How to handle pesticide drift

// This is a machine generated transcript. Please report any transcription errors to will-help@illinois.edu.

[00:00:00]
Brian Mackey: From Illinois Public Media, this is the 21st show. I'm Brian Mackey. Many farms in Illinois and other states use pesticides to deal with weeds, bacteria, and more. Left unchecked, all of those can have a major effect on crop yields. There are federal and state regulations in place for using pesticides, but those are not stopping them from drifting well beyond the areas where they are applied, which can lead to wilting trees, dead plants in backyard gardens and other farms, and sometimes sick people. So for the first part of the show today, we're going to talk about that and the ongoing debate over whether and how to tighten regulations on those chemicals.

Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher has been following all of this over the past several years. She is director of ecological health at the Prairie Rivers Network, the Illinois affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation. Kim, welcome back to the 21st show. Thank you. Nice to be here.

Also with us, Katie Vandenberg, who lives in Tazewell County near Peoria. She and her family have firsthand experience with this. In the spring, she filed a complaint with the state agriculture department about pesticide drift at her daughter's school in Morton. The ag department has fined the farmer responsible a quarter of a million dollars and revoked his pesticide applicator license, though he has appealed the penalty. Meanwhile, Katie has become an activist on this issue. Katie, welcome to you as well. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much.

I should say we also reached out to the Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association. Both have been opposed to legislation that would add requirements that farmers notify people when applying herbicide near a school or park. Unfortunately, neither of them had anyone available to join us today. We also reached out to Bayer, which owns Monsanto, the company behind herbicides like Roundup and dicamba. They in turn referred us to a national trade association for pesticide manufacturers. We reached out to them. We've not heard back as we go to air Thursday morning.

That said, our phone lines are open if you want to join the conversation. Maybe you've noticed the effect of pesticide drift where you are. What did it look like? What did it smell like? Tell us more about your experiences by giving us a call at 800-222-9455. That's 800-222-9455.

All right, Katie, I'm gonna start with you. Just tell us a little bit more about how this got to be a personal issue for you.

[00:02:41]
Katie Vandenberg: Absolutely. Um, I first learned about pesticide drift after we had purchased a little over 40 acres of land in central Illinois. I had noticed our oak leaves were curling and in doing research on that, I realized that it was most likely due to herbicide drift. Um, we're surrounded by corn and soybean fields, and so I learned a lot about that. Um, as I was researching it, I learned about how to file complaints and that there was actually a process for that.

And then unfortunately just this past April we received notification from our children's school that the entire school was outside for a fundraising event. They were jump roping to raise money for heart health in the parking lot and found out that the farmer right across the street was applicating, you know, spraying uh pesticides and herbicides that day and it drifted onto the students. We got an email that evening from the principal telling us that all of our kids should be sure to take showers that night and right away I knew that there was a lot more to this that needed to be done and just put our kids in the shower.

[00:03:43]
Brian Mackey: Yeah, uh, you know, certain things you can shower off, maybe not so much stuff you might have breathed in. Have you seen health effects from the people who experienced that that day at the school?

[00:03:54]
Katie Vandenberg: I from what I understand from the IDOA [FOIA] request that I that I got afterwards, there were kids that did have residual effects for a couple of weeks, you know, red eyes, allergies, different things like that. I think one child maybe had a hives — hives break out I believe. Um, my daughter didn't really have anything too much the next day, you know, or anything like that, but I think the biggest concern for parents is the long-term effects because there's so much research about the long-term negative health consequences to being exposed to pesticides and herbicides.

[00:04:29]
Brian Mackey: Kim [Ernt] Pitcher with the Prairie Rivers Network. Let me come to you now. So, tell us how does pesticide drift happen?

[00:04:37]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Well, there's two main ways that drift can occur. Um, the first one is what Katie and — and so many, Katie's daughter and so many other students that day experienced, and that's primary drift. That's when the particles of the pesticide are blown away from their target site, which is the field, um, at the time of application, and they're carried in the wind, um, to, to affect people, animals, plants, etc.

Um, we also see a secondary drift or vapor drift, and that happens when, you know, the applicator, whether they're a golf course or someone applying to a lawn or a grower applying to their fields, you know, they do everything according to the label. But in the right environmental conditions, one day, three days, five days, seven days after that, um, the pesticides can vaporize or volatilize off of plant and soil surfaces into the air and move off target, sometimes really long distances and cause injury after the fact. And when this is a — when we're using pesticides at a really massive scale, like thousands of acres or millions of acres like we do here in the Midwest, that volatilization can really become a problem.

[00:05:56]
Brian Mackey: What do you — what is your organization Prairie Rivers found about the scale of pesticide drift?

[00:06:02]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: So we've been monitoring trees and plants for the past eight years, looking for the symptoms of off-target herbicide injury in particular, right? So we can witness and observe the symptoms of herbicide injury, but not necessarily fungicides or insecticides, um, but herbicides leave these telltale signs of curling and cupping that Katie described. Um, sometimes there's yellowing — we call it chlorosis — um, and through over the years, you know, there's a real impact on the health of of trees, particularly in many of the communities that we've been monitoring. We're seeing dieback, we're seeing death, and, you know, these drift events are, are not just happening once, they're happening multiple times throughout the growing season, and we're seeing this all across the state.

[00:06:50]
Brian Mackey: Right, so let me mention again that we did reach out to the Farm Bureau and the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association, as well as Bayer and the uh uh [national] — uh, trade association for pesticide manufacturers. Um, they — the last one didn't respond, the others were not available to join us.

So, Kim, I'm gonna ask you, what is your understanding as to why farmers use pesticides, herbicides rather than other forms of control for, you know, invasive insects and weeds and things like that?

[00:07:21]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Well, I mean historically we did have a much more diversified agricultural system. There were multiple crops being grown over the years, you know, diversified crops. Um, there were years when they would let their fields go fallow. We had livestock on the landscape, and today we are predominantly using, you know, two species here in Illinois of, of crops and that's largely soybeans and corn. Um, we have some [wheat] and some other crops, but in terms of commodity crops, it's, it's largely those two plants.

And today they are resistant to herbicides, so that means that these genetically modified seeds are resistant to the use of herbicides over the top of the growing plant. Farmers can spray these pesticides. They will kill the weeds that they don't want — the herbicides — and the plants themselves will be able to thrive and grow. Um, you know, we used to use tillage and and crop rotations which would naturally break up those pest cycles and we're no longer doing that.

[00:08:29]
Brian Mackey: All right, let me remind listeners, this is the 21st show. We're talking about pesticide drift today. My guests are [Kim] Pitcher, director of ecological health with the Prairie Rivers Network, and Katie Vandenberg, uh, who is a resident of Tazewell County, Illinois. Um, has experienced drift on her own property as well as at her daughter's school, filed a complaint with the Department of Agriculture this year, which has resulted in a significant fine for an applicator in the area, although that's being appealed. If you want to join us today, 800-222-9455. That's 800-222-9455.

And, and let's go now to the phones. We have Tom calling in from Rockford, uh, on line one. Tom, I understand you live on a farm that does commodity farming. Um, do you — can you — can you speak to the sort of the, the, you know, pro-farmer, the benefit side of, of these, uh, these products?

[00:09:23]
Tom: I don't, to, to be candid with you, I, uh, I have a similar knowledge base to Kim and experience to Kim, uh, in, in listening, um, you know, I was going through screening, I, I heard some of the prior conversation. Um, I was born and raised in Wrigleyville in Chicago, married into a commodity farming family, multi-generational. Um, and you know, just to be clear, uh, the family is definitely engaged in the application of herbicide but not pesticide, um, you know, so they're not really treating for insects, um, but they are certainly treating for weeds and, um, I, I've seen it with my own two eyes, the resistance, you know, especially around the perimeter of fields, uh, definitely agree that the lack of diversification and I think any farmer with half a brain would agree. That diverse — you know, it's big ag, big commercial ag, and the regulations that have been, uh, created for decades to further cement, um, big ag — frankly Bayer's, uh, space, um, in the industry — is, uh, really gonna be a long-term detriment to our success as a species on this planet, um, as you know, as well as the success of uh, many, many, many different species.

[00:10:43]
Brian Mackey: Well, Tom, I really appreciate you calling in to share your perspective this morning. Thank you for that.

Let me share a few messages. We, we asked members of our texting group about this. We heard from Brody in Champaign who said, "Terribly depressing to take a spring hike at a forest preserve and see the mangled dying oaks. You can't escape it at home either. Someone in my neighborhood had their yard sprayed this spring. It wrecked the young oak in their front yard and ate up the broad-leaved plants all through the neighborhood."

We also heard from John in Rockford. Uh, in our text message — our, our outgoing text message to our group, we mentioned how spray drift can wilt trees, kill plants, and sicken people. John said, "The kind of damage that you allude to is really small potatoes in the world of pesticide farming. Migrant farm workers in this country have for decades suffered from routine exposure to pesticides and little or nothing has ever been done about it."

We also got a voicemail. Uh, let's listen to that.

[00:11:40]
Evan: Hi, this is Evan [from] Taylorville and I wanted to chime in on the pesticide drift. To me it is a problem because there's nothing to keep somebody from applying the pesticides or herbicides on a windy day and my concern is, um, especially near the Lincoln Prairie Trail, most of that is agriculture and there ought to be a pesticide, uh, notification application system like California's implementing or at least these applicators should share that information with the public as soon as they know if [a field's] going to have an application so that people using public areas can avoid inhaling chemicals that we know cause cancer. Thank you.

[00:12:32]
Brian Mackey: And thank you, Evan, for that message. We appreciate it. Yeah, maybe some sort of red flag system like you have at the beach, uh, when there's high waves or something. Uh, and just to add a little more context to his message, California did indeed launch a statewide system to show both upcoming and recent pesticide applications.

Uh, and we are talking about this with Katie Vandenberg, who's experienced this firsthand in Tazewell County, and Kim [Ernt] Pitcher with the Prairie Rivers Network. Again, we invited the Farm Bureau, Fertilizer and Chemical Association, as well as Monsanto. Um, the first two didn't have anyone available. The last one referred us to a national association, which hasn't responded yet.

Uh, Kim, let me come back to you. What do we know and not know about the long-term health effects of this sort of exposure to these, some of these chemicals?

[00:13:18]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Well, uh, you know, we're really behind in our understanding of what the long-term health impacts are, um. All of these pesticides have to go through, you know, studies in order to be approved. However, what we're seeing now is we're in a landscape where they're being combined and tank mixes — multiple pesticides at one time are being sprayed — and then there's exposures occurring and drift events occurring throughout the growing season of multiple pesticides. And so really understanding what the impacts of them are becomes really tricky at a landscape level and, you know, human exposure level, and we have very little data on what that exposure means for for the general public.

[00:14:09]
Brian Mackey: What sort of measures are there in place right now to deal with drift, kind of regulations?

[00:14:15]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: So pesticides are, you know, every pesticide that you use has a label. The label is the law, and those labels are created through a lengthy process with US EPA. Many states have the ability to add further restrictions to pesticide use in their state. Illinois is one of those, and we've done that. A good example is with the pesticide dicamba. It's known to be volatile. We have um dicamba tolerant soybeans being planted in our state and, you know, it, it — we have added extra precautions to the federal label to strengthen those pesticide regulations. Um, and you know they're not always effective, you know, some pesticides, we just, no matter what you do, you can't control the weather, you can't control when they are going to volatilize, and so we just have to to keep monitoring, keep an eye out on the efficacy of the laws and the labels that we have and adapt.

[00:15:24]
Brian Mackey: All right, we are gonna take a break on the program. When we come back, we will continue talking about uh pesticide drift um with uh my guests today who are Kim [Ernt] Pitcher with the Prairie Rivers Network and Katie Vandenberg, a resident of Tazewell County who filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Agriculture about pesticide drift at her daughter's school. We're gonna talk about what that process was like when we return. If you want to join us today, 800-222-9455 is the number. 800-222-9455. We will be back after a short break.

This is the 21st show. It's the 21st show. I'm Brian Mackey. We're talking today about pesticide drift and the harm that can have on plants, trees, and of course, people. My guests are Katie Vandenberg, who experienced this firsthand in Tazewell County, and [Kim] Pitcher with Prairie Rivers Network.

Again, we reached out to the Farm Bureau and the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association. Neither had anyone available to join us today. We also contacted Bayer, which owns Monsanto with products like Roundup and dicamba. They referred us to a national trade association for pesticide manufacturers, which did not respond to our inquiry as we go to air Thursday morning.

800-222-9455. If you wanna respond to our callout, let us know what your experience has been with pesticide drift. 800-222-9455.

Katie, I'm gonna come back to you. Talk to me about the process of filing a complaint with the state. Um, was it easy? Was it hard? What, what happened?

[00:17:34]
Katie Vandenberg: Well it's easy because I had already done the research and knew what to do. I've had a lot of people reach out to me after this and say that they had no idea that there was even an ability to do this, so I would like to just preface it with that because I think that's an important thing to note through all of this is that as long as you know what to do it's it's relatively easy.

Um, there's a website — it's [AgR.illinois.gov] — where they have a pesticide misuse form and you can get on there and input the information and download it and email it to them and that's exactly what I did. So you have to know the location of the incident, it's helpful if you know the name of the applicator — if you don't, that's OK — um, you need to know um approximately where it happened, what time it happened, if you know if it was a commercial um person doing it or if it was just an individual. And one of the biggest problems with it I think is that you have to have a witness. Um, in our case it was the principal of the school because she obviously had noticed what had happened, so I was able to put her down as the witness.

Um, so when you say, when you ask if it's hard or easy, it's also hard, I would say, to tell on your neighbors, and I think that's a big part of this too is, is nobody wants to have to, to rat somebody out that you maybe know, and in small-town America like we're all living in rural Illinois in these farming communities, that's unfortunately the case, and that's hard for a lot of people to have to do something like that.

[00:18:58]
Brian Mackey: Yeah, I understand. Do I remember correctly from the story — you went to high school with the person — we went —

[00:19:03]
Katie Vandenberg: — to the same high school. Um, we know a lot of the same people. Um, we have a lot of similar acquaintances. I, I know of him. He's, he's a great guy, and, and I would hope he would say the same thing about me. And I think what this boils down to is it's not a personal issue, it's, it's a chemical issue and it's — and we're dealing with, like you said, you know, a billion-dollar industry that's doing — creating these chemicals that are very volatile — and the farming industry has kind of gotten swept up into it and the general public like myself are are the ones having to combat it and stand up for ourselves to try to fight against it.

[00:19:41]
Brian Mackey: All right, let me read a few more messages from listeners. Sonia in Decatur sent a text, says, "We used to live in a rural area surrounded by fields. When I saw my farmer neighbor spraying, I would employ every sheet in the house and cover my gardens. He told me the spray was perfectly harmless. I was new to rural life, I didn't believe him. If it killed weeds, it could harm us and our food. It's so hard to find organic bread. I know the Roundup Ready seeds are not good for us. The plants uptake this chemical and it ends up in the corn, wheat, and soy."

Uh, we also heard from Karen in Simpson, who said, "Pesticide drift affects our household from having to run out and grab the clothes drying on the line and rewash them when we hear a spray rig, or nowadays a spray drone working the fields in the neighborhood." Uh, says they lost a large shade tree to herbicide drift. "I have to research what I plant around the yard to be sure the plants aren't going to die from the drift."

And we also heard from William, Chris, and Barb Reynolds, who talked about their experience. They said, "We lost two large tulip trees, an oak tree, and a good deal of our garden produce. We currently have five oaks and four red buds affected and distorted growth in our vegetable garden." They go on and say, "Unless the manufacturers of these toxic poisons can be held accountable for the collateral damage to the public, nothing will change. These companies have lobbied the rule makers to see to it that any responsibility for collateral damage is saddled on the end user. It's way past time for agricultural colleges and universities to share the truth about the dangers to the unsuspecting public and to the farmers who seem to get their knowledge of herbicide properties through their trusted sales representative."

Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

Um, Kim, given everything we've talked about, what sort of changes would you like to see in terms of how we regulate these products?

[00:21:35]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Oh, that's, that's a whole conversation itself, um, but I think there's a few good starting points that we can talk about. Um, one of them, you know, it is a notification. Um, particularly to public spaces that, um, you know, people are out outside enjoying during the growing season, whether that's parks, playgrounds, schools — many of these applications are occurring while school is in session, just like, you know, what happened with Katie and her family. So, you know, a notification that increases communication between applicator and the community that they're applying these pesticides in would be a really great start.

Um, it's also a launching pad for building awareness, um, on the issue of drift — having, um, opportunities to have conversations about what symptoms of drift look like even if you don't get sprayed, um, you know, in person. You, you have these injuries that you're noticing on your, your backyard gardens or your trees, and, and those are, um, really important to point out and to report to the Department of Agriculture. So, there's — it's also a launching pad for that.

Um, there's also many discussions occurring in Illinois and in other parts of the country about, you know, should we be using these pesticides that are known to volatilize, these ones that we haven't been able to control and just aren't staying put. Um, you know, we're seeing warmer weather throughout the growing season and that increases the risk of volatilization and we're going to have to have those hard conversations and address those issues.

[00:23:09]
Brian Mackey: Let's go back to the phones at 800-222-9455. We have Patrick in Westport calling on line two. Patrick, thanks for calling in.

[00:23:18]
Patrick: Hey, thank you very much for calling attention to this. I think, I think a lot of other people — this is a serious problem, not only in Illinois but across the country. So, and I also want to compliment this program. I'm a first-time caller, long-time listener, and the issues and topics that are brought forth in a fair manner is just, is outstanding. So forgive me for rambling on.

I am in the Westport, Illinois, also the Vincents, Indiana. The communities basically join each other between the Wabash River. And there is a crop dusting service here. I'm not gonna name the names or anything, but it's a pretty big outfit, and I've watched this operation and the spraying — when in regards to the drift, the pesticide drift — is just immense.

Um, we operate an animal rescue in our community and that's, you know, a major strike against us in this area. But when you try to have a conversation, even a civil conversation about this, especially with farmers, which, you know, I know several of them, classified many of them as my friends and so forth in the past, but it's just, it's, it's a moot point. You can't even discuss this.

And when you watch the aerial application, it is just coating everything, not just the plants. But it's coating all the wildlife, and I think, you know, just as a — as just on the lower end of this — scientific trying to understand this, I think just from a common-person standpoint this is a travesty and you know it's getting everything, not only just the people, and and we've got friends that live next to these fields and so forth. Since there's just so much deforestation, removal of even the smallest woodlo[t] in order to get that extra acreage out of it, that these animals have nowhere to go at this point. And when the airplane comes over, it's just a blanket spray. And it is a nauseous, toxic spray that, you know, oh, it's safe for humans, it's safe for animals. Well, didn't they say the same thing about Roundup?

So again, I just wanted to make that application or that — that, just that talking point. This is a very good program today and I'm learning a lot, but I just wanted to share my two cents. And again, thank you for taking my call.

[00:25:30]
Brian Mackey: Patrick, thanks so much for calling in. Thanks for the kind words. We appreciate it and thanks for being with us.

Uh, I also wanna hear from Michael who is calling from Sycamore, Illinois, uh, and has seen, uh, drift, I guess, in his, in his neighborhood. Michael, what are, what are you —

[00:25:45]
Michael: — interested in? Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

[00:25:48]
Brian Mackey: I can. Please go —

[00:25:49]
Michael: — ahead. Um, yeah, so, um, I appreciate this topic as well because, uh, I wanted to bring up the frustration that you can face when you suspect that that drift has affected your life. Um, two years ago I sadly lost my partner to cancer and her neighbor died of cancer.

Yeah, thank you, and her neighbor died of cancer. Her cat died of cancer, and we — when we moved all of her belongings out of her condo while she was still alive — we found that everything in her house had a sticky, like, film over it, and we knew that two blocks away from us we were surrounded. Her condo development was surrounded by fields, and so we always suspected that there was something from the spray that was being put on there that drifted through the open windows and that — how else would there have been this sticky substance all over it?

And um, but trying to get some answers — like, is there an uptick of other people outside of just her building who might have had, um, you know, been exposed and might have had higher cancer rates — [was this a cell like on there?] — and we could not find anybody willing to even talk to us about it. So it's just — I still to this day believe that that's what might have been an underlying cause of her cancer, and it's just it's frustrating not to be able to find anywhere to go to find answers to that.

[00:27:17]
Brian Mackey: Michael, thanks for calling in and sharing your story. I'm, I'm sorry again about your, your loss. Kim, let me come back to you. So what people are — people are — this has clearly hit a nerve with people. They wanna know what they can do themselves. What, what do you tell them? Somebody like Michael who's trying to figure this out, uh, if it, you know, is this what happened in, in his life? Kim[my], Kim[my], are you still with us?

[00:27:44]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Yes, sorry about that. Um, yeah, so, you know. This conversation — the impacts of pesticides on human health — is really taking off, particularly in Iowa. There's a lot of connections being made to pesticide use, the rates of pesticides being used in different counties and the instances of cancer, and you know, correlation isn't always causation, but these conversations are surfacing and, you know, I think people really should pay attention. If they feel that they've been exposed, they need to report that to the Department of [Agriculture], contact their physician. And, you know, talk to the Department of, of Health and see if they can, um, you know, get some more information about pesticide exposures, but there is more literature that's, that's coming out about the widespread use of pesticides and their impacts on humans and, and ecosystems.

[00:28:41]
Brian Mackey: Katie, your, your story ended up on our radar because of reporting done by the Chicago Tribune on this. And, and I wanna read a quote from that story. This is Jenny Webb, who's president of the Fertilizer and Chemical Association. She said, "Pesticide application decisions in Illinois are made based on field conditions on the day of application, not days in advance." And she also said the changing nature of wind and weather make it impractical to give advance notice. Katie, what do you think of that?

[00:29:11]
Katie Vandenberg: Um, I have a lot that I think about that, but I know we're short on time, so I think what we need to really do is reframe the farming industry as a business. I've been a business owner for 22 years. I've been in the food industry. I'm now a landlord. I'm a divorce coach, and every single business that I am in has regulations that protect the well-being of the public, and I think that I would, I would, I would put that back on her or anybody that were to oppose some regulations.

I don't think 24 hours' notice is unreasonable. As a landlord, I have to give 24 hours' notice before I even walk into somebody's apartment to check on something, um. And I would ask, is this a matter of inconvenience to the farmers or is this a matter truly of farmer well-being? Because this is definitely a matter of the well-being of the general public. And because what they're putting down isn't staying put on their private property — it's going everywhere — I think the public has a right to know what's happening, and I don't think 24 hours is unreasonable.

And also if they give notification and the wind speeds change, they don't have to spray. It's not saying, "Oh, I said I was going to spray, I have to do it, but it's too windy now." That's not the case. They just reschedule it. They renotify. And so it's a very simple thing to do. I mean, the weather — the science behind the weather forecast now is pretty good — and I think 24 hours is enough time to be able to tell if they're going to be able to spray the next day or not and make a simple phone call, which would have saved everybody all this grief, not only all the families, but the farmer too. He could have — he wouldn't have to be dealing with all this stress and the financial burden of the fine that he's facing now if he had just taken 30 seconds to make a phone call.

[00:30:54]
Brian Mackey: A quarter-million-dollar fine, as, as we mentioned earlier, although it's being appealed. Uh, Kim, I wanna share one more message from a listener. Tony in Champaign says, "I hate the idea that we may be getting dosed with harmful chemicals. I have no confidence our government would protect us from bad actors. If it's a choice between a healthy ecosystem and a farmer, I'm voting for the ecosystem every time." End quote. Kim, does it have to be either or? How can we balance the needs of farmers and the health of their neighbors, both flora and fauna — human fauna?

[00:31:28]
Kim [Ernndst] Pitcher: Yeah, I mean, that's a really great point, um, that that he makes. I mean, right now we're we're in an environment where our ecosystem and our property is, is taking a hit and, and and our human health is at risk, and so I think that — you know, back to the earlier part of the conversation where we were talking about how we used to diversify our agricultural land and we would have a variety of crops that would naturally break up those pest cycles. We used light tillage, we used light cultivation. Pesticides were used, but they were largely used early in the season. And there are integrated pest management practices that we can use, bring them back to the landscape, that would help us reduce our reliance on pesticides.

You know, right now we're in this pesticide treadmill where we're trying to combat these herbicide-resistant weeds, and we are largely growing, you know, commodity crops that are deeply incentivized. Um, and we need to work together with research universities, with farmers, with the public to find real solutions. There's no silver bullet. It's going to take multiple efforts and people are going to have to come at this problem from multiple angles, but chemical trespass is unacceptable and, you know, it it is very expensive in many ways for people's emotional health, their psychological well-being, as well as, you know, the environmental health. There's so many impacts that we don't fully understand and that are poorly studied, but, you know, we do know that it's really expensive to take down a dead tree, and that is happening more and more frequently.

[00:33:13]
Brian Mackey: One more message from a listener, Jeremy in Fairmount says, "Herbicides are one of the most important things for no-till uh agriculture, which keeps your soil in place and stops dust from blowing. Losing these herbicides would make more tillage and more erosion."

We're gonna have to leave it there. I'm sure we will revisit this conversation in the future. Katie Vandenberg has experienced pesticide drift firsthand in Tazewell County, made her an activist on this issue. Kim [Ernt] Pitcher is with the Prairie Rivers Network. Katie and Kim, thanks for being with us today here on the 21st show.

[00:33:46]
Katie Vandenberg: Thank you so much.

[00:33:49]
Brian Mackey: And coming up after the break, we're gonna head out to Burning Man in California. This is the 21st show. Stay with us. [It's Nevada,] said [the host, correcting himself.]

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**Flags for Human Review:**

1. **[00:00:00] Speaker name** — "Kim Ernndst Pitcher" appears to be a transcription error. The speaker's last name is unclear throughout the transcript and is rendered inconsistently as "Ernndst," "Ernt," "Ernter," and "Kimmer." Please verify the correct spelling of the speaker's full name.

2. **[00:03:54] "IDOA foA request"** — Likely refers to an "IDOA FOIA request" (Illinois Department of Agriculture Freedom of Information Act request). Flagged as [FOIA] in the refined transcript; please verify.

3. **[00:06:50] "nationalization uh Trade Association"** — The original transcript appears garbled. Rendered as "[national] — uh, trade association" in the refined transcript; please verify the intended phrasing.

4. **[00:08:29] "Kimmer Pitcher"** — Appears to be a transcription error for the speaker's name. See note 1 above.

5. **[00:08:29] "some wheed"** — Likely "wheat." Rendered as [wheat] in the refined transcript; please verify.

6. **[00:17:34] "AgRtillinois.gov"** — Unclear URL. Rendered as [AgR.illinois.gov] in the refined transcript; please verify the correct web address.

7. **[00:23:09] "calling online too"** — Likely "calling on line two." Rendered accordingly; please verify.

8. **[00:25:30] "the Vincents, Indiana"** — Unclear place name. Possibly "Vincennes, Indiana." Please verify.

9. **[00:25:30] "the smallest woodlo"** — Likely "woodlot." Rendered as "woodlo[t]" in the refined transcript; please verify.

10. **[00:27:17] "Kimmy, Kimmy"** — The host appears to use a nickname or informal form of the guest's name. Rendered as "Kim[my], Kim[my]" in the refined transcript; please verify whether "Kimmy" is intended or is a transcript artifact.

11. **[00:27:44] "the Department of g"** — Likely "the Department of Agriculture." Rendered as "the Department of [Agriculture]" in the refined transcript; please verify.

12. **[00:27:44] "particularly in Iowa"** — Context suggests this may be intended as "Illinois," given the program's focus and the speaker's affiliation. Please verify.

13. **[00:27:49] "was this a cell like on there"** — Unclear phrase. Flagged as [was this a cell like on there?] in the refined transcript; please verify the intended meaning.

14. **[00:33:49] Burning Man closing** — The host says "we're gonna head out to Burning Man in California" and then appears to correct himself, saying "It's Nevada." Rendered as "[It's Nevada,] said [the host, correcting himself.]" Please verify the intended presentation of this self-correction for broadcast accuracy.