News Release
For Immediate Release
March 21, 2001
 

Text of March 21 remarks from Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery)
on the introduction of legislation addressing school pesticide use.

When we talk about safety in our schools, our concerns generally tend toward protecting students and staff from violence. However, there is another kind of safety that merits concern - environmental safety. Buildings and grounds in which children spend seven hours of a day, five days a week, 180 days a year, should be as healthful as possible.

This is the reason for the legislation I am offering today and have offered every session since l993. This bill, which has a counterpart in the House introduced by Representative Carole Rubley, would provide advance notification of pesticide applications to staff and students’ parents. It would provide for the posting of signs where pesticides are applied indoors or outdoors on school property. It would require record keeping on pesticides used, and would require that schools, both public and private, adopt a program of integrated pest management (IPM) to focus on pest prevention and reduce the use of toxic substances in school pest control.

IPM, which has been endorsed by the commonwealth’s departments of Agriculture, Health, and Education, is currently used in many school districts, including approximately 50 districts in Pennsylvania. A 1997 study of school districts employing IPM found that it was an effective method of pest control that reduced or eliminated use of pesticides without additional costs to the districts.

Because their bodies are growing, because of their play habits, and because they ingest more air, water, and food per pound than adults, children are especially susceptible to environmental hazards. Because they can’t look out for themselves with regard to pesticides, they must be afforded protection in schools through a reasonable policy of pesticide use notification and control.

That is the message of the study presented today by Mr. Wendelgass, and the goal of the legislation offered by Rep. Rubley and myself. It is also the reason that Connie Eash is here with us today, many years after she and her son, Michael, first stood on this stage with me to promote passage of this child protection measure. Connie told me in 1993 of her son’s illness from exposure to pesticides in school. She told me of her struggle to convince school officials of the problem posed by under-regulated use of pesticides in places where children eat, work, and play. Connie is still involved because she believes that other children are at risk of facing the health problems her son has faced.

The fact is that she is right to be concerned. In the past year alone, the U.S. Government Accounting Office recorded more than 2,000 cases of pesticide exposure in schools, with 12 of these cases resulting in hospitalization. Bear in mind that is just one year and those are just the cases that made their way to the attention of the GAO. How many children are suffering maladies brought on by pesticide exposure and don’t know the cause? I have to think that these 2,000 cases are the tip of the iceberg.

Why not take a few simple precautions and eliminate this danger in our schools? Notice for pesticide spraying can be given to all parents in normal school-to-parent communications. Posting signs three days prior to application and for two days afterwards is not an expensive proposition. IPM has been shown to be a cost-effective, and even a cost-saving, method of pest control. Moreover, this legislation states that the commonwealth will pay for any added costs that schools can document as the result of implementation of the law.

All of us are here today because we hope that this is the year legislation will pass to establish a reasonable policy to address health concerns related to pesticide usage in schools.