EPA dilutes fumigant pesticide rules

Agency backpedals under industry pressure

San Francisco, May 28, 2009 -- Yesterday, the U.S. EPA announced "amendments" to final rules it issued in July 2008 on use of fumigant pesticides. After four years of a wide-ranging assessment of four fumigants, many increased protections for workers and rural residents remain, including improvements advocated by public health and community groups. Yet the agency received intense pressure from industry to soften the rules, and has backpedaled on critical mitigations.

Fumigants, among the most dangerous and heavily used pesticides, are applied as a gas, primarily to soil before planting or for structural pest control.

Implementation of buffer zones -- one of the most important margins of safety -- has been postponed by one year compared to the rules issued in 2008 for five fumigants. And buffer zones for chloropicrin, an acutely hazardous, choking gas, have been reduced. "A fall 2007 incident in Yerington, NV, where the application was done correctly yet 24 workers in a field 1/3 mile away were poisoned, along with other chloropicrin poisoning incidents in California, indicate that the buffer zones for chloropicrin should be larger, not smaller," said Pesticide Action Network consulting scientist Dr. Susan Kegley.

Almost all of the May 27 revisions weaken the rules. Protections for schools, day care centers, other sensitive sites, and workers have been diluted. The changes allow toxic zones around fumigated fields to cross roads, and no longer require fumigators to notify state agencies unless requested. "Dropping notifications of fumigations to state agencies means that workers who are experiencing symptoms will have less of a chance of linking the symptoms to fumigant exposure,” responded Jeannie Economos of Farmworker Association of Florida.

Communities that have experienced fumigant exposure most dramatically, as in 1999 in Earlimart, CA where at least 178 people were poisoned by drifting metam sodium, are particularly concerned. Teresa DeAnda founded El Comite Para el Bienestar de Earlimart to prevent further accidents. “After so many years, it is disturbing that the health of our communities is still expendable," says DeAnda, who now represents Californians for Pesticide Reform in the Central Valley. “Most disturbing,” says Anne Katten, an industrial safety expert with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, “is the erosion of protections for the workers who cut and remove the tarps used to hold fumigants in the soil after application.” Tarps can now be removed only two hours after perforation, where for methyl bromide 24-hour aeration is required by California.

Dr. Brian Hill, Senior Scientist at Pesticide Action Network, noted, “It's ironic that the Obama administration is nibbling away at protections that the Bush administration signed.” The amended fumigant mitigations will come into force over the next two years.


The five fumigants included in EPA's “Fumigant Cluster Assessment” and covered by the July 2008 mitigation rules are methyl bromide, metam sodium, metam potassium, dazomet, and chloropicrin. They do not include 1,3-dichloropropene (Telone), which was re-registered in 1997. In addition, the newest fumigant, methyl iodide or iodomethane, will come under the new rules. Methyl iodide has been rejected by the State of New York and is currently under review by the State of California.

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Available for interviews by phone or email:

Brian Hill, Senior Scientist, Pesticide Action Network North America, bhill@panna.org at 510-289-4329 or 415-981-1771

Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Health and Safety Coordinator, Farmworker Association of Florida, 407-886-5151, Farmworkerassoc@aol.com

Teresa DeAnda, Central Valley Coordinator, Californians for Pesticide Reform, 661-304-4080, teresa@igc.org (Spanish or English language media)

Anne Katten, Industrial Hygienist, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, 
916-446-7904 extension 19, akatten@cal.net

Resources:

EPA fumigant rules amendment announcement, May 27, 2009: http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/soil_fumigants/index.htm

Pesticide Action Network information on fumigants: www.panna.org/fumigants

Pesticide Action Network information on EPA “Fumigant Cluster Assessment,” technical comments and public interest input: www.panna.org/fumigants/review