Russian knapweed (Acroptilon repens L.) Photo © Steve Dewey, Utah State University
For almost four decades, Doug Parker worked for the U.S. Forest Service, initially with pesticides, then with herbicides. But just days shy of his thirty-ninth anniversary with the agency, he was fired, charged with misconduct and not following orders—in particular, not certifying enough employees in the use of pesticides and improperly formatting a progress report.
But Parker, who was the pesticide coordinator for the Southwestern Region until his dismissal two years ago, believes that he was fired because he sounded the alarm about the agency’s strategy for dealing with invasive species, and because he refused to authorize spraying a campground with insecticide in 2003. Parker has filed a lawsuit against the agency. His claims that the agency is ill-prepared to deal with the growing problem of invasive plant and insect incursions—and with citizens’ groups who oppose the use of herbicides and pesticides on public land—illustrate the complex issue that forest managers are facing as invasives gain a foothold on national forests. Because his case is a personnel issue, representatives from the Forest Service were unable to comment on his lawsuit or his allegations.
A quick look around the Southwestern Region reveals a dramatic trend within forest ecosystems: Russian knapweed chokes northern New Mexico roadsides, while Dalmatian toadflax infiltrates the banks of the Rio Grande. On the Lincoln National Forest, musk thistle is spreading across the ground, while inchworms defoliate conifer trees. Meanwhile, in Arizona, bark beetles have destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of pine forests as well as plants such as honey and velvet mesquite, and buffelgrass and fountaingrass are outpacing the Sonoran Desert’s native plants, including the iconic saguaro cactus.
These incursions throw ecosystems off-balance and leave forests vulnerable to renewed infestations, disease and fire. And they leave forest managers grappling with how to protect valuable stands of timber and preserve vistas at popular recreation sites while keeping their budgets balanced.
Parker was in the hot seat for these decisions in 2003, when he refused to sign off on a pesticide project related to a campground in Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
“I was not willing to legally approve the misuse of pesticides,” he says.
Retired Forest Service herbicide specialist Max Williamson says he worked with Parker in a variety of capacities, despite the fact that they were located in different regions. They collaborated on herbicide projects involving state and federal agencies, ranchers and university researchers. “All the work I had done with him, all the contacts I had with him were very, very positive,” says Williamson, who was with the agency for three decades. “He’s a letter-of-the-law kind of guy.”
Beginning in 2002, infestations of bark beetles plagued ponderosa pine forests on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The pine forests were already stressed by drought, which made them unable to produce the resin they needed to keep the bugs at bay. (According to a University of Arizona study, in 2002, bark beetles killed at least 2 million ponderosa pine trees across some 503,000 acres. On the Apache-Sitgreaves, more than 129,000 acres were affected.) The Forest Service implemented a number of measures, says John Anhold, the Forest Service’s Arizona Zone Leader for Forest Health Protection, including cutting infested trees, restricting public use of the area to minimize soil compaction and watering trees to help boost their natural defense against the beetles. The agency also thinned trees and sprayed treetops and larger branches with pesticides.
Campgrounds and administrative sites—areas that he says the agency had spent a great deal of money to develop—were an important focus. In 2003, the agency sprayed the trees in several campgrounds with 2,700 pounds of the pesticide carbaryl. Carbaryl is a widely used, broad-spectrum pesticide which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a “likely human carcinogen” and “very highly toxic” to honeybees and aquatic invertebrates and animals.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Forest Service must complete an environmental impact statement when proposing an action that might harm wildlife, natural resources or public health. If the agency determines the effects will be relatively minimal it can issue a categorical exclusion, which requires neither environmental studies nor a public comment period. That’s what it did in the case of treating the campgrounds with carbaryl.
“That was an extremely successful project,” says Anhold. “Its success was really, really high in terms of having the residual trees that the forest wanted left on those campsites, so campers would have them for shade.”
But the project went forward without approval from Parker, the region’s pesticide coordinator. Under federal law, only the regional pesticide coordinator can approve a pesticide use proposal. Parker refused to sign it, believing the proposal violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
“I told them I’d be glad to do it,” he says. “But Apache-Sitgreaves would have to do it right before I’d put my name on the document.”
When an agency decides to manage a project under a categorical exclusion, he says, evidence should exist showing the project will have no significant effect. In the case of the campground spraying, he says the agency wanted to do the project “very quickly, with no oversight.”
“What I was saying was, ‘We don’t have a risk assessment for this material in the Forest Service,’” he says. “We never sat down and analyzed it, and we need to take a hard look at this with technical experts to make sure—that’s the way you have to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.”
Parker reported the violation, along with others at Arizona’s Kaibab and New Mexico’s Cibola National Forests, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Inspector General. His work environment became increasingly hostile, he says, and within about six months he was dismissed. According to Parker, campgrounds on the forest were treated with more than a ton of carbaryl each year from 2003 to 2005.
Though the Forest Service stands by its claim that the project was a success, it remains controversial. The agency denied a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the 2005 Office of Inspector General’s report. In a letter dated August 8, 2007, an attorney with the office stated that the report is involved in an investigation and that “to release any information at this time could interfere with the investigator’s ability to develop all relevant evidence and may otherwise jeopardize the investigation.”
NO-SPRAY COALITIONS
Long before Parker raised concerns about the Forest Service’s pest management programs, environmental advocacy groups and many communities in the Southwest had resisted the use of pesticides and herbicides on public land.
In New Mexico, members of the Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians are eradicating invasive plants by hand and restoring native vegetation along small sections of the Santa Fe River and the Rio Puerco. “We think that the tendency to use chemicals is reflective of the quick fix, the technological fix in western culture,” says Nicole Rosmarino, the group’s conservation director. “When healing the landscape, we need to look at the root causes of the problem.” Rather than just spraying plants such as tamarisk with herbicides, she says, government agencies need to address issues such as diminishing water supplies and grazing that spurs nonnative plant growth.
“We don’t see the in-depth analysis we think the Forest Service needs to do to really address the problem,” she says. “On our projects, the first thing we do is kick out the cows, get rid of the nonnatives—not with chemicals, but with hard work—and put natives in there.”
In other communities, some people distrust any Forest Service proposals regarding chemical use. In northern New Mexico, for example, communities near the Carson National Forest still talk of when the Forest Service sprayed DDT there in the 1950s—a program some say led not only to decreases in wildlife populations but to increased cancer rates, particularly among women.
“There is a tremendous amount of paranoia and distrust of the Forest Service when they are making claims that these projects are completely safe,” says Mark Schiller, who lives in the New Mexico town of Chamisal and along with his wife, Kay Matthews, publishes La Jicarita News. “People clearly don’t believe them.” In his neck of the woods, local communities and environmental activists are appealing the Forest Service’s Invasive Plant Control Project on the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests. The project would treat 7,300 acres with herbicides over the next ten to fifteen years.
And while the Forest Service has solicited public input, Schiller says there is a disconnect between what the community is saying and how the Forest Service plans to implement its program. “In terms of public input, I think the invasive plants project is a case in point: They got a tremendous amount of negative comment, but still went ahead with the decision to use the herbicide,” he says. Considering the small area the agency has identified, Schiller believes other treatments could be just as effective. “Probably for the same amount of money, they could hire local people to do manual applications that would provide some employment—which is sorely needed in these communities—and a little goodwill.”
For some activists in northern New Mexico, opposition to Forest Service plans to spray in the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests has much to do with the agency’s refusal to compromise.
“I think the real key thing with the proposal to spray in northern New Mexico is their desire to have broad discretion to use these chemicals in the municipal watersheds for Santa Fe and Las Vegas,” says Sam Hitt, director of the Santa Fe-based group Wild Watershed, one of the appellants to the Invasive Plant Control Project.
“That was an obvious point at which the Forest Service could have compromised.” Instead, the agency continued with its plans—a move Hitt says probably doomed the project. Opposition has continued to grow and both cities, in fact, have already passed resolutions opposing the spraying project.
Although invasive plants are a major problem that the agency needs to address before plants such as cheatgrass continue their rapid expansion, Hitt says, broad-scale spraying is not the answer. “The Forest Service has not shown responsible use of chemicals in the past, and there is every indication they would abuse their discretion now.” Hitt advocates for educating forest users, reducing or eliminating livestock, closing unnecessary roads and controlling the use of off-road vehicles.
Hitt has fought this battle before. More than twenty years ago, the Forest Service had planned to spray for spruce budworms in a few of New Mexico’s forests, including the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests.
At the time, Doug Parker directed that program, which called for use of the chemical carbaryl and the biological agent BT.
“I got into some pretty serious conflicts with Doug over the use of chemicals,” says Hitt. “We appealed, went to the media, the politicians, the courts and ultimately stopped the project.” In an out-of-court settlement, the Forest Service agreed not to spray. “That [spraying] has stopped, and they have not sprayed since then on any large-scale program.”
Decades later, the two men ran into one another on a tennis court. “Here’s Doug going through his allegations of improper NEPA procedure with the Forest Service, which was kind of stunning for me,” says Hitt. “And here I was, contesting this EIS to spray herbicides…Doug Parker was on our side. How did this happen?”
DOING IT RIGHT
Almost two years after his dismissal, Parker’s resolve to challenge the agency over his firing has only intensified.
Sitting at his dining room table near the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque—one hand atop a thick, white binder full of documents related to his case—he can almost crack a smile at the fact that he still wants to work for the agency he’s been fighting. He’d like to end his career with the Forest Service with his reputation intact. He ticks off some of the problems he has witnessed firsthand within the agency’s pest management programs—from improperly stored pesticides on the Gila National Forest to six tons of chemically treated grain illegally buried under the Lincoln National Forest.
“The real issue is that the people out on the national forests who will implement these programs do not have adequate scientific or technical background or the experience to do it properly,” he says. “Everyone knows it’s controversial, but managers don’t want to put money into doing it right.” Parker is not opposed to the use of pesticides or herbicides, but implementing the programs properly, he says, means not only identifying the problems, working with the public and spraying safely, but also ensuring proper training for employees and following up on treatments to ensure they have been effective.
“If you don’t have a good idea how to properly apply pesticides, you can waste a tremendous amount of the product,” he says. That not only puts workers, the public and the environment at risk, but wastes government funds. “The Forest Service wants to do these projects, and there is the pressure from the hierarchy to do them, but they don’t know how to do it properly.”
He maintains that too much of the pest management budget goes toward salaries and overhead, rather than direct control of invasive weeds or insects. By squandering its funds, the Forest Service has wasted valuable time while pest infestations have run rampant.
The effectiveness of pest programs cannot be measured in “dollars spent” or “acres sprayed,” he says. Agencies should define objectives more clearly, then monitor the program’s long-term effectiveness. In New Mexico, for example, local, state and federal agencies have all worked toward the removal of tamarisk. Often, however, projects are considered complete when the roots of the plant are still intact and ready to regenerate—and the disturbed soil is ready to receive new invasive seeds.
Parker would like to see communities and environmental groups acting in cooperation with federal and state agencies, rather than flat-out opposing the use of chemicals. He likens pesticides and herbicides to prescription drugs: Used properly, they can help people, but there are serious consequences if they are used incorrectly. He adds that the public can help agencies do a better job at pest management by insisting on adequate supervision and oversight.
Today, Parker works as a consultant for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and also volunteers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has called upon him to help train their employees in the use and application of pesticides. He’s also active in the Interagency Weed Action Group, which he helped found.
Despite his firing and the setbacks to his case this summer, Parker maintains that things could have been worse. When agency employees act in violation of federal laws or policies, employees can be held legally accountable. According to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, had he been caught signing off on illegal pesticide use he could have faced firing, prison time and tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
“That’s why I always held to the letter of the law,” he says, “because if I have to put my name on the line, I’m not going to put it on the line until I know it’s proper and correct.”