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In the last year there has been a lot of one kind of flag waving, but I want to bring focus to two red flags that have come to my attention closer to home. They both have to do with the way we attend our yards, commons, and health. In some way, they speak to another kind of terror that lurks in our land: corporate non-accountability. In this time of expanding war vocabulary, I think of what I am witnessing as "collateral damage" because many corporations seem to be at "war" with life itself, and act as if there are no other options except the ones they sell! The first flag that caught my attention was the publication in Seattle Tilth’s monthly newsletter that the University of Washington conducted a study that shows pesticides in the organophosphate (OP) group are showing up in the bodies of young children in Seattle. The OP pesticides are neurotoxins; they kill insects by interfering with their nervous systems. The UW researchers argue that the study "supports a public health recommendation that, where possible, OP pesticide use should be avoided in areas where children are likely to play." Joanne Jewell, the article’s author, goes on to say, "Common sense might add that we shouldn’t put it into the food they eat or in the environment either." Is there any correlation between the increased use of OP pesticides and the degenerating health of our children’s nervous systems? The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the use of two OP products many homeowners use. Dursban and diazinon have both been scheduled for removal from store shelves by the end of 2003. Please don’t wait for the ban to go into effect. Our children are surely dearer to us than the slow wheels of legislation designed to let manufacturers dump their reserves on an unsuspecting public at lower than bargain prices! Today, experts seem to produce information after the fact rather than use the precautionary principle to gather information pertinent to long-term effects. Once damage is discerned from this, that, or the other chemical laced through our lives, the offending manufacturers often propose yet another chemical fix to take care of the first problem. Of course we, the consumer, get the opportunity to pay for both the damage and the cure! What a deal! We also have the privilege of picking up the invisible tab of clean-up, loss of health, and environmental degradation to which this ever-increasing chemical soup is linked. When I listen to arguments about health care in America, the entire dialogue is about insurance and drugs. Nothing is mentioned about health, wholeness, or holiness of the people! Is there any connection here in the thought process about nature and human and how to deal with "problems"? The second red flag has "got my goat" in a literal sense. Herbicides in the pyridine carboxylic group, such as clopyralid and picloram and known as "persistent" herbicides, are designed to kill broad-leafed plants like dandelion, thistle, and members of the legume family, such as clover. This group of herbicides causes plants to grow abnormally by mimicking plant growth hormones called auxins. Symptoms of contamination are loss of apical (leading tip) growth, cupping of leaves, and leaf malformation to the point of death or severe lack of growth, preventing flowering and production of crops. Clopyralid is manufactured by Dow AgroSciences and is used in weed-and-feed lawn products such as Confront, Stinger, Curtail, Lontrell, Redeem, and Transline. They have the ability to linger longer on site, hence "persistent" herbicide. It now appears that not only do they linger longer on site, they are mobile in soil and water-soluble, making them difficult to contain. From Dow chemical’s perspective, they reduce the need for herbicide application from four to five times per year to just one or two. Also, current tests show lack of toxicity to animals and humans, although even the digestive system of ruminants (that’s four stomachs to pass through!) does not begin the breakdown of clopyralid. After the debacle with DDT and the growing list of withdrawals from the market of herbicides and pesticides initially approved as "safe," my common-sense hackles are raised when I hear this! And ... I tend goats. Farmers use this herbicide to eliminate weeds in their hayfields; it is therefore likely that I have unwittingly been affected through the back door. I am also an herbalist. I use many of these so-called "weeds" to invigorate the health of the people, land, and animals I tend. Mono-cropping is a way of thinking, not farming! The pyridine carboxylic herbicides persist through the composting process and wreak havoc in recycling plant-based waste. Compost producers have finally begun taking hold in urban areas and offer great potential for keeping soil nutrients cycling in cities, lessening the need for chemical fertilizer. Clopyralid is so persistent and detrimental at less than ten parts per billion (ppb) that it is contaminating recycled organic wastes in municipal composting facilities. This threatens the public trust of the products these facilities produce rather than the true culprit, Dow AgroScience, for the manufacture of a substance that is so disruptive to the process of nutrient cycling. Where other herbicides and pesticides tend to break down into simple organic materials through this biological digestion, these chemicals do not. They actually go on to cause inhibited growth or death for plants in the pepper/tomato family and the bean/pea family wherever composts containing them are used. I could find no conclusive information that reported how long these chemicals persist in compost. Dow suggests one to 14 months, but there is still a problem with unacceptable levels in compost aged over 18 months in Spokane. In fact, as the carbonaceous materials break down, the concentration of clopyralid increases. It seems the microorganisms responsible for the breakdown just don’t like the taste of clopyralid and eat everything else first! The Washington State Department of Agriculture is drafting legislation to regulate the use of clopyralid products in this state. But we, as citizens who inevitably pay the costs of corporate misconduct, can actually do quite a bit to help turn the tide. • First, educate yourself about ways to garden with nature. Local sources of information include Seattle Tilth classes and their online resource, <http://seattletilth.org/>. • Second, learn about clopyralid, what the symptoms of damage are, how to test your soil for contamination, and how it affects urban composting facilities from Washington State University’s Web site, <http://css.wsu.edu/compost/compost.htm>. • Third, take action. Let Dow Chemical know that you use products that support life and natural processes. If they aren’t making them, they will lose out in the future market for the care and maintenance of yards and public spaces. The big boys can’t turn their thinking around fast enough to keep up with natural capitalism, so we can take care of ourselves, our yards, and our public spaces — the commons — by speaking out. You can send e-mail to Dow from GrassRoots Recycling Network’s site at <http://grrn.org/dow/>, or write Dow AgroSciences, LLC, 9330 Zionsville Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46268-1054. • Once you’ve educated yourself, share information with your friends and neighbors about how they can make the world safer for their children. Maybe eat a few weeds together! • Contact your school and local Parks Department and let them know how you would like these public places, where children are found in close contact with the earth, tended! • Do not use any product in your yard maintenance that warns you not to use material treated with it in compost. It is a financial loss to the fledgling compost industry, and a tangible loss to the earth herself, when we ignore or disrupt the nutrient cycling of organic materials. Cities have invested financially and materially to adopt methods that make use of what was once considered waste. Corporate interests can no longer ignore their role in the degradation of the environment, and it is our job to hold them to the fire. We want accountability for the triple bottom line. Profit, people, and the earth must be considered as we move forward if we are to really know justice and security. Hazardous waste, poverty, and fossil fuels are the real axis of evil in our world today! Oh yes, just out of curiosity, I perused the listings for farmers in Snohomish County, and there, tucked between Farm Supplies and Fasteners, were listings for ten farms. It appeared that eight of them produced some form of food. A couple more were under Produce and one was under Vegetable Farms. This is the listing for Snohomish County, considered an agricultural county by some. I wondered if other people have noticed the trend to give up health and tangible security for the illusion of wealth and enforced security. There is a marked and measurable correlation between the amount of energy spent on care of the earth and health (disease) care in our country. When less goes into the care and tending of the land, more goes into treating disease. True health care is the prevention of disease rather than its treatment, and today we are learning that good health may very well begin with the soil. At the age of four, my oldest son figured out that He-Man would never beat Skeletor. I asked how he could be so sure of this, and he went on to clearly explain that if He-Man beat Skeletor, that would be the end of the game. I realized that it was a terminal problem for a path of conflict and war (a lucrative path for some), but it may not end a game truly motivated by liberty and justice for all and care of the earth, our home! Green blessings in this season of bursting buds! EagleSong, C.C.H., director of RavenCroft Garden in Monroe, Washington, is a nationally recognized herbal educator. She is dedicated to keeping herbal wisdom within reach of all people and connected to the healing wisdom of nature. P.O. Box 229, Startup, WA 98293; (360) 794-2938; <ravencroft@earthlink.net>. Visit RavenCroft Garden and see natural gardening in action, or take the Just Our Yards (JOY) Gardening Camp in June. |
We are celebrating
my favorite holiday this month, All Fools Day, but I don’t
think we can afford to be foolish about our personal responsibility
for the care of our yards, commons, and health any longer. As
I was looking up photographers in the phone book, I noticed the
incredible list of physicians I had to wade through to get back
to photographers. There are specialists for every part of one’s
anatomy and every disease, and there is an increasing list of
"alternatives" to choose from as well. Pages 228 through
263: imagine, 35 pages of doctors one can choose! It did not
include dentists, psychologists, massage therapists, nurses,
or any other healthcare providers, mind you.