The Hawaii County Council by a 6-3 margin recently passed Bill 101.
The bill generated in part due to the response to the recent revelations about the herbicide glyphosate and the court cases that have found that glyphosate was responsible for cancer in three cases, with huge financial judgments. The size of these judgments reflects the opinion of the juries that Monsanto and Bayer, which bought Monsanto, were less than forthcoming about evidence they had about the possible dangers of glyphosate and because of efforts by those companies to create “science” that minimized the risk of that chemical.
I am currently chair of the Agriculture Committee in our House of Representatives. Last legislative session we introduced a bill to restrict or eliminate the use of glyphosate on public school grounds in our state. The legislation was deferred because of assurances that that substance as well as all other chemical herbicides were banned on school grounds. When it became apparent that those bans were not being honored by some schools, a stronger edict from the Board of Education hopefully eliminated those pockets of noncompliance.
I recently sent out a survey to my constituents asking them if glyphosate should be banned for any use or made a restricted use pesticide with purchase and use requiring training and certification. There was strong support for a ban and in response to the question, “Should glyphosate be banned from our roadways and parks,” the response was 2 to 1 in support of that ban of use on public property.
Based on that survey and the apparent risk of glyphosate causing cancer and other injuries I intend to propose legislation this session to make glyphosate a restricted use herbicide for use on all properties public and private. I intend to make the required training available online and have a phase-in period of at least a year.
In reviewing the Hawaii County Bill 101, I strongly support this effort to protect the public from unwitting or unwilling exposure to the listed agrochemicals. The bill does not ban agricultural or private use and has a lengthy phase in period. It is a proactive proposal to protect our citizenry and does little to infringe the rights of those citizens to use those chemicals on their private property. Some of those chemicals already are listed as restricted use herbicides and require special training e.g. paraquat.
One of the subgroups that might be at particular risk from these chemicals are pregnant women and their unborn children and babies and young children. Our state was the first state to ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos which our EPA had been poised to ban before our current president was elected. That chemical was banned for indoor use in the United State and for essentially all uses in the European Union in large part because it damaged the brains of unborn babies and young children. That effort was strongly supported by me, Sen. Ruderman, and many cosponsors, and eventually passed unanimously in the House and Senate and was signed by the governor in 2018.
Bill 101 similarly strives to protect the most vulnerable and least powerful of our citizens and I am asking our Hawaii Council to stand firm in that cause and override Mayor Kim’s veto of Bill 101.
Richard Creagan, M.D. is the District 5 State Representative and Chair, Committee on Agriculture.