EPA ordered to (finally) assess pesticide health risks
The settlement requires the federal Environmental Protection Agency to reassess by next August the possible dangers of 39 commonly used insecticides called organophosphates. The reassessment could lead to restrictions or bans.
Subject: Cropduster Manual Discovered in Suspected Terrorist Hideout.......
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 09:22:13 -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
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, i thought you might like to read the following article entitled:
EPA ordered to assess pesticide health risks Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, September 28, 2001 ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/28/MN178042.DTL
A San Francisco federal judge, acting over the objections of pesticide - makers and farm groups, has approved a nationwide settlement between environmentalists and the Bush administration, speeding up a review of pesticides in the food supply.
The settlement requires the federal Environmental Protection Agency to reassess by next August the possible dangers of 39 commonly used insecticides called organophosphates. The reassessment could lead to restrictions or bans.
Organophosphates act on the nervous systems of insects and other animals, including humans, and are considered the most acutely toxic pesticides. They account for about half of the insecticides sold in the United States, with 60 million pounds a year used on crops alone.
Another provision of the settlement requires a review over the next year of whether certain types of insecticides and weed-killers react together in drinking water to become long-term poisons.
The settlement also requires measures to protect farmworkers from three insecticides -- azinphos methyl, chlorpyrifos and diazinon.
The 1999 lawsuit accused the EPA of ignoring legal deadlines to reassess the risks of numerous pesticides. It was settled by the outgoing Clinton administration on Jan. 19, its last day in office. President Bush's EPA administrator, Christie Whitman, approved the agreement in March, with minor changes, at the same time she was repudiating Clinton standards for reducing arsenic in drinking water.
The agreement was challenged by the American Crop Protection Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation and other trade groups. They said it had been adopted too hastily and without their participation, was based on unsound science and would cause serious economic harm.
But U.S. District Judge William Alsup, in a ruling made public yesterday, said the settlement was "fair, reasonable, equitable and in the public interest."
He said the provisions, adopted after extensive public comment, were consistent with Congress' intention to hasten review of the most dangerous pesticides. Opponents can sue later to contest any restrictions ordered by the EPA, Alsup said.
"It's going to force EPA to carry out its obligations to control the health risks of these chemicals, which have not been reassessed under the new science, " said Adrianna Quintero, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a plaintiff in the case.
"EPA has been taking a very leisurely approach," she said. "We hope this will get them moving."
Kenneth Weinstein, chief lawyer for the industry groups, was unavailable for comment.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page D - 2
Well Mr. Helliker, you finally are going to assess a few of your "registered" pesticide POISON health risks - but, only after we have been routinely exposed for many years to their unknown dangers/risks! Amazing! Yet you still will not allow the use of food-grade and/or GRAS (unregistered) alternatives that control pests safer and far more effectiively than your dangerous "registered" POISONS! One can only wonder why? Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings once noted: "It is more important to live the life one wishes to live, and to go down with it if necessary, quite contentedly, than live more profitably but less happily." Choose Life not Death! Protect the People and not the POISONS!
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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