Sen. Chase receives Rachel Carson award for anti-pesticide efforts

Sen. Maralyn Chase accepts the Rachel Carson Award from Kim Lavel of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.
Sen. Maralyn Chase accepts the Rachel Carson Award from Kim Lavel of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.

State Sen. Maralyn Chase, a 32nd District Democrat who represents part of Edmonds, was awarded the Rachel Carson Award last Saturday by the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP). The award was presented during the group’s Healthy Harvest Celebration at the Eugene Vet’s Club in Oregon.

“This is an honor and a reaffirmation of my obligation and responsibility to protect our community and our environment against the hazards of pesticides,” Chase said. “This is about the air we breathe, the water we drink and the innumerable living things that make up, and power, the cycle of life on which we all rely.”

The Rachel Carson Award, named after the marine biologist whose landmark book Silent Spring dramatically raised global awareness of environmental health, is given to community members who have worked to significantly reduce pesticide use in their community.

“Simply to have my name spoken in the same sentence as Rachel Carson’s is no small honor,” Chase said. “I’m no Rachel Carson, by any means, but I can do my best to emulate her priorities. Every effort helps, and not just by me but by all of us who want to promote a healthy and thriving environment for ourselves and our descendants.”

Chase’s Senate efforts “set a new standard for sustainable public policy and common-sense community protection and representation,” NCAP officials said in recognizing her with the award. “Your efforts to move beyond a government-as-usual model and to address difficult challenges has enhanced our Northwest region and advanced NCAP’s mission to protect community and environmental health and inspire the use of ecologically sound solutions to reduce the use of pesticides.

“In your life and in your service, you exemplify the environmental values that Rachel Carson held so dear and that we work for here at NCAP.”

Chase’s most recent such efforts include her sponsorship of Senate Bill 6002, which would have required the state to develop a model program for monitoring for pests that emphasizes nonchemical measures while integrating physical mechanical, biological and, if necessary, chemical methods to achieve long-term control. Though the bill did not pass during the 2015 legislative session, Chase plans to reintroduce it when the 2016 session begins in January.

  1. What good news this is and Congratulations to Sen. Maralyn Chase! This Rachel Carson award makes me think again of how could the community work with the Edmonds Beach Rangers to have a community clean-up of the Brackett’s Landing curving wall with the long Rachel Carson quote carved into it–a highlight of public art in Edmonds but almost completely impossible to see and read.

  2. Congratulations Senator Chase! You certainly are a beacon of good information and a role model for us all.

  3. Thank you Senator Chase…..for all your work regarding our environment for us and future generations. Congratulations!

    Yes, the Rachel Carson brass quote public art is impossible to see and has been for a while and it is a wonderful example of public art particularly WHERE it is located…..a reminder for all of us to stop and ponder right there where nature is constantly changing every hour, every minute, every day and yet comes back on itself, again and again…… speaks to us. Native Indians have always had a reverence for this, the spirit……of life. of nature…………We can learn so much from them.

    Each and every one of us can do our part, even in small ways that ripple out

  4. Road Runoff, Chemicals, latest scientific report NOAA and Puyallup Research and Extention Center, Killing salmon within a few short hours
    Actual road runoff used and proof found by scientists

    “including byproducts of oil and gasoline combustion, chemicals released by tires and particles from break linings”……..this is from the just released report (Seattle Times has an article, October 9, 2015, “Toxic road runoff kills adult coho salmon in hours, study finds”)

    chemicals released by TIRES

    Our crumb rubber sports fields come to mind with some of that crumb rubber from tires being washed off the fields, into the roadways and down the “Puget Sound Starts Here” drains.

    So what part of all the information out there regarding toxic tires and the chemicals they contain does the Edmonds School Board not get?………killing our salmon not proof enough?

    According to this report, the fish are dead within a few hours.

    On one of our usual walks along our beach last week we found a fish gasping for air at the shorline, belly up and dieing on our beach (for the “chorus line” we do have pictures of this fish, it was not a salmon but very unusual looking and quite large). ……..another part from the report……”they were down, they were sick, they were dead”
    “before death, the fish became lethargic, rolled and swam to surface, as if gulping for air”

    This is what we saw with the large fish on our beach…….gasping for air, then he died, we walked away and turned back and a seagull was already eating him and we wondered if the seagull may be poisoned also……we assumed it was possible he was poisoned by chemicls, oil, etc,

    chemicals released by tires

    and if that isnt crumb rubber, I dont know what is.

    Puget Sound Starts Here

    There are a lot of things we cannot do anything about but we certainly can do something regarding the crumb rubber from tires brought into our community and fragile environment

  5. Senator Chase…congratulations and thank you for the work you do to protect the public, especially our children, against pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Future generations will benefit from these and other measures we take to protect human and environmental health.

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