A bit of history…
Lincoln County is covered with forests which are predominantly industrial. Massive amounts of pesticides (the term includes herbicide, pesticide, fungicide, et al) are sprayed aerially on clear-cuts to kill vegetation competing with the growth of Douglas fir cash crops. Given the harms that people and ecosystems suffer from this practice, harms to which an endless succession of independent studies bear witness, and given the government’s refusal to prohibit and even to limit the practice, LCCR decided that the people should choose whether or not to ban aerial pesticide spraying in the county.
Mission Statement:
We believe that the people who live in a community should decide about corporate projects that can affect the health of their community, both human and non-human. We strive to build coalitions with communities facing similar threats with the goal of leaving a livable world for the coming generations.a Healthy County (CHC)
So the group drafted an ordinance to this effect, with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). And Citizens for a Healthy County (CHC), was created and filed that ordinance with the Lincoln County Clerk. The ordinance became a Citizen’s Initiative and CHC gathered the required number of signatures, and the initiative was placed on the ballot for the May 16, 2017.
Measure 21-177 won that election by a margin of 61 votes, making Lincoln County the first county in the United States to ban aerial pesticide spraying through the vote of the people.
The citizen’s initiative to ban aerial pesticide spraying county-wide enjoyed 29 months of aerial spray free timber management.
Two parties filed a lawsuit against the County and County Clerk, challenging the legality of Measure 21-177 and sought to overturn the ban. LCCR filed to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the vote of the people of Lincoln County.
The Appeals court upheld… Statutes inserted into Forest Practice laws prevent anyone but the “state” to “regulate pesticide use,” (this is preemption) thus nullifying the peoples’ measure. LCCR appealed this decision all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court in August 2021. They declined to hear a further appeal by LCCR and the original decision stood.
Read the Ordinance.
Why we need the Ordinance
The dangers of aerial pesticide spraying to the health of people, wildlife, and ecosystems have been well-documented through numerous credited studies. Even though this harmful practice was stopped on federal forests 30 years ago, aerial spraying has increased massively over state and private forests in Oregon.
Where is spraying happening?
Between 2000-2013 the Siletz River watershed, which supplies drinking water to Newport, Toledo and Siletz, lost 50,000 acres of mature forest – all were sprayed with a dangerous chemical cocktail. Virtually every clear-cut on private and state lands represents two to four cycles of aerial spraying. 90% of Lincoln County is covered by forests, most of which are managed as private industrial forests. The reality is that it is happening all around us.
Carol Van Strum, resident of the Five Rivers area of Lincoln County, is the author of A Bitter Fog. Her book is a poignant documentary about the suffering of herself, her family and neighbors and their land which occurred from poisons sprayed on them from the air in the 1980’s …and her research that followed affirming the threats to human and environmental health from industrial profiteering.
Drift was created in the Winter of 2015 by students enrolled in the Environmental Leadership Program at the University of Oregon. This film was created in collaboration with residents of Gold Beach, Oregon after a terrible incident of pesticide contamination of a community. This film examines the implications of statewide use of aerial herbicide spray on private timberland.