D09
letters
F R ID AY, A P R I L 3 0 , 2 0 1 0 T H E VAN C O U V E R C O U R I E R
opinion CHAFER BEETLE SCOURGE PRESENTS OPPORTUNITY
Pointless love affair with lawns causes cancer and wastes water David Lynch’s 1989 film Blue Velvet opens with a summer suburban scene of a senior watering his lawn. The man has a seizure and drops to the ground. As a dog laps at water running from the dropped hose, the camera travels downward to the lawn, through the grass and into the soil, revealing a roiling mass of beetles. Below the polite, cosmetic surfaces of domestic life, there’s a constant struggle for existence, Lynch suggested. This spring in Vancouver, it seems Blue Velvet’s bio-noir has leapt from the screen to the lawn. The larval stage of the European chafer beetle has damaged thousands of lawns across the city, by feeding on grassroots in late summer and early spring. Crows and raccoons love the grubs, and tear up the grass to get at the tasty morsels. Three cheers for the European chafer beetle! I welcome any organism that speeds the death of the “lawn”—a middleclass affectation that combines ornamental pointlessness with ecological ignorance. The typical lawn is little more than a botanical proclamation of a landowner’s dominion over an underused plot of land. It’s a Tinkertoy version of the acreage of big estates, where nature is diced-and-sliced into topiaries, hedges and monoculture grasses. Lawns suck back ridiculous amounts of fresh water, something even Vancouver can be short of during a long, hot summer. There’s also the issue of lawn-maintaining chemicals that have been implicated in cancers and other illnesses. Although pesticides have been banned for cosmetic use in Vancouver, Courier reporter Sandra Thomas has witnessed several incidents of illegal spraying in her Queen Elizabeth Park neighbourhood. Forget it, people. The lawn is on its way out, and trying to save it organically—by lacing it with nematodes that will invade chafer beetles and eat them from the inside out, for example—is a halfway measure. Nothing less than a total rethink is in order. The damage from an invasive species offers a great opportunity to repurpose local lawns into gardens for tomatoes, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables—as one Vancouver resident profiled in last week’s Courier cover story intends to do. As for those of us with detached homes who aren’t up for microfarming, we can always sit back and let nature take its course. Sure, a certain crackshack aesthetic results from properties fronted by grasses growing two feet high. But it’s all
letter of the week
geoffolson about perception, and that can change faster than our enthusiasm for the Canucks. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, a weed is “a plant whose virtues have not been discovered.” (I should qualify this to explain it’s only a certain type of lawn I’m talking about. Rooftop lawns, which are maintained for environmental sustainability and ecological variety, are a great idea.) Since 2006, Vancouver city hall has restricted the use of pesticides—including insecticides, herbicides and fungicides—while still allowing for a big laundry list of inorganic “reduced risk products on lawns and gardens.” There are also efforts to expand a chemical ban to the provincial level. A coalition of 18 health and environment organizations is urging the B.C. government to follow the lead of Quebec and Ontario by introducing legislation prohibiting the use and sale of toxic lawn and garden chemicals. “With each new month, new evidence comes forward citing the link between pesticides and cancer, birth defects, and neurological illness,” notes Warren Bell, past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, in a report at Greenpages.ca. “Children are at greatest risk,” he adds. It’s my fond hope the chafer beetles will now move on to golf courses. These vast, green expanses, hacked shorter than a marine’s pigshave, are maintained solely to entice adults into whacking little balls into holes. Golf courses are exempt from pesticide restrictions. Every time you step onto one of these eco-nightmares, you are incrementally exposed to toxic substances that are illegal for your own lawn. Of all the things about human beings that would puzzle creatures from another world, surely lawns and golf courses would be close to the top. Visitors from space would look aghast at these green grids, and wonder who is responsible for such ecoidiocy. “Take us to your weeder,” they’d say. www.geoffolson.com
Reader Anne Montgomery says Vancouver should copy Texas and allow more photo Dan Toulgoet street food vendors such as Japadog. To the editor: Re: “Sidewalk buffet, April 16. I just came back from five days in Austin, Texas. Not only is it the live music capital of the world, but it’s home to dozens and dozens of street vendors doing a brisk business. All so-called empty lots are filled with vendors using old Airstreams and little
trailers, serving everything from Tex-Mex to waffles, barbecue to cupcakes—I counted five different cupcake trailers. I hope the city allows many more street vendors. Liven up the place a little and give us some variety. I, for one, am looking forward to sidewalk tacos! Anne Montgomery, Vancouver
School budget story biased, ignored union angle
To the editor: Re: “People want more public school funding: poll,” April 23. I found this article to be one-sided and biased. The provincial government is contributing more money to education than last year and the number of students is diminishing. This extra money is being taken up by salary and benefit increases to existing staff. If the provincial government “protected” public education by freezing salaries and benefits at 2009 levels, freeing up the extra funds to be spent on students, there would be an uproar and walkouts by those who now protest these so-called cuts. Did Courier reporter Naoibh O’Connor ask Catherine Evans if her group supported maintaining teacher sal-
aries and benefits to teachers at 2009 levels to assist students? Everyone wants more benefits without paying for them. I believe O’Connor’s research should have at least compared the additional government contributions to the dollar increase of teacher salary and benefits. Why does Surrey provide public education at a much lower cost annually per student than Vancouver? Why do government employees receive benefits far in excess of the private sector? David Colley, Vancouver
••• To the editor: Kudos to the Courier and to your education reporter Naoibh O’Connor for her consistent and detailed re-
porting on the current financial crisis facing the Vancouver School Board. She’s recently reported on many school issues including a poll by the B.C. Society for Public Education that noted that almost 80 per cent of residents support more money for public schools, which belies the hyperbolic and misleading “greatest ever” funding mantra of our embattled education minister Margaret MacDiarmid. Add to this two letters to the editor about the threat to the district’s string program and your readers continue to receive up-to-date and well-informed information and commentary on emerging education issues. Noel Herron, Vancouver
‘Unfair’ columnist shills for political party pals
To the editor: Re: “‘Workforce’ housing idea problematic,” April 23. Columnist Allen Garr only addresses the political problem the workforce housing idea may cause to his political pals in Vision and COPE. He does not address nor seem to care whether the idea is good for our city and its taxpayers. And on that topic, there should be much debate. This idea appears to be nothing more than a political payoff to supporters that could substantially damage our city’s finances by mixing two very separate functions: landlord and employer. In future, this plan will inevitably become a subsidy as the city either holds the rent down, or
boosts the pay of “essential workforce” workers. But in his column Mr. Garr neglects all other issues except how this political play will affect his political buddies. Like a company hawking its wares, Mr. Garr’s column should have the header “advertising feature” posted at the top of the page. It is unbalanced, and it is unfair to readers who might reasonably expect they are reading anything more than political propaganda. The Courier has a duty to act in the interest of its reputation, and of those of us on whose lawn it is thrown each week. Readers deserve honest disclosure. David Ball, Vancouver
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