Orange County residents won’t see anyone spraying chemical herbicides into their creekbeds for an undetermined time after Supervisor Katrina Foley announced county staff were pausing any new spraying of herbicide in the midst of her reelection campaign.
The countywide pause comes after Foley pledged in March to block all pesticide spraying in south OC after a group of activists dubbed the Creek Team spent months publicly raising red flags about the chemicals in the water and their impact on the environment.
[Read: Santana: Herbicide Spraying of South OC Waterways Halted, For Now]
The primary concerns center on glyphosate, a chemical found in many herbicides and pesticides like RoundUp, which is an effective weed killer but has faced several questions over whether it can cause cancer and other health problems, with the true impacts largely going unstudied.
Several cities had already banned the use of those chemicals, but a Voice of OC investigation found that even in cities where their use was banned, there wasn’t much oversight and spraying often continued.
[Read: OC Residents Wrestle With Failed Promises To Restrict Chemical Herbicides]
While cities took up the issue, the county continued to allow glyphosate for years, explicitly allowing for its use in their agreements with contractors, and actively resisted complaints from Creek Team activists pointing out their use of the chemicals in the last few months.
In April, The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced they were launching an investigation into Orange County Public Works amid concerns.
[Read: Santana: Herbicide Use Near Doheny Beach Triggers State Probe]
A 2024 local Agricultural Commissioner investigation showed county public works didn’t properly give public notice when they spray the creekbeds or properly fill out spray invoices.
Brent Linas, one of the leaders of Creek Team, said he was surprised by the shift but excited to see the county moving in the right direction.
“We’ve stopped the bleeding in Orange County. Now we say how do we prevent the cancer from coming back?” Linas said in a Thursday interview. “It’s a huge victory for the environment, public transparency, and a grassroots movement.”
It’s unclear how a decision was made to stop the spraying without a vote by the board of supervisors, and it comes after supervisors earlier this year questioned Foley’s ability to announce a pause in the expansion of the trash intake at a landfill in south Orange County.
Read: Expansion of County Landfill Turns Into Hot Button Campaign Issue
It’s unclear how long the pause on spraying herbicides will last, with a public announcement from Foley’s office making no mention of an end date.
Latisha Townsend, Foley’s spokesperson said it would be “for the foreseeable future,” and that supervisors are set to get at least one week’s notice if spraying started again.
“During the pause, OC Public Works will stop spraying county-wide and instead observe the growth patterns of invasive species to evaluate the safest and most effective procedures for removal,” reads Foley’s press release.
In that statement, Foley praised the county’s shift away from using herbicides.
“Harmful toxins have no place in our waterways,” Foley wrote. “I appreciate the Orange County Public Works team for responding to community concerns and pausing applications.”
The statement also noted that moving forward, OC Public Works initiated a “third party review” of the county’s pest management program and that they were debating shifting from outside contractors to internal staff for future work.
The county Public Works Department also added a new web page noting they were looking at options other than pesticides.
“OCPW is currently evaluating alternatives to herbicide use in the San Juan and Trabuco Creek channels including the use of mechanical and manual vegetation-management options,” reads the website. “Use of alternative methods requires OCPW to obtain necessary approvals from regulatory agencies.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
