Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Parks & Recreation Department

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Ernie Shaw, Interim Director of Parks and Recreation
CC:	Cynthia Boecker, Assistant City Manager Jonathan Douglass, Assistant to the City Manager
DATE:	May 13, 2008
RE:	Integrated Pest Management

Pesticide Reduction In Parks

Over the past several months, four members of the Parks & Recreation Staff (Aaron Bertels, Curt Talken, John McDonald & Crystal Miles) have been researching and developing a new policy for future City Commission consideration.

This policy proposes a different method to achieve the goal set forth by the City Commission to reduce pesticide application in City parks. Through research of other successful programs in municipalities such as Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Chicago, the City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation department has developed an Integrated Pest Management Policy that replicates those programs. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a system of controlling pests. The main focus of IPM is usually insect pests, but it includes weeds, diseases, and any other naturally occurring threats. IPM uses a combination of methods to maximize the effectiveness of control, while minimizing pesticide applications and the potential hazards associated with their use. Integrated Pest Management focuses on control of pests, not eradication. It is designed around five basic components: monitoring, action threshold levels, preventive cultural practices, biological controls, and chemical controls. When staff monitoring of a site discovers a pest problem and determines it to be above the threshold level, IPM implements the use of biological control and cultural control practices as a first response to a pest problem, and chemical control as a last resort.

Attached is the draft version of the policy manual. Staff has been working with interested citizens to convene a panel of experts to review the proposed policy and plan to forward the final version to the City Commission in June.