PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County commissioners plan to
send a letter to Pope Resources and state agencies that oversee herbicide
spraying to ask for alternative methods and to ensure adequate testing is in
place to protect watersheds.
County residents continue to push public officials both at
the county level and at the city of Port Townsend after aerial sprays that
included glyphosate were applied by helicopter on private property last week.
Glyphosate is the active chemical in Roundup and the subject
of a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto. States such as California list it
as a cancer-causing chemical, but the federal Environmental Protection Agency
won’t approve those labels for the product.
“We have taken a
position of wanting to work with our constituents,” County Commission Chair
Kate Dean said in her response to public comments Monday. “There’s an upward
pressure that has to keep moving.
“We are just another
version of you in that we try to use our collective voice to apply upward
pressure.”
Pope Resources legally applied herbicide at multiple sites
in the county last week with a chemical approved by the state Department of
Agriculture and permitted by the state Department of Natural Resources.
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