At the 03/15/2023 Common Council meeting, Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) introduced a resolution to eliminate the No Mow May program as a permanent part of the city’s ordinances, delete references to it from the city code, and return the related city code to the form it had prior to the adoption of the Now Mow May resolution.
Resolution 2-R-23 the “Resolution To Eliminate No Mow May” has been introduced because the study which was referenced in the original No Mow May resolution and used as the scientific support for the passage of the resolution has been retracted. The study (“No Mow May lawns have higher pollinator richness and abundances: An engaged community provides floral resources for pollinators”), published in September of 2020, was authored by Israel Del Toro who is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Lawrence University. He is also the current alderperson for District 4 but was not a member of the Council at the time the No Mow May resolution was passed. The study was retracted on October 31, 2022, due to inconsistencies between the published data and raw data.
The full publisher’s note reads, “In the spirit of full transparency, after finding inconsistencies between the published summary data and raw data, the authors and the editorial team have agreed to retract this article. The formal retraction notice will be published shortly.”
The Resolution To Eliminate No Mow May calls for the elimination of the No Mow May ordinance on the basis that the science behind the study used to support the ordinance “has been proven to not be reliable and other apiologists who study bees have said that long grass provides no discernible benefit for bees and other pollinators.”
The resolution will be taken up by the Municipal Services Committee on 03/20/2023.
Here is the full text of the resolution:
Whereas the No Mow May initiative was made a permanent part of the city’s ordinances in 2022, largely based on the data provided in a study looking at the quantity of bees and other pollinators found in mowed vs. unmowed lawns, and;
Whereas the study was presented to the Common Council as proof that unmowed lawns in fact did show higher levels of bee richness and abundance, leading to the program being permanently adopted by Appleton and later by numerous other municipalities around Wisconsin, and;
Whereas in November of 2022 the study was retracted by the authors of the paper as well as the publisher of the journal in which it appeared, and; Whereas the editor of the journal noted the findings of the study are “unreliable and could impact the results”, and;
Whereas the retraction guidelines for the journal note that a paper should be retracted if the findings are unreliable, or the result of fabrication or falsification, and;
Whereas as the basis for adoption of No Mow May, the science behind the study has been proven to not be reliable and other apiologists who study bees have said that long grass provides no discernible benefit for bees and other pollinators, now;
Therefore be it resolved that on the basis of a lack of scientific evidence to support the No Mow May program, the City of Appleton Common Council hereby votes to eliminate the No Mow May program and delete references to it from the city code on the basis of a lack of scientific evidence to support the program, and repeal Ordinance 26-22 adopted on April 6, 2022 and restore Section 12-58 to its form prior to that date in order to enforce the city’s long grass ordinance during the entire growing season, including the month of May.
Resolution 2-R-23: Resolution to eliminate No Mow May
Be the first to reply