Facts from Portland Protectors

a local Maine grass roots citizen's group concerned for the environment

• The sale of lawn care pesticides in Maine increased by 700% from 1995 to 2001 (Under Gov LePage the state has stopped publishing pesticide sales data.)
• 60% of Maine's honeybees died between April 2014 and April 2015.
• More than 12 individual pesticides have been detected in Casco Bay waters.
• In 2015, Portland budgeted $25,000 for pesticides at Riverside Golf Course, which runs along the Presumpscot River into Casco Bay.
• The World Health Organization recently reclassified Roundup as a link to cancer. Portland Protectors’ work forced Portland to end its sidewalk Roundup spray program in 2016.
• EPA and Mt. Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center report that Children's developing bodies and brains are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of lawn pesticides.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Academy of Sciences and the 2010 President's Cancer Panel have all concluded that pesticide exposure is linked to reproductive disorders, birth defects, learning disabilities, neurological disease, endocrine disorders and cancer.
• Dogs exposed to professionally applied pesticides have a 70% higher risk of developing malignant lymphoma.