State's Highest Court Upholds Montgomery County's Pesticide Ban

ROCKVILLE, MD — In a win for Montgomery County, a Maryland appeals court reversed a lower court ruling Thursday that invalidated the county's ban on certain cosmetic pesticides.

The decision to overturn the 2017 lower court ruling gives Montgomery County the opportunity to enforce what could be the first-ever ban by a major jurisdiction, The Washington Post reports.

"This is a big win for our environment and the public health," said Councilmember Tom Hucker, chairman of the Council's Transportation and Environment Committee and one of the bill's lead sponsors. "It also affirms our County's authority to protect our residents, especially our kids, from the harmful threats that pesticides and other environmental toxins can pose."

In 2015, the County Council passed a law banning the application of certain pesticides to lawns. Scheduled to take effect last year, the ban was for pesticides that contained dangerous toxins linked to cancer, according to The Post.

The ban, however, did not apply to farmland, golf courses, and gardens.

After passing this law, the Council was sued by a group of homeowners and landscaping companies who said the county banned pesticides that had already been approved by the federal government.

The issue was brought to court. And in August of 2017, the Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying the ban on certain pesticides was an overreach by the county.

The county fought back and appealed the ruling to the Court of Special Appeals, the state's highest court.

On Thursday, the Court of Special Appeals sided with Montgomery County, saying that its pesticides regulation did not conflict with state law.

In its decision, the Court of Special Appeals cited a 1985 opinion from the Maryland attorney general, which said that "state law did not impliedly preempt local pesticide regulation."

The court also listed other instances when local jurisdictions have enforced their own pesticide regulations without causing "chaos and confusion in the marketplace."

"For decades, Maryland's Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Critical Area Protection Program has authorized certain counties to regulate pesticides within the Critical Area without any record of chaos and confusion for multi-tiered regulation," the court wrote.

"Despite the existence of a comprehensive federal statute desirous of 'uniformity' of regulation, the Supreme Court said that federal law did not regulate pesticides 'with regard to regional and local factors like climate, population, geography, and water supply' or oust local regulation with respect to such matters," the court added.

After reviewing the findings, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the lower court's ruling that invalidated Montgomery County's ban on certain pesticides.

"We conclude that the citizens of Montgomery County are not powerless to restrict the use of certain toxins that have long been recognized as 'economic poisons' and which pose risks to the public health and environment," the court concluded.

Montgomery County Council President Nancy Navarro commended the court's decision, calling it a "great victory" for the region.

"This court decision is a great victory for our County's public health and environment," Navarro said. "We must not relent in exercising our right to enact sensible legislation that protects our residents from harm. As president of the County Council, I will continue to work with my colleagues to make our County a healthy place for all our residents to live, work and play."