Bidwell Park Golf Course Pesticide Usage

Report prepared by Friends of Bidwell Park from data provided by Butte County Agricultural Commission.

January 11, 2005

Bidwell Park and Playground Commission
City of Chico
418 Main St.
Chico, CA 95928

Dear Commissioners,

Every year, the Chico Park Department reports their usage of registered chemicals within Bidwell Park to the BPPC, as part of their annual vegetation management report. The amount of chemicals used is small, considering the size of Bidwell Park, reflecting both the care the Park Dept. takes before deciding to use chemicals as well as sentiments that the Chico community has expressed in the past about chemical usage in Bidwell Park.

Friends of Bidwell Park felt that this information about the park was incomplete because it did not include the registered chemical usage for the Bidwell Park Golf Course, a facility possibly more likely to use fungicides, herbicides, and fertilizers because of its extensive turf management program. All usage of these registered chemicals must be reported to the Butte County Agricultural Commission and is available to the public, so we requested three year’s worth of reports for the golf course. We’ve summarized the data in the attached report. The detailed information is available upon request.

We plan to request the same information for CARD, which leases and maintains Sycamore Fields and the Hooker Oak Recreation Area, both located on park property.

Our purpose is to help educate the public regarding the management of parkland by making such relevant information available to the public, the City of Chico and those who are currently conducting water quality monitoring on Big Chico Creek. We hope that, in the future, pesticide usage data for Bidwell Park lessees will also be included in the report presented to the BPPC.

Sincerely,

Susan Mason
President, Friends of Bidwell Park

Cc:

Dennis Beardsley, Park Director
Chris Boza, Urban Forester
Fritz McKinley, Public Works Director
Timmarie Hamill, Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance

Notes:

1. Original EPA/CA Reg# not found at http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/epa/m2.htm (U.S.EPA/OPP Pesticide Products Database)
2. Mass absent from one of three months
3. EPA/CA Reg# gives label that does not match label given on data sheet
4. Eagle WSP Fungicide is EPA/CA Reg# 62719-417 manufactured by Dow Agrosciences LLC. at http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Products.jsp#ProdSearch.

*This data summary covers pesticide reports from January 2001 through December 2003. No reports for December 2002, January 2003, or June 2003 were provided. Pesticide reports for 2004 have not been acquired yet.