Pesticide report prompts renewed
call for city ban
Grady Semmens
Calgary Herald; with files from Herald wire services.
April 27, 2004
A new medical report linking pesticides with cancer and
other health problems has renewed calls for the city to
ban use of the chemicals.
"This is a huge group of
physicians giving credibility to the fact that we should
not be using them," said Barb Kinnie, president of
the Sierra Club of Canada's Chinook chapter.
"The city should listen to this
and come up with some strict regulations."
Civic officials say the City of
Calgary's five-year-old program to cut pesticide use
across the city is a success but a complete pesticide
ban is out of the question.
"We have to give people options,
especially in the semi-arid climate we live in,"
said Bashir Jamal, manager of Calgary Parks' resource
division.
"We're trying a balanced approach
by trying to get people to only use (pesticides) as
infrequently as possible to make sure we're not
jeopardizing the environment or health."
A study released Friday by the Ontario
College of Family Physicians found
"compelling" evidence connecting exposure to
pesticides with some forms of cancer, neurological
diseases and reproductive disorders.
Doctors behind the report said people
should limit exposure to all forms of pesticides
"whenever and wherever possible" and supported
municipal bans on residential pesticide use.
The college's findings prove that a
pesticide ban is in the best interest of Calgarians'
health, according to Kinnie, who sits on the city's
pesticide advisory group and has been lobbying city
council to follow Toronto and Halifax in adopting strict
regulations.
"Calgary is becoming known as the
pesticide capital of Canada," she said.
"There's just a real reluctance
to admit that they are a significant health
concern."
Jamal said the city's integrated pest
management program has led to the municipality reducing
its pesticide use by 67 per cent since the program began
in 1998.
It's aiming to cut residential
pesticide use by 30 per cent in the next three years
through city-sponsored public education campaigns.
Jamal said the $300,000 boost the city
received from the provincial government last month for
controlling West Nile virus-carrying mosquito
populations this summer won't boost the amount of
chemical pesticides city crews use.
"We only use bacteria that
targets the larvae of the mosquito directly and doesn't
affect the environment at all," he said.
"We don't spray to kill the adult
mosquitoes at all."
The pesticide industry has countered
the physicians' conclusions, saying that 2,4-D, the most
heavily used herbicide in Canada, is not considered an
"unreasonable" risk to health when used
properly.
gsemmens@theherald.canwestcom
© The Calgary Herald 2004
