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Roundup in Roberts Creek

Letters

Editor:

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure crews sprayed some Roundup around a couple of driveways and the mailboxes on Joe Road last week. The first we knew about it were the signs telling us it had happened.

Roundup!

Monsanto!

Roberts Creek!

WTF!

Phoning the offered number, we were told that Roundup is the least toxic of the toxic alternatives and that it only lasts a couple of weeks and then it “goes away.”

The same mindset shows up in the use of leaf blowers to clean paths or parking areas in the Creek. No attention is paid to the acoustic pollution or the fact that whatever the blower is blowing is being blown somewhere else.

Nothing goes away on this planet. Everything goes somewhere.

I assume the argument made by the department would centre around cost.

What is the cost to the soil? The water? The berry pickers?

If they need to hire more people to do the jobs properly, hire them. Has the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure never heard of picks, shovels and wheelbarrows?

Insert here the lovely sound of a well-managed broom. Listen! You can hear the water, the birds. Breathe in: the air here is so sweet, it is an actual presence. Keep it that way. Pass it forward.

Joe Dougherty, Roberts Creek