A tourist barrelling along the highways of the central west might not notice anything wrong with the trees, but grazier Bruce Maynard, who has lived his whole life on the same farm between Trangie and Narromine, believes the land is sick.
The canaries in the coalmine are the bare peppercorn trees at the local golf course. Maynard says they were so dense with foliage in his youth that you couldn’t see through them.
He lays out the leaves of native trees – kurrajong, red river gum, bimble box – on his kitchen table, as well as introduced varieties such as yucca; all growing in the New South Wales Orana region, all dotted with the same black necrotic spots.
According to Maynard, the problem has been increasing in severity and rapidity, affecting all vegetation in the area since 2018.
He is a spokesperson for the community overspray groups who believe the passive chemical exposure from cotton farms – which exist in a mosaic among grazing and cropping farms – is a threat to all activities within the affected regions.
Food producers have to certify that their produce has not been exposed to chemicals in ways that would leave residues or cause food risk, Maynard says.
However, producers like him are “trapped” because the vegetation around them indicates chemical exposure is likely to have occurred, yet the responsible authorities are not responding to locals’ reports.
Because the food they produce feeds the nation, and the effect of chemicals on the environment is increasingly recognised as a worldwide public health threat, Maynard says the issue should transcend local concern.
“It’s everybody’s story, not just a bush one any more.”
‘Causal agent’
Last month, Peter Ampt, an adjunct professor in regenerative agriculture at Southern Cross University and an independent consultant, was engaged by the Macquarie Valley Landcare Group to address gatherings in Warren, Trangie and Narromine about conservation.
Ampt says that his observations while in the area on 16 and 17 June were that multiple vegetation species – which should have been growing very strongly after two years of good rainfall – were under stress.
Trees planted only 10 or 15 years ago as carbon sequestration plantings have died in the last five years, “with symptoms of low-level herbicide damage over a period of time leading to that death”, he says.
A report commissioned by the Department of Industry in 2018, obtained via Freedom of Information laws in 2020, states that defoliation in the area was “most likely a result of a large area spraying with temperature inversions moving fine particles of chemical longer distance than would be expected compared to physical droplet spray drift”.
The latest report commissioned by Macquarie Valley Landcare Group, which Maynard is affiliated with, was published in 2021 by the ecologist David Goldney, an adjunct professor at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
Goldney said in his opinion, “there is a prima facie case that herbicide drift, particularly in the Autumn period prior to cotton harvesting, is very likely the causal agent in initiating the widespread dieback of native and non-native vegetation in the Narromine–Trangie area”.
A spokesperson for Cotton Australia told the Guardian that their organisation “works closely with relevant government departments in educating, training, and promoting best practice to all farmers in relation to the effective and safe application of chemicals”.
They also highlighted that over 20 different crops are grown in the Narromine/Trangie area, “most of which use agricultural chemicals under strict protocols and regulations”.
Sal Ceeney, a cereal and cotton farmer in Warren, who also works in stewardship for Cotton Australia, said cotton growers ensure chemical application is conducted to “a really high standard”.
“We live in this community, we live in the environment, as well as everybody else here. So we’re all trying to do the best to make sure that the chemicals that are used are done so responsibly.”
Ceeney says unintended spray drift is a concern for all agricultural industries which use the chemical sprays common in modern agriculture.
According to Ampt, the increased number of weeds due to the rain this season leads to an increased frequency and a range of herbicides used to control them, and consequently an increased risk of drift onto neighbouring areas.
‘Evidenced-based response’
Maynard says stakeholders have been trying for over four years to engage with the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) about the issue, but the response has consistently been inadequate.
Steve Fuller of the Crop Pollination Association said that honey contamination due to spray drift from cotton was a problem.
“When we do report a spraying … to the EPA, we get told it’s not their issue, it’s to go to another area,” he says.
“When we go to another area, we keep on getting told it’s an EPA issue.”
On 3 May 2021 Narromine free range, pastured and chemical-free egg farmer Colin Hamilton noticed burn spots on leaves and a quarter of his grass die where his hens run, and reported the event to the EPA.
“They didn’t follow up on that at all,” he said.
“Because I couldn’t accurately say who was spraying and where it came from, they wouldn’t do any more work on it.”
Ampt says that while “people that know the landscape well are better able to understand what the impact is, what I suspect is happening is that people are not seeing the problem because it’s a slow-burning problem”.
An EPA spokesperson told the Guardian that “the EPA has actively investigated the potential link between spray drift and alleged defoliation of peppercorn trees in the Narromine and Trangie (Macquarie Valley) area”.
“The EPA investigates all reports made to the environment line, but to date has not found enough evidence to link pesticide overspray or drift with defoliation.”
In 2020, the EPA commenced a broad-scale pilot pesticide monitoring campaign within the Gilgandra, Narromine and Warren local government areas in response to concerns being raised regarding pesticide drift.
The EPA spokesperson told the Guardian that the results to date show that ethephon, the only pesticide detected that is primarily used for cotton defoliation, was detected on two of 71 occasions when samples were collected.
The spokesperson said that the program was disrupted by Covid, but will continue in the Macquarie Valley for the 2022-23 season and be extended to the Narrabri cotton area (Namoi Valley), to examine the scope of the spray drift problem and develop an evidence-based response.
Connecting dots
On December 16 2021, Maynard and other stakeholders, including Landcare and the Nature Conservation Council, held an online meeting with several senior representatives of the EPA, including the then CEO Tracy Mackey.
Jo Immig, the coordinator of the National Toxics Network, expressed her disappointment with the EPA’s lack of action at the meeting.
At the time, Immig said, “the reality is that spray drift is occurring every day. It’s contaminating parts of the environment. It’s getting everywhere. But on your watch, nothing’s happening about it.”
“The implications, I think, if they actually joined dots together, are enormous,” she told the Guardian.
“It fundamentally means we have to rethink the way that so much agriculture is done.
“It’s as confronting as having to think about not using fossil fuels any more. As a result, it ends up in grey area all the time, which is the too hard basket.”
The EPA was approached for comment on the content of the meeting.
