Official Herbicide Policy a Menace

Your Dec. 4 story on freeway landscaping was glaring in its omission of Caltrans’ use of herbicides by the ton in “improving the Valley’s landscape.” In addition, The Times covered a story recently about pressure on street maintenance entities (including Caltrans) to minimize toxic runoff into storm drains. Consistent with your editorial policy, you did not mention that the major harmful contaminant (fouling our sewage plants and bays) is these very same herbicides.

This was dramatically brought to my attention a few weeks ago when I observed a Caltrans tanker truck, towing a tanker trailer, each with a nozzle array, parked on a residential street near a freeway. I asked the two people in the cab, who were no doubt “on a break,” whether the tanks contained a pesticide. One said yes, the other no. They then got together to explain the tanks contained a herbicide used to defoliate freeway, access ramp and who-knows-what-else shoulders.

There is no advance warning of this application, no analysis of drift, no concern for those who might be sensitive or offended by it, and no concern for its environmental effects.

RICHARD SIGLER

Sherman Oaks