DATCP: Add the landscape pesticide registry to your end of year to-do list

Contact: Jane Larson (608) 224-5005

MADISON—Clean the gutters. Check. Drain the garden hose. Check. Find the snow shovels. Check. As you’re marking off your end of year lawn and garden chore list, why don’t you add one more item, to sign up for the landscape pesticide registry for 2010? Once on the registry, you’ll be notified of professional lawn and landscape pesticide applications in your neighborhood.

“As you prepare your yard and home for winter, be sure to take the time to join the Landscape Pesticide Advance Notice registry,” said Debra Viedma, registry coordinator with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. “Once on the registry, you’ll receive advance notice from professional businesses of pesticide applications that will be made to lawns and landscapes near your home.”

As a registry member, professional lawn and landscape companies must tell you ahead of time about pesticides that will be applied to lawns, trees and shrubs near your home. To ensure that you will be notified, state officials urge citizens to sign up now in order to meet the Feb. 1, 2010 deadline.

“The landscape pesticide registry gives you advance notice of professional pesticide applications before the small, red and white warning signs appear in lawns in your neighborhood,” Viedma said. “The registry only applies to lawn and landscape pesticide applications. It does not cover agricultural applications, nor does it apply to fertilizer-only applications,” Viedma explained.

The department does not charge any fees nor does the department require an applicant to list a reason or explanation for joining the registry. In 2009, 1,061 people from 52 counties were on the advance notice registry.

Viedma clarified that the advance notice is just that, a message about an application that will take place.

“Some registry members believe they can stop a planned application because they are on the registry. That just isn’t the case,” Viedma said. “Members have mentioned they’ve joined the registry to know when to keep pets or children indoors, when to close their windows or they’ll choose to leave the area while the application is completed.”

To join the registry you must complete a form listing the addresses that you are concerned about. The addresses must be on the block where you live or on immediately adjoining blocks. Homeowners and renters listed nearly 15,000 addresses in this year’s registry.

Once on the registry, professional lawn and landscape companies are required to notify you at least 12 hours in advance when addresses that you have listed are to be treated with pesticides. Notification can start in mid-March 2010, depending on the weather.

To receive an application and other registry information, contact Debra Viedma, Landscape Registry Coordinator, DATCP, P.O. Box 8911, Madison, WI 53708-8911 or call (608) 224-4616. You can also print the registry form from the department’s Web site. Go to http://www.datcp.state.wi.us and search for ‘landscape registry.’ Return your completed registry to the above address by Monday, Feb. 1, 2010.

A renewal notice to current registry participants will be mailed in late-November or early December. Renewals must also be returned by the Feb. 1, 2010 deadline to be included in next year’s registry.