The recent proposal for the Sunflower County Consolidated School District’s K-12 plan has a problem. Plans to add rooms to Moorhead Middle in Moorhead, Miss. to accommodate grades K-8 poses a risk to these younger children.
The risk involves chemicals used by the adjacent farmer in very close distance to the school.
This age groups’ (5,6,7,8) bodies have not developed the strength to ward off the advance of these chemicals (Gramoxone SL 2.0, Sniper, Acephate 90 WDG and Defol 5).
After aerial application, there’s a 24-hour extremely dangerous period related to these chemicals.
We believe the parents of Moorhead deserve to know how this board of education and administration plan to solve this problem.
What other sites will be safer? Is there an alternative?
The chemicals used in this Delta area by farmers have been related to a high rate of physical issues including cancer. When the chemicals are applied through aerial spraying, they can drift much farther than the end of the field on the school grounds.
The label on these chemicals warns that a drift of the product onto the skin (face, arms, legs, neck), can cause real problems. The children don’t need this exposure.
These parents insist on an alternative.
Lavern Winters Jr. and Bishop Willie B. Knighten
