Poisoning Putnam

To the Editor:

One of the things I love about rural Indiana is driving to work past lovely wildflowers, butterflies, birds and animals. That is what makes it particularly distressing to see all of that dying — leaving blackened plants and dying trees.

I know just a few years ago Putnam County and Greencastle mowed the sides of the road and today passed a crew trimming trees, so I know we had that ability very recently and still do.

Please stop saturating our lives with chemicals when they aren’t needed.

As someone who studied ecosystem health in college, I am bewildered by a strategy that seems to kill native plants I know we want to support, like milkweed, and destroys edge habitat that supports beneficial insects. If we continue to kill all of those communities, it will hasten insect resistance to those chemicals and increase the numbers of pest insects by getting rid of all their natural predators.

I have also seen trees and vegetation by the side of the road dying in downtown Greencastle, which is also disturbing. Are we spraying right next to homes where residents and their children live?

Please stop this and go back to mowing and trimming, which supports local jobs, environmental health, farmers, and families.

Rachel Goldberg

Greencastle