1. A moratorium on spraying until a comprehensive impact assessement has been undertaken.
2. Improve notification of spraying. Sign application period should be extended to three weeks, allowing on-line registration and residents to make their own signs. In addition, individual notices should be sent to all residents who will be affected by the spraying, including the procedures for opting out of spraying. Notification must also be sent to local health units, clinics and hospitals so that health care personnel can notify those individuals who may be at high risk (pregnant women, those with respiratory diseases and immune disorders).
3. Employ alternatives such as mowing in conjunction with a public awareness campaign. Education campaigns work. Note the success of tick and poison ivy outreach.
Vicky Wojcik, Research Director at Pollinator Partnership Canada, has made herself available to speak to roadside managers and their staff to inform them about the latest policy guidelines for protecting pollinators. She could be an invaluable resource for Tay Valley’s public works department and Council for establishing a best management practices road management policy. Please see her letter: Pollinator Partnership Offer of Support to County
For a comprehensive statement of our full demands and the background research to substantiate them, please see:
Presentation to Lanark County Council, April 27, 2016
Beckwith Township appears to be taking a sensible approach to control of wild parsnip on the Township roads: www.twp.beckwith.on.ca/publicnote.aro.
“The information available to the industry and to the government on the harmful effects and the adverse health effects of these (herbicides and insecticides) should have been distributed to the public. These effects are not always known by those authorities in charge. This is dangerous. There should be publicly funded laboratories available to all for measuring in the human blood, urine and semen those herbicides and insecticides ( pesticides ) permitted in our provinces. These urine testings should have been and should be routine for all children. This information is important for present and future health records. Who is being held accountable ?And where are the analyses of all these approved pesticides ( herbicides and insecticides and fungicides ) in the well waters?
There is choice to avoid the wild parsnip but there is no choice in the human experiment where you may have the herbicide in your urine or semen without knowing it. ”
– Dr. June Irwin MD, Pointe Claire, Quebec
“The use of toxics and large scale contamination of air and water is more than an environmental problem and more than a public health problem. It is a moral problem. Formal human rights documents declare that persons have moral rights — and governments have moral duties — and that one of the most basic is the right to a clean and healthful environment.
“Human rights are rights of individuals; i.e., they apply to each single person. Further, they are basic ethical minimums, a moral floor below which governments should not go. The right not to be exposed to neurotoxicants by one’s own government is not a high, virtuous ideal, but is a basic ethical minimum.”
— Dr. Tom Kerns, Environment and Human Rights Advisory, Oregon
For more information:
Alternative Approach 2015 Case Study – Vermont
Lanark County Website – Weed Control Program, Maps of Roads, etc.