One of the advantages to living in Shorewood is our proximity to UWM. This is self-evident, so I won't try to elaborate! There's also a downside to living near the university: when UWM sprays, the whole neighborhood is forced to inhale!
Last Saturday the fumes were so strong I felt nauseous when I tried to bike past, yet people sat in the TruGreen grass right next to the little white signs. They clearly felt that the university sets an example and practices safe lawn care. I called John Krezoski in the Safety and Assurances Dept at UWM (414.229-5265) and left him a message expressing my disappointment.
I'd been told he's the person to call since this is a safety issue. It IS definitely a safety issue, especially when the fumes are sickening and the lawn care company is TruGreen. One place out of many to get additional info on TruGreen is on the Refuse To Use Chemlawn web site.
The university is worried about people who don't like dandelions. This seems strange to me since Warren Porter, one of the country's top researchers into the effects of pesticides, works at UW-Madison. Here's a quote from his web site: "Subtle Biological Effects of Environmental Contaminants: We have serious concerns about children exposed to low level pesticide mixtures from lawns and in the food, water, and air that passes through their bodies. Children do not have defensive enzymes at levels present in sexually mature adults. Our 2002 paper showed that a common lawn chemical pesticide mixture can induce abortions and resorptions of fetuses at very low parts per billion concentrations. The greatest effect was at the lowest dose. Thanks to Richard Dwelle and Dr. James Jaeger, we have an extraordinarily sensitive new means of measuring mouse learning abilities at many levels. We are currently conducting long term studies to explore the effects of subtle low level pesticide mixture exposures on learning abilities, immune function, hormone levels, and developmental disorders."
Perhaps UW-Milwaukee could use some of the research findings from UW-Madison to educate the public here in Milwaukee.
