St. Louis Couple Fined $200K for Poisoning Maine Neighbor's Trees

The fines come after a year-long investigation into Arthur and Amelia Bond's use of an herbicide

Dec 1, 2023 at 11:19 am

Amelia Bond is the recently retired CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation. BUSINESS WIRE

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A wealthy St. Louis couple will have to pay $215,200 in fines after applying herbicide to a neighbor's trees near their Maine vacation home.

Arthur Bond III, the nephew of former U.S. senator and Missouri governor Kit Bond, and his wife, Amelia Bond, former president and CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation, violated Maine's shoreland laws by using a herbicide bought in from Missouri on the beachside property of their neighbor, Lisa Gorman — the widow of L.L. Bean's former president.

According to a consent agreement with Maine's Board of Pesticides Control, which the Bonds signed, in the fall of 2021, Amelia Bond put herbicide on two oak trees she thought were dying. She had purchased a four-bound bag of the herbicide, called Alligare, in Missouri. Alligare's active ingredient is Tebuthiuron, which is intended for rangelands and not coastal areas.

The oak trees continued to decline, and Gorman called tree experts to look at the trees in July 2022. Soil samples revealed the use of Tebuthiuron, which had spread to nearby maple, blueberry and dogwood trees. The herbicide was also found in the vicinity of the Bonds' $3.5 million home above Laite Beach in Camden, Maine.

According to the Bangor Daily News, which first reported the fines, Arthur and Amelia Bond must pay $180,000 as a penalty for violating shoreland zoning laws, in addition to $30,700 to cover the cost of environmental testing and monitoring. They'll also have to pay $4,500 for unlawful application of Tebuthiuron through the consent agreement with the state.

The Bonds have cooperated with their neighbors and the Town of Camden in developing a remediation plan to prevent further damage to their neighbor's property as well as the town at large, according to the state's consent agreement.

Amelia Bond retired from her position at the St. Louis Community Foundation in June 2023.