Stuart Z. Cohen, Ph.D., CGWP
Golf Course Management, Vol. 63, No. 5, pp. 96-104, 1995.
The golf course industry is frequently attacked by environmental activists and others raising environmental concerns. In the majority of the 30-plus public hearings and legal proceedings in which I have testified, the opposition has had an underlying presumption that the turf industry uses large amounts of chemicals.
This presumption was quantified in 1991 by a New York State Attorney General's Office report that stated ". . . between four and seven times as much pesticides are used on Long Island golf courses than are applied on food crops". Unfortunately, this comparison has received widespread exposure.
This brief article will attempt to set the record straight and address this emotional issue in an objective manner. However, one thing is clear: pesticide use is extremely complicated and is best addressed on a site-specific basis.