As all Land's Sake members surely
know, the term pesticide
awareness is used to refer to a recognition of the
toxicity of chemical
pesticides, herbicides, and many other commercial
lawn and garden
products.
It generally goes hand in hand with a desire to see an
end
to
the routine use of these chemicals, especially for strictly
cosmetic
purposes, i.e., for lawns in suburbia. As a movement,
pesticide
awareness has made great strides across the whole
United States,
and
even greater strides in Canada. There, a number of
provincial
and
local bans on pesticides for lawns have been enacted,
and
their legality upheld by the Supreme Court of
Canada.
Up to
now, pesticide awareness has been only a faint
spark
here
in Weston, kept alive
by Lands' Sake and a few
informed
citizens, but at last it's growing stronger. The
League of Women
Voters sponsored a panel discussion at the library on
Dec. 3,
featuring Wendy Diotalevi, Director of the Weston
Board of Health,
Ned
Rossiter, President of the Board of Lands' Sake, and
Roger
Sturgis, whose landscaping firm does organic lawn and
landscaping
work
in Weston. All three decried the routine use of pesticides for
lawns.
Ms
Diotalevi has taken initiatives to reduce the use of
pesticides
on
Town property, and is
at present organizing a Pesticide
Study
Committee. The Committee will look for alternate
methods of pest
control in order to try and reduce the use of
pesticides. A second
objective will be to prepare educational
materials on pesticides for
Weston residents before next spring.
Activist Elizabeth. K. Daly, a long-time resident of
Weston, has
written articles on the subject for the Town
Crier, and has
made
presentations before the League of Women Voters and
the Board
of
Health. She is currently encouraging residents to send letters
to
the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission,
urging
the
Town to curb pesticide use on Town property and to
persuade
private homeowners, through education, to do the same
on private
property. She feels that such letters would be a great
catalyst to
achieving these
measures.
For
more information on pesticide awareness in town, or for a
sample letter that could be sent to local
officials, please
contact
Elizabeth at eliztheo@mac.com or at 781-894-5375. For
more
information on pesticides, try the following
websites:
www.beyond pesticides.org
www.childenvironment.org
www.crowinc.org
www.panna.org
www.pesticides.org
www.spcb.org
