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Indybay Feature

Oakland Council votes for herbicide ordinance

by EBPP via Isis
Last night's City Council meeting voted unanimously
for doing an Environmental Impact Report to determine
the safety of the proposed herbicide use in the
Oakland Hills for fire prevention.
Hello Everyone.

Last night's City Council meeting voted unanimously
for doing an Environmental Impact Report to determine
the safety of the proposed herbicide use in the
Oakland Hills for fire prevention. This, in spite of
the city attorney's urging to oppose it, as this
ordinance could leave the city liable for its toxic
effects on the health of application workers and the
public.

City Council President Ignacio de la Fuente admitted:
"We know it's a risk". Nancy Nadel compromised almost
her entire revision of the ordinance except for a few
words. Vice Mayor Jane Brunner was the only one with
anything critical to say. She is concerned that the
list of plants to treat includes blackberries, because
they are edible, but she said it was a balancing act
and voted along with her council. Jean Quan, the
councilmember who has been pushing the proposal, said
that it would benefit the "most amount of people", and
that it was generated by environmental groups. A
packet of letters from organizations supporting the
use of herbicide was distributed, including the
Friends of Sausal Creek, Oakland Parks Coalition, and
Claremont Canyon Conservancy. To see the heartbreaking
letter from Friends of Sausal Creek, that may well
have been what started this whole campaign for yet
more exemptions to Oakland's pesticide ban, go to:
http://lists.sausalcreek.org/pipermail/fosc-sausalcreek.org/2003-November/000084.html

While last night's decision was very disappointing, at
least the viewing public got a bit more educated on
the issue of pesticides. We had some great speakers on
our side, including a guy who had been working
thousands of hours on manual vegetation management
also for fire safety in San Mateo, a Parks and
Recreation guy whose wife is chemically sensitive, a
woman who became ill when she lived downwind from a
Monsanto plant, and Christopher Shein who talked about
permaculture methods and enriching Oakland by
non-toxic means, and a couple of people who sited
scientific evidence of the problems with herbicide,
which provoked one supporter of the ordinance to claim
that "it's bad science to use good science",...

I am not certain whether or not the council will vote
again before implementing the ordinance if the EIR
comes back in favor of it. I will keep you updated on
more when we find out what's next.

Be well,
Isis
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naturally fire resistant without herbicide
Mon, Apr 11, 2005 7:05PM
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