MG community,
A community gardener in Washington alerted me to this article in the
Seattle times. Herbicide residuals continues to be an emerging
issue--hence surfacing in Seattle's popular press. An anecdotal story I
just learned from a MN relative who runs a garden center near the TC, had
an experience in the last year where compost brought in completely
prohibited plant growth both in a raised bed, and in a grassy area where it
was incorporated.
At some point experiences like this will erode the publics faith in
composting. I also have concerns that municipal compost is not free from
this issue and in the TC, municipal supplies are very important to
community gardens.
Onto the article:
Steph Hankerson,
Ramsey Co
*****************************************************************************************
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews
/134383978_compost28m.html
Friday, December 28, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Herbicide ruining compost; chemical detected in vegetable gardens
Los Angeles Times and Seattle Times staff
The Washington state Department of Agriculture is considering banning some
uses of an herbicide that is toxic to several vegetables and has been
discovered in compost.
Traces of Clopyralid, manufactured by Dow AgroSciences and deadly to
potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and beans, have been found in compost made from
recycled grass, straw and manure in Washington, California, Pennsylvania
and New Zealand.
The herbicide, most commonly used to kill backyard dandelions and field
thistles, is not toxic to humans or other mammals. But it causes garden
vegetables to wither and die.
Sample tests have found Clopyralid residues at rates from 50 to 1,500 parts
per billion, five to 300 times more than the amount needed to kill
sensitive plants. The chemical first was detected in soil around dying
plants in Spokane in 1999 and in Pullman a year later.
Cliff Weed, compliance program manager at the state Agriculture Department,
said the chemical has also been measured at Cedar Grove Composting in Maple
Valley, the chief composting facility for Seattle and King County.
Dozens of products contain Clopyralid. Dow products that use it include
Lontrel, Transline, Stinger, Reclaim and Confront, Hornet, Scorpion and
Redeem. Pesticides made by other companies but using Clopyralid bought from
Dow include Millennium, Momentum, Chaser Ultra, Battleship, Strike Three
and TruPower.
Widely used on lawns and wheat crops, the chemical has found its way into
compost through grass clippings, stable sweepings and manure. Compost
companies and recycling officials say that if the contamination persists,
it could bankrupt the industry.
"If it continues to grow and penetrate the market, it could undermine
people's confidence in compost and hurt recycling," said Timothy Croll,
community-services director for Seattle Public Utilities, which recycles 48
tons of grass and branches each year through Cedar Grove.
To deal with the problem, the state expects to issue new rules on
Clopyralid's use on grass, cereal grains and grass hay in time for spring
planting. An advisory committee of compost professionals, users and Seattle
officials first met on the issue last month.
While Weed doesn't expect a ban on the chemical for grains or hay � just
restrictions to keep contaminated plants out of compost heaps � a
prohibition on Clopyralid for lawns and golf courses is possible.
"It could range from a prohibition to something in between," Weed said. "We
want to fast-track this thing before the problem becomes greater."
Across the country, compost companies accept about 28 million tons of yard
trimmings each year.
Labels ignored, Dow says
Dow officials say the company did not study the chemical's behavior in
compost when it originally sought permission to market it in 1987. In 1994,
the company began putting warnings on the labels of Clopyralid products
saying consumers should not compost materials treated with the herbicide, a
company spokesman said.
The problems arose because Dow's label warnings were ignored, Dow spokesman
Garry Hamlin said.
But since one company usually applies herbicides to lawns and another cuts
and recycles the grass, Croll said changing labels doesn't go far enough.
"Their argument totally misses the point," he said. "Dow has been slow to
act."
The garden-waste-recycling industry arose after a 1988 federal clampdown on
landfill standards forced states to substantially reduce the amount of
waste sent to landfills.
The launch of Clopyralid preceded the composting movement. Formulations
involving it first were registered in 1987 to control broadleaf weeds such
as dandelions and thistles. It then was approved for use on barley, oats,
wheat, sugar beets, Christmas trees, corn, mint and asparagus, as well as
for rangeland, pasture, highway aprons and lawns.
Clopyralid kills and stunts target plants by imitating hormones called
auxins and causing abnormal growth.
Washington was one of the first markets. As the fourth-largest
wheat-producing state in the United States, its farmers have been using the
chemical since 1987. Gretchen Borck, director of issues for the Washington
Association of Wheat Growers, defends Clopyralid as an essential tool for
control of Canadian thistle in a crop worth $458 million a year.
Potent, not toxic to people, pets
"If we didn't have the Clopyralid, we'd have to use less effective
herbicides, and that would increase the poundage of herbicide introduced
into the environment," she said.
The chemical also is popular with commercial lawn-care companies. Dan
Warehime, vice president of Senske Lawn and Tree Care in Kennewick, said
his company started using Confront about 11 years ago on home lawns and in
schools, parks and commercial properties.
"We like the product because it's very safe to use around homes and
residences," he said. "It has a very low toxicity to my employees and to
children and pets."
Its staying power � the chemical can remain potent up to 18 months after
spraying � spares him repeat applications, Warehime said. But while this
sturdiness is a boon for wheat farmers and lawn care companies, it has also
made Clopyralid a persistent pollutant.
In 1999, Spokane officials learned from a nursery using city compost that
vegetables cultivated in their compost had been dying. In June 2000, the
problem was encountered again, this time by tenants of a community garden
in Pullman who used compost produced from recycled straw livestock bedding
and manure on the campus of Washington State University.
"The potato plants tried to grow but turned in on themselves. They were
just mangled and mutilated," gardener Susan Lutzenhiser said.
Investigators, including the university's soil scientist David Bezdicek,
discovered residues of both Clopyralid and a sister chemical, Picloram.
Spokane officials pressed Dow to remove Clopyralid lawn products from their
market, which the company says it did. But the chemical kept entering the
system, Dow suspects through reformulations produced by other companies.
At WSU, compost manager Dan Caldwell said that despite efforts to keep it
out, the Clopyralid levels continue to increase in his compost unit.
"We have contamination through everything," he said. "We're really in a
quandary about how we're ever going to get clean again."
Seattle Times staff reporter John Zebrowski contributed to this report.
Copyright � 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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