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It's taken two years to gather the evidence, but an analysis shows that Caltrans has failed to fulfill promises the state agency made in its much ballyhooed Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on vegetation control along roadsides, published in 1992.
The primary failure has been a promised 50% reduction in herbicide use by the year 2000. With just months to go before the new millennium, the agency's vow has fallen short - and some Caltrans districts may actually be using more chemicals than ever.
The reduction was to be driven in part by the development of annual plans by each of the agency's 12 districts around the state. But these plans - couched in computerese - are often so fundamentally flawed as to render them not credible and virtually useless. Three districts, for instance, totaled gallons, quarts and pints of liquid herbicide together, as if the measures were equal.
Even worse, the plans fail to implement the fundamental assurance that the EIR promised: to provide adequate warning to the public when hazardous chemicals are sprayed.
Continuing to spray unannounced deprives millions of people who travel, work, drive on or live near sprayed roadsides the opportunity to take measures to protect themselves.
Too Late
The one warning that is provided is posted on the spray rig itself and on the truck that sometimes follows it. For anyone susceptible, this notice resembles the bumper sticker that says, "If you can read this, you're too close".
Caltrans pledged in the EIR that it would provide "notification to the public, on request, of the locations and approximate schedule of planned vegetation control," as well as "warning after spraying to prevent human contact with wet spray residue." But accurate advance warnings have not been made even to people who most desperately need it to protect their health. No system of post-application warning has ever been devised even though, for several of the most favored herbicides, signs must be posted to warn agricultural workers to remain out of fields for up to twenty-four hours after spraying.
Roadside applications are exempted from requirements for posted warning signs even when highly regulated chemicals are used. One of the most popular herbicides, for example, is possible cancer-causer oryzalin. When oryzalin is sprayed on potatoes, farm workers cannot enter the fields for twenty-four hours, yet any traveler can enter a sprayed roadside in an emergency, or to ride a bike, pick up litter, walk to a bus or even to do their job.
Regrettably, though Caltrans promised in the EIR that it would "not apply chemicals to areas within 100 feet of school bus stops identified by public school  districts" and said it would identify guidelines to modify or exclude spraying "in sensitive areas of concentrated human use such as roadsides where children walk to school," most of Caltrans' twelve district offices do not keep lists of school bus stops or actively pursue information about where children can be directly exposed to residues of the chemical herbicides sprayed along our highways.
Caltrans, incidentally, is not prevented from providing such warnings even though it is not required to. The agency has the authority to determine what steps to take to ensure that people who want to be fully informed can obtain adequate notification in a timely manner. And the law does not prohibit it from assuming full responsibility for ensuring that children will be protected from exposure to its chemicals.
Keeping Up Appearances
Many of the ways people can be exposed to herbicides on state highways wouldn't exist if Caltrans would heed its pledge in its EIR to reduce or eliminate "the use of chemicals when the control need is only appearance," and to make sure its "program would entail a gradual shift from chemical control to no control, where safety is not compromised."
A significant portion of Caltrans' spraying is done solely for the sake of appearance. But, as photos of mostly defoliated landscaped areas pictured in this report show, Caltrans continues to maintain an aesthetic that has little or no relation to either beauty or safety.
Caltrans native vegetation coordinator George Hartwell notes that where highways cut through city limits, local officials often expect the state agency to maintain formal landscaping that resembles "America's front lawn." That this look is at the root of a tremendous amount of unnecessary herbicide application on state highways is supported by figures derived from Caltrans herbicide use records,
The data shows that far more herbicides are sprayed onto roads in California's urban areas than in rural regions. More than twenty times the herbicide is used per mile on roads of urban areas where manicured landscaping is the vogue - such as in Orange, Los Angeles and Contra Costa counties - than where the emphasis is on natural design - such as the rural northern and eastern counties. Yet landscape design is rarely related to fire, flood or accident prevention.
Perhaps to an engineering mind set that dominates a road building agency, a sterile vegetation-free environment is more desirable and pleasing than a natural look.
In fairness, as the following section shows, Caltrans did at least try to alter this mind set.
Wishful Thinking
Along with the 1992 EIR, Caltrans launched an Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) program; its purpose was to bring about "more reliance on alternative methods of control." But the IVM program has fizzled almost completely, except on the North Coast where intense public pressure has forced Caltrans to begin experimenting with alternative methods of vegetation control such as the use of dry steam, landscaping with native plants, and application of corn gluten.
Merely stooping unnecessary spraying would cause a significant reduction in the amount of chemicals used on roadsides, but a greater effort is required to fully realize an IVM program, which is described in detail in the Change of View section of this report.
To put alternatives to work, significant amounts of money must be invested in the first few years to install new landscaping, buy innovative equipment and provide for other short term expenses. Investing in improvements to the roadside infrastructure and its maintenance would provide a substantial return in the long run, as proven by at least two other states. Instead, Caltrans continues to spend money for studies that aren't utilized. More than $700,000 was spent for a report about alternatives Caltrans published almost three years ago called California Roadsides: A New Perspective. But even the options this report showed to be immediately available and affordable have not been implemented beyond small, isolated projects.
Another $200,000 went for a database about native plants which are currently unavailable for large projects because - lacking the demand necessary to drive such an investment - the nursery industry is unprepared to propagate these plants. In addition, Caltrans is spending $1.5 million in District 1 - where most highways are prohibited by local decree from being sprayed with chemical herbicides - to learn more about how to spray so chemical residues reaching waterways will not exceed safety standards, but has allocated only $79,000 for trials of alternative methods of vegetation control.
Not to be outdone, Caltrans' computer enthusiasts have also been busy spending money. They bought fancy electronic devices for several computerized spray trucks the agency has bought at great expense from Volvo of Sweden. The new $10,000 electronic geographical positioning systems are linked to a satellite that - when its information is integrated with computerized district annual plans - will tell the truck where and how to spray each section of the road.
Empty Vows
Meanwhile, a limited multi-year comparison showed that though herbicide use may have decreased slightly in some Caltrans districts, reliance on the chemicals may actually be on the rise in others. Records compiled by District 10, located in the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley, indicate that, when compared to 1996, the use of liquid formulations increased by 12% while dry formulations decreased 68% in 1997. Since a gallon of liquid herbicide formulation is composed of many times more chemicals than is a pound of dry formulation - and because information about the chemical content of volumes of herbicides is withheld from the public - it is impossible to determine if a net reduction of chemical use was achieved in District 10.
By contrast, a comparison between 1996 and 1997 herbicide use figures for District 3, which includes Sacramento County and several others to the north and east, indicates that the reliance on herbicides in that District increased dramatically. The use of liquid formulations rose by 484% and for dry formulations 221% in just one year.
Another promise Caltrans forgot in the years since the EIR was published was to evaluate its #1 most popular herbicide, diuron. The EIR described this water pollutant and possible carcinogen as a potential significant health risk to workers and required a risk assessment to "determine whether additional precautionary measures are warranted during its use or if its use will be limited or discontinued." As of this date, no further evaluation has been undertaken and diuron remains Caltrans' most favored herbicide.
Yet another study promised in the EIR - to monitor residues on herbicide applicators to provide physical evidence of the level of herbicides to which they are exposed - was indeed undertaken and, as a result of its findings, several changes were made to reduce workers' exposures. But these measures fell far short of providing adequate protection and follow-up studies necessary to ensure that exposures were actually reduced or were never undertaken. Further details are provided in the Indecent Exposure section of this report.
Caltrans has also pledged to not spray when rain is expected within twelve hours. Once again, this promise has atrophied from neglect. Caltrans spray rigs have been set at work shortly before rain significant enough to cause runoff has occurred. Because its herbicide use is concentrated in the winter an early spring months when rainfall occurs in almost every area of the state, spraying just prior to rain events may be a frequent occurrence. Because of its inadequate record keeping, it is, however, impossible to say how frequently.
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