Pesticide Ban

By: John Degroot

April 4 2009

Garden Clippings for April 4, 2009

Dalton McGuinty finally came good with his promise to implement a pesticide ban, a full 18 months after he was re-elected in October 2007.  The ban comes into effect on April 22 of this year.

According to the Ontario government’s news release of March 4 “the provincial ban supersedes local municipal bylaws to create one clear, transparent and understandable set of rules across the province.”

I beg to differ.  There is nothing clear, transparent and understandable about Ontario’s new cosmetic pesticide ban.  Twice I have set aside time pouring over the Ministry of Environment’s website (www.ene.gov.on.ca) to decipher the latest and greatest on this topic and I have hardly come out wiser.  I can only conclude that McGuinty must have hired a multitude of silly servants to put together this Act which, yet, somehow achieves the objective to protect the public from potentially dangerous pesticides.

One of the reasons the Act has become so cumbersome is because it has divided all known pesticides into 11 categories or classes.  The first 4 classes have little to do with homeowners and only affect those involved in farming, golf courses, forestry and other exemptions.  Class 5 and 6 lists the brand names of low risk products that homeowners are allowed to use, with limitations.

Class 7 products are dual purpose pesticides.  For example, there may be products that are approved for indoor use to protect our health and safety, such as certain ant killers, but these same products are not approved for killing ants outdoors.  Class 8 products are primarily combination products such as weed and feed, which will simply be banned after April 22.

Class 9 and 10 products deals with ingredients contained in the banned brand named products in the classes 1 through 8.  These products are banned for cosmetic use but may still be used by farmers and licensed commercial applicators as exceptions to the rules. 

Class 11 products are considered low risk, but may only be applied by licensed applicators, provided they post a sign for public notice.

A surprise to me is the fact that certain low risk products which are still approved for homeowner use such as Safers Soap and Roundup will only be available in ready to use form rather than concentrate.  I presume the Act has gone this route because the government figures the public is too ignorant to follow mixing directions.

The Act is reasonably clear in its wording that pesticides will no longer be able to be used for cosmetic purposes.  There is a long list of exceptions within the Act.  Pesticides used for the public good to protect health and safety are still available, although homeowners will have to go through a few hoops in order to access them.  These include such things as poison ivy killer and mosquito spray.

Those who wrote the Act must have been avid golfers because golf courses enjoy certain exemptions as do farmers, the forestry industry, public works, agriculture, and specialty turf areas such as lawn bowling.  Sport fields will be allowed exemptions, for now, with written approval, only to prepare for a major national or international tournament.  I assume those who wrote the Act were afraid that major sports events might go stateside if Ontario’s turf was not up to snuff.

Not covered in the Act are household products that might be used to control pests.  Now that many traditional pesticides are no longer available we can expect sales to increase at grocery stores for salt, bleach, vinegar and many other concoctions that homeowners will learn to assemble to get rid of certain pests.  Also not covered in the Act, particularly affecting border communities like Sarnia is the availability of a wide range of pesticides south of the border.

In tandem with the Act, the Ontario government has written a clear, transparent and understandable list of recommendations to assist homeowners in maintaining a good lawn without the use of pesticides. This one page, available on the web, should be required reading for all those who have lawns.

For bedtime reading and further information go to www.ene.gov.on.ca.