Poisoning Our Way to a Better World?
By Leif LeBaron
I wonder how many people noticed the “Pesticide Use Notice” at Grassy Point (not to mention other areas along the shores of Hornby, Denman and Vancouver islands). The main information is transcribed here:
Permit #402-0689-25-25
Pesticide: imazapyr (Habitat Aqua)
Adjuvant (surfactant): Poly(oxy-1,2-ethanadiyl),alpha-undecyl-omega-hydroxy- (AquaSurf)
Purpose: kill cord grass (Spartinha spp.) in Baynes Sound
Contact: Becky Brown, Ministry of Forests, 250 739 8206
The notice also states that treatment areas are designated with yellow flags and recommends staying out for at least 48 hours, and those who might harvest sea asparagus should refrain for the calendar year. Children and animals are likely to be curious about these flagged areas and ironically attracted to them. Will these flags remain in place for the calendar year? It also seems essential to post a full notice at each treatment area, rather than a single notice posted distant and out of sight.
In any case, such precautions may help humans, but not the killdeer who nest in those areas, nor the other wild animal and plant inhabitants.
Imazapyr is non-selective, water-soluble and persistent. A 2004 Swedish study on railway spraying detected it in ground water eight years after application.
Glyphosate has also been deployed locally by the Coastal Invasive Species Committee in quiet complicity with local invasive species activists.
My personal experience with those who perpetrate and promote the deployment of biocide to combat invasive species has shown an alarming complacency. It’s not easy when they are indignant to criticism, high on their own good intentions, but I bid those of us who do recognise the folly of poisoning our way to a better world, please reach out and encourage alternatives.
Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. The biocides have changed but the proud pathology persists.