Nevergreen

To paraphrase a famous philosophical question – If a tree falls on the golf course, was it caused by DuPont’s herbicide Imprelis?

More than 200 conifers at Peninsula State Park Golf Course have been poisoned by the application of the EPA-approved herbicide Imprelis, which American chemical company DuPont introduced in 2010 as an environmentally friendly herbicide for landscaping professionals.

Imprelis was approved by the EPA for use as a broad-leaf specific herbicide in August 2010. Exactly one year later the EPA issued a stop sale order after golf courses and landowners’ where Imprelis was used began reporting that the herbicide was killing evergreen trees along with the intended dandelions.

Imprelis was approved for sale everywhere but California and New York, because both states have their own herbicide review process. Imprelis was still under review in California, and New York wisely determined something was off with this latest wonder chemical, specifically, that Imprelis had the potential for groundwater contamination because it tends not to bind with soil.

Pennsylvania was the first state to file a class action lawsuit against DuPont. It was joined by Delaware, Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

A settlement was reached, but DuPont’s Imprelis website (imprelis-facts.com) states:  “The settlement will not be considered final until the Court of Appeals hears and resolves any legal challenges.” However, DuPont has taken an active mitigation role – company representatives have visited Peninsula State Golf Course twice to assess the damage.

“It was first noticed at the golf course in 2011,” said Peninsula State Park Superintendent Kelli Bruns, who began her tenure at the park on Sept. 1, 2011. “I was at another state park property on the other side of the state when the department (of Natural Resources) was made aware that some of the coniferous trees were not holding up very well.”

She said the affected trees are a variety of sizes. “Some of them are browned out. Some of them are dead in their entirety. Last year we had noticed some of them standing dead.”

Of the 256 conifers affected at Peninsula State Golf Course, 144 have been declared hopeless and are to be removed, and the remaining 112 are under a two-year tree care program.

“DuPont has actually been at our golf course on two occasions and they’ve gone through and done a tree inventory, basically assessing all the trees on the golf course,” Bruns said. “We also had our DNR foresters come take a look and provide us with some information on how they felt the trees were coming along, which ones were surviving. We also worked with a private consulting forester who had worked with other golf courses throughout Wisconsin. So we had a variety of different professionals take a look at what DuPont was providing us as far as tree damage and tree care. We feel real good about where we’re at right now as far as what trees have been identified.”

Of the 144 hopeless trees DuPont found, they said five were hazardous because they could cause damage or injury and should come down ASAP. The five hazardous trees were removed by a contractor this week.

“That’s actually a process that DuPont handles for us,” Bruns said. “They’ll come in and hire a forestry company to remove those trees and take them off the property. The remainder of 139 trees will more than likely occur in the fall after the golf season.”

Working around the golf season is a fact of life for the process, Bruns said, to ensure “we’re not causing any more damage to the turf.”

Bruns said the care program prescribed for the 112 trees includes “fertilization of the roots and to treat the trees for any mites or borers that might impact them as they’re trying to survive. If those trees do not survive, the department would be eligible to go back and request compensation for those trees. Our goal is to remediate any of the damage that has occurred.”

Bruns wanted to make sure everyone understands that this environmental threat at the golf course is an anomaly in otherwise environmentally sound practices used at the park.

“We’re actually looking at Audubon certification for our golf course,” she said. “If you look at the Audubon process for certification, what we do at Peninsula, we’re 90 percent there already.

“We do a really good job,” she said. “It’s just unfortunate that this product that was certified ended up with a vendor that we used. We did everything according to guidelines. Now we’re just working through the process to mitigate the damages.”