Green Bay considers pesticide policy as concerns rise over pollutants in Fox, East rivers
Natalie Eilbert
The smell of RoundUp is in the air again.
As summer fun abounds, it's hard to resist the temptation of keeping a manicured Kelly-green lawn, beds of perky flowers and well-kept shrubs. And city buildings across Green Bay would be considered an eyesore if left to become overgrown with blossoms, weeds and unruly hedges.
But conservationists and environmentalists in Brown County and surrounding areas have been thinking about policies and educational programs to preserve the expensive, 12-year cleanup of the Fox River, and many are looking toward regulating pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other chemical-rich agriculture products that have long devastated natural ecosystems.
For Green Bay’s Sustainability Commission, it’s a topic the members posed at their most recent meeting and, while in the early stages of discussion, a policy is "long overdue," said City Council member Randy Scannell, who sits on the commission.
Ned Dorff, the vice chair of the Sustainability Commission, has been concerned about the chemical runoff into the water system from lawns and fields across the city.
“We were looking as a commission (and asking) what can we do as a city at the municipal level to make sure we’re not contributing to this problem,” Dorff said.
What is the problem, exactly? According to a 2016 report from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, phosphorus, a chemical commonly found in fertilizers (also called P fertilizer) ranging from manure to familiar brand names, devastated the East River watershed, adding 26,086 pounds per year to the water. Its toxic presence is a known cause of harmful algae blooms and deoxygenation, a major culprit in mass fish deaths.
Mike Mushinski, Brown County's conservationist, explained that phosphorus hitches a ride with sediment runoff when it enters water systems. Sediments like clay “move in suspension” without settling to the river floors, which interferes with spawning sites for fish as clumps lumber across the East and Fox rivers and into the bay.
Meanwhile, phosphorus causes algae growth.
“The algae grows and then dies and then falls, which creates those no-oxygen zones, dead zones in the bay as the algae decomposes,” Mushinski said. “They’re both detrimental in the rivers and streams of the East and Fox.”
Glyphosate, the chemical commercialized as RoundUp, also contains small amounts of phosphorus. Over the course of two decades, the application of glyphosate has increased 15-fold on a global scale, according to a 2019 study from McGill University, which noted the small amount of phosphorus "starts to add up."
There's also the problem of flooding. Blake Neumann is the East River Resiliency Collaborative fellow with The Nature Conservancy and focuses mainly on green infrastructure projects to improve water quality, flood storage, ecosystem function and habitat restoration.
"Soil health practices could have really positive outcomes for holding sediment in place and reduce the need for herbicide and pesticide applications," Neumann said.
He emphasized, however, the need for equity when it comes to local farmers' rights and quality of life.
"We don't want the bottom line that farmers be impacted. We don't want to hold their feet to the fire," he said. "We recognize that they're going to be part of the solution."
Compounding the complexity, however, is that chemical runoff into Green Bay’s waters is inevitable, despite Wisconsin DNR’s target goal of reaching phosphorus levels of only 4,200 pounds per year.
City of Green Bay pesticide use targets invasive species
Green Bay's Parks, Recreation and Forestry department injects the insecticides TreeAzin and imidacloprid into the trunks and nearby soils of ash trees as an annual treatment to exterminate the invasive species emerald ash borer, said Dan Ditscheit, department director. The same trunk treatments are applied to gypsy moths on a more cyclical basis.
Invasive species devastate ecosystems far more than these infrequent treatments do.
“Other than root injections, we don’t have a need for pesticides or fungicides as far as trees go, because we don’t have any orchard trees or anything that would need them,” Ditscheit said.
On the other hand, the department's parks division maintains Green Bay’s plant beds with the use of RoundUp, and turf with the use of fertilizers.
“We use (RoundUp) in areas along fences, maybe cracks in the pavement, and just a few areas here and there," Ditscheit said. "What that does is it minimizes the amount of staff time we have to use for weed whacking around those locations.”
But with other invasive species like buckthorn, which requires a similar trunk treatment to that of ash trees, RoundUp must be used to ostensibly nip these noxious growths in the bud. Still, Ditscheit said he and his staff use caution when deploying the chemical.
“Our staff does use best management practices when using the chemicals. We follow the industry standards and the recommendations by the product manufacturer," he said. "We are all trained and skilled on application methods.”
And while the department and city contractors use fertilizers to manage the parks and athletics fields, they are, as Ditscheit calls them, “phosphorless.” Over the years, they have drastically reduced the application of fertilizers with multiple treatments per year.
Still, environmentalists want the city to serve as a stronger example to residents of Green Bay. Scannell, one of the founders of the Sustainability Commission, acknowledges that the city has cut back on pesticides but sees a dearth of education around chemicals and the environment. He wants that to change.
“We should ask ourselves how can we cut back on usage? What can we do instead? And what do we need to change our mind on? Maybe you do have a lawn full of dandelions. Is that really the end of the world?” Scannell said.
In lieu of a policy, Scannell proposes opportunities for coordinating education efforts at both the university and local school levels. He thinks that biology classes and environmental outreach classes can jumpstart “good green practices” that can be incorporated into people’s daily lives.
Dorff, the vice chair of the Sustainability Commission, thinks the city can serve as an example for citizens around Green Bay and beyond. As the city wises up to the importance of pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies, it's working to broaden its relationship to the ecosystems we not only share but of which we are a significant part, he said.
"We know that chemical spray affects (pollinators), which affects our bird population because they eat the bugs on those plants," Dorff said. "We know we have rivers and a bay that we need to take care of. So we're going to try to reduce the amount of chemical runoff that comes from city operations."
Meantime, Neumann explained, The Nature Conservancy is working with multiple municipalities across the East River watershed to learn about hazards they're experiencing, for the purposes of setting up priorities for short- and long-term goals that includes cleaner water systems and mitigating flooding.
"If this project goes into a secondary planning phase, what are going to be the low-hanging fruit that communities can accomplish right now and, further down the road, what are going to be the priorities potentially shared across different communities so that we can combine resources in a way that's more efficient?" Neumann said.
Green Bay residents may play a role in improving water and land
While the city of Green Bay doesn't use P fertilizers and applies pesticides and herbicides with spot treatments and regulated use, any resident can still go to their local home and garden shops for any number of those products.
Despite state regulations dictating that "no persons may use pesticides contrary to label directions or for unlabeled purposes," these chemicals run the risk of entering waterways if there isn't proper education on how the pollutants spread.
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection also prohibits the use of atrazine, the second-most common herbicide next to glyphosate, in scattered areas across Brown County such as in sections of Wrightstown, Denmark, Morrison, Glenmore and Holland. But beyond those pockets, even this dangerous synthetic toxin can be used in most municipalities across Brown County.
Brown County Board member Amanda Chu sits on the Land Conservation Sub Committee, and worries about the quality of the East River, a few blocks from where she lives. Her sub committee focuses on the "ag zone" of the East River, making sure there are healthy buffers in place to block runoff of particulates and nutrients.
But she's also concerned about what her team can't monitor.
"There's a whole section of the East River that abuts private homeowners, homeowners who can and do use herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, all the way up," Chu said.
And it's not limited to Green Bay. The river crosses through multiple municipalities.
Scannell thinks that, along with the dearth of education programs, there needs to be a reckoning when it comes to residential behavior. While it might be hard to persuade a homeowner to forgo their trim and perfectly arranged yards, Scannell nonetheless thinks residents should grow their awareness around how they spray chemicals and lay down fertilizer.
"We just had the big river cleanup, ECPs (Emergency Conservation Programs). There's a lot going on with farmland runoff, a lot being done for that already. But no one's talked about residential. We're a big factor," Scannell said.
But if it sounds accusatory, that's only because Scannell also believes in the power of mutual respect when it comes to caring for the local environment.
"Other people's land affects you. Your land affects other people's. This is what (chemicals) do, they pollute the environment." he said. "We want to be able to keep Bay Beach swimmable, and I think people are willing to commit to being good neighbors like this."
Some believe that having a Green Bay policy in place might help this idea of good faith along. Dorff has been looking at other pesticide ordinances and likes the comprehensive ordinance out of Portland, Maine. It shares roughly the same population as Green Bay as well as similar water resources, and it gets into the "nitty gritty" of chemical bans as well as exceptions.
"How can we codify the use of those kinds of chemicals on our city lands? We have elected officials and people working in the different city departments who really do have a concern for the environment," Dorff said. "This would be a good time to get some feedback from all sectors and create something for a city that will help us use chemicals in a more sustainable way."
Natalie Eilbert is a government watchdog reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at neilbert@gannett.com or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert.