It appears that the GMO protocol is been applied here as well and that the dangers remain unmeasured. Many pesticides are been applied here and they are showing up throughout the environment. As noted, it has not really been challenged yet.
This behavior continues to be disquieting since we are setting up to all be guinea pigs. The bad news will come much later.
If we have learned nothing during the past century or two it is that island environments are particularly vulnerable. Yet here we are again gambling.
The Contamination of Natural Kaua`i
Paul Koberstein, Guest
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/07/25/contamination-natural-kauai/
The Garden Island’s rare plants and wildlife are being put at risk by the toxic chemicals used on GMO test fields.
Given its fragile and unusually rich ecology, the Hawaiian island of
Kaua`i seems ill-suited as a site for agricultural experiments that use
heavy amounts of toxic chemicals. But four transnational corporations —
Syngenta, BASF Plant Science, DuPont Pioneer and Dow AgroSciences — have
been doing just those kinds of experiments here for about two decades,
extensively spraying pesticides on their GMO test fields. As a result,
the landscape on the southwest corner of the island has become one of
the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture.
This poses serious risks for the people of Kaua`i, as I’ve documented in my earlier report,
but even less noticed are the hazards posed to the unique flora and
fauna of the island and the coral reefs just off its shores. Each of the
seven highly toxic pesticides most commonly used by the GMO giants on
Kaua`i — chlorpyrifos, paraquat, atrazine, permethrin, methomyl,
alachlor and metolachlor — is known to be toxic to plants, wildlife or
both.
The isolated geography of Kaua`i has fostered the evolution of a
great diversity of birds, bugs and plants. Kaua`i has more unique
species — species that live only on the island — than anywhere else in
the world, said Dr. Carl Berg, an ecologist and long-time advocate for
clean water with the Kaua`i chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. Berg
and others fear that these endemic species are being put at great risk
of extinction by exposure to the chemicals, though he says he has no
idea of the extent of the damage.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service added 48 species that live only on
Kauai to the endangered species list in 2010, including two different
species of the Hawaiian honeycreeper, a small bird, and the large
Hawaiian picture-wing fly. Also, several protected marine species rest
or breed on the island’s beaches, including the highly endangered
Hawaiian monk seal and the threatened green sea turtle. Occasionally, an
endangered leatherback and hawksbill sea turtle will wander close in. A
total of 17 different kinds of dolphins and whales frolic in the
island’s harbors and bays.
To best understand the island’s ecology, start at its highest point,
Mount Waialeale. The island’s central volcano, which was born in a
massive eruption 6 million years ago on the ocean floor and now stands
5,200 feet above sea level at its summit. Over millennia, natural forces
(wind, rain, volcanic eruptions) have carved a series of unique
micro-ecosystems into the landscape, from the rain-swept mountain peak
to the hot and dry southern coast. As you go down the mountain, the mix
of unique species that fill each ecological niche changes dramatically
every few feet, from the tropical rainforests dominated by the prized
hardwood koa to the mist-shrouded swamp forests of lapalapa, a small
endemic flowering shrub.
Mount
Waialeale, one of the three rainiest places on earth, receives an
average of 460 inches of rain per year, according to the National
Climatic Data Center. The GMO test fields, located just 12 miles away
near sea level, receive less than 20 inches of rainfall per year.
Steady trade winds, which blow in from the northeast, carry a cargo
of pollen, birds, bugs and other life forms to Kaua`i. As they whip
across the island, they also kick up dust and agricultural chemicals and
deposit them on top of the island’s many native species and habitats.
Often the wind reverses direction in late afternoon and blows up the
canyon, away from the town of Waimea and toward the northwhere most of
the rare species live, just a few miles away.
The Waimea River is the lifeline connecting each micro-ecosystem. It
begins its journey above the spectacular 3,000 foot deep Waimea River
Canyon (called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific” by some), meanders down
toward the lowlands where it picks up polluted runoff from the fields
where Dow and DuPont test their GMO crops, and gently eases into the
Pacific Ocean. Offshore, It deposits the polluted water on top of the
coral reefs that form a ring around the island.
Underground rivers of water also contaminated with the chemicals
follow a similar route to the sea, finally emerging from submerged
springs that bubble up through the corals. The coral reef ecosystem,
which includes the colorful coral, tiny reef fish, and seagrasses, is
lodged between the polluted surface water and groundwater like a waffle
in a waffle iron.
Water quality tests show that the levels of chemical contamination in
the river and groundwater are too low to violate drinking water
standards, but are high enough to pose a hazard to aquatic life.
The amount of this pollution, while small, appears to be increasing.
Water sampling results published recently by the US Geological Survey
show that the levels of atrazine, chlorpyrifos, and other pesticides in
surface waters near Waimea increased nearly four-fold from 2012 to 2014.
Studies from Australia show that agricultural runoff tainted with
atrazine and chlorpyrifos are harming corals and other aquatic life in
the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem. No
studies have been conducted to see if similar effects are occurring off
Kaua`i.
Barely detectable levels of pesticides are enough to damage the
coral, said Australian biologist Dr. Andrew Negri, who has written
several papers on the issue. “As corals are symbiotic organisms, the
insecticides are most likely to affect the host animal, whereas the
herbicides can affect the symbiotic microalgae,” which provide corals
with energy, he said.
Later this month, the US government is expected to add more than 60
types of reef-building corals to the endangered species list, including
many from in the Indo-Pacific oceanic region, which includes waters
around Hawaii and Kaua`i.
The courts have ruled that it is illegal for pesticide use to do harm
to endangered species. The Endangered Species Act can be a powerful
tool in the hands of environmental lawyers. In the 1990s, endangered
species litigation was used to block many timber sales in spotted owl
habitat in the dense old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.
No such lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Kaua`i’s endangered wildlife so far.
This article is part of “What The Fork!?! Corporations and Democracy,” a collaborative effort by The Media Consortium investigating corporate control of our democracy and our dinner plates. Articles and radio pieces combine work of Making Contact, The Progressive, the Center for Media and Democracy (publisher of ALECexposed.org), and Food Democracy Now, along with reporting fromEarth Island Journal, Grist, and Cascadia Times. Made possible in part by the Voqal Fund. Read stories and take action at wtfcorporations.com, and follow #wtfcorps and #BigAg on Twitter and Facebook.
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