The city is contemplating the rare move of spraying sports fields and parks because of the severe dandelion problem.
For several years now, a herbicide bylaw has been in place preventing the move. However a “perfect storm” of a wet spring followed by hot sunny weather—with a severe windstorm on May 24 that set crews back in their schedule—has led to the mess Coun. Bryan Anderson and others have complained about.
“Right now we’re not saying we are going to spray,” said deputy city manager Doug Jones, who oversees operations for the city. “It’s certainly one option.
“There’s not a lot of viable options to get rid of dandelions when we’re in there so that’s why council, when they first passed the bylaw, was very specific as to where you could spray and where you can not. But again, we want to do it for the right reasons and a lot of it is around safety or protection of infrastructure.”
Jones distributed a memo to city council that said over the past two-and-a-half weeks, crews have been working extra hours and weekends. Mowing cycles have been added to the schedule, while other crews that normally would do trimming were reallocated to help catch up.
The mowing of large areas is now back on schedule, the memo said, and things should be back to normal by June 16.
READ MORE: Dandelions dominate lawns as Edmontonians demand more help from city
Jones said the lost time and the perfect growing conditions for dandelions has meant some tough weeds that are next to impossible to get rid of through normal methods.
“One of the things that has come up in recent days is, with dandelions, if you get that tough root and the leaf structure, if they’re small it’s not so bad but if they get well ingrained into the ground and grow it can become a tripping hazard on a sports field. That’s a safety issue we want to address.”
A decision is expected from city operations staff by Friday morning.
“Some of the things we are looking at is what are we allowed to do under the herbicide bylaw and there are certain applications where it could be safety issues or damage to infrastructure, things like that,” Jones said.
“You look at safety, you look at environmental impact, you look at the cost to the city and you look at what I call social cost to the public,” Jones said. “Every time you make a decision you have to balance all four of those things. There’s no easy answer. We have to balance all of that.”
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