anticipated in my report of July 9th, 1981. For example,
McLean Park is not in.danger of being closed down for the
remainder of the season because the turf was not able to stand
up to the wear. The cost to dress and:-reseed this field in the
spring will be in the order of $5,000. This'in itself will be
ineffective in the long run because the weeds will simply grow
through the top dressing and create the same problem all over
again next winter.

The Committee recognizes that we cannot afford to
jeopardize the City's parks and playgrounds and ornamental
trees and shrubs by allowing them to completely deterivrate.
On the other hand, the Committee is sympathetic to those people
who conscientiously wish to avoid contact with the various
chemicals. For this reason the Committee would like to limit
the future use of chemical weed killers to those which are not
susceptible to wind drift. This would mean that only those
chemicals which can be spread in granular form rather than
sprayed should be used. These would include Weed and Feed on
grass areas and Casaron in planting areas. For insect pests,
granular pesticides are ineffective and therefore some spraying
would be necessary. Spraying would be done on a selective
basis only where a serious problem existed and where other
means of eradicating the pest have not been effective.
Chemicals which might. be used in these circumstances are lime
sulphur, dormant oil, Cygon, Malathion, and Diazinon.

If the program which is recommended above is to be
followed in 1983, we expect that the additional costs to the
1983 Parks Budget will be minor other than the previously
mentioned $5,000 to restore the surface of McLean Park and
possibly another $5,000 to cover the selective reseeding of
parts of other playing fields. It would have to be understood
that this recommendation does not allow for treatment of the
dykes and therefore thistles will continue to be a nuisance.
LF Council were to decide that the problem areas of the dyke
should be hand cleared once a year to prevent thistles from
flowering, then an additional $5,000 per year should be added
for labor to do this work manually.

——
Peterss;7 P. Eng, /
Engineer

FEP/sqg

Attachments

R16