By 1 p.m. I had responded to more than 40 such emails, most from my iPhone while attending to other matters or conferencing in on phone calls.

Here’s just a sampling of some of my answers. They all have a common theme of “read the label before you buy or apply:”

To the woman in Nigeria:
“I’m not sure about the labeling requirements in your nation, but the label is the best place to start. Try to determine the active ingredients and any so-called ‘inert’ ingredients if they are revealed (in the U.S. they are not) and use an Internet resource such as the Panna.org pesticide database to find out more about the substances.”

To the New York reporter:
“Creating a list of just 10 bad pesticides is like asking me to rank oil spills from worse to worst,” I said. But I proceeded to give him some of what he wanted, not necessarily in order of risk:

1) Preen (active ingredient trifluralin) — The label states “This pesticide is extremely toxic to freshwater marine, and estuarine fish and aquatic invertebrates. Causes moderate eye irritation. Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through skin. Avoid contact with eyes, skin or clothing.” When you dig a bit deeper on this one, you learn that trifluralin is classified by the EPA as a possible carcinogen and that the agency further states: “No information is available on the acute (short-term), chronic (long-term), reproductive, developmental effects of trifluralin in humans.” Kind of makes you wonder how a product like that gets approved in the first place, doesn’t it? It’s a classic case of a pesticide that is innocent until proven guilty.

2) Sevin (active ingredient carbaryl) — This may well be the most toxic pesticide in common use by homeowners. Why it’s still allowed is anyone’s guess. The label states, ‘This product is extremely toxic to aquatic and estuarine invertebrates. BEE CAUTION: MAY KILL HONEYBEE IN SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS.” This is also on the list of the EPA’s possible human carcinogens and the material safety data sheet from one manufacturer states: “Carbaryl is moderately to very toxic. It can produce adverse effects in humans by skin contact, inhalation, or ingestion.”

3) 2,4-D (this is the active ingredient, included in thousands of weed-killing products, either alone or in combination with other compounds) — I recall a conversation I once had with Jim King, a likable enough marketing guy for Scotts, who said, “2,4-D has been the most tested pesticide on the market and it’s always been proven to be safe.” This is the same ingredient that has been banned for use in residential areas in almost 80 percent of Canada due to its health and environmental effects. Here are just a few tidbits from our own government’s web site: “2,4-D is both an excitant and a depressant of the central nervous system [Hathaway et al. 1991]. It is also a moderate skin irritant and a severe eye irritant [Parmeggiani 1983] . . . Acute overexposure of 2,4-D may cause sudden death due to ventricular fibrillation and cardiogenic shock. Animals exposed to large amounts of 2,4-D developed extreme stiffness of the extremities, incoordination, lethargy, stupor, and coma. Severe dilation and congestion of the blood vessels in the lungs, liver, and kidneys occurs; death is due to congestion of the liver and pneumonia [Hathaway et al. 1991; ACGIH 1991]. Moderate cumulative toxicity due to 2,4-D has been reported in animals by some authors [Parmeggiani 1983], but others report no pathological changes following low dose 2,4-D exposure in the diet [ACGIH 1991]. 2,4-D is mutagenic in a variety of animal test systems [NIOSH 1995]. It also has teratogenic and fetotoxic effects causing fetal growth retardation and skeletal abnormalities in rats [Rom 1992; Sax and Lewis 1989; NLM 1995]. IARC studies of the carcinogenicity of 2,4-D in animals have been inconclusive [NLM 1995]. Human exposure to 2,4-D has been associated with central and peripheral nervous system effects, liver and kidney damage, and death [NLM 1995; Hathaway et al. 1991; ACGIH 1991]. Several case control studies of soft-tissue sarcoma and lymphoma have suggested an increased risk among workers exposed to phenoxyacetic acid herbicides, including 2,4-D. . . . Acute exposure to 2,4-D has caused irritation of the skin, eyes, throat, and chest; nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea; muscle twitching and weakness; swelling or aching of the extremities; numbness; flaccid paralysis; hyporeflexia and hyperflexia; malaise, headache, and dizziness; low blood pressure; increased body temperature; loss of appetite and weight; malaise; stupor, convulsions, and death [Hathaway et al. 1991; Parmeggiani 1983]. Protein in the urine has also been reported following acute exposure [ACGIH 1991].

That’s some great reading, isn’t it?

But, then, here was my answer to the junior high school student:
“First of all, it is illegal for a manufacturer of a pesticide to make safety claims, because the minimum safety threshold cannot be determined. Secondly, you must always consider the source of your information. Here is the Material Safety Data Sheet produced by Ortho (a Scotts-owned brand) on 2,4-D:
POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS
EYES: No adverse eye effects are expected from product contact.
SKIN: This substance is not expected to cause prolonged or significant skin irritation. If absorbed through the skin, this substance is
considered practically non-toxic.
INGESTION: If swallowed, this substance is considered practically non-toxic.
INHALATION: If inhaled, this substance is considered practically non-toxic.

“Now, son, if you believe a word of the MSDS sheet produced by Ortho, please see this web site from the U.S. government on 2,4-D: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/2_4d-dichlorophenoxyaceticacid/recognition.html#healthhazard.”

THE ISSUE
Apparently the primary compound used by BP to try to disperse the oil in the Gulf region is known as Corexit, which is also a pesticide used in certain situations to kill bacteria. The EPA has banned the substance due to its highly toxic nature — it kills aquatic life, causes cancer and damages the liver and kidneys in humans — simply when absorbed through the skin. My colleague, who doesn’t want her name used in print due to potential ongoing litigation, feels she was poisoned and left unable to have children after her exposure to Corexit in the water during the cleanup in Alaska.

Some on-line reports indicate that BP has poured more than a million gallons of Corexit into the ocean in attempt to disperse the millions of barrels of oil that continue to flow from the infamous blown wellhead. The EPA told BP to cease using Corexit as its dispersant of choice, but the company refused in this letter: http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/dispersants/5-21bp-response.pdf, basically saying that no other suitable alternative exists.

WHY IT MATTERS AND WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH LAWN CARE
I don’t pretend to know whether BP is right, or wrong, it its assessment of alternatives. Plenty of on-line news sources and bloggers, however, feel the continued use of this product is outrageous — only making a bad situation worse. Here’s just one example of such a site: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/06/05/amount-neurotoxin-pesticide-corexit-sprayed-bp-tops-1-million-gallons/.

What I do know is that with every passing day, with every fish and bird kill and every inch of coastline ruined for a generation or longer, we must ask ourselves how long we are going to maintain the status quo dependence on oil? How long will we allow unbridled pesticide applications and ignore the mounds of evidence of health risks? As gardeners and lawn care professionals who may rely on gas for our mowers, electricity for our water pumps, or synthetic fertilizer and pesticides for our lawns and crops, we should feel at least somewhat complicit in this ongoing tragedy.

As organic advocates, we’re taking a step in the right direction, but at this hour we all need to dig deeper and somehow do more.

The article begins frankly enough: “Any time you hear the word pesticide it typically follows with a negative connotation. I’m sure you have heard the emotional, first-hand stories from those negatively affected by pesticides or even the opinions of environmental activists.” No argument so far.

The author, presumably company co-founder Jim Campanella, goes on to talk about “bias,” and how research is needed to make a good decision. Industry research would show that his company applies more pesticides than any other in New Hampshire and that the fertilizer his company uses is derived from human waste . . . but I digress.

“The Internet provides numerous resources, but here are indisputable, science-based facts regarding pesticides,” he writes before launching into his list.

For the layperson, it’s useful to understand a certain vernacular that has been developed by the pesticide industry in the last 20 years or so. They employ code words developed to fend off any suggestion that their products might be dangerous. Here’s just a short sample:

“SCIENCE-BASED” — This is a decision-making barometer that dismisses any study implicating pesticide dangers as “JUNK SCIENCE.” The recent study linking ADHD to pesticides and published in the journal Pediatrics would obviously fall into this category.

“EPA” — These three capital letters are always invoked within the first minute of a conversation with a pesticide applicator, as in “the EPA approves the product, therefore it is safe.” Some might think the EPA stands for the Environmental Protection Agency, but the more accurate term invoked by the chemical industry is “Every Pesticide Allowed.”

“ENVIROMANIAC” — This is a new word in relative terms. You won’t find it in Websters, or in Wikipedia, and I didn’t hear it in last night’s National Spelling Bee, but it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure. The definition goes something like this: “A person who even suggests that pesticides might be dangerous is clearly a maniac hiding behind his or her concern for the environment.”

I take some measure of pride in the fact that at least one Canadian organization calls me “America’s Most Wanted Enviromaniac.” High praise indeed. Last week, on the anniversary of Rachel Carson’s birthday of May 27, that same organization likened her to Hitler. Their justification was that the banning of DDT had caused more people to die than the Holocaust.

But I digress again. All joking aside, and without further adieu, here’s an assessment of Jim Campanella’s Indisputable Facts. It’s a list, mind you, that’s been trotted out by the Lawn Care Association of America for years:

“FACT:” Pesticides are heavily regulated by the US EPA and enforced by a state level governing body.

REALITY: In most states outside of New York or California, pesticide registrations are a rubber-stamp process conducted by one or two underpaid, overworked and overwhelmed staffers. Pesticide enforcement in the field is even more woefully understaffed; often one or two individuals are asked to police an entire state. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress issued a landmark report in 1993 titled “LAWN CARE PESTICIDES: Registration Falls Further Behind and Exposure Effects are Uncertain.” With budget and staffing cuts in the 18 years since that report, the situation has gotten far worse, not better, at the Environmental Protection Agency and its ability to keep up with its work load.

“FACT:” In most states before a lawn care professional can apply a simple “weed and feed” to your lawn, they must prove competence by achieving state certification at either the operator or supervisory level. They must recertify every 5 years and receive continuing education credits during that time.

REALITY: While it’s true that the training and equipment used by certified professionals make pesticide application as safe as possible in most cases, the mere fact that they are applying unsafe products makes this argument a moot point. The EPA declared it illegal to claim any pesticide as “safe,” since a minimum exposure safety threshold cannot be determined that would cover all aspects of human life, from pre-natal to adulthood.

“FACT:” Before a pesticide goes to market it must go through dozens of toxicology tests that can take up to 10 years.

REALITY: Many pesticides reach the market in less than 10 years and virtually all the initial toxicology testing is conducted by the pesticide manufacturers themselves. Toxicology testing by third parties typically only happens once a product has been released into the marketplace and multiple complaints have been registered. In otherwords, the manufacturers are assumed to be telling the truth. No pesticides are tested for chronic health effects unless they are also used on food crops.

“FACT:” Pesticides used by lawn care professionals are registered and labeled by the EPA for use where adults, children and pets live and play.

REALITY: This is true, but given that pesticide safety cannot be assured, it would seem to be a moot fact.

“FACT:” Since the introduction of pesticides to our society we have a more abundant and better quality food supply and we’ve improved our living environment by protecting our lawns and landscape from the devastating effects of insect, disease and weed infestations.

REALITY: Every word of this one is a stretch. Food may be more abundant, but is it really better? This week’s latest report linking pesticide contamination to common fruits and vegetables is just the latest evidence damning pesticides. Last month’s report linking pesticide contamination on food to ADHD is another. “Devastating effects of insect, disease and weed infestation?” Really? Is a dandelion devastating? Are bees foraging on clover devastating? Or is it devastating that bees are being wiped out by exposure to the pesticides that we’re applying to lawns? Is it devastating to the bees that we spend billions of dollars on products that wipe out dandelion and clover flowers that comprise an important component of their food supply?

“FACT:” A healthy well maintained lawn provides cleaner air, cleaner ground water, a cooler earth and increases property value by up to 20 percent.

REALITY: A lush lawn that produces oxygen, traps runoff, filters groundwater and cools the environment has great value — and it can increase the curb appeal if you’re selling your home. Twenty percent, however, is a massive exaggeration. The main problem with this “fact” is blatantly ignoring the environmental damage that comes from a heavily fertilized and pesticide-laden lawn. Mowing and the manufacturing of fertilizers and pesticides pollutes the air; fertilizers and pesticides leach into ground water. Mowing, running the pumps for watering, manufacturing and transporting the fertilizers all release greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

At the end of the article, Mr. Campanella repeats the same refrain he used in February when he testified to the New Hampshire legislature against the passage of a bill that would study the impacts of a pesticide ban — a study that is ongoing this month by the way.

“Knowledge is contagious. The next time you or someone you know discusses pesticides, keep in mind the facts,” he says. “We, at Lawn Dawg, are true environmentalists.”

Which is different, obviously, from being an Enviromaniac.

Take today’s news: Here’s a clip from the corn belt about a woman blatantly sprayed with atrazine: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/23759880/detail.html, which includes a predictable comment from Syngenta, the manufacturer of the pesticide, disputing any health claims.

Here’s another clip from the Environmental Working Group’s latest list of the fruits and vegetables that are most likely to be contaminated by pesticides: http://www.foodnews.org/, followed by a column that flatly denounces any suggestion that organic food offers any benefits, or that pesticides pose any risk: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Organic-framing-food-prices-pd20100602-5ZULG?opendocument&src=rss.

Out in Utah, all sorts of news items have emerged about a pesticide company that has been cited for more than 3,500 pesticide violations. One of their infractions resulted in the death of two sisters that we have blogged about here a few times since February. Today’s major Utah newspaper published a letter from a reader suggesting that having pesticide regulations in the first place was just another example of government gone amok. Really, there are people who feel this way: http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_15205686.

As a lifelong journalist, I really do believe in balanced and fair reporting — though I’m guessing the moles from the chemical industry who read and quote my blog each day would laugh aloud at that statement. Obviously this blog and most of my writing for the past 15 years has had a strong anti-pesticide bias that is only going stronger by the minute.

And my views against pesticides don’t get stronger because the pesticides are getting worse; I actually believe it’s just the opposite. Some members of the industry really are trying to manufacture safer products.

My issue is that, with tens of thousands of largely untested chemicals in our marketplace, the uneducated masses firmly believe that business as usual is just fine. Business, they say, ought to be able to regulate itself, to be trusted to do the right thing.

“Who does this Utah Department of Agriculture and Food think it is, claiming 3,500 violations by this pest control company?,” writes Steve Gilbert of Salt Lake City. “Just more government interference in local businesses. I am counting on patriotic Utah legislators to disband this department in the next session and use the savings for a tax cut. We need to take our country back, back to a time before all this socialistic regulation.”

Just this morning I awoke to read a column published in one of the nation’s leading trade magazines for the horticulture industry. The central question of the article is the central question of my professional life: Will Canada’s bans on cosmetic pesticides take hold in the United States? I spend virtually all my non-family time trying to make that happen, just as the folks at the Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment use their days to make sure Canada’s lawn care politics don’t come anywhere near here.

I publish studies that indicate pesticides impact everything from to ADHD and autism, to cancer and neurological disorders. The pesticide industry spends its days feeding quotes like this to media: “Because sidewalks and medians are so overrun with weeds (in Canada), fire rescue departments are having a hard time finding fire hydrants,” says Karen Reardon, director of communication for the Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment.

Overgrown fire hydrants? Really? I’d like to see the photos on that one. I’ve visited six Canadian provinces since January — including four with pesticide bans already in place — and the hydrants are all in plain view. Canadians, by and large, take far better care of their landscapes than do Americans, even without the availability of many synthetic weed killers in almost 80 percent of the nation.

If I’m truthful, I can tell you that I’m almost smug in my belief that these Canadian pesticide bans will come to the U.S. These desperate quotes by Karen Reardon only serve to prove my point. I do have to admit, though, that the Steve Gilberts of the world make me shudder. In our everybody-has-a-blog-and-opinion world of “balanced” journalism that I love, I know the job of eliminating pesticides will never be easy.

It’s just one step up, one step back every single day. But no one said our side couldn’t take faster, longer steps.

That’s why this news story yesterday really caught our eye: http://www.lovelycitizen.com/story/1638807.html

I enjoyed the post by our friend, Tom Kelly, at Fire Belly Organics: http://firebellylawncare.com/blog/.

“The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals, some of which are also used in residential and commercial landscaping,” says the report. “Many of these chemicals have known or suspected carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting properties. Pesticides (insecticides, herbicides and fungicides) approved for used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contain nearly 900 active ingredients, many of which are toxic.”

Although the report did not contain information that most of us in the environmental and health sphere did not already know, the report’s impact was considered massive — considering the source. The President’s Cancer Panel was created in 1971 as a three-person, non-partisan group of experts charged with reporting its findings directly to the President. The current group, appointed by George Bush, was the first PCP to look in depth at environmental causes of cancer.

“The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies,” wrote Nicholas Kristof in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times.

The doctors didn’t hold back even a little bit in their scathing evaluation of the current state of chemical affairs.

“The increasing number of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compels us to action, even though we may currently lack irrefutable proof of harm,” wrote Dr. LaSalle D. Lefall, Jr., chair of the President’s Cancer Panel. The report further told President Obama that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated” and advised him “to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

The bottom line, throughout the report, was an emphasis on the Precautionary Principle, the better-safe-than-sorry approach to environmental law that was the basis of the historic court decision in the Hudson v. Spraytech & ChemLawn at the Canadian Supreme Court in 2001. The Precautionary Principle, used in the Hudson case for the first time in world history, is a compulsory part of law in Europe and Canada, but not the U.S.

“That principle is highly controversial among scientists, regulators and industry” in the U.S., wrote Marla Cone, Editor in Chief of Environmental Health News in a review of the President’s Panel Report today.

Here are just a few of the of the report’s comments related to lawn care that jumped out at me:

“Reducing or ceasing landscaping pesticide and fertilizer use will help keep these chemicals from contaminating drinking water supplies.”

“Inadequate regulatory program funding and understaffing are partly to blame for many
of the shortcomings in U.S. regulation of environmental and occupational hazards. For example, according to a former director of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, staffing there has dropped from a one-time high of 600 employees to 320 in 2009.”

“The EPA has required testing of less than 1 percent of the chemicals in commerce.”

“Risks of childhood cancers are linked with parental exposures prior to conception.”

“Leukemia rates are consistently elevated among children who grow up on farms, among children whose parents used pesticides in the home or garden.”

“Female pesticide applicators have a significantly higher risk of ovarian cancer.”

“Phosphate fertilizers accelerate the leaching of arsenic from soils into groundwater.”

“About a quarter of the pesticides used in the United States are for landscaping purposes.”

Really, I could go on and on and on. The report, with a full bibliography, comes in at hundreds of pages and includes specific recommendations in addition to its findings of facts. Among them: “Reducing or ceasing landscaping pesticide and fertilizer use will help keep these chemicals from contaminating drinking water supplies.”

That kind of blunt assessment heading directly to the President is seen as a major comeuppance to the chemical industry.

“You are making progress in the U.S.!” said Kathryn Seely of the Canadian Cancer Society in an email to SafeLawns today.

“The report blames weak laws, lax enforcement and fragmented authority, as well as existing regulatory presumption that chemicals are safe unless strong evidence emerges to the contrary,” wrote Texas radio host John Krauss in a Facebook post. “Of the 80,000 chemicals in the U.S., only a few hundred have been tested for safety. Wonder why we’re all sick?”

The report is likely to make any of us healthier anytime soon. It will take real action on the part of President Obama and the rest of the nation for that to happen. In the meantime, though, this report does make us feel better about the potential of the reforms to come. Take the time to read this report and spread its findings far and wide.