If you’re interested in true stories of herbicide spraying, logging, or the redwoods, here are a few places to start. Many of these books, films, and news stories were helpful in researching Damnation Spring.
Books
A Bitter Fog
A true story of people living in the forests of Oregon fighting to protect their families and environment from 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T sprayed on them from the air. Many of the details of herbicide spraying and its effects in Damnation Spring are inspired by this book.
The Last Stand
Pacific Lumber Company’s Headwaters Forest in California contained three-quarters of the world's old-growth redwoods in 1985, when a Texas-based conglomerate engineered a hostile takeover and began clear-cutting virgin forest. This book helped inform details about milling.
From the Redwood Forest
Part field journal, part manifesto, this illustrated narrative walks you through redwood-forest ecology. My family left Klamath when I was three and this book helped me remember the mist, sounds, and smells of the redwoods between research trips.
Films
The People Vs. Agent Orange
“There were these helicopters flying over the ridge, spraying something. And they didn’t even see the kids. That night they were all really sick.”
This documentary chronicles the true story of the human and environmental impacts of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T spraying in Oregon and Vietnam. It premiered on PBS’s Independent Lens on June 28, 2021. Watch now ›
Reclaiming the Klamath
“Yurok people have always been right here…my ancestors have fished since the beginning of time…if all those salmon go away, we can’t be Yuroks anymore.”
The Yurok Tribe’s general counsel, Amy Cordalis, is leading the tribe’s legal fight to get more water into the Klamath River and protect salmon, the tribe’s core natural resource, on which their survival depends. Read the accompanying feature story in High Country News ›
Tending the Wild
“A lot of the agents were very disrespectful…they would pull the women across the sandbar by their hair when they would be arresting them.”
Hear Susan Masten, Raymond Mattz, and Diane Bowers, citizens of the Yurok Tribe who experienced the U.S. government crackdown on tribal salmon-fishing rights now known as the "Fish Wars," recount their experiences. Read the full transcript ›
From the Archives
Bonnie Hill’s Letter
In 1978, school teacher Bonnie Hill sent a letter to the EPA signed by a group of women in Alsea, Oregon documenting miscarriages in the area. Eventually, the letter led to the Alsea studies I and II, whose findings helped justify the 1979 emergency suspension of 2,4,5-T. In Damnation Spring, Enid and Eugene’s youngest daughter, Alsea, is named in honor of this community. Read the letter ›
2,4,5-T Suspension
On February 28, 1979, the same day the final report on the Alsea II study came out, the EPA issued an emergency suspension order, temporarily banning the use of 2,4,5-T in forestry. In 1980, the National Park Service banned 2,4,-D use in national park units (it’s still on the market today). 2,4,5-T would be used on rangelands and rice crops in the U.S. well into the 1980s. Read the order ›
The Poison Papers
This vast archive of over 20,000 documents includes internal scientific studies, memos, and reports, meeting minutes, strategic discussions, and sworn testimonies obtained from federal agencies and chemical manufacturers via open records requests and public interest litigation. In them you’ll find concerns about the hazards of chemicals, including 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Learn more ›
Journalism
2014
“How many more people have to get sick before we do something about this?”
Decades after Agent Orange, families in Oregon are still being aerially sprayed with herbicides and suffering the consequences.
1983
“…a sample which contained 5 parts per million would be acutely toxic.”
A frontpage New York Times story reveals some of what the chemical industry knew when about the dangers of herbicides.
1978
“…2,4,5-T has caused birth defects and still-births among laboratory animals...”
School teacher Bonnie Hill’s careful documentation of miscarriages in heavily sprayed Alsea, Oregon made national news.
More Books
Deadfall
A clear-eyed account of life working in the woods in a landscape dominated by timber giant Weyerhaeuser Company.
Light on the Devils
A quiet memoir about growing up in a logging town in the 1960s, a few hours northeast of Klamath, California.
Grave Matters
This book details the sordid history of genocide, plunder, and grave robbing in northern California near Klamath.