North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

My son is in fisheries and wildlife and had the following comment on 
the Roundup article that came up on the list recently.
-Lon Rombough
A video about The Grape Grower : 
http://cookingupastory.com/index.php/2008/04/18/the-grape-grower/

Begin forwarded message:

I have actually read this paper - it its entirety, and a number of 
other studies. In fact, the EPA lab that I used to work at in Corvallis 
did research on this topic for many years.

The truth is, that most experiments are designed to replicate what 
would runoff or drift into a pond under normal conditions. Now, 
subsequent research indicates that glyphosate - and 2,4-D - is actually 
toxic to amphibians - and humans too, as a matter of fact. The issue, 
as with all poisons, is one of dose. Direct mortality occurs at higher 
dosages than are usually encountered when the glyphosate is present 
alone. But the surfactant, which may or may not be directly toxic, 
increases the absorption rate so that the animals recieve a much larger 
dose much more quickly. Remember that amphibians have permeable skin 
and thus compounds applied to it penetrate directly to the internal 
organs.

This concept is well-known to most wildlife biologists, and when I 
treated invasive giant knotweed along streambanks on several National 
Wildlife Refuges, we used Rodeo (Garlon), as it is a more stable 
compound, but we used it WITHOUT surfactants. That's right - 100% 
straight syrup. Absorption was slower, so we injected where necessary. 
Still killed the weeds, but without affecting the amphibian populations 
in the area.