Written by Christina Sarich at undergroundreporter.org
Maui, Hawaii — Maui’s State Department of Transportation just agreed not to spray Monsanto’s RoundUp along roadways. All purchases of the glyphosate-based, carcinogenic weed killer have been halted, according to Maui Mama. What’s more, the department is about to change the signs on all of their spray trucks to say “Certified Organic Herbicide.”
Beyond Pesticides has also agreed to teach county workers how to make the switch from the health-damaging RoundUp chemical applications to a non-toxic solution, FREE OF CHARGE. The county of Maui has yet to take the offer to heart, but with some world-wide support, they could be gently urged to do so.
Any move away from herbicide application in Hawaii is an enormous win for the people who live there, since the state has been treated as ground zero by companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF Plant Sciences, and Dow Chemical for the spraying of agricultural chemicals for genetically modified crop trials for decades now. Paradise has been poisoned for far too long, and Hawaii’s impeccable ecosystem is affected just as adversely as human health by the use of industrial pesticides and herbicides.
Just seven of the highly toxic chemicals most commonly used (including RoundUp) on the test fields has been linked to a variety of serious health problems ranging from childhood cognitive disorders to cancer.
Moreover, just recently, Hawaii residents were shocked to learn that the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to spray carcinogenic and mutagenic toxins into the environment to eradicate fruit flies. It seems the spraying never ends — but there’s hope.
Beyond Pesticides was also able to get a pesticide disclosure bill passed in Hawaii, House Bill 2574, which is the latest in a string of laws proposed by local and state governments within Hawaii to try to protect citizens from the harms of toxic pesticides.
If Maui can truly eliminate RoundUp, one of the world’s most extensively used herbicides from its roadways and parks, then it wouldset a precedent for other cities to realize similar success. Worldwide, 9.4 million tons of the chemical, declared ‘probably carcinogenic’ by the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the IARC, have already been sprayed onto fields — isn’t that enough?
Hawaii’s ecosystem deserves a break from pesticide spraying, but county officials need a little encouragement to go all the way.
If you feel inclined, you can contact Maui’s representatives to tell them you support the islands going organic:
Maui County Public Works director David Goode: (808) 270 – 7845, [email protected]
Deputy Director Rowena Dagdag-Andaya: (808) 270 – 7485 [email protected]
This article (Maui Completely Stops Spraying RoundUp, Switches to Organic Herbicides) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Christina Sarich andUndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to[email protected]. Image credit: Flickr/paul bica
