Forty Years of State Complicity in the Pesticide Poisoning of California’s Wildest River “It’s a toxic soup in there.”—NMFS fisheries biologist In April 2024, Siskiyou Land Conservancy released a comprehensive report that documents forty years of complicity by the state of California in the pesticide contamination of the Smith River estuary, in the far northwestern Read more
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This year Siskiyou Land Conservancy celebrates our twentieth year in service of protecting critical habitat in northwestern California! We are forever grateful for our many individual and institutional supporters, who have allowed Siskiyou Land Conservancy to reach this milestone and continue contributing equitable solutions to environmental challenges that sometimes appear intractable. Read our annual newsletter Read more
Despite finding 17 pesticides in estuary waters and 10 instances of contamination, Water Board has no plans to rein in chemical use In late January, 2018, the state agency charged with enforcing the federal Clean Water Act released a long-awaited report on the results of two years of water quality testing in the Smith River Estuary. The testing detected 17 pesticides in the streams, creeks and ditches that feed the estuary, and 10 instances of contamination of the aquatic food chain. The findings appear to show that Easter lily farmers are in violation of the Clean Water Act, which was passed in 1972 in large part to protect precious aquatic resources such as the West Coast’s dwindling salmon populations.
In late 2016 Siskiyou Land Conservancy released our Smith River Community Health Assessment, which clearly demonstrates significant human impacts of pesticides used on Easter lily fields. That report is now available here. Why are county health officials, and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, ignoring the report? Click here to read more Read more
Just before Easter, the national on-line news magazine TakePart has run a major story about pesticides used on the Smith River Plain to grow Easter lilies. TakePart describes itself as “the digital division of Participant Media,” the company that brought us such films as Academy Award winning Spotlight, as well as An Inconvenient Truth and CITIZENFOUR.
