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About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1987)
■ PUBLIC INTEREST County spray plan sparks debate PART 1 by Garde Wells in April of this year, despite a massive flood of public testimony about the dangers of herbicides (and their non-necessity), the Lane County Commissioners voted unanimously to end a four-year self-imposed ban on roadside spraying. “(Commissioner) Rogers originally was not even planning to have any public hearing of any sort,” says Jan Wroncy. Wroncy is spokesperson for the citizens’ group Residents of Oregon Against Deadly Sprays (ROADS). During the April hearing in the Commissioners’ Chambers, one of the many citizens who testified was a Florence man who used to be head of the U.S. Army’s Agent Orange pro gram in Vietnam, as well as the Ar my’s Nerve Gas Program. “I’ve got the death certificate here of a road crew worker who died from an extremely rare form of leukemia,” he said, waving papers at the Com missioners. “I’ve got an affadavit re garding a man in Montana who is now dying from this rare form of leukemia ... it just so happens that both of PHOTO BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS Attorney Peter Sorenson repre sents ROADS, Residents of Ore gon Against Deadly Sprays. these people were on the same road spraying crew.” Jan Wroncy sees a connection be tween the military and herbicides. She knows that during a war, especially a jungle war, the Armed Forces need huge amounts of herbicides (and nerve gasses). “Some of the same companies manufacture herbicides and nerve gas,” points out Wroncy, “especially with pesticides, the compounds are quite similar. The big manufacturers know that when the Army needs chemicals, that they’d better have huge quantities of them on hand and ready to go.” Recently the Lane County Public Works Department bought 1000 gal lons of the herbicide Roundup, in an ticipation of crews applying the chemical to county roadsides. During the April, 1987, hearing with the Commissioners, the Public Works Department retained Robert Berger from the State of Washington to make a presentation on the value of herbi cides in a roadside vegetation man agement program. “Nationwide,” said Berger, “water is the number one enemy of pavement life.” He went on to say that water buildup next to a road can lead to pavement deterioration. As to whether pavement deterioration is the result of water buildup (ostensibly caused by vegetation along the sides of a road), Jan Wroncy feels otherwise. “I know some of those roads inti mately,” she says, referring to Lane County roads depicted by the Public Works Department in a slide presen tation before the Commissioners in April. “On the roads they showed (where there was road damage), the damage was almost certainly caused by heavy trucks and big farm equip ment.” Wroncy cites documentation from the State Transportation Department, indicating that heavy vehicles such as large tractors can cause the same road damage in a single pass as 9,500 auto mobiles. Others have doubted the basis for the decision to resume spraying. Bar bara Kelley of Oregonians Protecting Our Water (OPOW) informed the Continued on page 22 © 1e7e nou wasnruTE ♦ ROLFING Rolfing is a process that speaks not to symptoms, but directly to a person’s problems. 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