We now are being contaminated with 4.6 billion pounds of "registered" POISONS every year!

EPA RELEASES REPORT OF 1996-97 ESTIMATED
PESTICIDE SALES AND
USAGE IN THE UNITED STATES (Press Advisory 1/6/00)

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Subject:     We now are being contaminated with 4.6 billion pounds of "registered" POISONS every year!
 Date:        Sat, 08 Jan 2000 13:47:52 -0500
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
          State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
          Integrated Pest Management

Lyndon, I thought you might like to read the newest EPA press release: EPA RELEASES REPORT OF 1996-97 ESTIMATED PESTICIDE SALES AND USAGE IN THE UNITED STATES (Press Advisory 1/6/00).

EPA has released its biennial pesticide usage report "Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage- 1996-1997 Market Estimates".  This publication reports estimates based on available information taken from Agency records, United States Department of Agriculture surveys of pesticide usage, and other public and proprietary sources.  The report indicates a continuation of recent trends in pesticide use in 1996 and 1997.  The overall total U.S. use for all types of pesticide active ingredients is about 4.6 billion pounds per year. Agricultural use accounted for slightly more than three-fourths of the total of 1.23 billion pounds of conventional  pesticides (including sulfur and petroleum products) in 1997.  The remaining nearly one-fourth of conventional pesticide use is split about evenly between applications by home-owners (11 percent) and professional applications in non-agriculture sectors (12 percent).  The report contains estimates of use in 1997 for other types of pesticide active ingredients as follows:  0.66 billion pounds for wood preservatives, 0.27 billion pounds for specialty biocides (for water treatment, disinfection, sanitizers, etc.), and nearly 2.5 billion pounds for chlorine/hypochlorites (used for various disinfectant and water treatment uses). To obtain a copy of the report, call or write: U.S. EPA, NCEPI, P. O. Box 42419, Cincinnati, Ohio 45242-2419; telephone 513-489-8190.  The report is available on the Agency's home page at: http://www.epa.gov/oppbead1/pestsales.

Well Lyndon, this report is great news for the POISON "industry", but we and the earth are still being contaminated and the farmers are still going broke --AND the pests these terrible "registered" toxins are supposedly "controlling" are actually increasing and winning!  When will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to use any safe and effective (unrefistered) alternatives in California?

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten.