Broadleaf herbicides like 2,4-D and dicamba are sprayed on lawns, parks, and school fields where kids play. Here is the risk and what communities can do.
The same reason persistent aerosolized trails are being laid-down in the sky every day - and have been since the late 1990s. What are we going to do about that?
Trump administration has been rapidly adding allowable pesticides;
Fluorinated herbicides (PFAS);
Diflufenican - Herbicide - Registered 2026
Epyrifenacil - Herbicide - Registered 2026
Trifludimoxazin - Herbicide - Proposed in 2025; registered 2026 for use on food crops, turf
-------------------------------------------------
Glufosinate-P (approved 2025): New active ingredient for use in glufosinate-tolerant and conventional corn, soybean, cotton, canola, and other crops
Dicamba: Not a new active ingredient, but 2026 EPA reapproved dicamba products with loosened restrictions after previous registrations were vacated by federal courts.
Insecticides;
Isocycloseram (approved late 2025): New insecticide for crops such as cotton, potatoes, Brassica vegetables, citrus, and for structural pests including termites, cockroaches, bed bugs
Fungicides / Nematicides
Cyclobutrifluram (approved late 2025): A new fungicide/nematicide for turf, ornamentals, romaine lettuce, cotton, and soybean seed.
Florylpicoxamid (approved in 2025): A broad-spectrum fungicide for turf, food crops and golf courses
True. Here in Northern Maine, Irving rules the world and does aerial spraying of pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides last year, herbicides this year. I live on the edge of the North Woods. For months at a time the planes and choppers fly over, spraying the forest. This is the first year I've experienced total collapse of
"my" hummingbird population. The web of life is intricate and interconnected. Every living creature becomes the canary in the coal mine.
My heart breaks every time I hear of one other assault on our beautiful wild earth. CA, too. Dem senators advocating to spray glyphosate for "wildfire mitigation". We all need to wake up, and stop arguing.
We get HOA letters to treat our yard. It’s all green. Just different grasses. If we ignore it they can fine us. This needs to stop. They need to get rid of HOAs.
The most officious natural petty bureaucrats are attracted to the leadership of those organizations. The people who aren't inclined to act that way aren't drawn to run for the board, but that's what needs to happen. Then strip all that nonsense out of the contract.
Contract revision is a major headache, just fyi. I have done it and it takes years. Fixing their wagons has to be kept as a priority even though it's just a few people on the planet and begins to seem so petty and pointless.
I have yet to see a chemical company declare bankruptcy. They must be held accountable and we need to hear from RFKJ why all these new chemicals have been approved???
I'm writing from Montgomery County, MD, cited in the article as having banned "cosmetic lawn pesticides" (my thanks to the author for having explained exactly what the ban consists of). The result of the ban is that if you veer off Interstate 270 to the office parks in Gaithersburg, the ambient atmosphere no longer smells like the inside of a fertilizer factory. So there's been progress with the big guys. However, these pesticides and herbicides are still sold to homeowners; our local hardware store smells like . . . the inside of a fertilizer factory. Because my immediate neighborhood can be compared to Marin County, Westchester or Martha's Vineyard, politically, it's full of people who vote to ban every chemical invented since distillation was discovered. But that doesn't stop many from working towards their English country garden dreams surreptitiously. A few do it themselves with the help of the local hardware store (legal but hypocritical). Others hire rogue landscapers who sneak around in unmarked trucks with containers of unmarked chemicals (I saw you going along Thornapple Street, buddy). And believe it or not, some eliminate the clover, quackgrass and plantain by periodically ripping up the whole lawn and putting in sod from New Jersey - kind of like America exporting heavy industry to China to avoid the local ecological degradation. We need someone these people admire (Bernie Sanders? Oprah Winfrey?) to make ads extolling the beauty of dandelions and crabgrass, before they find new ammunition in their lawncare war and South Jersey ends up looking like North Jersey.
MoCo hasn't had any herbicide or pesticide referenda. I can't recall it being part of any local candidate's messaging.
You voted for the guy whose admin. just approved a bunch of new pesticides (in my other comment), and actively works against most of your claimed interests. But congratulations, because "DEI" and "girls sports," or something.
Huh? Why are you referring to referenda and candidates when I (and the writer of the article) are talking about existing law, how do you know who I voted for and what "most of [my] claimed interests" are, and what do DEI and "girls sports" have to do with anything?
" ..my immediate neighborhood (is) full of people who vote to ban every chemical invented since distillation was discovered. But that doesn't stop many from working towards their English country garden dreams .."
MoCo also and I know what's been up for vote and at issue. And I can see your profile.
Office parks no longer using "cosmetic lawn pesticides" wouldn't alter that fertilizer smell (unless they paved it all). That stink is from organic fertilizers like compost, manure-based products, and fish meal. These contain proteins and organic nitrogen that break down and release ammonia, amines, and sulfur-containing compounds, producing the characteristic “earthy” or manure-like smell.
Our HOA exerts crazy control over what we homeowners can do with our own properties. So much so, we're considering moving to a more rural area down the road where our yard can consist of wildflowers, river rock, vegetable garden, fruit trees, and abundant 4-B pollinators (bees, birds, butterflies & bats) in lieu of a chemical-ridden 'manicured' lawn.
This article carries so much plain ordinary common sense….with a little bending over and elbow grease, having a safe green lawn is actually quite easy!
Playing fields, parks, kids playgrounds, school yards - all these will not shrivel up and disappear if weeds are there! There is no healthy reward for grass perfection! And there definitely is no reward on earth higher than a healthy life!
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland mentioned in this article. And yes, “some” pesticides/herbicides were banned from use in public places, but all that poison is still on the shelves in big box stores and ignorant residents buy and use it widely. When we first banned it here, there used to be signs next to those products that these chemicals are not allowed to be used in MoCo, but those signs started quickly shrinking and eventually disappeared completely. The poison keeps being sold and sprayed by brainwashed residents in our country. I used to fight with managers about those signs but it appears as if I’m the only one who cares. My beautiful dog Alfie got exposed to lawn chemicals while we were visiting a gated community is Delaware where this poison is being sprayed weekly. He started peeing blood within a week and developed bladder cancer from that poisoning. We fought a whole year trying to save our baby and he died in my arms. I don’t wish this on anyone, but maybe that’s what it will take for those thickheaded people to stop buying this cancer-causing poison and spraying in their environment. A personal heartbreaking experience of losing a pet or a child. Although even then I doubt they will connect the dots. :(
A good alternative is to spray a microbe rich compost extract. We all know by now that the microbes grow the plants, and they get the plants the nutrients they need. Look locally for a soul food web student that can provide locally.
Thank you, well stated. To get to the source of the problem, it would be easy to say it's the manufacturers, but in reality, it's demand - it's us as individuals and collectively wanting the pristine lawn. We've got to address this health danger at both points. If enough of us can outlaw use of these chemicals, that's great and a worthy goal. The harder one is what people want and demand. That's culture, and that's going to be generational, but it is absolutely the more important goal.
The true answer to why are chemicals being sprayed, in my opinion, is: There’s money to be made by big Chem, and they can afford to advertise. Lawn care companies are probably getting some sort of subsidy for using ABC company’s pesticide brew instead of DEF’s mixture.
Having a beautiful lawn is something of a status thing, even though everyone is aware of the lawn care companies doing the work. Rarely is it the homeowner, although that’s very possible. The chemicals are so expensive the homeowner probably is not going to respray every 6 to 8 weeks.
The true cost paid for chemical exposures aren’t known. Unless a person becomes very ill, and in a hospital setting, how is treating to be done? Minor symptoms could be a seasonal allergy to something.
What happens when it rains? Do the chemicals flow with the rain through our wastewater systems, where it is “rehabilitated” into drinking water?
I remember as a child sitting on our lawn and making daisy chains, looking for four-leaf clovers and collecting beautiful nosegays of dandelions for my mama. We were often sprawled on the lawn, playing invented games.
The same reason persistent aerosolized trails are being laid-down in the sky every day - and have been since the late 1990s. What are we going to do about that?
Trump administration has been rapidly adding allowable pesticides;
Fluorinated herbicides (PFAS);
Diflufenican - Herbicide - Registered 2026
Epyrifenacil - Herbicide - Registered 2026
Trifludimoxazin - Herbicide - Proposed in 2025; registered 2026 for use on food crops, turf
-------------------------------------------------
Glufosinate-P (approved 2025): New active ingredient for use in glufosinate-tolerant and conventional corn, soybean, cotton, canola, and other crops
Dicamba: Not a new active ingredient, but 2026 EPA reapproved dicamba products with loosened restrictions after previous registrations were vacated by federal courts.
Insecticides;
Isocycloseram (approved late 2025): New insecticide for crops such as cotton, potatoes, Brassica vegetables, citrus, and for structural pests including termites, cockroaches, bed bugs
Fungicides / Nematicides
Cyclobutrifluram (approved late 2025): A new fungicide/nematicide for turf, ornamentals, romaine lettuce, cotton, and soybean seed.
Florylpicoxamid (approved in 2025): A broad-spectrum fungicide for turf, food crops and golf courses
--------------------------------------
How many new restrictions? Zero.
This is not a left or right issue, as much as you'd like to make it one. This is a 'who rules the world' issue.
True. Here in Northern Maine, Irving rules the world and does aerial spraying of pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides last year, herbicides this year. I live on the edge of the North Woods. For months at a time the planes and choppers fly over, spraying the forest. This is the first year I've experienced total collapse of
"my" hummingbird population. The web of life is intricate and interconnected. Every living creature becomes the canary in the coal mine.
My heart breaks every time I hear of one other assault on our beautiful wild earth. CA, too. Dem senators advocating to spray glyphosate for "wildfire mitigation". We all need to wake up, and stop arguing.
Is Irving a foreign corporation? If so, how can they get away with spraying in the USA?
Irving is Canadian owned, and owns many thousands of acres of forest lands in northern Maine.
Wonder if Trump uses all these on his golf courses...maybe thats why he's off his rocker!
I thought this was about toxic things in the environment? Not a TDS fest.
Dianne was pointing out hypocrisy - and fooling constituents.
We get HOA letters to treat our yard. It’s all green. Just different grasses. If we ignore it they can fine us. This needs to stop. They need to get rid of HOAs.
Pretty sure HOAs cannot mandate chemical yard treatments. “Well manicured,” perhaps. What state, and what wording?
The neighbor across the street had a Lein on her house for ignoring. GA
But what specifically is mandated by the HOA?
reply by a certain date
Courtesy Notice. Please treat your lawn
The most officious natural petty bureaucrats are attracted to the leadership of those organizations. The people who aren't inclined to act that way aren't drawn to run for the board, but that's what needs to happen. Then strip all that nonsense out of the contract.
Contract revision is a major headache, just fyi. I have done it and it takes years. Fixing their wagons has to be kept as a priority even though it's just a few people on the planet and begins to seem so petty and pointless.
HOA's have become mafia like in the coercion they use
Fight back!
https://www.zazzle.com/poisoning_them_is_poisoning_me_message_sign-256108264986171740
The most damaging practice to health on Earth. Nothing justifies these sprays.
I have yet to see a chemical company declare bankruptcy. They must be held accountable and we need to hear from RFKJ why all these new chemicals have been approved???
Just in the last 20 years, severa huge ones - W.R. Grace & Co., Lyondell Chemical Company, Chemtura Corporation, Hexion Inc.,
Also, M&G Chemicals, Reichold Holdings, North American Royalties Inc, and others.
It's fucking POISON!!!! What part of POISON DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND??? POISON ONE POISONS ALL!!!
I'm writing from Montgomery County, MD, cited in the article as having banned "cosmetic lawn pesticides" (my thanks to the author for having explained exactly what the ban consists of). The result of the ban is that if you veer off Interstate 270 to the office parks in Gaithersburg, the ambient atmosphere no longer smells like the inside of a fertilizer factory. So there's been progress with the big guys. However, these pesticides and herbicides are still sold to homeowners; our local hardware store smells like . . . the inside of a fertilizer factory. Because my immediate neighborhood can be compared to Marin County, Westchester or Martha's Vineyard, politically, it's full of people who vote to ban every chemical invented since distillation was discovered. But that doesn't stop many from working towards their English country garden dreams surreptitiously. A few do it themselves with the help of the local hardware store (legal but hypocritical). Others hire rogue landscapers who sneak around in unmarked trucks with containers of unmarked chemicals (I saw you going along Thornapple Street, buddy). And believe it or not, some eliminate the clover, quackgrass and plantain by periodically ripping up the whole lawn and putting in sod from New Jersey - kind of like America exporting heavy industry to China to avoid the local ecological degradation. We need someone these people admire (Bernie Sanders? Oprah Winfrey?) to make ads extolling the beauty of dandelions and crabgrass, before they find new ammunition in their lawncare war and South Jersey ends up looking like North Jersey.
MoCo hasn't had any herbicide or pesticide referenda. I can't recall it being part of any local candidate's messaging.
You voted for the guy whose admin. just approved a bunch of new pesticides (in my other comment), and actively works against most of your claimed interests. But congratulations, because "DEI" and "girls sports," or something.
Huh? Why are you referring to referenda and candidates when I (and the writer of the article) are talking about existing law, how do you know who I voted for and what "most of [my] claimed interests" are, and what do DEI and "girls sports" have to do with anything?
" ..my immediate neighborhood (is) full of people who vote to ban every chemical invented since distillation was discovered. But that doesn't stop many from working towards their English country garden dreams .."
MoCo also and I know what's been up for vote and at issue. And I can see your profile.
Office parks no longer using "cosmetic lawn pesticides" wouldn't alter that fertilizer smell (unless they paved it all). That stink is from organic fertilizers like compost, manure-based products, and fish meal. These contain proteins and organic nitrogen that break down and release ammonia, amines, and sulfur-containing compounds, producing the characteristic “earthy” or manure-like smell.
The only ways HOAS will be banned is for ppl to BOYCOTT HOA MANAGED PROPERTIES!
Our HOA exerts crazy control over what we homeowners can do with our own properties. So much so, we're considering moving to a more rural area down the road where our yard can consist of wildflowers, river rock, vegetable garden, fruit trees, and abundant 4-B pollinators (bees, birds, butterflies & bats) in lieu of a chemical-ridden 'manicured' lawn.
This article carries so much plain ordinary common sense….with a little bending over and elbow grease, having a safe green lawn is actually quite easy!
Playing fields, parks, kids playgrounds, school yards - all these will not shrivel up and disappear if weeds are there! There is no healthy reward for grass perfection! And there definitely is no reward on earth higher than a healthy life!
Amen!
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland mentioned in this article. And yes, “some” pesticides/herbicides were banned from use in public places, but all that poison is still on the shelves in big box stores and ignorant residents buy and use it widely. When we first banned it here, there used to be signs next to those products that these chemicals are not allowed to be used in MoCo, but those signs started quickly shrinking and eventually disappeared completely. The poison keeps being sold and sprayed by brainwashed residents in our country. I used to fight with managers about those signs but it appears as if I’m the only one who cares. My beautiful dog Alfie got exposed to lawn chemicals while we were visiting a gated community is Delaware where this poison is being sprayed weekly. He started peeing blood within a week and developed bladder cancer from that poisoning. We fought a whole year trying to save our baby and he died in my arms. I don’t wish this on anyone, but maybe that’s what it will take for those thickheaded people to stop buying this cancer-causing poison and spraying in their environment. A personal heartbreaking experience of losing a pet or a child. Although even then I doubt they will connect the dots. :(
A good alternative is to spray a microbe rich compost extract. We all know by now that the microbes grow the plants, and they get the plants the nutrients they need. Look locally for a soul food web student that can provide locally.
Thank you, well stated. To get to the source of the problem, it would be easy to say it's the manufacturers, but in reality, it's demand - it's us as individuals and collectively wanting the pristine lawn. We've got to address this health danger at both points. If enough of us can outlaw use of these chemicals, that's great and a worthy goal. The harder one is what people want and demand. That's culture, and that's going to be generational, but it is absolutely the more important goal.
Just BLOWN away in 2026 these are all still ALLOWED and so many could care less as long as they don't see a weed in the perfect LAWN.
Hear, hear to every word. Thank you, Ms. Sapola.
Fight back!
https://www.zazzle.com/pesticide_warning_flag_sign-256336590022213816
The true answer to why are chemicals being sprayed, in my opinion, is: There’s money to be made by big Chem, and they can afford to advertise. Lawn care companies are probably getting some sort of subsidy for using ABC company’s pesticide brew instead of DEF’s mixture.
Having a beautiful lawn is something of a status thing, even though everyone is aware of the lawn care companies doing the work. Rarely is it the homeowner, although that’s very possible. The chemicals are so expensive the homeowner probably is not going to respray every 6 to 8 weeks.
The true cost paid for chemical exposures aren’t known. Unless a person becomes very ill, and in a hospital setting, how is treating to be done? Minor symptoms could be a seasonal allergy to something.
What happens when it rains? Do the chemicals flow with the rain through our wastewater systems, where it is “rehabilitated” into drinking water?
I remember as a child sitting on our lawn and making daisy chains, looking for four-leaf clovers and collecting beautiful nosegays of dandelions for my mama. We were often sprawled on the lawn, playing invented games.
Those days, like that safe lawn, are gone.
You don't even understand what "chemicals" are... here's a helpful introduction:
https://thescamdoctor.substack.com/p/you-have-no-idea-whats-toxic-how?r=6hgshq
Fight back!
https://www.zazzle.com/don_t_spray_where_they_play_yard_sign-256056098228434493