The view on Clearview is anything but

Jeff Green | May 10, 2017

Residents of Tay Valley Township have been fighting a spraying program that has been underway on County roads in Lanark County for two years, and similar concerns are now being expressed by the Lennox and Addington Stewardship (L&A) Council over a similar program set to start up in L&A this month.

In both cases the roads are being sprayed with Clearview, which is an approved herbicide, and the target species is wild parsnip, which has been associated with painful burns among some people who have been exposed to its toxic juices.
While at least two Lanark County Townships have opted not to spray (Tay Valley and Mississippi Mills) the county roads in those townships were sprayed last year and will be sprayed again this year. Last year, residents living along those roads who were opposed to spraying had the option of putting up “no spray” signs and township crews would avoid their properties.

This year, the protocol has changed, and that has led opponents, such as Sonia Cirka, to voice further opposition. In place of the opt out sign program, those who wish to avoid spraying need to join the “Adopt a Road” program in Lanark County. Taking its cue from previous programs wherein informal residents groups and community clubs “adopt” a section  of road by removing litter and trash build up on the roads, the new program provides for further options, from “spotting and reporting invasive plants and noxious weeds, to hand pulling/spading of invasive plants and noxious weeds”

Anyone who wants to opt for an “adopt a road” commitment in place of roadside spraying, must commit to managing the invasive plants and noxious species through other means”

Sonia Cirka, one of the activists opposing the spraying program, feels that the county is employing the adopt a road program to make it harder for residents to stop the spraying along their property lines.

“One councilor said [at a council meeting in March] that the signs were ‘too political” and looked like a ‘campaign’,” she said, “so they came up with a plan that makes people accept the spraying or pull the weeds themselves. This ignores the fact that the spraying causes environmental damage and is not even effective.”

Dr. Paula Stewart, the Medical Officer of Health for Lanark and Leeds Grenville, presented a report in April of 2016 wherein she identified wild parsnip as a hazard and Clearview as an effective and safe control.

“There is a human public health risk of severe burns from exposure to the sap of wild parsnip. There is no research evidence of a health risk to humans with controlled spraying of roadside ditches with Clearview,” her report concluded.

However others have expressed different perspectives on both questions.

“This is an agricultural Class 4 herbicide that is similar in its action to 2,4D. Clearview isn't approved for use on our lawns, so why would we be putting it on our roadsides?” said Dr. James Coupland, an entomologist who lives in Mississippi Mills township. Coupland also questioned the effectiveness of the treatment: “there isn’t enough incidence of interaction with wild parsnip to merit such a huge outlay of herbicide. All the information we need to know is on the Clearview label.”

Concerns about the impact of Clearview on pollinator species have also been expressed by opponents of the spraying program.

In Lennox and Addington, the local Stewardship Council has expressed similar concerns, pointing out as well that the residents of Addington Highlands living along county roads will be subject to spraying even if Addington Highlands Council decides not to spray.

County roads in L&A include: Road 29 which runs from Hwy. 41 through Flinton to the Hastings County border, the section of Hwy. 41 south of Hwy. 7 to the border with Stone Mills, and Road 30, Buckshot Lake Road which runs from Hwy. 41 south of Denbigh to the border with North Frontenac Township.

In a media release earlier this week, the Stewardship Council said the following: “The main concern for the Lennox and Addington Stewardship Council is that the herbicide selected, Clearview®, is highly soluble in water and could easily enter our waterways through the ditches next to our roads.”

They referred to the opinion expressed by James Coupland that “Clearview takes a long time to break down, and it can travel through a water system for months damaging or killing native plants (including milkweed) and threatening our pollinators. Clearview is highly toxic to aquatic organisms in particular.”

Lennox and Addington residents will have the option to post “no spray” signs on their property but the Stewardship Council is concerned that people are not aware of this and the spraying will take place soon. Also, similar to the situation in Lanark, there are strings attached.

“The landowner must sign an agreement to manage all noxious weeds on their frontage,” said the Stewardship Council release.

In addition to a disagreement over the impacts of spraying on human health and agriculture, the two sides also disagree about Wild Parsnip. Proponents of spraying call it a public helath hazard and opponents call it a nuisance whose impacts can be managed.