ENHS Nature Trails November 2005 Article 4

Of Forests and Frogs
by Reida Kimmel

It has rained at least a little every day so far this month and our little farm is transformed. The oak and ash trees, stressed for months by drought, were blown bare in the winds. The maples still cling to their remaining leaves, which are the most interesting shades of gold and red, covered all over with bright green and brown spots. I have been using these gorgeous leaves for decorations. Our bone-dry creek became a gently flowing stream overnight between Thursday and Friday, while Saturday's storm filled our pond in a day. The pond had been at least a foot and a half below the level of its outlet pipe, so the twenty-four hour transformation was amazing. I hope the mallards are happy to have more room to swim about. Probably the kingfisher will visit us less. Kingfishers have always preferred the low water of late summer and fall for hunting in our pond. Oddly, though I have been walking in the woods almost every day for weeks, I have seen very few newts coming up into the woods from the pond. When I can't find something, I always worry that some new ecological disaster has struck. It is true that the woods behind my house are sadly depleted, but there is still some cover and loose moss covered soil. I will keep looking. Sunday Chuck and I were driving along the Siuslaw River west of Lorane, and there were plenty of newts crossing the road. As the car weaved around the tiny pedestrians, we joked that we wanted a bumper sticker proclaiming: I swerve for newts. It's a cheering thing to see amphibians on the road along the Siuslaw, because that region has been logged and sprayed to death in recent decades.

The Wolf Creek Road area is even worse for degradation, especially the upper part of the road. When we first lived in Eugene we used to love to drive the loop from Territorial Road to Lorane and then along the Siuslaw River to the junction with Wolf Creek and back to Territorial. The trees were so enormous, dark and old, so tall and straight. The huge maples were so lushly gold in the fall. The wet rock faces along the river were rich habitat for numerous species of lungless salamanders. It's hard to find salamanders these days. We didn't look. The maples are still there, as lovely as ever, but almost all the stands of old firs and cedars are gone. Last month we found an easily accessible patch of remaining old growth off Wolf Creek Road, 1.8 miles from the junction with Siuslaw River Road. We parked on a filthy, trash strewn spur road and climbed the bank into the old trees. It's hard to describe how especially blessed and peaceful I felt to be among those trees. I should have been furious. All around those few old trees were hundreds of acres of stumps, brush piles waiting to be burned. Outside the grove the only trees were baby trees, a monoculture of Douglas fir, recently planted and looking forward to no more than a forty-year life span because they were a 'crop' not a forest. Inside the grove it was dark, very quiet. It smelled good. I couldn't see out.

That was last month. Yesterday was different. Yesterday was the day for anger. Along the roads were many signs, spray signs. The brush piles were burning. We decided not to visit our grove. A school bus and a red spray truck occupied the spur road. The timber companies do a great deal of spraying in the fall, with many kinds of chemicals: glyphosate; 2,4,D; Imazapyr; atrazine and others, generally in combinations. The aim is not just to kill invasive weeds like blackberry and Scotch broom but also to kill hardwoods that might compete with young Douglas fir trees. Therefore, as you drive through groves of young trees, you will see dead madrones, maples, and hazel bushes. Some ferns and salal survive, but generally the companies produce as pure a monoculture as possible. This means that there is no forage for birds or mammals.

Often timber managers also apply zinc phosphate pellets to kill rodents, mountain beaver and wood rats that might eat young trees. Deer who eat these pellets also become mortally ill. They aren't wanted either. In the two years since I have become aware of just how many tons of very potent herbicides are being applied to privately owned woodlands, I have written to and talked to a number of people in the forest products industry. They are not monsters. They sincerely believe that the chemicals they apply are harmless if properly applied, and that they make the forest healthier and more productive. Chemical companies subsidize forestry departments at universities all over the nation and professors teach the "benefits of herbicide dependant tree farming." The situation mirrors that of the use of chemicals in agriculture. Except that, as yet, there is no push for an organic tree industry.

There are insufficient studies on the adverse effects of chemicals on workers and rural residents adjacent to commercial forests. Several years ago researchers published studies linking the aerial drift of agricultural chemicals, specifically atrazine, from California's Central Valley with the disappearance of amphibians in the pristine Sierras to the East of the Valley. Now glyphosate, considered the very safest of the herbicides, has been found to be toxic to both humans and amphibians. Glyphosate is Monsanto's Roundup. A paper published August first in Ecological Applications found that seventy one percent of three species of exposed tadpoles died when exposed to only a third of the normal concentration of Roundup used on lawns. Foresters use much higher concentrations of glyphosate and tend to combine it with other chemicals and crop oil. Environmental Health Perspectives links Roundup exposure to reproductive damage in humans, and the pesticide Action Network warns of elevated risk of several cancers following exposure. We are poisoning the planet, and hardly anyone wants to believe it's happening. It's considered rude and depressing to talk about it. What can a concerned person do?

First of all, do not even consider using Roundup or other chemicals on your lawn and garden, and tell your neighbors why you don't use sprays. Support the work of NCAP (Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, www.pesticide.org) and find out about sustainably produced lumber the next time you purchase wood for a building project. Lumber certified by the timber industry is not so earth friendly as other green wood.

The Forestland Dwellers No Spray Group, 342-8332, has been mapping forest spray operations for two years now, and is proposing a grant to finance a study of the effect of herbicides on human health in the rural areas of Western Oregon. Supporters of the group's work, and you can be one, can purchase and display a Pesticide Free Home sign for $15. All the proceeds go to support the group's expenses in monitoring and recording herbicide spraying in Western Lane County. The governor and the state legislature need to hear that people are concerned about the detrimental effects of herbicides in forests and watersheds. Remember Silent Spring. It is possible to achieve change and to help the environment. It just takes work.

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