It’s not just your neighbor’s house down the street with a patchy green and brown lawn.
Hundreds of Sioux Falls area residential and commercial lawns have burned up, part of a widespread chemical burn from a routine weed control application by a local lawn care company. Impacted businesses include the Good Samaritan Society along Marion Road, the Washington Pavilion and more.
The company, Kut and Kill Lawn Care, based out of Harrisburg, applied weed control to 302 properties around the Sioux Falls area between April 19 and May 3, owner Tate Eining said. It wasn’t until May 9, when the sun came out and the temperature warmed, that the company realized there was an issue with the application.
“What happened is that an employee made an honest mistake. It was purely by accident,” Eining said. “I feel terrible for our customers as well as our employee, who is devastated by what happened.”
The employee mixed the wrong chemical that burned the lawns, Eining said. The herbicide chemicals that were applied don’t activate until it gets warm out.
Aside from aesthetics, the situation left affected customers concerned about how to resolve the issue, the cost in doing so and the timeline to fix their lawns.
Eining plans to start fixing the damaged lawns as soon as he gets the go-ahead from his insurance company.
“I just want people to know that we are working on this around the clock, and it just takes time, unfortunately,” he said. “The minute we know we are going to be sending messages out to everyone, every way we can, so we can get going on these.”
According to AWM, homeoweners were devastated of the unfortunate incident:
“It’s one of those things where we take great pride in our yard and have a nice house,” homeowner Hazen Vennard told the local newspaper. “If your yard looks like c**p, then the rest of the house looks like c**p.”
“‘I’m hopeful that they’re going to make it right,” said another homeowner, Cecelia Smith. “It’s unfortunate, and I understand that mistakes happen, but at the end of the day, it is just grass. There are much worse things that could be affecting us than dead grass.”
Watch the video report below for more details:
Source: AWM
Was Bill Gates in Sioux Falls? He hates anything green and growing.