BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 16, 2024
Camden residents will soon consider new restrictions on the use of pesticides and herbicides after a local outcry following the illegal use of herbicides by wealthy property owners who applied them to their trees. The proposed rule would require commercial users of those products to notify neighbors before they are applied and to provide an annual report documenting their local usage. Support for the measure has grown after the 2021 case, in which Arthur and Amelia Bond illegally applied the herbicides to trees owned by them and a neighbor in their oceanfront neighborhood. The couple was subsequently required to pay more than $200,000 in fines and fees, and local officials have also found traces of the herbicide at a nearby beachfront park.