Managing Costs

Cost Factors

NLC costs will always vary due to its dependence on cultural controls.  NLC costs do not equate or share similarities to those of conventional 4-step or 5-step programs, since costs will proliferate if management applies organic weed and pest control without investment in cultural measures. To reduce NLC costs, the MGG Forum recommends focusing on the factors of engaging decisionmakers, long-term planning, cultural practices, products and managing community expectations.  

Engaging Decisionmakers

The boards and elected officials of park districts, school districts and municipalities make most of the decisions to pursue natural lawn care or IPM.  Amy Bartucci and the citizen-action group that she founded, Go Green Park Ridge, understood this and decided to push the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 to develop a natural lawn care plan. 

“The main concern at first was to try to convince elected officials and staff that this issue was board worthy. That we as community members would want to use our voices in town to adopt practices that impacted our health and our families,” said Bartucci.  

Change did not happen overnight. Go Green Park Ridge attended multiple board meetings, held conversations with individual board members, sent many letters with program/policy recommendations, supported a citizen-led petition and, even, campaigned for board member candidates that supported their message. Thanks to these activities and, also, the support of District 64’s Facility Manager, Ron DeGeorge, the board ultimately decided to invest in the equipment, staff and products to implement NLC on all properties (see costs broken down in Tables 1 & 2).  

Long-term Planning

Many means exist to get to an end. Effectively implementing a NLC plan may not need to eliminate conventional weed and pest control on all fields from day one if you believe your community will respond poorly to potential weed pressure. The City of Stoughton’s Brett Hebert anticipated these potential conflicts and responded by setting tolerance thresholds, prioritizing their fields and fitting the maintenance schedule with the field in question. 

In the program’s second year, Hebert notes that “although we have reduced our pesticide use on some of our more established parks, the overall use of pesticides has been stagnant as we have taken on new park land in the last two years that have required the use of pesticides as part of our grow in program.” As the program develops further, Hebert expects the use of pesticides to decrease and costs to go down.  

Cultural Practices

Few, if any, lawn maintenance schedules use assets most efficiently. When starting her job in 2016, Park Ridge Park District’s Assistant Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, Kristi Solberg, identified and evaluated the existing equipment, personnel and practices used by the district to implement the necessary cultural practices for NLC.     

Solberg slowly implemented these changes within a year and they produced favorable results. Year after year, Solberg added more to the turf program by feeding the turf properly, increasing cultural practices and putting down less weed control. By the fourth year, The Park District built a strong stand of turf that allowed them to refrain from using weed control.  

 “Initially the natural lawn care practices were probably more expensive because we weren’t running any kind of consistent program, but as we developed our program we are not increasing costs every year and if anything we are spending less,” Solberg explained.  

Products

Despite higher initial costs for organic fertilizers and pesticides compared to conventional products, the quality of these products continues to improve and managers have adjusted their practices to offset these costs. Carl Gorra, Park Operations Manager for Naperville Park District (NPD), has worked with organic products for more than 15 years.

“After you have been on the organics for quite some time, the disease pressure and the insect pressure that you would have had to treat for, you might not have to anymore,” Gorra stated.   

Thanks to the switch to organic products, Gorra can offset costs by no longer scheduling annual weed and grub control for his fields. Also, Gorra found that the Naperville Park District would apply about 25 percent less quantity of organic fertilizer products than conventional. 

For weed control, Gorra uses the OMRI-listed Fiesta herbicide product on the eight NPD Sustainable Parks.  Gorra admits that Fiesta costs more than using the conventional weed control products, because of its high market price and the need to apply the product twice per season.    

“But, if you couple Fiesta with organic fertilizer and a good aeration program, your weed pressure goes way down,” Gorra argued.  

Managing Community Expectations

Former River Forest Sustainability Commissioner, Sue Crothers, says community residents embrace and take pride in the natural lawn care efforts of the Village of River Forest Sustainability Commission and its park district.

“River Forest is proud of its leadership of instituting more natural lawn care as well as educating residents on the benefits,” says Crothers. 

In 2016, the then Sustainability Committee successfully requested the park district to adopt an IPM/NLC policy.  After this initial action, the Village formalized the sustainability committee into a commission and the commission introduced its Keep On the Grass campaign where more than 200 residents signed the Healthy Lawn, Healthy Family pledge (HLHF).  Crothers attributes this community engagement to the efforts of the River Forest Sustainability Commission.

“At the end of the day, education is the key,” Crothers argued.  “Every action has a reaction. Once people begin to understand the connection between natural lawn care and native pollinators and they see life return to their gardens, it makes all the difference.   

The Sustainability Commission in partnership with the local non-profit, Deep Roots Project, continues to provide NLC education each year with its new Parkways for Pollinators program. As part of the Village’s Green Block Party program, each participant receives a free native pollinating garden and residents enjoy planting it with their neighbors. “The goal is to redefine and rethink the parkway between the street and the sidewalk. Together we are growing gardens and minds. And without pesticides.”