Palisadian Anti-Roundup Movement Reaches New Milestone

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

A campaign with roots in Pacific Palisades to end the use of the herbicide Roundup marked a new chapter this month, as LA’s Department of Recreation and Parks announced that it would no longer use the controversial spray near playgrounds and dog parks citywide.

The Monsanto-manufactured herbicide was already out of use in the Palisades, after a 2016 movement led by Palisadian environmental activist Barbara Edelman pressured Rec and Parks to halt its use in lower Temescal Canyon Park and along the town’s bluffs.

Now the department has agreed to stop using Roundup within 100 feet of all Los Angeles recreation centers, children’s play areas and dog parks.

The department will continue using the spray to manage other areas under their purview, maintaining its stance that a key chemical in the herbicide, glyphosate, has low toxicity.

The validity of that claim depends on which organization you ask: The World Health Organization and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment deem glyphosate “probably carcinogenic to humans,” but the Environmental Protection Agency has long claimed that the spray is likely safe for use. Monsanto itself consistently defends the product.

District 11 Councilmember Mike Bonin, who authored legislation ordering Rec and Parks to examine its Roundup policy last year, declared the new ruling a success, crediting “local activists in Pacific Palisades” as the impetus for the change.

But you won’t find Edelman celebrating.

Her concerns about the spray remain, despite the 100-foot buffer on sensitive areas.

“This is so far from ‘enough,’” she told the Palisadian-Post after the decision was announced. “If you saturate areas with a toxic herbicide, when they run sprinklers, when it rains, when the wind blows—it doesn’t just sit right on the spot where it’s been deposited.”

Between the spray’s continued use elsewhere and these potential forms of runoff, Edelman is unconvinced that the ruling will make an impact.

Beyond her health concerns for hikers, nearby homeowners and the employees charged with administering the spray on park-managed lands, Edelman cites worries about the spray’s effects on local wildlife—bees and butterflies in particular.

She believes Rec and Parks’ resistance to banning the spray entirely (a long-term goal that Bonin has echoed) comes down to a matter of money and convenience.

But, she concluded, that’s not reason enough to use a spray that some leading health agencies deem dangerous: “Call me old-fashioned or crazy, but it’s my opinion that public lands should be managed for the public good, not for the ease of the Los Angeles Department [of Rec and Parks].”

And so it appears the Palisades’ Roundup battle has only just begun.