Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998

The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998

Overall, nonagricultural pesticide use far exceeds agricultural use, and urban and suburban counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties. New York City again tops the charts for highest pesticide use in the state.

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Subject:   The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998
Date:       Thu, 19 Oct 2000 08:32:02 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation

Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read the recent News Release entitled: New Report - The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998 and dated Wed, 18 Oct 2000 12:12:26 -0400.

Environmental Advocates New York Public Interest Research Group

For Immediate Release For More Information:
October 18, 2000, 10: 30 a.m. Audrey Thier: EA 518-462-5526 x236
Laura Haight: NYPIRG 518-436-0876 x258

Environmental Groups Release Report Showing Alarmingly High Pesticide Use in New York State

(Albany) – Environmental Advocates and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) today released a 44-page report, The ToxicTreadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998, which reveals that an enormous amount of toxic pesticides are being used in New York State on a daily basis.

Analysis of the pesticide reporting data collected by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found that 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds of pesticides were reported used by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998, and that a substantial portion of the pesticides used in New York are known or suspected to cause cancer, endocrine disruption, and nervous system damage. (See Summary of Findings, attached).

The 1998 data confirmed patterns of pesticide use that were revealed in 1997, the first year for which pesticide data were reported under the 1996 Pesticide Reporting Law. Overall, nonagricultural pesticide use far exceeds agricultural use, and urban and suburban counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties. New York City again tops the charts for highest pesticide use in the state.

"With today's heightened interest in pesticide hazards, especially in light of the recent mosquito spraying, this new information about the enormous pesticide use in New York State should be a wake-up call to the public and policy-makers alike," said Laura Haight, NYPIRG's senior environmental associate.

"It is particularly alarming that one of the most heavily-used pesticides in New York in both 1997 and 1998 is a chemical so toxic to children and infants that the EPA just banned it for virtually all home uses," said Audrey Thier, Environmental Advocates' pesticide project director and author of the report. "As the medical evidence continues to mount, we cannot ignore the alarming rates and types of pesticide use here in New York State, especially in New York City and the downstate region."

"These data overwhelmingly affirm the need for right-to-know laws such as the recently-enacted Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law," said Kristin Bonds, NYPIRG's environmental associate. "But knowing about pesticide use is just basic self-defense. We need to do more to curtail both the use of unsafe pesticides, and uses that are frivolous or particularly fraught with hazard to vulnerable populations or resources."

"The predominance of toxic pesticides is not the result of need, but a marketing coup for chemical manufacturers who use all their considerable resources to block the kind of far-reaching reform that would eliminate these risks," added Thier. "The risk is too great and the alternatives too numerous for us to allow business as usual to continue."

These findings clearly point out the inordinate risk pesticide use poses in New York State. And with so many safe and effective alternatives to pesticides, much of this risk is entirely gratuitous. Environmental Advocates and NYPIRG are calling on New York State’s policymakers to address the pesticide risks highlighted by the data. Among the actions needed are the following:

- Those pesticides posing the highest risks – such as those classified by the EPA as known, probable, or likely human carcinogens, or the most acutely toxic pesticides – should be banned.
- Pesticide uses that pose inherently unacceptable risks in the settings in which they are used (such as neurotoxins in homes, schools and day centers) or because of the resources they affect (such as groundwater-contaminating herbicides used above sole source aquifers) should be eliminated.
- New York State and local governments need to make an institutional commitment to promoting safer, alternative pest control practices, such as funding research, training, and loan support for organic practices; establishing procurement preferences for organic foods products; and phasing out pesticide use on public property.
- All counties and the City of New York should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the newly-enacted Neighbor Notification Law.
-.The disproportionately high pesticide use in New York City needs to be examined, and the City should enact a policy to institute alternatives to pesticide use on municipal property.

Environmental Advocates and NYPIRG released a series of reports in 1998, called Plagued by Pesticides, based on preliminary data for the first year of reporting. The information from these reports proved instrumental in spurring numerous policy reforms in New York State, including the state Neighbor Notification Law and the passage of pesticide phase-outs in eight communities across the state. Westchester County just adopted a pesticide phase-out policy, by a unanimous vote of the Legislature, on Monday.

The Toxic Treadmill will be posted on the World Wide Web, at www.envadvocates.org and www.nypirg.org. Over the next few months, the groups will prepare and release supplemental regional reports for Rochester, Buffalo, Westchester, Long Island, and New York City.

Attachment: Summary of Findings (1 page)

The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State 1997-1998

Summary of Findings

-. 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds of pesticides were reported used by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998, approximately 20% higher than the 3.5 million gallons and 25.3 million pounds reported in 1997.
- Urban and suburban downstate counties again report greater use than upstate and rural counties. Kings County (Brooklyn) topped the list of counties for pesticides reported by gallons, and Queens County topped the list for pesticides reported by pounds. The downstate area of New York City, Long Island, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the total pesticides reported by gallons and 48% by pounds. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the state’s total gallons and 27% of the total pounds, while accounting for less than 1% of the state’s total geographic area. The dominant pesticide products reported in New York City are insecticides.
- Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and lawn care. This over-reliance on toxic pesticides in residential and institutional settings, like schools, is occurring despite the high risk and availability of alternatives. Agricultural pesticide use remains a serious risk, however, predominating in the corn and fruit growing regions in the western part of the state and the Hudson Valley. Furthermore, many of the agricultural pesticides reported are extremely acutely toxic and pose significant water contamination hazards.
- The pesticides used in the state are extremely toxic. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.
- The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity. Chlorpyrifos has been used in homes for purposes such as indoor insect control for thirty years, and for thirty years people have been exposed to a product that EPA now says is unacceptably hazardous. This example underscores the very real risks posed by pesticides used in New York, and the fact that government assurances of safety change as new information is collected.

Well Mr. Helliker, I find it terribly interesting that I have successfully removed every pest problem inside and outside in over 350 schools without ever using any of your dangerous, "registered", volatile, pesticide POISONS and more and more people are calling for safe and far more effective alternaitves to your "registered" POISONS. When will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to use unregistered alternatives to safely and far more effectively control pest problems in California?

Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten