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Tip: Your message to SUST-MAR must be html-free. So, BEFORE you hit SEND, please go to your "Format" pull-down menu and select "Plain text." Thanks! ____________________________________________________________________________ Urgent Action: Pesticide Bylaw under Threat Send a letter to the mayor and councillors automatically on our website! Please ask your friends and neighbours to do the same. www.sierraclub.ca/atlantic COMMENT IS URGENTLY NEEDED Pesticide companies are lobbying the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) to be allowed to regulate themselves and issue their own spray permits whenever they want them. Landscape Nova Scotia (LNS), the lobby group for lawn care companies, is making a major move to take over the permit and lawn inspection process under Pesticide Bylaw (P-800). [Permit requests are applications for exemptions to apply pesticides under the pesticide bylaw, and are supposed to be rare occurrences.] Hard as it is to believe, lawn care companies, some of whom have had a history of repeated serious bylaw violations, want to be put in charge of lawn inspections and issue permits to themselves whenever they choose! This wouldn't matter EXCEPT THAT HRM STAFF IS LISTENING and planning their staff reports accordingly. Council knows very little about this while discussions between Landscape Nova Scotia, and HRM staff have been going on quietly for months behind the scenes on how to put the fox in charge of the hen house. Those who sell and use pesticides have high hopes; last summer, customers in a local retailer were overheard being told, "Next year, there won't BE a bylaw.” What Industry is proposing to do and HRM is considering: *HRM would let sprayers decide when pesticides are needed and then issue spray permits to themselves whenever they choose to [only a small percentage of these would be checked up on by Clean NS, and they might well approve of over half of them]. *HRM would allow sprayers to say that posting signs and notifying nearby residents is the responsibility of the resident - NOT THEIRS - so they can’t be fined for failure to follow the rules of the bylaw. *HRM proposes to let sprayers be the first ones to visit a property and be the ones to educate residents (or fail utterly at this). The critical role of teaching about natural landscaping would be handled by those who are most invested in pesticides and sales profits, and as the mountain of permit requests show, are INCAPABLE of doing this well. Some companies submitted over 1100 requests for pesticide permits EACH last season. *HRM would be behaving unfairly to organic landscapers and other smaller companies who may not want to spend big dollars for IPM accreditation. Both groups would be less likely to be first on the site and therefore first to influence the homeowner. *HRM might allow Landscape NS to reject the wording in HRM’s printed educational materials if LNS didn’t like the way it sounds. Is this a veto power for words like “precautionary” and “health protection”? *HRM would let LNS keep all the records and data in their control, with no independent check on the real ratio of “approved” to “refused” permit requests. Even the occasional audit would be conducted according to rules the landscapers help determine. Go figure. *HRM would sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that could be legally binding. *HRM would build Industry’s “Integrated Pest Management”(IPM) into our bylaw. THIS IS A SYSTEM THAT RELIES ON PESTICIDES, and which is backed by landscape lobby groups in Ontario and NS, and was rejected by the City of Ottawa. A BETTER IDEA: certified organic inspectors making permit decisions (following national organic standards) would be much more likely to help us create a pesticide-free community than if these decisions are made by spray companies with “IPM certification” - a label industry bestows on itself. The City of Ottawa describes IPM this way: “This is a position advocated by Landscape Ontario, representing lawn care companies in Ontario, and involves the application of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. The City of Ottawa does not use IPM on its own properties …” June, 2003. *HRM WOULD MAKE ALL THESE SWEEPING CHANGES WITHOUT ANY PUBLIC HEARINGS. (Amendments to the bylaw require public hearings. But it may be possible for the city to "farm out" the inspection/permit process to other agencies without making an amendment to the bylaw. These changes go WAY beyond this, however.) -Based on information in a Memorandum of Understanding (Feb 3, 2004) signed by an officer of LNS (and owner of the Weed Man franchise). ===================================== WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE: If you are pesticide sensitive, or don’t want neurotoxic, immune-suppressing insecticides such as organophosphates and carbamates (or illegal herbicides) sprayed near you, tell the city that it is never a good idea to put the ones to be regulated in charge of the regulating! Some lawn care companies told their customers last season, “Carbaryl (Sevin) is organic” and that Diazinon is "organic" and won't hurt you. A brief comment window exists for those with serious health issues. If you want to protect yourself and your community, get your comments in now. It doesn’t have to be lengthy. Writing both Halifax Regional Council and HRM staff, means that if staff closes the comment window, Council will still know how you feel. Staff Reports will go to Council on March 30, 2004, but discussion may continue well after this. ACTION *** ACTION *** Action *** ACTION *** ACTION To send a letter, go to www.sierraclub.ca/atlantic and choose the link URGENT ACTION NEEDED Halifax Regional Municipality Pesticide Bylaw Under Threat!! Four Methods for Dealing with Chinch Bugs (without pesticides): (1) Use a shop vacuum on the dead spot plus a one foot margin of healthy grass around it. According to David Slabotsky at the Wolfville Parks Department, this removes all the adults, all the eggs, and all the nymphs and is 100% effective. No other treatment should be needed. or (2) Use water and/or soapy water on the area frequently (chinch bugs hate this and usually leave). or (3) Use a beneficial nematode product (like Lawn Guardian) in the spring. Be sure not to water it in; just mix them with moist soil or peat moss (and a little more water) in a wheelbarrow and rake it into the soil surface (deep into the grass). Use diatomaceous earth products in the Fall (when there are more adult chinch bugs). or (4) Permanently prevent chinch bugs by deepening the soil under the lawn with good garden loam and compost. Do this with either repeated top dressings - or for a quick fix - by digging up the lawn, adding 6"+ of good rich soil, and reseeding with a "low-input" grass seed mix with a little added (~5%) Dutch white clover seed. Don't forget to MOW HIGH (~ 2 1/2 - 3"). Charging a $10-$15 fee for anyone applying for a permit will help cover overhead costs. With chinch bug problem handled properly, there is no cost crisis in the permit program. Homeowners need to follow clear step-wise requirements for alternative methods for pest problems, and report on their success with each of them, before pesticides are ever considered. Education on existing safe and effective methods is the key (and keep feeding the soil). Result - Beautiful Lawn. No problems. No pesticides. More information and individual Councillor’s emails at http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/RATE/ ____________________________________________________________________________ Did a friend forward this to you? Join sust-mar yourself! Just send 'subscribe sust-mar' to mailto:majordomo@chebucto.ca
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