|
|
The Northshore is steeped in the vernacular of the outdoors and nature because it is what draws us here and keeps us spellbound.
A recently retired top executive of a well-known Minnesota company said that a business decision needs to focus on purpose and, importantly give consideration to the humanity. It is not anymore just about profit. While appreciating Arrowhead Cooperative for the power they provide, I want to encourage the company directors to understand why their customers are concerned about herbicide use for vegetative control along power line right-of-ways.
Rachel Carson’s last book, “Silent Spring”, published in 1962, jolted awake the entire country, and later the world about pesticide use. “Silent Spring” is about the devasting use of DDT and other synthetic pesticides and about how the spraying had deadly outcomes for not only the insects but also other forms of life: birds, fish, mammals, and even humans.
The following year, Rachel Carson, mortally ill herself, testified before the U.S. Senate’s subcommittee on environmental hazards. In 1972, mainly due to the huge impact of “Silent Spring”, DDT was banned. Rachel Carson ably wrote “as man proceeds toward his announced goal of the new conquest of nature, he has written a depressing record of destruction, directed not only against the earth he inhabits, but against the life that shares it with him.”
The power company is not proposing to use pesticides, but herbicides, which are still toxic chemicals, with possible unintended consequences. We all have a role to play in safely guarding human, animal, and environmental health.
Suzanne Steighagen,
Lutsen, Minnesota
Leave a Reply