Pesticides foes make it personal

If you notice a small, brightly colored sign about the size of a checkbook hung on your doorknob in Newton, consider it a kindly reminder -- not a challenge.

At least, that's the way GreenCAP would like you to feel about it.

In what could seem like an aggressive new tactic, members of the local environmental group are delivering the notices to neighbors to warn against the use of harsh chemicals on lawns, shrubs, and flower gardens, and to recommend healthier choices.

On a recent walking tour around one Newton Centre neighborhood, Lucia Dolan and Karen Albert , two of the three cochairs for the Green Decade Coalition's Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides, considered carefully which homes they should target.

Dolan said she looks for the tiny yellow flags stuck into lawns that indicate they have been treated by a landscaping company using pesticides, and approaches only those front doors. Albert puts the door hangers everywhere.

Since this was Dolan's neighborhood, she made the choice. She found only one yellow flag and affixed only one door hanger.

Dolan compares the campaign to the antitobacco activism that eventually led to the banning of smoking in public places.

``It's like second-hand smoke," she said. ``In some ways smoking is seen as a personal choice, but everybody has to breathe the air."

The grass-roots organizers in Newton may soon be joined by others statewide. Earlier this month, Maeve Ward, the third cochairwoman of GreenCap, participated in a conference in Worcester aiming to start a Northeast regional anti-pesticide coalition.

GreenCAP organizers say that they do not blame those who rely on chemicals.

``I give them the benefit of the doubt: They don't know what they're doing," said Ellie Goldberg , a founder of GreenCAP in 1994 as part of the Green Decade Coalition in Newton.

``The status quo is that people have license to poison and that citizens should be intimidated," said Goldberg, whose husband died of cancer and whose oldest daughter has asthma. ``What's a bigger violation of community or of a behavioral norm: Is it somebody trying to reach people with opportunities to live a better way, or is it people who go around spraying poison or getting other people to poison?"

GreenCAP and Green Decade have amassed information about the chemicals in pesticides, and the harm they could cause.

Quoting research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, GreenCAP members say studies have found pesticides could be linked to asthma, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems, as well as rising rates of some cancers. They say the research suggests that children are more vulnerable than adults.

GreenCAP members consider the term pesticide as a broad category that includes herbicides and fungicides, which are also considered harmful, Dolan said.

The environmentalists have compiled lists of alternative treatments for lawns, shrubs, and flowers. They also recommend training courses for landscapers through the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

GreenCAP has printed up about 500 of the door hangers and is about to complete a second printing. Members hand them out at farmer s markets in the city and display them at events sponsored by Green Decade.

Dolan said she sympathizes with neighbors and other city residents who see a perfect lawn as a necessity to convey a tidy professional image -- such as for psychiatrists using a home office to see patients -- and strong doses of chemicals as the only way to attain it.

Still, she believes she can appeal to them on the basis of what might be their individual concerns, such as danger to their children.

``The first couple of times you say something, a lot of people might not listen," she said.

``A lot of it is a just the convenience barrier. Like getting kids to eat broccoli."

For more on GreenCAP and the Green Decade Coalition, visit its website, www.greendecade.org, or call 617-965-1995.