Residents Oppose Spray Plan For Budworms Lopsided Response At Hearing On Boise Cascade Use Of Carbaryl

Despite assurances from a timber company and state officials, many residents here fear a potent insecticide sprayed from a helicopter will harm their children, animals and water supply.

Many of the critics are educated retirees and back-to-nature types who gravitated here from congested cities for a better way of life.

One by one, they strode to a microphone Wednesday night to decry Boise Cascade Corp.’s plan to use chemical warfare on a budworm epidemic.

The big gun in the bug battle is carbaryl, a broad-spectrum insecticide that kills all insects on contact or through ingestion.

“If you can guarantee it won’t leach into the ground water or drift onto somebody else’s land, then go to it,” said Jackie Cummings, the wife of a Chewelah veterinarian who contends carbaryl is poisonous. Otherwise, she said, “This is chemical trespass.”

A public hearing held by the Washington Department of Natural Resources drew more than 100 citizens. They spoke out 6-1 against the proposed aerial spraying.

Boise Cascade owns 270,000 acres of Northeast Washington land and is losing money to an invading army of inch-long caterpillars that transform into needleeating moths.

Boise Cascade has petitioned the state to use carbaryl, trade name SEVIN, on 10,000 acres in the Huckleberry and Summit ranges, 20 miles southwest of Colville.

The company’s Northeast Washington forester, Phillip D. Anderson, estimates the loss of tree growth alone in that area to be $500,000. The loss from dead trees is much higher but hasn’t been calculated, he said.

“I look at us as a neighbor,” Anderson said. “We’re not out to impact our neighbors.”

Several opponents want to know why Boise Cascade has opted for carbaryl when a safer bacterial agent - bacillus thuringiensis - often is effective.

Anderson said previous work with BT has brought mixed results that ranged with the weather.

BT doesn’t work unless the budworms ingest it. Budworms don’t eat unless trees are budding, he said. Cold, wet weather delays the budding process.

Carbaryl only has to touch the moths to work, Anderson said.

Another debate was over carbaryl’s effects. State officials said there are no significant impacts from use of the chemical, as long as it’s kept away from populated areas and water supplies.

But several residents produced studies and articles that suggest carbaryl causes cancer and birth defects. The Journal of Pesticide Reform in Eugene, Ore., says the chemical harms everything that touches it.

“I cannot conscience spraying a toxic substance when there is a viable alternative,” said Frances Wade.

Boise Cascade has budgeted $160,000 for the spray program, including a monitoring program and intense preparation plans to minimize drifting, its regional forester said.

For each acre, the company would use one quart of carbaryl and one quart of diesel fuel to make the insecticide adhere to the trees.

“These are minor amounts,” Anderson said. “We’re talking about low volumes.”

Boise Cascade faces two hurdles. First, the state must validate a 6-year-old U.S. Forest Service environmental study on carbaryl and budworm. Otherwise, a new study will be ordered, delaying the process by months.

Next, the state Forest Practices Board on May 25 must reject an appeal by two environmental groups and the Spokane Tribe.

Just in case, Boise Cascade has submitted two other applications in its war against budworm. One proposal is to use BT and the other an experimental hormonal agent.

“Doing nothing is worse,” Anderson said.