Three months after residents began waging a campaign on Instagram saying they’re concerned herbicides are poisoning local creeks, Orange County officials announced they are halting spraying of the chemicals, for now, in waterways throughout the county.
Starting in February, posts by the community group Creek Team OC sparked an outpouring of concern among residents. They posted images of workers spraying chemicals and used artificial intelligence to make illustrations featuring surfers under the slogan “Endless Herbicides.”
In March, county Supervisor Katrina Foley told residents the county would halt spraying of herbicides in two creeks near Doheny State Beach.
This week, Foley announced that the Orange County Public Works Department had begun a “pause” of herbicide spraying in flood channels countywide.
“I’m really pleased that Public Works is taking the community’s concerns seriously,” Foley said. “I think anytime we can eliminate chemicals from our community, from areas where we have natural habitat, where we have people who play or swim … we should, because it just makes our community greener and healthier.”
Brent Linas, a San Juan Capistrano resident who started the community campaign, said he and others are ecstatic that spraying has stopped.
“It’s a huge, huge win for a grassroots movement that never raised a dollar and just hammered the truth,” Linas said. “Now, we need to make sure it doesn’t come back.”
County officials have long used the chemicals in waterways to clear out vegetation and maintain the water-carrying capacity of flood control channels.
Foley said she’d had many meetings with public works officials about the issue over the last couple of months.
The temporary pause on spraying herbicides started April 30, she said in a written statement.
While spraying is suspended, the Public Works Department will monitor the growth of invasive vegetation and determine how best to remove plants where necessary.
“The first part is to see if it’s even necessary to continue to remove vegetation as often as we are,” Foley said.
Foley said she has long preferred that the county avoid using the chemicals in waterways and public spaces. She said she made a complaint about the use of Roundup in the San Juan Creek flood channel about a year ago.
The weedkiller has come under increasing scrutiny as Bayer, Roundup’s maker, has faced thousands of lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people the herbicide could cause cancer.
Linas, a runner, started the Creek Team OC Instagram account after noticing changes on his runs along San Juan and Trabuco creeks, where lush green reeds suddenly turned brown and lifeless, and birds disappeared. He discovered the county uses chemicals such as glyphosate, triclopyr and imazapyr.
The Instagram account now has nearly 18,000 followers and has generated more than 328,000 likes, comments, saves and shares.
“What I ultimately hope for in the end here is that people in Southern California need to stop looking at these rivers as, like, conveyors of pollution, that look, there are these concrete masses that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers built, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Linas said.
“I just don’t think people are going to subscribe to that anymore,” he said. “So I’m really hoping we can have an awakening as Californians that these riparian habitats need to be restored and respected because they are rare.”
The post After public outcry, Orange County halts herbicide spraying in creeks appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
