Page 45 - Summer eng 2017

The Truth About Pesticides
It is time to tell our story
Like many of us in the world of golf, I tuned in to the CBC in early March, watching with dread, as The Nature of Things aired the documentary, Dad and the Dandelions. Actually ‘dread’ is not the word that I am looking for. The correct phrase, is watching with ‘fatigue.’
THE PESTICIDE DEBATE
The first time that I was asked to speak publicly in defence of the use of pesticides on golf courses, was over 15 years ago. At that time, Ontario’s 444 municipalities were contemplating their response to public pressure to ban pesticides in the wake of the Hudson, Quebec decision.
At the time, I was a Municipal Councillor, sitting on the board of the Ontario Golf Superintendents’ Association, teaching pesticide safety courses to farmers, and working as a golf course Superintendent. As such, I have been afforded many opportunities to speak, apparently without much success, as the issue seems to resurface biannually.
When I heard that the CBC was airing a documentary, presenting golf courses as carcinogenic toxic waste dumps, with the implied endorsement of The David Suzuki Foundation, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of “Déjà vu all over again,” to steal a quote from Yogi Berra.
In the end, the documentary, while clearly one sided, was not particularly inflammatory, and quite frankly, failed to present any new information. For those who missed it, the documentary is an extremely personal journey, following filmmaker Andrew Nisker, as he hunts for an explanation for his father’s Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Unfortunately, in the first scenes of the film, all other potential causal effects are dismissed, in favour of the decades old theoretical link between the disease, and the herbicide 2,4-D.
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