I appreciated The Sun's article, "As bee population dwindles, Howard clamps down on harmful pesticide use in parks," (June 28). Bees are critical to our food system, helping to pollinate nearly one in every three bites of food that we eat, and the $20-30 billion annual economic value of insect pollination — in the United States alone — speaks for itself.
I would like to commend the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks' decision to limit the use of neonicotinoids on the county's parkland. Howard, along with Montgomery County, is setting an admirable example for other counties in terms of pollinator protection which, of course, should be celebrated and replicated. However, with hive losses as high as 60 percent, we simply don't have time to wait for individual counties to ban neonicotinoids on their own. What we really need is a ban at the federal level.
To make this happen, we must call on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to commit to speeding up their testing of neonicotinoids and eventually ban these dangerous chemicals altogether. Now is a great opportunity as EPA is currently undergoing a review of these toxic pesticides, so we must take advantage of it and act now. Failure to ban these bee-killing pesticides will have disastrous effects. After all, no bees means no food.
Cashen Conroy, Baltimore