A Portland City Council committee wants to create a task force to consider possible restrictions on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers on public and private land in the city.

The council’s Energy and Sustainability Committee voted in favor of creating a 12-member task force that would include landscapers, anti-pesticide advocates, academics and residents, according to Councilor Jon Hinck, committee chair. Members would be nominated by Mayor Ethan Strimling.

Hinck hopes the full council will vote to approve the plan soon.

“We’re trying to move it forward pretty rapidly,” Hinck said.

The proposal comes as South Portland is considering a ban on most synthetic lawn and garden pesticide use on public and private property. The proposal would exempt commercial agriculture and playing surfaces at golf courses, and it would allow waivers for public health, safety and environmental threats, such as mosquitoes, poison ivy and invasive tree insects.

Twenty-six Maine communities, including Ogunquit, Brunswick, Rockland, Wells, Lebanon and Waterboro, have pesticide-control ordinances.

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Portland already is scaling back on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and is testing the effectiveness of alternatives.

Ethan Hipple, the city’s recreation director, said crews will no longer use the weed-killer Roundup on downtown streets and sidewalks. Instead, it will use an organic pesticide called Avenger that was tested last year. It also is no longer using synthetic pesticides on playgrounds, cemeteries and other open spaces frequented by children, he said.

Hipple said the city also is testing organic products on heavily used fields, such as Quinn Field in Deering Oaks Park and at the base of the sledding hill in Payson Park. Half of each area will be treated with organic products and the other half with synthetic to compare results, he said.

“We wanted to take a first step, but we didn’t want to jump so far into the deep end we would risk losing our fields,” Hipple said. The city has 48 athletic fields.

The cost of organic pesticides can be about 30 percent higher than for synthetic versions and require more frequent applications, Hipple said.

One landscaper who has opposed pesticide restrictions welcomed the plan to test organic products before drafting an ordinance.

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“We’re very interested in how that works. That will be a great learning tool,” said Jesse O’Brien, a partner at Down East Turf Farm in Kennebunk, which uses both organic and synthetic products.

An organic products proponent hopes the testing will lead to an ordinance in Portland.

“This is amazing and really cool this is going to happen. Hopefully there is an ordinance that codifies that,” said Avery Yale Kamila, an organizer of Portland Protectors, which opposes synthetic pesticides. Kamila writes a vegetarian food column for the Portland Press Herald.

Kamila hopes Portland will use South Portland’s ordinance as a model; O’Brien says he hopes the city will conduct its own thorough review, based on industry best practices and science rather than on emotion, and come up with its own plan.

South Portland has been working on its ordinance for nearly a year. Proponents of pesticide restrictions hope Portland will copy that ordinance, which they say will be one of the most far-reaching and environmentally progressive in the nation. Others hope the city will develop rules specific to Portland’s needs.

Some South Portland councilors appear to have concerns about its ordinance, which some say has the potential to pit neighbors against neighbors, because enforcement will be conducted on a complaint-driven basis, Portland Councilor Edward Suslovic said. He wants the task force to take its time and be open to recommending an education program, rather than regulations, while putting equal emphasis on pesticides and fertilizers.

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“I think we can do better than the South Portland ordinance, frankly,” he said. “This is not something you can send out the lawn police to enforce.”

But Councilor Hinck wants results.

“If it is going to move expeditiously, then it’s all the more important that it gets the benefit of work that has been done elsewhere, (South Portland) being the closest and leading example for us,” Hinck said.

The task force will be asked to report back by July 10 and give a formal presentation to the committee at the following meeting.

 


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