Deadline near for 2013 landscape pesticide registry

MADISON – Feb. 1 is the deadline to sign up for the Landscape Pesticide Registry for this year's growing season, so you can be notified before lawn care companies apply pesticides in your neighbors' yards, according to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Register online at http://datcpservices.wisconsin.gov. Participation in the registry is free. Signing up is a two-step process:

You will register, providing your email address, street address and telephone number, and set up a password.

Enter the addresses for which you want notification. Unless you complete both steps, businesses will be unable to notify you. The password will provide you access to see what addresses you've entered and edit that information.

You can register addresses only for the block where you live and blocks that are adjacent to it. If you have signed up for the registry last year, you will not have to re-enter addresses that you entered then, but you will have to indicate that you want to keep them on your notification list.

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection oversees the landscape registry.

The registry applies only to professional landscape applications. Homeowners or landlords who do their own applications are not covered by the notification requirements, nor are applications to the inside or outside of buildings. The registry does not allow for notification of pesticide use in agriculture, or for you to be notified about applications around your workplace or your children's school or day care center.

After Feb. 1, the registry will be closed to the public, so staff can review it for incorrect and ineligible addresses. It will take effect March 15, when pesticide applicators will be able to search it to find out if any of their clients' addresses have been listed.

The registry has been in use since 1993. It first went to an online system in 2012, saving taxpayers about $35,000 a year in printing and mailing costs. Last year, about 830 people registered and requested notification of pesticide applications on about 8,400 properties.

Dane County and Milwaukee County have the highest participation levels. In Dane County, about 320 people listed nearly 3,000 properties for notification last year. In Milwaukee County, 120 people registered and listed almost 1,800 properties.

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