Wisconsin Requires Spraying Notification

Wisconsin's Landscape Pesticide Application Advance Notification Registry was launched by the state's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in 1993.

Feb. 1 is the deadline for Wisconsin residents to sign up for a program that requires landscape and pest control contractors to warn residents when workers are about to apply pesticides or herbicides to a site.

The rule makes Wisconsin one of the strictest states in the country when it comes to chemical application notification.

A similar law in Erie County, N.Y. expired this year but is expected to be renewed for 2006.

That law prompted some companies to use granular pesticide instead of liquid to bypass the notification requirements, though granular is less than half as effective as liquid on insects and weeds, said Robert Funk, president of Funk Lawn Care of Tonawanda, N.Y.

In place since 1993, the Wisconsin Landscape Pesticide Application Advance Notification Registry was created to let residents shut windows and bring pets and children indoors before chemicals are sprayed. In 2004, close to 1,200 residents asked to be included on the notification list, versus just 500 people in the program's first year.

The list of program participants will be mailed to more than 775 landscape and pest-control companies before the landscape maintenance season starts in the spring. The companies will then notify neighbors before they start work.

Wisconsin law also requires contractors to post 5 x 5-inch signs announcing chemical applications when jobs are finished.

More information on the Wisconsin notification rules law is available at (608) 224-4616 or www.datcp.state.wi.us

Wisconsin requires contractors to post five-inch-by-five-inch warning signs on the lawn or by trees and shrubs that have been treated with pesticides.