My property was attacked with herbicide without my permission

Around 3-4 pm yesterday my power company/or their contractors came by and sprayed under the power line right of way with a herbicide.  The crew they had do it went way beyond their right of, spraying also my ceder tree, an entire bed of sweet pea, a tree we're turning into a bench/planter, and everything they could hit in a 5ft radios of their ATV.  They decided to drive onto my driveway and continued spraying everything they could hit.  The area they sprayed is within 50 feet of my house.  They did this while looking at my ducks, my flock of chickens, and myself (my cats luckily booked it for the barn when they heard the atv.)

As soon as they left my laying hen flock booked it over there to investigate and was playing around in the now sprayed flowers.  It's a flower bed of course, with nice soft soil they use as a hidey spot.  They don't damage the flowers so it works out well for both of us.  I'm now paranoid my birds will get sick, their locked up today so I can do health checks and keep them out of their favorite spot.  It's honestly a bit heart breaking to not see them running around the yard, their upset and crying by the gate to come out right now and I feel so bad for them.  I will now have to throw out several days worth of eggs, and cross my fingers I don't loose any of my birds.

The smell from the herbicide had me hiding in my house most of the day, with breathing problems.  Yesterday my throat hurt, my lungs hurt, and it felt like something in my throat was swollen.  Today I woke up with an insanely sore throat.  I'm chemical sensitive, the smells from them make me sick.

My farm is no spray/no chemical fertilizer, and we were working on certified organic status, two years into a 5 year no chemical thing.  We just lost that.  I'll be losing over 50 eggs that I do sell, additionally my feed bill will skyrocket this week as I free range everyone.  I have damaged/dead heritage plants now.  I'm looking at the possibility of loosing southern white pines, ceder trees, honey suckle among other plants, if not lost they are heavily damaged.  There's a possibility a peach tree, black berries, and blueberry bushes were hit as well.

I need damage control suggestions.  I need to know what exactly I can do to get this stuff off my property asap, to restore the balance of my land, and what can be done in the next few months.  My honey bees are arriving this winter/spring.  That bed was to be part of their food.

I also need ideas as to how and who I can contact to stop them from spraying this stuff.  They just started recently, it's not been a long going thing which I have no idea why it started.

Edit:
I should add they did not have my permission to do this, and I had no warning they would be, other wise everything would have been locked up and my windows would have been closed... in addition phone calls would have been made before hand.

I also don't know what they used, the company is closed till Tuesday due to the holiday here.

This weekend, find every organic farmer fb page and forum you can, join and copy and post this.  They will have more leads on what you can do.

Tues, as soon as offices open, call the utility company and find out what was sprayed.  Call your doctor and do research on the herbicided sprayed.  Document all losses and submit a bill, the all the obvious stuff....

(quick review)
-look into getting a lawyer on contingency
-attend local govenrment meetings and speak up about what happened. First effective step to get the law changed.
-attend local organic marketing groups for further help

Reamsie wrote:Call your utility company and/or local government (I would do both) and find out if your state is one where property owners can obtain a "no spray" agreement.  In the simplest terms it would mean that you are agreeing to keep unwanted plants from growing around the utility pole if you do not want the company spraying chemicals on your property.  The link I posted is for an article that from 1999, but it gives some guidelines and some information that might be usable when you call.

The Right Way to Vegetation Management

Thanks, I'll get my husband to ask about this when he calls, & give this info to my parents too in case their farm gets sprayed.

Would honestly like to figure out how to totally stop the spaying since this is a recent thing and it upsets me to see dead plants all over the place.

Okay after an all day game of telphone calls, and I think them giving us the run around, finally spoke to the guy... at like 7pm...

Our property is now 'no spray' as long as we maintain the right of way. Called and told my parents the info and they'll be calling about theirs as well.

What about compensation for lost property? Oh and get that agreement to not spray in writing...if the company they subcontracted with returns, you'll need it.

melodiccolor wrote:What about compensation for lost property?  Oh and get that agreement to not spray in writing...if the company they subcontracted with returns, you'll need it.

His excuse was 'oh you should have known cause we sent out a mailer' O.O

Not sure about the damages still though, that's in the figuring out stage. When I'm not in the middle of several things and trying to burn onions I'll call and ask for that.

I'm not done with this by far, I talked to locals who were ticked at the spraying so gonna get something started here.

The AMAZING thing was, he admitted if we had bees the spray would kill them. Flat out said it.

Samt03 wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:What about compensation for lost property?  Oh and get that agreement to not spray in writing...if the company they subcontracted with returns, you'll need it.

His excuse was 'oh you should have known cause we sent out a mailer' O.O

Not sure about the damages still though, that's in the figuring out stage.  When I'm not in the middle of several things and trying to burn onions I'll call and ask for that.

I'm not done with this by far, I talked to locals who were ticked at the spraying so gonna get something started here.

The AMAZING thing was, he admitted if we had bees the spray would kill them.  Flat out said it.  

Wow, wish you coulda recorded that call for your documentation @_@...