Blogs

Contractor fined for chemical spray drift - it's time to read Silent Spring again.

By Emily Mason posted 13-12-2022 11:22

  
FRIENDS of the Earth has slammed a court decision in which an HVP contractor was found guilty of chemical spray drift where herbicides were found 150 metres into the Holey Plains State Forest.

FOE obtained freedom of information documents which showed that the contractor was found guilty in the Sale Magistrates Court in August for 13 charges in breach of chemicals regulations. Agriculture Victoria pressed charges after investigating several incidents in 2020 on receiving reports by FOE land-use researcher Anthony Amis, who discovered the damage while surveying for koalas.

The contractor was given a 12-month good behaviour bond and was ordered to obtain a new aerial management system accreditation and to pay $1000 to Landcare. But Mr Amis said he did not understand why a heftier penalty was not handed-down, with applicable maximum fines up to $66,000. "This is a slap on the wrist. This was not an appropriate punishment at all. Where else has this company been operating?" Mr Amis said.

It was found that the contractor was spraying a neighbouring pine plantation and allowed chemicals to drift about two kilometres along the native forest boundary. Investigators discovered four types of chemicals, including glyphosate in 17 locations and in tree canopies up to 20-metres in the air. Some of the charges included injuriously impacting native plants, breaching label instructions, using herbicides in excess of label rates and a lack of appropriate record keeping.

As we continue to see instances of chemical spray drift, it seems due time for everyone to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson again. We cannot continue to make the same mistakes we have made, to the detriment of our land, our environment, and our futures. 

Silent Spring -I 
By Rachel Carson, 1962
"If we are living so intimately with chemicals, we had better know something about their power."

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to be in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards, where white clouds of bloom drifted above the green land. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wild flowers delighted the traveller’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter, the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall, people came from great distances to observe them. Other people came to fish streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days, many years ago, when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns."

Then, one spring, a strange blight crept over the area, and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community; mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, and the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was the shadow of death. The farmers told of much illness among their families. In the town, the doctors were becoming more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness that had appeared among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among the adults but also among the children, who would be stricken while they were at play, and would die within a few hours. And there was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone?"

Continue reading


#FarmingAgriculture
0 comments
1 view

Permalink