Two local environmental advocates spoke out against the use of toxic weed killers on Doubleday Field during the board of trustees meeting Monday night.

"The risk is unchosen for those who play on Doubleday Field, inconsistent with the field's history and should not be part of its future. The Sandlot Kid would not dare play on Doubleday Field today because he would burn his bare feet on the chemically treated grass," said Michael Whaling, a Middlefield resident and former board member of the New York Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.

"The concerns about pesticides raised by Michael Whaling are not his alone," said Dr. John Davis. "The chemistry of pesticides, their break down products and the so-called "inert" ingredients that help them soak into the ground (and skin and GI tract) are incompletely understood. But there is increasing evidence on the dangers of pesticides to humans and the environment." Davis, also of Middlefield, is the president of the Delaware Otsego Audubon Society.

Whaling and Davis were joined by Marianne Shelton, a village resident who spearheaded a petition drive asking for a two-year moratorium on the use of chemical weed killers on playing fields in the area. The moratorium, she said, would allow them "to figure out a better way to get grass to grow."

Shelton presented the petition with 160 signatures to the board following remarks by Whaling and Davis.

The petition campaign was begun by Shelton following the spraying of weed killer on playing field at the Clark Sports Center. She and other mothers who helped circulate the petition are concerned about the possible health risks the use of the herbicides presents to children playing on the fields.

"This is a big concern for a lot of parents and members of the community," she said.

But Joe Potrikus, the vice-president of Greener World, a local landscape company that carried out the herbicide application at the sports center disagreed with those concerns, saying people are exposed to risks everyday.

He cited DEC regulations governing the application of pesticides and told the board it did not have the authority to supercede state law. The board could prohibit the use of those chemicals on public, but not private property, he said.

Potrikus also countered Davis's comment that the herbicide 2,4-D is a component of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the military in Vietnam and was later linked to health problems in GIs exposed to it.

Davis, however, said Tuesday that he stands by his remark.

" I was taken aback at the village board meeting when Joe Potrikus said I was wrong about 2,4-D being a component of Agent Orange. I went to several web sites to check up on myself, and there is no doubt that Agent Orange contained 50% 2,4-D (along with 50% 2,4,5-T, and unfortunately, contamination with dioxin). My comment about 2-,4-D and Agent Orange may have sounded a little sensational, but it was accurate," he said.

According to Whaling, documents provided to him by the village indicate that last year 650 pounds and 17 gallons of herbicides were used on Doubleday Field from late spring through early autumn.

Joe Harris, head groundskeeper of Doubleday Field for eleven years, was honored last year by Briggs & Stratton, manufacturer of lawn mower engines, as the keeper of one of the top ten lawns in the country.

Trustee and Doubleday Field committee chairman Stuart Taugher invited Whaling and Davis to attend the June meeting of the committee and discuss turf management at the field.

And that's an invitation the pair plan to accept.

"I'm pleased Stuart Taugher invited us to attend and we look forward to discussing non-toxic alternatives for maintaining the field," Whaling said Tuesday morning.

"When there is a question relating to public health and aesthetics, I don't think there is a lot of choice there - public health comes first," Mayor Wendell Tripp said in the meeting.