Helicopter herbicide sprays are poisoning Oregon…is it rigged or is it rogue? | Beyond Toxics

"Two years ago, there was little public awareness about the common industrial practice of using helicopters to spray thousands of acres of forests with herbicides. That was before the Cedar Valley spray case in which over forty people reported being sickened by exposure to a chemical soup raining down from an aerial herbicide spray. After all, who could really imagine that Oregon’s timber companies routinely hire helicopter pilots, dozens of hazardous chemical truck drivers and pesticide applicators to carry out a program of blanketing forestlands and streams with toxic chemicals? It seemed unbelievable, until the public learned more.

When the brave folks from Cedar Valley came forward to tell their story, regulators and many legislators scoffed. “That’s just one rogue pilot, a solitary incident!” Industry lobbyists claimed, “We follow all applicable laws!”  However, now their claims have been blown out of the water by the Applebee Aviation case. Applebee handles a large percentage of the contracts for aerial herbicide sprays in Oregon. They are hired by companies ranging from privately-owned Seneca Jones Timber to the State Department of Forestry.

Applebee Aviation’s illegal activities were exposed by Darryl Ivy, an aviation mechanic and truck driver licensed to pilot hazardous waste trucks. He called Beyond Toxics for help after he attended one of our Herbicide and Health town hall meetings in Roseburg last April. He was very sick and he was shocked at what Applebee Aviation and Seneca Timber asked workers to do, and endure, as private forestry workers.  Ivy was working for Applebee Aviation driving trucks filled with jet fuel, pesticides and other chemicals on public roads and logging roads throughout southern Oregon. Ivy wasn’t really sure he wanted to call us, because he is a man used to working with dangerous chemicals in perilous situations like the North Slope of Alaska. What he witnessed compelled him to act."

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