Chemical industry fighting lawn pesticide bans with increasing success

Subject: Chemical industry fighting lawn pesticide bans with increasing success
Date:     Mon, 27 May 2002 13:31:50 -0400
From:      Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation

Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an article dated: Sunday, May 26, 2002 entitled: Chemical industry fighting lawn pesticide bans with increasing success by AMY CARMICHAEL - Canadian Press.

TORONTO (CP) - A year after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling allowing municipalities to ban the use of lawn pesticides, the chemical industry is fighting back with increasing success against the groundswell of public support for restricting pesticides.

"They have regrouped," Ottawa city Coun. Alex Cullen said of those in the lawn-care business.

"In many cases they have been successful in out-organizing the local communities."

After Halifax city councillors passed a bylaw to gradually ban cosmetic pesticides by 2003, Stephen King, manager of the Halifax parks department, said the city received "literally hundreds" of calls from other Canadian municipalities asking how they could pass their own bylaw.

Consultants for chemical industry groups also visited; they were hired to figure out where they went wrong.

"They've learned from their losses and are using that experience to better defend themselves in other municipalities," King said.

Karen Clark, an environmental health policy lawyer for Toronto Public Health, said the lawn-care industry's campaign is working in Toronto.

Public meetings held on a proposed cosmetic pesticide ban held last week were "overwhelmed" by representatives from lawn-care companies sporting T-shirts, handing out pamphlets and offering quick comebacks to any question, she said.

"They were giving well-informed, uniform answers. Even the landscapers who turned out were quoting trade law."

There were far fewer people advocating a pesticide ban and they weren't nearly as well-organized, she said.

"The presence of this big lobby group makes it easier for a whole bunch of people on city council who have a conservative bent anyway, who would really rather not get another bylaw telling people what to do on their own property," Clark said.

"And there are economic interests involved and that hooks a lot of councillors, as well, who don't want to tie the hands of business owners in their wards."

Similar campaigns have been mounted in the Ontario communities of Guelph, Caledon, London and Ottawa. The campaigns have stalled efforts to enact bylaws banning cosmetic pesticide use.

"The chemical companies are using the same template across Ontario," said Cullen.

"They've taken on pro-environment names like the Ontario Environmental Coalition, hired lobbyists, written letters, made presentations and packed meetings."

Loraine Van Haastrecht, owner of the Mississauga-based Dr. Green lawn-care company, belongs to the 200 company-strong coalitions. She has attended public meetings across southern Ontario arguing city councils aren't equipped to regulate the pesticide industry.

"Health Canada has 400 scientists looking at this issue every day and they have ruled time and again these products are safe. The city of Toronto, for example, has no staff to devote on a full-time basis," she said.

In western Canadian cities like Victoria and Edmonton, the chemical companies are not as active likely because those cities are making less aggressive moves to ban pesticides.

Edmonton recently formed a public citizens' committee to draft a plan to reduce pesticide use.

"It will likely involve a large public education campaign," said Coun. Michael Phair, adding a ban would be difficult to enforce and the chemical industry "would probably go nuts if we were talking about a complete ban."

Still, groups in the city like Lawns for Kids are demanding a total reduction in pesticide use and people are signing up in droves for organic gardening classes at the Garden Institute of Alberta.

What's becoming quite popular, said Nancy Finlayson, president of the institute, is a landscaping technique called naturalizing.

"It involves planting only the local native species. Because they grow naturally in the wild, they don't require watering or fertilizing," she said.

A similarly holistic approach to lawns and gardens has been in vogue in British Columbia for years, said Dr. Michelle Gorman, the Integrated Pest Management Co-ordinator for the city of Victoria.

"In the east, there is much more of a focus on the perfect, pristine lawn, maybe because the season you can have one is so short."

She said after the Supreme Court ruled last year that the village of Hudson, Que., had the right to ban lawn pesticides, there was "a fair upswell" of people petitioning city council for a ban on cosmetic pesticide use.

The city is working on a model bylaw that regional municipalities will eventually vote on. She said she said there hasn't been a big opposition from lawn-care companies. In fact, many lawn-care companies support the regulation.

"A number of local companies make their business not using pesticides. The organic landscaping method is exploited all over states, and here too because it makes good money."

Quebec municipalities have been the most active, with nearly 50 municipalities imposing cosmetic pesticide bans, and the provincial environment minister pledging enact a provincewide ban.

Michel Gaudet, vice-president of the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, said he has no idea why the rest of Canada is moving so slowly on the issue.

He got involved after his wife and daughter developed chemical sensitivity from pesticide exposure, and he said others shouldn't wait that long.

The reason lawn pesticides aren't being banned more quickly, said Clark, is because the evidence that they are dangerous is mounting, but still not conclusive.

"It's going to take a while for the toxicologists and epidemiologists to duke it out," she said.

Well Mr. Helliker, Until the public just says "No." There will always be someone to take their money and $ell them drugs, tobacco, alcohol and/or POI$ON$. The sad point is those of us who have said no. do not want to be poisoned by your continued use/misuse.

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