Letter: Ban Glyphosate in Laguna

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I hope everyone read Tex Haines’ letter in last week’s Indy regarding the undercover spraying of glyphosate (Roundup) in his neighborhood in Laguna Beach. I am writing to oppose using public funds for a public agency to spray glyphosate in Laguna Beach’s residential neighborhoods. Glyphosate-based herbicides harm our native habitat on all levels, from the land to the sea, and all the flora, animals, birds, subterranean fauna, and insects. Glyphosate not only harms beneficial vegetation and wildlife, but there is concern for the health of children that play in these glyphosate spray zones in Laguna. 

Removing cancer-causing herbicides like glyphosate out of our kids’ green spaces in Laguna Beach is arguably the most important issue to us all. In an influential 1993 report, “Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children,” the National Academy of Sciences said that about half of total lifetime pesticide exposure comes during the first five years of life. Combined with children’s increased vulnerability to harmful pesticides, it’s critical to decrease their exposure, especially in places where kids play and spend time daily. Additionally, about 87 percent of 650 children tested had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, according to a new 2022 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I grew up in the countryside of England when DDT was considered a miracle pesticide. We were wrong, dead wrong. And here we are again. Evidence of the cheap glyphosate’s toxic danger to human biological functions and the environment continues to mount. It is time to ban glyphosate in Laguna to save our children’s future health.

Charlotte Masarik, Laguna Beach

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