A County Council committee is looking for expert help to determine whether some lawn care chemicals approved by the federal government truly pose a health risk to people and animals.
Roger Berliner, chair of the Council’s Environment Committee, asked Harold Varmus, director of the NIH’s National Cancer Institute, if the agency could provide its expertise as the Council weighs a proposed ban of of “non-essential” lawn care pesticides.
“My colleagues and I are not expert in such matters, and given that there is no major jurisdiction in the country to have adopted a comparable ban, we have few resources to call upon to provide us with the scientific guidance we need to evaluate the proposal before us,” Berliner wrote in a letter to Varmus on Tuesday. “Our Council and community would greatly benefit from understanding what the [National Cancer Institute’s] research relating to pesticide exposure has concluded. Specifically, we seek your guidance as to whether the NCI believes that the exposures created by the use of pesticides for lawn care and on playing fields warrant further limitations beyond existing federal and state rules.”
The bill, introduced by Council President George Leventhal, is largely based on a similar law enacted in 2013 in the City of Takoma Park, where Leventhal lives.
It would classify more than 100 pesticides and weed-killers as “non-essential,” including some products cleared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency but banned in Ontario, Canada and on a list from the European Commission.
Leventhal and bill advocates argue there’s enough evidence to link glyphosate-based weed-killers like Roundup to child health issues, chemical endocrine disruptors to badly damaged aquatic life in the Chesapeake Bay and prevalent neonicotinoid-based insecticides to the death of bee, butterfly and other insect populations.
The county government and Montgomery Parks is asking that the county’s 290 playing fields be exempt from the pesticide ban. The bill already proposes exempting golf courses.
“We would expect declines in field quality and turf cover, higher maintenance costs, frequent field closures for renovation and decreased support in revenue,” Parks Director Mike Riley said in January, at the first of two well-attended public hearings.
Many advocates for the ban cited 2012 literature from the American Academy of Pediatrics that said:
Children encounter pesticides daily and have unique susceptibilities to their potential toxicity. Acute poisoning risks are clear, and understanding of chronic health implications from both acute and chronic exposure are emerging. Epidemiologic evidence demonstrates associations between early life exposure to pesticides and pediatric cancers, decreased cognitive function, and behavioral problems. Related animal toxicology studies provide supportive biological plausibility for these findings. Recognizing and reducing problematic exposures will require attention to current inadequacies in medical training, public health tracking, and regulatory action on pesticides.
Some opponents of the ban cited the rest of the 2012 statement, claiming it validates their argument that trained lawn care providers can apply pesticides in a safe way:
Ongoing research describing toxicologic vulnerabilities and exposure factors across the life span are needed to inform regulatory needs and appropriate interventions. Policies that promote integrated pest management, comprehensive pesticide labeling, and marketing practices that incorporate child health considerations will enhance safe use.
Berliner highlighted the discrepancy in his request to the National Cancer Institute.
The Environment Committee will meet March 16 “to hear from national experts on this matter,” Berliner wrote.
PDF: Berliner Letter to NCI on Pesticides
