Dear City Council: I hope that all of you and your families are well during this challenging time. Herbicides (including RoundUp) on landscaped areas have been banned in Menlo Park since 2017 with a moratorium on herbicides on public fields since 2019. However, the reintroduction of herbicides, both in landscaped areas and on fields, is up for budgetary consideration on Tuesday. This proposal is incongruent with the most updated information provided to the City of Menlo Park by the City of Palo Alto in the summer of 2019. Reintroducing herbicides is a more expensive option that will only weaken public health: 1) According to the City of Palo Alto Open Space Department, prioritizing manual weed removal over regular herbicide applications is the most efficient and cost-effective method for controlling weeds on fields. If our civic neighbors have done this successfully for years, so can we. Details below. 2) Redeploying herbicides will weaken our immune systems during COVID. Pesticides/herbicides disregulate human immune systems, especially those in young children, making all of us more susceptible to COVID and COVID morbidity. Scientific references below. How Does Palo Alto Keep Herbicides Off Fields While Saving Money? In Summer 2019, in an effort to formalize Menlo Park’s moratorium, I connected Daren Anderson, Division Manager, Open Space at the City of Palo Alto, with staff from the City of Menlo Park. During this conference call, Palo Alto staff explained how it has cost efficiently managed weeds on public fields without herbicides for the last few years. The key to making this work in Palo Alto is increased weed tolerance in exchange for an increase in the public health. This is a tradeoff worth making, especially right now: we can accept fields and landscaped areas that look less “perfect” in exchange for the elimination of toxic chemicals where children play. Spending precious funds to buy and deploy herbicides is counterproductive; if we want to reduce budgets, we can follow the City of Palo Alto’s lead and find creative ways that work like weeding less often or less thoroughly and/or prioritizing some weed species removal over other species. We can leverage the technical expertise of Palo Alto; we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. In doing so, we save money and keep our community healthier. Win Win. Herbicides Weaken Human Immune Systems and Increase COVID Risk, Especially in Children (documented in reputable scientific literature) - Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4947579/ - Source: https://www.wri.org/publication/pesticides-and-immune-system (Note that Advisory Panel included Donald Kennedy, PhD; Former Bing Professor of Environmental Sciences at Stanford University; Former Head of FDA and President Emeritus, Stanford University.) - Source: https://www.ehn.org/chemical-exposure-coronavirus-2645785581.html Please do not allow the reintroduction of herbicides in our public spaces. There are ways to create greater savings in park maintenance while preserving public health; both notions are especially critical during COVID. Thank you for your service to our city during this difficult time. Sincerely, Angela Evans, Menlo Park resident Received on Sun May 17 2020 - 10:24:38 PDT
