By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

The U.S. Forest Service is spraying large quantities of glyphosate on public lands burned out by forest fires in California and other states, according to an investigation by Mother Jones.

The agency is spraying the herbicide on vast tracts of burnt land to kill native shrubs and other plants so they don’t compete with the conifer species used to reforest the areas, according to Mother Jones reporter Nate Halverson.

Unlike broadleaf plants, pine and Douglas fir trees — which also have commercial potential — can withstand the toxic chemical because they have needles instead of leaves.

Halverson and his colleague Melissa Lewis analyzed California spraying records from the last 35 years. They found that herbicide spraying in forests is happening today at “record levels.”

California sprayed 266,000 pounds of glyphosate on forests in 2023, five times the amount sprayed 20 years ago. That makes forest spraying the fastest-growing market for glyphosate in the state, they found.

“Our national forests should be places of healing, clean air, snowpack and ecological sanctity, not large-scale chemical experiment zones for issues like ‘fire mitigation’ when there are proven alternative non-toxic solutions,” California pediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro told The Defender.

Perro, an expert on the damage glyphosate causes to children’s health and co-author of “What’s Making Our Children Sick?: How Industrial Food Is Causing an Epidemic of Chronic Illness, and What Parents (and Doctors) Can Do About It,” said well-established evidence shows that glyphosate poses serious health risks.

“Cumulative environmental toxicant exposures are no longer theoretical — they are visible daily in our clinics, schools and communities,” she said.

Pesticide exposure poses particular risks for children. “Children are not simply mini adults. Their developing neurological, endocrine, immune and detoxification systems are uniquely vulnerable to environmental exposures like glyphosate,” Perro said.

‘The public deserves open communication’

Perro sent an open letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials and California U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman on Sunday, putting them on notice that the concerned public will be watching this issue closely.

She called for public transparency about proposed herbicide treatments used in fire restoration, including the chemicals being used, application methods, environmental monitoring plans and the scientific research supporting the project.

She also called for the agency to use proven non-chemical restoration methods and to disclose the effects on watersheds, wildlife, recreation areas and nearby communities.

“I believe the public deserves open communication, scientific transparency, and meaningful engagement before widespread chemical applications proceed in these

landscapes,” Perro wrote.

Local residents have also been pushing back, concerned that the chemical is being carried on the winds and leeching into local creeks that function as their water sources.

Some residents also launched a petition on change.org.

Retracted article, ghostwritten by Monsanto, used to justify glyphosate use

The researchers found that the 2011 Forest Service risk assessment used to justify its use of glyphosate in reforestation relied heavily on a 2000 study concluding that glyphosate doesn’t pose a health risk to humans at typical exposure levels.

However, that study — relied on by regulators around the world for decades to justify continued approval of glyphosate — was quietly retracted in November 2025 over ethical concerns, including secret authorship by Monsanto employees.

The Forest Service said the only risk associated with spraying glyphosate in the forest is to people who unknowingly forage for mushrooms and other plants in recently sprayed areas, according to the Mother Jones report.

Forest Service biologist Russell Nickerson told Mother Jones that the agency still relies on the 2011 assessment.

More recent plans, including a 2024 plan to reforest an area destroyed by fire in Lassen, California — a plan that Nickerson helped write — will also use glyphosate. In Lassen, workers with portable backpack sprayers will hike through the burn area and apply up to 8 pounds of the chemical per acre.

The first spray will happen in spring or summer 2026, with a second application planned for the fall.

After the conifers that are planted begin to grow, the workers will continue reapplying the chemical to kill the plants around them.

Nickerson told the Mother Jones researcher that because the chemical is approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they continue to use it.

Lake Tahoe spray plan includes campgrounds, trailheads

The agency also plans to spray up to 75,000 acres destroyed by the 2021 Caldor fire near the Lake Tahoe ski resort as part of the Caldor Fire Restoration Project.

That plan includes spraying glyphosate in campgrounds, at trailheads and near homes, the authors wrote.

Mother Jones reported it is more difficult to assess the use of glyphosate for forest spraying in other states, because they don’t have the same strict reporting requirements as California.

However, they also cited a 2020 EPA study based on private industry data, which showed that 16 southern states accounted for approximately 90% of forest spraying in the U.S.

They added:

“The Forest Service acknowledges it can get similar timber yields by reforesting without chemicals, using workers and machines, but at triple the cost — expense is a ‘major factor’ in the decision to spray, according to a 2024 agency report.

“The same report cites a 40-year-old study that claims injuries are more likely when vegetation is culled by hand, but it doesn’t address potential health risks for crews hired to spray the chemical.”

Oversight of glyphosate spraying in forests is ‘lax’

Mother Jones found that despite California’s strict chemical regulations, oversight of forest spraying is “lax.”

Most site inspections lacked reports. The reports that did exist showed that in one case, contract workers spraying the chemical had no protective equipment, received no safety training and were handling the chemicals without gloves.

Lawsuits in which people who got cancer from exposure sued Monsanto have shown that regular use of the chemical without protection is linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency executive order that allowed the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and other agencies to skip over normal safety protocols when they spray the chemical.

The state’s justification for using the chemical is based on Cal Fire’s 2015 glyphosate safety report, which also relies on Monsanto’s studies, the authors wrote.

They also noted that in addition to spraying forests, the California Department of Transportation sprays the toxic chemical along highways, roads and beaches.

Glyphosate linked to wide range of health problems

Much of the conversation about glyphosate — the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup — has focused on its use in industrial farming for food production.

Environmental and health activists have been lobbying for decades to end the use of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops — genetically modified crops designed to withstand spraying of the chemical so farmers can spray their fields to kill weeds without harming the crop.

The chemical is linked to health problems that range from cancer to liver damage to neuroinflammation to disruption of gut microbes.

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, has already paid more than $12 billion to resolve lawsuits filed against Monsanto before the acquisition. The company still faces more than 60,000 lawsuits nationally, largely over injuries from the use of Roundup in farming, landscaping and gardening.

In a major case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, John Durnell, who developed cancer after being exposed to glyphosate while gardening, sued Monsanto for failing to include a warning on its product label that the chemical can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of Durnell, Children’s Health Defense said that glyphosate use is now so widespread that children regularly ingest the chemical through food and drink, in parks and lawns treated with the chemical, in swimming pools and ponds where runoff occurs, and through oral contact with hands, toys and other objects that are contaminated with the residue.

Researchers such as Carol Van Strum have also exposed the dangers of herbicide spraying in forests near rural communities — including contaminated water sources, wildlife decline and health effects, Perro noted in her letter.

Related articles in The Defender

• ‘Serious Ethical Concerns’: Journal Retracts Key Glyphosate Safety Study, Allegedly Ghostwritten by Monsanto
• Glyphosate Is Toxic — Here’s How It Destroys Your Health
• ‘The Whole Truth’ on Monsanto’s Campaign to Discredit Scientists, Deceive Public
• Glyphosate Poses ‘Profound and Permanent’ Risks to Kids: Children’s Health Defense Urges U.S. Supreme Court to Rule Against Bayer

The post Forest Service Spraying Record Amounts of Glyphosate on Burned-Out Public Lands appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More