Audit finds flaws in city’s pesticide policy
An audit coming before Edmonton’s audit committee on Monday found deficiencies in the city’s pesticide policy and its communication.
While the audit found that the City of Edmonton is “substantially” following the principles of the integrated pest management policy and regulations for the application of pesticides, it did uncover a few examples of weakness in documentation, deficiencies in public reporting and one example of the city spraying a pesticide past its registration expiry date.
“Citizens would have concerns both around their health and their family’s health and the environment,” city auditor David Wiun said.
In 2016, city officials used 4,000 kilograms of 48 active pesticide ingredients to control unwelcome insects, weeds, rodents and fungi.
The top five active ingredients — sodium hypochlorite, Bti, 2, 4-D amine, glyphosate and chlorothalonil — accounted for 91 per cent of the pesticides used by the city, while 43 other ingredients made up nine per cent.
Edmonton’s pesticide policy calls for preventive and non-chemical pest management strategies to be considered first before applying the least-toxic approved pesticide.
However, the audit found the city policy doesn’t define what the least-toxic approved pesticide means or how it is chosen.
“It really doesn’t provide much of a destination on what exactly that means,” said Ryan Pleckaitis, acting manager with community standards. “Least toxic to what? To animals? To humans? To the environment?”
Correcting deficiencies in documentation is “an easy fix,” Pleckaitis said.
The city will look at using GPS to be more accurate with where spraying occurs and to have that data available.
The city still has Dursban — an insecticide used on larval and adult mosquitoes — within its warehouse, but has switched primarily to Bti. Pleckaitis said they keep the pesticide around in case of an emergency such as in the case of West Nile or Zika virus.
He said in the last two seasons, the city has not used Dursban. Ten years ago, the city used about 1,000 kilograms of Dursban, with the active ingredient of chlorpyrifos. In 2017, the city used 3.5 kilograms of Pyrate (another insecticide that uses chlorpyrifos as its active ingredient).
Pyrate is a spray and Bti is in a pellet form.
Pleckaitis said the city limits the use of chlorpyrifos to areas of heavy vegetation and remote areas.
Sheryl McCumsey of Pesticide Free Alberta agreed the city’s policy needs reviewing, but it missed that Dursban has been replaced with another insecticide, Pyrate, that also uses chlorpyrifos, despite only one known case of West Nile virus in Edmonton that was reported in 2013.
“Why have they deliberately said they ’re not spraying Dursban, but they’re spraying Pyrate?” she asked. “That’s like saying, ‘I’m not taking Tylenol, I’m going to take Excedrin’, which is the same thing. People have been misinformed by this department repeatedly in so many ways.”
She said chlorpyrifos shouldn’t be sprayed at all, citing a letter from Dr. Meriel Watts, whose doctorate is in pesticide risk assessment and policy.
McCumsey said the city continues to use pesticides that have not been properly evaluated, as well as improperly using chemicals that are known neurotoxins.
“Industry provides the science used to register products and there are several other serious holes in how this is not a reliable way to determine acceptable risk to the public,” she said.