EPA Threatens Action Against Biotech Crops
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Threatens Action Against Biotech Crops
Date:
Fri, 16 Aug 2002 15:15:10 -400
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
EPA threatens action against biotech crops By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to issue complaints against subsidiaries of Dow Chemical and DuPont for not complying with strict rules governing experimental plots of genetically engineered corn being grown in Hawaii.
This is the first time the EPA has threatened enforcement action against an experimental biotech crop during field testing, says EPA spokesman David Deegan. "These letters illustrate that we take very seriously insuring that companies are compliant."
The experimental corn produces its own pesticides; it has genetic material from bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium, inserted into it, making it resistant to the Western corn rootworm. Such bioengineering of food is controversial because plants can crossbreed and share genes, spreading potentially dangerous attributes far beyond the original experiment — and potentially into the general food supply.
In letters sent Aug. 5 to Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont subsidiary, and Mycogen Seeds, a Dow AgroSciences subsidiary, the EPA says both companies are in violation of federal regulations. The companies have until Aug.30 to respond.
The EPA accuses Pioneer of planting the biotech crop in an unapproved location and too close to other corn seed plots. Mycogen is accused of using the wrong variety of corn as a buffer to isolate the biotech crop and not planting trees as windbreaks to prevent the spread of transgenic pollen to nearby plots.
The companies face minor fines of $5,500 for each violation, but a much greater punishment would be a faltering of public trust in biotech as a whole, says Gregory Jaffe of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C.
"Mycogen and Pioneer have a lot at stake with these field trials. These are the data that are going to get approved a multimillion-dollar product," says Jaffe, who obtained the letters under the Freedom of Information Act. The plots were small, less than 10 acres. "If they can't get it right there, how do you expect the farmers to do it on the big scale?"
Pioneer is investigating the complaint, says spokesman Doyle Karr. He says consumers can be confident in the safety of the experiments because "these plots are regulated by not one, but two agencies," the EPA and the Department of Agriculture."They're more tightly regulated than the rest of the food we eat."
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2002-08-13-epa-biotech_x.htm
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