Here’s a “word of caution” if you’re planning to be on any public lands – national parks and forests. If the land has been sprayed recently, you may be vulnerable to the carcinogenic problems caused by Roundup. I’ll add D’s comments afterwards.
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Lawmakers Demand Answers After We Revealed Forest Service Spraying Roundup All Over Public Lands
“We are deeply concerned.”
Senior Reporter and Producer Bio
Mother Jones
June 9, 2026
Two members of Congress have sent a letter to US Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz calling on the agency to justify its actions following an investigation by Mother Jones that found glyphosate—the controversial key ingredient in the herbicide Roundup—was being sprayed in record amounts on public lands.
Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) wrote …
“Given the recent scientific disputes, retracted studies,
and litigation surrounding glyphosate due to serious
ecological and health harms, we are deeply concerned
by the alleged use of the herbicide and lack of infor-
mation available regarding current and planned use.”
While glyphosate is more well-known for its use in agriculture, its fastest-growing use in California — where our investigation analyzed more than 5
Million state pesticide records — is on forestlands.
Private timber companies and the Forest Service have been dousing hundreds of thousands of acres of the state’s forests in the herbicide, especially
areas affected by wildfires.
Local communities have struggled to understand where the agency is spraying. In one case, the Forest Service published maps showing where it had sprayed glyphosate in the Lake Tahoe area, including at the ski resort Sierra-at-Tahoe, a full year after the work was done.
“It’s bullshit. I’m really mad,”
… Congresswoman Pingree told me when asked about the Forest Service spraying in environmentally sensitive areas.
The lawmakers’ letter calls on the Forest Service to publish a database showing its herbicide use across the country, and to report what safety measures it has put in place—such as monitoring waterways and soils for contamination—following its use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based products.
They also wondered about potential harms to humans. The letter asks:
“Have there been any reported worker illness
incidents, accidental exposures, or contamination
complaints associated with glyphosate applications?”
Workers contracted to spray Roundup on US Forest Service Land in 2021, who were not wearing required protective gear to apply an herbicide that the World Health Organization determined is a probable carcinogen.
Our investigation found that workers hired to spray Roundup on the El Dorado National Forest in 2021 were covered in Roundup, including directly on exposed skin, and that they were not wearing the required protective equipment nor did they have the state-required training, according to a report by a county inspector.
Bayer, the German company that manufactures Roundup, provided a statement that “regulators, including the EPA, EU, and others around the world, have repeatedly concluded that glyphosate-based products—which are the most widely used and extensively studied products of their kind—can be used safely according to the product label directions.”
Glyphosate is at the center of several legal, scientific, and political controversies. Bayer is on the hook for more than $12 billion in legal payouts to people who say exposure to the chemical made them sick. The World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen in 2015, and the Environmental Protection Agency says the herbicide likely harms 93 percent of endangered species. The EPA last approved the chemical’s safety in 1993.
A more recent review in 2020 that found it was safe was overturned two years later by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined the agency had not fully assessed the risks to human health or the environment.
The Forest Service says it is using the chemical at record levels in California because it is the least expensive way to help conifer trees—the ones with pine needles—grow back after wildfires. The often-stated goal of these Forest Service herbicide projects is to regrow trees more expeditiously. This helps the agency meet its desired forest density for future timber sales, according to hundreds of pages of Forest Service documents reviewed in our investigation.
(The agency is part of the US Department of Agriculture and manages many of the nation’s public forests, similar to how a farmer oversees rows of corn: optimizing the land for higher yields, lower costs, and greater revenue.)
In 2025, President Trump issued an executive order for the Forest Service to increase timber sales by 25 percent, while the administration has cut the agency’s staffing. In 2026, Trump called for an increase in the domestic production of glyphosate.
Spraying glyphosate and other herbicides both before and after replanting conifer trees results in the death of all other plants that reemerge after fires.
In their letter to the Forest Service, Reps. Pingree and Huffman urged the agency to consider “safer or more sustainable approaches to forest management.” With such indiscriminate spraying of glyphosate …
“you’re talking about just wiping out all biology,
you know, just like all life forms. It’s bonkers,”
… Pingree told Mother Jones.
“If there’s one thing we learned from Rachel
Carson [author of Silent Spring] in the sixties
it’s that we have to look at the cumulative
impact, both on humans, but also the species
and the food chain, and the loss of diversity.”
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In our Garden Atrium community, we only grow organic food in our vegetable gardens. And, as one of our homeowners is a physician, no Roundup is used anywhere, for anything, on our site. Adding D’s broader perspective …
“When there is mass spraying of Roundup, it destroys the biodiversity of a healthy forest. In the long term, the lack of diversity within a forest will slow production of harvested wood. For that reason, we are sad that they are choosing to use Roundup.
“The other concern is what Roundup does to humans. On this large scale, it can be quite destructive and cancer-causing. So, please check where you are going to be within a national forest or park, and determine if they have sprayed Roundup there. And then for your personal safety, avoid those areas.
“The other concern we have is, if too much Roundup is used, its runoff can get into water systems. So, if you live near a national park or forest, have your water systems checked.”
