuPont chemical and a
German chemical company called BASF. 

Throughout the three-year investigation, the one company that came up
the most in regard to influencing state and federal government agencies
was Monsanto, which made the herbicide that sickened four members of my
family, and many members of our community. While Monsanto's involvement
was no surprise, researching the company led us to the biggest surprise
of the inquiry: the federal Department of Homeland Security. 

Because we were investigating primarily how the big pesticide companies
influence government departments that oversee our environment, it would
not have occurred to us to investigate the Department of Homeland
Security. But when we discovered that a Monsanto man, George Poste, was
appointed by President George W. Bush to head the agency's bioterrorism
division, we did. 

We discovered that, under the heading of "food security," U.S. tax
dollars are now spent to do research on food bioengineering that
directly benefits Monsanto. In fact, we found unbelievable financial
shenanigans and additional links to Monsanto. 

Another finding: Oregon permits up to three members of the Oregon Board
of Forestry to have significant financial conflict of interest. That
would be illegal if federal standards were adopted. When Pitchfork
members go before that board to argue for an aerial spray buffer zone,
we are facing such timber company executives as Larry Giustina and
Jennifer Phillippi, who themselves profit from aerial sprays.  At noon
May 27, we will rally in front of the Veneta offices of the Forestry
Department to call for an end to these conflicts. 

Speaking of rallies, people ask if I really called for a "nonviolent
revolution" at last year's rally at the federal courthouse in Eugene, as
Homeland Security inspector Tom Keedy testified recently at Ian Van
Ornum's "Taser trial." 

You need to understand the context. As I approached the microphone,
someone shouted, "What we need is a revolution!" I replied, "Yeah, we
need a revolution, but it needs to be peaceful and nonviolent." I then
described the Gandhian methodology used effectively by Martin Luther
King Jr. and why it is superior to violence. I ended with a call to form
autonomous chapters of 'R' Homeland Security, a Gandhian environmental
movement that will focus on protecting the basic preconditions of life:
Pure air, water and soil. The "R" stands for two things: "Our" and
"Real." 

Day Owen is co-founder of the Pitchfork Rebellion. For more information,
go to pitchforkrebellion.com or write P.O. Box 160, Greenleaf, OR 97430

Appendix Four to Petition

Note: This newspaper article is included as it describes our recent

rally as “the largest forest-related rally in Eugene since the
1990’s.”

The need for pesticide reform and an aerial spray buffer zone has

become a major issue in Oregon and must be dealt with a.s.a.p.

FOREST RALLY TARGETS PESTICIDE SPRAYING

Hundreds of Lane County residents, many with tanned and sunburned faces,
streamed on foot from downtown and Saturday Market to the old Eugene
Federal Building Saturday, Aug. 29, to join the Pitchfork Rebellion in
music, mock trials, skits and testimony against herbicide and pesticide
spraying organizations. A grim reaper effigy of the Monsanto Company
with a dollar sign on its forehead and an evil toothy grin greeted those
walking up the stairs.

 

Day Owen presides over the mock trials

Day Owen, co-founder of the Pitchfork Rebellion, presided over the mock
trials as the “Jester of the Peace,” complete with jester hat.
Shouts in support of the activist group accompanied the skits and
testimony against the Pesticide Division of the Oregon Department of
Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Forestry for their use of
helicopters to spray toxic chemicals near homes and water resources.
Audience members booed the actor representing the Monsanto Company
(bedecked in a suit and carrying a devil’s mask on a pitchfork), a
developer and retailer of pesticides and herbicides like Yieldgard and
Roundup. Monsanto also sells crop seeds to farmers, seeds that Owen says
are ruining farm diversity in the U.S.

This event was far different from the last Pitchfork Rebellion rally
where Ian Van Ornum was Tasered in May of 2008. Police officers were
mostly seen behind the glass doors of the courthouse, occasionally
wandering by to check in on the event’s progress. Owen and other
speakers (including I-chèle of I-chèle and the Circle of Light, lead
singer for the event’s reggae band) repeatedly expressed their desire
for a “nonviolent, peaceful revolution” which elicited hoots and
hollers from the crowd. But later, taking off the jester hat and putting
on a camouflage bandanna, Owen said, “We are willing to perform
nonviolent civil disobedience and go to jail for it.” That didn’t
prove necessary on Saturday.                  cont. next page           
                                                            

Neila Crocker-Owen, Owen’s wife, got behind the microphone and
described her experience of being exposed to pesticides blowing near
their home. She said that telling the story and reliving it was hard.
But she added that she was happy with the turnout for the event and that
she believes the changes Pitchfork Rebellion wants are the “wave of
the future.”

Day Owen estimates about 350 people came to the event over the course of
the day, making it the largest attendance at a forest rally in Eugene
since the mid-1990s. — Shaun O’Dell

END NOTE:

Request for a Visit to Our Region by

Lisa P. Jackson

It is our hope that Lisa P. Jackson, the next time she can be in the
Pacific Northwest, will arrange to come visit the Highway 36 Corridor
that is the topic of this petition. If she can not make the trip
herself, perhaps one of her representatives can. We believe this is
important because “seeing is believing”. When you actually see with
your own eyes how the clearcuts that get aerial sprayed are virtually
directly above homes, it is easy to understand how the drift would
easily move farther distances than would be the case on level ground
such as farm lands.

You may schedule such a visit, or ask questions or request additional
materials, by calling David ‘Day’ Owen at: (541) 927-3017   or email
him at: greenlion@pitchforkrebellion.com