Take a Cue from Canada EcoAlert from American P.I.E. 05 July, 2006   Not nearly enough reports about toxic lawn chemicals has been brought forward in the popular press. A recent exception is an article appearing in the July, 2006, issue of House and Garden, a publication catering to the floriferous dreams of millions of gardeners across the country. The article, Putting Pesticides Out to Pasture, is authored by Tom Christopher and chronicles what Canadian communities have done in banning the use of chemical toxins in lawn and garden care. Christopher's message...take a Cue from Canada.   Hudson, Quebec, a community of 5,000, took the first step in 1991. At the prompting of a local dermatologist who suspected that some of the medical problems she was seeing were connected to lawn chemicals, the Hudson town council adopted a resolution banning the cosmetic use of pesticides - the application of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides to enhance purely ornamental plantings such as flowers, shrubbery, and, especially, lawns. According to Christopher, to date some 96 municipalities, including Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver - accounting for 35% of the nation's inhabitants, have signed on. All this good progress has not gone on without challenge from the chemical industry and major lawn care companies like Spraytech and ChemLawn. The Supreme Court of Canada, however, ruled in 2001 that municipalities across Canada have the right to ban pesticide use.   Throughout the United States, public properties surrounding city buildings and school grounds are being routinely sprayed with synthetic chemicals, upwards to 200 different compounds often mixed together and applied as combinations. For people, especially children, the combinations can be deadly. Within the past year evidence has emerged that long-term exposure to toxic compounds, especially pesticides, can trigger Parkinson's disease, the disabling neurological affliction. This news follows on the heels of troubling reports in 2005 involving pesticide links to reproductive problems and even the presence of pesticides in unborn babies. An Environmental Working Group study of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross detected 287 chemicals in blood passing to the unborn. A landmark California study discovered that children exposed to herbicides during their first year of life are four and a half times more likely to be diagnosed with asthma before the age of five. A French study released in February, 2006, carries results suggesting a strong link between leukemia and pesticides.   A growing number of U.S. municipalities are at long last taking steps so that our children and pets can play outdoors without exposure to carcinogens and neurotoxins. Call American P.I.E. if your community is ready...to take a cue from Canada.   Act today on this EcoAlert, and thank you for your environmental responsibiity.   American P.I.E. Public Information on the Environment P.O. Box 676     Northfield, MN  55057-0676   Call 800-320-APIE (2743) E-mail info@americanpie.org Fax 507-645-5724 Click here to support our efforts! American Public Information on the Environment, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is dedicated to developing and administering action programs which help build a more informed, environmentally responsible, activist citizenry in the United States. The environmental mission of American P.I.E. rests on the premise that building public awareness is the most effective of all the long-term forces for change.