Montgomery Parks has spent $35,000 in the previous fiscal year on pesticides.
The small figure is a tiny fraction of the park and planning department’s $90.1 million budget in fiscal year 2015, which ended June 30.
Montgomery County Council member Tom Hucker had requested the spending figure multiple times over the past year during the council’s debate about the controversial pesticide legislation it passed last week, which will ban private homeowners and the county from using pesticides for cosmetic purposes. He said the parks department provided the amount Thursday.
Hucker had wanted to know the amount to determine whether the parks department could save money by cutting the use of pesticides from its budget and spending the savings on organic methods of pest and weed control.
The parks department estimated it would cost approximately $2.2 million more per year to maintain playing fields without using pesticides and a one-time cost of about $7.5 million to install irrigation systems at 37 fields to keep them healthy, according to statistics it provided to the council.
Image: Estimates provided to the county council by the parks deparment about what it would cost to maintain fields organically.
Hucker said Monday he was surprised that the amount was so small when compared to the parks department’s budget, given the parks department’s continued defense of its use of pesticides during the debate over the bill
The final version of the bill included a compromise allowing the parks department to pilot organic methods of pest control on playing fields with the expectation it would create a plan to eliminate pesticide use by 2020. Council members passed the bill last week out of concern over emerging research that links pesticides to health problems.
The original version of the bill, introduced by council President George Leventhal in 2014, banned all county departments from using pesticides under most circumstances, but parks officials said that ban could negatively impact the approximately 300 playing fields it maintains.
Jody Fetzer, green management coordinator for the parks department, said at a June council committee meeting that pesticides aren’t used on fields in local parks, but are used to deal with insect and weed issues on higher-level playing fields that are under lights or composed of bluegrass. Fetzer specifically mentioned Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda and the Germantown Soccerplex, where the department typically charges higher permitting fees to use the fields, as locations where pesticides are used.
“A lot of the teams don’t mind practicing on the local fields, but they want to do the actual playing on the field with more consistent and predictable play and ball bounce so those fields are maintained at a higher level,” Fetzer said.
Parks Director Mike Riley sent a summary compiled by his staff to Bethesda Beat detailing how the department typically uses pesticides, herbicides and other methods to maintain parks property:
- Flame throwers are used on sidewalks and around structures to discourage weeds.
- Glyphosate, an herbicide commonly known by its trademark name Roundup, is sprayed to remove weeds before seeding or sodding of an athletic field.
- Preventative herbicides such as Pre-M are used to prevent goose grass and crabgrass in ball fields.
- Fungicides such as Headway are applied to turf to stop Pythium fungus, which “can kill grass in an entire ball field within a week.”
- Some non-native invasive plants are pulled by hand if it’s determined their root systems are not too deep
Riley also provided a list of all the pesticide and herbicide applications the department conducted in 2014.
The parks department is now launching a five-field pilot program to compare pesticide-free maintenance of fields to the current Integrated Pest Management practices it uses. The department hopes the pilot will provide more detailed information about the cost and effectiveness of maintaining fields organically.
