(…Continuing last month’s post on the 25^th : “Greenwashing – The landscape chemical debate” )… 

New legislation here in Washington, New York and Canada toward restricting chemical use relies in part upon the “Precautionary Principle”, a controversial concept that enables municipalities to limit or wholly prohibit chemical use without regard to a product’s legal availability. This is the real crux of the landscape chemical debate issue, the very American concept of a consumer’s freedom of choice -  in conflict with free-market capitalism…. 

In the crosshairs of this dispute stand landscape designers, design/build installers and landscape architects. Our thinking on issues of chemical use is influenced greatly by national landscape and green industry trade journals. After all, these are our peers talking. But can our own landscape editorial writers be trusted? Here in the northwest, concerned landscape professionals are viewed by the landscape installation trade magazines as forming a hotbed of activism, while landscape design magazines characterize us as progressive innovators on the environmental front. Rather than smashing windows at the WTO protests, many landscape designers and contractors are simply pursuing a calmer sea change from within our own ranks. Part of this effort is to create a dialogue where it doesn’t exist, an honest and shared discussion of common issues. A more open discussion will test our beliefs and help us gain a better and more complete understanding of the complex issues surrounding pesticide use, phosphorus runoff and the limits of the precautionary principle. Who claims to represent the landscape industry to the public? One example is “Project Evergreen”, a consortium of landscape organizations, trade industry groups and chemical manufacturers. Project Evergreen purports to represent the landscape industry and is closely allied with RISE (Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment), a thinly veiled chemical industry “environmental organization”. While many of us support much of Project Evergreen’s efforts, is this type of organization honestly representing the interests of rank-and-file landscape designers and installers? I don’t think so. And certainly not on environmental issues, as these “environmental” organizations regularly vilify the EPA and resist any legislation aimed at curbing the use of chemicals in the landscape. For their part, Project Evergreen’s most cogent argument would have us look to the science before instituting environmental regulations of any kind. Not surprisingly, when the science is there, the same trade journal editors are mute. They might argue that, until we experience the ravages of cancer, we cannot restrict the use of any pesticide or herbicide in the region in which we live.

In fact, science is already articulating a variety of real and clear environmental concerns regarding chemicals. Researching 9000 people, The Center for Disease Control found pesticide residue in over 90% of those surveyed. Very recent studies have shown that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is a prime cause of attention deficit disorder (ADHD) in children and it was already well known that chemicals can accumulate in children at twice the adult concentration. In some wildlife, chemicals have been known to concentrate at hundreds of times human adult levels. While we argue the merits of whether to wait for this canary in a coal mine to sound, it’s important to note that an EPA study has shown that home herbicide use doubled between 1982 and 2001. Over 73 million pounds of organophosphate pesticides are used each year in agricultural and residential settings. Here in the Puget Sound region, The US Geological Survey working with County researchers found evidence of chemicals in 9 out of 10 streams tested, some at EPA regulated levels toxic to wildlife. Most notably, and of critical importance to the landscape industry, there was a surge in chemical content in streams coinciding with seasonal applications of herbicide and pesticide in spring. This research indicates that the stream test results may be due in part to chemical applications made by professional landscape groundskeepers.

What can be done by APLD and ASLA designers? In some cases, landscape care professionals are working from landscape care specifications supplied by a professional designer. If you use these written guidelines in your work, do your landscape maintenance specifications minimize chemical impacts on the environment? As an APLD designer, are you concerned that your care guidelines are site-specific and IPM based or are you using generic cut and paste docs from the hard drive? Nationally, is the APLD/ASLA undertaking an active dialogue with chemical companies to ensure that herbicides and pesticide products are made safer for the environment, or are we simply being programmed by the landscape trade journals to react to a “threat” to the landscape industry? Like many complex issues, the answer is not a simple one. Both the EPA or the chemical purveyors have valid points to make, but the landscape trade magazines don’t allow an open dialogue within their pages.

The most balanced arguments must be framed with an understanding that our industry needs to evolve along with a new type of consumerism. The big landscape chemical manufacturers must learn to adapt to an ecology of commerce that is embracing least toxic products and advanced IPM practices. To be fair, it must be noted that the chemical manufacturers have done well to create a myriad of products that address a wide array of specific pests and plant diseases. In many instances, chemical toxicity has evolved and diminished over the last few decades as an adaptation to ever-greater environmental regulation, not due to market forces. Significant financial efforts by chemical interests to bolster Project Evergreen have already skewed the organizations outreach away from environmental interests. Consistent trade magazine advertising insulates them in the editorial pages. But the folks at Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto would do well to consider the new issues of regulation as an opportunity, rather than an obstacle, as more consumers turn now toward organic products and natural-process horticulture.

Environmentally concerned landscape professionals can have a skewed vision as well. Attending a recent workshop on IPM strategies, a well-meaning speaker noted that Dow Corning was offering a new botanical insecticide. The eco-minded presenter went on to say that he would “never buy it from Dow”. I found myself in total disagreement. Why not support this type of new product and the innovative business sense that creates it? In fact, it may be our unique ability as landscape architects, designers and specifiers to drive these market forces forward to adapt to our real environmental concerns. Looking at it this way, buying from Dow makes common sense. It encourages production. Bayer, for example has a strategy they call “Proximity innovation”, a surgical ability to create a product specially adapted to a specific region. Why then doesn’t Bayer introduce a new range of commercially-oriented botanical insecticides or vinegar-based herbicides in the environmentally conscious northwest? Given a more environmentally friendly product, a ready test market and some flashy marketing, many landscape architects and specifiers would readily embrace these innovations, writing them into landscape care specifications. Product development costs would be far less than traditional products and consumers are already being educated regarding differences in efficacy. Further, companies may be able to charge more for these products at every level. What have they got to lose?

As a design/build firm with a retail nursery and garden center, we are blessed to be centered on a salmon stream and a regionally recognized wildlife habitat area near the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Environmental regulations impact us at our 8 acre facility, and for this reason our construction division is located off site in an office park nearby. This is a significant cost to us, but one we support as a reasonable restriction ensuring a safer environment. It’s for this reason that I defend and support the “Precautionary principle” and the public’s right to support local chemical restrictions. 

Last year at our facility I watched salmon swimming up Bear Creek to die, ending a fantastic journey that spans thousands of miles. As much as we fret and argue, our lives aren’t nearly as hard as that of these simple fish. Bald eagles circle above this burgeoning habitat only a few miles from Seattle, diving to feed at the shore. Our national symbol is resurging now, but only after restrictions were placed on DDT. We simply didn’t know decades ago that DDT would thin an eagle’s eggshell. But now we do. What else are we going to discover from issues we don’t fully understand, like bee colony collapse disorder, bioaccumulation or phosphorus runoff? 

Like many of you, I originally got into this industry because of my love for the environment. I wonder now at how far our industry has deviated from that straightforward focus. For our part, years ago we removed noxious chemicals from our shelves, began offering least toxic alternatives and started educating consumers to utilize natural-process horticulture and integrated pest management (IPM) for landscape care. You can pursue your own effort and by educating consumers, encourage a fundamental change. Free ecological brochures and educational guides are available from your local municipality. You can distribute these your potential clients with your company literature. Without looking far, there are a myriad of commercially effective and least-toxic products available, from vinegar based herbicides to compost teas and simple soap sprays. Until such time as our chemical industry brethren can provide us with a better range of IPM based products, this will just have to do. 

We agree with the folks at Project Evergreen that the “Green Industry is worth defending” and we plan to do just that - by pursuing the truth as active, vocal Green Industry participants…and ecorealists. 

(Photo by Robb North)