WILDWOOD PLANNING AND ZONING 1/16/2024
Z 30-23, PZ 18-23 and PZ 20-23
My name is Lynn Link, I live on Indian Ridge and I am here to speak in opposition of Solis Agrosciences rezoning of the Fahr Greenhouse Property.
Solis requests a new zoning category for ALL WARDS be created to allow for, "Agricultural Research and Activities".
Perhaps this zoning doesn’t already exist because Wildwood is entrusted with over 7,400 acres of parks and mostly wooded public lands. We are the
municipality with the most at risk from unintended contamination by non-FDA approved seeds and plants genetically engineered to be superior, presenting
a risk to native species. This risk increases as the Solis property sits in a flood plain downstream from Wild Horse Creek and the Missouri River where
amwater.com gets 80% of their surface water.
It’s location off Hwy T presents further risk as in the 6+ miles west of 109, the majority of accidents (including fatal) already happen at the intersection
of T and 100. Imaging adding the cars of all the employees, delivery trucks and 18 wheelers hauling non-FDA approved genetically modified seeds into that equation.
Solis even requests modification of existing Signage Codes on public land and easements. This is evidence of the increase in traffic can be expected.
As a trustee of the Wildwood Historical Society, I would like to remind the Commission that we were not allowed a modification to place a sign on our own property off 100.
The Commission previously asked Solis to host a public event to allow the residents to get to know them. As this never happened, a nearby resident researched
and posted on NextDoor that those who own and will run Solis have decades long history of working in top positions and Monsanto and BASF.
This history includes
- Dioxin, paying $180 Million to service members injured by Agent Orange,
- $11 Billion to date for Roundup victims,
- $700 Million to the State of Oregon for PCB contamination, and
- a 9/2023 lawsuit filed by City of Chicago also for PCB contamination.
Monsanto paid Oregon Farmers $2.4 Million in 2014 when they found volunteer non-FDA approved genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant wheat, which Monsanto stated
they had been planted in other test fields more than a decade prior, with the seeds being burned, buried or shipped back to Monsanto when the project was abandoned.
In 2020, a Missouri peach farmer won a $265 Million dollar verdict against Monsanto and BASF, when he lost 30,000 trees as a result of Dicamba being sprayed on a
neighboring farm. Internal corporate communications showed that not only did both companies know about the increased risk of unintended damage, they planned how
they would avoid liability.
As Solis is a new company, it may not have the egregious history that Monsanto and BASF do. But it does have at least 5 of the people who
held high level positions at those companies during that history, who will now be making decisions at Solis. As Solis is a new company, it also doesn’t have the
billions of dollars to pay out in settlements when it continues to make the same bad decisions.