Documentary tells how Quebec town launched anti-pesticide movement

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Documentary tells how Quebec town launched anti-pesticide movement

_http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/02/hudson-chemical.html_

(http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/02/hudson-chemical.html)

 

The town of Hudson, Que., glimpsed itself on screen Monday night, depicted

as **ground zero** in the battle against the use of lawn herbicides and

pesticides.

 

That*s how Paul Tukey, a U.S. television host and author, saw the town

that was the first to ban use of these products in its jurisdiction.

 

**I knew as a journalist that there had to be a good back story,** Tukey

told CBC News.

 

**That somebody had to go out on a limb and take on these chemical

companies, because the chemical companies, trust me, go to unbelievable lengths

to

ensure they have the right to sell these chemicals.**

 

Tukey produced and directed the documentary Hudson: A Chemical Reaction to

tell that back story, which included fighting chemical companies all the

way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

 

The documentary film had its premiere Monday night in a special screening

for environmental group Go Green Hudson and the people of Hudson, Que.

 

**What a great story, and it*s all really based around one woman, Dr. June

Irwin. She*s still a practising dermatologist well into her 70s on the

West island of Montreal,** he said.

 

**June Irwin fundamentally changed the North American landscape forever

just by daring to speak out,** said Tukey.

 

**She went to every single town meeting in Hudson from June of 1985 to

until they passed the ban. Literally every single month she would show up and

she would read a document full of facts and full of anecdotes that came in

the news. She would read this aloud and say why aren*t we getting rid of

these things? Why are we allowing these products to be on our properties?**

Grassroots revolution

 

The town of Hudson*s triumph at the Supreme Court in 2001 was only the

start of the story, Tukey said. His documentary, shot last year in Hudson and

across Canada, chronicles how Hudson*s decision kickstarted an

environmental movement toward organic lawn care.

 

**When June got it passed in Hudson, other folks across Canada started to

say, look at what Hudson has done, and that*s really depicted in our

movie,** Tukey said.

 

Quebec banned the chemicals throughout the province and individual

municipalities across Canada followed Hudson*s lead.

 

Tukey worked with filmmaker Brett Plymale to create the film, talking to

the people of Hudson and researching the history at the local newspaper.

 

But the story of Hudson had been close to his heart for some time, because

he had worked in the lawn care industry in his home state of Maine.

 

**I started in the late 1980s, and by the late 1990s I was coming home in

the evening with blurred vision and nosebleeds and nausea, and I was really

quite a physical mess,** he said. A doctor attributed his health problems

to his work with lawn chemicals.

 

Tukey said he then became interested in organic gardening, an interest he

indulged by talking to experts across the U.S. for his TV series, People,

Places & Plants.

 

In 2007, he wrote The Organic Lawn Care Manual, which had a single page of

background about the story of Hudson.

 

His documentary Hudson: A Chemical Reaction, produced by PFZMedia, is

scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival this September.

 

_http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/02/hudson-chemical.html_

(http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/02/hudson-chemical.html)

 

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