Organic Landscaping Featured
Anyone interested in learning about organic care of lawns and athletic fields should attend two meetings scheduled in Rochester on Wednesday, March 21.
The first meeting will be on the subject “Athletic Fields and Municipal Turf: A Natural Approach --- Choices and Challenges”. It will be at the Rochester Government Center from 10 a.m. to noon.
The second meeting will be entitled “Simple Steps to Organic Lawn Care” and it will be at the Quarry Hill Nature Center, 701 Silver Creek Road NE, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The speaker at both meetings will be Chip Osborne, a professional horticulturalist who has been a leader in the campaign to regulate the use of pesticides on public lands in Marblehead, Mass. He is co-chair of MPAC--Marblehead Pesticide Awareness Committee and is a special adviser to Beyond Pesticides, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C.
The events are sponsored by Global Action, an environmental group headed by Flo Sandok. The meetings are free.
The town of Marblehead has emphasized the use of organic methods in caring for city parks, lawns and athletic fields. It is one of a number of cities that have acted to restrict pesticide use.
Pesticides have been blamed for causing a number of illnesses. In Canada, the Ontario College of Family Physicians has published a study linking exposure to pesticides to serious illnesses including cancer, reproductive problems and neurological diseases, among others. The study reports that children are especially vulnerable to pesticides.
In addition, the pesticides used on the fields eventually wind up in streams and underground aquifers and can cause additional health problems.
Why should the people of Rochester be concerned about these issues? The obvious reason is that pesticides are commonly used in Rochester not only on home owners’ lawns but on parks, school grounds and athletic fields.
Another reason is that the children of Rochester, like those in Massachusetts, are not immune to the harmful physical effects of pesticides.
A third reason is that there are alternatives to pesticides. If organic methods can be used successfully in Marblehead, Mass., they can be used successfully here. Such a change may require learning new ways to take care of publicly owned grounds and playing fields but certainly that extra effort is justified. We should do what it takes to protect our children from harm.
Use of pesticides on school grounds and soccer fields is especially risky because young children using those fields often have considerable physical contact with the turf.
For all of these reasons, Rochester residents and public officials should be encouraged to attend the two March 21 meetings. They will get the benefit of another community’s experience in providing a more healthful environment for everyone. That experience will be a great advantage compared to starting from scratch in dealing with the problem.
Rochester is a medical community and the city and Olmsted County have had a long history of concern for public health. One example is the ban on smoking in public places. There is also a history of concern for having clean water and for reducing air pollution.
A community that is known nation-wide for excellence in medical care should not continue to tolerate the widespread use of pesticides when useful and harmless substitutes are available.
We would hope that Rochester residents who are knowledgeable about the harmful effects of pesticides will lead the effort to adopt organic methods in caring for soccer fields, park lands and school grounds.
Added information can be found at http://turi.org/content/content/view/full/3236/. Information on similar policies in Cape Cod, Mass., can be found at www.greencape.org. A number of other U.S. cities also have switched to organic methods and 60 cities in Canada have banned pesticide use.
A powerful argument can be made for launching a well-organized program to adopt organic methods of caring for public lands in and around
Rochester.
