toxic big island school grounds

[rainyjim]

EW,
I thought arsenic was used in Hawaii to kill rats in the sugar cane fields - not as a weed killer. Do you know of any source that says otherwise? Thanks.

[ironyak]

The DoH fact sheet is somewhat useful (and linked to from the BINow article posted by the OP)

http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/DOE%2...0Sheet.pdf

"Arsenic was commonly used for weed control in the 1910s through 1940s, which included use along building perimeters."

The actual report identifying the levels involved would be more helpful though...

[ironyak]

So check it - old established large landowners exploit an uneducated work force, exposing them and their families to chemicals that conveniently impair their understanding and limit their lifespan while they toil to produce a profit for the business. The next generation comes into some degree of governmental power and expand many of these fields into schools, where kids can play about in these contaminated soils, and hit each other in the head for our entertainment, while parents cheer them on in these academic endeavors, hoping they graduate and get a government job, which oversee these same schools that are given more money to conveniently produce students that continue to underachieve academically, while everyone on the sidelines dismisses any concerns about this arrangement (or at least wishes it cost them less in taxes), and the large landowners turn more contaminated fields into housing for the next generation to grow up in.

I'm with kalakoa, or Carlin, on this one - we deserve the end results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnrzB-W_Njw

[Durian Fiend]

This news should put the kibosh on any vegetable garden projects at those schools. I wouldn't worry about the kids otherwise digging around in the dirt these days. Most will never even touch the ground unless they drop their phone or pills.

[Jimbo2017]

I have been saying for years that those 'gorilla' gardens downtown should never have been planted, let alone eaten from... The Canex factory was a heavy polluter, then the tsunami moved it all around bayfront. Many types of plants have different bioaccumulation potential in different tissues and soils. If you don't do a soil test when starting farming/gardening, you are not doing your due diligence (take it to the extension office, costs like $30 bucks for a full soil profile, I think, including dangerous stuff in there). Likewise, volcanic soils can have a lot of heavy and toxic elements locked in, and are released as they weather (which is usually just fine).

Here's some real science about the arsenic in local soils... http://lumahai.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/resou..._FINAL.pdf

Mauka Hilo-side

[ElysianWort]

Despite what some of you may be inferring I was never saying all chemicals are bad.

Also this link isn't about Roundup Glinda.

I am simply saying if we would all shift to organic gardening then our keiki won't be finding as many pollutants and problems left behind by us when they do tests 50 years down the line. To add to that, if our forefathers had farmed organically, then we wouldn't be finding a lot of that toxic stuff the soil here. Right? Tell me I'm wrong about that?

As for the lead on the buildings that is an entirely different topic. Most of us know it has nothing to do with the organic gardening right Obie? Why are you confused here? It was just another thing that popped up in the soil test. The use of lead in paint is just another example of us stupid humans, in a lab somewhere, approving of something for commercial use that is damaging to our race in the long run. But it makes the paint last longer or stick better or whatever so who cares right?

And whatever, if you think the rising ocean means there is no hope for our children and their children then we should just start build a big boat. An ark maybe?
The sky is falling.

[glassnumbers]

well, that would be a good start. Look at what the Dutch have built-they have a gigantic mechanical arm they've developed. I don't think there's no hope, its just, well, nobody really knows what soil we're going to end up on. We don't know what the new sea level is going to be. While yes, we shouldn't be putting out any more toxins, I think its a lot more important we get the flooding squared away first. I don't see how Hilo is going to survive the next 20 years, its just situated at too low of an elevation.

Aloha

[Guest]

i miss the old bottom paints.

[rainyjim]

I found some information on early uses of arsenic as a weed killer if anyone is interested - https://ucanr.edu/repository/fileaccess.cfm?article=163744&p=GZBXGG

Sodium arsenite

As I suspected this stuff sterilizes the soil, so while effective as a weed killer I don’t see a practical application for sugarcane except as a rodenticide as the weed killer sodium arsenite would also kill the sugarcane and sterilize the soil.

I still suspect the arsenic used in Hawaii’s sugarcane fields was for rat poison, not weed killer. Someone prove me wrong, I have no cross to bear, but am genuinely interested in Hawaii’s agricultural history.

[PaulW]

If our forefathers had farmed "organically" (i.e. rejecting any technological advance as the work of the devil) then most of us wouldn't even be here.