Maine Officials Call for Criminal Charges Over St. Louis Couple's Herbicide Use

Last December, a wealthy St. Louis couple was fined $215,200 for applying herbicide to a neighbor's trees near their vacation home in Maine. The herbicide was brought in from Missouri and not intended for shoreline use.

Now traces of the herbicide have reportedly been found at a public beach in the area — and officials in Maine are calling for charges to be brought against Arthur Bond III and his wife Amelia, according to the Penobscot Bay Pilot.

Arthur Bond III is the nephew of former U.S. senator and Missouri governor Kit Bond. Amelia Bond is the former president and CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation.

The Maine newspaper reports that officials voted at Select Board meeting on March 6 to encourage the state attorney general and local district attorney “to take full force of the law against the Bonds, for the poison application they put on Metcalf Road that has now spread into our common park, common beach and now into our harbor.”

The herbicide, Alligare, is now "in our park,” said Board Chair Tom Hedstrom, according to the Pilot. “It’s on our beach, where our citizens, our children, our pets go.”

Hedstrom continued, "I would make a public call right now to our Attorney General and our District Attorney to seriously consider criminal charges against the Bonds for this application of poison into our property, our resident’s property, our harbor, and endangering all of us."

The motion passed 5-0, the paper reported. Another motion sought to encourage state officials in Maine to pass new laws to impose financial and potentially criminal penalties if the use of herbicides and pesticides "are proven to have been made with intent and malice." That also passed 5-0.

The Bonds have been well-respected members of the St. Louis area community. An investment banker, Amelia Bond served as president and CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation from 2011 until her retirement last June, growing its asset base during that time from $183 million to $550 million, according to the foundation.

But the couple's actions have angered their neighbors in Maine. In addition to the fines they consented to with Maine's Board of Pesticide Control, they previously agreed to a separate payment of at least $1.5 million to Lisa Gorman, the neighbor whose trees they applied the herbicide to.

According to records of the dispute reported on by the Pilot, Amelia Bond trespassed on Gorman's properties in order to apply the herbicide to two trees she believed were dying. Gorman's attorney later accused the Bonds of applying the herbicide and "cutting off the tops of numerous trees" in order to improve their view of the harbor.

In the spring of 2022, Gorman reported that "a large number of trees and shrubs, as well as ground cover, were suddenly starting to die" — kicking off an investigation that led to two separate consent agreements as well as the private settlement.

Alligare offers a variety of herbicides. The one Amelia Bond confessed to using on her neighbor's property was designated for use on rangelands, not coastlands, according to the consent decree signed by the couple and a separate consent decree with the state pesticide board.


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