Marin County is set to kick off a campaign designed to convince county residents to reduce the use of pesticides.

Kevin Wright, county parks government affairs coordinator, told the Marin Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that phase one of the effort, which will focus on weeds, begins next month with signs on buses, newspaper ads, online ads and the creation of a web page. In addition, members of a community coalition will form action teams Saturday to help disseminate the message.

Wright said that thanks to a collaborative agreement with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership — a coalition of resource agencies, nonprofits and citizens working to protect and restore water quality and wildlife habitat in the San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary — the coalition has secured the services of the Oakland design firm Gigantic Idea Studio. Wright said the Estuary Partnership is paying the firm about $90,000 in funds received from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It was a huge benefit,” Wright said.

The county has been employing an integrated approach to pest management for years. In 2015, the county stopped using glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, on all county-maintained parks, landscaping, playgrounds, walkways and parking areas. Herbicides were used on less than 1 percent of the 2,000 acres managed by the Marin County Parks and Open Space District in 2016-17.

Last year, supervisors decided to extend efforts to reduce pesticide use to the residential sector by allocating $100,000 over two years for a public education and outreach campaign. Since then, county staff has worked with a subcommittee of the board — supervisors Katie Rice and Kate Sears — and members of the county’s Integrated Pest Management Commission to convene a coalition of concerned community members to develop a campaign.

About two months ago, Gigantic Idea Studio surveyed about 1,200 Marin residents on their use and knowledge of pesticides, as well as alternative methods of controlling pests.

Phase one is slated to run from mid-April until June. At the end of that time, Gigantic Idea Studio will do a follow-up survey and assess the effectiveness of the campaign so far. Lessons learned will then be incorporated into phase two of the effort, which will be mounted in 2018.

Ginger Souders-Mason of Kentfield, director of the Pesticide Free Zone said, “I just want to thank the county for its commitment. I’m so excited.”

Mary Fraser of Mill Valley, said, “I’m so thrilled this is going forward. People are talking about this in the community.”

Paul Minault of San Rafael also said he was happy to see the initiative.

“I’m a person who is very concerned about invasives in our open space,” Minault said. “Most of our invasives have come from the ornamental landscaping that are in our private residential and commercial spaces. This is a great opportunity to train people to recognize the plants that are invasive and learn how to deal with them on their own properties before they expand into the open space.”

Fraser noted that the campaign is beginning just as the state of California has received legal clearance to list glyphosate on its Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.

Fraser also called attention to a New York Times article published last week which reported that Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, may have ghostwritten research that was subsequently attributed to academics. Fraser said the county should halt all use of glyphosate.

Chris Chamberlain, county parks assistant director, said that while the county stopped using glyphosate on all traffic medians in unincorporated areas of the county in July, it is too early to rule out its use entirely. He said more needs to be known about the financial costs, the impact on agriculture, fire risk, and the effect a total ban would have on the spread of invasives.

“There is still a lot we don’t know,” Chamberlain said.

About two years ago, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, but the European Food Safety Agency and the EPA have not followed suit. Monsanto maintains the chemical is safe.