City Council rewords ban

By ZACH LINDSEY
LAREDO MORNING TIMES
Published: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 7:29 AM CDT

An ordinance passed at Monday's Laredo City Council meeting that would ban all herbicide use on the Rio Grande was altered at a special meeting on Tuesday to ban only aerial spraying.

The council went into Monday's meeting with an ordinance to deny Border Patrol from using aerial spraying as a technique to kill carrizo.

By the end of the meeting, the ordinance had denied herbicide use all together.

Most of the council favors some type of herbicide use.

However, Nuevo Laredo has been vocal against it.

The council members who voted for the ordinance hoped to wait out negotiations between Nuevo Laredo and Border Patrol.

At Monday's meeting, Councilman Michael Landeck also said there was no guarantee against accidents.

"Nothing is 100 percent safe," Landeck said later.

"I don't think it's 100 percent.

It will be almost impossible to fulfill the conditions of the label because there's almost no room for error."

Rio Grande International Study Center Executive Director Jay Johnson-Castro called for middle ground.

"I'd like to propose that we look at this with a point of balance," Johnson-Castro said.

"I agree with the comment that we've gone from one extreme to the other."

The one method Monday's ordinance left Border Patrol with was mechanical removal.

Mechanical removal could cause serious erosion problems, according to environmentalists.

Legal council for Border Patrol said that the Border Patrol would've accepted the version of the ordinance that forbids any herbicide use, according to City Attorney Raul Casso.

"They had aspects of the project that they could conduct in spite of the prohibited use of the herbicide," Casso said.

But that doesn't mean Border Patrol was happy about the planned motion.

"This is the third or fourth time on this easement alone," Laredo Sector Border Patrol Chief Rosendo Hinojosa said.

"I'm trying to do this process as expediently as possible.

I don't want to have to come back to City Council. I think you're satisfied with the information that's been presented."

Border Patrol originally proposed four methods for removal.

The methods were mechanical removal with hand spraying, cutting the stem and painting the herbicide, aerial spraying and burning.

"All those methods proposed have been determined to be safe," Hinojosa said.

"We're not going to do something that's going to be dangerous to either side of the border."

But Hinojosa did admit that there were concerns from some places.

The Border Patrol is currently involved in pending litigation involving the issue. Barrio Colores, a local neighborhood, filed a lawsuit to force Border Patrol to reopen the public comment period on herbicide use.

"Whatever we grant here, if there is some red tape that's out there, you're not going to spray tomorrow and you're not going to spray next week," Councilman Mike Garza said to Hinojosa.

"All that legal process will take its course before any of that happens."

(Zach Lindsey may be reached at 728-2538 or zach@lmtonline.com)

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