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Groups request court ban chlorpyrifos after EPA refuses
 By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week the environmental legal group Earthjustice, representing the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), asked a panel of three federal appeals court judges to order the U.S. EPA to act based on its own scientific conclusions and permanently ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos.
 
It’s a widely used pesticide that these groups say is linked to many health hazards, particularly to children’s brains. The litigants asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to direct the EPA to act within 30 days to ban all uses of chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that’s widely used on corn as well as orchard crops.
 
The move comes a week after the EPA refused to ban the chemistry under a new administration. The agency had found that chlorpyrifos is unsafe in food, drinking water and pesticide drift; however, there have been conflicting views within the EPA about its safety.
 
In a 45-page letter dated March 29 denying the environmental groups’ petition, new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wrote the agency has concluded that despite several years of study, the science addressing “neurodevelopmental effects (of chlorpyrifos) remains unresolved and that further evaluation of the science ... is warranted.”
 
“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment,” Pruitt said March 29. “By reversing the previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making, rather than predetermined results.”
 
The USDA’s director of the Office of Pest Management Policy, Sheryl Kunickis, agreed, saying the decision “means that this important pest management tool will remain available to growers, helping to ensure an abundant and affordable food supply for this nation and the world.
 
“This frees American farmers from significant trade disruptions that could have been caused by an unnecessary, unilateral revocation of chlorpyrifos tolerances in the United States. It is also great news for consumers, who will continue to have access to a full range of both domestic and imported fruits and vegetables.”
 
The statement also said the USDA disagrees with the methodology used by the former Obama administration in determining the safety of chlorpyrifos and that the National Assoc. of State Departments of Agriculture do, as well.
 
In 2000, EPA banned household uses of chlorpyrifos, with the exception of ant and roach bait in child-resistant packaging. Between 2000-02 EPA canceled the use of chlorpyrifos on tomatoes and restricted its use on crops including apples, citrus and tree nuts.
 
In 2012, the agency imposed “no-spray” buffer zones around public spaces, including recreational areas and homes, and significantly lowered pesticide application rates. EPA’s most recent assessment of the chemistry, from January 2015, updated the June 2011 human health risk assessment based on new information received, the agency said.
 
EPA factored in exposures from multiple sources, including from exposures from food and water, from inhaling the pesticide and absorbing it through the skin.
 
EPA considered all populations, including infants, children and women of childbearing age, and incorporated information from a 2012 assessment of spray drift exposure as well as new restrictions put into place to limit spray drift.
 
Chlorpyrifos is the active ingredient in a number of products, including Brodan, Detmol UA, Dowco 179, Dursban. According to chlorpyrifos manufacturer Dow AgroSciences, the insecticide is used on more than 50 crops in 100 countries. Environmental groups have been trying to get chlorpyrifos banned from the agricultural market since at least 2007.
 
Farm groups were happy with the latest EPA move. “As USDA has noted, chlorpyrifos has been used as part of environmentally- friendly integrated pest management programs for nearly 50 years,” said American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall.
4/12/2017