LONDON, Ontario - Weaning your grass from pesticides doesn't have to mean lawn-care disaster, says a London parks official.
As dandelions sprout and mowers roar to life, the city has launched a campaign to convince homeowners to avoid lawn chemicals this year. "We're trying to get people to think about pesticide reduction through plant health care," says Bill Coxhead, city parks operations manager.
As part of the campaign, a web page provides tips on how to grow a healthy lawn without using pesticides (www.lawncare.london.ca).
This year's healthy lawn campaign is a prelude to passage of a pesticide-control bylaw to take effect in September 2005.
The London bylaw will be similar to a Toronto regulation significantly restricting pesticide use on public and private property.
The first phase of Toronto's bylaw took effect April 1.
More Canadian centres are moving to restrict pesticide use, motivated by growing concerns about the health effects of long-term exposure to lawn chemicals.
"Many of the health problems linked with pesticide use are serious and difficult to treat, so we are advocating reducing exposure to pesticides and prevention of harm as the best approach," says Dr. Margaret Sanborn of McMaster University in Hamilton, one of the review's authors.
And it places responsibility on manufacturers and distributors of pesticides to prove their safety, rather than on consumers to prove harm.
The college's review was rapped by CropLife Canada, representing pesticide manufacturers and distributors.
"We want to assure the public that, notwithstanding the announcement by the Ontario College of Family Physicians, that pesticides can be safely used to control pests whether on the farm or in their home and garden," said CropLife president Lorne Hepworth.
"We say that because our members have no interest in putting products into the market that would harm the public or the environment."
Hepworth points out pesticides used in Canada must be registered by Health Canada and extensive testing is required to prove their safety.
Concerns expressed by the college will alarm the public needlessly, he adds.
"Public education on the safe, responsible use of pesticides using integrated pest management is the answer, not fearmongering."
Lawn-care companies insist there are no acceptable substitutes for the chemicals widely used to control lawn weeds and insects.
"Alternatives haven't developed well enough yet. We can't do without the conventional products," says Ken Pavely of Landscape Ontario, an industry trade association.
Londoner Bob Sexsmith, a member of the London Coalition Against Pesticides, agrees with the family doctors a safe-rather-than-sorry approach is better with pesticide use.
"Nobody knows the cumulative effect of these chemicals," he said.
Sexsmith says he's not advocating elimination of pesticides since they're sometimes needed. A case in point was a mosquito-control program last summer to combat West Nile virus.
The coalition has pushed for passage of the city's pesticide bylaw. But Sexsmith says the bylaw should take effect earlier, next spring, rather than in September 2005.
"Implementing the bylaw should be done in the spring when people are looking at the their lawns and making decisions about what to do during the summer," he says.
The bylaw will allow exemptions for pest infestations.
Sexsmith says infestation will have to be clearly defined or the bylaw won't work.