PUBLIC LETTER
August 11, 2016
Dear Marlborough Officials,
What do residents want? They want to live in safe, healthy neighborhoods. Residents have reasonable concerns about herbicide spraying throughout Marlborough.
1 MISLEADING NOTICE Your notice* on the city website suggests a person with a spray pump would apply herbicide on a few streets; however, a driver in a vehicle is spraying sidewalks throughout the city.
2 PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD According to the Safety Data Sheets, the herbicides used by the DPW are hazardous to health:
- Roundup Pro EPA reg No. 524-475
- Oust Extra EPA reg No. 352-622
The EPA has stated that at least one of the ingredients, glyphosate, is a known probable carcinogen.
Having the legal right to spray herbicides in Marlborough neighborhoods does not make it right. Making employees and local residents breath, ingest, and come in dermal contact with harmful toxics without their choice or knowledge is unethical if not illegal.
The herbicides sprayed will be washed by the next rain storm into stormdrains that go to streams, ponds, lakes, and reservoirs to our water supply. People will drink it, bath in it, cook with it, make coffee with it, and water their lawns with it. They will fish in it, play in it, and swim in it. Year after year, the toxic body burden can build up in children and adults.
Some communities do not use toxics because they want to protect their land, water, employees and residents. Our community should not use toxics either.
3 COSTS
A vehicle, equipment, chemicals, and employees cost a lot of money. Health expenses are even higher. Employees and residents bear the burden of medical expenses unaware that hazardous herbicides can cause or contribute to ill health.
4 DROUGHT and LAWN HEALTH
We are experiencing a drought this year and our landscapes are already vulnerable. The herbicide further harms landscapes when the herbicide spray drifts over them.
5 ACCOUNTABILITY
Who can residents turn to when city officials’ are misleading or dismissive, and make decisions detrimental to public health?
6 PUBLIC INTEREST INFO
I believe employees and residents have the right to know about the hazardous herbicide spraying in our neighborhoods. I’m posting footage of the herbicide spraying on the local Green Marlborough TV show, and am copying this letter to local, state, and federal officials.
Jen Boudrie
Resident, Marlborough, MA
Founder, Green Marlborough
PHOTOS TO COME
August 9, 2016 – Employee spraying hazardous herbicides throughout the city from a truck.
August 9, 2016 – Marlborough has well-cared-for neighborhoods like this. People walk their pets and children play on the sidewalks and streets. The city has sprayed untold gallons of herbicides with known probable carcinogens – year after year – in our neighborhoods and in front of our homes.
August 9, 2016 – The spray is the wet, dark area on the sidewalk. A rain storm will wash the herbicide into storm drains to streams, lakes, and reservoirs. People will drink it, bath in it, cook with it, make coffee with it, water their lawns with it. They will fish in it, play in it, and swim in it. Year after year, the toxic body burden builds up in children and adults.
Image from Marlborough city website on August 9, 2016.