Lawns Sprayed In Error Fuel City's Pesticide Debate

Subject: Lawns Sprayed In Error Fuel City's Pesticide Debate
Date:    Tue, 25 Jun 2002 08:15:05 -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 entitled: Lawns Sprayed In Error Fuel City's Pesticide Debate - Proves that a bylaw is the only way to go, green group says By Catherine Porter, STAFF REPORTER.

John Dimech arrived home one day last week to find the front yard of his Etobicoke bungalow and his child's playset glistening with freshly applied pesticide. The problem? Not only did he not order it, but his 6-year-old son is asthmatic and allergic to the bug-killer.

"I was fuming," said the fire-fighting captain, who lives near Bloor St. W. and Highway 427.

"This is my property and I choose to do with it what I want, and one of the things I choose is not to use pesticides," Dimech said. "Now my son won't be able to go out and play on his set until after two or three rains."

Dimech is not alone. A handful of Etobicoke citizens are hopping mad after their lawns were mistakenly sprayed by local lawn-care companies. They say the incident proves the industry can't regulate itself and that the city, which is debating what to do about lawn-spraying, should go to greater lengths to safeguard citizens.

"We've had four calls in the last three days from citizens who have come home and found out their lawns were sprayed without permission," said Rich Whate of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, which has been lobbying for an outright ban on non-essential pesticide use within the city for the past year. "It's clear to us that the industry has no motivation or interest in reducing pesticides and a bylaw is the only way we're going to see that."

Dan Passmore, who represents an association of lawn-care companies in the city, countered that you can't spray the whole industry with the same nozzle.

"We're an industry like any other. We try to maintain the best operations we can. But, we're a very high-volume industry. We service well over 150,000 lawns. It's inevitable honest mistakes are made," he said, adding that given a third-party regulator, companies that make such mistakes could be fined under pesticide-reducing initiatives proposed by his group.

Toronto is in the throes of deciding how to comb back the tangle of cosmetic pesticide use that has long ensnarled environmentalists and the lawn-care industry.

The city's public-health department, which is canvassing the public on the issue, has presented four approaches.

Two of them, growing from industry seeds, would allow for pesticides, with a public education campaign on their use, but no restrictions, or alternatively, an industry-led initiative to control or reduce the use of pesticides.

Two other ideas were planted by environmentalists - to legally restrict pesticide use in general, with the exception of commercial properties like golf courses or in cases of infestations, or to ban them in specific areas only, including near schools, hospitals, seniors' homes or other areas designated high-risk.

Feedback so far, from six community meetings last month and written submissions, has sided with the environmentalists, said Monica Campbell, manager of health promotion and environmental protection with the city health department.

"We're seeing a great deal of public support for the phase-out of non-essential pesticides, including on private property, and quite a lot of support for some form of bylaw," she said, adding the department will have a more well-rounded idea of where the public stands after it completes a poll this summer. It will present its recommendations to city council in the fall.

Passmore said the industry-led initiative would combine accreditation of sprayers who have taken a course on pesticide reduction, with monitoring and auditing by a third party, like the provincial Ministry of the Environment.

"If there are no weeds, you don't spray the lawn," he said. `It's a reduction in the amount of pesticides you are using. It promotes good horticultural practices."

But that didn't stop the worker from spraying Fern Kako's front lawn on Wednesday.

"This guy came here and sprayed even though there wasn't a visible weed out there. They obviously can't regulate themselves. I'd like to see it banned all together," said the mother, who moved to the Royal York Rd. and Bloor St. area three months ago, and has long since banished chemical pesticides from her lawn.

"We're not talking about dropping off mail or doughnuts. We're talking about chemicals here. You can't just go dropping chemicals in people's backyards. I feel completely violated."

The company that mistakenly sprayed both Dimech and Kako's lawns last week has apologized and offered to replace Dimech's playset, said Green Care Company branch manager Neil Whiteside.

Toronto is in one of dozens of municipalities considering pesticide restrictions since last summer, when the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the right of Hudson, a town near Montreal, to pass a bylaw banning the use of non-essential pesticides. The town council had been taken to court by two lawn-care firms on the grounds the pesticides it was banning were legal in Canada.

Well Mr. Helliker, As head of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, what do you think the "fine" should be if an innocent child dies because of a non-essential “error"?

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