When
Julie Taddeo moved to Takoma Park, Maryland, a progressive suburb outside of
Washington D.C., and saw ubiquitous yellow flags marking the places where
pesticide had recently been sprayed, she was surprised. “Everyone’s a
treehugger here in, the Berkeley of the East,” she says. The warnings, which
swarmed the lawns of homes and apartment buildings, playing fields, public
parks, hospital grounds—and even school bus stops, seemed incongruous.
Concerned
about her young daughter and the emerging science linking childhood pesticide
exposure to pediatric cancer, asthma, and behavioral problems, Taddeo teamed up
with a neighbor whose son suffered from asthma. The two began working with city
council members to craft a law restricting the cosmetic use of pesticides on
lawns on public and private property.
Modeled
on an Ontario law, Takoma Park’s Safe Grow Act passed in 2013, and it spurred
an outpouring of interest across Montgomery County. “Moms started reaching out
to us with their stories,” recalls Taddeo. “One said, ‘My son has a brain tumor
and his doctor is convinced that this particular tumor was caused by over
exposure to certain pesticides.’”
A
group of residents founded Safe Grow Montgomery, an umbrella organization that
quickly mushroomed to more than 40 environmental and health organizations, and
worked to pass the 2015 Healthy Lawns Act, a county-wide version of Takoma
Park’s law. It was the first such law in the nation to restrict pesticides for
non-essential use at the county level. (Non-essential means exemptions are
allowed for control of invasive pests or human health risks.)
But
victory was short-lived. “When one town does it, it’s not a big deal,” says
Taddeo. “But when a county tries to do it and you’re a million people, this is
when the big guns come out and try to squash it.”
