Buffer zone debacle leaves city officials frustrated

City of Winnipeg officials plan to shrink pesticide buffer zones as early as this summer, but they won’t be getting much smaller. City officials have just learned that, under federal law, they are only able to shrink the buffer zones by a maximum of ten metres.

In a letter addressed to the CAO of the City of Winnipeg, Phil Sheegl, from the Deputy Minister for the Province’s Conservation department, Fred Meier said they would be willing to amend the pesticide use permit to allow the city to reduce buffer zones from 100 metres to 90 metres.

Last May, city officials asked their provincial counterparts to make the 100-metre buffer zones smaller, after residents complained their neighbours decision to not get their properties sprayed was preventing them from spraying against pesky mosquitoes in the summer months.

Provincial officials then advised the city to conduct malathion testing, which was slated to begin this summer. But after a series of letters back and forth between the two levels over government over the past year, the Mayor now says the Province only advised the city last week that federal regulations state that fogging with malathion requires a minimum 90-metre buffer zone.

“To be very frank with you, it’s a little frustrating, “˜cause we could have gone to 90 (metres) last year,” said Mayor Sam Katz.

Now, city officials are asking the province if it can still go ahead with the testing to see if buffer zones could be reduced more than the proposed 90 metres, but they’ll only do so with the Province’s blessing.

"Before we invest time and money, we’re looking to get an answer to that and I have sent off a letter to the Province,” Katz said.