Located on Chautauqua County's Niagara Escarpment, Greystone is nestled amongst rolling hills and offers a stunning view of Lake Erie. Diane and Bill are passionate about connecting fellow humans to the natural world, and they welcome folks of all ages and styles to participate in nature-based programming.

Greystone's seventy-five acres is home to its share of native, non-native, and invasive plants. In this article, we'll explore the potential for partnerships between Greystone and local foragers.

In the first article in this series, we explored New York's 2010 pesticide law for schools and daycares. This law establishes admirable rules for keeping outdoor spaces safe, and the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC) has offered equally stellar guidance for choosing alternatives to conventional pesticides.

However, Beyond Pesticides has suggestions to offer New York State to improve these rules, and the safety of school and daycare communities. We'll explore those recommendations in this article.

As an herbal medicine and foraging instructor, I have partnered with numerous school districts in Western New York to offer wild edible and medicinal plant classes. Many continuing education participants and kids in science class or summer school have explored school property edges with me, plucking self-heal and linden flowers to nibble.

I've heard mixed information about pesticide application regulations at schools and daycares. Here, I'll share my findings on what's currently on the books in New York State.

In 2009, New York State Parks Commissioner Carol Ash signed a Policy on Pesticide Reduction in State Parks and Historic Sites. In this article, I'll discuss points from the document that I found noteworthy for foragers.

Each time I have spoken with park management staff for parks in my area, I've found that there is potential for partnerships with foragers to remove invasive species and weeds that are edible and medicinal.

Before a forager harvests in any location, it's important to learn about the land-use history in that spot, and in the greater area. The Policy on Pesticide Reduction in State Parks and Historic Sites is a great place to begin.

I was impressed by Lana Nitti's excellent talk at Tedx Utica, which addressed lead contamination in her neighborhood. I'm glad to share this resource from an upstate NY neighbor.

I also wanted to learn how the city of Buffalo is doing in addressing lead contamination. I found this investigative report from May 2019 entitled "Buffalo Lags on Addressing Lead Poisoning." 

When Americans think of lead contamination, Flint, Michigan is the town that probably comes to mind. It's important that this story of community-wide lead contamination due to corrupt, racist water supply decisions by the state government made national news. Our media and government should be focusing attention on environmental justice issues like this. However, this story may have misled other communities into assuming that, since their town hasn't made the news, they must not be at high risk. Unfortunately, lead poisoning is a common problem across the US, particularly in cities and older communities like western NY.

Evyn Iacovitti, Environmental Analyst for New York State Parks, emphasized that foraging is prohibited in New York State Parks. However, Evyn said there is potential for partnerships between parks and foragers for invasive species removal. I explained that safe foraging requires knowledge of chemical applications in the area, and asked about herbicide/pesticide application practices.

I enjoyed this park's beautiful creekside hike this spring, starting at the south end. My walk generated enough questions to do some research. First, I noticed that Ellicott Creek, which runs through the park, smelled like sewage. This didn’t seem to bother the fisherpeople wading with their poles. Turns out, the southern half of the park’s 80 acres is on the flood plain, and is "subject to periodic inundation by floodwaters" (Town of Amherst). What is known about the water quality?