Tordon

    I have always hated and been suspicious of pesticides and herbicides, thinking of all them as “biocides”  (killers of life).  While the big chemical companies continually tell everyone these poisons are save and encourage consumers to buy and use them, as time goes by, scientists find more and more toxic effects that they are having on people and the environment.

    I have never used them, but while working for the BC Forest Service, who often seemed overly eager spray large areas with Tordon to kill unwelcome brush and trees, I was sometimes confronted with the toxins.  Tordon, called “Agent White” during the the Vietnam War, was sprayed over vast areas of jungle to kill the trees.  In humans it can cause weakness, diarrhea, weight loss, liver damage, and damage to the nervous system.  I don’t know what it does to animals and insects.

    I was always shocked to see how amenable and insouciant the Forest Service was about using Tordon :

    Below are four entrees about Tordon that I found in a diary from the mid-1980’s:

I often have to shake my head at some of the Forest Service practices.   One day I was working in the cache (warehouse)  I came upon some large containers of Tordon.  I knew that the Forest Service was going to spray the herbicide Tordon over a large area to kill off all of the young deciduous trees.  They wanted to create a more suitable area that could be used for grazing cattle around Dave Henry Creek, a tributary of Kinbasket Lake.  

I noticed  that someone had hand-written over the labels of the containers the amount of Tordon that was to be used to mix with water, before spraying.  What they had written was double the amount printed on the labels of of the containers.

I can’t believe just how careless my co-workers are with the Tordon.  I discovered that the Forest Services planned to use a fire fighting pump on one of the Forestry’s pickups to spray the herbicide.  That would leave Tordon all over the pump and truck, and I doubt that anyone who later used the pump or truck would be aware that it had just been used to spray the herbicide.

In November we had a staff meeting at Forestry about a pesticide report.  It seems that the we sprayed 100 hectares (250 acres) of a cutblock with a pesticide (I assume Tordon) when only 10 hectares (25 acres) needed it.  The Regeneration Surveys done before the spraying showed that 90 hectares of the block was fully stocked with young trees. 

I hate all of the pesticide use that Forestry does.  I always suspect that there was pressure from “higher up” to spray and wondered if someone up there was getting a kickback from the chemical companies.

My neighbors get their water from Beardsley Brook a small stream that crosses under the road and flows down beside their house.  They were furious when they discovered that the Highways Department came through and sprayed the herbicide Tordon, on both sides of the road, including their creek.  There was some justice however, because Beardsley Brook is also where Geordie gets his water.  Geordie is the guy at forestry that is always gung-ho about spraying herbicides in logging blocks in our district.  When the Ministry of Environment did tests on the water, Kjell and Celine’s tested negative, but Geordie’s had traces of Tordon.

    I realize that there are some invasive plants that are so incredibly invasive (Japanese Knotweed) that the only way it can be stopped is by using a herbicide, but I still object to random spraying of areas with the chemicals.  

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