By FRANK JACKSON
For The Beachcomber

Have you been for a walk at Maury Island Marine Park lately?

It’s time to go. The weather is great, the mile-long unspoiled beach beckons, and you know you need the exercise.

Notice the many improvements made by the 24 energetic young people with the Washington Conservation Corps. New trails and new plantings combine with the usual tremendous view of Puget Sound to make this one-mile jaunt a winner. The hill back to the top will test your cardiovascular system.

And now there’s a new must-see:  large tracts of dead blackberries that have been sprayed with the herbicide Garlon 3A; over 9 acres all told. This caught me quite by surprise.

The Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Committee has worked hard over the years to make islanders aware that when they use an herbicide or pesticide, it’s not going away. It goes from the store shelf onto the land, and from there a lot of it ends up in the groundwater or Puget Sound. It doesn’t just disappear. Once it’s out of the sprayer, there’s no reasonable way to clean it up. The cumulative negative effects will be with us for generations.

Living on an island where the only source of water is rain, plus the water recycled from our irrigation and septic systems, it’s doubly important to avoid soiling the source.

Those who appreciate the beauty and health of Puget Sound, from the eel grass to the orcas, certainly know of the sound’s continuing “death by 1,000 cuts.” Most of us do our best to avoid administering yet another cut.

So King County Parks’ use of herbicides causes me concern.  Why is this happening?

About a month ago I started asking questions.

Why spray a “natural area” park?

Why spray along the shoreline of the premier aquatic reserve on Puget Sound?

Aren’t there probable negative effects of the Garlon 3A (triclopyr, by-products and surfactants) on the health of the young workers, on the birds, frogs, bees and small mammals, on the groundwater and on the marine organisms in Puget Sound?

Why not use goats? Or tractors? Or walkers armed with clippers?

I asked the workers, the state project coordinator and the King County Parks project manager.  Their answers, given openly and in full belief of their validity, relied mainly on the information provided by Dow AgroSciences, the manufacturer of Garlon 3A. They told me triclopyr has a short half-life and has not been shown to cause human health problems — if people avoid getting it in their eyes or on their skin. Using herbicides is cheap, and they only use minimal quantities in weak dilutions. Negative effects on the environment will be offset by restoration improvements.

Without pesticides, they say the new plantings will be overtaken by the blackberries. They say that it will only look bad for a while, after which the plantings will take hold and shade out the blackberries.

I pondered these answers while I walked, looking at the devastating effect of small amounts of the Garlon3A on the blackberries and other plants. I pondered rain on the steep slopes down to the beach where the herbicide was being applied and the unlikelihood that any shade trees will take hold in that sand and gravel for 20 years.

Some 80 hours of effort later (which is why the house hasn’t gotten painted, dear) I’ve emailed with environmental chemists, read numerous studies, looked at websites that evaluate various herbicides, walked the sprayed areas and corresponded with the decision-makers for this project.

Unfortunately, the current parks decision-makers are dead set on using herbicides on the blackberries. They have to kill the roots, they say.

The risks are real, and far exceed the benefits of removing the blackberries.

The risks involve not only triclopyr, but the break-down products of triclopyr and the surfactants used to adhere it to the plants.

Triclopyr is showing up in Puget Sound. Detecting triclopyr breakdown products is very difficult.

A good summary of risks is at the Thurston County website, /www.co.thurston.wa.us/health/ehipm/terrestrialreview.html, which shows triclopyr (TEA) to have moderate potential hazard for human toxicity, aquatic toxicity and persistence and high potential hazard for “other mammals,” bird toxicity and “mobility hazard.”

Bees incur negative effects from the surfactant Syl Tac being used.

What does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say? The EPA is hamstrung by “trade secret” provisions in legislation and the burden to prove ill-effects. Of the 83,000 EPA-listed chemicals of concern, only five have been banned, limited or restricted. The president of Consumer Reports decries the situation in the Sept. 2013 issue.

Islanders should be concerned.  This new normal for King County Parks is going to affect all parks.  No notice was given to the community before the herbicide spraying was essentially completed. We need to collectively speak up or expect more of the same.

Do you give a hoot? Take five minutes to email our Representative Joe McDermott at Joe.McDermott@kingcounty.gov and state senator Sharon Nelson at sharon.nelson@leg.wa.gov.  They do give a hoot and are among the few that could keep island parks free of herbicides.

And clip a few blackberries around the plantings when you go on that walk. Thanks.

—  Frank Jackson is a retired engineer and the chair of the Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Protection Committee.