The children's playground adjacent to our yard was sprayed for "pests," the sign says, on Thursday, and as of Sunday, a hot sunny day, we still can't be out in our own yard or have our east windows open because of the fumes and the poison. The "pests" in question, according to the sign, are dandelions.
First of all, I thought the category of pest was for animals, not plants, but I am not sure why the town wishes to encourage respiratory problems and cancer in order to destroy a yellow flower, even if it were to totally take over the children's playground. Dandelions are salad, they are the basis for a homemade wine, they are bee fodder, and a toy for non-digital children's games (remember those?). Moreover, the dandelions had already seeded out and dispersed their seeds prior to spraying.
I am also very concerned that the 20-plus-year-old who did the spraying from an ATV drove around and around in tight, fast circles wearing a protective jumpsuit, crash helmet in case the ATV overturned, but no mask that I could see. He was essentially making multiple rapid turns into the spray. Since the spraying, people and their pets have been walking through the playground.
On the weekend, a lively and enterprising group of little girls set up and maintained a lemonade stand on the sidewalk beside the playground for hours. You do not have to walk in your bare feet on sprayed grass in order to get chemicals into your body: we inhale them with each breath – see McKay Jenkins, What's Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World.
Could we not adopt a 21st-century landscape aesthetic and a more enlightened landscape management practice? Is the dandelion so terrible an enemy (or pest) that we must stake our own lives on killing them?
Pam Banting
