Orange County will stop spraying local flood control channels with toxic chemicals \u2014 an environmental issue that has morphed in recent months into a major theme in the June 2 primary race to represent South O.C. on the Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n
In an emailed announcement, Supervisor Katrina Foley, who represents District 5, wrote that \u201cfollowing months of community outcry,\u201d O.C. Public Works would halt spraying and \u201cinstead observe the growth patterns of invasive species to evaluate the safest and most effective procedures for removal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The backstory<\/p>\n
The environmental activists who make up the three-person Creek Team OC<\/a> began raising the alarm earlier this year about the county\u2019s practice of spraying toxic chemicals to keep vegetation down in local waterways and flood control channels, which flow out to the ocean. Brent Linas, the group\u2019s founder, had become concerned about the issue while noticing what he characterized as \u201cdead\u201d ecosystems during his runs along San Juan Creek, which empties into Doheny State Beach.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n The political context<\/p>\n The herbicide spraying had become a major issue in the race to represent District 5 on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Katrina Foley, a Democrat, is running for reelection against state Assemblymember Diane Dixon, a Republican. The conservative Lincoln Club, through its PAC, has spent around $200,000 thus far to try to influence the race. The PAC has latched onto the herbicide issue to attack Foley in ads and mailers.<\/p>\n The Lincoln Media Foundation, which shares an address and officers with the Lincoln Club, has simultaneously published content critical of Foley\u2019s handling of the herbicide issue through the affiliated publication, California Courier<\/a>.<\/p>\n Linas of Creek Team called Foley\u2019s announcement about the countywide pause on herbicide spraying \u201ca huge, huge victory for us.\u201d Linas, who described himself to LAist as a lifelong Democrat, said his group ultimately used the political jockeying over the issue to their advantage. \u201c\u200aWe took this firehose of money that exists and we redirected some of it towards what we saw as an urgent issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next? <\/p>\n Orange County Public Works could still use herbicides in conjunction with maintenance work if they identify an \u201cimmediate need of vegetation management,\u201d according to the announcement. But the county would give the public seven days’ notice in advance of any such use. A pilot project along San Juan and Trabuco creeks is underway to evaluate the viability of replacing chemical spraying with manual and mechanical weed removal.<\/p>\n How to watchdog your local government<\/p>\n One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they\u2019re voting on that affect your community.<\/p>\n How to reach me<\/p>\n If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is @jillrep.79.<\/p>\n For instructions on getting started with Signal, see the app’s support page. <\/a> Once you’re on, you can type my username in the search bar after starting a new chat.And if you’re comfortable just reaching out by email I’m at jreplogle@scpr.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County will stop spraying local flood control channels with toxic chemicals \u2014 an environmental issue that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,92631,132310,132311,63623,132312,66701,66699,26473,66831,611],"class_list":["post-316276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-brent-linas","tag-california-courier","tag-creek-team","tag-diane-dixon","tag-herbicide-spraying","tag-lincoln-club","tag-lincoln-media-foundation","tag-oc-board-of-supervisors","tag-ocean-pollution","tag-orange-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}