Warnings aim to protect salmon

Susan Fornoff

July 15, 2006

Pesticide shoppers should begin to see a new sign posted in stores along the West Coast warning: "Salmon Hazard: This product contains pesticides that may harm salmon or steelhead. Use of this product in urban areas can pollute salmon streams."

The Environmental Protection Agency began distributing the signs in May as a result of a settlement with consumer and salmon advocates including Forest Knolls' SPAWN, the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network. The warnings are required to be posted in areas of stores where products containing any of seven ingredients are sold.

The ingredients are malathion, carbaryl, 2,4-D, diazinon, diuron, triclopyr and trifluralin.

"Waterborne pesticides have long been a serious problem for salmon," SPAWN's press release quoted Glen Spain, a representative for one of the plaintiffs in the case, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "It is far better to keep these chemicals out of the river in the first place, and much harder to clean up a river after the damage has been done."

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