BY CARL SEGERSTROM
SUE, DIE OR KEEP
WAITING
Victims of aerial pesticide sprays still
waiting for relief
J
ohn Burns could feel the spray on his body from
a helicopter applying a mixture of pesticides to a
nearby clearcut. He describes the well-publicized
October 2013 incident as nothing less than an at-
tack on himself and his property.
Landowners in Oregon like Burns, who have had their
health, property or water supply damaged by pesticide
spraying, are left with limited options to hold the sprayers
accountable under state laws that protect agricultural and
forestry industries over people.
The Oregon law commonly referred to as the Right to
Farm and Forest Act (RTFF) allows landowners to sue
neighboring timber or agricultural operations only in the
case of “damage to commercial agricultural products; or
death or serious physical injury.”
Lisa Arkin, the executive director of statewide advocacy
group Beyond Toxics, says the law represents a misguided
value system. “The fact that showing that your grape plants
are harmed is more important in this state than showing
that your child was harmed demonstrates how economics
can trump human health and human worth,” she says.
Recently proposed Senate Bill 499 in the Oregon Legis-
lature, which died in committee, would have given private
landowners the right to sue for damage to their water sup-
ply and would have lowered the personal injury threshold
of the current law. The bill would have also taken away
the requirement that losing plaintiffs pay the defendants’
legal fees, which can be a deterrent to those affected by
pesticide sprays.
Burns says he can’t comprehend how state lawmakers
have done so little to provide protections or relief for
Oregon landowners affected by
aerial pesticide spraying. He describes the resulting health
impacts of the volatilized chemicals used in aerial pesticide
sprays as “simply evil.”
“How would you feel if I flew a drone over your prop-
erty and dropped poisons on your kids?” he asks.
Burns says he and his wife, Barbara, have had linger-
ing health problems since the exposure, which included
the chemicals 2,4-D and tricloypr. The spray also affected
dozens of Burns’ neighbors in Cedar Valley, a community
on the southern Oregon Coast. Some neighbors won’t even
let their grandchildren visit their property.
“Something is terribly wrong when the laws and people
charged with protecting us aren’t doing their jobs,” Burns
says. “As far as aerial spraying goes, there’s no account-
ability.”
Timber and agricultural industry groups point out that
there are state pesticide drift laws that protect landowners
from chemical trespass. Pesticide sprayers have been fined
thousands of dollars for spraying where they should not.
The laws that prohibit pesticide drift are separate from
the Right to Farm and Forest Act, which agricultural and
forestry industries argue protects the essential activities of
food and timber producers.
In a statement provided to EW by the director of public
affairs for the Oregon Forest & Industries Council, Sara
Duncan wrote: “The natural resource associations repre-
senting farmers and foresters across Oregon, including Or-
egon Forest & Industries Council, Oregon Farm Bureau
and Oregonians for Food and Shelter, among others, are
opposed to SB 499 because it seeks to remove important
provisions of the Right to Farm and Forest Law, compro-
mising a law that protects two industries critical to the eco-
nomic welfare of this state. SB 499 exposes farmers and
foresters to frivolous lawsuits that only seek to limit legal
practices and would result in a heyday for needless envi-
ronmental litigation.”
Chris Winter, the co-executive director of Portland’s
Crag Law Center, supported SB 499 — which he argues
would help landowners protect their health and property.
According to Winter, current pesticide drift laws are in-
effective because they rely on the Oregon Department of
Agriculture for enforcement.
“The ag and forestry industries are just too cozy with the
Department of Agriculture, and the enforcement has been
so weak that it has
been ineffective at protecting public health,” Winter says.
Winter says the combination of poor enforcement by
ODA and the legal protections for agriculture and timber
producers under the RTFF act have created a situation
where landowners have little hope for justice after chemi-
cal trespass.
“The law strips away the ability of private property
owners to protect their family and their property from a
neighboring property owner who sprays them with pesti-
cides,” Winter says.
Given the lack of legal protections and the unwilling-
ness of ODA to hold industry accountable, Winter predicts
Oregonians will continue to be sprayed by pesticides and
see their health and their land suffer until a legal or legisla-
tive solution is reached.
The lack of scientific knowledge about the cumula-
tive health impacts of mixing pesticides is also cause for
concern for municipalities affected by aerial sprays. The
mayor of the coastal town of Depoe Bay, Barbara Leff,
made this point in an April 5 statement calling for the post-
ponement of an aerial spray operation near the city’s water
supply that included the chemicals atrazine, 2,4-D, glypho-
sate, hexasinone, clopyralid, penoxsulam, oxyfluorfen and
indaziflam.
In a city press release, Leff wrote: “This ‘cocktail’ of
chemicals has never been tested for their toxicity in aggre-
gate. This information is essential to any assessment of the
environmental and human health effects of the proposed
spraying.” Depoe Bay is in Lincoln County, which has a
spray ban on its May ballot.
Activists and property owners affected by chemical
trespasses were hopeful that SB 499 would give them the
legal authority to hold their neighbors accountable. After it
failed to go to a vote, the options for victims of chemical
trespass don’t look good.
Without a legislative solution landowners are left to
rely on the oversight of a state agency critics say is closely
aligned with timber and agricultural industries, file ex-
pensive lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of cur-
rent laws or wait until a family member dies and pesticide
sprayers lose their immunity under the RTFF.
John Burns says he is baffled by the current system,
which he compared to that of a third-world country. “Not
only are your rights being violated — you have no recourse
against the perpetrators under the laws,” Burns says. “I’m
all for the logging industry, but they have no right to cause
harm to their neighbors. The health of people and es-
pecially children should take prece-
dence.”
‘How would you feel if I
flew a drone over your
property and dropped
poisons on your kids?’
— JOHN BURNS
A WEYERHAEUSER
SPRAY NEAR
TRIANGLE LAKE
CHARTER SCHOOL
PHOTO: GARY HALE /FORESTLAND DWELLERS
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A pril 13, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com