Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, a logger and the bill’s sponsor, said aerial application of glyphosate and other herbicides has caused irreversible environmental damage.
AUGUSTA — The Maine Legislature is considering a bill to ban aerial application of an herbicide used by large forest management companies for decades that has been linked to cancer and environmental damage.
L.D. 125, sponsored by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, seeks to prohibit aerial application of the plant killer glyphosate and other synthetic herbicides often used in combination with clear-cutting to manage the tree species that grow on industrial forestland.
Glyphosate is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. and is part of the formula for more than 750 products used by homeowners, farmers and foresters and in industrial areas to eliminate unwanted vegetation, according to the National Pesticide Information Center, a cooperative between the Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The herbicide has come under increasing scrutiny since the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified it as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.
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