Weed spraying

[Brian Amery]

Hi everybody
I know the weeds are getting a bit out of hand again but the council
will be spraying them this year. Spraying is scheduled to start on
September 1 so please be patient until then.
Brian

[Jonathan Endersby]

A reply posted on behalf of Jo-Anne Stolk. This question was brought
up by the ecology committee in the last directors meeting and I'm sure
Brian will reply detailing the safety.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all

Can we get more info on the spraying? Is it toxic to animals, should I
be worried about my cats? I'm opposed to wide-scale poison use, it's
so destructive to both bad and good plants. There's been a huge
decline in garden insects in recent years due to overuse of poisons,
which has a knock-on effect on bird and chameleon populations.

Wouldn't physically pulling out the weeds be a better (and safer)
option? Surely people could use the employment.

Jo

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[rob...@mweb.co.za]

Also, doesn't the poison run into the Council's drains? Where does it
end up?

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[Bev P]

I'd guess one of the places it must end up - after rain - is Council's drains.....

[Brian Amery]

The City will use a class of herbicide known as Glyphosates, but I do not know which brand they will use. They only kill weeds and grasses. Soil residues generally have a half-life of less than 60 days. Used according to instructions, it does not kill animals, birds, bees, worms, fishes and so on. It is used widely by the wine industry to control grass and weeds in vineyards. I used it in my small-holding days and all my dogs died of old age as did my geese and chickens. The cat I had at the time is still a very healthy 13 year old. "The daily dose of 500 mg/kg b.w. given to dogs for one year did not cause adverse effects" (World Health Organisation WHO/PCS/DS/96.91) (http://www.inchem.org/documents/pds/pds/pest91_e.htm#1.3.3)

It should not be used in rainy weather as it is a waste of effort and time, but that also means it can't get to the fishes, and even if it did, the concentration would  be so low it would be very difficult to measure. 

As always the Web is divided on the issue and you will find stories of experiments on frog ponds where all the tadpoles die. What you don't get is the concentration used to achieve this result, and besides, only a nutter would spray a frog pond with a weed-killer. I also found out that, in cases of attempted suicides using the herbicide, 9 out of 56 cases resulted in death. But of course that would be ingesting the stuff neat, whereas the spray concentration is 1%. Using a herbicide is designed to destroy vegetation some of which will have provided food and shelter for insects, birds and small mammals, resulting in these having to find alternate spaces, but that is not all that applicable to spraying pavements in the urban environment.

Spraying the whole of our area is scheduled to take 2 days and will kill the weeds effectively for the better part of the whole year. To remove by hand would simply be uneconomical and ineffective.

I hope this helps, I am sure it will spark debate. Forgive me if I do not answer every posting - I have pretty much made my case here.

Brian

Brian Amery, COO
Observatory Improvement District

41 Station Road
Observatory
021 448 7090

[Ian Gilfillan]

Brian Amery wrote:
> The City will use a class of herbicide known as Glyphosates, but I do
> not know which brand they will use.

Thanks to Jo-Anne and the ecology committee for raising the issue, and
apologies for the long read below. For those who don't want to read all
the way, in summary, I am unhappy about the use of glyphosphates, but
don't have an alternative suggestion, so you can safely ignore what I say :)

Glyphosphates were originally developed and patented by Monsanto (the
patent has since expired). Their use has skyrocketed recently as
Monsanto's genetically-modified crops have almost all been designed with
an immunity to Roundup (their brand of glyphosphate). Contrary to the
spin, this has resulted in farmers using ever-higher dosages as they
vainly battle so-called superweeds that have developed an immunity to them.

Much farmland in the Southern US is under threat from this issue - the
giant scale farms that have gone the GM route and cannot employ manual
means are at particular risk.

When it comes to farming, the choice is clear - there are better
technologies, such as organics and permaculture, to show the way.
However, when it comes to keeping cities looking attractive, the path
isn't as clear. There's no need for Obs to re-invent the wheel - rather,
we can follow best practise from around the world.

Denmark has recently imposed widespread bans on the spraying of
glyphospates after independent tests found that the level of groundwater
contamination was far beyond what the earlier, Monsanto-sponsored,
tests, had indicated. Although the evidence of harm to humans and
mammals is limited, glyphosphates have generally been found to be
harmful in aquatic environments, and to amphibians.

Most industry-sponsored tests are superficial, short-term, and avoid
looking at synergistic effects, breakdown products, and so on. We are
continually finding products that have been approved for years to have
highly undesirable effects - a result of the almost complete lack of
independent testing, and relying on the industry concerned to design and
often carry out the safety tests.

A number of cities are grappling with the issue. Augusta placed a
moratorium on their usage after widespread health concerns. However,
they haven't yet found an adequate alternative, and after receiving
feedback that the verges were looking more unsightly, and of potential
damage to infrastructure, they started spraying again this month.

Thanks for raising the issue. In short, I am unhappy about using
glyphosphates, but don't have a practical alternative suggestion to
keeping the verges clean. I'll do some more research on the issue and
report back any findings.

--
Ian Gilfillan
Director
Ethical Co-op
www.ethical.org.za

[Jo-Anne Stolk]

Hi all

I'm worried about the dangers to amphibians, especially as we have one
of the very few populations of Western Leopard Toads in the Greater
Cape Town area. I have one living in my front garden, in fact. They
live in long grass and move to water to breed (in this case the
Liesbeek). I would hate for the weed-killer to get into the Liesbeek
or to harm these very endangered toads.

Unfortunately I don't have a better solution other than manually
removing them. Has anyone looked into some sort of community drive? If
a few people on a street did their stretch it wouldn't be such a huge
issue. Maybe I'm being too idealistic here but I'd rather get down on
my knees and weed our patch than use poisons.

Jo

[Katharine McKenzie]

This is an interesting issue. If the weed killer is conservatively applied
as Brian has suggested, that's probably OK. One hopes that this is in fact
the case and that those doing the spraying do so diligently and don't dump
the excess etc etc. The Liesbeeck is so filthy that I'm astonished a Leopard
Toad, or anything else, can breed there at all, good to hear that we have
some in Obs given that frog and toad populations are declining the world
over.

I'd be keen to hear from the ecology group about their big picture view of
the ecology and biodiversity issues in Obs, given that we are one of the few
suburbs with a river running through it and in the biodiverse Western Cape
and close to a national park and an urban park

[Spike]

None of us like the idea of poison. But we need to keep it in perspective; compared to the rainwater splashing under thousands of cars and returning to the system with oil and carcinogenic carbon products would an annual spray of weeds be a drop in the ocean (ha!)? Septic tank soak-aways must be more than 35(?) meters from a river. Maybe spraying should be controlled in a similar way - no spraying withing 100Mts of a river.


 or the thousands

[Kris Marais]

Organic herbicide?

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