Dandelion Genocide: Is It Worth the Price We Pay?

I've had a front-row seat watching a tragedy unfold in which innocent people, blinded by their own ignorance and trust in technological authority, do unwitting harm to themselves and others. This time the instrument of the tragedy is not the mindless use of leafblowers, though those infernal polluting machines play a supporting role. This time it's the mindless use of pesticides.

As I've mentioned here before, my wife and I live in a rented house overseen by a property management company that insists we use their contracted landscape company to care for the lawn and garden. When we moved in a year and a half ago I offered to take care of the yard. I thought my 30 years of professional gardening experience might count for something. It didn't. But I couldn't bear the thought of being routinely exposed to the hazardous chemicals the lawn guys used and I persuaded the managers to keep the “gardeners” away from the garden areas and to let me fertilize and weed the lawn. Since then I've used a natural fertilizer and pulled the weeds by hand. The lawns look fine with hardly a dandelion in sight.

Last week as I sat at my computer gazing out the back window, I saw one of the lawn guys, having finished his leaf-blowing, walk onto the lawn with a hand-held spreader and begin spreading what looked like fertilizer. He worked quickly and was finished with the lawn before I could stop him. The granules fell not only on the lawn but on the flower and herb bed next to the lawn. I could see granules on the mint leaves that my wife had been using to make her daily cup of herb tea. The chemical smell was unbearable and I turned on the sprinklers hoping to wash the chemicals into the soil.

Had this happened some other time, I might have been simply irritated. But because my wife is dealing with cancer and is just recovering from surgery, I was outraged that she should be exposed to these chemicals, especially when I thought I'd succeeded in eliminating them from the property. It felt like an assault.

I immediately contacted the property manager to ask what was going on, why the lawn company was breaking our agreement and spreading fertilizer. She said it wasn't fertilizer, it was weed killer. She said it was called Trimec and reassured me that the workers and owners of the company not only applied it to all their clients' yards, but used it at their own homes. But her story didn't ring true. Trimec is manufactured only as a liquid. However, other manufacturers add Trimec to fertilizer to make granular weed and feed. The lawn company finally admitted the substance was indeed a fertilizer and herbicide combo called Trimec Weed/Feed. (Several days later I was told it actually was called Best Turf Supreme plus Trimec.) They said the worker had decided to apply it because of all the weeds in the lawn. By my count there were fewer than a dozen dandelions. I suspect the application was in fact part of a regular program in which all lawns get the same treatment at the same time of year whether they need it or not. The company apologized and promised it wouldn't happen again.

So what is it about Trimec that worries me? Its primary ingredient is a chemical called 2,4-D, infamous as a component of Agent Orange. 2,4-D is the most widely used herbicide in the nation. According to the EPA, some 46 million pounds of it are applied annually. Of that, about 12 million pounds are applied to home lawns. While the EPA recently reviewed and re-registered 2,4-D, other organizations are not convinced of its safety. For instance, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classifies it as a possible carcinogen. And the Journal of the Canadian Paediatrics Association published a study recently that concluded “the balance of epidemiological research suggests that 2,4-D can be persuasively linked to cancers, neurological impairment and reproductive problems.”

The Trimec cocktail also contains another popular developmental and reproductive toxin called Dicamba and a possible carcinogen called Mecoprop. There's more than enough smoke for me to suspect there's fire. And all for a dandelion-free lawn.

Ten years ago the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the town of Hudson, Quebec, had the right to ban lawn and garden pesticides. For the previous 10 years the ban had been vigorously opposed by ChemLawn, the corporation now calling itself TruGreen. Several Canadian provinces had the wisdom to follow Hudson's example and banned the use of pesticides and herbicides for cosmetic purposes, bans that now effect 80 percent of Canadians. In 2008, Home Depot even phased out its traditional pesticides and herbicides throughout Canada and replaced them with natural alternatives, saying, “We, at The Home Depot, are concerned about the environment. We are going above and beyond government regulations by working with our suppliers to develop pesticide alternatives that are environmentally friendly and produce excellent results on lawns and gardens."

If only their concern extended to the environment here in the States.

As I watched the lawn worker spreading this poison, wearing no protection, no gloves, no long sleeve shirt, no dust mask, I imagined him coming home with Trimec dust on his shoes and clothing and treading it into the carpet on which his children play, his lungs still aching from having inhaled a mixture of dust and pollen, small engine exhaust, fertilizer and pesticide residues. Why wasn't his employer looking out for his health and insisting that he at least wear the proper protective gear as directed on the label?

A good friend who worked a pesticide spray rig about 25 years ago recently underwent surgery for thyroid cancer. Is there a connection? Some studies suggest there may be. Where will the lawn worker be 25 years from now? Will he be on his way to an operating table wondering why he wasn't informed about the dangers of his work? Moreover, why isn't every resident whose yard is regularly saturated with 2,4-D, dicamba, and mecoprop informed about the risks and given a choice of less risky alternatives?

Residents are not only uninformed but deceived. I came across a Lawn Care Professional forum at which the discussion revolved around the best substances to mask 2,4-D odor because customers tended to complain about it. All I know is that the dose makes the poison and when the poisonous dose is in doubt, the only sure safe dose is zero. I also know that no matter how careful you are to keep your immediate environment clean and healthy, somewhere there's a lawn service worker carrying a centrifugal spreader with your name on it.