Are People in Sherman County Sick from Herbicide Spraying?

Sherman County, Oregon is in the limelight due to the allegation that its leaders are threatening to spray the 2,000 acre organic Azure Standard farm with toxic herbicides.

“Azure Farms is a working, Certified Organic farm located in Moro, Central Oregon, in Sherman County. It has been Certified Organic for about 18 years. The farm produces almost all the organic wheat, field peas, barley, Einkorn, and beef for Azure Standard,” according to a post on the farm’s website. The popular business has a nationwide presence because it delivers its products and other health foods to “drops” around the US, and any one can organize a group for a drop site.

Bryan Cranston, a farmer who sprays herbicide on the seed wheat he grows across the road from Azure, says weed seeds that drift over from the organic farm are forcing him to apply more herbicide and it’s costing him an additional $12 to $15 an acre.

Sherman County has been sending Azure Standard weed violation notices since 2006. Apparently, Azure doesn’t think the weeds are quite as noxious as the neighboring farmers and hasn’t dealt with them as aggressively as the weed board would like. The board suggested Azure spray its fields with Escort or Milestone, and that if it didn’t respond, the county would have to take the spraying into its own hands and send Azure the bill. The church Ecclesia of Sinai at Dufur, a corporation sole that owns Azure’s land, responded with a statement that it “has not and does not give any jurisdiction to any Federal, State, or County employees to trespass on Ecclesia ground to spray any toxic or poisonous substance at any time. We are happy to work with neighbors and the Weed District, as long as it is in line with Yahweh’s Word (Matt. 22:37-40).”

County officials then suggested other more organically appropriate options — like heavy deep tillage to rip up roots or covering weeds with dark plastic. Essentially, they wanted to see a weed control plan that Azure agreed to follow in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, Azure’s CEO David Stelzer was genuinely concerned about planes dumping chemicals on his organic farm and took to social media for help. Two videos posted on Facebook went viral and the county was bombarded with more than 57,000 emails that spoke in favor of Azure and the value of organic farming.

Status quo farmers and the local good old boys and gals network who don’t mind chemical spray in the environment, rallied and asked the Oregon Wheat Commission and state agriculture Director Alexis Taylor for support. Then there was a big meeting at the high school gym where about 300 people filled the bleachers and many addressed the commissioners.

***

If chemicals like glyphosate are really bad for people, we should try to enlighten the leaders of Sherman County, not be mad at them, right? After all, with all those toxic chemicals in the air, soil, and water, the citizens must be sicker than most, which might move some over to the organic approach once they put two and two together.

I thought I’d investigate the day-to-day health challenges of the folks in Sherman County, by googling around a bit.

“A good fisherman goes out of his way to bait his hook with what the fish prefer — which might not be a bad tip for those who wish to succeed in human relationships.” shermancountynews.com

How Are the People of Sherman County, Oregon Feeling?

As it turns out, Sherman County is the most cancer-prone county in Oregon, with 528.2 new cases per 1000 people between 2005 and 2015, according to the CDC. I looked into possible links between the cancers and chemical weed control. After messing around with the interactive database for quite a while, I  was unable to determine the kind of cancer driving the statistic.

Despite its prevalence, cancer is far from being the residents’ top health concern. The biggest Medicare expenditure is for high blood pressure, followed by high cholesterol, arthritis, and type 2 Diabetes, according to Medicare benefit disbursement records. Nevertheless, the incidences for these other diseases is quite a bit less than state averages.

They Live Longer & Take Lots of Opiods

People in Sherman County live longer than elsewhere in the state and nation, on average, according to healthdata.org, despite more smoking, heavy drinking, and higher obesity levels. But they are less likely to kill themselves or others, and illegal drug abuse is much lower than state and national averages, especially among the men. Legal drug use is high, though. Both men and women take a lot of opiods, with 28 percent of the population getting 2,543 prescriptions forHydrocodone, Oxycodone, Morphine, Methadone or Hydromorphone in 2012.

Transport Injuries Cause the Most Deaths

Mortality from “transport injuries” is the main cause of death by far, and quite a bit higher than state and national averages, especially among the men, who are nearly twice as likely to die from such accidents than in the rest of Oregon. The cause is not explained — whether it’s linked to the heavy drinking and prescription drug use mixed with driving vehicles or operating farm equipment;  or crazy divers speeding through on the Interstate, or just good old red neck dare-deviling, or a combination of the above.

Crime in Sherman County

The second superlative I found when googling Sherman County is that the pastoral wheat growing area sends more people to prison per capita than any other county in Oregon. Okay, the entire county population is down to 1,710 these days, and five or six people a year go to prison from there. Nevertheless, that’s double the state ratio per 1,000.

The sheriff, in an article posted in 2013 at oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news, said Sherman County’s “high” prison rate is not the locals’ fault. It’s visitors like fishermen at local lakes who are “up here drinking and having fun on the rivers and in the state parks. Those are the people we tend to deal with more.” So, take a lesson and be careful if you go drinking and whooping it up around Sherman County. The sheriff also pointed out that he’s got a canine drug team that intercepts drug smugglers on U.S. 97. So, don’t think you’re going to get away with smuggling dope through the rural expanses of central Oregon.

In the same article, Sherman County District Attorney Wade McLeod, said the last person dispatched to state prison from Sherman County was a drunk driver who apparently lived in the area and had several priors. The other four cases resulting in state prison terms involved another drunk driver, a meth dealer, a man who shot his wife in the face, and a murdering pedophile. The citizens of Sherman County are less likely to carry out such behaviors, however, except perhaps the drunk driving, than people in other parts of the state. The amount of criminal behavior just seems worse because the county’s small population leads to a “statistical anomaly,” according to McLeod.

They’ve Got Drones & Chemicals, And Insurance to Cover Them

Back to the spraying issue: A year ago last May, Weed District Director, Rod Asher, reported to the Sherman County Court of Commissioners that a Drone Use Policy was being developed and the court authorized an expenditure of $250,000 for drone insurance coverage. At the same meeting, Matt McGowain of PayneWest advised the county to raise its spraying pollution policy to $1 million per occurrence and $2 million per year. The court approved both and authorized the weed department to  pass the additional cost to consumers on their “spray bills.”

Upon reading Sherman County’s Weed Ordinance of 2001, I noticed that the spraying ordinance and state law upon which it is based  don’t specifically address organic farms.

Moreover, Sherman County is apparently changing the interpretation of its weed rules from controlling noxious weeds to eradicating them altogether. The weeds in question include Morning Glory, Canada Thistle, and Whitetop, all of which have been on the Azure farm for many years – controlled, but still present. “Organic farming methods – at least as far as we know today – can only control noxious weeds—it is very difficult to eradicate them,” wrote Nathan Stelzer, Azure Farm’s Manager.

According to the existing ordinance, as I read it, the county should not be able to force chemical spraying on an organic farm, since it is supposed to deal with the weed problem “in the most appropriate manner.” Obviously, spraying chemicals on a US certified organic farm is not appropriate, as it would destroy the business.

Azure hired an organic agriculture consultant and finally presented a Weed Control Plan to the county.

Weed boards everywhere provide lots of resources on how to manage noxious weeds with chemicals. Maybe now that they understand the popularity of organic groceries the weed patrol will step up research and advice on compliance for organic operations.