Herbicide drift to cultivated and wild landscapes is an issue that PRN has been working on for many years. One of the many landowners that we have worked with has received herbicide drift for several consecutive years. Patsy Hirsch shares her story with us in this guest blog.
A Future Shade-less Summer,
My Herbicide Education, as Taught by My Yard
By Patsy Hirsch
As I look through the window of our den into the woodland behind our home, I can’t help but wonder how much longer I will be enjoying the company of these majestic oak trees. I struggle to find the words to express the urgency and the finality of the impending loss of them.
In our northern Illinois, Kane County subdivision, we are honored to have what other neighborhoods don’t have, many 100- to 200-year-old trees. Trees that are keystone species are critical for the survival of other species in their community, such that if they were removed, the ecosystem would change drastically. Trees with history, who have shaded many generations. Trees that cannot be replaced. Over the last four years, and even before as I have come to learn, the leaves on the trees on our property have appeared abnormal and showing signs of stress. Some are more affected than others, depending on the species, with oaks being half or less than their former self, while cherry trees have lost as much as ninety percent of their leaves. During the 2020 growing season, my husband and I witnessed summer sun shining brightly through windows of our home that we have never seen in the 24 years of living in the woods. This is very worrisome: for the life of our trees, for our environment, for our property values, and our health. Through research and consulting with experts, I learned that this abnormal appearance to our trees, as well as the shrubs, the plants, and the vegetables plants in my gardens, on our 1.25-acre property, is due to herbicide particle drift and herbicide vapor drift from 2,4-D and Dicamba.
In 2018, I filed the first ‘Pesticide Incident Complaint’ with the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA), Bureau of Environmental Programs. I learned that a State Inspector from that department conducts a site survey for the properties of each complaint filed with IDOA. During this first visit to our property, the inspector confirmed that the abnormal appearance to the leaves was herbicide injury and that the likely cause was by one or two drifting herbicides, 2,4-D or Dicamba. At that time, I felt confident that by reporting it to the IDOA, that that would be the end of the issue.
2,4-D and Dicamba, are widely used systemic auxin plant growth regulator herbicides which are used to kill broadleaf weeds in lawns and agricultural fields. Both these herbicides have properties that, when the conditions are right, lift from their target lawns or fields and drift into the air to off target sites, landing on trees/plants elsewhere in the neighborhood, natural areas, and other fields and beyond. I also learned that 2,4-D and Dicamba can drift for miles from the target site, which can occur from hours to days later. This drift, known as vapor drift, happens even if they are applied correctly. Particle drifting happens when herbicides are not being applied correctly, potentially making the damage even worse. What is not known, is how many times these herbicides can pick up and move, or how often areas like our yard are receiving drift and from where. The use of Dicamba across the landscape more than doubled in 2017 when a genetically modified soybean was released to the market that is resistant to this herbicide. At this time, pesticide incident complaints increased in the soybean growing areas of the U.S.
As in 2018, herbicide injury was again discovered during the 2019, 2020, and 2021 growing season on the trees and plants, and vegetable gardens in our yard. For each of these years, I again filed ‘Pesticide Incident Complaints’ with the IDOA. The herbicide injury in 2020 was so excessive that I filed three complaints with IDOA, with 2021 looking to end the same way. Again, with each complaint filed, an inspector from the IDOA conducted a site survey of our property and determined each time that the abnormal appearance was again herbicide injury from drifting chemicals, 2.4-D and Dicamba. As of August 2021, I have filed seven complaints with the IDOA over the last four years, with no resolution. None whatsoever.
The symptoms that our trees and plants experienced are:
- thinning and loss of tree canopies
- early leaf loss, distorted leaves
- brown/black leaves and leaf margins
- leaf cupping, leaf curling, leaf rolling
- leaf puckering and deformed tissues and margins
- abnormal growth including small leaves and clustering leaf growth at the end of branches
- dieback of branches, dying trees and plants
- dead trees, and plants from repeated herbicide exposures.
To gain a wider view beyond our yard, during the 2020 summer I walked our neighborhood and then drove through the neighboring subdivisions surrounding ours, and found that herbicide injury is everywhere, so widespread, that to us, our lands now feel like a toxic waste dump. In some areas, herbicide injury is so severe that the leaves of the trees can barely photosynthesize due to the severity of herbicide damage and leaf loss. I learned through this experience how to identify herbicide injury, and it is clearly a pervasive issue, evident even while driving through other communities, whether in town or out in the rural areas. During my entire 320-mile drive to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Minnesota this summer, and during my 30-mile drive south to visit a friend,herbicide damage was evident. It was in their yards too, but I did not have the heart to tell them. Even under the ‘shade’ of a maple tree while on my yoga mat during an outdoor class. I see it everywhere I go. I see it on the property of our local hospital, in downtowns, county forest preserves, church properties, sports fields, and worst of all, in school yards where children play. I can no longer un-see it. The reality in that moment of recognition, for me, changed how I anticipate the wonders of spring, summer and fall. The growing season became herbicide season. My least favorite season, winter, has become my season of respite, from this reality.
I reached out to the two different lawn application companies during the 2020 summer who had been applying lawn chemicals containing 2,4-D and Dicamba within our neighborhood and informed them of the herbicide injuries to our properties and asked them to stop applying 2,4-D and Dicamba in our neighborhood. We ask that they use a friendlier, non-drifting product. These applicators have been warned/fined by the IDOA that their applications are causing herbicide injury to our trees and plants. Unfortunately, since the complaint process began four years ago, neither applicator has made the changes needed to their practices to protect neighboring properties from further herbicide injuries. In the applicators’ defense, even if they do apply it correctly, these two herbicides can pick up and move off target after the applications are completed. This indicates that there is no controlling these herbicides. Herbicides that cannot be controlled, should not be used.
In 2020, we walked door to door to talk with our 39 neighbors about this issue and found that 31 use lawn chemicals. We shared educational information and discussed the risks and options. All but one noted that there was an issue with the trees, yet not one knew what was wrong, nor had they taken the time to investigate. We stressed that the herbicides being used in their yards are non-selective, that it will affect any age tree or plant within the class that it targets, especially our oldest trees that provide the character that makes our subdivision so unique.
The collateral damage that we, as a neighborhood, are experiencing has caused financial loss and challenges, and ecological harm, and has permanently changed the aesthetic view of our properties, and that of the surrounding community. The total loss is staggering, to think of this as a whole, not to mention the health consequences of inhaling these invisible drifting pesticides year after year. There is also a huge emotional toll, looking at all ‘our’ trees, seeing herbicide injuries everywhere I go. I fear for the future, the one we are handing to our children and grandchildren. How will we justify to them, the loss of trees and an unhealthy environment, for the sake of weedless fields and lifeless lawns?
I have learned that there are no laws, no regulations, no amount of buffer area, that will keep these invisible drifting herbicides from trespassing, causing injury and killing as they go. There are no boundaries. No limits. It goes with the wind. The only way to make it stop, is to stop their use. It’s that simple. Just stop.
I’d like to share that I am not an anti-pesticide person. It is an important tool, just that, a tool, not as the first option. I was raised on a dairy farm and understand that balance is important and respecting the earth and all the life that it holds, is key to our own survival as humans.
I ask you to realize the enormous extent of this issue. I ask you to learn how to identify herbicide injuries. Document symptoms with Prairie Rivers Network’s Tree and Plant Health Monitoring Program. Report injury to the IDOA. I ask that you add your voice. Be loud. Stand up. Be a seed planter. Talk with your neighbors. Write your legislators. We must work together to stop herbicide drift from doing any more damage to our forests, prairies, crops, and the places we live and play. By doing so, we are also taking care of one another.
Let’s prevent Future Shade-less Summers, like what my husband and I are already beginning to experience at our home, in the woods, before it is too late. For the trees on our property, that could be this year, taking us to a place that we cannot return from.
For our current and future generations.
