To: Javier Gonzalez, Mayor, City of Santa Fe
Tell the City of Santa Fe: Parks Are for People, Not Poisons
We, the undersigned, add our voice to the list of citizens who are concerned about the health and safety of Santa Fe and who urge the City to continue to abide by the spirit and letter of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Ordinance.
Why is this important?
From the Santa Fe Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (SF CAP):
Ever since the City of Santa Fe passed an integrated pest management (IPM) ordinance in 2001, city parks, streets, and buildings have been as free as possible from pesticide applications. What a joy it has been to know you can take your children and pets there without fear of being exposed to poisons. And know that bees and wildlife are not being harmed.
But that is about to change. The current IPM coordinator and Parks Division Director have breached our existing IPM ordinance, and are no longer committed to the no pesticide policy. They have already sprayed Rufina Street with glyphosate (active ingredient in Roundup), a known cancer-causing chemical. They have also begun regular monthly pesticide spraying of the golf shop buildings, and made at least two applications of herbicides for weed prevention. All these actions violate the IPM ordinance, and future applications are surely to follow, since the IPM coordinator said if he couldn’t use pesticides, he'd “better get another job”.
The City had it right when it stated in the IPM Ordinance that “(t)he city, in carrying out its operations, shall assume pesticides are potentially hazardous to human and environmental health.”