Dated/Useless "Registered" POISONS are Still Contaminating

The chemicals, stored because they are no longer considered powerful enough to battle agricultural pests, remain toxic to humans and the environment.

 

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[ MEMORIAL TO VICTIMS ]

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

Dear Lyndon, I thought you might like to read an article from the Environment News Service entitled:  Obsolete Hazardous Pesticides Poison Nepal. By Deepak Gajurel.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, April 14, 2000 (ENS) - More than 80 metric tons of obsolete pesticides are stored throughout Nepal, often in open, leaking containers. The chemicals, stored because they are no longer considered powerful enough to battle agricultural pests, remain toxic to humans and the environment.

"Nepal holds the world record for storing toxic pesticides for the longest period. It has stored pesticides like goods of archeological importance," said Dr. James Litsinger, a U.S. Pesticides Management Specialist who inspected date expired pesticides warehouses in late 1997.

At the Cotton Development Board (CDB) warehouses, for example, there were 10,000 liters of archived pesticides in early 1999. The chemicals, which the CDB officials believe are not useful for fighting ever stronger cotton pests, were dumped in the warehouse after their expiration date was reached.

Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) has two truckloads of liquid and granular pesticides and 12 four foot high cylinders of fumigant in its warehouses in Kathmandu.

The Pesticides Board, a government pesticide regulatory body, is often unaware of these storage sites and so does not calculate their environmental costs.

Pesticides that are more than two years old since the date of manufacture are generally regarded as unusable. Experts say examining the effectiveness of these obsolete pesticides is impractical, as date expired pesticides are normally not used anyway.  Active ingredients in date expired pesticides or pesticide waste may have broken down into their byproducts which can sometimes be more toxic than the original substances.

The Agriculture Inputs Corporation (AIC), a public enterprise, has the largest stock of obsolete pesticides in Nepal, with more than 60 metric tons of unusable chemicals in its warehouses. AIC has stored more than 10 metric tons of chemicals in the densely populated city of Nepalganj in west Nepal, where a two room house is used for both pesticide storage and as a residence.

The pesticides in Nepalgani are poorly stored. Seals of the containers are open and pesticides leak onto the floor. Labels of the containers are missing. Neighbors living the area use a shallow tube well dug on the warehouse premises as a source of drinking water.

"Chemicals do mix with water and are carried by air. And should the store catch fire, the chemicals can be very dangerous," says Nepali environmentalist Dr. Naresh Sharma.

The warehouse of AIC in Amlekhganj in central Nepal has been packed with pesticides in steel drums for six years. The store was expected to be safe for a few years in normal condition. But a Asian Development Bank (ADB) sponsored study in 1997 found an alarming situation. According to the ADB team, "the liquid organophosphates pose the worst environmental hazard in their current state."

Organophosphate pesticides are classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), considered to be particularly toxic because of their tendency to accumulate in increasingly greater concentrations in the body fats of predators (and humans) that eat contaminated animals lower down the food chain.

The stored chemicals in Amlekhganj are estimated to be some 30 to 40 years old. Most of the stored organophosphates are highly toxic and are in a highly concentrated form. The stored phosphamidon is in an 85 percent formulation and the methyl parathion is 50 percent active ingredients.

Obsolete pesticides in corroded containers (Photo courtesy FAO)

The Amlekhganj warehouse is located in the middle of the settlement, just 50 meters away from a busy highway. A school playground adjoins the western part of the warehouse.

In 1999, a team was formed by the Nepalese government to study ways of safely disposing of these obsolete pesticides. The team recommended  repackaging the hazardous stock as soon as possible. After almost a year, little has been done to meet that goal.

According to official government statistics, there are three tons of DDT, a chemical banned in 49 countries, stored in Nepal. Endrin, another obsolete stored pesticide, is banned in 58 countries. About eight metric tons of organo-mercury used in seed dressing, no longer on the world market, is stored in Nepal.

Methyl bromide, a pesticide which many countries are considering banning not only because of its toxicity but because it depletes stratospheric ozone, is stored in 12 pressurized tanks in Nepal.  (By the way Lyndon, it has been an extremely bad year for ozone over the Arctic. Scientists found the concentration of ozone at 60,000 feet declined by a remarkable 60% - not as large as the loss in 1997 but, I would say your required use of "registered" POISONS including fumigants and chlorine has surely made the earth pay an exorbitant price.)

Huge stocks of the stored pesticides have yet to be identified, but are suspected to contain endosulfan, synthetic pyrethroids, dimethoate and other toxins.

The World Health Organization has classified most of these pesticides as "extremely hazardous."

Several years ago, when environmentalists were not aware of the obsolete pesticide stores, the government reportedly disposed of 114 metric tons of pesticides by spraying and burying them in the jungle.

The government was forced to discontinue another plan - burning pesticides in cement kilns - after local residents, press and national and international environmental organizations questioned the safety of the practice.

This disposal program was supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and administered by ADB. There were at least 50 tons of date expired pesticides in Nepal's warehouses at the conclusion of the US $577,000 disposal program in the mid-1990s.

The government of Nepal has approved a new pesticides disposal plan prepared by the Asian Development Bank sponsored mission in November 1997. The plan proposes to dispose of obsolete pesticide stockpiles by October 2000.

Various methods have been proposed to destroy the chemicals, including burning liquid pesticides in cement kilns at high temperatures, spraying less hazardous pesticides on jungle and farmland, burying fumigants such aluminum phosphide and zinc phosphide, microbial degradation, and exporting heavy metal fungicides like organo-mercury for recycling in more advanced facilities.

Environmentalists raise questions about the safety of these measures, and whether official studies of the proposed methods are biased. "The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is done by government officials," said an official at the Ministry of Agriculture who asked not to be named.

But, "EIA must be done by independent experts' team," Dr. Sharma said.

Inappropriate use of incineration can create hazardous solid and airborne byproducts that pose a severe threat to the environment and public health. Such byproducts are often more toxic than the original product, according to pesticide disposal guidelines from the international Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Yet the FAO says the safest way to dispose of obsolete pesticides is high temperature incineration.

Well Lyndon, I strongly disagree with the FAO and have consistently said the safest way to stop this terrible ongoing "registered" POISON/contamination problem - is not to use your "registered" POISONS in the first place.  By the way Lyndon, do you tell the people of California that ANY of your "registered" POISONS are generally regarded as unusable after they are only two years old?

When will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to use safe and far more effective alternatives to actually control pest problems in California?  What additional damage and/or contamination must happen to us before you decide to help?

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten

(Editor's Note:  How many of these conditions exist throughout the world?  The US has its Love's Canal and now thousands of cancer clusters.  The answer may be easier than we think.)

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