Even When Your Voice Shakes: Some Wisdom For Your Wednesday

I was sitting upstairs in my office recently, working on the computer when my dog started barking wildly downstairs, letting me know someone was at the house. Before I could get up I saw two guys heading up through the ferns, wearing neon yellow vests and carrying those backpacks with hoses that could only mean one thing– they were going to spray poison! As if I was on fire, I shot out of my chair, raced down the steps, and out the door, running full speed into the woods to tell them to stop. 

These men work for a company that Duke Energy hired to spray herbicide below the power lines, including on my property. I arrived within talking distance of them just after they had begun spraying several 5 feet tall white pine trees. 

I doubt any of us enjoy confrontation. I certainly don’t like it. My voice shook and I could hear the thundering of my heartbeat in my chest, going a million miles a minute. I briefly wondered if I was having a heart attack. I shouted for them to stop, and when they did, with my voice shaking, I asked them to please leave, telling them that I didn’t want poisons sprayed on my property. 

My property has almost none of the plants listed on the label for these poisons, certainly not any of the invasives that it seems the products were designed to kill. All that’s under the power line here on my property are ferns, mayapples in the spring, and a handful of trillium and violets, a few white pine saplings. I’m sure these men had no idea that the poisons they were spraying could negatively affect their own health. I bet they had no idea that the half like of these chemicals in the soil is 26-54 days or that the half life of these chemicals in water is 35-365 days. 365 DAYS!! (I looked this up from the list their supervisor handed to me.) So a year from now, the chemicals they sprayed could still be in the soil there, or washing down into the stream below. This is shocking to me, and horrifying. I wish people spraying these chemicals could exercise some common sense– for instance, take into consideration that a stream is just downhill from where they were spraying, and rain was forecast just an hour after they were on my property. The information sheet also stated, “TOXIC to aquatic organisms and non-target terrestrial plants.” When will we humans learn that sometimes the “easy button” is not the answer, and that just because you can buy it doesn’t mean it’s safe. 

I later spoke with the company hired by Duke to spray these chemicals and requested that my property be considered a “no spray zone.” He said he would pass on my request onto Duke. I am so glad I was home and noticed this happening. It would seem to me that they should require homeowner’s permission before spraying poisons but obviously this is not the case. If you see someone on your property spraying chemicals, you too can request them to stop.

After the moment passed, and when my heartbeat had returned to normal, I was reminded of a Maggie Kuhn quote I came across many years ago:

“Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes.

This is a great quote and a great reminder that sometimes, we have to fight for what we believe in, even if it means doing things we don’t like doing, or confronting people we don’t enjoy confronting.