Earthblog

Early last fall Karen Hare, a Fort Collins resident, came to a screening we held of “Living Downstream,” a documentary based on the book of the same title by Dr. Sandra Steingraber exploring the link between cancer and chemicals in the environment. Karen brought us her own documentary showing Davey Tree spraying her neighbor’s property and the effects the chemical drift, or toxic trespass, had on her. Karen is chemically sensitive. When exposed to certain chemicals she breaks out in awful skin conditions, feels like crap, and so on. We’ve got laws to protect people like Karen, though it’s not clear how functional they are in this case. Additionally, Karen claims she can’t safely eat any of the organically grown produce from her garden after they’ve been exposed to these chemical products.

Our first story ran on the 48th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In this story we asked what we’ve learned since then; we’re still not sure how to measure this. We don’t know how to carry this question further or help Karen out. She’s at the end of her road and we don’t have the muscle to change her circumstances. We’re asking for community engagement on this issue. If Karen’s video, or our earlier work is helpful in thinking about this, here are the links: Part I and Part II. We want people to share this story and help us find new ways of thinking about it. We want to help these neighbors find resolution to their conflict.

In trying to understand this problem, our investigation put us in contact with John Scott, Program Director for the Department of Agriculture, who was very helpful. Mr. Scott answered all our questions and insisted any sanctions recommended by Colorado Department of Agriculture were in the “final stages” of determination, and would amount to more than a slap on the wrist. We found Mr. Scott to be direct with his answers, helpful, and knowledgeable. Still, more than five months later Karen reported that the investigation had not been resolved. A week later she reported Davey had been fined $1000. According to their 2009 Annual Report, Davey Tree’s revenue was over $562 million.

Our investigation did not put us in touch with Davey Tree who, to this day, has not returned a number of calls and emails. Also, our investigation did not put us in touch with Karen’s neighbor who we felt clearly has the right to employ whatever legal means and licensed contractors to care for their landscape. We did raise questions about the difference between a “right to do something” and the “right thing to do.” As an operation with deep concerns about our treatment of the land, raising such question is a core part of our mission. In the end, Karen and her neighbor had a lengthy, less-than-cordial interaction in the comments of Part II of our story.

In Karen’s most recent letter to us she was exasperated. She felt the fine was barely a slap on the wrist, and couldn’t possibly cover the human labor involved in a year and half long investigation. She wrote “I do not know what recourse I have to keep companies from spraying again, but I will be in my yard when and if they spray this spring.  I will not leave my yard as I believe I have a right to be there and not get sprayed.” This is the solution, if it can even be called such, of a very desperate person.

We’re freaked out by this. Further investigation by our staff will likely not move this issue toward any kind of resolution. Yet we’re left with unsatisfying, even disturbing questions. Too often legal gets used as a synonym for “right,” as in moral, or correct. We fail to recognize that what is legal is in flux. The resulting question is what do we, as a community, as a society, do when one person’s legal rights collide with an other's well being?

Sincerely,

Charles Malone and the Matter Editors