Don't Spray Roundup in the Mt. Tam Watershed!

In India, a common form of suicide among desperate farmers whose lives have been ruined by Monsanto's agribusiness practices is to drink glyphosate, branded and sold by Monsanto under the name Roundup.  In cases of herbicide suicide, if we can call it that, quantities as little as 85 ml have proved fatal.  Although Marinites would not be absorbing the chemical at nearly this rate, or nearly as immediately, let's just consider what the literature has to say about glyphosate ingestion for an instant (see Bradberry, Sally M; Proudfoot, Alex T; Vale, J Allister (2004)."Glyphosate Poisoning". Toxicological Reviews 23 (3): 159–67.PMID 15862083).  

If you drank 85 ml of glyphosate, or about a third of a cup, you would be officially "poisoned".  Let's say you couldn't resist another two hundred milliliters and now you've had about a cup, about the quantity of pinot you'd swish and smell in the bottom of a broad wine glass.  Strong nose, nice legs, herbicide bouquet, terrible finish.
     
First, you might feel your mouth, throat and upper intestine start to sting as your tissue corroded.  You might vomit immediately, if you were lucky.  Most likely, though, your throat would feel like there was something stuck in it and you wouldn't be able to swallow.  That's called dysphagia.  Then, there is a high probability that your liver and kidneys would become impaired and stop pumping liquids correctly.  That's called reduced organ perfusion.  Then your breathing would become impaired, then you'd probably lose consciousness or go into shock as your lungs filled with fluid.  You might expel some pink, frothy stuff from your lungs if your muscles were up to the task, then your heart would slow.  Then you would die.    

You would die, because glyphosate is poison.

The Marin Municipal Water District is currently in the midst of a court-mandated, research-and-deliberation process that will ultimately decide whether or not glyphosate (in combination with potentially more toxic surfactants) and other herbicides will be used to "control" the growth of French broom in the Mt. Tamalpais watershed (see here).  Hypothetical fire damage is the court's underlying justification for the use of herbicides.  Herbicides also happen to be the cheapest way to manage an unwanted pioneer plant species, in this case.  Whether or not the spread of broom is caused by humans has not been demonstrated, but the increased human encroachment on Marin's wild space is really what's at stake here, not the "problem" of plant growth.  Roundup, i.e. glyphosate, is not designed for long-term environmental stewardship.  It's designed to be a profitable herbicide for use on Roundup-resistant cash crops.  The broom will be back.  But the poison won't go away. 

Now, the question is whether or not officials will decide -- without the vote of residents -- whether to spray demonstrably toxic herbicides into our watershed in order to protect property that arguably should have never been constructed there.  With the County's supervisors conveniently silent on this issue (see here), I believe we should all consider what it means to introduce glyphosate in large quantities to the watershed that you live in.  Also, as "fire damage" is the main justification for such drastic chemical warfare on our ecosystem, I would also urge readers to consider just exactly what we mean when we think of "damage" in both the short and long-term sense. 
  
Of course, spraying glyphosate all over Marin's open spaces, especially on inclines that drain directly into our reservoirs, is not the equivalent of drinking the stuff straight (see the beginning of this article).  But as with gift-giving, "it is the thought that counts."  In this case, you must consider the thought of potential long-term health impacts, in ourselves as well as in the ecosystem that makes such county such a desirable one to inhabit.  If you don't want to think of your drinking water, out of denial or willful ignorance, then think of the animals that will be born with their brains on the outside of their skulls and the birds whose eggs will dissolve in utero, not to mention the less visible mass death of microorganisms and vital subterranean species such as earthworms.  

Although many published findings -- including the findings advanced in 2011 by the Marin Municipal Water District's hired help in defense of their stingy solution to French broom growth (see here) -- state that glyphosate is not harmful to humans and is not residual in ecosystems, there are abundant findings to the contrary, and even more on the subject of glyphosate's risk to animals.  

What it really comes down to is three points:  

1.  Marin County spends untold amounts of money each year on much less important needs, yet its courts have urged the use of poison in our ecosystem because it is a cost-effective way to safeguard property.  

2.  The MMWD is actually in a position to approve short-sighted and self-serving measures to cover it's back by poisoning our watershed in order to make the problem of French broom fire risk "go away".  

3.  The primary chemical that will be used if the above plan is implemented is manufactured and purveyed by one of the most destructive corporations on the planet.  

In a county that penalizes its residents for having fires in their fireplaces (yay for Spare the Air!), the sanctioned use of Monsanto herbicides all over the most coveted open space in the county is a disturbing paradox, an short-sighted backward solution, and a crime.