Pesticide mistakes

[Guest guest]

http://www.seattle-pi.com/pi/awards/pois0521d.html

Wednesday, May 21, 1997

A P-I special report: Poisons adrift

Pesticide mistakes

Chemicals keep water flowing but controls on them fall short

By ANDREW SCHNEIDER and JOEL CONNELLY

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

For decades, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and its irrigation districts

have plumbed the arid West, bringing water to a parched land and making the

deserts bloom.

In the process, they have become one of the nation's largest users of

pesticides to kill weeds, algae and pests that can clog thousands of miles

of canals and irrigation ditches.

Through the years, the bureau and its irrigation districts have made

numerous dangerous mistakes with toxic chemicals, but there is little

evidence that anyone accepts responsibility for monitoring them, a

Post-Intelligencer examination found.

In Oregon, 90,000 juvenile wild steelhead were killed last year when

acrolein, a toxic material used to kill submerged weeds, flowed from an

irrigation system into Bear Creek near Medford.

" In addition to the harm to aquatic life, the release of acrolein to Bear

Creek also posed a significant risk to public health. A drinking water

intake for the city of Talent is located three miles downstream from the

ditch where the acrolein entered the creek, " said a report by the Oregon

Department of Environmental Quality.

Twenty-one farm workers in West Texas were sickened in 1992 after an aerial

application of 2,4-D along an irrigation ditch drifted onto the fields they

were picking.

On the California-Oregon border, at Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge,

scientists counted hundreds of fish, animals and birds, including American

bald eagles, killed by pesticides over the past decade. The U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service fought unsuccessfully for years to get the bureau to

restrict pesticides applied under its control there.

In New Mexico, in 1994, four golden eagles and two bald eagles were found

poisoned near where the bureau sprayed irrigation ditches.

In Eastern Washington last November, two hunters were accidentally sprayed

with pesticide on state land by a helicopter pilot who was following a work

plan approved by the bureau's South Columbia Basin Irrigation District.

Within an hour, one of the hunters, Hough, became violently ill. He had

been covered with the pesticide 2,4-D that had been erroneously mixed at 15

times its legal strength.

Bureau officials say the agency's policy is that all pesticide regulations

be followed, but " accidents happen regardless of our desires, " according to

Max Haegele, who heads the bureau's 17-state pesticide policy analysis

section.

" We tell them that the water must be kept moving and we give them quite a

bit of latitude on how they do it. "

Indeed, the Post-Intelligencer found that vague regulations, a hands-off

philosophy by the bureau and lax enforcement by state agencies have left

local irrigation districts virtually unmonitored.

When it comes to pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, for the most part

the districts answer only to themselves.

As a result, at times the bureau's mission of keeping the water flowing puts

it on a collision course with fish, wildlife and even people.

" The bureau acts like it has a been given a free ride to do anything it

wants under the banner of irrigating crops. It's an important mission, but

they can't be allowed to turn farmland green by misusing pesticides that

destroy the rest of the environment, " says Contor, vice chairman of

the Washington state Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Many specialists agree the issue is not whether herbicides and pesticides

should be used.

The question is whether irrigation districts " are using them the way the law

demands, " said Norma Grier, executive director of North

west Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.

Pesticide use, particularly in Bureau of Reclamation projects, " is largely

uncontrolled, " leaders of 24 conservation, wildlife and fisheries groups

said in a letter this month to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Although critics say no authorities exercise control over the Bureau of

Reclamation, the bureau itself it has little influence over its irrigation

districts.

" The (individual) districts have a responsibility to meet the laws of the

United States and their states and counties. We don't have any authority to

police them. We have no authority to tell them what to do, " Haegele said.

Most waters district managers accept that responsibility.

" When it's broken, when something is wrong, we've got to fix it, not the

Bureau of Reclamation, " said Mc, who runs the South Columbia

Basin district.

" If anything happens out there, we're responsible. "

The bureau, either directly or through its districts, owns, operates or

oversees operation of 71,567 miles of canal, drains, ditches, tunnels and

pipelines as well as 343 reservoirs, 253 dams -- including such giant

projects as Grand Coulee and Glen Canyon Dams -- and 54 power plants in 17

western states.

It irrigates 140,000 farms and supplies drinking water to 28.1 million

people.

Its national showpiece is the half-million-acre Columbia Basin Project,

created with water backed up by Grand Coulee Dam.

The land it irrigates produces such crops as sugar beets, potatoes and wheat

that are a major component of Washington's export economy.

Most of the bureau's most vocal critics acknowledge its mission is vital,

and some agree it could not be fulfilled without pesticides. It is a war

against weeds.

The targets are purple loosestrife, yellow starthistle, leafy spurge,

hydrilla and other plants, which can grow 10 inches a day, clog an

irrigation canal in three days and overwhelm a pasture in a week.

" If the water doesn't run and non-native weeds take over, the damage to

America's economy will be in the billions. I don't think the public

understands what's at risk if these chemicals are not used, " said Haegele,

the bureau's pesticide specialist.

In the bureau's arsenal are mechanical techniques such as mowing, burning

and raking. Biological techniques are gaining popularity; in parts of

California and Arizona, grass carp in waterways have kept weeds away. Carp

are being tested in a ditch in one southern Washington district.

By far, however, chemicals are the weapons of choice.

For Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the most heavily used chemicals are 2,4-D,

acrolein and xylene. All are toxic, all are potentially lethal to aquatic

life and wildlife, and all pose danger to humans in sufficient

concentrations.

The bureau and its districts use an enormous amount of these substances.

For the spring of 1997, irrigation districts in the three states, operating

as a pool, have ordered 21,065 gallons of liquid 2,4-D and 4,280 bags of the

pesticide in solid form.

The districts have also ordered 124,975 gallons of xyline, according to

figures supplied by the Northwest Irrigation Operators Herbicide Pool.

In its 17 states of operation, the bureau and its irrigation districts use

more pesticides, herbicides and fungicide then any other federal or state

agency, including the Defense Department and Energy Department, the EPA

reported in 1992.

But when various local, county, state and federal agencies were asked

whether the chemicals were being used properly or if drinking water supplies

and wildlife habitat were endangered, few seemed to have any idea, or said

it was someone else's responsibility.

The EPA says it has given the responsibility to the states, most often state

agricultural departments.

Some states, including Washington, don't seem to know what the districts are

doing. " I have no idea what products an irrigation district chooses to use, "

said Cliff Weed, compliance manager in the pesticide division of the state

Department of Agriculture.

Nor does that state office make any great effort to determine whether the

toxic materials are being used properly.

" We only go out to the field when someone has reported a spill, or a release

or some other problem. We just don't go watch what they do until we think

they're doing something wrong, " said Margaret Tucker, a branch manager in

the pesticide management division.

As he drove across farmlands north of Pasco recently, Mc reflected

that managing an irrigation system is far more complicated than when he

started working at the district 17 years ago. There are more regulations,

safety committees " and all that. "

Mc pointed to a field of grapevines, representative of the area's

burgeoning wine industry. " Hey, you can't spray 2,4-D anywhere near grapes,

or you will be going to the insurance company and buying grapes, " he joked.

For Contor, the vice chairman of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission,

" The pesticide application in the Columbia Basin is probably more dangerous,

and more pernicious, than nuclear waste at Hanford. I feel more threatened

by it. "

He pointed out the effect of acrolein applied to weeds in ditches and 2,4-D

sprayed along the canal banks in a wildlife area not far from the Hanford

Nuclear Reservation. The impact of the pesticides is vivid to those familiar

with the outdoors.

Contor picked a crisp dead leaf from one in a line of Russian olive trees

that were killed by aerial spraying, the last thing that game managers want

to happen. Animals need trees for cover, shade and food.

" There's no need to spray anywhere in this wildlife area, " he said. " Even if

they are doing it safely, why are they doing it? The bureau is too cavalier

with pesticides and all too willing to take dangerous risks. "

Hough, the sprayed hunter, knows precisely what's at risk. The former

Interior Department regional director is concerned that the irrigation

district's improper spraying of 2,4-D along these hunting grounds may

shorten his life. He has been told by physicians that illnesses related to

his contact with the pesticide may not show up for several years.

It was early afternoon last Nov. 2 when a pheasant that Hough was stalking

shot into the air, not prodded by his bird dog, but by the din from a

helicopter.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, Hough said, he watched a fine mist flow

from pipes on the bottom of the white and purple-striped helicopter as it

passed over a nearby stream bank.

The falling spray settled on the water, the scrub brush, tumbleweed and

Russian olive trees and covered the hunter from his blaze orange hat to his

heavy leather boots.

The helicopter was operating under contract to the South Columbia Irrigation

District. It was operating over public recreation land and spraying some of

the state's most sensitive wildlife habitat.

Fisheries and wildlife managers worry that sprayed 2,4-D also could end up

in canals. That is in addition to their concerns about the acrolein and

xylene used in waterways.

Hugh McEachern, agronomist with the three Columbia Basin irrigation

districts, says if any pesticides get into the water, the chemicals have

been neutralized or diluted. " We apply it far enough upstream that by the

time it enters the Columbia River it is in a non-toxic condition, " he said.

The districts rely on federal studies that show acrolein and xylene dissolve

and lose toxicity quickly after they enter the environment.

But Contor fears the water is traveling so rapidly that the chemicals won't

have time to lose toxicity. He points to water flowing out of irrigated

areas into the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River at 3 to 4 miles per hour.

The 50-mile-long stretch is the last undammed portion of the Columbia River

between Bonneville Dam and the Canadian border, and one of the most vital

wildlife habitats in the West. An estimated half-million chinook salmon

spawn here.

" We know 2,4-D is unhealthy for fish and this is our last healthy salmon

population, " Contor said. " Steelhead spawn here, too. "

It is also essential habitat to both migratory and resident birds, boasting

flocks of pelicans, great blue herons, bald and golden eagles and great

horned owls. All feed off aquatic life.

Nobody monitors drainage canals to check whether 2,4-D or acrolein -- either

can kill fish if it leaks into open water -- is going into the Columbia

River's salmon-spawning area.

The unmonitored application of toxic substances such as acrolein worries

federal scientists, particularly because irrigated lands are interspersed

with major wildlife and recreation areas.

Rene Fuentes, a hydrologist and water quality expert with the EPA, says

irrigation systems are rarely checked for pollutants of any kind, and

definitely not by his agency.

" I strongly agree that these waterways should be tested, especially when

they can impact water supplies or open water, but the EPA has no mandate to

do the kind of testing for which the Bureau of Reclamation says we're

responsible, " he said.

Keven McDermott, an EPA specialist who investigated the spraying of Hough,

is troubled because the bureau and its agents aren't made to answer for

their actions.

For example, the EPA handed out a $1,500 fine to Dennis Sturdevant, the

helicopter pilot who sprayed Hough and another hunter. But the agency

leveled neither charges nor fines nor criticism against the irrigation

district.

" The only person who was held accountable was the guy applying the

pesticides, the helicopter pilot, " she said. " EPA followed the regulations

to the letter, but those regulations don't go far enough. We need to be

allowed to take enforcement action against the irrigation district. They

told the pilot precisely what to spray, how to spray it and where to spray

it.

" If we don't hold them accountable, what's to prevent them from doing it

again? "

At the time of the spraying, the pilot had two experts from the irrigation

district and another from the Bureau of Reclamation with him.

One was in the helicopter, guiding the spray path. The others were on the

ground responsible for keeping people out of the spray zone.

Mc believes his district did nothing wrong.

" What we do is important. We're not out here trying to scam on anything, " he

said. " We're trying to do it right, and I think that's important. "

Send comments to webmaster@...

© 1997 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.