SafeLawns Blog

CCLC To Hold Annual Conference Nov 9

Turning a New Leaf -- The Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council will be holding a conference in Annandale, VA on Friday, November 9th. From organic lawn care to site-specific stormwater management techniques, from backyard forests to sustainable site design, this conference will focus on innovative practices to improve your business, and the health of the environment and the Chesapeake Bay. We've uploaded a copy of the conference brochure.

Highly recommended for anyone with a personal or professional interest in organic landscaping!

Click here to view the brochure.

National Mall Goes Green With SafeLawns

We did it! After months of negotiation and weeks of work, the National Mall in Washington DC has its first organic block. Between 3rd and 7th streets, we've arranged with the National Park Service (NPS) and the EPA to compare three turf management regimes as part of their regular plot renovation program.

Plot # 1 is being managed in the way the NPS has done over the years (quite responsibly I might add), while plot # 2 is being managed in the same way but with "organic substitution" (which means we just substitute organic materials for what is currently being used for fertility and pest control) while in plot # 3 we did a complete renovation, loosening the compacted soil and adding almost 450 cubic yards of compost to rebuild the microbial population in the soil and bring it to life.

Here's a map of the plots in case you are in DC and want to visit.

   

For more photos, check out the photo album in the left column here on the blog, or visit our website to read more about it...

Where Have the Honeybees Gone?

Beekeepers are worried, and we should be, too. A mysterious new malady called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has hit hives across America and Europe, and every few months the mainstream media swarm around the story when some new silver bullet explanation appears. This is because without bees as pollinators, agricultural production -- read:  "food I eat" -- will suffer dramatically and we are talking billions of dollars a year.

This time the explanation is a "new" virus called Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (ADPV) which was discovered in Israel in 2004 and has apparently spread out from there. Some say it may be responsible for the problem. More careful writers (and readers of the scientific literature) would say that it is an "indicator" because it has been found in many of the hives that have suffered from CCD.

This is despite the fact that worker bees killed by the virus are found near their hives, while those affected by CCD simply disappear and leave the hives empty of adult workers. The smarter money knows that biological systems are intricate, and there is rarely a single cause or effect at work.Nonetheless, some things are more disruptive than others. Many beekeepers lay the blame instead at the feet of an insecticide, Imidacloprid, that happened to come into wide use shortly before the bee problems surfaced. I should note that there have been no reports of CCD or IAPV amongst organic beekeepers.

Here's an idea:  subscribe to this blog, and you'll be automatically notified when we post new material about CCD (and other topics).

Another Province in Canada Ready To Regulate Cosmetic Pesticides

A story in the Moncton, NB Times & Transcript over the weekend shows not only that Canadians have acheived a broad consensus that the use of "cosmetic" pesticides is a travesty, but points up the fault lines that appear when citizens try to move forward on important environmental issues.

One of the main questions is whether town or provincial (state) governments should regulate the use of chemicals that are widely used by inexperienced homeowners and are widely suspect to damage water quality in many cities and town as well as harm the microbial life in the soil that is responsible for healthy, low maintenance turf. Towns are worried that chemical manufacturers will sue them over the ban, and that enforcement will be expensive. By acting at a provincial or nationa level, the likelihood of a well funded legal assault on the laws is considerably less.

For the full text of the article click here.

Maine Enacts Phosphorus Fertilizer Bill

Maine Governor John Baldacci signed a bill restricting phosphorus content in lawn fertilzers May 1st. The new law was enacted to protect Maine's lakes, which have been increasingly affected by algal growth and other symptoms of excessive phosphorus. Safe Lawns Executive Director Shepherd Ogden testified during the hearings on this bill, which capped almost ten years of work by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and NGOs like the Maine Congress of Lake Associations (COLA).

Maine's lakes and "Great Ponds" have been become increasingly polluted over the last few decades as devlopment of shorline and a concomitant increase in lawn area have occurred. Algal bloom harms lakes in a number of ways, and some economists have estimated that for every pound of phosphorus which enters a lake through run-off, some 15-20 pounds of algae will result, and the cost of removing that algae can run up to $200 per pound. Thus homeowners who put a little extra fertilizer on their lakeside lawn just to "green 'em up" are inadvertantly creating a huge tax increase for themselves as lake town and state budgets are strained by clean-up costs.

For more on the Maine bill, as well phosphorus and water quality issues in general, see the Maine DEP phosphorus web page at http://www.maine.gov/dep/blwq/doclake/fert/phospage.htm .

These Children Are Left Behind

A study of test scores from over 1.6 million primary school students in Indiana has revealed that some children are being left behind -- those conceived during the summer months, when nitrates and pesticides applied to lawns and fields are at their highest levels.

The study, presented May 7 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Society by Paul Winchester, MD of the Indiana University School of Medicine found that the ISTEP test scores in math and language for Indiana students in grades 3-10 "were distinctly seasonal with the lowerst scores received by children who had been conceived in June through August."

Why might this be? "Exposure to pesticides and nitrates can alter the hormonal milieu of the pregnant mother and the developing fetal brain," said Dr. Winchester. "While our findings do not represent absolute proof that pesticides and nitrates contribute to lower ISTEP scores, they strongly support such a hypothesis."

This assertion was backed up by James Lemons, MD, Hugh McK Landon Professor of Pediatrics at IUSM: " I believe this work may lay the foundation for some of the most important basic and clinical research and public health initiatives of our time. To recognize that what we put into our environment has potential pandemic effects on pregnancy outcome and possibly on child development is a momentous observation, which hopefully will help transform the way humanity cares for its world."

We couldn't agree more. This material was taken from a press release issued by the Indiana University School of Medicine, URL: http://www.medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/viewRelease.php4?art=686

Lawns and Your Global Footprint

Americans are finally waking up to what may well be the largest environmental challenge humanity has ever faced: the fact that we have reached the carrying capacity of the planet to recycle our wastes. It is a challenge involving ecological, economic and sociopolitical issues and regardless of where blame for the burden on the environment is placed – whether a particular nation, or agricultural system, or natural variation itself – the problem remains nonetheless. It is observable and it is serious. We all need to reduce our "carbon footprint"  which is the amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide our individual lifestyles are responsible for.

Yes! Federal Judge Tightens Requirements On GMO Grasses

On Februrary 5th, US Federal Judge Kennedy of the DC District ruled for a coalition of food saftey and environmental groups and against the USDA and the Scotts Company over regulation of their attempts to develop genetically engineered Roundup resistant creeping bentgrass and Kentucky bluegrass. What's more: the ruling is broadly written and mandates the halting of all GMO field trials until the level of oversight is improved.

This is important to anyone concerned with turf managment because -- although proponents claim that  GMO grasses would lower herbicide use -- institution of Roundup resistant grasses would lead to whole yard spraying rather than the spot treatments that are currently employed in most situations, and so would actually raise the level of toxic application to most yards.

For a discussion of the implications of this ruling, and a PDF copy of it, vist the website of the Centry for Food Safety (one of the plaintifs) at http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/GTBC_DecisionPR_2_7_07.cfm

Legislation Tracking Website

There is a great new web tool created by the group Environmental Commons that provides a central listing of state laws nationwide the impact local control over agriculture.

Why is this important?

Because the ag and landscape chemical lobby and their allies in government have been seeking for a number of years to limit the rights of towns and counties to control use of their products within local jurisdictions. This has been most prominent in the fight over genetically engineered seeds but also applies directly to legislation about lawn chemical use around schools that has been introduced in various jurisdictions around the country.

This "legislation tracker" provides up-to-date information on agricultural-based state legislation that impacts local government and community decision-making.
In response to communities and local governments passing policies to protect sustainable farming systems and environmental health, including the impacts from genetically modified organisms, legislators allied with the biotechnology industry and the Farm Bureau are introducing "preemption" bills prohibiting local decision-making regarding various aspects of farming including the planting of seeds and the passage of health ordinances.

To check on your own state, visit  http://environmentalcommons.org/gmo-tracker.html