Naples now requires landscapers to be certified

Taking care of lawns in the city of Naples will require more than hard work in the hot sun under a new city program.

Despite questions about the program’s effectiveness, the Naples City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to require landscape and lawn care companies doing business inside the city limits to earn an annual city certification.

The certification requirement is aimed at limiting the amount of pesticides and fertilizers that drain into ditches, canals and eventually flow to places like Moorings Bay and Naples Bay, causing pollution problems.

“You can create something special for Naples, and it could really be a model for the nation,” Tabitha Stadler, coastal training coordinator for Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, told council members.

City Council members lauded the program but cited potential problems with a lack of enforcement and cited concerns that the program doesn’t require a high enough percentage of lawn care workers to earn city certification.

Community Services Director David Lykins said the city will revisit the program after a year’s worth of experience with it.

“This will get better over time,” Lykins said.

Mayor Bill Barnett said he was glad to see the city make the program mandatory; earlier versions of the proposal made certification voluntary.

Photo by Garrett Hubbard, Daily News

Roberto Garcia, left, and his older brother, Mario Garcia, employees of Work-A-Holics Landscape Management, trim the grounds of Le Jardin condominium on Gulf Shore Boulevard North in Naples. All lawn-care companies doing business in the city will have to earn an annual certification under a program the Naples City Council approved Wednesday. The certification is aimed at reducing fertilizer and pesticide pollution in local waterways.

Barnett said he would like to see Collier County start a similar program to try to reduce pollution in waters upstream from Naples Bay.

“This could make a huge difference,” he said.

Councilman John Sorey called the program “fairly revolutionary” and hoped to convince the Big Cypress Basin, the local arm of the South Florida Water Management District, to spread the program.

“We’re making a gigantic step and I’m glad we’re doing it,” Sorey said.

The program requires all businesses providing lawn and landscape maintenance services in the city limits to have at least one supervisor and at least 10 percent of the company’s workers certified by the city by Sept. 30, 2007.

The program treats city contractors differently. They must have at least one supervisor certified by Oct. 1, 2006.

Those businesses must have at least 10 percent of their workers certified within six months of entering into a contract with the city and have at least 50 percent of their workers certified within a year of entering into a contract with the city, according to the new rules.

To earn certification, supervisors and workers will have to complete six hours of study on the effect of nutrients in the environment, landscape design and plant selection, rates and methods of applying fertilizer, and ways to minimize pests with fewer chemicals. The program requires three hours of ongoing education credits to obtain annual recertification.

The city plans to offer quarterly training sessions with help from the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and city-hired facilitators, Lykins said.

Stadler, at Rookery Bay, warned the City Council not to underestimate how much it will cost to run the certification program.

“We’re trying to change behavior, and that takes time, and therefore money, to be effective,” she said.

The city will charge a $175 application fee for certification and a $50 renewal fee each year. If companies get certified before March 31, 2007, the city will refund $100 of the application and waive the first year’s renewal fee, according to the program.

A two-day pilot program offered at Rookery Bay earlier this year showed results, according to evaluations of the program by course takers.

Of 32 evaluators, 58 percent said they would adjust the way they apply fertilizers and 55 percent said they would adjust the way they apply pesticides. The rest of the evaluators said they already were following environmental guidelines.

No lawn-care workers showed up at a Wednesday meeting at which the City Council approved the city certification program.

Work-A-Holics Landscaping Management Inc. manager Rafael Gutierrez said it could be a challenge for some companies to meet the certification requirement unless training is offered in Spanish and English.

Gutierrez said he favored the certification program — as long as it is enforced evenly across the industry.

“There’s a lot of people out there that sometimes don’t know what they’re doing,” he said.

Horticulturalist Scott Lowery, president of Scott Lowery Landscape Inc., said the certification requirement should extend to pest control companies and landscape architects.

He said some pest control companies also apply fertilizers, and landscape architects sometimes design landscapes that require more fertilizer.

Lykins said the program isn’t meant to be punitive, but to foster a partnership between the city and lawn-care companies to reduce pollution.

The certification program’s success will depend on educating the public about the benefits of using a certified company, he said.

Sorey said he worries that, even after certification, lawn-care workers still will apply too much fertilizer if a customer insists on a greener lawn.

Gutierrez, the manager at Work-A-Holics, said the city should follow up to make sure certified workers are following the rules.

“Otherwise it’s just another waste of time,” he said.

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Staff Writer Aisling Swift contributed to this report.