We need to end misuse of herbicides on our state highways

Driving along Connecticut’s state roads in summer, one is struck by the visual contrast between the beautiful lush green countryside and the ugly brown dead grasses wherever guard posts run along the highway. This unsightly mess is the result of the use of herbicides to kill roadside weeds that large mowing machines cannot conveniently reach.

Are weeds really that much of a problem? If so, might it be less costly and more job-friendly to employ a few human weed-trimmers to do the guard post clearance work?

Herbicides appear to be used on guard posts whether there is a potential visibility issue or not. The situation is particularly worrisome where roads run along streams, wetlands, ponds and waterways because runoff from rains carries chemicals into the watershed, and possibly into our drinking water.

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Researchers from Yale, the University of Connecticut and others have found significant levels of the common herbicide atrazine in ponds, waterways and water systems in the Connecticut River Valley, and this contamination correlates with high ratios of “intersex� frogs — that is, frogs with both male and female characteristics. Effects of atrazine on northern watersnakes include unusually high rates of stillbirths and birth defects. Do we have any stewardship responsibility for the life and health of frogs and snakes?

Around Avon, intersex frogs were found in 15 out of 16 backyard ponds. Contamination wasn’t just a problem in rural houses with their own wells and septic systems. Homes in Avon that relied on municipal sewer and water systems were just as likely to have intersex frogs nearby.

Frogs and snakes in our waterways may be like the sensitive canary in the coal mine. They are an early warning system. But are we heeding the warning?

How sure are we that atrazine is not getting into our town drinking water? For example, in the town of Sharon, look at the heavy use of weed killers on Route 41 alongside the Beardsley Pond reservoir which is a source of the town’s water supply? The road is absolutely straight there, so there is no issue of road visibility. Are our septic and water treatment plants doing enough to remove toxic chemicals from our drinking water? How do we know?

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Atrazine isn’t the only culprit by a long shot. There is also the widely used fungicide chlorothalonil, which raises mortality rates among frog tadpoles, and the weed-killer glyphosate and other formulations found more famously in Roundup and infamously in Agent Orange.

As was the case of DDT, these chemicals have been stockpiled in large quantities by producers, brokers and middlemen who are now anxious to get the excess inventory converted into profits. One way to do that is to convince state officials to use it in quantity. Do too many martini luncheons account for the misuse of herbicides along our state highways?

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The World Health Organization and its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have placed several of these chemicals on a “warning� list for carcinogenic effects on humans. This doesn’t mean they will necessarily cause cancer under all doses and circumstances, but it’s enough to give pause. Do we really know enough about these herbicides to be using them in this manner along our state highways and waterways? Have we in the Connecticut towns been consulted?

Do we want ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to be the guinea pigs to test the long-term consequences of heavy herbicide use? Perhaps our Northwest Corner towns should get together to petition the state to desist from the herbicide practice on the state roads that run through our respective towns until we have more time to assess the impact on the environment and on human health. Meanwhile, our highways will certainly look better for it.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and general legal counsel of the World Health Organization.