“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” That’s what the simplest, most life-loving element inside me wants to shout when I see our vital SF Bay Area water sources being blasted with a toxic herbicide in the name of ‘controlling’ a weed. But I need to do more than shout. I need to give you the basic facts about the Spartina Project and the ground and aerial spraying that is contaminating some of our largest and most critical bodies of water with an herbicide that has been linked to massive health harms in mammals. If you reside anywhere in the Bay Area, the Spartina Project is being conducted where you live and you have a right to know that you and your family is being exposed to Imazapyr through contamination of the air, ground and water as a result of this terribly misguided project.
I find it especially diabolical that Marin County, with one of the highest breast cancer rates in the nation, is being saturated with Imazapyr, further exposing local women to totally unnecessary toxins that can only derail their ongoing struggle for health and life. None of us should be eating, drinking or breathing this toxic herbicide, but as usual, it is the babies, women, elders and already-ill portions of Bay Area populations that can least afford to be exposed to further toxins. Just last year, Marin Ag Officials had to admit that they had violated their own pesticide laws by allowing thousands of gallons of carcinogenic pesticides to be sprayed over public places for years and years. No need to look much further for an answer to all that Marin County cancer! And now the government is funding the further contamination of this already-compromised area with yet more unnecessary chemicals. I am convinced that this needs to be stopped, but I want you to have the chance to review the hushed-up facts about the Spartina Project and make up your own mind.
What Is The Spartina Project?
Spartina is a grass that, if left unmanaged, can alter ecosystems by filling waterways with weeds and mud instead of water. Spartina grass is found growing in much of the SF Bay Area. A government-funded group has been created to manage the growth of spartina grass, but rather than doing in this in an ecologically-sound manner, the group has decided to partner with an herbicide company to aerially spray and ground spray massive amounts of toxins into our rivers, marshes and other water bodies to poison the grass to death.
It is disgraceful that here in 2010, government agencies are still using these moronic approaches to wild land management – meeting the presence of a few weeds or bugs with an insane barrage of chemicals that assaults all life. In my 2008 article on the Spartina Project, I suggested that these government agencies stop making fat deals with herbicide manufacturers and start using that money to employ our growing population of jobless Californians to manually remove spartina grass where there is too much of it, on an ongoing basis. The harvested grass could then be used in some green business such as basket making. Here in 2010, our unemployment rate is even more drastic, but the Spartina Project continues to funnel funding to bureaucrats and chemical barons while exposing citizens to totally unnecessary toxins because these agencies refuse to embrace green management practices.
What Are The Toxins In the Spartina Project?
Here is the Herbicide Fact Sheet for Imazapyr. Please, read it in full, but to summarize, this herbicide has been linked to the following drastic health harms in mammal studies:
- Increased brain, adrenal gland and thyroid cancers
- Kidney cysts
- Stomach ulcers and lesions
- Fluid accumulation in the lungs
- Abnormal blood formation in the spleen
- Irreversible damage to and corrosion of the eyes and skin
As a woman with Crohn’s Disease, I don’t want to be exposed to anything that causes stomach lesions, and I don’t want anyone I love to be exposed to increased incidence of cancer, tumors or any of the other devastating effects linked to Imazapyr. I’m sure you don’t either. From what I have read in the Herbicide Fact Sheet, Imazapyr cannot be filtered out of drinking water, and in the few studies that were conducted, it was found to be a ‘persistent’ herbicide which contaminated both water and soil and was still there until the farthest out date from spraying for which it was tested. In other words, as long as researchers kept looking, Imazapyr was still there. No one knows if it ever ‘goes away’.
In addition to this, this herbicide, which is being ground and aerially sprayed directly in some fo the Bay Area’s most vital waterways, has never been tested for its chronic toxicity to fish and other aquatic life! As hard as that is to believe, it’s true. The Spartina Project is spraying an herbicide on aquatic animals without having any idea what it will do to them. The only known facts from testing are that the related herbicide, imazamethabenz-methyl, has high chronic toxicity to fish with effects occurring at less than 1 part per million. So much for the Coho Salmon everyone is trying to save in Marin’s waterways.
Imazapyr, which is manufactured by the American Cyanimid Company and is sold under the brand names, Arsenal, Chopper and Assault (don’t those names give you some idea of the danger of this product?), contains 47% ‘inert’ ingredients which U.S. law enables the manufacturer to keep secret from the public. So, we don’t know what these secret ingredients do, but what we do know is that the disclosed ingredients break down into two products when exposed to light. One of these, quinolinic acid, is a neurotoxin that causes nerve lesions and symptoms similar to Huntington’s Disease. This, of course, is only what we know about the disclosed ingredients in Imazapyr. No tests have ever been done on the secret ingredients.
Finally, Imazapyr is deadly to other plants, destroying their synthesis of DNA. Endangered plants and food crops are damaged by this herbicide.
In sum, Imazapyr is extremely dangerous to mammals, may well be deadly to aquatic life, contaminates drinking water for a prolonged, unknown time period, contaminates soil and kills non-targeted plants. This is not something any informed Bay Area resident would knowingly allow to be introduced into our environment.
Where And When Is The Spartina Project Happening?
As of writing this, the Spartina Project is going on near water bodies right now all over the SF Bay Area, including the Bolinas Lagoon, the Petaluma River, Limantour and Drakes Esteros, San Pablo Bay, all over San Francisco and elsewhere. The spraying is being done both via airplane and via ground spraying.
Please look at the 2010 Spraying Schedule to see the locations and dates, but please do not rely on the dates as readers have reported to me that the Spartina Project has not stuck to their own schedule and has sprayed on days they said they wouldn’t. But whether you happen to be walking along a marsh, creek, river or bay trail the day of a spraying or not, it almost doesn’t matter. Once these Spartina Project people spray, the herbicide will be in your air, water, ground and body for a long, long time.
What Can You Do About The Spartina Project?
Here is the contact page for the board members of the Spartina Project:
http://spartina.org/about.htm#staff.
Step one is to let them know that you have taken the time to educate yourself about the toxicity of Imazapyr and do not want it in your water, air, soil or body. Tell them you want this project stopped in the SF Bay Area.
Step two is more open to you, depending on what you think you can do to put a stop to such an unnecessary and dangerous plan. Perhaps you will organize a neighborhood protest group, write to local government officials or to local newspapers telling what you’ve learned about the toxic environment the Spartina Project is creating in the SF Bay Area. I think the main thing is not to be silent.
Government agencies have always relied on quiet and secrecy in order to conduct projects that would cause public outrage and opposition if they were widely understood. Right now, there are people going for their evening run around the local creek or marsh. They’ve got the baby in the stroller, the dog on the leash. And they have absolutely no idea that they are jogging through an invisible fog of carcinogenic chemicals because these chemical projects seldom make the news.
People proudly publicize accomplishments like the founding of a recycling center or the creation of a new green business. Spraying the San Francisco Bay Area with herbicides is hardly whispered about at all and its continuance depends of that weird, unnatural quiet. I started this article shouting, because I’m getting sickened to death by an ‘environmental/autoimmune disease’ while my neighbors are continuing to contaminate the world I’d like to keep living in. I spent last weekend in the hospital with my strange illness, called Crohn’s Disease, becoming epidemic in the U.S., cause unknown, cure nowhere in sight. As I lay in that hospital bed, hooked up to IVs and monitors, surrounded by fellow sufferers with cancers, disorders and disease, I thought about those Spartina Project people, spraying away. We should all be shouting.
8 users commented in " Bay Area Spartina Project Contaminating All Major Water Sources "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAquatic weeds are indeed a serious problem… and I’ve looked at studies using alternative mechanical removal.. so very very expensive… there may be other means being addressed by pilot studies as I write.. I pray. There is an SFEI study that was conducted comparing aquatic weed control using mechanical, herbicides, and even goats, but I think the results were disappointing for us advocates… mechanical removal was really expensive… but maybe someone can re-assess the study for sound design.
I recently worked on quantifying the success of some terrestrial goat grazing near water with fecal coliform and erosion monitoring and doing a cost differential of goats vs herbicides on land weeds (about 30% cheaper w/ goats)…. but aquatic weeds is a much more challenging issue.
I’m not sure where the author is getting the toxicity info… my source says imazapyr or its isopropylamine salt form have not been listed by the US EPA or EU as having those chronic toxicity characteristics listed in the article. I thought that imazapyr was a highly acute toxin by the US EPA, but other toxicity issues haven’t been verified by any scientific committees.
Welcome, Susan!
Thank you for sharing the findings of your own study of the Spartina situation. In the above article, I’ve linked to the Herbicide Fact Sheet form Imazapyr, published by the Journal of Pesticide Reform in 1996. In case you missed that link, here it is again. Please, definitely read it:
http://www.pesticide.org/get-the-facts/pesticide-factsheets/factsheets/imazapyr
I can definitely see the coliform issues that would arise in using goats to control spartina grass, but I can envision a better plan than this. Mechanical removal is one alternative…whatever the cost it would be cheap compared to the ultimate costs of poisoning our water, but I think the ideal would be manual removal. Long ago, Native Peoples navigated the Pacific Coast and its waterways in canoes, kayaks and other small craft. I believe that a truly green, truly doable solution to the presence of this grass would be to employ people to manually remove the grass with hand tools via small watercraft. So many Californians need jobs right now, and here is one that healthy citizens could perform with dignity and zero negative environmental impact.
If spartina grass has shown itself to grow lushly here, a green society would see it as a resource – whether short or long term. After all, if the Egyptians had viewed papyrus as a negative problem, we might never have had paper. No doubt this cordgrass could be harvested and used to create useful green products, while ensuring that no waterway is overgrown. What a different scenario we would then have, of learning to work within nature, harvest what is good and use our gleanings for something positive.
Instead, we are still dealing with that European mindset of man mistakenly believing he can control nature, and sickening his environment and self in the process. The truth about America is that Indigenous Man worked within nature for thousands of years, shaping the landscape to meet his needs, but doing it in such a way that water and soil remained pure, food was safe to eat and people were not being overburdened with toxins. There is no reason we cannot do this again, but so long as large sums of money are to be made from deals between government and the chemical industry – as has been the case since WWII – our agencies are choosing to enrich themselves at the expense of our lives and our planet’s well-being.
Please, do read the herbicide fact sheet I’ve linked to, Susan. It clearly lays out the toxicity of this herbicide to mammals as well as the other harms I’ve summarized in the above article. I am so glad to know you are researching this issue, and I hope you will continue to share what you learn. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Mim
Spartina is beloved on the East and Gulf Coasts. It breaks my heart to watch the gulf oil spill into the grass marshes. West Coast scientists who revile Spartinas say that none of the science from the East and Gulf Coasts regarding the grass are relevant. Excuse me but that is real BS. Coastal marshes evolve, and why would anyone want to get rid of vegetation that keeps the shoreline together, impeding erosion, phytoremediates the pollutants in the water, oxygenates the water etc. And, of course as Mim pointed out if you really despise the grass rather than pollute our already sick rivers and ocean further, mow the grass and use it as fodder for animals, its great for composting as well, and makes beautiful paper. I’m from Willapa Bay where spartina is still executed, an innocent victim of the propaganda of Monsanto and The Nature Conservancy and USFWS, joined by Audubon. For the last 5 years the natural oyster larval set has seriously diminished, there are algae blooms, areas with no oxygen and vibrio and redtide previously non-existent in this bay before they started eradicating spartina. Although the commercial oystergrowers in Willapa have been spraying carbaryl since 1964 to kill ghost shrimp which oxygenate the mudflats, and are trying to replace carbaryl which is banned in 2012, with imadicloprid, many of us believe that the quality of the ecosystem did not deteriorate noticeably, as the spartina grew, because the spartina is a detoxifier. Imadicloprid by the way is banned in Italy, France and Germany because it kills bees.
And now that the spartina is almost gone, the oystergrowers are testing imazamox, to eradicate Japanese eel grass–and as Monsanto predicted– once the shoreline is denuded, they will lay gravel down to plant the non-native manila clam.
When will we ever learn.
Hello, Fritzi,
It is so good to see you here again, and I don’t believe anyone else on the West Coast has done more to educate themselves about spartina grass than you. What a blessing to have you come here to share what you know, and how horrible, horrible, horrible it is to see the dark hands behind this project. MUST they be behind EVERYTHING that is being done wrong on this planet? Please, keep sharing your knowledge about this. I am feeling so terrible about what is happening down here in California with this, but public education and protest is so minimal on this issue. We must keep educating about this. Thank you for coming by.
Mim
Hi
I just came upon your site looking for vegan, soy, gluten free recipes. I love your pov and the information you are bringing to us all- and will be a regular reader
I’ve recently moved to SF Bay from Florida in hopes being on the west coast would improve my health…but now I’m not so sure!
Welcome, Kristina (and welcome to California, too!)
I’m so glad you are finding the articles on our site helpful. They are, indeed, vegan, gluten and soy-free (which can be a tough combo to find good recipes for)!
Unfortunately, the research I’ve done over the years indicates that there are no truly toxin-free places to live in the U.S. Some are better than others, and some individual communities in California are safer than others. For example, West Marin County (just north of San Francisco) is making efforts to become a more green place to live, but they, too have some serious environmental problems. The thing about a community like that, though, is that a large number of the population tries to fight off and remedy these issues. There is an awareness there and in other parts of California that you won’t find elsewhere in the state or elsewhere in much of the nation.
Some good metrics to look for are…can you hear frogs at night in spring and see bumble bees and honey bees on sunny days? These are good indicators that some things are going right with the environment. And, can you talk to your neighbors about subjects like GMOs, pesticides, SMART meters, alternative energy without them looking at you blankly? Chances are, if you can find a place like this, it’s an area of the state where you can work towards reform in environmental stewardship in a meaningful way!
Thanks so much for reading,
Mim
“I find it especially diabolical that Marin County, with one of the highest breast cancer rates in the nation”
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 19. She had a mastectomy/reconstruct in 1976? around that time. We lived in Sonoma County for several years before moving out here.
That statement that you’d made just sent chills down my spine and I do remember the low flying planes that would spray, spray, spray.
On another note, I am trying to adapt your rice milk recipe to the slow-cooker, it’s just started. Wish me luck!
(I do miss it out there.)
After logging my “find” of one if Spartina.org’s floating message boards, I was disappointed to learn that they were using herbicide to fight an invasive species. It appears that they are partnering with the people who are ruining the genome.
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