Answer Iowa City parents’ questions about chemical use

At the June 9 Iowa City Community School District's board meeting I addressed concerns with the board about the district's herbicide policy. The district is spending tens of thousands of dollars on fertilizer, fungicides and herbicides from a Des Moines-based firm. We, the taxpayers, are not told what kinds of fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides these are.

This is not the first time I've brought these issues up. District records and videos show that on April 28 and on May 12 I brought these same issues up before the board. In fact, board meeting notes reflect that I urged the board to pull the accounts payable from the consent agenda for further discussion.

The meeting minutes show that the district paid a Des Moines-based firm for fertilizer and for a district employee to get pesticide certification. Of course, the more fertilizer you use, the more you need to mow. For that reason, we need to know where the district is using excessive fertilizer.

Also at the May 12 meeting, I asked whether in-house ground maintenance is saving us money. On May 12, we found out that the district paid district employees to be certified and licensed as commercial applicators. We weren't told how many, but we see at least one.

On May 26 I urged the board to pull from accounts payable payments for fertilizer and grass seed from a Des Moines-based firm. I inquired whether the fertilizer was creating more work and what herbicides are being used and where, and whether the materials can be bought locally.

At the June 9 meeting, I asked that the board to pull payments from accounts payable, because they spent $3,681 on herbicides, liquid-dilution fertilizer, fungicide and more herbicide. I asked the board again to (1) explain district herbicide policy, (2) state which herbicides they are using, (3) state whether MSDS sheets are available at district schools for viewing, which they should be because they're required by law, (4) state when and where is the district spraying chemicals on school grounds, (5) state whether schools are told before the application of chemicals to school grounds, and (6) state whether signs are posted after chemicals are sprayed on school grounds to warn the public.

Commercial applicators are supposed to post signs for at least 24 hours when chemicals have been applied to a private lawn. This is best practice. Everyone should be warned as to what chemicals have been applied and when. We should know when it will be safe to get back on school district grounds after the application of chemicals to areas where children will be sitting or playing. I'm sure staff, volunteers, and parents would also like to know when it is safe to be outside on school grounds.

The school district has an 807 policy, an integrated pest management policy, which requires them to come up with a best practice policy that will do the least harm to people to correct the pest identified. It seems the pest identified so far as the district is concerned is grass, which we're also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on to establish, maintain and preserve. So why are we also spraying herbicide on it? It seems to me to be the least harmful way to correct grass around trees is mulching and trimming instead of spraying herbicides to kill the grass.

I took a CD-ROM to that board meeting of photos and spoke to the board president and another board member urging them to show what spraying has done to school grounds at Shimek and Hills Elementary Schools. At Hills, spraying had been done near the strawberry patch and on the potato patch. I have photo evidence of that.

At Shimek it's just unbelievable what's been done. The reading tree outside is a beautiful, idyllic place to read. They sprayed a monster ring of herbicide around the tree and killed the grass. It's anything but inviting and made the reading tree really unsightly. The board and the district have yet to answer questions about indiscriminate spraying.

On June 9, a former administrator brought up the same issues, and was ignored. Many community commenters spoke up and they were ignored. The only action board members took was to move any discussions on the issue to committee, which means it's still not on the board agenda.

All it would have taken at that meeting was for a board member to ask the school district's operational director about the district's herbicide policy and allow him to tell the public what the policy is and whether the policy has changed from the past, and then ask the physical plant director which chemicals we're using and when, and are you posting signs?

The board member could have told the public and then we'd be done. We were told what's been going on. If one individual raises these comments at four meetings and then at the fourth meeting several other community members raise the same concerns, you'd think there'd be a little more expedient search for the answers.

' Phil Hemingway is an Iowa City Community School Board candidate and owner/manager of Phil's Repair. Comments: phil@philsrepairllc.com