Anchorage Daily News

Talkeetna is a railroad town. People live alongside it, flag down trains and ride to work from cabins miles up and down the tracks, and use the rail corridor as a trail for four-wheelers and snowmachines. Talkeetna is also ground zero in the 20-year-plus fight to keep the state-owned Alaska Railroad from using chemical weed-killers.

In a packed meeting at the log cabin VFW Post on Veterans Way last month, people stood up and told state regulators and railroad officials they weren't just opposed to the railroad's application to spray herbicides on its rail bed to control vegetation. They were "very opposed." "Adamantly opposed." "Vehemently opposed."

"I'm dead set against it," said Don Billington, who added that he's lived along the track since 1970. "Thank you very much."

The railroad hasn't used chemical weed control since 1984, when a federal judge ordered it to stop because the then federally owned railroad had failed to complete environmental studies he had ordered two years earlier. The ruling came in a suit filed by a group of rural residents, most of whom lived in the Talkeetna area.

In the two decades since, railroad officials have broached the idea of returning to chemical weed control several times. Each proposal has been shot down amid howls of public protest, some killed by governors, some withdrawn by the railroad itself. Instead of chemicals, the railroad has used mechanical brush cutters and prison work gangs to knock down growth, and replaced some stretches of track to cure problems caused by vegetation in the rail bed.

That's no longer enough, railroad officials say. They've applied to the state Department of Environmental Conservation to begin spraying three herbicides straight down onto the roughly 12-foot-wide rail bed beginning next spring.

"The area that hasn't been addressed for a very long time is the area from (one) end of the tie to the other," the railroad's Ernie Piper told the 30 to 40 people packed into the Talkeetna meeting.

Weeds and other vegetation grow down into the gravel rail bed, or ballast, he said. The top, visible part of plants can be cut off or burned away, but the root systems remain buried where they can impede drainage, destabilize tracks and contribute to frost heaves in winter, said Piper, the railroad's assistant vice president for operations and safety.

Piper and other railroad officials say the herbicides they propose to use -- Glyphosate, Oust Extra and 2,4-D, a major component of Agent Orange -- are approved for use by state and federal environmental agencies. Railroads in other states use them regularly, Piper said.

"The problem we have is real, it exists," Piper said in an interview later. "The question before DEC isn't whether pesticides are good or bad. It's, 'Can the Alaska Railroad craft and implement a plan within the federal and state guidelines that govern it?' We believe we can."

Talkeetna isn't convinced.

The July 19 public meeting at the VFW Hall was the sixth in a series of seven hearings in Railbelt towns from Seward to Fairbanks. Most attracted a handful of people, including representatives of environmental groups that oppose the railroad's plan. More turned out in Talkeetna than in the previous five meetings combined. Twenty-five people spoke, and all were opposed to the railroad's request.

They distrusted the claims of railroad officials that the weed-killers can be restricted to the limits of the rail bed and that the chemicals would decompose quickly. The 600 miles of track cross hundreds of streams and line miles of riverfront, and some of whatever herbicide is sprayed on tracks is bound to reach the water, they said.

"Ernie," said Tom Kluberton, a Mat-Su Borough planning commissioner who lives along the railroad about 13 miles south of Talkeetna, "I'm amazed that you can stand here and say that you're gonna spray this stuff on the rocks and imagine that it's gonna stay there."

Kluberton and others argued that rain and runoff are sure to wash chemicals off the tracks and into streams, where they said the toxins could kill or sicken salmon as well as other animals and humans.

"It rains a lot up here," said Ruth Wood, "and I do not believe that anything sprayed on our tracks (will not) go into our streams."

Molly Wood said she and her family live at Mile 231 of the railroad, about five miles north of Talkeetna.

"I use that corridor to get to work every single day," she said. "Surface water is pervasive, even right here in Talkeetna."

Others likened the railroad's assurances about its herbicide program to advocates in previous decades of atomic testing or oil-tanker safety.

"I'm deeply distrustful of the whole process," said Sandy Kogl. "I just wonder how many Joe Hazelwoods" will be at the controls of the railroad's chemical sprayers.

Some accused the railroad of manipulating the facts. Photographs of brush-laced tracks railroad officials use to illustrate their problem don't look much like the tracks north of Talkeetna, John Strasenburgh said, producing pictures of his own to prove his point.

R.G. Denny described himself as a "romantic railroad enthusiast" and said one of the reasons he came to Alaska was to get away from cars and their pollution. "I am opposed to herbicides but I'm worried about derailments," Denny said, urging railroad officials to look for nonchemical methods of securing their rail bed.

"I want to continue to be proud of the Alaska Railroad, and I don't believe I can be if they join the rest of the nation (in using herbicides)," he said.

Judy Price has been fighting railroad herbicide plans since the administration of former Gov. Jay Hammond, who banned spraying herbicides where the railroad crossed state land.

"What we were told in the 1970s is what the railroad is telling us today," she said. "It was nothing but a lie."

Zach Blumner described himself as a fisherman who eats a lot of his catch and worries that herbicides would inevitably infiltrate the food chain.

"Alaska Railroad, wake up," he said. "You're opening a big can of worms here. ... Better give this one up."

Daily News reporter Don Hunter can be reached at dhunter@adn.com.

PUBLIC COMMENT: The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation will accept public comments on the railroad's application until Aug. 14. A technical analysis of the proposal will follow, with a decision expected within 90 days after the end of the comment period. Written comments can be mailed to: Pesticide Program; 555 Cordova St., Anchorage 99501. For more information, e-mail Sandra Woods at sandra_woods@dec.state.ak.us or call her at 269-7802 in Anchorage.