Paul Hahn, owner of Mackinaw Valley Vineyard, has battled chemical drift from nearby farm fields for more than a decade, and this year his vines got slammed by drift from the herbicide 2,4-D.

“My vineyard was burned real bad this spring. I can’t tell the extent yet, but it’s bad,” Hahn said. “All my neighbors know I have grapes, and they all know what 2,4-D (drift) does to grapes, but someone used it.”

Cal Snow, a retired high school teacher, has watched chemical drift from a nearby farm field billow over children playing in his subdivision south of Lacon.

Across Illinois Route 26 from Snow’s subdivision, Gary Barnes, a retired minister, has filed complaints about chemical drift with the Illinois Department of Agriculture for 14 years.

State legislatures throughout the country are grappling with chemical drift from farm fields and the conflict between the rights and pressures of farming and the rights and health of rural residents.

Maine recently passed legislation that proponents hope will be a model for the rest of the country. The new law calls for the creation of a notification registry for two types of aerial applications to inform neighbors of what, when and how chemicals are being used on agriculture fields.

Barnes said prior notification of chemical spraying would be a great help. He once believed that with adequate documentation, he could call upon existing laws and regulations to protect his property. He’s no longer a believer.

Trees and bushes in his yard have been denuded. Some died. He bred Peregrine falcons for 10 years. He quit recently. After one bird died, he sealed and air-conditioned the coops and kept the birds inside. Even in those conditions, all his falcon embryos died hours after an ag chemical was applied on a neighboring field. After that, he gave up on falcon breeding and his $50,000 investment in the operation. Now he has homing pigeons, a much less expensive operation.