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Orleans Supporters and Lawn-Care Industry Clash Over Local Fertilizer Restrictions
Summary
Supporters from Orleans urged home-rule authority to restrict fertilizers to protect ponds and coastline; industry groups warned the state’s nutrient-management law and MDAR-backed best practices provide a statewide framework that preempts local ordinances.
House Bill 994, a home-rule petition from Orleans seeking local control to restrict plant nutrients, prompted testimony both for and against the proposal at the committee hearing.
Michael Herman, speaking for Orleans, said the town’s water bodies have recently been closed for pollution and that excess nitrogen and phosphorus—he singled out fertilizer—are proven contributors to freshwater and coastal pollution. "Water is our most valuable environmental resource and economic asset," Herman said, and he urged lawmakers to support local measures to protect ponds and coastline in Orleans.
Opposing the bill, Bob Mann, senior director of technical and regulatory affairs for the National Association of Landscape Professionals and past president of the Massachusetts Association of Lawn Care Professionals, argued the Legislature addressed plant-nutrient regulation through an earlier amendment to Chapter 262 and that the state’s nutrient-management framework was designed to occupy the field and preempt local regulation. Mann described Massachusetts’ nutrient-management law as “the most progressive, well considered, and uniquely efficient, effective nutrient management regulatory scheme in The United States,” and he urged the committee to rely on MDAR (Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources) regulations and UMass Cooperative Extension best-management practices.
Karen Connolly, representing the Massachusetts Association of Lawn Care Professionals and related industry groups, also opposed the home-rule petition and said the state scheme was developed with extensive research and input from land-grant universities and industry stakeholders. She said she would submit written testimony and encouraged lawmakers to consult the existing statewide regulatory regime before allowing local ordinances.
The committee accepted written testimony from both sides and asked staff to include those filings in the record; no votes were taken at the hearing.
