Avondale Park, in northeast Denton, has a natural, rock bed creek where children fish for minnows and do all of those things that kids do in creeks in the spring and summer.
    Neighbors became concerned last year when the creek, along with others in Denton, was sprayed with an aquatic herbicide to kill the "weeds" around the creek bed. The verdant landscape around the creek was turned into an ugly brown strip of dead vegetation and brackish water.
    Citizens for Healthy Growth called the City of Denton Drainage Department and was told that the herbicide, Monsanto's RODEO, was "EPA approved". The Environmental Protection Agency has also approved other synthetic chemicals such as MTBE, the gasoline additive contaminating many municipal water wells and lakes, the recently banned insecticide Dursban, manufactured by Dow Chemical, and the herbicide Atrazine, which was recently discovered to be a "likely human carcinogen" in tap water (It is in the Elm Fork watershed.) and a likely cause of hormonal damage to infants and children.
    The active herbicidal ingredient in RODEO is Glyphosate. According to the JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM, Glyphosate-containing products "are acutely toxic to animals, including humans. Symptoms include eye and skin irritation, headache, nausea, numbness, elevated blood pressure, and heart palpitations." The report continues that "In studies of people (mostly farmers) exposed to glyphosate herbicides, exposure is associated with an increased risk of miscarriages, premature birth, and the cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma." And, finally, "Glyphosate treatment has reduced populations of beneficial insects, birds, and small mammals by destroying vegetation on which they depend for food and shelter."
    The Drainage Department said that herbicides were used because they are cost effective. It is disturbing enough that the public health and the ecological integrity of the creek would be risked for economic reasons. But when we look at the numbers the situation seems even more incredible. The city paid an independent contractor $13,000.00 to spray 90 acres. That breaks down to $145.00 per acre. Does mowing, by city employees on city owned mowers cost more than that? The punchline is that 10 to 12 days after the spraying the city goes in and mows down the dead vegetation!
    With more and more research into the use of synthetic chemicals like herbicides and pesticides comes more and more warnings of danger, not affirmations of safety. And science cannot even begin to fathom the cumulative effects of the mixtures of these poisons which we are exposed to in our homes, schools, and workplaces everyday.
    It is irresponsible public policy to poison public lands and buildings. There is always a safer, 'though perhaps not as cost effective way. And if there isn't a safe way there should be no way until a safe way is found. Precaution must be the rule by which the use of synthetic chemicals is measured. If there is any chance at all of harm to the environment and, thus, to us the use must be avoided. There is just too much evidence that many childhood cancers, neurological impairment, and learning disabilities are linked to synthetic chemical pollution. Precaution is the only policy. And if we do err, let it be in the interest of better health, not in the reality of continued poisoning and illness.

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