If You are Sprayed with Pesticides

Enlarge Image Image Gallery CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT: To document herbicide damage, take a series of photographs before and after the harm appears. These two pictures show a young walnut orchard before... and after 2, 4-D drifted onto the trees.... Spray from aerial applicators can drift quite far from the intended application site.

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You won't get caught by surprise-or be unprepared-if you heed this citizen activist'sadvice. 

PLAN AHEAD

First of all, there are several important steps you should take now, before an incident occurs. To begin, find out who might be spraying in your area-neighbors, county weedcontrol and road-maintenance person nel, local pesticide applicators, power companies, etc.-and let those people know that you do not want any such chemicals drifting onto your land. You may think you shouldn't have to do this, but keep in mind that many of these folks might believe they'd actually be doing you a favor by killing that "scruffy waste brush" (your woodlot-to-be) or "all those nasty bugs" (your natural pest-control agents or honey producers).

You should also display "DO NOT SPRAY" signs-marked with arrows and giving the distances to your acreage's appropriate bordersat every roadside corner around your property, to remind the highway-maintenance spray crew to leave your land alone. In addition, call and write your county engineer (or whoever else is responsible for taking care of streets in your area) and ask that person to make certain that all brush-killing sprays are turned off before the maintenance trucks reach your property. At the same time, ask him or her how you can care for your section of the highway right-of-way. Learn which vegetation needs to be controlled where, and why.

Now that you've taken all the preventive steps that you can, arm yourself with the information you'll need if (and it's still quite possible) a spraying incident does occur. To begin, obtain two phone numbers: [1] that of your regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . . . and [2] that of the state agency-it's usually associated with the agriculture department-in charge of enforcing the pesticide-use laws.

If you don't know where the nearest EPA office is, you can find out by calling National Pesticide Information Clearinghouse -toll free-at 800/531-7790 (or 800/2927664 for Texas residents). And if you aren't certain about which state agency to contact (and if the NPIC can't tell you), ask your regional EPA office. At any rate, put the two phone numbers where you can quickly find them.

(Note: The EPA directly enforces the pesticide-use law in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado . . . so residents of those areas have no state agencies to contact. On the other hand, California residents will want to record the phone number of the appropriate county, not state, agriculture commissioner.)  

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