Campaign for pesticide reduction in Maple Ridge
As the size of our community increases, things that were deemed safe in the past are having an increasingly harmful effect on Maple Ridge, the environment, and, potentially, the people who live here. For example, pesticides, commonly used for commercial and personal purposes are showing up, with increasing frequency, in area streams and waterways. These chemicals are disrupting ecosystems, contaminating wildlife, and
Maple Ridge resident Maria Raynolds works with CEED, raising awareness about the harm that pesticides can cause and campaigning for the reduction of pesticide use for cosmetic purposes. Recently, Maria spoke to Maple Ridge Council about this subject, and she gave me permission to reprint her presentation on Growing Our Community.
Campaign for Pesticide Reduction Maple Ridge: Presentation to Council
This is the third year that the Campaign for Pesticide Reduction MR has come before Council in its efforts to reduce the use of pesticides in this Municipality. This year I feel we have come a huge step forward in our goals. You all stood up and unanimously showed your support for an education campaign and a pesticide by-law during the election campaign. We thank you very much for that.
Last time we presented Council with over 3600 signatures to show the public support this campaign has in the municipality. This year we would like to present you with a letter to council signed by 54 physicians in Maple Ridge supporting the education campaign and by-law. Nationwide the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Ontario College of Family Physicians have done a lot of research in this matter and have long supported it. You will find a variety of material in your packages.
First and foremost we want to thank Council for its decision in January of last year, to partner with us. David Boag, director of Parks and Facilities, has become our liaison to Council and we have had several very productive meetings with him.
We thank Council also for the notice in the tax newsletter in June, which went to all properties in Maple Ridge. It helped raise awareness of this important issue and we hope to repeat it this year again.
In 2005 we received over $3000 in funding from Council to print our beautiful new brochures and to help set up our new website and to fund a speaker for Earth Day. Our website has a lot of information about alternatives to pesticides and natural garden and lawn care and provides excellent links to all kinds of other pesticide information. You will find the link under the FIS website.
Hopefully we soon can also establish a link to the Maple Ridge Municipality website. This is our major work in progress. We need more graphics and visual presentation, but that takes more expertise than any of us volunteers have.
You would probably all agree, that $3000+ is not much to run an education campaign for over 70 000 people. We have again this year had to rely on our many dedicated volunteers and the generosity of our partner organizations, like ARMS , KEEPS, RMRS, and FIS to help us. We want to express our sincere thanks to these organizations for their support.
Council has already made Maple Ridge’s parks and playgrounds and schools safe from pesticides. It does not allow any spraying of pesticides on public grounds and has adopted an Integrated Pest Management regime.
Council has also done a lot to make our Municipality more beautiful by passing two other by-laws dealing with unkept properties and grafitti.
You, Mr. Mayor, are working hard to get drugs off our streets. Let’s go one step further and take our lawns off drugs too. Let us make the streets safe for our seniors to walk on and let us make our lawns safe for our kids to play on!
We feel therefore, that now the time is right, to make the rest of our city safe for our families and pets from pesticides and we are asking Council to support our education campaign and to draft a pesticide by-law.
Municipalities have the legal power to draft pesticide bylaws!
Just recently in June of last year, in an important Court case, in AGCare ( CropLife) versus the City of Toronto, the Court of Appeal for Ontario once again concluded that municipalities in fact have legal jurisdiction to pass bylaws governing pesticide use.
The decision clearly states: “…the subject matter of the bylaw lies within the ambit of normal local government activities. It concerns the use and protection of the local environment within the community.” Every single city, from the Hudson, Quebec decision on, which has been challenged by any chemical company, has won its case. Each time the courts have reaffirmed that municipalities indeed have the right and the power to pass this kind of bylaw for the protection of their citizens.
We are not asking that the sale of pesticides be banned. We are asking for the restriction of use, just like tobacco.
David Boag has several examples of existing bylaws for council to peruse and study.
I want to tell you about one other recent bylaw which the small town of Gibsons passed:
Bylaw No. 996, 2005 is a bit different from all the other bylaws.
Any property owner or tenant or licensed applicator has to apply for a permit to spray pesticides. The application fee is $50.
The application of a pesticide is very strictly controlled and many conditions have to be met; among others:
Weather resistant signs of a certain dimension have to be posted clearly indicating, that a pesticide shall or has been used. It shall indicate the commercial name. It has to be placed no less than 24 hours preceding the application and has to be left no less than 24 hours after the application.
You cannot apply a pesticide within 2 meters of any property line unless notification in writing to the property owner has been obtained.
There are strict requirements regarding rivers, streams, wells, bus stops, wetlands etc.
Certain weather conditions have to be met, like wind speed, fog, temperature etc.
No insecticides on trees during blooming periods.
Also each year in the month of January, the owners of treated properties which have utilized Pesticide application ….shall submit to the Town a written report outlining all pesticides used and applied during the year and the meteorological conditions under which they were applied.
I think this is a very interesting bylaw. First, it puts the onus on the person who sprays to notify the municipality and the neighbours. With disclosure of the pesticides, everybody knows what goes into the ground. It assures that the application is done under controlled circumstances. It also makes it a bit harder to use pesticides since you have to take out a permit. It makes people aware that they are dangerous. People may think twice about using pesticides if they have to justify them in an application permit.The application fee also takes the financial burden away from the taxpayer.
The Town of Gibsons is serious about making their community safe, and has taken a creative approach in doing this. We would be very happy to sit down with council to design the by-law, which is right for our town.
Today we are asking council for 3 things:
- You will all have received our business plan and budget. We hope council will further support our education campaign.
- We want council to give staff the mandate to actively start preparing a by-law to ensure that pesticide use and application is managed appropriately in this community.
- Number 3 is actually a rather simple, effective way to cut down on spraying pesticides just to have a nicer lawn: the root cause for weeds is poor soil and the secret to a good healthy lawn is a good deep topsoil foundation. We suggest, that Council make it mandatory for new subdivisions to require at least 6-8 inches of topsoil on their front yards! A requirement like this serves two important purposes. Not only will it assure healthy resilient grass roots, but it will also cut down significantly on water use in the summer. This truly is SMART GROWTH on the Ground, Al (Hogarth)!
In closing I would like to demonstrate to Council again how important it is that we take the matter of pesticide use into our own hands, and how desperate the pesticide industry is in trying to manipulate municipalities and in hiding important information from consumers:
1. Here is a binder which CropLife, the company which, as I mentioned before, took the City of Toronto to court several times and lost in each instance, has passed out to our municipal staff: It is called : “A Reference Guide for Pesticide Use in Municipalities”.
It starts out with: “As the manufacturers and distributors of Pesticides, we are very concerned about the literature review released by the Ontario College of Family Physicians….” Now , who would you rather believe, a pesticide company who wants to sell you something or an independent group of doctors concerned about the health of your family? CropLife is attacking and trying to discredit their research.
In case of doubt: Let the Precautionary principle apply!
2. Here is a bottle of Killex, one of the most common herbicides used. It has 3 major ingredients which all have been linked to illnesses…Dicamba, Mecoprop and 2,4-D….
Subsection 6(70) of the new Pest Control Products Act (PCPA) states:
“No person shall package or advertise a pest control product in a way that is false, misleading, or likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, composition, safety or registration.” And the PMRA requires, that poisonous products are to state “Keep out of reach of Children” prominently in block-letters on the principal panel of the label.
Please, Councilors, show me where the warnings and instructions in case of poisonous reactions are on this bottle and what the green cross suggests to you?!
( You have to peel back the back panel to read the instructions for safety!)
Thank you for considering the health and safety of our community.
Note: This presentation to Maple Ridge Council was made by Maria Raynolds on 10 January 2006. Please e-mail Maria with any questions about this document.
