permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 5/12/02 8:33 PM, Elijah Smith at elijah@hilobay.com wrote:

> Our question is - how long before it's
> "safe" to move in and live on that land?  One guy told us 3 years, which
> seems excessive - is it?

On the scale of things to worry about, I'd put moving onto this land at the
low end, unless the chemical-using neighbors are likely to poison you with
overspray. Though I'm thoroughly organic, the data showing that consuming
washed, chemically-grown food can poison you or give you cancer are
shaky-to-nonexistent (the compounds themselves are obviously toxic, but it's
been nigh impossible to prove that after they've been processed by soil
organisms and plants they are a human health hazard; the proven risk is to
ag workers and the environment).

I think that living on this land, and eating food grown on it for a year or
three while the residues degrade and leach, won't hurt you enough to measure
(or at least, no more than, say, breathing the fumes from gassing up your
car, or living in a city's polluted air).

I'm not saying that chemicals are harmless. But I think we get unreasonable
about the relative risks posed by certain acts. If the risks are easily
avoided, then avoid them. But before compromising our lives out of fear that
something might pose a risk, let's weigh the relative risk. We are exposed
daily to hazards vastly greater than the one Elijah's been warned of. As an
example, we worry about PVC pipe. I understand that just driving in a closed
car for a few hours exposes you to huge doses of off-gassing plastic that go
straight into the blood via the lungs, far more than you'd get from a
lifetime of drinking from PVC pipe. So avoiding one long car ride is
probably better health care than replacing a house-full of PVC pipe. In
Elijah's case, living on this land‹if toxic overspray is not a risk‹is
probably no worse than a eating a few meals at a non-organic restaurant or
relative's house. I don't mean to sound cavalier; I'm just putting this in
perspective.

Toby 
______________________________
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