Memorandum                       

City of Lawrence                         

Parks and Recreation Department

TO:	Cynthia Boecker, Assistant City Manager
FROM:	Mark Hecker, Park Superintendent
CC:	Ernie Shaw, Interim  Director Parks & Recreation
Date:	9-08-08
RE:	Integrated  Pest Management (IPM) – Update

Attached is the current version of the Integrated Pest Management manual that is in use by the Parks & Recreation Department. This manual has been revised a number of times over the past several months with the help of the IPM Task Force. This group of interested citizens has spent a great deal of time reviewing and recommending changes to this management tool.

The goal of the IPM management system is to eventually manage all City-owned parks without the use of herbicides, fungicides or pesticides. The IPM management tool provides us an opportunity to evaluate and map all of our properties and delineate where, why and what  chemicals are currently being used. Once this has been established, we can begin to make decisions on alternate management options that will eliminate the chemical use in a specific area of a park. Currently 81% percent of our park property is managed without the uses of chemicals.

Over the past 5 years, as we have become more experienced with the concept of pesticide-free parks, we have learned one can not just declare an area pesticide-free and pretend that the issues do not still exist. If we were spaying a chemical to manage a particular park problem, we need to come up with an alternate means of controlling the problem. These alternate means may consist of things like: plant selection changes, the use of concrete boarders and/or rubber mulch under playgrounds to inhibit the growth of weeds. These are all very effective alternate control measures, but they also come with a budgetary impact which needs to be evaluated and implemented as funding is available. 

Going forward, our intent is to make this IPM manual a working document that will be evaluated and updated every winter as new management practices and products become available. We will continue to meet with the IPM task force for their thoughts and recommendation, as many of these people are very knowledgeable in this field and will be a great resource for staff. We will also work with this group to define specific projects that will move us closer to our goal.  

Once this update is received by the City Commission, we will move forward with posting the most current IPM manual on the Departments web page so it can be used as a reference tool for other public institutions or individuals in the community.