PMRA's Lack Of Action 'Shocking'
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PMRA's Lack Of Action 'Shocking'
Date:
Fri, 1 Nov 2002
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
Thursday October
31, 2002 - Western Producer PMRA's Lack Of Action 'Shocking' By Barry Wilson
- Ottawa bureau
Canada's record
on regulating pesticides for health and safety concerns is
"disturbing" and the record of the Pest Management Regulatory
Agency is inadequate, Canada's commissioner of the environment and
sustainable development has told Parliament.
In a report that
slams the federal government for inaction on control and cleanup of toxic
chemicals, commissioner Johanne Gélinas singled out pesticide regulation as
a continuing problem.
"We
conclude that the federal government's ability to detect and prevent the
harmful effects of toxic substances remains impaired," she told an Oct.
22 news conference. "The situation regarding pesticides is even more
disturbing. Little effective action has been taken by the PMRA in response to
our recommendations."
In her report
delivered to MPs, Gélinas complained that the agency has not created a
pesticide risk reduction strategy, has made little progress in re-evaluating
pesticides already on the market and has not yet created an accurate record
of pesticide sales or inventories.
"In 2001,
the agency committed to re-evaluate 405 of those active ingredients by
2006," said the report. "Of the 49 re-evaluations begun prior to
March 2002, we found that only 17 have been completed or discontinued. Quite
simply, progress has been slow."
The PMRA said
the environment commissioner missed the point that significant reforms have
been made during the past year when the government added money to the PMRA
budget and passed a new Pest Control Products Act.
"Some of
the stuff she talks about is stuff we have in process," said PMRA
communications official Chris Krepski in an Oct. 22 interview.
The new act
"will improve our re-evaluation process.... It would improve our ability
to do things such as re-evaluation and entrench into law a lot of the
practices we already have as far as risk assessment. It will make the
registration system more transparent," he said in Ottawa.
Krepski said the
PMRA is also working with provinces and industry to develop a national
database on Canadian pesticides sales and use.
Gélinas said it
is "shocking" that Canada, as a leading industrialized nation, does
not know how much pesticide is used.
"I mean, I
have kids, you have kids," the environment commissioner told a reporter.
"When you turn to the federal government asking what are the risks
related to those pesticides, and we're talking about thousands of pesticides
in this country, we can't (find out) what are the risks. It's quite
disturbing."
http://www.producer.com/articles/20021031/news/20021031news21.html
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