Yards ‘fried’ after using popular weed killer, company offers to help

Numerous customers along the South Carolina coast hoping to kill weeds in their centipede grass this summer with a product from The Scotts Co. have opened their doors to “fried lawns” instead.

Jim King, a senior vice president and chief communications officer for Scotts, said the company is being proactive to help customers facing problems with turf damage.

King attributed the damage to a “reformulation” of its existing weed killers, which were pulled off the market in May when the company started getting complaints. The products -- Scotts Turf Builder Bonus S Southern Weed & Feed and Scotts Snap Southern Weed & Feed -- are meant to fertilize the lawn and help control weeds, King said.

When the company changed the active weed control ingredient atrazine earlier this year to a formula designed to more effectively control weeds prominent in the Southeast, things went awry. The new formula containing the herbicide metsulfuron did not work as expected.

“It turned out that homeowners with centipede grass started to see something weird happen to their lawns,” King said. Incidents of dead lawns began popping up in late spring in the eight states where the products were sold. Problems were most prominent along the coast, especially around Savannah, Charleston and along the Grand Strand and especially in young lawns.

Mike Williams of Myrtle Beach said he began to notice a problem after treating his lawn with the reformulated Bonus S in late April.

“I’ve used Scotts for a while and I knew there was an issue right away,” Williams said. He said his yard suffered a slight burning but was not as severe as some problems he has heard about. He said a call to Scotts’ toll free number started a “smooth process” that began with being referred to the claims department.

“They had us get a couple of quotes and there was no struggle with it,” he said. Today his yard is on the mend and he is glad Scotts has stood behind its products.

King said the issue seems to be far more prevalent in South Carolina than in the other states. He added that the Myrtle Beach area has a fraction of the complaints as compared to Charleston, a fact he said could be attributed to more construction and more new centipede lawns.

It was Joe Lombardo’s newly laid centipede lawn that was destroyed by use of the herbicide.

“I’ve used Scotts since 1979 at my homes up north and now here in Myrtle Beach,” Lombardo said. “I put down the product in late March and noticed in May [the damage] was really kicking in and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong,” he said.

Lombardo said about 70 percent of his front yard and his entire back yard were “wiped out” including the slope along a pond that turned to pure sandy dirt.

Lombardo first called Scotts LawnService for help and they have assisted him in getting the lawn back in shape. He said he is satisfied with the way Scotts has handled the recall.

“They are going out of their way for me,” he said. “That’s rare for corporate America. They made a mistake and they took care of it.”

King said a team of Scotts representatives has been placed in Charleston to address the South Carolina complaints. Complaints made via Scotts’ hotline at (877) 309-9560 or online at www.scotts.com/support will initiate a contact that should result in repair or replacement of the affected sod, he said. Consumers must produce proof of purchase for a full refund and should dispose of any leftover products according to product label directions.

Reformulated products have been pulled from the shelves of local retailers and replaced with the previous formula. Palmetto Ace Home Center owner Charles Biddix said his Pawleys Island store pulled the products as soon as Scotts contacted them.

“Scotts had a problem and identified it,” Biddix said. “We got it off the shelf immediately.”

Biddix said he has not had any direct complaints from his customers. “The complaints were to be handled directly by Scotts corporate,” Biddix said.

King said while the problem with the new formula has not been resolved yet, turf scientists are interviewing consumers and visiting affected lawns hoping to get answers.

“We want to make it right,” King said. “People for more than 100 years have bought our product to have a lawn to be proud of. This is an odd situation. We did not experience problems during our testing before the product was brought to market but we are taking accountability for it and extending an apology.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Yards ‘fried’ after using popular weed killer, company offers to help."