Beautiful (but toxic) Easter Lilies

Have you ever given thought to how the beautiful Easter Lily is cultivated year after year? This plant that signifies glory and resurrection in the Christian church and for countless others, the hope that spring has sprung. As beautiful as this flowery creation is, it actually represents toxic agricultural practices that are putting our neighbors in California at risk, the home of where all Easter lilies are grown. This year, Siskiyou Land Conservancy of California is asking parishioners who care about our environment to find alternatives to Easter lilies for their annual holiday displays. The reason is that industrial pesticide use on Easter lily fields surrounding the estuary of the Smith River, in northwestern California, threatens the state’s healthiest salmon and steelhead stream, as well as nearby human communities.Easter lily farmers in western Del Norte County grow 100 percent of all Easter lily bulbs used in North America. In doing so they apply more pounds-per-acre of certain highly toxic pesticides than occurs anywhere else in California, which is really saying something. Nonetheless, no state or federal agency has ever taken action to rein in pesticide use on the Smith River Plain.With that in mind, Siskiyou Land Conservancy, a non-profit conservation organization serving northwestern California, is asking Easter lily consumers to refrain from buying the flowers until they are grown without pesticides and are labeled “organic.”Some alternative flower choices include:·     Peace lilies·     Calla lilies·     White Peruvian lilies·     Easter daisies·     Moon orchids·     White rosesThe impacts of Easter lily pesticides to the Smith River estuary and local residents are now well established. In 2010 and 2013, water testing by the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board uncovered “acute (and) chronic reproductive toxicity” in three of the four streams that feed the Smith River estuary, meaning that invertebrates that make up the basis of the salmonid food chain cannot reproduce in these waters. Such toxicity presents a risk to the entire food chain. In 2012, based on evidence presented by Siskiyou Land Conservancy and its predecessor, the Smith River Project, the federal government’s Coho Salmon Recovery Plan for the region listed pesticide use at the estuary as one of the greatest threats to the Smith River’s endangered coho population.The pesticides used along the lower Smith River impact humans as well as the environment. For many years, residents of the small town of Smith River have complained of noxious plumes of pesticide drift entering their yards and homes, and myriad ailments that they attribute to pesticide exposure. These ailments include respiratory problems, skin rashes, headaches, blurred vision, nausea, dizziness, miscarriages, birth defects and cancer. In addition, testing of wells since the 1980s has turned up widespread domestic water contamination, throughout Smith River, by carcinogenic pesticides. This month Siskiyou Land Conservancy is distributing a health survey to all of the 2,000 residents of Smith River, which lies surrounded by Easter lily fields.Why is it so important to protect the Smith River? Superlatives describing the watershed, which is located in the far northwestern corner of California, are inexhaustible and in no way overstated. The Smith is unique among coastal rivers in the United States.•       The Smith River is the wildest and cleanest river in the country outside of Alaska — indeed, it is one of the cleanest rivers in the world.•       The Smith is the only major undammed river in California, and it anchors the coastal heart of the Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion, one of the oldest, largest and wildest temperate ecosystems in North America.•       The Smith River contains more stream miles federally designated “Wild and Scenic” than any other river in the United States.•       Smith River salmon and steelhead runs are legendary. Some of the largest Chinook salmon (greater than eighty pounds) have been found on the Smith, and the Smith holds the state record for the largest steelhead ever caught (27 pounds).Siskiyou Land Conservancy has many articles on its web site about the pernicious impacts of pesticides on the aquatic ecosystem of the vital Smith River estuary, and on nearby human populations. Here is a link to one of those articles:http://siskiyouland.org/2014/10/01/acute-and-chronic-reproductive-toxicity-discovered-at-smith-river-estuary/And here is the link to our presentation on the Smith River and the impacts of pesticides.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq9Exc0lLg4Consider this as Easter celebrations are being planned. Make a different choice about the flowers we can use to share in our celebrations. Let us make choices that reflect our love of redeeming Creator and love of our neighbor.This blog is reprinted with permission from National Interfaith Power & Light and their guest blogger Greg King with the Siskiyou Land Conservancy.