DATCP: Look ahead to spring and sign up for the landscape pesticide registry

Contact: Jane Larson (608) 224-5005

MADISON—As you rake leaves and prepare for the cold and snow, look ahead to spring and sign up now for the landscape pesticide registry so you’ll be notified of neighborhood pesticide applications next year.

“As you get ready for the winter season, this is good 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 you are on the registry, you’ll receive advance notice from professional businesses of planned 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 to 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, 2011 deadline.

“The landscape pesticide registry allows you to be informed about 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,” Viedma explained.

There are 991 people from 48 counties on this year’s advance notice registry. The department does not charge any fees nor does the department require an applicant to list a reason or explanation for joining the registry.

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

“We want to remind everyone that registry members cannot stop a planned application,” Viedma said. “Members have mentioned they use the advance notices to keep children or pets indoors or to close their windows until 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 14,351 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 2011, depending on the weather.

To receive an application and other registry information, contact Debra Viedma, Landscape Registry Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, 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 Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011.

A renewal notice to current registry members will be mailed in late-November. Renewals must also be returned by the Feb. 1, 2011 deadline to be included in next year’s registry.