Alaska Railroad Corp. has received a permit from state regulators to spray the herbicide AquaMaster (key ingredient Glyphosate) and Agri-Dex, a substance to help spread it, along 30 miles of track between Seward and Indian. The railroad has not used chemical weed control for the past 26 years due to widespread public opposition and an inability to obtain the needed permits. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation permit is for two years. But earlier this month six Alaska environmental groups and the Native Village of Eklutna intervened to delay DEC from activating the permit. The groups are hoping that the agency will reverse its decision altogether.
"The Alaska Railroad does not take the use of an herbicide lightly," stated ARRC spokeswoman Stephenie Wheeler in an e-mail to SewardCityNews.com. "After spending considerable resources and time trying to control weeds without the use of herbicides, the railroad has continued to lose ground," she said.
Last year the Federal Railroad Administration issued 130 vegetation-related violations to ARRC for failing to meet federal safety mandates with regard to vegetation in and around the tracks. These carry potential fines of $1,000 apiece. As recently as late May, FRA inspectors returned and issued 20 additional violations for vegetation. FRA warned the railroad that its safety situation was critical and needed be corrected. They say if the problem isn't addressed, they could be forced to slow down the trains, or close the tracks in certain areas. The railroad says it fears trains could derail. Alaska's train system carries nearly 500,000 passengers a year, and approximately 40 percent of its freight is classified as hazardous materials.
"Alaskans should be proud of our railroad's safety record, and proud that we have maintained this record without the dangerous use of herbicides," said Russ Maddox, the activism director for Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance, one of the six Alaska environmental groups. Maddox says the Alaska Railroad appears to be more interested in cutting costs than funding the alternative, less toxic methods that it has used successfully for more than two decades. The railroad only recently quit using prison labor to pull weeds and is no longer using safer eradication methods such as steam heating, currently in use by railroads throughout Europe and in Canada.
An administrative law judge was assigned to the case Monday, June 7, and a 20-day public comment period will follow, after which the DEC Commissioner will have 15 days to decide whether to grant the stay.
Herbicide use by state agencies was first halted by Alaska Gov. Jay Hammond in 1978. The railway's spray program was halted in an August 1982 injunction by a U.S. District Court judge after Talkeetna area residents claimed that the chemical herbicides were polluting their water and sickening them and their animals. Judge James von der Heydt found that internal regulations by the railroad allowed it to implement a spraying program without any consideration of the environmental consequences. Since then public opposition to the railroad's efforts to get permits has continued. As recently as 2006, both the Seward City Council and Kenai Peninsula Borough passed unanimous resolutions against herbicide spraying within their limits -- citing environmental and health concerns. Last September, ADEC received 106 comments in opposition to the proposed permit, versus 17 in favor. The city did not object two years ago, however, when the railroad asked permission to conduct a two-year research project on the herbicide downtown.
Two issues of particular contention are whether the chemicals are safe and whether they would leach off the tracks and into water bodies.
The railroad proposes to use low volume, low pressure round-directed attachments to apply the chemicals from beneath a slow moving railcar. The method is designed to limit the potential for wind to carry the spray away from the target areas. Licensed contractors also will use hand pumps for spot applications. The herbicide would be sprayed only within the industrial rail yard and along the gravel track bed (about 8 feet wide) where the public is not supposed to trespass for their safety, Wheeler said. Even though AquaMaster is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for use in and around water, the railroad will not spray within 100 feet of a waterway or water body, she said.
The coalition claims that the railroad failed to consider the effects of spraying on numerous additional water bodies within zones it plans to spray, and that it could cause serious harm to these area waterways, private wells, salmon habitat, and to those who hunt, fish, or pick berries near the tracks. Waterways not included in the permit application include Henry Creek at mile 41.6, Victor or "Vickery" Creek at mile 20, and another unnamed lake at mile 27.5, they say.
"I have seen firsthand that the proposed spray areas all have bodies of water well within the 100-foot buffer zone. As spring progresses, these bodies of water are becoming both larger and more difficult to see with the increasing foliage, which would make them even more difficult to avoid spraying," Maddox said. "The Snow River and Trail Lakes are subject to seasonal flooding, which brings the water even closer to the proposed spray areas, increasing the potential of unwanted spreading of herbicides." In its 2007 decision denying the ARRC's permit application, DEC stated that any spray method, no matter how cautious, would likely result in the herbicides reaching nearby waters, according to the coalition.
Glyphosate is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and sold over the counter to ordinary consumers in such common garden products such as Monsanto's Round-up and Rodeo. Glyphosate targets a plant-specific mechanism that animals do not have, and therefore the effects will be limited to plants, according to the research that the railway quotes. It also will be heavily diluted to less than a gallon of solution per 40-gallon patch. The prescribed dilutions pose little or no risk according to EPA or state regulators, according to ARRC. When used according to the manufacturers' directions, and in the prescribed concentrations, the herbicides break down rapidly after contacting soil, and do not pose any threat to fish, wildlife, or humans, the railroad says.
The coalition trying to prevent spraying says the research data the railroad uses is old, and that significant progress has been made over the last few years in studying the effects of glyphosate and its use in combination with various surfactants -- like Agri-Dex.
"The surveyed peer-reviewed literature documents a host of problems associated with the use of Roundup, including, but not limited to effects on reproduction, embryonic development, endocrine, immune and neurological function as well as cancer risks," said Warren Porter, a professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
One study Porter reviewed found that Round-up alone was extremely lethal to amphibians in concentrations found in the environment. Another found that tadpoles exposed to glyphosate formulations had damaged hormone signaling and caused thyroid problems. Native freshwater mussels were found to be the most sensitive aquatic organisms tested with glyphosate-based chemicals and its surfactants. The coalition also sites research containing evidence that the herbicide increases human's risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, NHL and hairy cell leukemia, multiple myeloma, late abortion, birth defects and endocrine disruption.
If herbicide spraying on the southern part of the rail line is successful, the railroad would like to obtain permits to spray the remainder of the 500-mile line to Fairbanks and North Pole, Wheeler said.
Heidi Zemach is a writer for SewardCityNews.com, where this article originally appeared.