Environmental groups are blasting a U.S. Border Patrol project to kill invasive plant life along the Mexican border with what herbicide activists are calling the next Agent Orange — the Vietnam War-era deforesting chemical later found to cause cancer. -A.P.

The United States Border Patrol plans to spray the herbicide to kill Carrizo cane, which grows in dense thickets along vast stretches of the Rio Grande, which separates the United States and Mexico.

Border Patrol supervisor Roque Sarinana calls the plant “a safety hazard for agents” that enables a drug or human smuggler to cross the border almost undetected.

The cane grows nearly 10 stems per square feet and up to 30-feet high. You could be right next to someone and not even know it.
-Roque Sarinana, U.S. Border Patrol Supervisor

The Border Patrol is considering spraying Imazapyr out of helicopters flying along the river, which has alarmed critics who are comparing it to images of U.S. planes dumping Agent Orange to defoliate the jungle during the Vietnam War.

A number of residential communities lie within a few hundred yards of the spray sites, said spraying opponent Jay Johnson Castro, director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, a non-profit environmental advocacy group based in Laredo.

Johnson agrees that the cane needs to be destroyed Carrizo cane is an invasive species, believed to have arrived with Spanish explorers centuries ago which draws unhealthy amounts of water from the Rio Grande and kills off other plant life.

[Spraying] will kill any and all trees. It will destroy habitat. There’s not enough science to know the impact (of Imazapyr) on humans. We used Agent Orange as an example, because for a while it was considered OK by the government.
- Jay Johnson Castro. director of Rio Grande International Study Center

Scientists disagree and state Imazapyr poses little threat to humans or native wildlife.

Science has progressed just a few miles since the 1960s in terms of understanding toxicity in the human body. This class of herbicide has been around for quite a while, and is not considered a health risk. -Ed Peachy, a horticulturist at Oregon State University

I understand science has come a long way, but still mistakes happen. Dioxin was considered perfectly safe, Agent Orange, the most potent form of Dioxin was considered safe.

According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America, Imazapyr is toxic to both wildlife and humans.
Although it is not known how toxic it may be to humans and whether or not it would act as an endocrine or developemental and reproductive disruptor, used in high doses, one could only guess.

I understand the very real danger Border Patrol agents are exposed to. I understand the need to erradicate Carrizo cane, but I also think, for the time being, there is enough lack of evidence to think long and hard before sending crop dusters over the Rio Grande communities. There must be another way, it must be found.