From the sports pages of the Manawatu Evening Standard yesterday:

The Greens’ release was enough to spark a rash of Googling. It revealed this endosulfan stuff, which is sprayed on to sports fields to control worms, is a highly toxic insecticide. It’s used in Manawatu.

It is banned in the European Union and even in Cambodia, where you’d think unexploded mines would be more of a health hazard.

and

Palmerston North, in its reply to the survey, suggested the loss of the spray would be a major problem and could even compromise hosting major events at Arena Manawatu like a Rugby World Cup 2011 match. Yeah right!

That’s rather like the old argument that many sports would collapse without cigarette sponsorship.

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FYI

tinyurl.com/3ntadn

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday pledged 400 million euros ($549 million) in state support for the development of electric and hybrid cars.

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Yay Napier City.

Stratford District Council, after having recently purchased it, have also decided after Sue K’s latest media release that they won’t use it.

Come on Manukau and Palmerston North – where the bloody hell are you?

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I had an interesting experience behind a bowling green
I smelled a pungent chemical smell and searched out the source – it was the club’s compost heap! They’d made a pile of clippings from the mowing of the ‘green’ and it was putrid in a very unnatural way. I took it to be the powerful herbicides and pesticides the green keeper uses to prop up the special ground-carpeting flatleafed plants they use to ensure an uninterupted roll-up of the bowls, along with whatever biocide they use to kill earthworms and free themselves of the dreadful scourge of ..worm castings! If only I could convey the rancid stench across the ether. You’d gag!
p.s. compost made from natural materials smells sweet.

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