Dear Guardian,
The Carson
National Forest wants to apply Tebuthiuron, an herbicide also known as Spike,
to control sagebrush. The agency
has two separate proposals that call for dumping 12,000 pounds of the plant
poison in areas that have been heavily degraded by past and ongoing cattle
grazing.
Tebuthiuron is
a broad-spectrum herbicide with a high acute oral toxicity that puts wildlife,
fish, people and pets at risk.
Rather than
address the root cause of the spread of sagebrush, namely domestic livestock
grazing which removes native grasses and spreads invasive seeds, the Forest
Service instead wants to spread herbicides on nearly forty square miles of our
public lands.
Please send
your email today to the District Rangers asking them to take non-toxic measures
to control the spread of sagebrush and restore the health of ecosystems.
According to
Cornell University, Tebuthiuron has a high potential for groundwater contamination as it is highly soluble in
water thus becoming easily absorbed into soils. The Environmental Protection Agency
considers Tebuthiuron to be one of a group of herbicide compounds that have the
greatest potential for leaching into, and contaminating, groundwater. That’s
not good news for our forests and watersheds.
Please comment
on these two proposals to poison nearly forty square miles of our public lands.
We must speak
loudly and tell the Forest Service to adopt non-toxic alternatives and to address
the cause of sagebrush spread, namely domestic livestock grazing.
Speak out now
for healthy wild lands, wildlife and water in New Mexico.
For the Wild,
Bryan Bird
Wild Places Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
bbird@wildearthguardians.org
