Here is the link: http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/195601/herbicide_spurs_reproductive_problems_in_many_animals:_research.html

For further evidence, turn to Highland Park, Ill., where 25 emails and 600-plus signatures on a petition caught the attention of local officials who ultimately delayed a plan to spray public parks with synthetic weed killers: http://highlandpark.suntimes.com/news/7810266-418/park-district-backs-off-pesticide-use.html.

The issue in the community was that, after voting to go “organic” on the parks three years ago, the fields started producing more dandelions and other “weeds” than folks wanted to see. The only alternative, the leaders concluded, was to resort to pesticides. The planned reversion was trumpeted internationally as a rare victory for the chemical industry in this anti-pesticide movement that is sweeping North America.

The shills for the chemical industry say, “See, organics doesn’t work.”

The real answer, always, is that the local folks probably don’t know how organics work. You can’t just dump on organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer, do nothing else, and expect weeds NOT to grow. The presence of weeds indicates that the soil wants to grow weeds and should tell the grounds crew that additional soil amendments are needed to help keep the population under control.

It’s simple, in other words . . . but it’s not. Organic landscape control does require some thinking, some evaluation and, in some cases, some work. Some municipalities I’ve seen even with limited budgets even have community weed-pulling days, either for lawn weeds or for tougher exotic invasive weeds that are filling our roadsides across North America.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of solutions for dealing with weeds without the toxins.

Congratulations to Highland Park for taking the right first step.

Folks there have called us to say the organic battle has certainly not been won, but with this kind of resolve human and environmental safety at least has a fighting chance of succeeding.

Blaming bad weather, the leader of the world’s largest lawn chemical company announced this morning that Scotts Miracle-Gro earnings slipped 37 percent from May through July.

The value of the publicly traded company has likewise plummeted during that same period, from a high of $60.62 per share on May 10 of this year, to $40.41 as yesterday’s close. The company lost nearly 12 percent of its value in Monday’s historic market collapse.

“Through mid-March, consumer purchases of our products in the U.S. were up 13 percent, but then the situation changed dramatically,” said CEO Jim Hagedorn in a widely circulated release. “The challenges we saw from weather this year are unparalleled during my life-long tenure in this industry.”

Company insiders hope that fall sales of grass seed, for lawns that have suffered in droughts, will help the struggling company rebound to some degree. Given that it’s only early August and the company’s strongest cash period — weed ’n feed season in March-May is at least seven months away — many expect more changes.

“The mood here is dour . . . waiting for the next shoe to drop,” said my colleague.

Scotts Miracle-Gro sold off its commercial division to Israel Chemicals Ltd. for a reported $270 million in cash in March, saying at the time that it wanted to focus on the consumer market. Since then, however, the company has lost more than that amount in its market capitalization due to the drop in its stock price. Today’s poor earnings report certainly won’t help, just as the company prepares for next week’s all-important Independent Garden Center trade show on Navy Pier in Chicago. That’s where many retailers, already suspicious of Scotts and Hagedorn, will make their purchasing decisions for 2012.

Scotts has also ruffled its share of feathers by gaining preliminary approval from the federal government to sell genetically modified bluegrass lawn seed, and also for Jim Hagedorn’s statement that the company plans to go after the marijuana market in a big way. Environmentalists loathe the first move, while the conservative Bible belt regions that blanket Miracle Gro by the tons won’t be keen on supporting a company that champions growing pot.

WHAT THIS COULD MEAN
Scotts has survived stock storms and bad weather before and it will, undoubtedly, again. In recent years, after the EPA came down on the company for mislabeling pesticide products, the stock dropped into the $13 range for a brief period, before rebounding.
No one knows where the bottom of the recent market plunge will be found — for Scotts or anyone for that matter — but it’s unlikely that Scotts will completely tank due to its brand recognition pre-eminence.

Still, the latest financial turn of events does appear to create openings for the organic lawn care sector. Scotts invested heavily last year in Whitney Farms, its organic division. But that hasn’t taken off anywhere near the rate the company had hoped. Espoma and others with a proven track record in organics are still holding their market share according to numerous reports.

Add in the reality that organically tended properties will withstand drought far better than chemically treated counterparts — and that droughts are a now way of life — and it paints a favorable picture for the future of an organic lawn care industry outside of the Scotts headquarters in Marysville, Ohio.

“We’ve got some very, very tough decisions to make,” said my colleague at Scotts. “The commodity market and fuel prices are out of control. Consumer perception in the lawn care space is shifting rapidly and we’re kind of stuck in no-man’s land. We’re chained to the high-profit chemical products, but we can definitely see the future, too. How do we change (toward organic products) and keep delivering dividends to shareholders? It’s a scary challenge.”

The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Building, MC 1101A 1200
Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington DC 20004

Dear Administrator Jackson:

(FROM) National Honey Bee Advisory Board; American Beekeeping Federation; American Honey Producers Association; Beyond Pesticides; Pesticide Action Network North America; Center for Biological Diversity

In light of new revelations by your agency in a November 2, 2010 memorandum that a core registration study for the insecticide clothianidin has been downgraded to unacceptable for purposes of registration, we are writing to request that you take urgent action to stop the use of this toxic chemical. Clothianidin is a widely used pesticide linked to a severe and dangerous decline in pollinator populations. As we are sure you appreciate, the failure of the agency to provide adequate protection for pollinators under its pesticide registration program creates an emergency with imminent hazards: Food production, public health and the environment are all seriously threatened, and the collapse of the commercial honeybee-keeping industry would result in economic harm of the highest magnitude for U.S. agriculture.

The debate on clothianidin and the neonicotinoid pesticides is not new to the agency, but the recognition of the past failure of the Office of Pesticide Program’s (OPP) 2007 scientific review, now acknowledged, requires immediate action to stop use while new studies are conducted. We refer you to the memorandum entitled “Clothianidin Registration of Prosper T400 Seed Treatment on Mustard Seed and Poncho/Votivo Seed Treatment on Cotton,” November 2, 2010 (see pp. 2, 4). The science that the agency has, and the independent literature find that clothianidin-contaminated pollen and nectar presents an imminent hazard. Because the hazards to honeybee health are present within registered use parameters, it is clear that label changes alone will not offer adequate protection. The issue is not one of application error, in other words. We therefore urge the agency to issue a stop use order immediately. Our nation cannot afford, and the environment cannot tolerate another growing season of clothianindin use.

In addition, because this problem reflects an overuse of the conditional registration program in OPP, we urge you to set an immediate moratorium on the use of such registrations until the program is fully evaluated for compliance with its underlying statutory responsibilities. The conditional registration of clothianidin in 2003 with outstanding data critical to its safety assessment represents a failure that could and should have been avoided. Clearly, the impacts on pollinators were not adequately evaluated prior to the issuance of the conditional registration, despite knowledge of “chronic toxic risk to honey bee larvae and the eventual instability of the hive.” This is the case with pollinator protection and a host of other issues that have direct bearing on environmental protection and public health.

In redoing the clothianidin study and evaluating the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder and the larger issue of the pollinator decline crisis, we urge you to establish protocol that fully assesses the complexities that come together to threaten the honeybees. To be fully protective of bees, reviews must consider multiple chemical and cumulative exposures, persistence, and synergistic effects. We can no longer rely on studies of individual chemicals in isolation.

Thank you for your attention to the pollinator crisis and efforts to stem the tide of contamination and poisoning. We look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

National Honey Bee Advisory Board

Steve Ellis, Secretary

American Honey Producers Association

Kenneth Haff, President

Pesticide Action Network North America

Heather Pilatic, Co-Director

American Beekeeping Federation

David Mendes, President

Beyond Pesticides

Jay Feldman, Executive Director

Center for Biological Diversity

Justin Augustine, Staff Attorney

cc Steve Owens, Assistant Administrator, Office of Steven Bradbury, Director, Office of Pesticide Programs Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention

In a move that enraged environmentalists, the state of California moved to allow the controversial pesticide methyl iodide to be used on strawberry fields. Here is a synopsis from Beyond Pesticides: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=4600. Here is an op-ed from the Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/04/3231811/inexplicably-state-approves-new.html#ixzz179Hk4ZNe.