The push for more local control upends the typical pattern of Westerners fighting against regulation.
This article by Carl Segerstrom was published in High Country News on October 23th, 2019.
With both hands in the pockets of his khakis, Loren Wand wavered nervously on a small stage at Bier One Brewing in Newport, Oregon. A gathering crowd milled about, some standing and chatting, others sitting in folding chairs in a few makeshift rows. As Wand started speaking, someone in the audience reminded him to talk directly into the microphone.
He did, telling the story of his wife, Debra Wand, who was 44 when she died from cancer. Wand attributes her illness, which started with respiratory issues, to aerially sprayed herbicides that drifted onto his wife on their rural property. At the 2015 kickoff for a campaign to ban aerial pesticide spraying in Lincoln County, Wand said it was time to put the rights of people and the environment over corporate profit.
Wand’s story was the first of many told during the campaign for the ballot initiative, which narrowly prevailed in May 2017. Almost immediately after the ban passed, however, a local timberland owner and farming corporation challenged it in court. This September, a circuit court judge struck it down, saying it violated a state law pre-empting counties and cities from regulating pesticides.
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