There’s good news but also a serious concern. This email is a bit long but if you keep reading you’ll see that there’s an important reason for you to contact your legislators as soon as you can. That information is below.
The good news is that the General Assembly is considering a bill that we think will be effective in restricting the use of neonicotinoids — neonics, the insecticide that is 7,000 times stronger than DDT and is killing the state’s birds and pollinators.
But there’s a risk that the State Senate and House will give in to pressure from the pesticide and landscaping industry to weaken the bill.
There is also a risk that they will add a provision that overturns a 15-year ban on the use of pesticides on school grounds—they actually want to bring back pesticides to the state’s schools.
Here’s an explanation, and information on how you can help.
You might remember House bill, HB 6916, An Act Concerning the Use of Neonicotinoids. It didn’t pass but the neonics provisions were added to a Senate bill, SB 9. It is a long bill that addresses other environmental problems, including climate change.
As things stand now, the neonics provision of SB9 is acceptable to us. It eliminates unnecessary uses of neonics on lawns and ornamental landscapes.
We’ve had to make compromises, however. The main one is that the bill no longer bans the use of neonic-coated seeds, as new laws in New York and Vermont do.
Still, we can live with that, for now.
What is harder to swallow is a push by industry to remove ornamental landscaping from SB 9. They want to allow the use of neonics on gardens, shrubs, and trees planted at golf courses, office complexes, residences, etc.
If the industry succeeds in getting this provision added to the bill, it would be illegal to use neonics on lawns but legal to use them on the shrubs right next to the lawns.
You’re a supporter of Connecticut Audubon because you love birds. So you know how important shrubs and planted areas next to lawns are. If you remember from our Connecticut State of the Birds 2024 report, many of our most common birds—bluebirds, robins, chickadees—routinely rely on both lawns and adjacent trees and shrubs to find food for themselves and the young birds in their nests.
It’s obvious but I’ll say it anyway: eliminating neonics on lawns but allowing them on shrubs just doesn’t make sense.
Yet it gets worse!
For the last 15 years, the use of outdoor pesticides has been banned at kindergarten through 8th grade schools in Connecticut.
There is a push to roll back part of that ban. They actually want to increase the use of pesticides on the fields where children play.
We — you and us — can’t let that happen.
Please write or call your elected officials in Hartford. You can find their contact info HERE.
Please tell them that you support the neonics provision as it is now in SB9, and ask them to do the same. Tell them that it will protect Connecticut’s birds and keep pesticides off school grounds.
Thank you!
Joyce Leiz
Executive Director
The Connecticut Audubon Society
P.S. It is important that we head this off as soon as we can. Call or write today. If you have questions, please email me or Tom Andersen (tandersen@ctaudubon.org).