We are willing to poison the Rio Grande to stop illegals from crossing the border ? Added info. (4949 hits)

Dear Secretary Napolitano:

Please put an end to the proposed project to do aerial spraying by the Border Patrol, of a toxic herbicide in order to remove a variety of cane that is causing a variety of problems including interfering with catching smugglers and illegal aliens, along the Rio Grande River at Laredo. The Border Patrol is under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security, and the entire thing is under the authority of the International Boundary and Water Commission, which I understand is under the authority of the Department of State.

It is not that I favor leaving the Mexicans to do whatever criminal activity they like. I strongly favor vigorously keeping most Mexicans out of our country, illegal and otherwise. I favor an effective security force along the southern border. What the Border Patrol has proposed to do would destroy most or all plant life in the sprayed area, converting the treated areas to desert, and adversely affect the health or lives if aquatic life, animals, and the people of the region who get their drinking water from this river, in order to destroy a single nuisance plant. This gives new meaning to overkill. I cannot imagine who could have thought of such an idiotic solution. The last time an enemy or security threat to the U.S. was dealt with by aerial spraying of herbicides in order to improve the visibility of the enemy, was the Vietnam War, and I cannot believe that we would ever do such a thing again, least of all on American soil.
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The two herbicides that were proposed, glyphosphate and imazapyr, are not safe, and imazapyr is the less safe of the two. Here are links to several fact sheets and a report on these two insecticides..

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Imazapyr is a broad-spectrum herbicide manufactured by American Cynamid Co. under the product names Arsenal, Chopper, and Assault. It has been registered in the United States since 1984. Imazapyr is toxic to almost every plant it comes in contact with, as it kills by inhibiting the enzyme plants use to synthesize aminoacids. Within hours of treatment, the ability to synthesize DNA is obliterated and soon afterward all growth ceases.

The complete death of the plant, however, can take as long as a month. The fact that imazapyr is so universally toxic to plants makes it uniquely dangerous .

Publicly available studies on the distance thatimazapyr can drift, or the general chronic toxicity, chronic effects on humans, reproductive hazards, carcinoge-nicity, and chronic effects on fish and birds of imazapyr-containing herbicides. This is important, as studies have shown that many chemicals become more potent in toxicity when combined with other ingredients, asherbicides are. 47% of Arsenal Applicators Concentrate, the most common imazapyr-containing herbicide, iscomprised of ingredients whose identities are not available to the public,

""""""""as it is not required under law to"""""""""""""""" identify “inert” ingredients."""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

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Most of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment of the health hazards posed by Arsenal are based on tests of pure imazapyr, not of all ingredients contained in the herbicide.Health HazardsOne of the primary breakdown products of imazapyr is quinolinic acid, which is irritating the eyes, skin, and respiratorysystem.

In addition, it is a neurotoxin, and causes nerve lesions and symptoms similar to Huntington’s disease.

Although there is limited information on imazapyr herbicides, there have been several studies on the effects of pureimazapyr on animals that can be correlated to the chemical’s potential for affecting human health.

• Rabbits dermally exposed to imazapyr and rats inhaling Arsenal both showed bleeding and congested lungs.Congestion of the liver, intestine, and kidneys was also observed.• Rabbits given imazapyr orally exhibited stomach ulcers and intestinal lesions at most doses tested.
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Scientists say it's safe who are paid and work undercover with the evil FDA. (my insert)

Information Unavailable to the PublicOne of the reasons that there is little so few studies readily available to public researchers. .• toxicity to fish, with effects occurring at concen-trations less than one part per million.•
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Mice and rats fed sublethal doses of imazapyr over two years showed fluid accumulation in the air sacs of the lungs,brain congestion, kidney cysts, abnormal blood forma-tion in the spleen, blood pooling in the liver, thyroid cysts,tumors, and cancers, brain tumors, adrenal gland tumorsand cancers, and decreased food efficiency.• Rabbits dermally exposed to imazapyr herbicides for 21days .

In the case of imazapyr, it seems that another keyaspect of our understanding of its per-sistence is the method by which we measure its presence in that environ-ment. measured ranging from 21days to 49 months in field studies. The cause of this discrepancy seems to be whether the researchers were testingfor the presence of imazapyr by looking for residue identifiable by lab tech-niques, or for imazapyr-caused dam-age to plant life. All studies testing for damage to plants show longer persis-tence, suggesting that imazapyr can cause damage to plants at concentra-tions too low to detect in laboratories.
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••••••••••••••••••ACAT researcher Katie Bryson based this report on a scientific article written by Caroline Cox andpublished by the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides in the Journal of Pesticide Reformvol.16, no.3, fall 1996. You may request a copy of the full article and further information by contactingAlaska Community Action on Toxics at (907) 222-7714.ACAT e-mail: info@akaction.net ACAT website: www.akaction.net

( I hope the writer of this letter sent via Obama groups did not mean I favor keeping most Mexicans out of the country illegal or otherwise????) that won't go over well. Posted By: Marta Fernandez
Friday, March 27th 2009 at 10:45AM
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