A handful of Kaua‘i residents has threatened to file a lawsuit against Kaua‘i County if county leaders don’t follow up on a resolution passed by the County Council that calls for less spraying of herbicides at county parks and along
A handful of Kaua‘i residents has threatened to file a lawsuit against Kaua‘i County if county leaders don’t follow up on a resolution passed by the County Council that calls for less spraying of herbicides at county parks and along county roads.
Diane T. Koerner, Diana Fairechild, Pamela Tong, Karen Tilley and Dona Matera, in an interview with The Garden Island, said they are all chemically-sensitive and that spraying leaves them vulnerable to chemical-poisoning. Some have a hard time breathing, some become nauseated and others develop other medical ailments, requiring medical attention.
Those most susceptible to chemicals may die.
The residents say they want more control over their lives, and will lobby Mayor Bryan Baptiste’s administration to move forward on the council resolution, which was introduced by Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura.
A more short-term goal for the residents is to have a no-spray policy continued on parts of Kawaihau Road from Mahelona Hospital to Kuhio Highway. They all use the road.
Non-compliance with the resolution could prod legal action, as a last course of action, Koerner told The Garden Island.
“We want to work cooperatively with them,” she said. “We don’t want to sue the county.”
At the same time, she said Bruce Clark, the American with Disabilities consultant for the state and county, recommended “that we find a lawyer, and that we should sue the county.”
“We may have to do what was done in California and sue,” Koerner said. “That is how Marin County in California became a no-spray county. And we aren’t ruling that out.”
Koerner, a California resident who moved to Kaua‘i in 1993, recalled the ban applied to parks, roads and government buildings in that California county.
Kaua‘i County officials have responded to public concerns about spraying by posting signs before actual spraying occurs on county roads. State officials also have done that for highways.
The council resolution called on Baptiste’s administration to adopt a no-spray herbicide policy for a minimum of two county parks.
The resolution also called for the County Public Works Department to give notice and warning for the parks and roadside where spraying continues, and to develop and implement an “integrated vegetation management plan for all parks and roadsides.”
Koerner said she is concerned the resolution will sit idle because “the county might say it is not cost-effective to do things differently.” “I just want the county to implement a no-spray policy, period,” she said.
The County can take that first step by launching a pilot project to have portions of Kawaihau Road from Mahelona Hospital to Kuhio Highway manually cleaned, using lawn-mowers and weedwackers, Koerner said.
She said she and others have been told by a previous county official who managed the maintenance programs for county roads that the road area would be cleaned by mechanical means until Sept. 1, this year.
At the same time, she said she probably could enlist some volunteers from the community to conduct manual cleaning there. Koerner also said she would prefer county workers to do the bulk of the work because they would be paid to do the job.
Ryan Nishikawa, chief of field operations and maintenance for the Department of Public Works, said he understands the health needs of the residents, and noted Koerner’s requests for manual clearing of a small portion of Kawaihau Road could be a possibility.
He said he also would be open to the idea of using volunteers to perform the manual clearing of the road, but whether county workers would be tasked to assist is another story.
But manual cleaning of the entire length of Kawaihau Road – more than three miles is another story he said, because such work could be cost prohibitive.
“We need to get together with these people,” he said. “It (their requests) sounds like for the whole Kawaihau Road.”
Nishikawa said manual clearing can be more readily done in the Mainland because the growing season is shorter than it is in Hawai‘i.
As for Baptiste’s administration plans to implement an integrated maintenance plan for county parks and beaches, Nishikawa said, “we are looking at different options.”
Koerner said the precedent for a no-spray policy for all county parks has been set.
“Two years ago, while I was at the Kapa‘a (Beach) Park, I got an instant migraine,” she said. “While I was sitting at the park bench, (county workers) they had been spraying without notice.”
That incident, she said, triggered her campaign to have the county post notice signs before spraying occurred.
In response, she said Mel Nishihara, who heads the recreational division of the county, issued instructions not to spray at Kapa‘a Beach Park and at Lydgate Park, and called for manual clearing for the past two years.
If the no-spray policy can be implemented at some county parks, it also can be applied to other county facilities and roadways as well, Koerner reasons.
Eventually, Koerner said she would like to see a no-spray policy in effect for all county parks and roads.
That may be difficult because spraying has been the traditional way of dealing with weeds on government roads and at government properties, she acknowledged.
New information is available today on the harmful effects of herbicides on humans, animals and the environment, and people should adopt safer ways to clear weeds, Koerner said.
Fifteen percent of the island’s residents have asthma, and they can be impacted by herbicides, Koerner said. Studies on children show that herbicides can bring on asthma, she added.
“We have to take it step by step when you have been doing things (eliminating weeds by use of herbicides only) the same way for so many years,” Koerner said. “It (getting people to adjust their thinking to new methods) requires a massive education campaign.”
Koerner said she became chemically sensitive after she was exposed to pesticide spray while working in the financial district in San Francisco in 1989.
Tong also worked as an executive secretary in the same business district in San Francisco, moved to New York and ran her own interior design business and was involved in the construction trade. She said she breathed in asbestos, paint and varnish, damaged her liver and became sensitive to chemicals.
Tilley said her condition came about without any warning a few years ago. “When I went through the house, I noticed my nose, my nasal passages got seared just smelling the bathroom air freshener plugged into the wall,” she said. “It hurt for four hours after the exposure.” Fairechild, author of five books and a retired international flight attendant, said she was subjected to routine spraying of planes with DDT during 18 years working for Pan American and United Airlines.
The chemical was used for sanitation purposes.
Fairechild said she became chemically-sensitive in the early 1980s after she became suddenly ill.
She said she knew something was wrong when her attention to detail began to fade. “I was a chief purser for Pan Am, and I had 400 people and 15 flight attendants under me,” she said. “I was very, very together for a long time.”
Matera said she became chemically sensitive while living in California, noting, during one year, she “was passing through a building, a foul-smelling one, and was told it was varnish. But it wasn’t varnish.”
In 2001, she was exposed to termite treatment at a home on the East Coast.
All the women head to the beach as often as possible to breathe in ocean air they say gives them relief from their condition. Tong said a daily swim in the ocean also is her salvation. “I walk across the street, I have gas fumes, diesel fumes on me, whatever. So I go to the ocean and swim everyday. I have to,” Tong said.
Others eat organic food and are continually attentive to what is in their environment, to avoid exposure to chemicals.
- Lester Chang, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@ kauaipubco.com.
