Beaver Creek Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

People and Nature Being Held Hostage in Beaver Creek

An impending pesticide spray in the Beaver Creek watershed is putting residents on high alert; drinking water is threatened; state and local officials say they have no legal options to stop it.

 

Barbara Davis, Lincoln County Community Rights Board

jibdavis@peak.org, cell:5412701857

www.lincolncountycommunityrights.org

Photos available by request

PRESS INFO

 

August 30, 2023

 

Seal Rock, Or-A private timberland owner has notified the requisite state agencies of his plan to aerially spray 473 acres of clear cut forest over the Beaver Creek watershed in Lincoln County with a chemical cocktail containing glyphosate also known as Round Up. Glyphosate has been known to cause multiple types of cancers and is the subject of upwards of 100,000 lawsuits against Monsanto / Bayer. 100% of the water from the Seal Rock Water District (SRWD) comes from Beaver Creek. SRWD supplies water to about 5,500 customers. The permit, legally allowing the spray, is active starting early September and is good for 90 days from the start date.

In 2017 Measure 21-177, a county-wide ban on aerially sprayed pesticides was made law by the voters of Lincoln County. Though understood by a number of governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as a large percentage of the general public in Lincoln County and elsewhere in Oregon of both the dangers and impacts of pesticides as well the aerial application, the state continues to legalize both the use of toxic pesticides and aerial application. Shortly after the adoption of the county law, which also protected the rights of ecosystems from harm which would’ve included Beaver Creek, a lawsuit was filed by timber interests, despite the democratic enactment of the law. After 29 months the law was overturned by a circuit court judge, which was upheld by the court of appeals, based on what is called state preemption of pesticide law, despite the vote of the people. State preemption, or more specifically state ceiling preemption, disallows local jurisdictions the authority to regulate or prohibit activities even where it comes to public and environmental health. 

County and state elected officials as well as state agencies have all stated that this spraying is legal and, meets all state requirements for pesticide application. They all agree that the decision to spray or not to spray rests solely with the landowner. The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners wrote a letter to the land owner, “Oregon law makes the decision to spray or not to spray yours. Your ownership of our precious natural resources also comes with a clear ethical, if not legal, obligation to protect them. We urge you to seek alternative means to control unwanted vegetation.”

Local residents and allies from across the county and outside of the county have been calling the impending spray into question as well as mobilizing on their options to stop it. A principal question that has come up in public meetings has been why isn’t there the legal authority to stop the spray. Connected to that questioning and growing outrage is the realization that a single landowner, one who is living overseas, can have more rights to spray and log than the community to prohibit each in defense of public and environmental health.

Willow Kasner let the world know, We, as a neighborhood and community, do not consent to being poisoned. We do not consent to having these known and proven carcinogenic long term dangerous chemicals sprayed on or near to our precious ecosystem and water supply. We are caretakers of this land, for generations, and we plan to continue to live and thrive healthily here.”

The residents of Beaver Creek are currently creating a GoFundMe page to raise awareness and mount a challenge to this spray event which stands to affect the lives of all residents, humans, wildlife and their watershed for decades. The local group has also started a website.

Tianne Rios says “What the F! How can a guy sitting in a Denmark castle drop a chemical bomb in our country tainting the water supply for multiple communities causing a health crisis in the most beautiful part of the Oregon Coast and there is nothing local residents impacted by the spray can do about it? Something is wrong here and we intend to do something about it.”


Beaver Creek Spray: Public Comment made on Ferns to ODF by Carol Van Strum

Dear Mr Rieghly,  
 
I joined 1700+ people who have signed a petition opposing the aerial application of herbicides on private forest lands adjacent to South Beaver Creek and its tributaries (i.e., ANE-South Beaver Creek Aerial Spray, as described in Notification 2023-553-09307). 
 
Thanks to laws written by chemical industry interests, this spraying may be legal but it is by no means appropriate or safe.  Herbicides, like homicides and all pesticides, are intended to kill, and contrary to industry propaganda, are indiscriminate in their effects on all living things, not just a few “target” plants.  They are poisons that can be transported from the sprayed areas into nearby surface waters, poisoning wetland and stream plants and animals or people via drinking water. Herbicide-caused Impacts to any of those organisms could adversely affect the outstanding natural areas and game resources associated with South Beaver Creek and, downstream, in Beaver Creek. Additionally, the drinking water provided by Seal Rock Water District, is sourced from Beaver Creek. 
 
Can you with any degree of honesty say that independent, peer-reviewed studies have found the products to be sprayed to be safe and not carcinogenic, teratogenic, mutagenic, or hormone-altering?  Can you with any degree of honesty say that such testing has been done not only on the active ingredients of each product but also on the total components including so-called “inert ingredients”?  
Can you with any semblance of honesty say that such testing has been done on the combination of all products to be sprayed?
 
I doubt you can answer any of those questions honestly without admitting that none of that independent testing has ever been done.  EPA may register those products, but as the U.S. Forest Service was told emphatically by the U.S. Appeals Court long ago, EPA registration is so lacking in valid testing that the Forest Service could not rely on registration as any indication of safety and has managed our national forests very successfully without their use since 1984. (Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark Nos. 83-3908 et al. (9th Cir. January 27, 1984)
For ODF to rely on EPA registration is as unacceptable as it was for the Forest Service.
 
Therefore, Oregon Department of Forestry should at the very least admit its wilful ignorance of the effects of herbicides on all life forms, and grant the people of our county the right to grant or withhold their fully informed consent to being exposed to untested poisons.
 
Submitted by:
Carol Van Strum

Letters to the Editor Needed!

LTE Needed!

Here is a great LTE by Barbara Davis.

Lincoln County measure would have blocked proposed Beaver Creek spraying

To the editor:

Glyphosate (sold commercially as RoundUp, an organophosphate pesticide) is part of a chemical cocktail a private forest owner is planning to aerial spray over 473 acres of Beaver Creek forested wetland north of Waldport in the near future.

The landowner and the Oregon Department of Forestry, who issues the permit to spray, might consider the following: Beaver Creek supplies 100 percent of the water to 5,500 people in Seal Rock and South Beach; aerially sprayed herbicides have been proven to drift as far as 10 miles; Bayer/Monsanto has offered $10.9 billion to settle about 100,000 existing RoundUp claims; and besides non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, exposure to glyphosate can cause a large variety of o other lymphoma cancers.

This herbicide compound may be legal but it’s definitely not safe.

Why does a profit-driven, out-of-state corporation have a right to poison the land, air and inhabitants of Beaver Creek? Why don’t the people who live in Beaver Creek, who are on the receiving end of this spraying, have a right to say no? Ask your county commissioners and state representatives – and their refrain will be “Our hands are tied by Oregon state pre-emption.”

Pre-emption is a legal doctrine that enables the federal government to overrule the state and the state to overrule local governments.

It’s a doctrine used by corporate timber and corporate chemical companies to stop any local people from blocking corporate harms — aerial herbicide spraying, sludge dumping, factory farms, etc.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the people find a chink in the corporate armor and pass a citizens’ initiative. That’s what we did in 2017 when the people of Lincoln County passed Measure 21-177. It banned aerial spraying for 29 months until the doctrine of pre-emption reared its ugly head.

We did it once, we can do it again. And make it stick this time.

   — Barbara Davis/Waldport, chief petitioner Measure 21-177

Beaver creek

Beaver Creek area is going to be aerially sprayed in two weeks.
click here to see drone footage of clear cut area.
“Glyphosate – RoundUp (an organophosphate pesticide) is part of a chemical cocktail a private forest owner is planning on aerially spraying over 473 acres of Beaver Creek forested wetland (north of Waldport) in the near future. The land owner and the Oregon Dept of Forestry, who issues the permit to spray, might consider the following:
~ Beaver Creek supplies 100% of the water to 5,500 people in Seal Rock and South Beach (and 10% of Newport’s water)
~ Aerially sprayed herbicides have been proven to drift as much as 10 miles
~ Bayer / Monsanto offered $10.9 billion to settle about 100,000 existing RoundUp claims.
~ Besides Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, exposure to glyphosate can cause the following cancers:
Large B Cell Lymphoma
Follicular Lypmphoma
Mantle Cell Lymphoma
Mycosis Fungoides Lymphoma
70+ Other Lymphoma subtypes
~ This herbicide compound may be legal but it’s definitely NOT SAFE! Why does a profit-driven, out-of-state corporation have a right to poison the land, air and inhabitants of Beaver Creek? Why don’t the people who live in Beaver Creek, who are on the receiving end of this poisoning, have a right to say NO??? Ask your county commissioner and state representative. Their refrain will be “Our hands are tied by Oregon state Preemption.”
Preemption is a legal doctrine that enables the feds to overrule the state, the state to overrule the local government. It’s a weapon used by corporate timber and corporate chemical companies to stop any local people from blocking the corporate harms that rain down on them (aerial herbicide spraying, sludge dumping, factory farms, etc.)
But sometimes . . . just sometimes the people find a chink in the corporate armor and pass a citizens’ initiative. That’s what we did in 2017 when the people of Lincoln County passed Measure 21-177. It banned aerial spraying for 29 months until Preemption reared its ugly head. We did it once, we can do it again, and make it stick this time!
Barbara Davis
Chief Petitioner Measure 21-177
Lincoln County Community Rights

LCCR Press Release 1.1.21

Oregon Courts Put Public Health and Local Democracy in Danger

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Rio Davidson 

Lincoln County Community Rights board Lincoln Co. Community Rights board

541-961-5606, riodavidson@gmail.com

Debra Fant

Lincoln Co. Community Rights board

541-563-372, debrafant@peak.org

www.lincolncountycommunityrights.org

December 1st, 2021

Newport, Oregon- Lincoln County Community Right’s Petition of Review regarding a voter adopted ban on harmful aerial spray of pesticides has been denied by the Oregon Supreme Court. In 2017, Lincoln County voters passed Measure 21-177, banning aerial pesticide spraying in the county to protect the health and safety of people and ecosystems. Fronts for the timber and chemical industry promptly filed a lawsuit to overturn the people’s ban. The ban stood and the county enjoyed freedom from chemical trespass for 29 months, until Lincoln County Circuit Court ruled the measure invalid in September, 2019 citing state law(promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, aka ALEC), as over-riding local law even though the local law was more protective of public health and the environment. That ruling was upheld by the appellate court.

Carol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights, stated, “Existing environmental laws have done nothing; they’ve literally allowed the poisoning to go ahead.” Aerial spraying of toxic pesticides has been resumed over Lincoln County industrial timber lands in coastal watersheds. The effect that these poisons have on the water supply is documented.

The Oregon Supreme Court was petitioned to hear our aerial spray ban case, as it has far-reaching impacts on citizens of Oregon and beyond. We had asked for consideration of three questions for rulings:

  1. This case involves a voter-adopted county measure to protect public health and safety. State interference with local law was used to over-turn this lawfully passed measure, violating Oregon constitutional rights for human safety.
  1. The Court was asked to extend analysis of the “state interests” to be used to overturn local law when there are competing rights – in this case conflict of human persons vs. corporate rights. Is the state protecting corporate interests or protecting people? The constitutionally lawful question is: does the local law expand the peoples’ rights, public health or safety protections? Voter-approved Measure 21-177 did expand local health and safety protections.
  1. Vulnerable Siletz River Ecosystem was refused intervention in circuit court, and was disregarded by both the Appeals Court and the Oregon Supreme Court. In each case, the court was being asked to grant standing for legal protections that limit human abuses on the environment, such as over-allocation of water in drought conditions, toxic chemical trespass,and clear-cutting. Among other harms, these abuses expose streams to sunlight and water temperature rise, and all life forms, including endangered species, to toxicity.

Lincoln County Community Rights submitted documentation supporting the merits of the case and answering the court’s own criteria for “importance.” The merits included challenging a broad array of preemption laws suppressing benefits to the people of Oregon, such as minimum wage raises by cities, plastic bag bans, workers benefits. We called on the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court to put limits on State preemption laws. These laws, often written by corporate interests such as ALEC, overrule local laws to protect health and safety. Oregon Supreme Court Justices denied the people of Lincoln County access to be heard.

The voters of this county have been denied their day in court, this denial essentially expressing that the will of the majority of voters in this election is unimportant. Democracy has not been served nor is justice possible in this system where state and corporate interests are one, and peoples’ rights and the well-being of the people is disregarded,” commented Lincoln County Community Rights board member Debra Fant.

Lincoln County Community Rights is a public benefit organization that seeks to educate and empower people to exercise their right of local democracy in matters that pertain to their fundamental rights, natural environment, quality of life, health and their safety. Given the harm that people and ecosystems suffer from the practice of aerial spraying of industrial forest land with pesticides, the group drafted an ordinance to ban aerial pesticide spraying in Lincoln County, Oregon. Measure 21-177 was adopted by voters in May 2017, making Lincoln County the first county in the United States to ban aerial pesticide spraying through the vote of the people. www.lincolncountycommunityrights.org

To read more find these articles:

Intercept (link)

High Country News (link)

The People vs Agent Orange Streaming This Week

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THE PEOPLE VS. AGENT ORANGE- Bijou, Lincoln City

THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE-City Lights, Florence

THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE-Hollywood, Portland

 

What do Oregon and Vietnam have in common?                                                         Agent Orange and its profound damages.

The Agent Orange catastrophe did not end with the Vietnam War. Today, the world over, a primary chemical of the toxic defoliant controls weeds in farming, forestry, parks, playgrounds… It wreaks havoc on the human genome, causing deformed births and deadly cancers.

After decades of struggle and tragic personal losses, two heroic women are leading a worldwide movement to end the plague and hold the manufacturers accountable. In France, Tran To Nga is suing the American chemical industry for poisoning her in Vietnam. In Oregon’s Carol Van Strum exposes the continuing use of toxic herbicides.

Incriminating documents disappear.  Activists are threatened.  A helicopter technician secretly films the contamination of reservoirs, while a massive industrial cover-up goes on.

FILM WEB SITE:  www.thepeoplevsagentorange.com  where a FILM TRAILER & press kit is posted,  a list of US screenings with links to ticketing pages are listed by state, photos to download, info about the Films For Humanity team are located, and a page for PANEL DISCUSSIONS recorded  to share with the public.
Please Support Lincoln County Community Rights.

Sign Petition to Stop Spraying

 

 

 

 

 

Oregon Rural Communities Call for Immediate Ban on Aerial Pesticide Spraying Under COVID-19 Emergency Declaration
We are in a public health emergency. COVID-19 is hitting those of us who are immune compromised the hardest. Pesticides are know to affect our immune system as well as neurological and endocrine systems. Non of us need the assault on our health that the spray of pesticides from helicopters would produce. Please click the link below and add your name to the petition demanding immediate executive action by Gov Kate Brown.