Tue, Jul 10, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C., After more than a year of strategic planning and fierce opposition from synthetic chemical lobbying groups, a Washington, D.C., councilor today was able to unanimously pass the nation’s most comprehensive municipal law to restrict pesticides.
Representative Mary’s Cheh’s bill, known as the Pesticide Education and Control Amendment Act of 2012, is now awaiting the signature of DC Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who is expected to sign the historic legislation within 10 days.
Provisions of the law, which restricts non-essential “cosmetic” pesticides such as weed, feed, and Roundup from all government-owned property in DC, will be implemented by the District Department of the Environment beginning in late 2013 or early 2014. In the meantime, the bill calls for further education of DC businesses and even private homeowners, who will still be able to apply synthetic chemical products on their own properties that do not border waterways.
This is believed to be the first pesticide bill in the United States that reaches onto private property in certain instances, by eliminating synthetic chemical pesticides from all property within 25 feet of a waterway and also any privately owned schools and daycare facilities where children congregate. . . .
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