By Jessica Lepp

Minimal impact to operations after expansion of pesticide ban

Dec 16, 2015 | 3:27 PM

KAMLOOPS — The city’s Parks and Recreation Department is confident there will be minimal impact to operations after council expanded its pesticide ban to include municipal land.

At Tuesdays council meeting 30-thousand extra dollars was approved for the parks department so that staff can maintain standards by using alternative options to cosmetic pesticides.

Shawn Cook is the city’s Parks Operation Supervisor. He says “for us in our city’s perspective in the parks department, we’re going to use alternative pesticides and more hand removal for weeds in our shrubs and landscape areas. It will have some effect for us in operations and council agree upon a minimal increase in operations to keep up our standards”.

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Cook says over the past 15 years, the city has worked to significantly reduce its pesticide use and doesn’t expect the bylaw to make a huge impact. However the new motion does not include sports field. City staff can still use cosmetic pesticides but only in a last resort situation.

“If we get to a point where we’ve lost a sports field due to weeds, cosmetic pesticides would be used as a last resort. We do mowing, fertilizing, aerating, all those cultural things that council and the public has supported us with”.