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Hunting in cancer alley

MattMan81 said:
I don't know all the details so I'm just asking here as my thoughts and debates. I'm just sitting her holding my daughter so I got time to think..
But the little bit I looked says it was a low income area. Which means a large majority of people spent time working those crappy jobs. Bad diets and usually joined with other un healthy life styles. Tobacco and heavy alcohol use generally followed this by statistics.
Now I follow that by what is the affective range of the off gases generated that cause a lasting effect on living things. Which doesn't affect all things the same. Not all animals function the same as humans. So it may not even be an issue potentially.
This is all just my theory and may not stack up. But if you are that close to those areas means your all ready exposed to the air chemicals. I don't believe their is some kinda magic line where all pollutants stop. Seems research has hinted lots of cancers are caused by exposure of the same thing continually over time. Build up.
I personally would link the high cancer rates to the jobs them selfs and over all conditions. Hunting and taking a deer from that area which is probably less than 5 years old would mean minimum exposure to nano particles which accumulate. I see almost more concern when I see deer feeding in a soybean field up here that has fresh tracks from the late summer weed killer they sprayed down. I can smell the chemicals, and see deer out in the beans.
Also it seems Usually it's the farmer who handles the chemicals that gets the cancer. Not his wife.
All just food for thought and my rambling sitting her. But me personally I would hunt it.
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Lots of good questions here.

The farmer inhales the product directly, not his wife. IN the case of most weed killers, the thread is inhalation, not skin absorption. And, in the case of glyphosate if lifespan of the chemical in the environment is about 48 hours after spraying.
 
neonomad said:
@mschultz373 @MattMan81 yeah the more I think and read about this stuff the more frustrated I get. I’ve been working my food plot practices to nearly eliminate herbicide use, knowing full well the surrounding larger fields are getting hammered with herbicides each year. We have a nice pond with a 40 acre Ag field draining right into it, pond prolly gets a good dose or two of Liberty each year. But if this old shooting range is creating elevated lead levels in the deer I’m hunting that’s really going to take the wind out of my sails. If that’s the case I’ve decided I may be bugging (suing?) the federal government through the second half of my life. If there’s something I can do to get 40 tons of lead dug out of the ground I think I need to try. And let’s not even get into microplastics, that’ll make you start wanting to live in a (plastic?) bubble. Better living through chemistry!?!?!?
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The shooting range depends on how much is being shot into it. Military ranges and trap/skeet ranges are the worst. Most trap/skeet ranges need to be remediated every X years (with X depending on how much they get used). They bring in bulldozers to remove the topsoil and bring in fresh topsoil. Military ranges are also bad. A friend did environmental consulting to clean up military ranges all over the US.
 
Yeah, the whole micro-plastic thing is insane to me. I think studies now suggest most adults in the US have microplastics in our blood?? We've gone to only using glass food storage containers; I avoid any liquid stored/shipped in plastic; and I always bring a reusable mug to the coffee shop to avoid the single-use cups that are plastic lined. I'm convinced there's a big link between the prevalence of microplastics and declining testosterone in men... just sayin'

BTaylor said:
IT'S THE FOOD!!!!!
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Bingo!
 
casts_by_fly said:
Lots of good questions here.

The farmer inhales the product directly, not his wife. IN the case of most weed killers, the thread is inhalation, not skin absorption. And, in the case of glyphosate if lifespan of the chemical in the environment is about 48 hours after spraying.
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Fyi I’ve read a number of seemingly credible papers that show glyphosate and its degradation product AMPA are more pervasive then we arelead to believe, even in air and rain water.
 
casts_by_fly said:
The shooting range depends on how much is being shot into it. Military ranges and trap/skeet ranges are the worst. Most trap/skeet ranges need to be remediated every X years (with X depending on how much they get used). They bring in bulldozers to remove the topsoil and bring in fresh topsoil. Military ranges are also bad. A friend did environmental consulting to clean up military ranges all over the US.
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learning a lot from you, man! thank you for your contribution and taking the time to share all this info with us.
 
neonomad said:
@mschultz373 @MattMan81 yeah the more I think and read about this stuff the more frustrated I get. I’ve been working my food plot practices to nearly eliminate herbicide use, knowing full well the surrounding larger fields are getting hammered with herbicides each year. We have a nice pond with a 40 acre Ag field draining right into it, pond prolly gets a good dose or two of Liberty each year. But if this old shooting range is creating elevated lead levels in the deer I’m hunting that’s really going to take the wind out of my sails. If that’s the case I’ve decided I may be bugging (suing?) the federal government through the second half of my life. If there’s something I can do to get 40 tons of lead dug out of the ground I think I need to try. And let’s not even get into microplastics, that’ll make you start wanting to live in a (plastic?) bubble. Better living through chemistry!?!?!?
Click to expand...
I believe lead oxidized pretty rapidly in the ground or exposed to air and forms a patina or shell which should help mitigate exposure. You might do more damage trying to dig it out than leave it be. Sort of like with asbestos tiles. If they are on the house no big deal, but go remove them and break them up and breathe the dust, not good.
 
Lacking any direct answers to this question, I'd look at ag land value of the area in question compared to other areas.
 
I recently read Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac. The local waterkeeper organization I'm a member of is also fighting plans to cap-in-place over 100 million cubic-yards of coal ash located on various riverbanks, and to pass a bill mandating that the state test fish for pollutants and provide reporting. So this thread is tickling an already active portion of my brain.

Frankly, sportsmen don't do nearly enough to keep abreast of issues like this. State management agencies and hunting nonprofits are overwhelmingly focused on preservation of culture and population management of game species. This is done at the expense of considering the ecosystem as a whole. We've really rested on the laurels of Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson and state management agencies. We took what should have been a good start, and never carried it forward.

It blows my mind that my state agency trades striped bass fry to Tennessee in order to stock a stream with rainbow trout. Two "conservation agencies" trading non-native species, and using money from one of the state's largest pollutant regulation violators (Southern Company) to do it. Meanwhile turkey, quail, rabbit, and waterfowl populations are plummeting. Chattahoochee Bass have been expatriated from Alabama. Sturgeon are practically gone. Prairie habitat is gone. CWD is here and we legalized baiting to coincide with that. Radio silence on fish consumption advisories and rampant pollution in the waterways. Et cetera.

Environmentalism is a four-letter word in my state, and DNR has accurately read the room in that their job is to keep things the way they've always been. The disconnect between sportsmen and environmentalism is deeply frustrating.
 
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I was in Vegas a few months back talking to a local about their Freemont Street. I casually said it was like a safer, saner, soberer Bourbon Street. Dude's eyes got huge!
 
NMSbowhunter said:
I was in Vegas a few months back talking to a local about their Freemont Street. I casually said it was like a safer, saner, soberer Bourbon Street. Dude's eyes got huge!
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After being in Vegas I’ve told myself the people that call that sin city have obviously never been to boomtown lol and I’ve seen better combat zones with better standards than NOLA after Katrina.
 
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