Page 18 RAIN May 1978 FREEING OUR FORESTS Northwest Coaljtion for Alternatives to Pesticides P.O. Box 375 Eugene, Oregon 97440 The use of herbicides in the forestry industry in the Pacific Northwest, as elsewhere, has long been rationalized by corporations, public land managers and local officials as indispensible to intensive forest management practices and essentially harmless to people living and working in the forest environment. However, a groundswell of public resentment o.ver such indifference to the health and safety risks·involved in herbicide use is now gaining momentum. It has ,become the foundation for .a grassroots organizing effort hoping to effect some changes. Last autumn a host of local groups concerned with herbicides ranging from Arcata, California, to the Olympic Peninsula came together to form the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP). Seeking to function as a central location for information gathering and local input, NCAP has now incorporated, applied for tax-exempt status and is already formulating a coherent series of objectives for handling an issue whose scope is not yet known. NCAP hopes to document the fact that herbicide poisoning in this region is much more widespread than had even be.en expec;,ted. The main source of concern has been the use of phenoxy herbicides (particularly "2,4,5-T" an~ Silvex) for site prep-· aration and conifer release purposes in the forestry industry. These compounds hoth contain Dioxin (TCDD), whi~h was a chemical component of "Agent Orange," the infamous defoliant used for ecocidal purposes in Vietnam.! There is no • question that phenoxies are teratogenic, mutagenic and most likely carcinogenic; their pe.rsistence once releas~d into the environment and their tendency to bio-accm;nulate have caused citizens exposed to them a great deal of alarm. Evi- , dence beginning to be gathered is revealing the magnitude of the problem. For example, crews from the Hoedads Reforestation Cooperative were recently working on a Coos Bay, Oregon, tre€- planting contract let by the Bureau of Land Management '(BLM). Fifteen people exhibited non-normal symptoms and evidence,of herbicide poisoning. Of those 15 people, one woman suffered multiple symptoms of headaches, bleeding from the nose, gums an.d vagina, blood in stools and,extreme fatigue. A blood sample was taken about 40 hours after her exposure; the re~ults ·showed 5.5ppb of Silvex and under 5ppb _ of Krenite. Silvex had been sprayed in that area 10 n:ionths prior to her exposure; Krenite had been applie~ 6 months previously. NCAP has taken several positions regarding herbicides and their use. These include: - calling for a cessation of the use of "2,4,5-T" and Silvex on public land - requesting all·land managers to post notification of spraying areas 5 days in advance • -requesting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish re-entry guidelines for people who work in the woods, taking into consideration reasonable~ amounts of time for chemicals to ,degrade. NCAP is also involved in or monitoring several legal actions being taken in the region, ranging from charges of inadequate. ·Environmental Impact Statements concerning herbicide use to • the trial of 23 protesters who had attempted to prevent the a~rial application of herbicides to a clear-cut area near 30 homes in the vicinity of Rose Lodge, Oregon. Many of these people had bee_n directly and deliberately sprayed with the herbicide during their protest.2 Essentially, such legal tactics are delaying procedures until the wider public can be infbr~e·d and educated on the issues at stake. Along this line NCAP is working closely with p'eople working and living in the region's forest environment to gather anecdotal evidence of herbicide abuse. They are asking such people to check out the condition of wildlife, livestock and vegetation, looking for unusual signs of illness and other irregularities. These and obvious family health problems should be sent to NCAP or one of its local affiliates; NCAP has a form available that is helpful in this process. (For symptoms of Herbicide Abuse, see the enclosed box.) With this data NCAP hopes to determine the patter~s in which herbicides are manifesting themselves in the en~ironment and the pervasiveness of their impact. · ' NCAP is also inv~stigating the economic alternatives to widespread herbicide use, such as manual brush control techniques. Such a labor-intensive optio'n is not without simila!r precedents: a decade ago, many forestry companies were unwilling to switch from air-seeding techniques to the more people-oriented alternative of hand tree-planting. Today hand tree-planting is becoming more prevalenf In general, this sort of alternative implies a comprehensive reform of the entire system that manages, harvests and profits from the forest environment. ' The most important leverage point for NCAP at present is increasing public awareness of the herbicide problem and encouraging their involvement. To ·that extent its network\is a good be1ginning, linkil)g up the workers and local residents who have been most affected by herbicides. Through this network more information will be accumulated and crossregional contacts will hopefully result in more effective longterm strategies. - Steven Ames • • (Thanks to Fred Miller and Ann Tattersall of NCAP) As a future project NCAP is interested in pursuing the connection between the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and subsequent health and environmental impacts sustai~ed by the Vietnamese people. Currently little is known about this subject. A crosscultural sharing of information could expand the data on problems of phenoxy herbicide poisoning and help to build more positive relations between our two countries. 2 For more information on the protesters involved in the Rose Lodge incident, or contributions to their legal defense, write to: Forestry Legal Fund,_Rt. 1, Box 163, Otis, OR 97368.
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