Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Local coalition lobbies against aerial spraying

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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