{"id":97360,"date":"2018-10-18T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T22:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-is-divided-over-boyle-park-herbicide-treatment\/"},"modified":"2018-10-18T16:32:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T22:32:41","slug":"mancos-is-divided-over-boyle-park-herbicide-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-is-divided-over-boyle-park-herbicide-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos is divided over Boyle Park herbicide treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"During
During a morning protest on Oct. 12, Lily Russo, right, and other protesters speak against the town of Mancos\u2019 use of the herbicide 2,4-D in Boyle Park. Regulatory bodies such as the European Food Safety Authority and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have approved use of the compound. The World Health Organization says it is \u201cpossibly\u201d carcinogenic.<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tension over weed control measures reached a head in Mancos last week after the town applied the herbicide 2,4-D to Boyle Park. Residents who showed up to the park to protest said the compound presents unnecessary health risks to children and other park visitors.<\/p>\n

The town said traditional herbicides like 2,4-D are necessary to comply with state laws about weed control. Residents said 2,4-D, which is not organic, causes health problems including a higher risk of cancer, but experts and regulators are not so sure.<\/p>\n

The herbicide kills broadleaf weeds without affecting grass. It has been commercially available since 1945 and in 2001 was the third-most popular herbicide in the United States.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Noxious Weed Act requires Mancos to control \u201cnoxious\u201d weeds, including species found in Boyle Park such as hound\u2019s-tongue, bindweed and thistle.<\/p>\n

In May, a letter from Montezuma County Noxious Weed Department Director Bonnie Loving implored the town to control weeds in public areas and advised the town that organic methods were \u201cnot the most feasible or efficient way to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn conclusion, the organic herbicides are not efficient or feasible for a town\u2019s goals,\u201d Loving wrote.<\/p>\n

Three residents who attended the Town Board meeting on Oct. 10 asked trustees to reconsider their decision to spray Boyle Park, but were told the decision had been discussed and made May 9.<\/p>\n

And a letter to the board from Mancos Parks manager Terry Jennings in May stated that the cost of a certified organic treatment could be six times the cost of traditional methods and more than three times the cost of a \u201ccombination organic based\u201d solution.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Mancos released a report detailing a 10-year plan to decrease the number of traditional methods that some residents have opposed. The report said traditional methods \u201cmay still be required in some areas,\u201d especially those with low foot traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Town assumes that all pesticides are potentially hazardous to human and environmental health,\u201d the 2015 report states. \u201cTherefore, reasonable non-pesticide alternatives shall be given preference over chemical controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lily Russo has pointed out in emails to trustees and The Journal that 2,4-D was one of the two main ingredients in Agent Orange, an herbicide used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War and blamed for health problems among Vietnamese citizens and U.S. soldiers.<\/p>\n

However, experts generally agree that the main health problems of Agent Orange were from 2,4,5-T, the mixture\u2019s other ingredient, while the problems attributed to 2,4-D were much more mild.<\/p>\n

The link to cancer is weak<\/div>\n

Although 2,4-D studies have suggested a wide range of plausibilities, the consensus among regulators holds that the compound has not proved to be harmful to humans, given appropriate usage.<\/p>\n

In 1987, the World Health Organization classified 2,4-D as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic,\u201d also known as group 2B. In 2015, WHO reaffirmed this classification, citing \u201cmoderate evidence\u201d that the compound was linked to immunosuppression and \u201cstrong evidence\u201d that it caused oxidative stress, a state of chemical imbalance that has been linked to cancer in separate research.<\/p>\n

However, the agency also said in its 2015 review that it did not observe \u201cstrong or consistent increases\u201d in cancer risk related to 2,4-D exposure.<\/p>\n

Although WHO findings provide expert opinions, they don\u2019t have direct regulatory effects.<\/p>\n

The European Union has approved regulated use of 2,4-D since 2002, and in 2011 affirmed that the usage limits were safe for consumers. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has found that 2,4-D is safe when used as directed.<\/p>\n

The EPA has approved use of pesticides containing 2,4-D since 1948. In 1992, the agency categorized the compound as group D: \u201cnot classifiable as to human carcinogenicity.\u201d Group D is one step above the category for compounds that have \u201cno evidence\u201d of being carcinogenic and one below the \u201cpossibly carcinogenic\u201d category that parallels WHO\u2019s 2B category.<\/p>\n

Since 1992, the EPA has reviewed studies exploring any possible link between cancer risk and exposure to 2,4-D at least three times, each time finding that data do not support a conclusion that links human cancer to 2,4-D exposure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. and European regulators say compound is safe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[739,13,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97360"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}