Open Letter & A Citizens Proposal for Weed Management Decision-Making from Ollin Farms

From Mark Guttridge, Ollin Farms:

What’s At Stake
Boulder County Open Space has released their proposed Integrated Weed Management Plan, after hearing criticism of their aerial herbicide applications in 2022 and being tasked with halting aerial spraying until a new plan could be adopted.  Earlier this year, Open Space conducted tours “showing their different weed management approaches,” but only visited sites that were sprayed with herbicides.

On those tours the most repeated public comment was: “Concerned about the environmental impact, health and safety, toxicity of herbicides” (Source: page 9 of IWMP update).

These concerns were also echoed in comments I provided Open Space leadership and the Commissioners in February 2023 about likely contamination of our agricultural source waters due to Open Space using multiple herbicides over 1000s of acres in the foothills. As a note—I talk about herbicide cocktails in these comments but found out during the Weed Tours that the herbicides were not mixed but actually all applied to the same property at different times, other than that I stand by all my original comments.

The new plan does little to address the needs for better ecological monitoring or address the runoff contamination that can occur through herbicide use.  Open Space has confirmed they are not involved in any ecological testing themselves and have never hired anyone to explore runoff concerns (Source: page 29 of IWMP update).

Instead, the new plan asks for an increase in the ability to use helicopters and drones to expand aerial spraying of herbicides. This doesn’t seem logical as all the herbicides used by Open Space in 2023 have EPA labels confirming they will also kill non-target species, and many pose potential for groundwater or surface water contamination. (Source: Open-Space-Herbicides-2023.pdf).

Despite local peers like the City of Boulder paying farmers to graze their weeds (while also adding fertility through manure), Boulder County reported that it currently “uses grazing leases for approximately 10-12 acres of county owned open space” (Source: page 37 of IWMP update), in these cases the farmer is paying the county rather than vice-versa. Meanwhile, the county has reported 1,680 acres of Open Space that were treated with herbicides in 2023. The proposed weed management plan seems to continue overlooking the potential for grazing and its importance in maintaining a long-term fertility model to support these native species.

I feel like the current IWMP as presented doesn’t clarify the decision-making process for selecting a treatment strategy and leaves an open-ended possibility for decades of aerial spraying of herbicides using drones and helicopters, without oversight. For this reason, I have been gathering information from various farmers, youth, scientists, concerned parents, etc to begin drafting an alternative Citizen’s Integrated Weed Management Plan. Together with my peers, we look forward to continue developing the plan in partnership with Boulder County as we hope to find some middle ground. These approaches are different and will require a lot more citizens interacting with their public lands in a way that makes them more productive, but at the end isn’t that what we all want?

What's next?
The most strategic things I think we can be involved with are the following:

• There is an online survey being conducted by Open Space gathering public feedback on herbicide use and aerial spraying: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GBJXBVB. The survey closes October 18th.

• Attend the Parks and Open Space Advisory Board Meeting: October 26th 6:30pm at the Boulder County Courthouse.
They heard a pretty one-sided view of the herbicide story from staff at their last meeting including comments like "we are excited about the search and destroy technology" that helicopters and drones present. It's crucial that they hear alternative views from people using alternative practices. I hope to see a lot more farmers, and supporters of regenerative land management at that meeting sharing their experiences and vision of the future.

Any comments/suggestions on the first draft of the Citizens Weed Management Plan flow-chart would be much appreciated!

— Mark Guttridge
Ollin Farms

Ollin Farms

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Dicamba—The Audubon Society’s Exposé on this herbicide that Boulder County is spraying.