Good morning, I hope you all are having Happy Holidays! I hope this group might be interested in the amount of pesticide use there is _in_ our national parks. I have spent four months running into an absolute brick wall when requesting pesticide use data in the parks. Yosemite still won’t admit that they even have an integrated pest management (IPM) department that is required by law to oversee all pesticide use there.
I desperately wish that the sierra club, the audubon society, the world wildlife fund, or someone would start publishing annual reviews of the real and significant problems our National Parks have. But despite how hard the National Park Service (NPS) is working to deal with these complex issues, I believe a full yearly review and accounting of chemical and non-chemical methods used to combat these significant problems in our National Parks is of utmost importance. I believe an open public accounting would also benefit the Parks themselves! I find it stunning that this idea has not yet occurred to our premier environmental groups in 2023.
_Our_ Parks are supposed to be for the environment. They should not be monsanto’s, dow chemical’s, or dupont’s private experimentation laboratories and personal play pens. The environment; you know, plants, animals, the birds, the endangered yellow-legged frog, endangered species of bats. It could not possibly be that pesticides used in the parks would impact the food chain for a yellow legged frog _tadpole_, sticklebacks, or bats! (Have you thought about the milk a bat mother has to nurse her baby). If the parks hide pesticide use from the public, the park administrators can continue their expensive lunches and parties with chemical company lobbyists, public relations personnel, and sales representatives. But these park administrators can _not_ get good feedback from the many non-NPS scientists who are doing excellent research on the toxicity to the animals described above and also our less famous native creatures.
https://peer.org/park-service-lack-of-transparency-created-its-huge-foia-backlog/.
Close to 1,500 national park service FOIA requests backlogged. It is truly amazing how many times my requests for _public_ documents have been met with “file a FOIA request” . 😆 . I pretty much consider that a “NO”
My goal is not to harass or annoy park officials but to simply get pesticide documents that are public information that the parks have already compiled. They have already sent it to other government agencies. It is public information. They are required by law to give it to us without a FOIA request. But _Our_ National Parks are having significant administrative issues. In my opinion we _all_ have an obligation to help our natural areas. And that help _has_ to be more than just throwing a little money to some group that says that they will do it for us. So if you are a donor to one of the environmental groups listed above, maybe you could ask them to help us; help us, help the animals, and help the natural environment in Our National Parks.
“File a FOIA request” is now the top rationale given to me for not producing _public_ documents that have already been compiled and even given to other agencies.
So I need help! I have a PhD in Microbiology. I have spent 35 years working with non-toxic aquatic environments. I have a lot of experience and interest in decreasing the use of pesticides. But I think that the first requirement is to get a full review and accounting of chemical and non-chemical methods being used in the Parks. At this stage I have experienced nothing but “lie by omission” by the Everglades, Yosemite, and Sequoia. I know that is harsh language and may be tough to accept but I have many, many emails.
I am not a rabid anti-glyphosate advocate, yet I think that the fact that they are still using glyphosate in our parks is a bad idea. None of the park officials I have spoken to were even aware that glyphosate was originally described as an antibiotic. Therefore they are just not in position to scientifically and critically think about potential glyphosate damage to the soil food web, microbial biofilms (frog larval food sources), and effects on eukaryotic cell function. I think it is an exquisitely bad idea to be spraying toxins that the chemical companies do not adequately study, over large areas of our natural environment.
I am sure that the large majority of Park administrators are wonderful hard-working people, but I’m also sure that huge chemical companies with large pr departments, lobbyists and salespeople can sometimes talk administrators into only one point of view, only one side of what a pesticide is good for, and just one side of the hazards, dangers, and consequences to the environment. Regardless, I think that getting an accounting of all the different pesticides our parks are using, how much they are using, and exactly where used must be the first step in _truly_ protecting our natural resources.
Thank you so much for what _you_ do for the environment.
Bob
http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/