OPINION: Carrying on the fight to stop use of rotenone

Since I have written on this topic before, Vernon Grove, M.D., formerly from Whitefish and currently relocated to Maine, asked that I carry on his campaign against Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; Glacier National Park; and Flathead National Forest to end their insanity of using poisonous rotenone and potassium permanganate, mixed with cancer-producing hydrocarbon solvents and dispersing agents, into prime fishing waters in order to kill non-native trout. The challenge is to figure out jurisdiction amongst these agencies.

The list of medical author references is too long to add here, as my space is limited, so I recommend readers Google the topics. They claim cancer risk, dementia, fatal brain disease, Parkinson’s, birth defects, and children’s behavior disorders related to the chemicals dumped into the water with noxious gases also produced. Hazmat suits and re-breathers are required to handle this material. One such article is about California’s Davis Lake rotenone disaster. Articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association and Nature Neuroscience also exist.

I am told our mountain waters will suffer toxin buildup, as a poisonous rotenone metabolite, and can persist for eight months or longer, manganese for years, and can jump natural barriers and eventually enter ground and drinking water, killing the entire web of life, from microscopic plants to tiny insects which fish feed on, and birds, crustaceans, ducks, otters, wolverines, grizzly and black bears, deer, elk, moose, ospreys, eagles, et. al., who might drink the water or eat the poison-choked fish.  The ecology cycle is huge and persistent.

Dr. Grove has moved away permanently, claiming Montana is no longer a place for him to live and fight with government agency personnel at the management level who can politically override the actual research done by staff biologists. He left disillusioned and angry and anxious to go live amongst a more environmental-friendly populace in Maine. His parting words were that Yellowstone National Park was now embarking on a rotenone program also.

I have not replicated the massive, expensive, time-consuming research required to countermand government agency management directives to kill with poisons these non-native fish that Dr. Grove did. Like everything else these agencies do wrong it would have to be litigated at considerable cost. I do not have those financial resources to fight them. I do know that with global warming, the non-native fish being killed off could better survive the warmer waters coming, while the native fish require colder waters and will not survive. Where does that leave local and tourist fishermen?

My own opinion is a preference for the native (bull) trout because they are shallow feeders and provide food for bald eagles and grizzly bears, two of my favorite species listed/protected under the Endangered Species Act, while the non-native (lake) trout are deep feeders and unavailable to them. It is quite the conundrum for me. However, these poisons are out of the question. No doubt about it.

I hope readers (individuals and environmental organizations) with financial resources available to them will take up this cause. These government agencies have our tax dollars to work with and they mostly go unchallenged and unaccountable on this topic. Next up for some of them will be killing grizzly bears when they become delisted due to politics. That will be a major travesty for the forest/wildlife ecology system and the local human tourist economy and will see more pushback.

Bill Baum is a resident of Badrock Canyon.