By Eliza Ridgeway

Los Altos Hills’ newest environmental mission may be a reduction of chemical spraying along the town’s roads and pathways.

The Dec. 15 city council meeting featured a staff report on the open space committee’s proposal that the town evaluate ways to reduce herbicide use in town, such as making a “no-spray” list for residents and using mowing and manual weed removal in place of chemicals.

Los Altos Hills currently contracts with Clark Pest Control to spray 18 miles of roadway and its pathways two times per year. Property owners maintain the many private roads in town.

The town sprays 2 to 5 feet on each side of its roads and treats its pathways for both aesthetic and safety reasons.

“If you don’t spray the pathways, the weeds take over and destroy the surface,” Councilman Jean Mordo said. The surface of the paths is a crushed-stone mixture in which dirt and weeds settle over time.

City engineer Henry Louie said that the current contract with Clark costs $20,000 a year. He estimated that a complete switch from chemical to manual weed control would cost between $200,000 and $250,000.

“Everybody, given the choice, would prefer to be green,” Mordo said. But a ten-fold increase in cost to reduce herbicide use did not seem a viable possibility for the town. The council asked the open space committee to work with staff to research more cost-effective alternatives.

With some prodding from a group that included Los Altos Hills residents, Santa Clara County adopted an Integrated Pest Management Ordinance in 2002 that has won state awards for its research into reduced-risk techniques for herbicides and pesticides. The county maintains Moody Road, where it stopped spraying in 1999, and is experimenting with techniques such as using wood chips to smother weeds.

Other area towns such as Los Altos, Palo Alto and Portola Valley use a combination of manual labor and chemical herbicides, while Woodside and Santa Cruz County are chemical-free. Los Altos Hills uses Environmental Protection Agency-approved herbicides.

“It will be challenging for the Hills to find alternatives,” said open space committee member Karen Lemes. But she said that as development increases in Los Altos Hills, an increasing number of residents would be maintaining their own roadsides and landscaping, and thus citywide need for spraying might diminish.