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Subject: Registered" POISONS and how they got in your water---
Date:      Thu, 18 Nov 1999 09:41:21 -0500
From:     Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>

Lyndon, I thought you might like to read another article on your "registered" pesticide poisons and how they are "regulated":  "Why some Regulators Go Easy on Pesticides" - by Mike Casey, Vice President for Public Affairs, Environmental Working Group, Miami.  Reprinted from the Miami Herald, September 14, 1999.

When the Food Quality Protection Act became law three years ago, it ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to calculate acceptable exposure levels for the most dangerous pesticide (POISONS) by August 3rd of this year.  In 1997 the EPA even identified which pesticides made that list - at least four dozen different pesticides in four different classes.

EPA took three years and reviewed approximately 3,000 studies (many of them from the industry itself) on the safety of pesticides. The result?  New controls on only two of the dozens of dangerous pesticides it was supposed to address.

Your August 9 editorial, EPA's pesticide ban to protect children, approved of the new controls (as we do), but also applauded EPA's pace.  We think you overlooked the bigger issue.  Why did the agency fall so short of its legal requirements to public health?

Our research on the current employment of the EPA's former top regulators of pesticide (POISONS) suggests the answer: Half of them now lobby for the pesticide industry, and another 18 lower-ranking former officials have done the same - sometimes negotiating their lobbying job by doing favors for the industry while still on the government payroll.  This is a serious betrayal of the public trust, and one that should be brought to the public's attention.

Well Lyndon, does this article reflect in any way - why non-polluting/safe/GRAS alternatives that are more effective and less expensive in controlling pest problems than your "registered" POISONS are still "illegal" in California?

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten

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