Oregon legislators renew effort to expand pesticide spraying buffer

House Democrats are breathing some new life into a bid to curb aerial herbicide spraying on US Oregon’s private timberlands.

In a surprise move, the House Rules Committee recently revived a key concept pushed unsuccessfully by anti-spraying advocates earlier this session: the mandating of “no-spray” buffers around private homes and schools.

Under an amendment added to House Bill 3549, sprayers would be prohibited from aerially applying pesticides within 60 feet of a home or school — the same buffer that currently exists on either side of certain streams, and which was in state law until 1996.

Buffers of that size would be stricter than California’s law, which currently has no mandated buffers around homes and schools, but more lenient than Washington’s and Idaho’s. Spray critics in Oregon have sought buffers of up to 500 feet.
Aerial spraying on private timberlands long has triggered health fears among rural residents, including some in Lane County who live in the Mohawk Valley and near Triangle Lake. Heavily forested Lane County ranked second among Oregon counties in number of timber tracts sprayed.

Spraying critics had hoped that larger Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Legislature this year and a high-profile 2013 incident in which several homes in Gold Beach were mistakenly sprayed directly from a helicopter would bolster chances for significant new restrictions this year.

But facing strong opposition from Oregon’s timber industry, the more far-reaching reforms appeared dead by mid-April.

In addition to buffers, those proposals included requiring the timber industry to report the specific pesticides it is spraying and creating an improved spray-¬notification system for neighbors.

Timber representatives argue that they are already required under federal law to follow pesticide label rules, which often mandate buffers, and that it is already illegal to allow any pesticide to drift onto adjacent properties.

Instead, lawmakers were set to approve a more modest package of changes, including more funding for investigation of questionable sprays, a 24-hour complaint hotline, as well as more required training and stiffer potential fines for pilots
Those policies remain part of HB 3549, in addition to the new buffer proposal.

Lawmakers on both sides of the issue said they expect the bill to now move forward. If approved by the rules committee, HB 3549 would head to a joint House-¬Senate budgetary committee.

Rep. Brian Clem, a Salem Democrat who has opposed the most significant reform proposals, said the new version “is an enhancement from before” for spray critics.

“While following the label is often sufficient, set buffers would make some people more comfortable,” he said. “That way they have a fixed number, starting at their property line, that they will know helicopters can’t spray in.”

Rep. Ann Lininger, a Lake Oswego Democrat, said the change was a “small step” in improving current spraying rules.

But, she added, “when you pick a fight with an opponent this tough, you’ve got to be pleased with small steps.”

House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, a Eugene Democrat who is the chairwoman of the rules committee, said that adding the buffers requirement was “the quickest and easiest new rule we could to implement” to help address some of the recent issues with aerial sprays.

“I feel that this is a solid base (bill) as we move forward,” she said.