Responding to residents who waged a social media campaign against the spraying of herbicides in local creeks, Orange County officials announced they will halt the practice in waterways near Doheny State Beach.
Members of the community group Creek Team OC are calling the decision a huge victory.
After three weeks of nonstop Instagram posts demanding the county stop using plant-killing chemicals in San Juan and Trabuco creeks, officials held a town hall in Dana Point on Monday.
More than 200 people packed the room as County Supervisor Katrina Foley announced that “for the indefinite future, we will not be using any spraying of any kind of herbicide, Roundup or otherwise, in the channel.” The audience whooped and applauded.
Foley said workers instead will remove vegetation from the flood channels by hand or with equipment while officials study options.
“We want to reduce the amount of chemical toxins that we’re using in the community overall. That’s my personal view, which I think the community shares,” Foley said in an interview after the meeting.
She said she asked the Orange County Public Works department to halt spraying in flood channels in her district, which includes San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point. She also is forming an advisory group to do a wider review of the way the county deals with unwanted plants that grow in washes.
County officials have long used the chemicals in waterways to clear out vegetation and maintain the water-carrying capacity of flood control channels.
Brent Linas, a resident of San Juan Capistrano who started the community campaign only a month ago, said it’s not over. Residents are concerned the herbicides poison creeks, harm wildlife and threaten people’s health, he said.
“We have to help the rest of the county end this practice,” he said. “The public overwhelmingly declared that they do not want this practice occurring in their backyard.”
Linas, a runner, started the Creek Team OC Instagram account after noticing changes on his runs along San Juan and Trabuco creeks, where lush green reeds suddenly turned brown and lifeless. He discovered the county uses chemicals such as glyphosate, triclopyr and imazapyr.
The Instagram account has gained more than 5,400 followers since Feb. 6. Linas and other residents posted images of workers spraying chemicals and used artificial intelligence to make illustrations in the style of old movie posters and magazine ads, some with the slogan “Stop the Ecocide!”
San Juan Creek meets the ocean beside the popular surf break at Doheny State Beach. Next, the group plans to demand the county stop spraying along the Santa Ana River, which reaches the ocean on the south side of Huntington Beach.
Foley said she always has preferred using less herbicide in waterways and made a complaint about the use of Roundup in the San Juan Creek flood channel about a year ago.
“When the community gets involved and engaged, it helps me to be able to push initiatives,” Foley said. “This is an issue where I share their core values, and I do want to green up and clean up our county in a meaningful way.”
At the meeting, Linas credited everyone who joined in creating what he called a nonpartisan group and in prompting the county to hold the town hall.
“This is democracy, right here,” he said to applause. “We can change things.”
