How the Government Got in Your Backyard

by Jeff Gillman

  Policy Option One: Leave Things as They Are

  Right now, the EPA and state organizations are doing a pretty good job of regulating pesticides. Our agricultural system provides abundant, healthy food. If people want food grown without synthetic pesticides they can buy food labeled USDA Organic. When a pesticide is identified as a danger to society or the environment, it is removed from sale from most, if not all, of its uses. Though many people like to clump pesticides together as a group, there are many different types of pesticides that represent many different levels of risk, and the federal government goes to great pains to establish which pesticides should be allowed and which shouldn’t. If the federal government fails to catch a harmful pesticide, state governments have the authority to step in and ban a pesticide for home use.

  The EPA does not have ironclad evidence that pesticides are harming those applying them, much less those eating the food. If the agency were to impose stricter tolerances for crops, farmers would be less able to grow crops the way they see fit. It is also possible that by eliminating some pesticides we might actually hurt more people than we help. While some people would no longer be exposed to trace amounts of poisons that have negligible toxicity, they also might not have the same access to fruits and vegetables that often require more intensive pesticide use.

  Further restricting or even banning pesticide use for aesthetic reasons would restrict our freedom. We are a country based on the concept that we should be free to do whatever we wish as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others. The pesticides that we use on and around our homes have not been conclusively proven to cause damage in the amounts at which they are normally applied. Sure, if we use them incorrectly someone could get hurt, but that’s true of almost anything. We regulate pesticides like we do cars (crash tests and speed limits for cars; concentration limits and use instructions for pesticides) but we stop short of banning cars even though it’s clear they kill thousands of people a year.

  If pesticides are applied according to the instructions on the label, and if at-risk people and animals don’t go near them, then pesticides have not proven to be dangerous. Why are we so worried, when most of us will never see anything close to the doses that pesticide applicators see, and when those who apply pesticides show only very slight increases in particular cancers if they show anything at all? It seems reasonable to expect that people who have an occupation that puts them in contact with a substance that is considered dangerous will be more likely to be affected by that substance. People whose jobs force them to be outside in the sun are more likely to get skin cancer. Additionally, people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer than people who are exposed to pesticides are likely to get any type of cancer. How can we even entertain the thought of banning products that make our yards more attractive and help us produce food?

  Some plants that are controlled by pesticides are quite a bit more toxic than the pesticide itself. One of the pesticides most likely to be banned for home use is 2,4-D, which has been around for quite a while and which is one of the most important tools we currently have in controlling noxious weeds. This chemical can be used on poison ivy, Canadian thistle, kudzu, and many other plants. It can also be used on toxic weeds such as nightshade, water hemlock, and tansy mustard. Losing a pesticide that controls noxious and invasive weeds in public areas has obvious ramifications. While small parks close to urban centers may be able to use volunteers to weed by hand, what will a large public park do if it can’t control its poison ivy? The risk of a lawsuit by someone with an allergy to this plant has the potential to lead parks to shut off particular portions of their land where they can’t control the undergrowth. If we were to ban the pesticides in wasp sprays, would it lead to more wasp stings, perhaps even to someone with an allergy to these stings? Have lives been saved by pesticides because they have rid a yard of poisonous plants or insects that might otherwise have harmed or even killed a young child? It seems more than likely.

  Right-Wing Rating People generally have the freedom to use the chemicals that they need to both grow crops and maintain their yards. No one wants chemicals that are a public safety hazard used without proper training and equipment. But we should be able to use some of the more effective pesticides that have been banned with relatively little evidence against them. Banning these chemicals has increased food prices and restricted our ability to maintain our land.

  Left-Wing Rating Current policy controls the worst chemicals, but it should do more. We don’t know for sure what effect low doses of pesticides have on people or the environment, especially over long periods of time. We should err on the side of caution and avoid using pesticides unless we have clear evidence that they are safe. Chemical manufacturers have too much power to delay the government from acting on scientific findings.

  Policy Option Two: State and Local Governments Need to Provide Greater Protection from Pesticides

  Follow Canada’s example and ban, or at least heavily restrict, pesticide use for ornamental purposes at state (or province, in Canada’s case) and local levels. Such a ban would have little effect on farmers’ use of pesticides, instead concentrating legislation on controlling pesticides that are used for aesthetic purposes. There have already been some efforts in this direction. A bill was proposed in New York in 2009 to ban pesticides for ornamental purposes in yards, parks, school grounds, and elsewhere across the state. This type of legislation makes sense, especially at the local level. Across the United States there are communities that value aesthetics more than they fear the risks associated with properly applied pesticides. There are other communities that value not having to worry about being exposed to potentially dangerous pesticides. Why not let each community establish their own tolerance for pesticides? (The big problem with this, of course, is that people can drive over to the next county and buy a pesticide where it has not been banned. There are no pesticide police checking to make sure that no one in a particular locality is using a particular pesticide, and unless you’re testing for it, it is entirely possible that the presence of these pesticides would never be known—though we do wonder how it would look if all of the yards in a neighborhood except for one were choked with dandelions.)

  A community that believes in the precautionary principle—if a practice might cause serious harm, then we should avoid it regardless of the scientific certainty—should be allowed to ban pesticides. No one can know all of the possible problems with all of the different chemicals that we use and the problems that may occur if they are mixed together.

  While not every pesticide we use is likely to cause cancer or some other chronic illness, some might, and it may be years before the connection between a particular pesticide and the disease is made. It is prudent for us to decrease our use of these chemicals so that we can avoid finding out the hard way. Killing a few dandelions just doesn’t seem worth the risk.

  Right-Wing Rating Encouraging communities to ban pesticides would be encouraging greater government interference in our lives. We need more evidence of harm from pesticide use before individual freedoms and property rights are curtailed. Local governments have no scientific capacity to evaluate the true risks of chemicals and would be too influenced by hysteria driven by the media or environmental groups. Varying local restrictions would be a nightmare for manufacturers and farmers. On the other hand, communities would have the freedom to allow pesticides.

  Left-Wing Rating Community regulation is fine if you live in a community that offers protection, but everyone has a right to a healthy community. Historically, local governments have been too easily intimidated by deep-pocketed business interests. Local regulation should be encouraged only where it exceeds the federal standards.

  Policy Option Three: More Regulation at the Federal Level

  Federal regulation is necessary to protect all people and the environment as a whole. The way our food system is currently structured, it is practically impossible, short of growing your own food in filtered greenhouses, to
eat food that is completely and thoroughly devoid of any synthetic chemicals. This is a danger we didn’t ask for—a danger not of our own choosing. Even some organic foods have synthetic pesticide residues in or on them, which probably came from plants that were grown near conventional production or were processed in facilities that also processed conventionally grown produce.

  There are sufficient alternative methods available today to take care of many of the pests that have irritated farmers for centuries—without using pesticides. These methods may be more labor intensive or expensive than pesticides in some cases, but that is a small price to pay for removing unwanted contamination.

  Over the coming years and decades it is necessary that the federal government become stricter in its regulation of pesticides allowed in food. Year after year the EPA restricts the use of more and more pesticides, and while new ones also find their way onto the market, these pesticides tend to be safer, and usually more effective at lower doses, than their predecessors. As with the pesticides used by farmers, the EPA has the right to limit the pesticides available to people for their home use. The EPA should use these powers aggressively.

  Some of the most intense pesticide applications occur not on farmland but rather on the land that surrounds our homes. These pesticides are applied to control dandelions in the grass or insects that are eating our flowers, for example. Whether or not we kill these weeds and pests, their presence or absence isn’t likely to make us any healthier. So, what if our federal government decided to limit our use of these pesticides in much the same way that it limits our use of, say, prescription medication? No access without a prescription, and while this prescription might be easy to get, the process of getting the prescription would itself limit the amount of pesticides used on lawns. And it just might create a higher bar for pesticide use.

  While most farmers have an excellent idea about which pesticides to apply for which pests—and when not to apply them—the same cannot be said about homeowners. People misidentify problems in their lawns and gardens with stunning frequency, and regularly apply chemicals without identifying problems in the first place. Many people would not bother to get the prescription, regardless of whether they can identify the problem or not, because they see it as too much of a hassle. They would rather live with the nuisance. This factor in itself might drastically reduce pesticide use.

  In a prescription scenario, the federal government would mandate that local or state governments be responsible for diagnosing and prescribing pesticides. Or, it could delegate this task to private institutions (somewhat similar to how it delegates organic food certification, as discussed in the previous chapter) and have them prescribe the pesticides. This would greatly diminish the misuse of these chemicals. Pesticide companies certainly wouldn’t like the concept of reduced pesticide use and would probably need to raise their prices, at least for those pesticides used around the home. Higher prices might be a further disincentive to homeowners considering pesticide use.

  Right-Wing Rating Forcing people to have a prescription before they can buy pesticides takes away individual choice and establishes a new bureaucracy. The prescription approach relies on hassling and discouraging people, rather than sound and scientific limits. And the delays and costs of the prescription approach might delay the purchase of a pesticide and the control of a pest, unfairly affecting small businesses and individuals.

  Left-Wing Rating The federal government would control the use of potentially toxic chemicals and we’d see a reduction in the overuse of pesticides. Only the government has the ability to make public health and environmental protection uniform and effective.

  The Bottom Line

  Judging the dangers inherent in pesticide use is extremely difficult. Pesticides are a diverse group of chemicals with widely varying effects on humans and the environment. Making government regulation issues even more tricky, these dangers can be surprisingly similar to those posed by what many of us consider everyday items, like salt and coffee. While the science certainly raises concerns about pesticides, it is difficult to draw a line in the sand as to which pesticides should and shouldn’t be allowed. Yet that is exactly what the government has been asked to do.

  The question for policymakers is how much potential damage they are willing to tolerate. In the future it seems most likely that local and/or state governments will be more involved in regulating use. But right now, the federal government is in charge, and our current pesticide laws do seem to be controlling pesticide use reasonably well. They are certainly not perfect, but the laws are banning pesticides as it becomes obvious that they are dangerous, while allowing pesticides that seem to be reasonably safe when used as directed. Still, it would be even better if people were more aware—how many people really read the entire label on a pesticide package before they start spraying the stuff willy-nilly across their yards?—and reduced their pesticide usage for pests that they may or may not even have.

  Certainly, there is less of a chance that pesticides will cause cancer than will smoking tobacco or spending time outside without using sunblock.

  If you believe in the precautionary principle and are concerned that pesticides might be a problem, you are unhappy with the current system. But, right now, there isn’t a lot of evidence that the typical person who uses a pesticide, as most of us do occasionally, will hurt themselves in any way by using these products. Large studies of licensed pesticide users show very little, if any, increase in the incidence of cancer and other health problems. Certainly, there is less of a chance that pesticides will cause cancer than will smoking tobacco or spending time outside without using sunblock. And how, exactly, will we keep our yards free of weeds (especially noxious weeds, which we’ll examine in a later chapter) and wasps without these tools? Pesticides are poisons that have the potential to hurt us and our ecology, so we need to treat them carefully, use the safest ones we can, and use them as infrequently as possible. But the stress caused by an overzealous media that loves to instigate pesticide paranoia at the drop of a dime is probably worse for our health than the pesticides most of us encounter in our everyday lives.

  CHAPTER 4

  Fertilizers: Good for the Crops,

  Bad for the Water?

  IN 2002, MINNESOTA, the so-called land of 10,000 lakes (there are actually more than 11,000) decided that it was time to protect its lakes from its inhabitants. A statewide ban went into place preventing the use of phosphorus—one of the most overused fertilizers—on lawns unless there was a demonstrated need. This nutrient was suspected of contributing to a buildup of algae in lakes, which can cause severe damage to their ecosystems. This ban was instituted quietly and prompted very little outrage. Most people had no idea whether they needed phosphorus on their lawns anyway, so when they were told they didn’t need it, they didn’t make a scene. In garden centers throughout Minnesota, most lawn fertilizers are now phosphorus free, though it is still legal to use a phosphorus fertilizer on your lawn if it is newly planted or if you have a soil test showing the need for it. There are no fertilizer police in Minnesota, nor do the regular police take any time away from their ordinary duties to enforce the phosphorus law. Nonetheless, there was a 48 percent reduction in the amount of phosphorus used on lawns between 2002 and 2007, and over 80 percent of the fertilizer used is now phosphorus free. Meanwhile, the lawns in Minnesota look as good today as they did before phosphorus was removed from their fertilizer palette. By 2010, Wisconsin and New York had joined Minnesota with similar bans.

  A Brief History of Fertilizers

  Prior to the use of fertilizers, the only way that a plant would receive nutrients was through natural cycles. Fallen leaves and other waste from plants, along with the waste from animals that fed on those plants, would return nutrients to the soil where they would be taken up again by the plants, which then used these nutrients to produce more leaves, and the cycle would continue. Fertilizers allow us to short-circuit that system. Today, we can take nutrients from one place—a strip mine in
Florida (a source of phosphorus), a bat cave in Jamaica (where guano, which contains nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as other nutrients, is mined), or even the air (from which we derive nitrogen)—and put them in another place, where they can provide what the plant needs to speed its growth.

  Like pesticides, fertilizers have been used since Roman times to promote the growth of crops. Over the centuries, many different ingredients have been used to enrich the earth, from pigeon dung, which was considered one of the best Roman fertilizers, to synthetic nitrogen, which is made from a reaction between natural gas and the nitrogen in the air. We have always looked for ways to make our plants grow bigger, faster. Farmers have increased their use of fertilizers as the production costs of these products have decreased, transportation over great distances has become easier, and the fertilizers themselves have become more necessary to efficient crop production. The use of synthetic nitrogen is a major part of what has allowed the world’s population to skyrocket from a little under 1.7 billion in 1900 to almost 7 billion today (though some believe that naturally occurring nitrogen could have provided for all of our needs, a highly debatable theory). But this use of nitrogen, along with the increased use of other fertilizers, especially phosphorus, hasn’t been all good news.

  Fertilizers pit two groups against each other: one group that wants to protect the water, and another group that wants to grow crops or have nice lawns. These interests certainly aren’t mutually exclusive. Farmers and people who use fertilizers in their yards can take steps to minimize their impact on our water. But these activities usually cost money and land, and so, depending on how you feel about the importance of producing food and the importance of aquatic life, you may well find yourself favoring one side or the other.