Willamette Week | News| Environment

One of the most widely supported environmental bills in Salem may be headed for early extinction.

For a year green groups have been promoting the idea behind Senate Bill 617, a pesticides right-to-know bill. And their support is understandable: Even though pesticides are toxic, cities, schools, farms and other large pesticide users are not required to keep records of the chemicals they're putting on their parks, ball fields and crop land--chemicals that may end up in our public waterways.

The Oregon Pesticide Education Network, a coalition of four environmental groups, aims to change that. OPEN's bill would require retailers who sell pesticides to track the amounts sold. Additionally, it would require government and commercial users to report the use of chemicals to the State Department of Agriculture. The reporting program would be paid for by a tax added to the cost of the pesticides. Part of the tax would fund grant programs seeking alternatives to pesticides.

The idea has been floating around for years, but this session it seemed as if it might make some headway.

For starters, OPEN got bipartisan support. Sen. Susan Castillo, a Eugene Democrat, and Rep. Ken Strobeck, a Washington County Republican, introduced the bill.

And, since the Legislature last met, two types of salmon that migrate through the Willamette River have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Nonetheless, the bill is in trouble.

A key problem is the way science can be used subjectively. For example, we know pesticides are in the Willamette River, and we know they can harm fish. But no one has monitored the pesticides' effects on Willamette River fish specifically. That means Terry Witt, lobbyist for Oregonians for Food & Shelter, can still say, "There is no compelling evidence that pesticides in the water affect salmonoid populations."

Although OPEN recently released an academic survey of how pesticides affect fish in waterways, the report has been criticized as warmed-over research that doesn't directly apply to the Willamette.

"The public knows viscerally that pesticides don't belong in water," says Laura Weiss of the Oregon Environmental Council. But, she adds, we can't find out the pesticides' specific effects on Willamette River fish without knowing exactly where the chemicals are being used.

That's just where SB 617 would help, but ironically it's hard to prove to senators that such tracking is necessary without the statistics that only tracking can provide.

Sen. Joan Dukes, a Democrat from Astoria, agrees that pesticide usage should be addressed but is concerned about creating more paperwork for farmers. Dukes says constituents in her largely rural district are confused about the proposal. Hearings would be a start, she says.

Dukes should be in a good position to do something about it; she sits on the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, which is considering the bill. The panel, however, is dominated by rural Republicans who are less enthusiastic about opening a debate. Sen. Gary George, the chair, won't even guarantee a hearing.

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Willamette Week | originally published March 10, 1999