Reader Sandy Rowley sent us the video below which shows the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) spraying weeds on Interstate 80 east of Reno. However, the trailer behind the spraying truck warned against “Wet Paint Ahead.”
“People had their windows open,” Rowley said. “Watch out for the wet paint, my ass.”
NDOT Public Information Officer Meg Ragonese said the spraying truck is a multi-use vehicle and that the warning sign was erroneous.
“Inadvertently, the crew has used a painting message instead of a very general caution message that they normally use during any type of weed spray or anything like that,” she said. “All of our maintenance workers who do that are very experienced applicators. (They) are actually certified applicators of per-emergent and other weed and vegetation spray. They’re certified applicators through the state Department of Agriculture, and so obviously through that training and certification they work very diligently to limit exposure.
“One of the ways that they do that is, of course, to spray low down. We watch the weather very, very closely. They don’t spray on windy days.”
She said that in this case NDOT was spraying the center median.
“It’s certainly nothing that would be a health risk,” she added.
Ragonese said that spraying vegetation is for safety reasons. Large tumbleweeds, she explained, present a hazard to vehicles.
