California: 770,000 pounds of herbicides put into watersheds by Sierra Pacific Ind.

Forest Ethics released a report Thursday analyzing the 770,000 pounds
of herbicides that timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries used on its
lands during an 11-year period and calling on the company to reduce
its use of the chemicals. Sierra Pacific Industries is California’s
largest private land owner, with about 1.7 million acres statewide.
The company also is the largest private land-owner in Calaveras
County, with about 75,000 acres here.

The amount of pesticides used in
forestry is miniscule when compared with what happens in farming zones
such as San Joaquin County, where around 11 million pounds of
pesticides are used every year, or about 12 pounds for every acre of
land in the county. But even though the figures for SPI reflect only a
fraction of a pound of pesticide use per acre in any given year,
several scientists said that herbicides such as atrazine that are used
in forestry pose a risk at even very low levels both to wildlife and
to the humans whose drinking water originates in the mountain forests.
Tyrone Hayes, a professor in University of California, Berkeley’s
Department of Integrative Biology, said studies have shown that
atrazine at even extremely low concentrations can mimic hormones and
alter the sexual biology of creatures from frogs to humans. “Hormones
work in the parts per billion, parts per trillion range,” Hayes said.
Don Erman, professor emeritus of aquatic ecology at the University of
California, Davis, said he believes there’s enough evidence that trace
amounts of herbicides are a danger to wildlife and humans that
foresters should reconsider their use. Herbicides are typically used
after an area is logged to suppress shrubs and other low-growing
plants so that newly planted trees have time to grow. “Those are
choices we make as a society. Do we really care about what is in the
water we drink, or do we want to have the cheapest food on Earth, or
the cheapest timber on Earth,” Erman said. Sierra Pacific Industries
spokesman Mark Pawlicki said the company’s pesticide use is small
compared with food crop farming, and even that use is carefully
regulated by state laws.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081219/A_NEWS/812190303

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