Owners of $3.5M Maine vacation home are fined $215K for spraying HERBICIDES on next door neighbor's garden, forcing removal of soil and trees to decontaminate it

DAILYMAIL.COM ^ | 28 November 2023 | HARRIET ALEXANDER

[dennisw]

Arthur Bond III and Amelia Bond, of St Louis, Missouri, have been fined for the for the use of the herbicide tebuthiuron, not widely known in Maine Amelia Bond told Maine state investigators that in August 2021 she purchased in Missouri a product with the name Alligare, for their Maine holiday home She put it at the bottom of two oak trees she 'believed to be dying': they were not on her land, and the owner of the neighboring property sued

A high-profile Missouri couple has been hit with $215,000 in fines and damages after putting herbicide on two oak trees on land owned by their Maine neighbor, the widow of L.L. Bean's former president.

Arthur Bond III, nephew of the former governor of Missouri and US Senator, Kit Bond, and his wife Amelia, president and CEO of the St Louis Community Foundation, spent their summers at their $3.5 million vacation home above Laite Beach in Camden, Maine.

Amelia Bond told Maine state investigators that she purchased in Missouri a four-pound bag of a chemical called Alligare, which in August 2021 she put on two oak trees she thought were dying.

The oak trees were on the property below hers, belonging to her neighbor.

By the following summer, the decline of the oak trees was noticed by Lisa Gorman - whose husband Leon Gorman became president of L.L. Bean in 1967 following the death of his grandfather, Leon Leonwood Bean.

Leon Leonwood Bean founded the Freeport, Maine-based company in 1912.

Lisa Gorman asked the landscapers Bartlett Tree Experts to look at the trees, and they took soil samples.

Their tests showed that the two oaks had been treated with herbicide, which had spread to other trees including maple, blueberry and dogwood.

[kawhill]

Yeah, I found out who the guy was that signed off on killing my trees. If he wasn’t married with five kids and I was a little less of a Christian, I would have blown a hole in the side of his house. After I talked to him, quite sternly, he leaves my land alone.

[EVO X]

My parents had an old majestic Oak in their front yard. The gas company ran a new line through part of the root system. The tree was dead in about 5 years.

[liberalh8ter]

Meanwhile, in the real world, people are trying to buy groceries, gas and keep the lights on.

[VTenigma]

I have been teasing them a little.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Eh, close enough for government work.

If it is taller then me, it's a tree.