A new state Senate bill, if signed into law, would extend to municipal playgrounds a pesticide ban similar to the July 2010 ban affecting K-8 school grounds.

To North Stonington officials, Senate Bill 1063, given the green light by both the Senate Environment and Planning and Development committees within the past two months, is a sign state legislators aren't listening to small towns' concerns.

While the bill and the 2010 law tout the same idea — go organic — neither provide funding for upfront costs municipalities may face for the equipment and additional grass seed that natural methods can require.

So, since late last year, when North Stonington school officials say the residual effects of a June 2010 pesticide treatment wore off, they have watched the once-pristine grasses of the athletic complex behind the elementary school deteriorate.

Underneath each 1-square-foot patch, they said, they found more than 10 and sometimes almost 20 grubs, or larval-stage beetles, just about everywhere they looked. The grubs, a food source for several rodents, brought skunks, raccoons and opossums digging up the earth. Before they knew it, they said, the soccer and baseball fields were unusable.

"I've been doing this line of work for 30 years," said Mark Christensen, who owns landscaping company Green Acres Inc. and used to treat the district's sports complex. "Without a doubt, this grub infestation in North Stonington is the worst I've ever seen."

They aren't the only school system affected.

After a March 11 hearing about expanding the ban — where school officials from Lyme-Old Lyme, East Windsor, East Haddam and more came out against it — the Environment Committee decided to strike from the bill an originally included provision to extend the ban to high schools, too.

However, state Rep. Philip Miller, D-Essex, said that's still a long-term goal.

"The idea is to encourage (towns and schools) to do this the natural way," Miller said. "To try to strengthen and amend the soil so it can grow the very best turf that outcompetes weeds, as opposed to poisoning the weeds."

He pointed to school districts such as Branford and Cheshire as nontoxic, organic treatment success stories. Others at the March 11 hearing also encouraged the ban expansion.

But groundskeeper Wayne Coats, in charge of the 12.5-acre North Stonington grounds, said neither the state nor organic product experts have been able to help.

Christensen said two of the most popular natural treatments for grubs — nematodes and Milky Spore disease — wouldn't be successful in North Stonington, which is primarily affected by stubborn European chafer grubs.

Nematodes, Christensen explained, require the soil to be moist before and in the days following treatment. Without an irrigation system, the necessary hydration might not be possible without spending thousands of dollars.

And, he said, cold-sensitive Milky Spore would have to be used several times a year.

Coats called the 2010 bill "just another unfunded mandate."

Already, he said, school officials spent $25,000 late last year to clean up dead grass and re-seed with spindly, annual ryegrass. If they eventually were to plant the more grub-tolerant Bermuda grass, he said they'd have to spend $20,000 to $30,000 to buy equipment that can mow it.

In the meantime, because students in grades 6 through 12 share the athletic complex, several senior outdoor athletes haven't had a home game since midway through soccer season last year.

"It's awful for the students," said Athletic Director Ellen Turner, adding that the school already has paid $4,000 to send the baseball team to Senator Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium in Norwich. Dodd Stadium, she noted, still is allowed to use pesticides on its fields.

State Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington — a former physical education teacher and athlete — said she sees both sides, but is "always going to weigh in on the side of the safety of our children." For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has acknowledged that children are at greater risk than adults from pesticide exposure.

Both Miller and Urban cited a literature review by Chensheng Lu, a Harvard University associate professor, regarding the potential effects insecticide exposure can have on children.

In it, Lu found an association between childhood exposure to indoor residential insecticides and a significant increase in risk of childhood leukemia and lymphomas. However, the report found "no statistically significant association between outdoor insecticide exposures and any types of childhood cancers."

"Pesticides, there's no question they're carcinogenic. There's no question exposure to children this young is particularly dangerous," Urban said. "Anything we can do to mitigate that, we have to do."

She added that organic treatment costs should decrease annually a few years after the initial upfront cost.

The U.S. EPA lists imidacloprid, the active ingredient in the Merit insecticide North Stonington previously had used, as having "no evidence of carcinogenicity to humans," though many others do. That same ingredient, however, is considered "highly toxic to bees," according to the National Pesticide Information Center.

Still, Christensen pointed out, several common household products, such as nicotine, gasoline, Lysol spray and caffeine, are more toxic than some pesticides when the active ingredients of each are compared in concentrated form.

He suggested Acelepryn, a relatively new, reduced-risk pesticide, as a possible compromise. Urban said it has come up in discussions about the bill, but only as something that may be allowed on municipal playgrounds in emergency situations.

But, Urban added, the conversation is far from over: legislators still are in the throes of determining what the bill — one of three with similar goals — will include.

l.boyle@theday.com

Twitter: @LindsayABoyle