LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Council members have tried to work with island critics and supporters who have formed battle lines over a proposed resolution to ban the use of the herbicide Roundup at county parks and along county roadways. On
LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Council members have tried to work with island critics and supporters who have formed battle lines over a proposed resolution to ban the use of the herbicide Roundup at county parks and along county roadways.
On Thursday, members of the council’s Parks and Public Works Committee heard recommendations on the matter from a Washingtonstate visitor they indicated could help bring a solution.
During a meeting at the historic County Building, Forest Shomer, who hails from Jefferson County, Wash., said government officials in his county have successfully instituted a nospray policy for 26 years.
The policy has worked partly because county workers take the time to find out about weed species and how to control them through biological means and through the use of machines, Shomer explained. Shomer identified himself as a consulting nativeseedsman and wildflower specialist. Council Chairman Kaipo Asing said such practices might work well on Kaua‘i, and noted that he liked the idea so much that he might travel to Shomer’s county to see how the nospray program works there.
Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura said some elements of a nospray policy used in Jefferson County, Wash. could very well work for Kaua‘i County.
She said Kaua‘i County officials could learn a lot about eliminating or curbing the use of Roundup on Kaua‘i from government counterparts from that county.
The continued use of Roundup on Kaua‘i has spurred some public concerns over whether the chemical’s use poses health threats.
But Kaua‘i residents and farmers who have used the chemical for years have dismissed such claims.
Shomer said the impetus for the nospray policy in his county came in 1976, when residents became concerned about “low salmon runs” in his county.
Some residents attributed the condition to “roadside spraying of the county,” he said.
In 1979, government leaders in his county were persuaded to impose a moratorium on roadside spraying, to “go biological,” and to use machinery to control weeds, Shomer said.
The number of salmon in streams and rivers in his county stayed small for awhile, but the fish population increased to healthy numbers over time, he said. “We are having hundreds of salmons return each year,” Shomer said.
The increase in salmons stems from implementing the nospray policy, shoring up river and stream banks with vegetation to prevent erosion, and preventing “cattle from going to places where they would muck up the stream,” Shomer said.
As part of the nospray program implemented in Jefferson County, government officials hired a botanist from the University of Washington to conduct a survey of weeds and plants along 300 miles of county roads, he said.
His county comprises about 1,000 square miles, most of it located in the Olympic National Park, he said.
Officials from his county identified areas with “problem weeds, noxious weeds or invasive plants,” and “figured out how to remove the plants mechanically or otherwise, not using sprays,” Shomer said.
Committee Chairman Daryl Kaneshiro said the nospray program might be working as well as it is there due to the presence of snow, which inhibits weed growth.
“The snow, you know, helps. You can kill the grass for a while, or freeze the ground for a while,” Kaneshiro said.
Shomer said the nospray policy has worked in his county because of good planning and implementation of strategies. “It is not just the freezing. It is the strategy,” he said.
Shomer said he was the chairman of a noxiousweedcontrol board in his county for four years. His county has become home to plants from all over the world, with the exception of tropical plants, Shomer said.
“We have learned how to control those species one at a time, because there is no blueprint for it,” he said.
He said members of the county weedcontrol board had a government specialist give a presentation to city, county and state officials, on ways to control weeds effectively.
One part of the weedcontrol program calls for workers to have a “ringbinder showing the noxious weeds of concern and native plants of preference,” so that when workers are at a cleanup site they can “either favor them or not,” Shomer said.
Shomer also said the best way to keep weeds from spreading is to “mow a plant before it seeds.”
He said the weedcontrol strategy has spread to neighboring counties. “The whole state is being persuaded to go the way of Jefferson County,” Shomer said.
Asing said the strategy used for that county’s nospray policy made good sense to him.
“If what you say is credible, and I have no reason not to believe you, then I will even take a trip there, to see exactly what is going on,” Asing said.
During the meeting, some audience members urged the council to follow through on the original intent of the resolution to ban the use of Roundup outright.
Tracey Schavone said she believes she has been exposed to Roundup and other chemicals in the nearly 25 years she has lived on Kaua‘i.
She said because she has not felt well over the last 2 years, she went to O‘ahu for testing last month. The test results were telling, she said.
“One is heptachlor, one is malathion, one is Roundup, and the other is to treat wood,” she said. “These things can be in your system for a long time.”
Peggy Kadey and her husband, Ron, who founded the Kaua‘i Network for the Chemically Injured, spoke out against the continued use of Roundup by county workers.
Peggy Kadey read from an email from one woman who stated that exposure to Roundup “destroyed my life as I knew it in 1996.”
Kadey said the woman reported in her email that exposure to the herbicide “threw me into an early menopause,” and disrupted many normal bodily functions.
The woman also claimed she now has a seizure disorder, malefaction of her kidneys, and liver impairment.
Sarah Linn Hicks, an audience member, said she would rather see mechanical equipment used to control weeds, and volunteered herself and others for such a job.
James Tokioka, the council vice chairman and chairman of the council’s Parks and Public Works Committee, suggested she and her friends joined the county’s Gateway Project, a undertaking to beautify roads leading to the Lihu‘e Airport.
But Paul Lemke, a longtime farmer from Kapa‘a, defended the use of Roundup, saying he and his family have used the chemical all their lives to control weeds on their properties.
“See, my fatherinlaw was an independent rancher and sugar grower, doing it for 75 years,” Lemke said. “We lived in the middle of the canefield. We use DDT. We used 24D, 245T, commonly known as ‘Agent Orange,’ which was used in the Vietnam was as a defoliant. Not one of us has respiratory ailments.”
Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 2453681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
