“You can’t catch a fish in a parking lot,” is the kind of folksy wisdom you’d hear from my grandfather if he were alive today to witness the way the Springfield City Council sacrificed our local waterways in favor of allowing developers to use toxic coal-tar-sealants on our city’s parking lots and driveways. Granddad would not have approved of how the council wasted a year “investigating” the use of a sealant previously found by the US Geological Survey to be toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Never mind the fact that the sealant contains high levels of known carcinogens that may cause cancer in humans.
The council heard several arguments for coal-tar. It’s cheaper and lasts longer than the other types of parking lot sealants and it keeps other fluids like gas, oil, and anti-freeze from soaking into asphalt. But most importantly, the Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield doesn’t like being told what they can’t use to seal parking lots and driveways. They argued that if the council banned coal-tar-sealant it could lead to the banning of other chemicals in the future and that could be bad for business.
The City Council sided with the out-of-town coal-tar industry representative flown in for the meetings and the Home Builders Association. They voted down the proposed coal-tar-sealant ban even though Bass Pro supported it and publically stated that they won’t use coal-tar-sealant on their parking lots. It makes sense to me. After all, how do you sell lures to people if there are no fish to catch?
Instead, the Springfield City Council decided to waste more time and money on a study to ascertain the “possible” negative effects on local marine life attributable to the use of coal-tar-sealants. I’m sure the coal-tar industry will fly in another of their representatives to oversee the “research” even though there is clearly no need for any further investigation.
The USGS has published multiple peer reviewed scientific studies (as recently as December 2010) proving that coal-tar-sealant is toxic to fish. In fact, the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for coal-tar includes the following text, “Coal Tar Driveway Sealer will harm waterlife and should be prevented from entering any body of water.” An example of the devastating power of coal-tar-sealant was exhibited last July when the runoff from one newly sealed parking lot killed all marine life over a 1.5 mile stretch of Hodges Creek in Boone North Carolina. The death toll from the single parking lot application included at least 97 fish, mostly trout.
Let’s put this in perspective. The Springfield metropolitan area is spread out over roughly 3,000 square miles with a population of around 440,000. Folks who spend any time at all outdoors know that practically every drop of water that runs off Springfield Metro’s parking lots and driveways ends up in our waterways and eventually, Table Rock Lake. How much more do we need to know? Let’s ban this stuff already. Call your city council representative and tell them enough is enough.
Our local waterways just received an overall C grade from the Ozarks Water Watchers with several waterways falling into the D range. We can't afford to continue with business as usual. We need to make changes now. We owe it to our grandkids and our grandparents to care for our natural heritage much better than we care for our parking lots.
Please sign the petition below requesting that Mayor O'Neal re-visit the coal-tar issue:
