By paNOW

City spraying for weeds in specific areas and by request

Aug 11, 2017 | 12:31 PM

The City of Prince Albert is taking care of weeds in the city and administrators hope locals take note of which areas are sprayed. 

The spraying is typically done at the request of residents according to Alissa Baker, the Parks Manager with the city of Prince Albert.

“We spray pesticides in a couple of different situations. Typically we only spray pesticides for sports field maintenance as well as by requests or complaints,” Baker said.

She said the city typically tries to use other forms of weed management instead of spraying like cutting or pulling.

Recently, the city has been spraying the downtown core of Prince Albert which has provided a few challenges with notifying the public.

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“We bought a whole bunch of new signs; the problem with the new signs is that they need to be stuck into the ground in order to stay in an area,” she said. “We are trying to figure something out for downtown because it’s all concrete, the signs don’t stick in the ground.”

Typically signage is in place for 24 hours according to Baker. She said the city is aware people are sensitive to chemicals and tries to make it “very obvious” in the areas where spraying takes place.

On the city of Prince Albert’s website, a list of sprayed locations is published. Baker said the site is updated on a weekly basis but she said due to scheduling conflicts or weather changes it isn’t always up to date.

“We update [the site] as soon as we can but unfortunately because of our resources in city hall, we don’t really have the staff manpower to be updating that on a daily basis,” Baker said.

The parks manager said the spraying is done with pesticides and herbicides governed by guidelines laid out by the province of Saskatchewan. Each city worker on the ground spraying carries a licence to do so and because they’re exposed to chemicals for a long period of time they’re properly equipped.

“There’s not a lot of research to back up short exposure being harmful, but we do want to be careful long term if people are spraying… we want to make sure we’re as safe as possible,” Baker said. “We’re not taking any risks.”

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas