By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – A plan to spray herbicides on a Weyerhaeuser clearcut near one of Waldport’s municipal water sources has drawn condemnation by people who oppose the practice and triggered city officials to take precautionary measures.
While city officials have not yet been notified when ground spraying on the 110-acre “Pankey Pit” clearcut located immediately east of Waldport on Mount Eckman will begin, the 14-day public comment period required before any action ends Wednesday.
The city of Waldport posted a statement on its website Tuesday to address what it called “significant concern” expressed by citizens regarding the city’s water supply in that area.
“All activity which affects the city water supply is taken very seriously,” the statement said. “In looking at our intakes, only the North Weist Creek intake is near the affected area. While it is several hundred feet from the area of spray concern, we have formulated a plan out of an abundance of caution.”
That plan includes having an observer on site during the spray, shutting down the water intake for 72 hours and conducting water tests to determine if any contaminates exist.
“This is out of an abundance of caution,” city manager Dann Cutter told YachatsNews. “We will be on site and monitoring, but only a very narrow portion of the logged area falls into the watershed above our intake. Their mapping shows a significant buffer zone. We take it seriously, but are not overly concerned. Trust but verify, will be the plan of the day.”
Cutter is in contact with Weyerhaeuser officials who will notify him prior to any spraying — which he confirmed will be carried out using backpack sprayers and not aerial spraying by helicopters or drones.
“While the spray issue is a very sensitive concern to many in the state, the city takes a neutral stance on the politics of the issue, and simply strives to ensure a clean drinking water supply to its citizens,” the city’s statement concluded. “The city is also engaged in a long-term plan of action which will hopefully preclude concerns regarding this issue in the future.”
When asked, Cutter said he did not want to elaborate publicly on what those long-term actions are out of caution it could create unwanted obstacles.
Logging finished in January
The logging above and around Pankey Pit was completed shortly after the New Year, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry, which manages state and private forestlands in Oregon. The original notification was to clearcut 110 to 114 acres but areas within that were left uncut to account for required buffers around flowing and standing water, water intakes and any houses, said ODF stewardship forester Rieghly Sitton.
“Anything like that is going to be protected,” said Sitton who noted there are five streams on the site with some having forks or tributaries leading off them.
Several creeks are listed as seasonal on the map and two are listed as having small- or medium-sized fish.
Sitton said there were only three official public comments made about the spraying on the agency’s site known as FERNS, which is where all forestland operations managed by the agency are posted prior to taking place.
Sitton wants the public to know he received more than 20 emails voicing concerns, but that is an exception the agency has been allowing. The proper place to express concerns is on the FERNS website, he said, and comments should pertain to particulars of the written plan, say for example if a buffer distance is incorrect.
“The emails that I’m getting are opinions, they are not pertaining to the contents of the written plan,” he said. “So, I’m still taking them and passing them on to the landowner … (but) Weyerhaeuser is pretty aware of people’s opinions on things.”
Sitton sympathizes with people’s concerns but said all state laws and regulations for protecting water are being adhered to. If people believe those protections are not enough that is an issue to take up with Oregon legislators.
“One thing I have been trying to tell people is that Oregon is fairly unique in a forest practices sense,” Sitton said. “There are only a few states that have any kind of forest protections. Oregon, Washington and California are really the most protected for all this stuff.”
Group members protest
Trying to make the public aware of the upcoming spray via social media and public meetings have been members of the non-profit group Protect Oregon Watersheds. The grass-roots group, which began last year as Stop the Spray at Beaver Creek, has 522 online members.
They have been posting about the cocktail of chemicals that make up the herbicides used to kill off vegetation that competes with Douglas fir seedlings that are required to be planted – chemicals they say kill or harm pollinators, fish, wildlife and humans.
According to documentation provided by Weyerhaeuser, the chemicals listed for possible use at Pankey Pit include: aminopyralid and metsulfuron methyl, hexazinone, imazapyr, metsulfuron methyl, oxyfluorfen and penoxsulam, sulfometuron methyl, sulfometuron methyl and metsulfuron methyl, triclopyr with acid, triclopyr with amine, triclopyr with choline, triclopyr with ester.
“There are conflicting opinions of the potential harm to Waldport’s municipal water quality, plus the health of the creeks, lake and river nearby,” Tex Brooklyn wrote on social media. “Let’s not forget the birds, the bees, the flowers the trees, animals and people.”
Group member Debra Fant lives outside Waldport city limits just below the Pankey Pit site.
“Clearcutting Waldport’s watershed is damaging to both quantity and quality of water and then spraying toxic chemicals that have never been safety tested when used together with is insult to injury for the land, water and for the people of Waldport,” she wrote in a social media post.
She cautioned that spraying on a slope that is susceptible to slides and runoff during the rainy season will mean debris and soil sprayed with “toxic chemicals” will travel beyond where it is sprayed.
“The streams flowing from Mt. Eckman are source water for private drinking water systems for residents along Highway 34 who are not on public water,” she wrote and later repeated to YachatsNews. “Do not pollute resident’s drinking water. Ground spray can pollute these streams causing harm to humans, wildlife, aquatic organisms, water fowl and nesting Great blue herons in Eckman Lake.”
Like other members of her group, she urges forest landowners to remove unwanted vegetation by methods that do not use herbicides – no matter what the state allows.
“Spraying toxic chemicals on clear cut land may be ‘legal’ at this time but that does not make it safe or right for those who drink the water,” Fant said.
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
We are opposed to spraying of any kind. Check the right side of the map closely, you will see that the plan is to spray directly into water that is flowing into Waldport Watershed. The chemical mixture is designed to kill. And it is effective- kills vegetation- insects- pollutes the water that is used by wildlife and the community. Observations show that these pesticides also eat away at the hooves of animals who wander through the area unbeknownst to them that there is poison on the ground. The ramifications of spraying goes beyond just killing a weed. ODF stating that the only comments accepted are those that “pertain to the plan” absolutely should include the wide-ranging deadly results of spraying. To be custodians of Earth means we need to be looking beyond how some activity profits me and into how what I am doing is effecting the eco system and the Earth including global warming- that is the true economical impact of our decisions.
That is a lie. The map does not show that at all. Beyond that, it would be illegal and any sensible business would not do that. In addition, reforestation activities are heavily regulated by the state of Oregon and the department of forestry. Quit fear mongering.
This is not a political issue as this article seems to be presenting. It’s about all our health. Just because something is “legal” does not make it right. It’s shameful that this practice is allowed to continue. We have the science. Something must change.
Unconscionable.
There is a plethora of science out there from the last 30 years and the science shows it’s safe. Quit fear mongering.
That’s what they said about glyphosate in my graduate toxicology class at OSU in 2010. Awareness of how natural processes work and protesting against the poisoning of our watershed is not fear-mongering.
There is not.
Thank you for this story. I’m very grateful to the people who are pouring energy into researching, interpreting and publicizing the potential effects of spraying natural resources.
Thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on this very important topic.
While I don’t know all the science around the pesticides, I do know that upsetting the balance of our eco-system does and will have long term, negative effects.
Clean water is essential to all of us. The justifying of the application of these chemicals because it is more profitable is extremely short sighted.
Very true. Also current SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Viral Activity Level is high. I do know that upsetting the balance of our eco-system in any form has negative effects
Triclopyr is one of the chemicals in this toxic cocktail to be sprayed on the clear cut near Waldport’s water intake. Dow Chemical’s own warning label states “highly toxic to fish, aquatic plants and aquatic invertebrates . . . Keep out of wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and wildlife habitats at the edge of bodies of water. . . may result in the contamination of groundwater particularly in areas where soils are permeable and/or where the depth to the water table is shallow.”
When a risky drug or procedure is proposed to a patient, they must sign a consent that they agree to accept the risks. No one has asked us, the residents of Waldport, if we accept the risks to our drinking water after this legally-permitted (by our representatives in the Oregon legislature) toxic herbicide application!
This comment section is short on solutions, just like the article on the Seal Rock water issues. We have a little pseudoscience, outrage, wishes, and maybe a little science. But what is the City of Waldport going to do to guarantee that our water is safe? What is any coastal water system going to do to guarantee that their water is safe? It starts with who owns the watershed. It also pertains to the level of purity achieved in the processing of the water. Toxic sprays may have been put into our watersheds for many years before the presumed modern level of tests. Has our water been tested previously for these types of chemicals? Perhaps we need to own our watersheds and insist on better filtration. No one needs to drink these chemicals, but how do we make sure this doesn’t happen?
Sitton with ODF provided the solution – people don’t like it, go to your legislator and get the law changed. The law drives how things are done and what is used. If the company is following the law and ODF says they are, then they are doing what they are supposed to do. Don’t like the law then you change the law and stop expecting others to do it for you. And stop spreading misinformation. Online is rampant with people doing that. Misinformation is spread by people who refuse to understand the underlying rules and regulations and would rather complain them step up themselves. Again, don’t like the law, talk to your legislators and get the law changed.
Ann,
We have talked with and educated our legislators for decades, as have the victims of the Triangle Lake herbicide spraying where residents’ urine tested positive for atrazine; as have the victims of the Gold Beach herbicide spraying that left over 300 people ill – some still paying their medical bills. We’ve all attempted to change the law through our legislators in Salem and through the initiative petition process. I suggest that you read A Bitter Fog – Herbicides and Human Rights by Carol Van Strum of Five Rivers, OR. That is the true and devastating story that details the harms of pesticides, a history of their use in Lincoln County and beyond. You can find the book at your local bookstores in Yachats and Waldport.
Seal Rock, Yachats, and now Waldport. When does it end?
For anyone who believes that concerned residents are simply “fear mongering” and that 30 years of science shows that Weyerhaeuser’s scheduled herbicide spray in Waldport’s watershed is safe, the Oregon Department of Agriculture lists two of the chemicals that Weyerhaeuser intends to spray, metsulfuron methyl and sulfometuron methyl, as statewide pesticides of moderate concern. I am fairly certain that the Oregon Department of Agriculture relies on science in making such determinations and does not make such determinations lightly.
Hand spraying should not affect any property outside of Weyerhaeuserr property. It is acceptable forest practices. I live just west of this property and have no concerns at all. I drink Waldport city water and have no concerns. I have used herbicides on my property over the past 50 years and still have plenty of bees, birds, deer, elk, cougar and bears that feed on plants on my property. If you are so concerned about this then don’t live near timberland.