Chameleons Montessori Environmental Health Committee meeting

Apparently the first meeting of the Chameleons Montessori Environmental Health Committee took place last evening. Needless to say, I wasn't present as I'm "no longer involved".

I wait to hear how things proceeded but in the mean time it might be instructive to consider the list of chemicals that may be under examination by the committee.

The first list was one provided by Emma to TATIB in March (2010) These are the products litsed;
Folpan, Sovrin Flo, Topaz, Mamba, Spiral, Thiovit, Korog, Legend, Hygrobuff, Diathane/Dithane, Rootmaster, Prosper, Phosphite, Acarol, Goemar, Switch, Nufilm.

In the list as provided in the email after the initial meeting to discuss the matter on 29 April 2010 I noticed that Prosper is missing.
Prosper is described as an endocrine disruptor. This is of particular concern with regard to young developing children.

Edited on Sat 15 may to add:
It has now been suggested that this initial list of chemicals is really a combined list of the chemicals used both at Nitida and the Lourensford Estate Farm. Lourensford is home to another Mantessori school. I'm trying to get some clarification on this and will amend as required.

I've mentioned it elsewhere before but it's worth repeating that the list as provided by the school after the 29April meeting only consisted of 8 products. Revealingly though, the spraying schedule provided on the same sheet lists a total of 14 products. It seems to me someone doesn't know what's really going on.

In the same email (the supposedly reassuring one after the 29 April meeting) the school states;
"Fungicides were the only sprays that were used on the farm in 2009 and 2010". "no organo-phosphates are used on the farm"


To be fair, Bernhard did only say that "generally" he didn't use organophoosphates whereas the school was absolutely adamant that they weren't in use.

To be honest, I'm finding all this "confusion" on the part of the school to be very tiring....trying to establish the truth surrounding even the basic facts surrounding the farms spraying practices is being made very difficult by these continued contradictions. It may merely be coincidental but one, seemingly minor, additional difficulty I've encountered in researching those chemicals we do know about is the way the school has misspelled some of them. Call me cynical but at this point I can't help thinking this wasn't an accident or are these the Afrikaans spellings?

Kwinoksifen should be Quinoxifen
Promopropylate should be Bromopropylate
Spiroksamien should be Spiroxamine
Dimetomorf should be Dimethomorph
Simoksanil should be Cymoxanil
...and I still have no idea what the hell Tenkonasool is? It's the active ingredient of Topaz, according to the info provided by the school but it doesn't match any other independent data on Topaz I managed to find.

This doesn't speak well for the schools spelling and reading abilities...perhaps cognitive function has been compromised by long term exposure to Rootmaster (we learn that symptoms of exposure to small amounts include weakness, general depression, headaches and mental impairment.)