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PTC halts spraying soccer fields after kids get sick

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizen.com

Peachtree City officials have halted plans to treat soccer fields with pesticide and herbicide after a group of parents complained about an incident two years ago that sent two soccer players to the hospital and caused headaches and nausea for several others.

But biologist Dennis Chase said the problems may be caused by the water used to irrigate the soccer fields, which is pumped from nearby Line Creek. Chase said the city tested the water back in 1995 and found nothing wrong, but he was worried about the solid material on the bottom of the storage pond being contaminated.

The City Council agreed Thursday night to have the material from the pond tested, and to have city staff collect information on the risks of pesticide and herbicide exposure to children and the safety of those chemicals.

Corrine Risch, a nurse at Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, told the City Council that the two players who went to the hospital were treated for breathing problems after they were exposed to pesticide treatments that left a dye on their skin and clothes. Some other players developed headaches and nausea that may also be attributed to the exposure, she said.

Bill Langworthy, whose daughter Kelsey had to be taken to the emergency room with respiratory problems after she was exposed to the pesticide, said she would rather play soccer on a field of weeds than on grass if that’s what it took to get rid of the chemicals.

Kelsey had developed a small rash, and after taking a shower her breathing got much worse and she was taken to the ER in an ambulance, Langworthy said.

Langworthy said Kelsey went back to the fields the day after her trip to the ER to watch a boy’s soccer game, and again she fell ill and went back to the hospital. Doctors then gave her an inhaler and warned her to stay away from the fields, Langworthy said.

A representative for the company that treats the soccer fields insists the chemicals used as pesticides and herbicides are safe. Mike Jackson of TruGreen told council it won’t take long for weeds to take hold on the soccer fields, and ultimately it could require applying a greater quantity of herbicide to fix the problem.

Jackson also said TruGreen would do whatever the city wants on the matter. The last time herbicides were applied was in October of last year, officials said.

Risch noted that children’s bodies are more vulnerable than adults’ because their livers are not as developed, making it harder to detoxify their systems. Also, toxins build up in their bodies over time, she added.

“How many times are we going to expose our children to these chemicals?” she asked. “The more times we do, the more chance they’ll develop a serious disease.”

Risch said she wanted the city to look into organic applications to control weeds and bugs, but Jackson said as an agronomist he has studied many different types of non-synthetic treatments, but none of them have worked well enough to use. He added that the active ingredient of the dye is approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to be used as food coloring, but in this case the dye is used to mark where the spray has been applied.

In a memo to council, Director of Leisure Services Randy Gaddo said he had been working with Risch and others in the matter since October 2004. The city has worked with the local county extension agent and a weed scientist at the University of Georgia but so far has no evidence that organic pesticides and herbicides are effective.

In fact, the city has set aside a test field that chemicals have not used on, but it has become infested with army worms, officials said.

The city even offered its bid request documents for sports field treatment to two organic treatment companies Risch had identified, but neither company submitted a proposal, Gaddo said.

One contractor later identified quoted a price of $8,000 to convert the test field to organic treatment, which city staff dismissed as being too costly, Gaddo said. Another company later did so for $2,000 in a process that began about six weeks ago, but the results have not been impressive and the test may soon be cancelled, Gaddo added.

City Manager Bernie McMullen told Council that pesticide and herbicide chemicals are regulated by environmental agencies and organic agents are not, so his preference would be to stick with the more traditional pesticide and herbicide products.