Ka‘ū News Briefs, Thursday, November 21, 2019

Kaʻū Roping & Riding has announced a gymkhana this Sunday at 9:30 a.m. at Nāʻālehu Arena and a Lantern Parade through Nāʻālehu on Saturday, Dec. 14 at 6 p.m. See more events below. Photo by Geneveve Fyvie

A BAN ON USE OF MANY PESTICIDES BY HAWAIʻI COUNTY passed the County Council Wednesday with a six to three vote. Twenty-three herbicides, including Roundup, will be banned for use in Hawaiʻi County parks, roads, bikeways, sidewalks, trails, drainageways, and waterways. The bill will take effect over the course of four years. Maile David, Kaʻū's councilwoman, voted for the ban. Attendees of the meeting applauded the passage.
     The bill doesn't apply to using the herbicides on non-county lands and land leased by the county to others. The bill also allows applying these herbicides "directly into the trunk or onto the cut stump of a targeted invasive species using methods known as incision point injection or cut stump application." This was added at the request of the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, which is combating such species as the invasive albizia tree.
     The bill also creates a vegetation management transition committee to oversee development of alternatives to the prohibited herbicides. The committee will include a county resident versed in "weed science," and a person with knowledge in Native Hawaiian plants, tropical horticulture, agroforestry, silviculture, organic landscape design and maintenance, permaculture, and natural farming.

Roundup contains an herbicide that is banned in Hawaiʻi County for use by the county on county lands.

     The banned herbicides are: acetochol, alachlor, atrazine, aminopyralid, benfluralin, clopyralid, dicamba, dithiopyr, diquat dibromide, diuron, fluazifpr-p-butyl, glufosinate, glyphosate, imazapyr, isoxaben, MCPA, mecoprop (MCPP), metolachlor, paraquat dichloride, pendimethalin, trilopr, trifluralin, and 2,4-D. The main active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate. Acetochlor is sold under brand names Acenit, Guardian, Harness, Relay, Sacemid, Surpass, Top-Hand, Trophy, and Winner. Atrazine brand names include Marzone. MCPP is often used in combination with other chemically related herbicides such as 2,4-D, dicamba, and MCPA.
     The bill states herbicides are "heavily used to control vegetation in public places" and that "exposure to these substances subjects the public, County workers, domestic animals, and wildlife to a high risk of exposure to dangerous chemicals." The bill states that the World Health Organization "has listed glyphosate, a commonly used herbicide, as a probable carcinogen." It is a component of Roundup.
     Blake Watson, a Hawaiʻi Sierra Club representative who helped draft the bill, told AP News that a previous herbicide ban proposal resulted in difficulties defining what should be considered toxic. "We decided to make a different kind of system that specifically laid out the chemicals without getting in the quagmire of what's toxic and what's dangerous, which gets really murky. If the county wants to add to (the list), they can add to it."