ARLINGTON RESIDENTS: TAKE ACTION!
In May 2025, Arlington Town Meeting will be voting on Article 17 a resolution to resubmit a Home Rule petition to the State Legislature requesting to ban SGARs on *ALL* properties in our borders (as currently state law doesn’t allow us to prohibit pesticide use on private property without state permission). Arlington was the first municipality in Massachusetts to pass a Home Rule petition resolution on SGARs in 2022. Since then, approximately 10 other municipalities have passed their own HR resolutions and about a half-dozen more are poised to pass one this spring season. Arlington is a trailblazer on this issue! Each Home Rule petition adds further pressure and builds momentum toward a statewide prohibition on these dangerous chemicals. State law dictates that after 2 years, if a HR petition does not pass the state legislature, it must be returned to a municipality for a vote. We’ve already received unanimous support from the Select Board and also have endorsements from Sustainable Arlington, Friends of Spy Pond Park, Friends of Menotomy Rocks Park, Mystic Valley Watershed Association, and MSPCA.
If you haven’t already, email your Town Meeting Member to ask them to vote in favor of Article 17! You can find the email contacts for Town Meeting members on this page (scroll down to middle of the page under “Who are my Town Meeting Members and How Do I Contact Them?” and then click on “Town Meeting Member Contact List listed by precinct“). Don’t know your Precinct? You can find it by submitting your address here.
MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS: TAKE ACTION!
The Massachusetts Pesticide Board Subcommittee contracted a third party evaluator to assess anticoagulants for their environmental impacts? Well that third party has been hired–it’s the environmental consulting firm ERG and they have dropped Phase 1 of their report: Rodenticide Scientific Review. Here’s the thing: it’s open to public comment between now and April 30th. Public comments can be emailed to
Attn: Taryn LaScola, Director
Taryn.lascola@mass.gov
Not sure what to write? Share personal stories/anecdotes that challenge the assumptions of the report. Here are some ideas:
– Are you noticing more rats despite an increase in bait boxes everywhere? Share details about that.
– Are you noticing a lot of bait boxes that are not labeled and how often (despite the Phase 1 report discussing how rodenticide products are labeled to educate the public about the possible impacts)?
– Have you had conversations or experiences with pest companies where they have lied to you about the impacts of these products on wildlife, pets, and children, even when directly asked?
– Have you lost wildlife in your town or neighborhood to these poisons and if so, what was the impact–social, emotional, and environmental–on your community?
– Do you or someone you know lost or almost lost a beloved pet due to these poisons? How much was the vet bill or what was the emotional and financial impacts?
– Have you conversely had more positive rodent control experiences sans poisons/anticoagulants–instead using improved sanitation, exclusion, etc.?
– Have you witnessed broken open bait stations with exposed bait, or bait that has leaked or crumbled outside of the bait station?
It’s also very important to point out that a.) SGARs resistance has already been demonstrated in rats as well, and b.) predators can’t really develop this resistance….you kill these predators, you actually can make rodent populations worse. Also, that there are no peer review studies that show these poisons are effective in reducing rodent populations on contiguous landscapes and metro areas.
GREAT NEWS: There is now TWO STATE BILLS in the Massachusetts Legislature seeking to prohibit anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs).
They are:
S. 644/H. 965: An Act restricting the use of rodenticides in the environment
Sponsors: Representative Jim Hawkins and Senator Mike Moore
Status: Referred to Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SUPPORT THESE PROPOSED PIECES OF LEGISLATION? The best thing you can do is is CALL (don’t just email) your state Senator and Representative and request that they CO-SPONSOR one or both of these bill. Either leave a voicemail if you can or speak to a staffer. If they are already a co-sponsor, thank them. If not, let them know–in your own words–why this is important to you. Speak to the hawks or owls nesting in your neighborhoods, or the safety of your companion animals and children. Are your legislators still not responding to phone calls and co-sponsoring? Don’t know who your legislator is? You can find them here.
Then consider a visit to them during their constituent hours. This doesn’t require a trip to the State House. Most state legislators hold monthly meetings in places in and around their districts like local libraries and communities centers or coffee shops, and many of them also hold virtual hours on Zoom. If you can’t find that info on their website, call and ask a staffer.
When the bills have their first hearing, please submit testimony!
Synopsis (Courtesy of MSPCA)
Overview: This legislation would restrict the use of Anticoagulant Rodenticides (ARs) in Massachusetts to protect wildlife, pets, people, and the environment.
What this bill will do: This bill will end the registration and reregistration of anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs). This includes the first generation, or FGARs such as Chlorophacinone, Diphacinone, and Warfarin–and the second generation known as SGARs–which includes Brodifacoum, Bromadiolone Difenacoum, and Difethialone. The only exception in use would be if deemed necessary for a public health emergency by the Massachusetts Department of agriculture and resources (MDAR). This bill also gives the department the ability to establish a process and standards for the limited use of anticoagulant rodenticides by licensed applicators in public health emergencies.
ARs impact non-targeted pets and wildlife populations, such as birds of prey, who rely on the poisoned rodents as a food source. As a result, the cats and dogs, hawks, eagles, owls, and bobcats who are exposed often suffer the same fatal hemorrhaging as their meal.
While ARs are prohibited for residential consumer purchase in the Commonwealth, commercial use is allowed for licensed pesticide companies.
On the national level, please write to our US Representative Katherine Clark, as well as our US Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey.
Both bald eagles that died in Massachusetts were in Katherine Clark’s district. Additionally, New England Wildlife Centers, one of the largest wildlife veterinarian hospitals in the state, reported receiving a disproportionate amount of wildlife with rodenticide poisoning from in and around the Arlington area, so Clark’s district seems to be a ground zero for this problem.
Here is contact information:
For Katherine Clark: https://katherineclark.house.gov/email-me
For Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.warren.senate.gov/contact/shareyouropinion
For Edward Markey:
https://www.markey.senate.gov/contact/share-your-opinion
Some asks you can make of Clark, Warren and Markey:
- to become a champion of this issue
- to work with other interested legislators to draft or sponsor propose legislation that would ban or heavily restrict the use and availability of AR poisons, both online and for use by pest control professionals
- to pressure the EPA to pass stricter regulations on AR poisons–or better yet–to ban them altogether and remove their registration as an available rodenticide
- to fight against efforts by conservative legislators to pass federal laws both independent of and in the 2023 Farm Bill that would stop states and local municipalities from being able to restrict or regulate pesticides, including AR rodenticides (For more information, please read here and take the indicated action. If you are an elected or appointed city or town official, you can also sign this petition drafted by Beyond Pesticides).