PANNA: U.S. Endangered Species Face More Risks From Pesticides

U.S. Endangered Species Face More Risks From Pesticides

by Martha Olson Jarocki

In late July 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overhauled key provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), scrapping the requirement to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) to determine whether or not use of a pesticide would harm endangered wildlife or habitat.

The EPA under the Bush Administration proposed a version of the rule more than a year ago, then revised and reissued the rule jointly with the Wildlife Services (FWS and NOAA) in January 2004. “For years wildlife agencies have been concerned that our nation’s most imperiled species are regularly exposed to harmful pesticides, all of a sudden with the introduction of these new rules they changed their tune,” said Aimee Code, of the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides. (1)

The EPA argues that the rule -- the Joint Counterpart Endangered Species Act Section 7 Consultation Regulations -- will streamline the pesticide registration process, but the approximately 125,000 public comment letters on the proposal have run 2 to 1 against the change. (2) Environmental groups say that the ESA, which is the last resort for threatened wildlife in the U.S., will be gutted if the Wildlife Agencies with the expertise and responsibility for protecting endangered species are bypassed. Grant Cope of Earthjustice said of EPA’s new rules, “If you take the experts out of the room because you don’t like what they’re saying, that’s one way to streamline the registration of dangerous pesticides.”

Just prior to EPA’s unveiling of the new Consultation Regulations, a federal court issued a sweeping condemnation of the agency’s failure to comply with existing ESA consultation requirements. The court ordered significant changes in the regulation of 38 pesticides (3) that pose widespread risks to listed salmon and steelhead species in the Pacific Northwest. Two critical remedies were ordered by the court; buffer zones or “no spray” zones to be instituted between application of agricultural pesticides and salmon or steelhead creeks and streams; and signs warning “Salmon Hazard” to be placed on shelves in western states where household pesticides are sold (see box). The lawsuit was brought by three organizations (4) concerned that pesticides in surface water were a significant factor in the declining populations of salmon and steelhead listed as endangered or threatened species under the ESA. The sheer magnitude of the court’s remedy speaks to the extent of EPA’s failure to regulate on its own. Groups involved in the lawsuit say the changes in the ESA consultation process are simply an attempt to legitimize what EPA has been doing for the last decade and avoid further court challenges.

The public comments on the rule change, which poured into EPA’s offices since the Consultation Regulations were announced, include technical comment letters from PANNA, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, EarthJustice, National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife, which were endorsed by dozens of other groups. These technical comments provide evidence of EPA’s disregard of both its own and other agencies’ data on pesticide impacts, as well as valuable insight into the wide effects of the use of these chemicals on wildlife species and habitat.

Pesticides kill millions of fish and other species each year. In fact, species such as bald eagles and peregrine falcons were first listed under the ESA as a result of pesticide effects. FWS has estimated that pesticides kill an estimated 67 million birds each year, and in the years between 1977-1987, were responsible for killing 6-14 million fish annually. (5) Salmon in the Pacific Northwest, piping plovers in Florida, San Joaquin kit foxes and golden eagles in California are among the many endangered species deeply affected by pesticide use. (6)

Some pesticides in use today are especially dangerous to wildlife. Azinphos-methyl, chlorpyrifos, endosulfan and terbufos were responsible for 57% of the fishkills, or aquatic mortality events reported to EPA, and two insecticides, carbofuran and diazinon, were involved in 55% of all bird incidents. (7)

EPA assessments are weak

EPA assessments of pesticide impacts under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) are based on laboratory studies or computer modeling and rarely incorporate data from field studies that have undergone peer review. As a result, the agency’s re-registration process has allowed pesticide use to continue even when field data has revealed contradictory findings. For example diazinon, an insecticide frequently used on lawn and gardens, was re-registered in 2002 by EPA with the note, [use of the pesticide was] “increasing concern in the Pacific Northwest and …nationally for endangered salmonids.” (8) (Manufacturers agreed in 2000 to voluntarily recall indoor residential uses of diazinon, outdoor household use is to be cancelled at the end of 2004.)

Similarly, EPA allowed the continued registration of malathion, (9) used extensively in agriculture despite its acute hazard to fish, aquatic invertebrates and insects, and its chronic risks for listed birds, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. EPA has also allowed re-registration of endosulfan, even though it has been found to be toxic to all wildlife groups tested, and the agency has registered chlorothalonil (10) while noting that legal use of the pesticide would impact endangered birds and mammals, as well as freshwater fish and invertebrates and aquatic plants.

Atrazine, an herbicide widely used in agriculture and on golf courses and lawns has been found by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in ground and surface water throughout the nation. Banned in the European Union, widespread atrazine use continues in the U.S., even though both EPA and the Wildlife Services have determined the herbicide is a serious threat to endangered species, and EPA has found that atrazine is harmful to terrestrial plants, birds, aquatic species (at both acute and chronic levels) small mammals and plants. (11) Low levels of atrazine, which is an endocrine disruptor, have been shown to cause developmental disorders in frogs at concentrations much lower than EPA currently allows in drinking water. (12)

EPA computer modeling is inadequate

Comment letters from several organizations emphasize the inadequacy of computer models used by EPA for estimating and evaluating pesticide exposures. The PANNA letter notes the agency’s modeling assumes dietary exposures as the sole route of exposure for wildlife, and does not account for inhalation or dermal exposures that can occur as pesticides volatilize and become airborne. Spray drift has been found to transport as much as 80% of some pesticide applications off site, (13) yet EPA modeling assumes broadcast applications will not leave the application site at all, and assumes only 5% of pesticides applied aerially are likely to drift. EPA does not account for the volatilization of pesticides after they have been applied, despite the fact that volatilized pesticide plumes have been measured by other U.S. agencies and have been found to travel long distances. (14) Pesticide concentrations have been found at or above Reference Exposure Levels at distances up to 300 feet from the application site, (15) yet this too is ignored in the EPA model.

In fact, AgDrift, the modeling system for estimating pesticide drift used by EPA was developed by the pesticide industry and has not been available for the public to review. (16) Without public oversight, the industry assumptions underlying the modeling system remain unchallenged and provide the industry with undue influence over agency decision-making.

EPA’s computer model for wildlife exposure also assumes an unrealistic scenario for concentrations of pesticides in irrigation or rainwater. The model assumes one single large rainfall/runoff event would remove most of the pesticides from a field, and does not take into account the more common scenario of pesticides leaching from treated soil in repeated rain, irrigation, or runoff events. (17) Other omissions in the EPA model result in the failure to account for behavioral exposures, such as grooming, which can expose wildlife to pesticides through ingestion, inhalation and dermal pathways. (18)

Comment letters also emphasize EPA’s failure to address the cumulative effects of pesticides and other ingredients included in pesticide formulations when determining wildlife effects. A number of pesticide active ingredients share common mechanisms of toxicity, based on their physiological or biochemical mode of action. Even minimal exposures to several pesticides with the same mechanism of toxicity can combine to create more severe health effects. The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act required EPA to take the cumulative effects of pesticides into account in setting tolerances for pesticides in foods. The agency has completed the evaluation of the common mechanism of toxicity for the organophosphorus insecticides, including chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion, and is now in the process of evaluating the N-methyl carbamate insecticides, the triazine herbicides and the chloracetanilide herbicides for cumulative effects. (19) Yet the information on cumulative effects is not accounted for in EPA modeling, nor is information on inert ingredients added to products to boost absorption, adhesion or other properties of a pesticide.

EPA does not test the accuracy of its wildlife exposure model with data from actual field tests. Where test data do exist, data for a very few species are used to generalize assumptions about widely disparate species which may or may not have the same susceptibility. EPA bases its assumptions on pesticide impacts on data from different taxa groups, relying on data from freshwater fish, for example, to assess impacts on amphibians. (20) This generalization from existing data is allowed to stand even though ecotoxicty information shows that amphibians may suffer severe effects from pesticide concentrations several times lower than those that would impact fish. (21)

EPA assessment also fails to consider the effects of pesticide exposure that are less than lethal, such as reductions in feeding or inability to escape predators. Existing concentrations of pesticides in surface water are known to impact some species. Studies have found male leopard frogs, for example, unable to complete sexual development in water containing more than 0.1 parts per billion of the herbicide atrazine (22) which contaminates surface water across the U.S. Yet the EPA has declared atrazine to have “no effect” on wildlife in water at concentrations as high as 2,375 parts per billion. (23)

At least 50 pesticides, many of which are commonly used in the U.S., have been identified in laboratory tests as endocrine disruptors, or chemicals that disrupt the hormone system and affect reproduction or development. The rapid declines in bird populations in the 1960s and 1970s were due to the endocrine disrupting effects of organochlorine pesticides such as DDT. (24) In 1997 a EPA Special Report recognized the accumulated scientific evidence of the health consequences of endocrine disrupting chemicals, and acknowledged that “…there is no doubt that small disturbances in endocrine function, particularly during highly sensitive stages of the life cycle (e.g., development, pregnancy, lactation) can lead to profound and lasting effects. (25) Yet the agency continues to allow re-registration of endocrine disrupting pesticides through the risk assessment process, even though the FQPA-required Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program is still in development and has not yet been implemented. (26)

In putting forward the new rules Steve Williams, Director of FWS, said the new regulations will “create a workable framework to protect species, ranging from salmon to butterflies and songbirds, ensuring that the potential effects of thousands of pest-control products are examined in a timely and comprehensive manner.” (27) But the rules remove the checks and balances inherent in oversight by the Wildlife Services and erode the very foundation of the ESA. As highly critical public comments to the rules have made clear, endangered and threatened species and their habitat are routinely placed at risk by pesticides legally applied. The new regulations are likely to increase the magnitude of that risk.

Information on the New Consultations with Federal Agencies Counterpart Regulations for Pesticide Consultations can be found on the National Wildlife Service website, http://endangered.fws.gov/consultations/pesticides. Comment letters are available from: Defenders of Wildlife, http://www.defenders.org; PANNA, request via email, panna@panna.org; Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, http://www.pesticide.org/counterpartcomments.html.

Martha Olson Jarocki is Publications Coordinator at PANNA.

Notes

1 See the NCAP paper, Federal Fish and Wildlife Agencies change Scientific Positions, at http://pesticide.org/counterpartservices.html.

2 EPA Will Not Have to Consult Wildlife Agencies on Pesticides, Washington Post, July 30, 2004.

3 PANUPS, Sweeping Ruling Protects Salmon from Pesticides, Feb, 2, 2004, PANNA. For the list of 38 pesticides requiring protective buffer zones see the Washington Toxics Coalition website, http://www.watoxics.org.

4 The suit was filed by EarthJustice for Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Washington Toxics Coalition, and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. See PANUPS, “Lawsuit to Protect Salmon from Pesticides,” Feb 1, 2001, PANNA.

5 Defenders of Wildlife, et al. letter to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (DoW, et al.) page 13, and Kegley, S., et al., Disrupting the Balance Ecological Impacts of Pesticides in California, PANNA, and Perils Past and Present, Major Threats to Birds Over Time, FWS.

6 From the American Bird Conservancy’s Pesticides and Birds Campaign at http://www.abcbirds.org/pesticides.

7 DoW et al., page 15.

8 DoW, et al., page 18 and Diazinon IRED (Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decision), page 3, U.S EPA.

9 DoW, et al., page 18 and Malathion RED (Registration Eligibility Decision), Environmental Fate and Effects, EPA.

10 DoW, et al., page 18 and Endosulfan RED page 33, EPA, and Chlorothalonil RED page 153, EPA.

11 DoW, et al., page 19 and Atrazine IRED, page 60-70, EPA.

12 DoW, et al., page 19, and Hayes, T, Collins, A, Lee, M., Mendoza, M, Noriega, N., Stuart, A., Vonk, A, “Hermaphroditic, Demasculinized Frogs Following Exposure to the Herbicide Atrazine at Ecologically Relevant Low Doses,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 99(8): 5476-5480 (2002), at http://www.pnas.org.

13 Bennet, J., Pesticide Drift and Runoff: Considerations for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Draft Biological Opinion on Effects of 32 Pesticides on Threatened and Endangered Species, Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Resource Unit, Univ of Washington, March 1, 1992.

14 Majewski, M and Baston, D, Atmospheric Transport of Pesticides in the Sacramento California Metropolitan Area, 1996-1997, USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 02-41000 (2002). According to measurements by the USGS, more diazinon has been deposited in California’s Central Valley’s ecosystem as it volatilizes and returns in rainfall than is deposited by field runoff, USGS, Zamora, C., Kratzer, C.R., Majewski, M.S., Knifong, D.L., Diazinon and Chlorpyrifos Loads in Precipitation and Urban and Agricultural Storm Runoff During January and February 2001 in the San Joaquin River Basin, California, U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 03-4091 (2003).

15 The California Air Resources Board has found concentrations of pesticides in air between 75 feet and 300 feet from applications sites that exceed the acute Reference Exposure Levels for humans. PANNA et al., letter to FWS and NOAA (PANNA et al.), page 3.

16 PANNA et al., page 7.

17 PANNA et al., page 4, and EPA GENEEC Description, http://www.epa.gov/oppefed1/models/water/geneec2_description.htm (2001).

18 PANNA et al., page 3.

19 EPA, Organophosphate Pesticides: Revised OP cumulative Risk Assessment, http://www.epa.gov/pesticies/cululative/rra-op/inddx.html, June 2002.

20 EPA, OPPTS Harmonized Test Guidelines, Series 850 Ecological Effects Test Guidelines.

21 PANNA et al., page 7, and EPA 2000: Pesticide Ecotoxicity Database (Formerly: Environmental Effects Data base (EEBD)), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Fate and Effects Division, EPA, Washington, DC 2000. AQUIRE Reference No: 344.

22 Hayes, T. et al., “Hermaphroditic, Demasculinized Frogs Following Exposure to the Herbicide Atrazine at Ecologically Relevant Low Doses,” see note 12, and Hayes, T. Haston, K, Tsui, M “Atrazine Induced Hermaphroditism at 0.1 ppb in American Leopard Frogs (Rana pipiens): Laboratory and Field Evidence,” Envi. Health Persp. 111:568-578 (2003).

23 PANNA et al., page 8-9.

24 Kegley, S. et al., Disrupting the Balance, page 10, Reference 5

25 Federal Register, Vol 63, No 248, 71542, Monday Dec. 28, 1998.

26 See the EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program website, http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/oscpendo/index.htm.

27 Washington Post, July 30, 2004, see note 2.