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.

Take a gander at the ingredients on an herbicide or pesticide label and you'll note that "other"  or "inert" ingredients significantly outweigh the active ones.

So what's in there? 

If you casually surf the web to learn about the safety of a particular lawn chemical, you may walk away feeling comforted by information provided by the US EPA or the company selling the chemical. However, there's a solid body of research indicating that the health and environmental problems associated with these products are cause for concern. What's with the conflicting information?

In this article, I'll explore some factors that contribute to our haziness around lawn chemical safety. Understanding these variables allows us to read safety claims with a critical eye.

Working for three organic or naturally-grown veggie farms taught me plenty about quality compost, foliar feeding with seaweed emulsion, mulching and intercropping to suppress weeds, and encouraging beneficial insects for pest management. However, it did not teach me a lick about conventional herbicides.

To gain a better grasp of safety when harvesting in the vicinity of treated lawns--whether physically or time-wise, months or years post-treatment-- I'll offer a series of articles delving into lawn chemicals. Here, we'll look at the categories of herbicides that are commonly used today and how they work. 

This year, I'll be digging deep into lawn care. The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) offers a detailed resource for applying organic standards to landscaping and land care. If you rent your home, feel empowered to share this guide with the person you rent from. (If I were your landlady, I'd be delighted to have such a conscientious tenant!)

 If you own land, check out this document to learn how you might better serve the ecosystem your property is a part of--and how to keep your family safer, too.  

This article is for individuals who haven't made a rain barrel purchase yet and are looking for pointers. For folks who already have a barrel, check out Part 1 of this rain barrel series for tips on reducing the contamination in any barrel.

 In the time it takes a falling raindrop to find its way into a rain barrel, chemical contamination may happen through several avenues. Unlike public water systems, water collected in rain barrels isn't tested for safe levels of contaminants.

In my mind, this isn't a reason to shy away from rain catchment for watering our gardens. It's simply a nudge to make a few adjustments to our system that can significantly increase the safety of our rain barrel water. 

Yes, this article title was chosen with tongue in cheek. (How fun can lead really be?) However, given my haziness around managing an invisible, scentless soil contaminant like lead, finding concrete information about its behavior under different soil conditions has been pretty exciting. Even, well, fun. Let's jump in!

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.

Youarethecity is an urban research, design and planning practice located in Brooklyn. This guide is free and downloadable!

“This field guide is designed for individual property owners and community groups to initiate a conversation about how to convert this enormous land potential into a productive urban landscape utilizing phytoremediation technologies as a slow but cost-effective clean-up process."   -youarethecity

Microbial remediation utilizes the ability of some bacteria to bind heavy metals in less bioavailable forms, or to break down organic contaminants into more benign substances. (In chemistry, organic means that the substance is carbon-based. This includes many industrial contaminants and agricultural chemicals). Because healthy soil rich in bacteria, fungi, and other organisms is imperative for healthy plant growth, we can't talk about using plants for remediation without starting with bacteria.

Since the safety of biosolids in gardening has not been adequately verified by research-- and in some cases, research indicates possible harmful effects-- I personally avoid applying compost and soil products that contain biosolids to my garden.

This month, I visited several hardware stores and garden centers to see if I could find biosolids in bagged soil and compost products. In addition to biosolids' application on conventional farm fields, municipalities turn this sewage treatment byproduct into bagged compost for residential use. These products can be purchased at garden centers around the country.

As I collect contamination information for wild-harvesters on WNY public lands, my conclusions are informed guesses at best. Learning about the history of parks and surrounding property gives important clues, but we often don’t know how this translates into concrete contamination data. Even when testing is done for soil contamination, we can’t assess the levels of every possible contaminant. Some contaminants also break down into other (also toxic) chemicals that aren’t tested for.

Another issue is our lack of a complete list of industries and smaller businesses that have contributed to contamination in WNY. The 2018 book Sites Unseen is an outstanding resource for understanding the complexity of urban contamination history—particularly the quick "forgetting" of businesses that left contamination behind.

This is the second of several articles exploring the use of biosolids in agriculture and residential composting products. We begin with general info about contaminants in biosolids—which wastewater treatment can and cannot remove—and how well plants may absorb those contaminants. 

This is the first of several articles exploring the use of biosolids in agriculture and residential composting products. We will start with general info about contaminants in biosolids, which contaminants wastewater treatment can and cannot remove, and begin to explore how well plants absorb those contaminants.