Yesterday local environmentalist Tanja Vidovic (and WMNF volunteer) was banned from a Pinellas County Park for objecting to the spraying of the controversial herbicide Roundup on park grounds. According to Vidovic she was in Safety Harbor’s Philippe Park when she observed several private contractors about to spray the chemical Roundup on what they told her were “invasive plants”.
Vidovic tells WMNF’s Radioactivity program that what the contractors had identified as “invasives” included many beneficial native species. Using her cell phone Vidovic videoed her interaction with the contractors and posted it live on Facebook when she was approached by a Pinellas park staffer who called in the sheriff’s department.
The parks staffer ordered her trespassed from the park, banned for a year. Vidovic uses the park to bike with her kids to and from their school. WMNF contacted several Pinellas County commissioners, public relations staff and parks personnel. None were available by air time.
Roundup is a controversial chemical which is banned or heavily regulated around the world ; it’s been linked to an increase in autism, obesity and diabetes ; Consumer Reports has issued a warning about its usage; and recently a San Francisco groundskeeper won a nearly $300 million dollar judgement against the manufacturer of the herbicide because he says it caused his soon to be terminal cancer.
19 Responses to “Woman Banned From Pinellas County Park For Objecting To The Application Of Roundup”
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Your link citing the RoundUp/autism link is crap. Stephanie Seneff is a computer scientist, not a biologist/chemist/immunologist/neurologist/etc. Her “study” linkin RoundUp to autism is highly suspect, considering it doesn’t control for any factors, and only looks retrospectively at autism cases and use of RoundUp in a 15 year span – surely more has changed in 15 years than just RoundUp use?
Her expertise is computer modeling, and while this is often a great tool it does not replace the knowledge and experimentation of actual scientists.
No you dont get it, everything we dont like causes autism! Duh! There is no way my own shitty vegan diet could possibly be the issue, right?!
USA is such a shit country
cmon pinellas, you can do better!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
Environmental Health Perspectives- open source
Monsanto also brought us DDT and Agent Orange and has protection of government.
An act of INTIMIDATION – Tell it like it is: Pinellas Co. parks banned Tanja Vidovic to bully and silence her. I hope she sues the pants off them. Call me crazy, but isn’t this America? We as citizens have free speech. Shame on Pinellas Co. for spraying Round-up, a suspected carcinogen. Round up also kills bees and other beneficial insects, which means birds, too, will die. Everyone knows the hazards of Round up. National Geographic says the number of pollinating bees has dwindled from 5 million to 2.5 million in the past decade, these insects are vanishing from some areas. What really blew me away was that Pinellas Co. considers it acceptable “collateral” damage that good plants are killed by Round Up spraying, along with bees, birds and anything that comes in contact. There are weeds also that have flowers that bees use for pollen. Come on Pinellas! It can’t be worth it. You should be honoring Tanja, not bullying her.
i’ve been looking for tanja’s video or a link to it. listened to rob’s interview with the parks rep. and he seemed more interested in protecting the product than the citizens and animals who uses and live in the park. a thought occurred to me, is there any connection to monsanto and pinellas co. thru investments or contracts? this would obviously be a conflict of interest. pinellas co. needs to lead the way and ban this product, and give tanja an apology and her access to the park back. this was a ridiculous response by the county.
I’m thinking, is there a lawyer in the house? This seems like a blatant disregard for our right to free speech. She was in a public park making a public statement petitioning for redress.
don’t know what legal grounds they have to ban her if any-just ridiculous
banned from a public place without a hearing ??? OUTRAGEOUS The public should demand a hearing and attend in support of this brave soul.
You realize that nothing will happen because the courts have been bought, the scientists have been bought, congress has been bought, and these monsters produce chemicals that poison people to death, and then they lie to EVERYONE and say its A ok. Then the neighbors spray it on plants, our children play in it, and get cancer, and we wonder why everyone is dying.
The only way to deal with this is via extrajudicial means. If these fuckers see the light of day in a courtroom, they will bribe the judge, bribe the jury, bribe the witnesses, or just throw money at the lawyers until the accusers lose. Then they throw money at congress to officially recognize their actions as legal. The CEO of monsanto, and all of the board members are accessory to murder by poisoning. All of them are evil and their lives *SHOULD* be forfeit, but the justice system has been bought by corporate money.
paranoid much?
it is the Round Up/glyphosate that should be banned, not the woman.
TOTALLY NOT OK for this person to be banned,,, YES, as others earlier have commented, ROUNDUP, and similar to be banned, and ASAP,,,
Real question IS,,, WHY oh WHY does it take SO long for the guv mint, AT ALL LEVELS, to get the news and the facts to get rid of this kind of menace, (the menace of the VRY profitable chemicals) in our environment???
Thank you.
Because scientific consensus shows it is safe?
Hmm, she is an activist, strong woman, keep an eye on her, she’ll be in politics soon . Tanja Vidovic will win this battle, as she did another recently! https://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/Tampa-firefighter-Tanja-Vidovic-won-her-job-back-in-court-Now-she-could-face-new-disciplinary-action_170516864
Highly doubtful; she’s more than likely one of those stay-at-home moms who gets her information from Facebook memes and doesn’t know what the Hell she’s talking about.