Alumni

Not so ‘dande’

By Lindsay Beller

As yellow dandelions began to multiply around campus last spring, the global debate over herbicide use reached Lake Forest College.

Numerous concerned faculty and students petitioned President Stephen D. Schutt to have the College stop using weed killer on the approximately 107-acre property, as the College had done for several years. To allow time to study whether to continue using herbicides or go with an alternative type of lawn care, President Schutt declared a one-year moratorium on spraying.

His decision—which came amid worry by some over the potentially harmful effects of spraying chemicals and complaints by others about the look of the weeds—highlighted the dilemma of how to balance environmental and health concerns with maintaining the appearance of the College. “It became clear that a number of people, including faculty, staff, students, and others, had strong feelings about it,” President Schutt says. “We’re an educational institution that has the ability to study this rather than make an arbitrary decision. I thought it was worth it to take a year out to study this.”

His action underscored an ongoing issue for both public and private land owners in this country and abroad as bans on certain pesticides and herbicides have begun to spread faster than dandelion seeds. Several U.S. municipalities have adopted more laws that ban certain chemicals, including New York and San Francisco as well as nearly 70 municipalities in Canada, including Toronto.
Over the next year, the College will study herbicides and consider alternative ways to care for the property. Until then, lawn mowers will make additional runs over the grass and hard-to-reach weeds will be pulled up by hand. 

The move was welcomed by Caleb Gordon, a biology and environmental studies professor who wrote an April 21 editorial in the Stentor about the dangers of spraying herbicides. One of his biggest concerns centered around the use of dicamba, a widely used ingredient in the herbicide mix that would have been sprayed on campus. Studies have shown the chemical to cause reproductive and development problems in mice and water contamination with unknown long-term effects, he says. Gordon advised the College to learn more about the chemical and not assume that it was safe to use.

The College may face some challenges in finding the best course of action. David Siebert, director of facilities management, who began investigating other options for preventing weeds like using alternative chemicals and organic gardening techniques, says the effectiveness of these different choices is debatable. Another challenge the College needs to consider is the impact on its neighbors. “Part of the problem is, whatever we decide, the seeds germinate and blow into neighboring properties,” he says. “We aren’t operating in a vacuum.” Although dense, thick turf keeps dandelions from growing in the first place, an aggressive form of fertilizing the entire campus would be costly, he says.

But as a college with an environmental studies program, in which students and faculty study environmental management, the issue has relevance in the classroom. Says President Schutt: “I don’t see how we can ignore that as we make the decision about campus maintenance.”

Lindsay Beller is the editor of Spectrum.

The dandelion issue was the subject of a May 18 article in the Chicago Tribune.