Ducks can't read. And a lot of college students don't bother to either. When walking across campus with friends, searching for the perfect place for a game of ultimate frisbee, soccer or muggle quidditch, little yellow signs are hardly on our radar. But perhaps they should be.
RSO's like to hold rallies and other events on the grassy area in front of the Student Union. Students enjoy sitting in the grass there with friends between classes. Some people prefer the squishier, softer feel of the grass beneath their feet over walking on hard concrete, as they head to the People's Market or wherever.
All of these people want to use the grass, and a seemingly silly sign isn't going to stop them. The laws only mandate that areas where pesticide has been applied must be marked with tiny yellow signs on itty-bitty white sticks. But that's clearly not working. If no one is taking the signs seriously, then there's really no point. Their purpose is defeated, and the fact that the University is following EPA and state notification guidelines does not matter if their adherence fails to prevent people (and animals) from coming in contact with potentially-harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, though they may be effective at keeping away tiny critters bent on nibbling crops, or - in the case of UMass lawns - preventing the germination of crab grass seeds. Pesticides are chemicals, and chemicals can have all kinds of effects on ecosystems. The pesticides used on UMass grass are actually pre-emergence crabgrass herbicides. They serve no function except to prevent the growth of unfortunate, dry-looking turf invaders. And as most Americans know, our country is obsessed with good-looking grass. So, the fact that siduron - the most effective type of pre-emergence herbicide - is classified as a "potential ground water contaminant" is ignored. Even if the herbicide is not applied to the immediate area surrounding the campus pond - which it is not - there is the possibility for contamination. And ducks looking for a place to hatch their cute and tiny babies undoubtedly stray into areas that they deem safe, though pesticides may make the safety they imagine impossible. Knowing all of this, UMass landscape services has looked into alternatives to pesticides. Having had a great deal of success with a salt alternative used in the winter - the brown sticky stuff applied to all paved services to increase traction - they hoped to find an another ecologically-friendly option that could end the crabgrass problem without dangerous chemicals. That brown sticky stuff, by the way, is actually a product known as Ice Ban Magic or Ice B'Gone. It is made from a mixture of magnesium chloride and a brewery by-product. The University uses Ice B'Gone in place of salt because after melting the ice, the salt is then washed away into bodies of water. This, in turn, has detrimental effects on plants and animals that live in and around the water.
The conclusion that landscape services has come to, however, is that there really is no known effective alternative to pesticides like there is for spreading salt. One proposed natural pre-emergence herbicide is corn gluten meal. Though it is able to prevent crabgrass from growing while not affecting the desired grass negatively, it has its problems as well. Corn gluten meal is not easily spread across lawns and tends not to work as effectively because it does not reach the root of all the crabgrass. Fish, squirrels, ducks, geese and other birds aren't reading these signs, and they aren't asking for a habitat without crabgrass. All of the UMass students I know could not care less about the presence of crabgrass on their campus. But there are those who believe that lush, green lawns are essential, even at the potential risk of students and our campus wildlife.
According to landscape services, there have yet to be any instances of "duck mortality," but why be cautious? No one really thought that tobacco was all that harmful when it was first introduced or that radioactive materials were worth avoiding. Why should we think twice about spraying nature with a coat of chemicals, if we haven't yet come across a double-beaked duck or three-eyed fish? If I've learned anything from Biology of Social Issues, it's that applying something classified as one of the "least dangerous" of the common pesticides is far from the safety of "not at all dangerous." And I just really don't see the point. Which is more important to you: a crabgrass-free UMass or healthy ducks … and students? Luckily, this decision is completely up to people other than us - the students - unless we decide to get involved.
Lauren Rockoff is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at lrockoff@student.umass.edu.
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