During a city autumn celebration at Ellsworth’s waterfront park, a witness saw an event coordinator spraying a can of Raid along the park’s grass, minutes before the children’s events were to open.

On that same day, a man and his two dogs took a break from the festivities by lounging on a hill next to City Hall, unaware of a sign warning of chemical lawn application.

When told about the application, the man sat up, looked down at his clothes, and said, “Too late now.”

Twice a year, the bustling village green in Bar Harbor grows eerily silent; the town’s playing fields are vacant then, as well. The reason: another tag warning of chemicals on the lawn, a few blocks from the ocean.

Many cities and towns along the coast use chemical pesticides and fertilizers to treat public parks, playing fields and hospital lawns. While pesticide use in agriculture has dropped over the last 20 years, such use has spiked upward in lawn care. Approximately 800,000 pounds of lawn-care pesticides were brought into Maine in 1995, according to the Maine Board of Pesticide Control. In 2004, that figure rose to 3 million.

Gary Fish, environmental coordinator for the Pesticide Control Board, said his agency is concerned about increased pesticide use, especially near people with damaged immune systems.

“If anyone shouldn’t be doing it, it should be hospitals,” Fish said.

Exposure to pesticides has been linked to a host of health problems including cancer, asthma, developmental disabilities, reproductive dysfunction and behavioral impairment. Short-term ailments include vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and sore throat.

Runoff lawn-care fertilizer also has been linked to ocean and freshwater algae blooms that result in massive aquatic species die-offs. The Pesticides Control Board first began promoting its “Yardscaping” organic lawn-care program after finding high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, two of the three most commonly used lawn-care fertilizers, in Portland’s Casco Bay.

“Originally, we were promoting it as `Bayscaping,’ ” Fish said.

Many lawn-care products hit the market long before their long-term health and environmental effects can be studied, said Fish. Recently, several pesticides released in the early 1990s have now been discovered to contain carcinogens.

“We’re not sure what will happen now, because they’ve become the most popular insecticides,” Fish said.

Ironically, Fish said, many of these toxic lawn pesticide applications aren’t necessary.

“A lot of time people are treating lawns whether they need it or not,” Fish said. “[They’re] on the treadmill.”

Lawn-care company spokesmen claim that their products pose little danger to public safety if used properly. Unfortunately, said Fish, labels on lawn-care products are often hard for the average person to read.

“We’ve been working with the federal EPA for years to get them to simplify the labels,” said Fish.

Even individuals certified to use pesticides by the state have trouble understanding pesticide labels. Charlie Pierpont is the integrated pest management coordinator for the Ellsworth school system. Recently, Maine passed a law banning the use of pesticides on public school grounds. In a telephone interview, Pierpont spoke with pride about the innovative ways he’s kept pests at bay without using chemicals.

But when reading off the lawn-care products used on the school grounds, he admitted he didn’t know what most of the labels meant.

“It’s got a lot of numbers, but it don’t mean nothing to me,” he said of one product.

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, one of the fertilizers he read off, Lebanon 19-0-6 with .3 Weed Control, had a built-in herbicide, making it technically illegal to use on school grounds without prior notification to parents.

In recent years, some towns have changed their ordinances to limit pesticide and fertilizer use on public and private lawns, said Fish. Change has come about largely because of citizen involvement.

Upon joining Brunswick’s conservation board, Laura Moon learned that the city’s aquifer lay directly under its athletic fields. While city ordinances banned pesticide applications by private landowners in the aquifer zone, Moon said the city routinely treated the playing fields with pesticides.

“And the soil is pretty sandy,” she said. “Four feet down and you can hit water.”

After city officials refused to stop treating the fields, Moon and others collected more than 700 signatures asking for the practice to be stopped, even if alternatives were initially more expensive.

Moon and her group went further than just pointing fingers, though.

“We had to find a solution,” she said.

The group brought in officials from Marblehead, Massachusetts, a town with ordinances that call for exclusive organic lawn care. Marblehead officials gave lectures on organic lawn care practices that can eliminate the need for pesticides, such as regularly testing the soil for pH balance and aerating the soil for weed control.

City officials eventually acquiesced and currently Brunswick is one of the only Maine towns with its own composting equipment. The city’s playing fields are now organically-treated.

“They are in really nice shape, and one of them is just gorgeous,” said Moon.

Moon and others have also put a measure on the local election ballot calling for a ban of sewage sludge in lawn care.

Fish said similar groups are either forming or working with town officials in several towns along the coast, including Mount Desert, Lewiston, and Auburn. The city of Portland recently gave the Pesticides Control Board a 2.5-acre parcel of land to demonstrate organic integrated lawn care practices. The board must still raise the funds to begin work on the parcel.

In some cities, the organic lawn care revolution is taking place within sight of City Hall. For the past 14 years, Ellsworth Public Library custodian Edmund Murray has chosen not to use chemicals to treat library lawns. The library is just across the street from the chemically-treated lawn at City Hall.

“Our grass is green, theirs is too,” Murray said.

There is a little more crabgrass on the library lawn, but it’s always green and healthy. For lawn care, Murray said all he does is apply lime once a year and mow regularly.

He said library patrons overwhelmingly are in favor of organic lawn care.

“It’s okay with me,” Murray said. “We don’t have to pay for pesticides and everybody likes us for not using them.”