Category Archives: Environmental Justice

Toxic exposure against our will

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Roundup, the herbicide that contains glyphosate, has gotten a lot of international press in the past week.  And none of it is good news for us living beings who are exposed to Roundup in our food and in the environment. The use of a chemical known to bring about serious harm, especially by the government and industry, is a form of chemical trespass; it is toxic exposure against our will.

A peer-reviewed study conducted by researchers at MIT concluded that Roundup has a “negative impact on the body [that] is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.”

Specifically, Roundup has been linked to endocrine disruption and cell death, Parkinson’s, infertility and a variety of cancers.

Beyond Toxics conducted a 2013 study of what herbicides were purchased and applied on public and private lands all over this state. During a press conference at the State Capitol in March, we revealed our findings showing that Oregon government takes $2.5 million of State Lottery funds every biennium and gives the money away in “weed grants” for the purchase and application of toxics pesticides.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was the most commonly used product. Picloram, a known ground water pollutant and carcinogen, was the second most frequently applied herbicide.

These publically funded projects have focused exclusively on applying harsh chemicals.  This is no way for our state government to support public health! And it’s arrogant to spend public dollars on chemicals that are known to be toxic to our reproductive system.

Beyond Toxics has asked the Department of Agriculture to require the development of an integrated pest management plan (IPM) before doling out public funds for weed sprays. HB 3364, legislation that passed in the Oregon House and is on its way to the Senate, will require IPM as the science-based standard for pest management.

In discussions with folks around the state of Oregon about their home gardens, I’ve often heard people say that they “just spray a little Roundup, because it is barely harmful.”   Be careful – all ‘cides’ – including herbicides and insecticides – are designed to kill living things by disrupting normal cell function. Roundup causes DNA damage.

Just because any of us can buy Roundup off the shelves in any nearby garden and hardware store doesn’t mean that the government knows it is safe.  A case in point, the EPA finally just confirmed, after decades of denial in the face of overwhelming evidence, that formaldehyde and styrene are carcinogens. Formaldehyde and styrene are common in household products (think Styrofoam cups).

There is a critical connection between our health and what’s in our environment and consumer products.  In Oregon, let’s work together to prevent chemical trespass. As an easy first step, please sign our Safe Public Places endorsement petition.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director
Beyond Toxics

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Refusing to be a corporate throw-away community

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Lisa Arkin, Executive Director

Our ground-breaking work centers on bringing the voices of Oregonians to the forefront of policy reform. What do I mean by that? We help people who want to speak “ground-truthing” to power; in other words, using their real experiences to expose corporate financed and secret backroom deals that allow industry polluters to mislead and harm the public.

Two philanthropic organizations recently featured Beyond Toxics as exemplary examples of effective grassroots work. The Resist Foundation (Massachusetts), featured our unique work blending environmental justice with our fight to stop coal trains, and the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation (Oregon) shined a spotlight on our gutsy “get it done” style and list of many accomplishments.

You know, I get calls every week with accounts of what is happening when chemical trespass brings illness and property damage to the lives of every day Oregonians. With your steadfast support, Beyond Toxics can investigate, report and fight for better environmental laws that protect the environment and safeguard our health.

I want to share just a few stories, in addition to the ones I described in the Eugene Weekly. The sad part is the story, but the hopeful part is what Beyond Toxics did to make a positive difference. In each case, we didn’t just troubleshoot an individual problem; instead we elevated grassroots assistance into stronger human health and environmental protections.

Air Toxics, Asthma and School Kids: A teacher in a Lane County school district called to alert us that children were have trouble breathing during recess because of the ammonia and creosote fumes from a nearby factory. Beyond Toxics leapt into action, researched the relationships between air pollution and asthma and got the EPA to investigate the polluting industry for violations. The investigation is underway! We also got Union Pacific Railroad to clean up a huge hazardous waste dump!

Run-Away Power Fuels Coal Trains: As soon as Beyond Toxics heard that an unnamed multinational corporation had signed a secret MOU (“Memorandum of Understanding”) with the Port of Coos Bay to bring coal trains to the Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast, we teamed up with another non-profit to file an Oregon Public Records Request. We are seeking to reveal the identity of the coal companies and their coal export plan. While waiting for the courts to decide if we get access to those records, we have held rallies, teach-ins, marches, and written lots of editorials that gathered the public support to pass an anti-coal train resolution in Eugene.

Oct. 2011 Highway 36 Weed Pull Party

Pesticides on Highways: A woman in Marion County receiving chemo-therapy treatment for cancer begged for a reprieve from roadside spray so that she could protect her weakened immune system from toxic chemicals while driving from her home to her chemo appointments. Her plea went unanswered, so Beyond Toxics used her story and others just like it as the catalyst for our report on just how much pesticide is sprayed on Oregon’s roads and highways. As a result, ODOT has established a 25% chemical reduction goal for 2015.

Beyond Toxics doesn’t sit by and let bad practices and policies continue to harm folks! We take decisive action! Please join our team! We need your membership and involvement. Refuse to be a corporate throw-away by joining now and helping to make environmental health Oregon’s moral and practical standard.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director
Beyond Toxics

See the news stories about our work in 2012.

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Victory for small (and honest) non-profits in the battle against the giant (and manipulative) coal industry!

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Beyond Toxics and No Coal Eugene talk to Mayor Piercy at Coal Protest

Beyond Toxics and No Coal Eugene talk to Mayor Piercy at Coal Protest

In spring of this year, Beyond Toxics submitted a Public Records Request to the Port of Coos Bay to learn the details of plans to haul coal through Eugene for export to nations in the Far East? Remember that they demanded $22,000 to get what should be public information? If that wasn’t enough, the Port of Coos Bay tacked on a long list of intrusive questions, demanding the disclosure of our members’ names and addresses.

This week, a Coos Bay judge ruled that non-profits like Beyond Toxics and Sierra Club do not have to obey the demands of the coal industry by turning over the names of our members! The Port of Coos Bay’s excessive inquisition of small non-profits was thrown out of court!

This important victory is just one step along the legal path to give the public all the facts about hauling dirty coal through the Columbia River Gorge, the Willamette Valley, and out to the coast via downtown Eugene. Both the Oregon Sierra Club and Beyond Toxics filed records requests and were answered with back-breaking fees and aggressive demands. Sierra Club filed a claim that there is a pattern and practice of subjecting public requesters to invasive questioning, and pointed out it had also happened to Beyond Toxics. Both groups are awaiting the outcome of the case to proceed with our public records request.

The Port has been and continues to be secretive and dismissive of public inquiries on coal exports. It is highly doubtful that the Port or their coal partners will release the requested documents before the Eugene City Council meets to vote on the issue on September 10.

In a new twist, on July 9, the Port of Coos Bay asked the Eugene City Council to approve a resolution they (or probably their lawyers) wrote, specifically stating “Be it resolved by the City of Eugene that The City strongly supports the use of the Coos Bay rail line for the movement of freight in western Lane, western Douglas and Coos counties…” and furthermore that “The City will work with the Port and other regional and transportation stakeholders to identify and recruit additional opportunities for the development of rail…”

Why should residents of Eugene support the dirty, destructive and polluting coal industry? Why should we agree to foul our air and poison our lungs, and destroy climates by burning more fossil fuels?

Do you want to stand up to Dirty Coal? Then join us in the Eugene Celebration Parade where we will march as King Coal and the Fossil Fools! We need a big group!  To sign up, send an email to info@BeyondToxics.org. Let’s show Big Dirty Coal where Eugene stands when it comes to envisioning a clean energy world!

-Thanks for standing with us,

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director

 

The economics of exporting coal through Oregon

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Each coal train spews 1 pound of dust per mile travelled!The Port of Coos Bay is planning to build a terminal to export coal delivered via rail by trains that would snake through the Columbia Gorge and Willamette Valley before switching tracks at Eugene onto the Coos Bay Rail Link. Many other communities in the Northwest are threatened with severe health hazards (coal dust leaks and diesel fumes from the increase in train traffic) as coal gets transported through communities in Oregon and Washington by rail, barge, or shipped through the Columbia River Gorge, Portland and towns north.

In today’s world of experts, economists and politicians who intone with somber faces, ‘don’t worry about the risks, we know what’s best for you,’ I have a tendency to lead my arguments for environmental sanity with the infallible “common sense” of economics. Health concerns are always vitally important to me, of course! And frankly, how can we really expect (as the bumper stickers so bluntly summarize) to have jobs on a dead planet? But we don’t usually have to go there when we lead with economic issues. Invariably when I look at the economics of a proposal, it’s not long before the benefit to the very narrow interest of one or more industry–at the expense of the public interest–becomes plain as day. But that does not stop those narrow interests from raising the fear that if we don’t do exactly as they advise the economy will collapse even further and faster than it already has. If we can beat back polluting development proposals that do not meet the public’s best interest using their own measures of value: the dollar and jobs creation, it seems like the easiest path to success.

And so it is, we can all anticipate, with the issue of the endless parade of coal trains slated to rumble through Eugene’s rail yards on their way to Coos Bay for export to supposedly coal-hungry Asian destinations.

OK, so let’s start with economics, shall we?

A report from the Sightline Institute from August of last year shows the West Coast has been down this road before–and not with pretty results. It turns out there is a very significant cost to develop land for coal export. Costs that include severe poisoning of land and water that cannot be easily cleaned up or transformed to other uses should the world wake up to the fact that maybe burning the planet up with C02 is not such a good idea. (I’m really counting on this realization very soon!) And for how many potential jobs? The Sightline report clearly documents that based on our past experience: not many at all.

But if we leave it there, the whole story cannot completely unfold. As with any business decision, it always helps to ask, how else could property be developed to create jobs? In other words, what other developments could provide MORE jobs for a given job creation investment? Isn’t that the kind of common sense we should be applying to development—besides considering the cancer and asthma risks?

The answer from the report is rather sobering: A study at the Port of Baltimore, for example, found that “coal export supports just 0.11 jobs per 1,000 metric tons, as compared to 0.41 for other dry bulk commodities, 0.43 jobs for containerized cargo, and even 1.71 jobs for autos.”

So what happened with past plans for West Coast port projects to export coal? The Sightline report summarizes several past developments that did not consider carefully the use of taxpayer money in sound long-term investment in a stable commodity. The efforts of the Port of Portland in the 80s and the Port of Los Angeles in the 90s are both portraits of broken promises and complete failure. If you add in the very real risks to global climate change represented by the continued use of coal as an energy source, it seems clear that investing in a new infrastructure to ship coal oversees is a wild-eyed gamble not worthy of serious consideration.

In reviewing past port coal development failures in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles the report concluded that, “The abandoned coal export facilities locked up millions of dollars in stranded investments and clean‐up expenses, not to mention years‐long missed opportunities for more durable economic development choices.” That’s not encouraging. Sadly, when a city or county considers new development, it rarely considers what happens if and when the market for that commodity or product dries up. With coal, the dirtiest fuel on the planet, the consequences are severe and costly!

John Jordan-Cascade,
Communications Manager for Beyond Toxics

See the Beyond Toxics Stopping Coal in Oregon home page for resources and more background on the issue.

Next week: more sobering news about the costs to human health from exporting coal.

See shocking raw footage of a coal train in transit (YouTube) and the trail of coal dust it leaves behind!

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Taking Responsibility for Justice

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Eugene, nationally recognized as a bike city, a community near nature and a place where we value sustainability, would not normally attract attention around environmental human rights and justice issues. Which is why for one day, Beyond Toxics and Centro LatinoAmericano invited city and agency officials, students and community leaders on an environmental justice bus tour to West Eugene where we got the opportunity to see how families live through the lens of “environmental justice”.

To achieve justice, we need to help major decision makers in our community face some of the injustices that unfortunately exists so uncomfortably close to home. To achieve justice, we need to challenge the current structures in place so that other people and certain communities also gain access to political attention and social resources that may not normally be readily available.  Unveiling the hidden discomforts that exists in our society, forces both believers and nonbelievers of environmental injustices to take a second look and determine the action needed.

The truth is that communities, specifically low-income communities, live in areas that are in critical need of public health improvements due to their disproportionate exposures to toxics such as polluted air and contaminated ground water. If we don’t watch out for the health of our children AND acknowledge that communities are disproportionately affected by poverty, then who will? Let us continue to move forward and not resign ourselves to stagnancy and a calcified system- regardless of the privileges you have access to.

As Winona LaDuke put it, “Take responsibility for history. Recognize that sometimes things take a long time to change.” So, what is the lesson for us in Eugene? Don’t be weary of fighting for what is just in Eugene. You never know how many lives you may save or change by your actions in the long run.

As if a wall of chemical gas is enveloping us…

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“When we take our children to the playground, the smell of
chemicals overwhelms us. We can’t stay outside.
It’s awful … as if a wall of chemical gas is enveloping us.”

This is how one young mother described what it is like to live across the street from a chemical company in West Eugene. She spoke to over 75 people who attended Beyond Toxics’ Environmental Justice Bus Tour (the first-ever in Oregon). They met her in Lark City Park in Bethel where she takes her children to play.

Last week, Beyond Toxics hosted dozens of people who boarded two school buses and journeyed out (see the map of the route the bus tour took) to visit several key toxic hot spots, like Lark City Park, where air and ground water pollution harms Eugene families every day.

Travelers included:

  • Mayor Kitty Piercy,
  • City Councilors Andrea Ortiz and George Brown, and Lane County Commissioner Rob Handy
  • Bethel School District Superintendent Colt Gill and members of their staff,
  • Many local organizations
  • Staff from city, county and state agencies and the EPA,
  • UO students and equal numbers of West Eugene residents.

Bus travelers gathered at Lark Park to hear residents testify to everyday exposure to dangerous toxic chemicals.

You might ask me, what was the purpose of our Environmental Justice Bus Tour? Beyond Toxics set out to demonstrate that we need a set of air toxics solutions based on a notion of justice, and not just a weak regulatory system. We did this with both facts and with the voices of vulnerable residents. I am proud that we were able to show that Eugene does have an Environmental Justice community because we don’t talk about this much in the public discourse. These residents are not able to enjoy their equal right to clean air and water and receive special consideration for children and pregnant women who are most at risk for harm.

I felt one thing that became very clear during the bus tour is that Eugene is actually two different communities, two different worlds of experience. Many people on the bus had never seen the row of air and water polluters along Roosevelt Avenue (hidden behind trees and frontage buildings); and they had never considered what it must be like to raise a family less than one block from some of the nation’s most notorious polluters (e.g., JH Baxters). In fact, link to this NPR Report on worst polluters and see what it is like in Eugene!

When we drove our bus north on NW Expressway, I described the scenario of coal trains entering Eugene’s rail yard to park and switch tracks – the length of one train would take up nearly the stretch of road hugging the west side of the River Road neighborhood. If coal trains are allowed to come to Eugene, there will be coal dust over gardens, on cars, coming in windows, and choking the lungs of very child in Trainsong and River Road neighborhood.

I was also struck by the look of realization on the faces of the travelers as we drove down Prairie Road and Highway 99, while adding up the cumulative exposures to some very dangerous air toxics. We learned that 99% of all the air toxics in Eugene are located in the Bethel 97402 zip code area – according to the Eugene Toxics Reporting system, about 500,000 pounds of airborne chemicals every year.

I saw the look of panic on some faces when we did an exercise (right there on the bus) showing how it feels to have an asthma attack. Some of the people on my bus said it felt like they were drowning from lack of air. I hope the data and the experience got people thinking –is it time to factor the intensity of daily exposures to these asthma triggers into a public health plan?

Beyond Toxics pointed out that Envision Eugene, the plan to expand Eugene city limits, recommends building new homes, schools and parks across the street from creosote factories, biomass plants, chemical manufacturers and sawmills (a distance of about ¼ to ¾ mile). I hope that people thought about the need to pay more attention to siting homes and schools near heavy industrial sites.

There will always be debates about the costs of protecting health versus the costs of doing business. An Environmental Justice bus tour attempts to get us past these arguments.

Our Environmental Justice Bus Tour overcame doubts and arguments by using both local data and the voices of local residents to expose the underbelly of Eugene’s toxic Industrial Corridor. We are calling on our City to hear the voices of the disenfranchised residents –Spanish and English alike. We need to put those voices at the forefront of decision-making processes on land use, air protection and public health.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director, Beyond Toxics

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We are your David in a world of Goliaths!

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A recent report* published in the national news has bad news for the viability of grassroots environmental groups. The study showed that large national NGOs get far and away the biggest funding for environmental causes, and yet it is the small grassroots groups that carry out the most effective and lasting change! The study reminded me of many examples from history: from women’s suffrage to the Arab Spring. Grassroots groups like Beyond Toxics get an itty-bitty, tiny share of the donations that fund environmental protection, yet it is smaller groups that carry out the lion’s share of the work to make significant changes in the quality of life we’re all striving for.

Feisty. Tenacious. Grassroots. We are your David in a world of Goliaths!

These are words our members have used to describe us. I offer proof that we are living up to that reputation! In the span of just 9 days, Beyond Toxics has made its mark in towns across the state: in Portland, Salem, Triangle Lake, Selma and Eugene!

  • On February 6, we met with Lane County Health officials to discuss a ban on children’s products laced with BPA along with our local partner Lane Coalition for Healthy Active Youth.
  • On February 8, I was interviewed on Jefferson Public Radio, reaching thousands of people about pesticides and rampant chemical trespass.
  • On February 10, staff member Alison Guzman and I gave a report to a room full of health care professionals at the 4th Annual NW Environmental Health Conference at Portland State University. We spoke about children’s health and environmental justice in West Eugene and the toxics in their air that contributes to asthma. This is exactly the kind of topic that doctors and nurses need to hear about.
  • On February 11, Beyond Toxics co-sponsored two large and energetic rallies to protest the chemical trespass that comes from aerial pesticide spraying of forests in Josephine County and Lane County.
  • Four days later on February 15, I testified in front of the Oregon Transportation Commission on the results of our Highway Spray report, Environmental Impact Quotients of Highway Spray. My testimony, highlighting the dousing of our highways in pesticides, was a key part of the message of the Pesticide Panel, a panel we advocated to convene.

This means your support has guaranteed our hard-won victories.

L to R: Lisa Arkin, John Jordan-Cascade, Alison Guzman

What will we do next to continue to demonstrate to you, our supporters, that we are keeping our promise to be all the things you admire about us: feisty, tenacious and grassroots-based?

1. We are linking up with others to stop coal trains from rumbling through Eugene and the Willamette Valley. These mile-long trains, if allowed to pass through our communities, will pollute a pound of “black lung” coal dust, per car, per mile!

2. We are mapping how air toxics hot spots harms the families who live in impacted neighborhoods with an incredible ARC GIS project. We’ll shine a light on the problem of cumulative air pollution exposures.

3. We are planning a protest on the State Capitol steps to draw the Governor’s attention to the issue of aerial pesticide spray drift.

So, the bottom line is simple: never underestimate the power of the small, local, grassroots group! When it comes to change, think small. It’s the best investment you can make.

*The report, “Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders,” is at www.ncrp.org.

Asthma Awareness Workshop – This Friday!

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What’s in the air we breathe, both indoors and outdoors?

Join us: Friday, February 24th, 2012!

Beyond Toxics and Centro LatinoAmericano present a FREE Bilingual Workshop on controlling asthma and green cleaning alternatives for a healthier life!

Come and learn what you can do to make your home healthy for you and your family!
Tips on:

  • Green Cleaning,
  • Controlling asthma and allergies
  • General good health practices

WHEN: Friday, February 24th / 4:30 – 6:00pm

WHERE:
American Red Cross
862 Bethel Drive, Eugene, OR 9740

For more information, please contact:
Roxanne or Alison at Beyond Toxics: 541.465.8860 or at Centro: 541.687.266

Every participant will receive a FREE Eco-Cleaning kit, sponsored by Coastwide Laboratories.

Exposures to Air Pollution in Medford, Oregon

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Executive Director Lisa Arkin and I made the three hour drive to Medford, Oregon to give an Asthma Care Workshop. A long trip for us, but well worth it. Last summer, UNETE, a farmworkers’ advocacy organization, invited us to collaborate with them in doing a workshop (see our pictures from the workshop) for the people they serve. Perfect, we thought, since they work a lot with timber and agricultural farmworkers and therefore are heavily exposed to herbicides and pesticides. In fact, many of the participants who attended may have worked for the local herbicide manufacture or timber companies. UNETE provides support to Latinos in the Medford community, including education, legal support, labor rights, etc. In fact, UNETE is the only Latino-led non-profit in the Rogue Valley.

As I gave my Asthma presentation, I saw the participants’ facial expressions change when I mentioned a startling statistic. According to a recent USA Today Report, some schools in Medford ranked in the 2nd percentile in the Nation for poor air quality. Rankings are based on modeled concentration and severity of chemicals known or believed to cause cancer. According to the report, this ranking means that there is a “greater likelihood that toxic chemicals could be present at levels that could threaten children’s health.” For example, if you see a school whose overall toxicity shows up in the second percentile, you’ll know only 1% of the nation’s schools had higher toxicity levels.

I could see expressions of concern, curiosity, disbelief, and concern, cross the faces of the people who came to listen. In the midst of delivering the bad news, I knew I was doing my part by empowering citizens to take action in their own lives to improve the air they breathe. In doing so, individuals end up feeling better about their lives and the health of their families.

Though our presentation was billed as an “Asthma Care Workshop”, much of the information shared could have easily applied to anyone. The people who came had a lot of great questions: Do pesticides cause cancer? How will I know if my husband has asthma if I’ve never taken him to the doctor? Why are children more affected by air toxics than adults?  I later found out that most of these parents had children with disabilities. ‘No wonder they looked so worried,’ I thought. Yet, the feeling of empowerment and content was spread throughout as they learned about tips, guidelines, and tools to reduce their families’ exposures to indoor and outdoor air toxics.

Exposures to air toxins can lead to general respiratory illnesses and/or discomforts. In Medford’s Crossroads School alone, for example, at 97% of overall toxicity, the top polluting chemical is formaldehyde.  As the report indicates, “this is the overall toxicity measure, but includes only those chemicals known or thought to cause cancer.” Not only cancer, but also asthma.

Have you heard that saying, “Knowledge is power”? Well, this was especially true in this case. UNETE and Beyond Toxics are looking forward to tackling environmental health issues together for these and other concerned parents.

But I’ll save those details for my next blog…

Hide and Seek: What is the forest industry trying to hide?

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As a result of an R-G guest editorial last month, I sparked a firestorm of controversy proposing something simple and obvious: we should speak up if our government tries to convince the public not to worry about finding dangerous pesticides in the bodies of children who live in rural Oregon. Speaking up is not something terribly controversial from our point of view…and many of you wrote in to support our perspective.

In response to this editorial, a PR front group for the chemical industry recruited a local grass seed farmer from their board of directors to respond to the scientific evidence I presented. Here’s his jaw-dropping, arrogant retort: He thinks that finding pesticides in a child’s body is not a concern because there are “thousands of other chemical compounds that we could test for and find in that child’s urine.”

Really? Isn’t that a little like proposing that we put lead back into paint and gasoline just because lead is a toxic substance now found in children?

We realize it may be another David vs. Goliath battle, but we’re not backing down! The timber industry wields tremendous power, especially in Oregon – power to define regulations and policies, to amass financial power and social resources, and to marginalize grassroots movements. They would like to portray the pesticide drift problem in the Triangle Lake area as an isolated aberration, an odd blip from the norm, instead of the pervasive environmental problem it is for Oregonians in virtually every part of the state.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The Oregon Department of Forestry seems to be playing a game of “hide” in response to other state and federal agencies “seeking” accurate spray records.

First, a little background…Whenever pesticides are applied by a timber company, the Forest Practices Act requires that daily spray records are kept. These records must be made available to the government upon request for a minimum of three years. To figure how these dangerous pesticides are getting into children’s bodies, the government needs the private timber companies to turn over their records – describing what, where and when pesticides have been sprayed.

Three months ago, the Oregon Health Authority issued a request for those pesticides spray records for the purposes of the current Highway 36 Pesticide Health Investigation. The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) can demand the spray records from the timber operators pursuant to their authority under the Oregon Administrative Rule 629-620-0600(4). Timber companies are, so far, resisting government requests to provide their spray records.

By law, timber companies must produce the records within 7 days of the State’s request, so those records should be available by now. But they have not been made available. That fact constitutes a violation of State forest practice regulations. It begs the question, is the ODF delaying attempts to get these records? In fact, Beyond Toxic members were told by ODF staff that they are “just trying to reduce hardship for the timber companies. We want to be fair to everybody.”

How is requesting records required by the law not “fair?” Is it fair for parents to worry if and when their children will get sick as a result of these pesticides in their bodies? We think it’s worth a little effort on the part of the timber industry to help us determine what the risks are to our families.

What you can do…

You can take action today by writing [email:doug.s.decker@state.or.us] or calling [(503) 373-7677] Doug Decker, the State Forester, and requesting that he take immediate action on two things :

1.) Demand the pesticide spray records NOW and impose a hefty fine on any timber company that delays handing these records over to the government investigation.
2.) Tell the Oregon Department of Forestry that it is time to make all forestry pesticide spray notifications and spray records available on a public access website.

All Oregonians have a right to know about chemical trespass. This information should not be held in secret by those using pesticides for industrial forestry.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director
Beyond Toxics

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