Chemicals and health research, cited

The Evidence

What is used on golf turf, and what studies say about pesticides, airport lead and health. Each source has a setting and limitations; these are not findings about individual neighbors.

Information for all of us

Understanding the chemicals

More than seventy active ingredients are registered for use on golf turf. Complete application records and appropriately selected laboratory tests help neighbors, grounds teams and families understand what is known about our shared surroundings.

Record key: a diamond marks chemicals detected in Bedford Golf and Tennis Club's town-mandated water reports. A detection record is not a complete application inventory.

◆ Bedford only

Chemical	Type	Example trade names	What the science says
Chlorothalonil ◆	Fungicide	Daconil	EPA "likely human carcinogen"; IARC 2B; highly toxic to fish; banned in the European Union
Propiconazole ◆	Fungicide	Banner	Triazole; endocrine effects reported in animal studies
Tebuconazole ◆	Fungicide	Torque	Triazole; possible endocrine activity
Fluxapyroxad ◆	Fungicide	Xzemplar	Reported at all 3 Bedford downstream test points in 2023 and 2024, per town-reviewed reports
Metconazole	Fungicide	Tourney	Tested at Bedford 2024, not detected, per town-reviewed reports
Azoxystrobin	Fungicide	Heritage	Frequently detected in USGS stream surveys
Pyraclostrobin	Fungicide	Insignia	Toxic to aquatic invertebrates
Boscalid	Fungicide	Emerald	EPA "suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity"; persistent in soil
Fludioxonil	Fungicide	Medallion	Often in combo products
Iprodione	Fungicide	Chipco 26019	Groundwater leacher
Vinclozolin ◆	Fungicide	Curalan	Anti-androgenic in animal studies; US registrations cancelled
Triadimefon ◆	Fungicide	Bayleton	Triazole
Triadimenol ◆	Fungicide	(formulation)	Highest single Bedford reading: 13.8 ug/L (2015), per town-reviewed reports
Myclobutanil	Fungicide	Eagle	Triazole
Mancozeb	Fungicide	Fore	Metabolizes to ETU; EU approval not renewed in 2021
PCNB (quintozene)	Fungicide	Terraclor	Organochlorine; persistent
Metalaxyl	Fungicide	Subdue	Detected in Long Island golf-course well monitoring
2,4-D	Herbicide	Trimec	IARC 2B; possible thyroid effects
Dicamba	Herbicide	Vanquish	Groundwater contaminant; drift-prone
Triclopyr	Herbicide	Turflon	Pyridine herbicide
Glyphosate	Herbicide	Roundup	IARC 2A vs EPA "not likely"; neuro evidence inconclusive
Prodiamine	Herbicide	Barricade	Pre-emergent; low mammalian toxicity
Dithiopyr	Herbicide	Dimension	Pre-emergent
Pendimethalin	Herbicide	Pendulum	Possible carcinogen (EPA Group C)
Quinclorac	Herbicide	Drive	Crabgrass control
Mesotrione	Herbicide	Tenacity	Low toxicity
Dacthal (DCPA)	Herbicide	Dacthal	EPA cancelled all US registrations in October 2024 over fetal thyroid and developmental risks
Trifluralin	Herbicide	Treflan	Groundwater contaminant
Halosulfuron	Herbicide	SedgeHammer	Nutsedge control
Paraquat	Herbicide	Gramoxone	Associated with Parkinson's in occupational studies; EPA restricted use
Chlorpyrifos	Insecticide	Dursban	Developmental neurotoxicant; prenatal exposure associated with brain changes in cohort studies
Diazinon	Insecticide	Knox Out	Golf-course uses cancelled by EPA in the late 1980s following bird-kill incidents
Carbaryl ◆	Insecticide	Sevin	Possible human carcinogen; detected at Bedford 2016, per town-reviewed reports
Trichlorfon	Insecticide	Dylox	Organophosphate grub control
Imidacloprid	Insecticide	Merit	Neonicotinoid; toxic to bees
Clothianidin	Insecticide	Arena	Neonicotinoid; toxic to bees
Bifenthrin	Insecticide	Talstar	Pyrethroid; highly toxic to fish
Permethrin	Insecticide	Astro	Pyrethroid; neurotoxic at high doses
Cyfluthrin	Insecticide	Tempo	Pyrethroid
Deltamethrin	Insecticide	Deltagard	Pyrethroid
Lambda-cyhalothrin	Insecticide	Scimitar	Pyrethroid
Ethoprop	Insecticide	Mocap	Organophosphate; volatile, can move off-site as vapor
Trinexapac-ethyl	PGR	Primo Maxx	Widely used turf growth regulator
Paclobutrazol	PGR	Trimmit	Soil-persistent
Copper sulfate	OMRI		Highly toxic to fish; an element, so it cannot be broken down and persists in soil
Pyrethrins	OMRI		Botanical pyrethroids; toxic to fish and bees
Azadirachtin (neem)	OMRI		Low mammalian toxicity; aquatic toxicity in formulations; data gaps
Spinosad	OMRI		Low mammalian toxicity; highly toxic to bees and aquatic invertebrates

Organic certification and chemical safety answer different questions. Understanding both helps all of us make informed decisions about caring for the land. Health-effect notes above are editorial summaries of regulatory classifications and published studies; where a claim rests on club or town reports, that is stated.

Course context: Vineyard Golf Club on Martha's Vineyard is one of the few fully organic US courses and works by minimizing chemical input altogether. This is a practice description, not a safety verdict.

The numbers, cited

Health data

Research on pesticides, water and airport lead helps our community ask informed questions together. Each source has a setting and limitations; these are not findings about individual neighbors.

Read these numbers carefully

These are national and state-level statistics. They are not counts for any town, school or golf course, and they do not prove that pesticide use at any specific course caused any specific illness. The studies below show associations in the populations they examined. Complete local application inventories and appropriate monitoring help residents, clinicians and researchers develop informed questions about local exposure.

Sources reviewed October 18, 2026.

Duke research

Golf-course runoff and airport lead

Two directly relevant sources: a Duke golf-course water project and a peer-reviewed Nicholas School study of children near airports. They examine different exposures and should not be treated as evidence of a combined effect.

Sources reviewed October 21, 2026. The golf project has no verified publication date; the airport paper is from 2011, not a new release. Neither changes our scores or verifies local contamination.

Golf courses and water

Pesticides measured in golf-course stormwater ponds

Undated research project webpage. Duke Ferguson Lab, Civil and Environmental Engineering. This source is a laboratory project description, not a verified journal paper under this title.

Findings: At a coastal golf-course community on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, researchers measured turf-management herbicides, insecticides and fungicides in stormwater ponds adjacent to fairways at parts-per-trillion to parts-per-billion concentrations. Examples included atrazine, 2,4-D, fipronil, pyrethroids and propiconazole. The course used treated municipal wastewater for irrigation; wastewater-derived hormones and pharmaceuticals were also detected in irrigation water and runoff.

Why it matters: This is direct golf-course evidence that turf chemicals can occur in nearby stormwater ponds. It supports asking which products are used and testing connected water for an appropriately broad set of chemicals.

Limitations: The setting combined reclaimed-water irrigation and turf-management chemicals, so contaminant sources were mixed. The webpage describes fish-exposure experiments but does not report a quantified human-health outcome. These detections do not establish contamination, exposure or harm at any other course, home or school.

Effects and occurrence of estrogenic contaminants in coastal stormwater detention ponds impacted by runoff from a wastewater-irrigated golf course

Read the Duke golf-runoff project

Airports and children’s health

Higher childhood blood lead associated with nearby leaded-avgas airports

Published online July 13, 2011; October 2011 journal issue. Marie Lynn Miranda, Rebecca Anthopolos and Douglas Hastings, Children’s Environmental Health Initiative, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University. Environmental Health Perspectives.

Findings: Using blood-lead screening records for 125,197 children in six North Carolina counties from 1995 to 2003, researchers found higher blood lead associated with living near airports using leaded aviation gasoline. The strongest association was within 500 meters of airport property boundaries. In the adjusted within-distance model, average blood lead was 4.4 percent higher within 500 meters than among other screened children, with smaller associations in the wider 1,000- and 1,500-meter buffers.

Why it matters: This directly supports including leaded fuel used by piston-engine aircraft in our shared-air conversation. It is not a study of ordinary commercial jet fuel. The finding supports discussing blood-lead screening with a child’s clinician and asking airports about fuel and emissions monitoring.

Limitations: An observational study, not proof that aviation emissions caused an individual child’s blood lead result. Airport distance was a proxy for exposure; the analysis did not incorporate wind patterns or aircraft traffic volume. Its buffers are not safe-distance cutoffs and do not validate this site’s point-based airport distances or scoring bands. It did not study Westchester or Fairfield County.

A Geospatial Analysis of the Effects of Aviation Gasoline on Childhood Blood Lead Levels

Read the Nicholas School airport-lead study

Explore courses and airports on the map Ask for records and monitoring

Fair airways

Westchester and nearby Connecticut airport evidence

Local reports and broader scientific studies answer different questions. Here we separate what is documented at Westchester County Airport and Danbury Municipal Airport from research conducted elsewhere. Leaded avgas used by piston-engine aircraft is distinct from commercial jet fuel.

Sources reviewed October 22, 2026. These records do not change scores or establish contamination or harm at a nearby school or home.

Connecticut monitoring coverage, including Danbury

What the state’s lead-monitoring assessment does and does not show

Official CT DEEP monitoring-network assessment, not an airport health study. July 2025; lead-monitoring discussion on printed page 57.

What the source shows: Connecticut DEEP’s 2025 five-year network assessment states that no additional lead monitors are required in Connecticut for stationary-source or airport monitoring under the cited federal rule. It reports that the dedicated New Haven lead-monitoring network ended June 30, 2016. The assessment also identifies an ambient-air station at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.

Questions for our community: This gives families a concrete monitoring question: are there airport-specific lead measurements, rather than only a regional air station or emissions estimates? A determination that a monitor is not required is not a finding of zero lead emissions or zero exposure.

Limitations: The report’s historical lead results are from New Haven, not Danbury Municipal Airport. The Danbury university station is not identified here as an airport lead study. This source does not establish current lead concentrations or airport-attributable exposure at nearby schools or homes.

CT DEEP: 2025 Ambient Air Monitoring 5-Year Network Assessment

Westchester County Airport (HPN)

Local air-emissions inventories

Official airport environmental report, not a health study. 2025 update using 2022 activity data; earlier 2021 update used 2017 data.

What the source shows: The County’s air-quality page reports inventories of greenhouse gases and six additional criteria air pollutants associated with airport operations. These inventories establish a local emissions-reporting record and help identify opportunities to reduce emissions. The County also reports a separate 2023 greenhouse-gas inventory.

Questions for our community: Ask for the underlying pollutant-by-pollutant inventory, how piston-engine lead emissions are accounted for, and whether community monitoring includes lead and ultrafine particles. Greenhouse-gas reporting alone does not answer those exposure questions.

Limitations: The linked page summarizes inventories, not measured air concentrations at a school or home or health outcomes. No local lead concentration or numerical exposure result is claimed here. Carbon accreditation does not establish that nearby air is free of lead or other pollutants.

Westchester County Airport: Air Quality

Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Connecticut

Leaded-fuel context and a local research gap

Airport fuel directory, not an exposure study. Fuel source reviewed October 22, 2026; no local study date verified.

What the source shows: The airport’s fuel listing includes 100LL aviation gasoline. This identifies a potential lead-emissions source from aircraft using that fuel, not the amount of lead in neighboring air. We have not verified a Danbury-specific published childhood blood-lead study or community air-lead measurement report in this review.

Questions for our community: Danbury is the nearby Connecticut airport covered here. The Nicholas School airport-lead paper above provides a reason to ask about local fuel use and monitoring, but its North Carolina findings cannot be presented as Danbury findings.

Limitations: A fuel listing is not a scientific study, and not locating a report does not mean none exists or that anyone refused disclosure. Nearby residents’ exposure, soil levels and health outcomes remain unknown from these sources.

Danbury airport information and fuel listing

Air, soil and water testing need different sampling methods. A water test cannot measure airborne exposure. Ask a qualified laboratory or environmental professional which substances and sampling locations address the question; discuss children’s blood-lead screening with their clinician.

Find these airports and nearby schools on the map

Parkinson’s disease

1,000,000+

Americans living with Parkinson's disease

The Parkinson's Foundation estimates more than one million people in the United States live with Parkinson's disease, rising to an estimated 1.2 million by 2030.

Source: Parkinson's Foundation, Prevalence and Incidence

~90,000

New U.S. diagnoses each year

A 2022 Parkinson's Foundation-led study estimated nearly 90,000 new diagnoses per year, up from a previous estimate of 60,000. The estimate draws on five epidemiological cohorts with data for a common year, 2012.

Source: Willis et al., Incidence of Parkinson disease in North America, 2022

Highest tier

New York among states with the highest adjusted Parkinson's prevalence in Medicare data

A 2019 study of 2014 Medicare beneficiary data placed New York among the states with the highest age, race and sex adjusted Parkinson's prevalence. It covers Medicare beneficiaries only, not the general population.

Source: Mantri et al., State-level prevalence among Medicare beneficiaries, 2019

What the research says about pesticides

Pesticide exposure and risk for Parkinson's disease (2006)

In a prospective study of 143,325 U.S. adults, participants who reported pesticide exposure had 70 percent higher Parkinson's incidence than those who did not (adjusted relative risk 1.7, 95 percent CI 1.2 to 2.3).

Limitation: An association in a large cohort, not proof that exposure caused any individual case.

Ascherio et al., Annals of Neurology

Agricultural paraquat use and Parkinson's disease in California's Central Valley (2024)

Among 829 Parkinson's cases and 824 controls, working near paraquat applications every year was associated with higher odds of Parkinson's (OR 2.15, 95 percent CI 1.46 to 3.19). Residential proximity over time was also associated (OR 1.91, 95 percent CI 1.30 to 2.83).

Limitation: Agricultural applications in California, not golf-course use in Westchester.

Paul et al., 2024

Paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease, meta-analysis (2018)

A meta-analysis of 13 case-control studies found an association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease (OR 1.64, 95 percent CI 1.27 to 2.13).

Limitation: Findings vary by study and exposure measurement, and do not establish risk from any particular course.

Tangamornsuksan et al., 2018

Childhood cancer

14,910

U.S. children and adolescents expected to be diagnosed in 2024

The National Cancer Institute estimated 14,910 diagnoses among ages 0 to 19 in 2024: 9,620 among ages 0 to 14 and 5,290 among ages 15 to 19.

Source: NCI, Cancer in Children and Adolescents, 2024

~1,000

New York State diagnoses per year among children under 20

The New York State Department of Health reports about 1,000 childhood cancer diagnoses per year among children under age 20 statewide.

Source: NYS Department of Health, Childhood Cancers

Leukemia and brain tumors

Among the most common childhood cancer groups

For U.S. children and adolescents diagnosed in 2016 to 2020, NCI identifies leukemias and malignant brain and other central nervous system tumors among the most common cancer groups, followed by lymphomas and others.

Source: NCI, Cancer in Children and Adolescents

What the research says about pesticides

Residential pesticide exposure during childhood and childhood cancers (2015)

A meta-analysis found childhood exposure to indoor residential insecticides associated with higher odds of leukemia (OR 1.47, 95 percent CI 1.26 to 1.72). Herbicide exposure was also associated (OR 1.26, 95 percent CI 1.10 to 1.44).

Limitation: Pooled observational findings. The study does not estimate risk from golf-course applications specifically.

Chen et al., 2015

Residential pesticide exposure and childhood and young adult brain tumors (2017)

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 18 case-control studies reported an association between residential and household pesticide exposure and brain tumors in children and young adults (summary OR 1.26, 95 percent CI 1.13 to 1.40).

Limitation: Observational evidence that does not isolate golf-course or lawn exposure.

Van Maele-Fabry et al., 2017

What about Westchester?

New York publishes county-level cancer statistics, but county childhood cancer counts are small and combined across types, and we could not verify a current Westchester-specific childhood cancer figure. There is no population-wide New York State Parkinson’s count. We show what is published and say plainly what is not.

2023

Most recent year of NYS Cancer Registry case data

The New York State Cancer Registry publishes county-level cancer statistics through public dashboards. Its registry page lists 2023 as the most recent year with available new-case and death data.

Source: NYS Cancer Registry and Cancer Statistics

Per 1,000,000

How New York reports county childhood cancer rates

NYS Department of Health county tables report newly diagnosed childhood cancer cases and rates per million over five-year periods. Because county counts are small, tables combine all childhood cancer types. A current Westchester-specific childhood cancer count was not verified for this page.

Source: NYS Department of Health, Childhood Cancers

Information that helps our community

The research linking pesticide exposure to Parkinson’s disease and childhood cancer is observational and growing. Published application inventories, including what was used, where and how much, give families, club members, doctors and researchers shared information to work with. Complete records and appropriate monitoring support thoughtful decisions without assuming local harm.

Explore the Club Database Take Action