Herbicide Ban Could Add Fuel to Western Wildfires

JIM CARLTON / Wall Street Journal 5jul02

Mindfully.org note:
This is Industry's Latest Ploy in Protecting Pesticide Profit Over Health.
Another "hot" one is by the Timber Industry. It maintains that that clear-cutting is good for forests.

PAUL, Idaho -- As wildfires rage across the West, one of the government's more promising fire-prevention tools -- an herbicide called Oust -- has been ousted from the battle.

In an embarrassing snafu for the federal government, some of the herbicide sprayed two years ago by Bureau of Land Management officials to suppress so-called cheatgrass in Idaho drifted onto nearby farms, wiping out sugar beets, corn, barley and other crops. More than 100 farmers in 10 south-central Idaho counties are claiming damages in excess of $100 million as a result, saying their fields have been rendered virtually infertile by the herbicide, made by DuPont Co.

Federal officials hoped their use of the herbicide Oust would prevent wildfires such as this 1996 cheatgrass blaze near Adrian, Ore.

Cheatgrass, if left unchecked, is highly combustible when it withers during summer months, becoming a potent fuel for fires.

The affected farmers recently filed a lawsuit in state court in Idaho against DuPont for alleged negligence in allowing its product to harm their crops. DuPont, of Wilmington, Del., denies any wrongdoing, saying in a statement that any farm damages resulted when Oust was sprayed under improper conditions. The suit also accuses two BLM contractors of negligence. Officials at one of the applicators, Thomas Helicopters Inc. of Gooding, Idaho, deny the allegations, while officials at the other, DeAngelo Brothers Inc. of Hazleton, Pa., weren't available to comment.

The farmers also have notified the BLM of their intent to sue the agency, the procedure required by federal law. BLM denies any wrongdoing, blaming the problem on prolonged drought that allowed the herbicide to spread unexpectedly.

Idaho state investigators have persuaded the BLM to indefinitely suspend spraying Oust in Idaho. BLM officials say the suspension deals a blow to efforts to control cheatgrass, a non-native species imported from Eurasia in the 1800s, and to promote the recovery of rival native plants such as sagebrush. Oust has proved particularly effective, they say, because it controls the seasonal cheatgrass, while leaving sage and other year-round species unaffected.

"Oust is the best tool we've ever had, yes sir," says Scott Anderson, a supervisor in the BLM's Shoshone, Idaho, office. "There's nothing like it."

The moratorium in Idaho, where the BLM had been testing the herbicide, is also a blow to fire-prevention efforts elsewhere. Cheatgrass, known formally as Bromus tectorum, is regarded as one of the main culprits behind the more-frequent and more-virulent wildfires in the West in recent years because it spreads rapidly and burns furiously.

Prone to dying out by late spring, cheatgrass becomes so dry by summer that a lightning strike can spark a blaze of several thousand acres in just hours, federal officials say. (So far this summer Idaho has been spared wildfires, in part because seasonal thunderstorms haven't started in earnest there yet.)

Consequently, ranges that historically burned every 100 years or so are now catching fire every three or four years, federal officials say, thwarting the recovery of sagebrush, which takes as long as a decade to mature. The sage, in addition to being a lot less combustible, is considered ecologically important because it provides food and shelter for creatures ranging from mule deer and antelope to sage grouse.

DuPont's Oust had been used for years to control weeds along highways and railroads. In the mid-1990s, BLM officials began using it experimentally against cheatgrass, which the agency had been fighting a losing battle to control. They discovered that when sprayed immediately after a fire, Oust was nearly 100% effective in suppressing the growth of cheatgrass for at least a year. "That gave us an opportunity to come in and reseed the sagebrush and other desirable vegetation," explains Mike Pellant, a BLM rangeland ecologist in Boise.

So the BLM decided to test Oust against cheatgrass on a wider scale in Idaho, which has one of the West's worst cheatgrass problems. From 1997 to 2000, Oust was sprayed about a dozen times, largely by helicopter, on charred rangeland, without incident. BLM also did a few much smaller tests with Oust in other states.

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But in the spring of 2001, farmers living near two of the spray zones in southern Idaho's high desert noticed their crops were withering. Sugar beets would pop an inch or so out of the ground, then wilt and turn a sick purplish color. Cornstalks that grew as high as 10 feet before reached just three feet. Most of those crops died while others, such as potatoes, grew deformed and less salable.

"The plants looked drought-stricken, but we were all watering them constantly," recalls 38-year-old Perry Van Tassell, whose fields lie adjacent to one of the Oust spray areas.

Investigators from Idaho's Department of Agriculture took soil samples from farms as far as 10 miles away from the largest Oust-sprayed area and found Oust concentrations throughout the zone. Soil tested along farmer Dan Schaeffer's fence line, for instance, contained levels of Oust's key ingredient, sulfometuron methyl, of 11 parts per billion. A state study showed the same chemical affected sugar beets at levels as low as a miniscule 31 parts per trillion.

"It was a chemical that never should have been applied to the ground," says the 41-year-old Mr. Schaeffer, who says he lost an estimated $1 million in revenue from the spraying.

Private consultants hired by farmers found trace levels of Oust on farms as far as 25 miles from sprayed areas. The chemical is dangerous to crops for the same reason it is effective against cheatgrass: It takes only an ounce to kill weeds over an entire acre. That's why DuPont, in its warning label, advises users not to spray Oust on dry, powdery soil when there is little likelihood of rain. Wind-borne Oust, it warns, can injure neighboring plants.

Yet those were exactly the parched conditions in which Oust had been sprayed in Idaho, state investigators found. They say the BLM ordered the herbicide sprayed on charred ranges following wildfires, allowing the substance to blow with loose dirt for miles when winds kicked up. The damage to crops came as a body blow to many small family farmers who were already struggling to survive.

BLM's Mr. Anderson responds that extreme drought led to the Oust drifting to adjoining farms. He says the herbicide was applied during the fall in advance of expected winter rain and snow, but the precipitation never materialized, leaving the Oust still atop the soil when spring winds started blowing. "It was a fluke of nature, not a fault of the product," Mr. Anderson says.

Now, BLM officials say they don't know when -- or if -- they'll ever resume spraying Oust on cheatgrass. Mr. Anderson, braking his pickup truck to admire a path of rangeland treated with Oust three years ago, points out the lush patches of crescent wheat and Great Basin wild rye that have shot up in the wake of cheatgrass's suppression.

"But if we have another fire here," Mr. Anderson says, "I don't know what we're going to do."