WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. EPA has announced a proposal to ban the agricultural use of chlorpyrifos, a popular insecticide. The proposed rule should not have an effect on the 2016 growing season.
Chlorpyrifos is the active ingredient in a number of products, including Brodan, Detmol UA, Dowco 179, Dursban and several others. According to the manufacturer, Dow AgroSciences, the insecticide is used on more than 50 different crops in 100 countries.
Environmental groups have been trying to get chlorpyrifos banned from the farm market since at least 2007. According to the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), one of the groups that petitioned the EPA about chlorpyrifos, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered EPA to take "meaningful action" on the petition by Oct. 31.
EarthJustice, an environmental law group, filed the original lawsuit that spurred the court deadline on behalf of PAN and Natural Resources Defense Council, another environmental group.
"This is what we have been seeking for years. EPA’s own findings show that chlorpyrifos causes brain damage to children, and poisons workers and bystanders," said Patti Goldman, an EarthJustice attorney who worked on the legal petition. "At long last, the agency is signaling its intention to protect children, workers and their families by banning this hazardous pesticide."
According to PAN, the EPA banned the use of chlorpyrifos for residential use 15 years ago. The EPA said it plans to issue a final rule in December 2016.
According to Dow, since the activist petition was filed, EPA has issued periodic updates denying most of the elements of the petition and, as late as March 2015, the agency said once it has completed its formal health and safety evaluations of chlorpyrifos for product re-registration, it expects to deny the petition in its entirety.
But because EPA has been ordered to respond to the petition before the agency evaluations have been completed, it has not yet refined its modeling regarding residues in drinking water, which is a key issue for the environmental groups.
"EPA has said that it will not decide whether or not to act on its proposal to revoke tolerances until it has received and responded to input from interested stakeholders, including growers who rely on chlorpyrifos-containing products to protect their crops and livelihood from destructive insect pests," said Garry Hamlin, a spokesman for Dow. "Dow Agro-Sciences remains confident that all U.S. tolerance issues relating to the continued use of chlorpyrifos can be readily resolved with a more refined analysis."
California grape grower Dennis McFarlin is quoted in the Dow statement saying chlorpyrifos is "one of the few materials left to us that we rely on for effective control. "We know chlorpyrifos is restricted and we treat it with respect. If we didn’t have chlorpyrifos, we’d be using more frequent sprays of less-effective material, and more fuel and other farm inputs, none of which would be good for the environment," he added.
The public comment period, beginning Oct. 30, is 60 days. The proposed tolerance revocation rule is available online at www.regulations.gov under the docket code EPA-HQ-OPP-2015-0653.
