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Owen Sound Pesticide Bylaw

March 3, 2007

pesticidesA topic of discussion that is gaining some traction around town right now is the proposed ban of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. I thought I would compile some links and resources here for local citizens to consider as the debate continues.

To jump right to the resources scroll down…

**Shortly I will update this post with the recordings I made earlier this year when the pesticide committee held a public information session**

For the record, I should provide a little background on my bias towards the issue. It is my wish from the onset of this project that theOwen maintain some degree of balance with regards to how this site covers local news, events, issues… That said I am not sure I see it as my responsibility to research all the facts, on all the sides, of all the stories that make it on to this site (just consider for a second how long that might take!). I am going to rely on you. I was going to say audience but of course that is very much an older media concept. The whole point of the site is that there is no “editor” (so long as you watch the language and your tone is civil) and no audience. This is a place for a discussion.

With that in mind I certainly have a bias when it comes to a potential cosmetic pesticide ban.

My background: I have a degree in Geography and minor in Biology. For the past 6 years I have taught senior Geography and Environmental studies at a private high school in Toronto. I am a strong advocate for a more a more sustainable and reduced impact human existence on this planet. I work to promote groups and individuals that are working towards a more sustainable future at BeSustainable.com and I am a volunteer producer and correspondent for a Green radio program on CIUT 89.5. I am pro green, whatever that means these days? I guess in reality I am pro simplicity. I am also pro diversity (after all it is = to stability in ecological systems) so I really question the entire idea of mono culture lawns (really whose idea was that?).

I have a grass on my lawn (it came with the recently purchased house!) although I am very interested in the process of transitioning my property back to 1) native species and 2) an edible landscape. This brings up an interesting question about how the property was maintained over the years before I purchased it? I don’t really like the feeling of not knowing.

Seriously, I would like some homeowners, potential home buyers and real estate professionals to chip in on this thought. How does pesticide use, or lack thereof, influence property value?

Would I pay more for a certified pesticide free property? I think so. Your thoughts?

Now there’s another interesting topic of discussion. If this were the case, what happens when my neighbour decides that they wish to use pesticides et al. for that perfect looking golf green lawn. While I might have slacked around a little with the biology minor (my physiology could likely use some review) I certainly gave due attention to the geography degree and I spent a fair bit of time researching the movement of pesticides; in groundwater, in air… So can I protect my certified organic lawn from pesticide drift if my neighbour chooses pesticides? Not really. In that case I hope I didn’t pay to much more for my property.

I am certainly not articulating this the best I could but I really think there is something to this idea of value added for pesticide free lawns. Here’s an experiment. I’d like to see one Owen Sound neighborhood take the lead and create a pesticide free zone within the city (we don’t have to wait on a bylaw for this to happen). You show me 30 contiguous homes with pesticide free lawns in this town and I’ll show you a place with with increasing property values and I’ll be willing to bet a bidding war for any home that is actually put up for sale.

In part I like this line of thinking because it’s not confusing and convoluted science. It’s economics, which is better understood I think by the majority of the population.

Personally, my biggest issue with the pesticide debate around here is the fact that we are even having it. Consider for a second the time and money that has been spent on this issue already in Owen Sound. Both recently and in years past(this issue has been raised before).

Why aren’t we devoting this time and effort into a discussion about urban agriculture and food systems security? No, we would rather debate our right to having an unnatural lawn-scape. Remind me in the future and I will put together a piece on the varied forms of human-environment interactions that exist in our world today and those of the past that have set the course we happen to be following.

While I really wish this wasn’t a debate at all, it is, and I hope that enough people find time to become active in this issue to settle it once and for all. A growing list of Canadian communities have already put in place a ban on cosmetic pesticide use and for my two cents I would like to see Owen Sound join them. So there’s my bias, and I suppose that would additionally suggest that I am running a biased publication (that is of course until someone with a differing viewpoint steps up to take part in the conversation)

So enough of my thoughts, here are some additional resources, and if you take the time to review them please take a moment more to leave your thoughts below.

Poison Politics from Saublog (link)

“As you probably know the City of Owen Sound has been looking at creating a bylaw to control or ban the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. Understandably the pesticide companies are feeling the crunch as 35% of Canadians (including all of Quebec) are now protected by a pesticide bylaw.”


Pesticide Free Ontario. Includes links to many municipalities that have instituted a ban on cosmetic pesticides (link)

Weedgee Kidz. An interesting, natural weed control initiative in Caledon (link)

Ontario IPM. Integrated Pest Management (link)

Links to the videos below where found at Whitemoose

I very much tried to find a video that presented the other side of this debate but nothing came up? If you find something let me know.

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Politics, The Environment 

Comments

One Response to “Owen Sound Pesticide Bylaw”

  1. stephen Tvedten Says:
    March 31st, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    How to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth……

    There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth – we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species – already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to “man’s footprint”. But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to “keep up”! Even with all of this expensive pollution – we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.

    We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers There has been a severe “knowledge drought” – a worldwide decline in agricultural R&D, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control since the advent of synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the “right way”. The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.

    National Poison Prevention Week, March 18-24,2007 was created to highlight the dangers of poisoning and how to prevent it. One study shows that about 70,000 children in the USA were involved in common household pesticide-related (acute) poisonings or exposures in 2004. It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year in the United States – No one is checking chronic contamination.

    In order to try to help “stem the tide”, I have just finished re-writing my IPM encyclopedia entitled: THE BEST CONTROL II, that contains over 2,800 safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticide POISONS. This latest copyrighted work is about 1,800 pages in length and is now being updated chapter by chapter at my new website at: http://www.stephentvedten.com/ .

    This new website at http://www.stephentvedten.com/ has all of my original IPM encyclopedia in its original form and will continue to have more and more free, updated Chapters every week. So far we have electronically updated The Introduction, Chapter 11, 15, 16A, 16B, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,32 and the Glossary of Terms. All of these copyrighted items are free for you to read and/or download. There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.

    Stephen L. Tvedten
    2530 Hayes Street
    Marne, Michigan 49435
    1-616-677-1261

    “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” – Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader

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