DRA Legislative Questionnaire Responses, Part Five of Five
In mid-September, Dakota Rural Action sent out a questionnaire to all candidates running for State House and Senate. Below are the returned responses to the following question:
South Dakota is one of the top three honey-producing states in the nation. Our specialty crop and organic ag sectors are strong and growing as well. However, the last two years have seen a massive increase in incidences of chemical trespass affecting beekeepers, specialty growers, and even conventional producers resulting in significant losses to producers.
Last winter, during a Senate Ag & Natural Resources Committee hearing on a chemical trespass bill, then Secretary of Agriculture Mike Jaspers pledged his department would promulgate rules to better protect producers, but no action was ever taken by the department. The 2018 growing season has seen incidences of spray drift and chemical trespass continue to negatively impact many producers.
If elected, what kind of protections would you support for beekeepers, specialty producers, and organic and conventional producers against spray drift and chemical trespass?
District 1
House of Representatives
Steven D. McCleerey “Fines may need to be implemented when this is done; just reading the labels tells what could happen. Unfortunately, we in Agriculture dont always have respect for each other and we get greedy! I always alert Beekeepers when I must spray next to the hives. It is a matter of being respectful for the other people’s property. Fines or loss of payments!”
District 3
House of Representatives
Cory Allen Heidelberger “One business’s operations should not poison or otherwise physically destroy another business’s products. When one business uses herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that harm its neighbors’ livelihood, that poisoning business should pay for those losses.
Specifically, South Dakota should follow the lead of other states and restrict the use of new dicamba products that have demonstrated too great a tendency to drift.”
District 4
House of Representatives
Daryl Root “Lawsuits by these affected and prosecutions of those violating chemical regulations. While I believe everyone has the right to do with their property as they wish, those rights stop at property lines– and that includes chemical drift.”
John Mills “I would support common sense measures designed to help protect the environment and neighbors. The increased use of precision agriculture should help turn the pendulum to more accuracy of inputs and reduced problems for neighbors.”
Kathy Tyler “First of all, sprayers need to be bonded and insured. Secondly, they need to be held responsible for damages that occur– and not just the damage that can be seen, but future loss of income because of those damages”
District 6
State Senate
Teresa Ann Robbins “Agricultural environmental protection measures must be safe-guarded to protect both the investment of our organic and bee-keeping producers as well as to encourage environmentally sound pest management practices. Legislation should be soundly promoted to support environmentally sound practices that offer a winning solution to all of our agricultural partners. These efforts should not be mutually exclusive and best practices promote health and well-being for all citizens and should not be subverted by groups seeking to exploit a profit by promoting agricultural practices that cannot support reasonable and accepted environmental
protections..”
District 7
House of Representatives
Bill Adamson “In a private market system, property owners are entitled to earn a fair rate of return on their productive assets. Spray drift and overspaying is a negative externality that imposes costs on third-party producers. In the case of organic producers, contamination by certain chemicals can result in the loss of their organic certification which would seriously impact earnings and impose re-certification costs. Policies should be in place to minimize economic losses from chemical application.”
District 8
House of Representatives
Chris Francis “We need to be far more aware as neighbors. We must consider and realize that practically everything we do, be it the application of chemicals to the discharge of wastewater, has consequences for someone else. Without a doubt, we must find better means to live among one other, while respecting the rights of everyone to prosper and thrive, responsibly at that.”
District 11
House of Representatives
Margaret Kuipers “Chemical drift and over spray is a huge problem with catastrophic consequences. Both for property owners and insects such as bees. I will support any legislation that would protect anyone affected by drift and over spray.”
Sheryl Johnson “Ban Dicamba first of all. Hold farmers who cause chemical drift responsible for the other farmer’s ruined crops. Make it easier for farmers to farm organically and encourage organic farming! I would also like to find out whatever happened to the SDSU research about Round up causing bee deaths that ‘disappeared’. I would like to see less involvedment of the chemical companies in our state university farming programs.”
District 15
State Senate
Reynold F. Nesiba “I need to know more. But spray drift and chemical trespass is also an issue with our organic producers. I suspect we need higher fines and penalties for violations that harm other agricultural producers.”
District 16
State Senate
Liz Merrigan “This is not an easy problem to address because of wind and drift. However, farmers could be more diligent about not spraying on a breezy day, perhaps hefty fines could be enforced if the correct perpetrators could be identified, and the businesses identified need to be seen as legitimate part of SD’s agriculture. ”
District 19
State Senate
Ardon Wek “I don’t know how to prevent these incidences. I am willing to listen to suggestions. I believe when someone harms another person or their property, restitution should be made.”
Stace Nelson “I do NOT support rules passage. These type of situations should be addressed by legislation in public committee process and public debate. Private property rights should be defended. I can think of no circumstances in which I can support chemical trespass on private property rights.”
District 19
House of Representatives
Alison Bowers “All producers should be protected from having their business negatively impacted by another producer’s management practices. South Dakota should uphold their commitment to protect producers from spray drift and chemical trespass. This could include requiring a buffer zone, and in the case of dicamba, limiting the timeframe it can be sprayed or requiring weather constraints to reduce the likelihood that spray drift occurs. If spray drift cannot be reduced, we need to restrict the use of these products.”
Roger Hofer “Dicamba damages need to be closely followed. Monsanto should be forced to pay up if they allow drift to other fields.”
District 26b
House of Representatives
Debra Smith “Since we need bees in order to stay alive, it is vital that we support beekeepers and do our best to ensure that bees are protected from chemical spraying.”
District 25
State Senate
Peter Klebanoff “Frankly, I think you are understating the problem. Bees have been suffering from not only unintentional poisoning but Colony Collapse, which, as far as I know, has yet to be fully explained. Bees and other pollinators are critical element of our food chain and must be protected at almost any cost. The alternative would be devastating not only to our ag community, but our food supply.
With respect to dicamba drift and other issues of overspray or killing a neighbors crop somehow, it is a long-held fairness doctrine that he who does the damage, pays for the repair or loss. I support that position. I suspect there is sufficient science today to justify severely limiting or forbidding the use of dicamba and the like, and I will encourage review and that action be taken with regard to controlling its use.”
District 30
State Senate
A. Gideon Oakes “I am a strong advocate for private property rights, and for the right of the individual to live their own life, so long as their choices are not harmful to others via force or fraud. Chemical trespass certainly falls under the definition of “force”. I would support legislative action to define chemical trespass in the same vein as vandalism, especially when prior knowledge is reasonably assumed.”
Kristine Ina Winter “Fully support this type of protection. If statutes are necessary for these ends, then so be it.”
District 30
House of Representatives
Karen McGregor “I would support common sense regulations to protect from spray drift and chemical trespass. We use too many chemicals with unknown consequences and even when problems become evident, are too slow to respond.
Whitney Raver “There are very strong but unprofessional words I tend to use when discussing the producers of said chemicals – one organization in particular. Suffice it to say, few things would please me more than to rid those products from the state completely. I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to do that. But I will be an effective mouthpiece for someone who does.”
District 32
House of Representatives
Susan Kelts “Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are warning us that our environment is not as protected as one may think. As an urban Representative, I would be open to input from organizations (like DRA) about measures that will protect our environment from spray drift and chemical trespass.”
District 33
State Senate
Ryan Ryder “Let’s get those rules drafted. Again, with agriculture as the key industry in South Dakota, we
can not afford NOT to protect producers, bees, and beekeepers. I would support such legislation.”
District 33
House of Representatives
Lilias Jarding “As someone who has grown most of my family’s food without chemicals for 40 years- and because we need bees- I favor protections against spray drift and chemical trespass. I will work with other legislators to address this issue in a timely fashion.
District 34
House of Representatives
George Nelson “I would seek legislation that would allow the recovery of costs and attorneys fees in civil actions brought against trespassers who have been found liable in a court of law. This would be in addition to the recovery of all other damages already allowed.”
District 35
State Senate
Pat Cromwell “Common sense solutions would be looking at neighboring states to determine what rules are working for producers in those states. Issues related to spray drift and chemical trespass are problems all over the country need to be addressed in South Dakota with legislation which protects producers and consumers.”