Pesticide Use in Portland Parks
Erika Meyer
From today's Oregonian:
"In an experiment, the Parks Bureau will eliminate weeds by hand, starting with Sewallcrest in Southeast Portland. The program will involve six parks, including Sewallcrest in Southeast Portland. The Parks Bureau did not say when the other five parks will be selected. Sewallcrest and two others will be 'pesticide free' parks, with weeds pulled by hand. No pesticides or alternative substances will be used to control weeds."
Hurray! Portland is beginning to approach the progressiveness of my hometown: Arcata, California. Sorry, but I gotta represent my hometown, even if it means being an ugly Californian. ...I'm not really a Californian, anyway, but a Jeffersonian.
In 1986, the Arcata, California City Council passed an ordinance banning pesticide use on all city property. This includes a large city park (which is occasionally logged) and several ball fields. See PANUPS: California Town Bans Pesticides on City Properties"
I have been a Portland, Oregon resident since 2000. I always thought it was a joke that Portland considered itself so environmentally progressive, when I see the all the herbicide use on roadsides and around parks. I realize that Portland is a bigger city, but I can't help but think that pesticide use is taking the easy (unhealthy, uncreative) way out.
From the PANUPS article linked above:
"From a management perspective, it is actually easier not to use pesticides, according to Arcata's Park Superintendent. The amount of training and paperwork that is required for pesticide use is very time consuming, and cultural maintenance practices for grass -- such as timely mowing and irrigation in addition to aeration and thatching -- can be just as effective."
I'm so happy to see this step being taken in these parks! Maybe eventually we'll have a policy which is as aggressive (and progressive) as Arcata's has been for all these years.
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Sep 29, '04
Considering that California just banned hand-weeding for most agricultural crops because of the back injuries it causes (interestingly, organic farmers were excluded from the ban), let's hope that there are less problems caused by hand-weeding than by the pesticide use.
Link to story here: http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004/0924/biz/stories/01biz.htm
Sep 30, '04
From what I've been reading, hand-weeding is mostly an issue with coastal crops like baby lettuce and strawberries. It doesn't appear to be an outright ban, just a ban of "unnecessary" hand-weeding:
"...requires growers to show that long-handled tools aren’t effective before they can require workers to weed by hand for extended periods of time. If the workers must hand-weed, they are entitled to longer breaks and are limited in how much time they could spend hand-weeding." Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept 24, 2004
Long-handled hoes and shovels do not appear to have been banned.
I haven't noticed any commercial lettuce or strawberry crops in Portland Parks. I think City workers will be able to control weeds without having to hand-weed for long periods of time.
Sep 30, '04
People wouldn't be hand-weeding and using short-handled hoes if long-handled implements were as effective. The definitions of effective and unnecessary will be the battlegrounds when the farmworkers try to get the farmers to hire more workers to get the same amount of work done.
Regards your incisive comment on strawberry and lettuce fields in Portland, how does that address whether stopping the use of pesticides, herbicides and the like in Portland's parks will be an improvement over switching to hand-weeding with its higher labor costs, back injury rate, sanitation issues, etc.? Does analysis show that this idea is actually progressive versus just being a feel-good effort?
Sep 30, '04
And I'm wondering why alternative measures - like the use of corn gluten meal, a pre-emergent non-toxic substance that shows promise - couldn't be used intead. Or in tandem with a hand-weeding approach, perhaps.
Oct 1, '04
Erika- I love that huge Arcata park. I recently visited and fell in love all over again pretending I was Princess Leia on a speeder bike through the big quiet redwoods. Gorgeous. I didn't know the big grassy area was pesticide free- cool.
This move is employment building too, no? ;) Metro will have to hire a couple more folks to pull weeds?
Oct 5, '04
I don't know why everyone thinks this is going to be all about hand-weeding??? We do live in the 21st century, after all. We got tools. I am going to make some calls, folks, try and get you the real info, okay? Tune in later for more.
One uses different tools used for different purposes. I lived in Arcata many years, and I recall seeing a lot done in the flower gardens on the downtown Plaza with black plastic tarps and mulch. I also recall seeing black plastic on non-vegetated areas of the ball fields at certain times. I have seen specialty tools for removing dandelions. I have seen hot steam used for getting weeds growing between the cracks in concrete -- this may have been on the campus of Humboldt State University.
It's amazing what human beings can accomplish when they use both creative and logical thought processes.
And yes, Arcata Community Forest (aka Redwood Park) is pesticide-free, and gorgeous. It is selectively and susainably logged, providing revenue for the City.
Oct 5, '04
Um, I think people got that impression because of the beginning of your post and reading that Sewallcrest and two other parks will have hand-pulled weeds. : From today's Oregonian: "In an experiment, the Parks Bureau will eliminate weeds by hand, starting with Sewallcrest in Southeast Portland. The program will involve six parks, including Sewallcrest in Southeast Portland. The Parks Bureau did not say when the other five parks will be selected. Sewallcrest and two others will be 'pesticide free' parks, with weeds pulled by hand. No pesticides or alternative substances will be used to control weeds."
And yep, thats how I do my garden- cardboard (instead o the plastic) laid out everywhere, and then lots of mulch beds on top. Cheers.
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