Sebastopol mom’s mission: Make Caltrans stop spraying Roundup near state highways

Megan Kaun has a master’s degree in environmental engineering and hydrology. She worked for the Army Corps of Engineers on stream remediation and reuse of dredged material. But it wasn’t until a day at the playground seven years ago that she went down the rabbit hole of pesticide use.

Watching her 5-year-old and 2-year-old scamper at Hidden Valley Park in Santa Rosa that day, she was alarmed to hear from another parent that the city of Santa Rosa would soon be spraying the area with the herbicide Roundup.

“It was like an awakening in me,” said Kaun, who lives in Sebastopol. “I hadn’t really thought about pesticides before, which is crazy to me now. It was like, ‘Wow, my kids literally eat the wood chips here.’”

While the data is divided on Roundup, at least one analysis has linked the product to a greater likelihood of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for people with high exposure.

Since that day in Santa Rosa, Kaun has banded with Sonoma County parents, environmental groups statewide, and, more recently, California Assembly member Damon Connolly, who has taken up one of Kaun’s core causes: getting Caltrans to limit its use of Roundup along state highways, and being more transparent when it sprays.

“I brought a problem to Damon,” said Kaun (who pronounces her name to rhyme with “town.”) “I didn’t totally understand what a solution that actually has legs would look like.”

She’s hoping it looks like Assembly Bill 99, which Connolly introduced in January. The bill would require Caltrans, as the California Department of Transportation is known, to annually provide data on which types of pesticides it is using and where they’re being applied and in what quantity. It would also compel the agency to alert residents anytime it is scheduled to spray.

Most importantly, to people like Kaun and Connolly, AB 99 would force Caltrans to comply with more stringent county guidelines where they exist.

That would include Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties. Currently, Mendocino and Humboldt are the only counties in the state where Caltrans is doing that voluntarily. They reached agreements with the state agency in 1989, but others have been unsuccessful in following suit.

“A key focal point of the bill is to respect local control,” Connolly told The Press Democrat. “If jurisdictions have decided to go further, this would tell Caltrans not to come in and kind of override those local considerations.”

A Caltrans representative said the state agency “does not comment on pending legislation.”

He noted in an email that Caltrans applies the most efficient and cost-effective herbicides to ensure fire safety and better visibility along state highways.

“When applying herbicides, Caltrans follows strict protocols, including leaving buffer zones adjacent to creeks, wetlands, waterways and drainage outlets,” he added. “Likewise, Caltrans maintains buffer zones around private driveways and mailboxes.”

And as agricultural interests have noted during legislative hearings, the Department of Transportation already is obliged to consider the use of herbicides as just one tool in a state-mandated “integrated pesticide management” approach to weed control, along with such measures as mowing, weed whacking and grazing.

That point rings hollow to Connolly.

“When you look at Caltrans’ track record, despite the fact they adopted an internal policy in 1992 to use integrated pest management, it does not seem to have resulted in any meaningful reduction,” said the Assembly member, whose district includes all of Marin County and the lower portions of Sonoma County. “In fact, the evidence suggests that pesticides continue to be the go-to approach.”

As Kaun notes, AB 99 would not force Caltrans to purge its stock of Roundup.

“There are still all sorts of loopholes: for invasive species, fire issues, if there is no other feasible option,” she said. “Right now, they spray-mow, spray-mow. It’s not necessary.”

Underlying the debate are open questions about the effects of glyphosate, the primary active ingredient in Roundup-like herbicides, on human and animal life.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center, glyphosate binds tightly to soil, meaning it rarely ends up in groundwater. It does not penetrate human skin easily, and passes through the body fairly quickly when absorbed or ingested.

Brad Hanson, a weed science specialist at the UC Davis Cooperative Extension, agrees with those assessments. Hanson cautioned that he is not a toxicologist, but he has worked with farmers on the use of herbicides for close to 30 years.

“As far as I’m concerned as an herbicide guy, this is a pretty low-tox material,” Hanson said. “Unless you’re a plant.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed a 1-4 rating for pesticides, he said, with 1 being the most toxic. “Glyphosate is a 3, meaning relatively low toxicity,” Hanson said. “So the requirements for applicators is quite low. You can buy this at Home Depot, and the package just says, ‘Wear pants.’”

Asked whether his opinion on glyphosate changes if the chemical is being used for weed abatement, rather than the vital necessity of food production, Hanson said no.

“I think the exposure to humans is even lower if you’re talking about spraying road shoulders on I-5,” he explained. “It’s not a place where many people are picnicking and eating. The risk to people and animals — non-target organisms — is pretty low relative to spraying a crop where it might be used for, say, harvest prep in almonds.”

But science is not unanimous on the subject. For example, a meta-analysis published in the journal Mutation Research in 2019 determined that the risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma increased by 41% for the groups with highest exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides.

This ambivalence is reflected in public policy.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer announced that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” a determination that drew widespread attention and spawned a wave of lawsuits.

Monsanto, the company that introduced Roundup in 1974, had settled more than 100,000 cases by May 2022, paying out an estimated $11 billion, according to Forbes. At that time, another 30,000 suits were pending against Monsanto or Bayer, which now owns the brand.

Yet Roundup remains the most heavily used agricultural chemical in the world, largely because of a Monsanto innovation that allows genetically modified crops to tolerate its toxins.

And other governmental agencies have not aligned with the IARC’s warning.

That’s because the international body’s hazard assessments aim to figure out if a substance, at some potential dose, could “potentially” cause cancer, Hanson said, while national regulatory agencies use real-world risk assessments that include level of exposure.

“To my knowledge, not one single regulatory agency has conducted a review and said they believe glyphosate is carcinogenic,” Hansen noted. “That includes the U.S. EPA, the EU Association, the equivalent Japanese body, the Australian body. I think that’s really important.”

Kaun is unmoved by those determinations. Her work in ecosystem restoration and government regulation does not give her confidence in the safety of herbicides. And she wonders why Caltrans can’t focus on nontoxic strategies to keep its highway shoulders clear.

The transportation department sprayed more than 245,000 pounds of active ingredient, not necessarily limited to glyphosate, on its 258,000 acres of state-owned roadsides in 2022. That included the seven routes that run through Sonoma County.

“I live along (Highway) 116, and I see what they do,” Kaun said. “I see orange weeds every year.”

She found a willing partner in Connolly, who as a Marin County supervisor was highly involved in the local effort, ultimately successful, to ban the use of glyphosate along rights of way there. AB 99 was one of the first bills Connolly introduced after being sworn into the State Assembly in December.

More recently, North Coast State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, signed on as a co-author of the bill. Meanwhile, at least two-dozen farm groups oppose AB 99, though it would not apply to agricultural uses of glyphosate.

AB 99 passed the Assembly floor and is before the Senate Appropriations Committee, which placed the bill in the suspense file Aug. 14 because its estimated cost of implementation is more than $50,000. An aide to Connolly said that move is routine.

If the bill advances from the suspense file, it will head for a Senate floor vote, an Assembly concurrence vote and, if those are affirmative, to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. That won’t be a slam dunk. Last year, Newsom vetoed AB 2146, which would have banned the use of neonicotinoids, a group of insecticides employed widely on farms.

Kaun is a bit apprehensive about the endgame. Despite her tireless advocacy, she seems more comfortable in the field, or at the playground, than in legislative hearings.

“My daughter today was saying, ‘I don’t really like politics,’” Kaun said recently. “I don’t know if I do either.”

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.