As an Environmental Studies major I’ve gotten very used to discussing issues of injustice and land degradation through a scholarly/objective lens, however I had never drawn these connections back to myself and how they affect me as an Oregonian. Never would I have imagined that a trip out to interview a community affected by pesticide drift – a predominantly middle class, white conservative community in Gold Beach – would connect directly to the working-class Latino-immigrant farmer community I grew up with in the Rogue Valley.
A Failure to Protect: Oregon laws allow community poisoning
A pesticide helicopter operator was discovered lying to an Oregon rural community about what herbicides he sprayed, how much he sprayed and where he sprayed. Four months ago, Beyond Toxics filed a petition with three federal agencies claiming that not enough was being done to help more than two dozen residents of Cedar Valley, a rural area near Gold Beach on the Southern Oregon coast, who said they had been doused by herbicides from a forestry helicopter. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Toxics Substances and Disease Registry stepped in to oversee the state’s investigation.
