Summerside cosmetic pesticide ban passes 1st reading

The City of Summerside is in the final phases in implementing its cosmetic pesticide ban, with the document passing its first reading Mondaynight.

It's been a long road for the council, with the original plan being struck down more than a year ago.

• Summerside cosmetic pesticide ban defeated
• Summersidepesticide bylaw on track for spring launch

"We been working on this for well over a year and I think we've solicited input from every stakeholder interestgroup that exists around the bylaw, so we're really pleased to bring something forward tonight and get first reading." said Coun.Brian McFeely who heads up the governance, policy and strategy committee.

Instead of taking on a similar bylaw as Stratford, Charlottetown and Cornwall have, council said it was important for them to do it differentlyby working with a third party operator, Plant Health Atlantic. The company will provide a service integrated pest management services to control pestsin environmentally-friendly ways.

Mayor ecstatic

Mayor Bill Martin is happy about the approach taken with the bylaw.

"It's so easy today to go online and look at what other municipalities do and cut and paste and here we go we've now got our bylaw." he said.

"You know, we've got a staff that really understood the issues and and understood the relativemerits of doing it a little differently."

Martin couldn't be happier with the passing of the first reading. The bylaw is something he's been pushing for since before he got in office.

"It was one of my six campaign items that I campaigned on. It was on my door hanger. Cost me some votes and people told me it did, or it would," he said

"It's a very divisive issue, we recognize that. We've debated this for a couple of years now, so I'm pleased that, I believe, we've got a made-in-Summerside solution to banning cosmetic pesticides that's going to work for applicators and citizens. "

The bylaw will now go back to the committee of council for more discussion and then have a second and third reading at a future council meeting. The goal is to have the bylaw on the books and in effect by March 31.

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