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September 4, 2008
- Explosion rocks Bayer’s West Virginia plant
- Ghana restricts pesticide imports
- South African women face pesticide risks
- Pesticides contribute to ocean’s ‘Dead Zones’
- German NGO sues Bayer over bee deaths
- New natural bio-pesticides announced
- Eco-wine goes good with Earth
Explosion rocks Bayer’s West Virginia plant
On August 28, an explosion at the Bayer chemical plant in Institute, West Virginia, created a fireball that lit the sky and shook the ground miles away. One worker was killed and another suffered third-degree burns. The blast erupted in a 4,000-gallon tank in the part of the plant that produces mythomyl, a chemical used in the manufacture of the insecticide Larvin (active ingredient thiodicarb – a PAN Dirty Dozen pesticide). Mike Dorsey, chief of homeland security for the state Department of Environmental Protection, told the Charleston Gazette that “the incident could have been far worse, given the location of the explosion.” The process uses methyl isocyanate (MIC), the same chemical that killed thousands when the West Virginia’s “sister plant” in Bhopal exploded in 1984. Noting that “Bayer has to make clear which amounts of which substances escaped into the air,” Coalition against Bayer Dangers spokesperson Philipp Mimkes told the press: “We repeat our demand that MIC and phosgene stockpiles at Institute have to be dismantled.” This was not the first incident at the West Virginia plant. Previous explosions in 1985 and 1994 killed two workers, and a 1996 leak and fire forced residents to “shelter in place.” In 2007, dozens of neighbors were hospitalized after drums of thiodicarb ruptured. (Thiodicarb manufacture has been banned in the European Union.) A U.S. EPA survey reported that even under normal operating conditions the plant releases dangerous pollutants. In 2006, the facility released more than 300 tons of pollutants — including 200 kilograms of MIC and four tons of chlorine. The Institute plant accounts for 95% of
MIC emissions nationwide.
shareMORE – Watch WCHS-TV’s video of the explosion | DiggThis<>
Ghana restricts pesticide imports
The Daily Graphic reports that Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has forbidden the import of 25 agro-chemicals “because of their toxicological risks to people, animals, crops and the environment.” John A. Pwamang, the EPA Director in charge of pesticides, said the ban would cover toxaphene, captafol, aldrin, endrin, chlordane, and DDT (the last four were on PAN’s “Dirty Dozen Pesticides” list). Another 118 chemicals were approved for importation “after undergoing testing for efficacy and safety under local conditions.” Twenty-four agro-chemicals were given “provisional clearance” for one year. If they prove ineffective or dangerous, they will be banned. Concerned that African counties had been turned into “dumping grounds” for hazardous chemicals, Pwamang said the EPA was encouraging Ghanian scientists to “put more emphasis on biological control methods to reduce the over-reliance on chemicals.” Ghana’s action is emblematic of the power of the Rotterdam Convention, an international treaty that gives countries the right to refuse imports of hazardous chemicals that have been banned in other countries “in order to protect human health and the environment from potential harm.” Thirty-nine chemicals are subject to the treaty’s Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure; 28 of these are pesticides. In late October, governments will meet in Rome to consider addition of three new chemicals under the treaty, including the pesticide endosulfan.
shareMORE – More on the Rotterdam Convention |
South African women face new pesticide risks
shareMORE – Proceedings of 4th World Conference on Rural Women in KwaZulu-Natal |
Pesticides contribute to ocean “Dead Zones”
The journal Science reports the number of Dead Zones — vast regions of the ocean where life has been poisoned by chemical run-off released from the Earth’s polluted rivers — has more than tripled in the past 20 years, soaring from 162 maritime deserts to 405 and covering 95,000 square miles. A single Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico (poisoned in large measure by farm chemicals, fertilizers and municipal sewage pouring from the mouth of the Mississippi River) has now reached a record 8,000 square miles — the size of New Jersey. Because of the importance of the oceans in maintaining the planetary food-chain, the spread of chemically devastated Dead Zones now constitutes one of the world’s gravest environmental threats — on par with global warming. College of William and Mary ecologist Robert Diaz says half of the world’s Dead Zones form from spring-thaw-to-autumn but about 8% now last year-round. According to TIME magazine, the U.S. “could all but eliminate” the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone by giving farmers an incentive to plant crops like winter wheat to absorb nitrogen fertilizers that would otherwise wash into the seas. However, Time adds, “such changes to farm management aren’t likely to be cheap or easy to implement.”
shareMORE – NASA on Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone |
German NGO sues Bayer over bee deaths
shareMORE – PANNA’s profile of Bayer’s blemished past |
New natural bio-pesticides announced
The 236th national meeting of the American Chemical Society heard a number of presentations on the development of natural insecticides and herbicides. Biopesticide pioneer Pam G. Marrone, PhD, of Marrone Organic Innovations (MOI)., in Davis, California, told the conference that knotweed (an invasive weed from Japan that can grow 12-feet -tall in the U.S.) contains an active ingredient that boosts fruit and vegetable resistance to powdery mildew, gray mold and bacterial blight. Environmental News Service likened the finding to the “discovery of an ‘organic Roundup’ — the Holy Grail of biopesticide research — an environmentally friendly and natural version of the world’s most widely used herbicide.” The new product could be available by October. A version suitable for organic gardeners is planned for 2009. MOI’s first biopesticide, GreenMatch EX, was made from lemongrass oil. Synthetic pesticides dominate a $30 billion market but biopesticide sales (currently closing on $1 billion a year) are seeing an average growth of 10 percent per year. By 2010, MOI expects biopesticides will claim 4.25 percent of the global pesticide business, replacing 1.5 percent of synthetic chemical sales.
shareMORE – EPA background paper on biopesticides |
Eco-wine goes good with Earth
shareMORE – How big is your Ecological Footprint? |
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