| schema:text
| - The U.S. Forest Service hassprayed thousands of acres of n ational forests with the herbicide glyphosate, better known by the brand name Roundup and, as of this writing, plans to continue using glyphosate.
-
The rumor stemmed from a credible investigative report by journalist Nate Halverson for Mother Jones magazine. Halverson and his colleague Melissa Lewis analyzed more than 5 million records related to California forest spraying dating back to 1990 and found 8,000 reported sprayings covering a quarter-million acres from 2020 to 2022.
-
Halverson obtained several government documents via public records requests and shared these with Snopes. Those, coupled with public reports and notices from the Forest Service about herbicide use, allowed us to independently verify that the agency and timber companies partnered with the Forest Service have widely used glyphosate in national forests.
-
The Forest Service said via email that detailed numbers on glyphosate application in national forests would require public records requests. The agency added that it relies on the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides and that the EPA is, as of this writing, reevaluating their safety.
-
In April and May 2026, social media users claimed the U.S. Forest Service and timber companies are spraying thousands of acres of forests with the herbicide glyphosate, better known by its brand name, Roundup.
For example, one Facebook post (archived) read, "so, it turns out The Forest Service and private loggers have been spraying Roundup all over private and public forests?"
The rumor also circulated on X, Instagram and Reddit, and Snopes readers emailed us to ask about the claim.
The allegation appeared to originate with a report (archived) in the May and June 2026 issue of Mother Jones — a progressive U.S. magazine that produces credible investigative work — titled "We Are Bombarding America's Forests With Roundup."
Journalists Nate Halverson and Melissa Lewis analyzed more than 5 million records related to California forest spraying dating back to 1990. Halverson concluded that the Forest Service was spraying glyphosate "at record levels."
Halverson shared some of those documents with Snopes via email, allowing us to independently verify that the Forest Service has sprayed thousands of acres of U.S. forests with glyphosate. Additional notices and documents from the Forest Service indicate that, as of this writing, the agency plans to continue using the herbicide in the near future. As such, we have rated this claim true.
Halverson said he also plans to release a full database showing spraying "all across California" but did not provide a concrete timeline for its publication.
The Forest Service says (archived) it uses glyphosate and herbicides to control or eradicate harmful
In a 2020 review of glyphosate (archived), the Environmental Protection Agency determined the herbicide carries "no risks of concern to human health" when used as directed. Halverson pointed out that the World Health Organization's cancer research center disagrees (archived), stating that it "probably" causes cancer and that there's "strong evidence" it causes cell mutations.
One reader also asked us whether "Trump's U.S. Forest Service" is spraying "deadly toxins." It is true the agency has sprayed glyphosate in forests during Trump's second term and the president has supported domestic glyphosate production. It is also true the agency has a long history of forest spraying that precedes both of Trump's terms.
In an email, the Forest Service said detailed numbers on glyphosate application in national forests would require public records requests — an often slow process at the federal level — because glyphosate application often happens via "spot treatments," rather than "large areas."
"Herbicides — including glyphosate — have forestry-specific formulas that help us control invasive species, reduce hazardous fuels, and support reforestation," the Forest Service said. "The USDA Forest Service relies on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its rigorous evaluation of the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides."
The agency's May 11 email noted that the EPA is currently reevaluating the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides.
Report on Roundup
Here's an excerpt from the Mother Jones article (emphasis ours):
Logging companies and the US Forest Service have been spraying massive amounts of herbicide in clear-cut and fire-ravaged forests of California—and throughout the nation. And not just any herbicide, but glyphosate, a potent and problematic weed killer best known by the brand name Roundup.
[…]
To learn more about how widely glyphosate was being used and the risks of using it in places where people camp, forage, hike, hunt, and swim, I began by requesting all California spraying reports going back to 1990. My colleague Melissa Lewis and I analyzed more than 5 million records, and what we found was eye opening: Forest spraying, which practically nobody knows about, is happening at record levels. The amount applied annually in state forests—266,000 pounds of pure glyphosate in 2023, the latest year for which data was available—is nearly five times what it was two decades ago. And though far more glyphosate is sprayed on state croplands overall, forest uses have become the herbicide's fastest-growing market in California.
[…]
Oversight of spraying is lax, even here in California. When I asked state regulators for records of all site inspections for forest spraying from 2020 through 2022, they returned only 11 reports, despite more than 8,000 reported sprayings covering a quarter-million acres during those three years.
Halverson said via email that the numbers in his story came from analyzing public records requests "across at least 53 different agencies and municipalities."
"Any other numbers you see other than the ones in our story, at this point, are probably not accurate. Or, at least, I can't speak to them," he added in response to a question about additional online claims (archived) that "millions of acres" of forests have been treated with glyphosate.
In August 2020, Politico reported that the Forest Service used 16,740 pounds of glyphosate on nearly 6,000 acres of California's forests in budget year 2018, based on government reports.
Documents show widespread use of glyphosate
Halverson shared three documents to demonstrate the Forest Service's use of glyphosate. The first — which is publicly available online via the agency — shows an October 2024 landscape restoration proposal that
Page 36 of the PDF indicates that glyphosate, specifically, would be used on those 4,404 acres via backpack sprayers. According to the report, the Forest Service planned to use herbicide to reduce vegetation that may outcompete "climate-adapted seedlings that have increased resilience to future warmer and drought conditions." Table 12, on Page 47 of the PDF, shows the Forest Service also planned to use glyphosate to control or eradicate invasive plant species.
The second document Halverson shared (also online via the Forest Service) is an October 2025 decision notice confirming most of the above proposal, with some modifications to remove herbicide treatment from more than 200
"Industry and utility partners such as Collins Pine Company, Sierra Pacific Industries, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) also participated to align project goals with forestry, infrastructure, and economic interest," the decision says about the Lassen project on Page 12, referencing two lumber companies and a natural gas corporation.
The last document Halverson provided is a State of California 2021 inspection report. The report rebuked a forest management company, contracted with the Forest Service, for safety and training regulation violations while applying Roundup in Eldorado National Forest.
Those three documents are not outliers. Various
See, for example, this 2022 decision notice
As for planned glyphosate use at the time of publication, a May 2026 Forest Service
Glyphosate is also frequently used in commercial forestry. A 2017 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Forests says that while an estimate of total annual use of glyphosate in U.S. forests "could not be obtained," a 2011 survey indicated that glyphosate was applied on more than 72,000 hectares of industrial forest land, or around 178,000 acres.
How safe is glyphosate?
Despite extensive research, glyphosate's safety and benefits for both humans and the environment is fiercely debated, particularly after the 2025 retraction of a highly influential study published 25 years earlier that claimed glyphosate was not a human health risk. (A 2011 Forest Service glyphosate risk assessment report cites the aforementioned study more than
Scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology's retraction notice cites court documents revealing that Monsanto, the company behind Roundup at the time, "may have contributed to the writing of the article without proper acknowledgment as co-authors," raising "serious ethical concerns."
In February 2026, Bayer, a German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company that bought Monsanto in 2018,
Bayer maintains that glyphosate has "consistently met strict standards of safety," pointing to the EPA's assessment and other regulatory authorities' approvals of the herbicide.
In sum …
The Forest Service, alongside timber company partners, has used glyphosate across thousands of acres of U.S. national forests. The agency says it uses the herbicide for legitimate environmental purposes and the EPA says it carries "no risks to human health" when used as directed — but experts are still reviewing whether glyphosate creates more benefit than harm.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)