Organic State House Land Care Award Given
To Gov. Wes Moore, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, and Maryland State House Trust
January 28, 2025 | Annapolis, MD – Advocates and supporters today cheered a decade of successful organic lawn care practices on the Maryland State House grounds by recognizing Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland State House Trust led by Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller for their continuing support for ensuring the grounds are organically maintained as a model for the state and the country.
“Today we honor the Maryland State House Trust led by Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, for its support of Maryland State House Organic Land Care Management. The State House grounds are a fabulous model for the rest of the state, while safeguarding everyone who comes to the State House and the Chesapeake Bay from exposure to toxic lawn care chemicals,” said Cleo Braver, Maryland Pesticide Education Network (MPEN) board chair.
The project began in 2012, when then-Governor Martin O’Mally’s Chesapeake Bay Cabinet, in response to reports of alarming pesticide impacts on the Bay, asked MPEN to pilot an organic lawn care project on the Maryland State House grounds. MPEN launched the project in collaboration with the Maryland Departments of Natural Resources and General Services and with support from several private businesses.
By 2014, the Maryland State House Organic Pilot Project was deemed a success, resulting in pesticide-free practices becoming the established protocol for maintaining the beautiful State House grounds.
The initial pilot project replaced traditional, toxic chemical gardening practices with organic ones in an effort to reduce pesticide runoff into the Bay, safeguard public health, preserve natural resources, serve as a model for other state-owned land, and to demonstrate to all Marylanders how practical and effective organic lawn care is.
“In spite of all the damage chemical treatments have done to these historic grounds over previous decades, we have demonstrated in the past decade what is possible with an organic approach and how it can work in our parks, playing fields, on our lawns, and for all lawn care in the state,“ said Kevin Wengernuk, President of KW Landscaping Inc., the State House lawn care manager.
By all measures, the project has been a success, illustrating that an organic approach to public lawn care results in healthy green grass with fewer weeds, requires less maintenance and fewer resources—without resorting to traditional lawn care pesticides known to be harmful, including the widely used herbicide, RoundUp, which has been linked to cancer.
The Maryland State House organically managed grounds represent one of the best management practices to preserve Maryland’s treasured Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Maryland Pesticide Education Network commends state leaders for making the organic State House grounds a priority and continuing more than a decade of exemplary land care practices.
Recent findings of PFAS “forever chemicals” in everyday pesticides make the conversion from toxic lawn care pesticides to non-toxic organic ones even more urgent, to reduce exposure to PFAS in residential yards and in schools, hospitals and other public spaces. The Maryland General Assembly is poised to consider the issue of banning PFAS pesticides this session.
According to the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, “More than three-quarters of the Chesapeake Bay’s tidal waters are considered partially or fully impaired by chemical contaminants. From the insecticides that are put on farm fields to the cleaners we use to disinfect our homes, contaminants can enter the Bay and its tributaries and harm the health of both humans and wildlife. Production bans have lowered the presence of some contaminants in the watershed, but others are still widely used today.”
In addition to protecting the health of people, pollinators, and Maryland’s waterways from unnecessary toxic pesticides, a growing body of research demonstrates that organic land care sequesters carbon, playing a critical role in mitigating climate change.
