Opinion

When the early settlers came out West, the first thing they did was build a church with an adjacent cemetery. That was their commitment to their new abode, then as well as in the Hereafter. Those quaint churches and cemeteries now dot our countryside, each with its own rich history and interesting stories to tell.

I am a Morgan Hill resident and have a question about the warning signs posted at Paradise park regarding Glyphosate (trade name: Roundup) spraying.Many people, including myself, walk this path everyday. There are kids being walked through the park to Paradise Valley Elementary School, people walking their dogs, squirrels, cats and other wildlife. Lots of ball games on the grounds, too. All that chemical poison and pollutant is going right into the groundwater and creek.Why is the city spraying with something so unhealthy when there are better alternatives? Not to mention the fact that we're enjoying seeing green after four years of drought!There’s an abundance of research on the dangers of Glyphosate.Experts at National Institutes of Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, World Health Organization and many countries are banning this based on medical evidence. WHO calls it "likely carcinogenic.”  There are a number of cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond this state that are going green. Integrated Pest Management, which substantially reduces the use of pesticides, has been implemented in San Jose, San Francisco, Boulder, Davis, Santa Monica, Isla Vista and other cities. Some of the so-called “inert” ingredients in Roundup appear not to be so in Argentina, where the miscarriage rate is 100 times the norm. Thirty thousand physicians there have asked to ban it.Given all the foot traffic in the park, especially the little ones, I would respectfully request that the city investigate healthier “green” alternatives, especially with the drought situation.Sincerely,Marilyn HawkeMorgan Hill