02
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 2, 2024) In a recent study published in Science, a team from the University of Massachusetts and Yale University provides quantitative insight into the significant effects of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the nation’s water quality. This research highlights the essential role of ephemeral streams—water sources that flow temporarily after rainfall—in transporting pollutants, including pesticides, sediments, and nutrients from land to larger water bodies. This comprehensive study underscores the devastating risk to U.S. water quality, stemming from the May 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which dramatically limits the agency’s ability to protect ephemeral streams as well as critical wetland ecosystems under the Clean Water Act (CWA). As a May 2024 report by Clean Water for All Coalition notes, “The [Sackett] decision has endangered the drinking water sources of at least 117 million Americans by stripping protections from over half of the nation’s wetlands, as well as up to nearly 5 million miles of rain-dependent and seasonal streams that feed into rivers, lakes, and estuaries.” At a time when an immediate response to the climate crisis and chemical pollution is more urgent than ever, the U.S. Supreme Court’s judicial decisions are seen […]
Posted in California, Cancer, Clean Water Act, Colorado, contamination, Deleware, Disease/Health Effects, Drinking Water, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fertilizer, Florida, Herbicides, Litigation, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, Nitrates, Nitrites, North Carolina, Parks for a Sustainable Future, Pesticide Regulation, South Carolina, State/Local, Synthetic Fertilizer, Tennessee, U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, Water Regulation, Wisconsin | No Comments »
08
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 8, 2016) On Monday, the Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) released its Managed Pollinator Protection Plan, which allows for the continuation of widespread pesticide use in landscapes across the state. The plan includes voluntary strategies for farmers, beekeepers, landowners and pesticide applicators, but fails to include any recommendations for reducing or eliminating toxic pesticide use. DDA resorts to recommending approaches that include “best management practices,” strategies to increase pollinator forage on public and private lands, and advocating for the use of Driftwatch, an online initiative that focuses on pesticide drift. Driftwatch is a voluntary effort run by the non-profit, Fieldwatch, which, according to its website, was created by Purdue University Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Agricultural Communications departments and  Purdue University Cooperative Extension Specialists  “to help pesticide applicators and specialty crop growers communicate more effectively to promote awareness and stewardship activities to help prevent and manage drift effects.” Like other state pollinator protection plans,  there is little mention of pesticides, despite the fact that neonicotinoids (neonics) are highly toxic, persistent and systemic pesticides that have been widely implicated as a leading factor in pollinator decline. According to environmentalists and beekeepers, little meaningful action has been taken to […]
Posted in Announcements, Chemicals, Clothianidin, Contamination, Deleware, Imidacloprid, Increased Vulnerability to Diseases from Chemical Exposure, Pesticide Drift, Pesticide Regulation, Pollinators, State/Local, Take Action, Thiamethoxam | No Comments »
19
Oct
(Beyond Pesticides, October 19, 2012) School is a place where children need a healthy body and a clear head in order to learn. Despite a successful trend toward nonchemical strategies, pesticides remain prevalent and are widely used today in universities, schools, and daycare facilities. Kelsey Crain, an undergraduate student at University of Delaware, first became aware of the issue when, “I noticed there was this weird rash on my legs which wasn’t there before I was on The Green.” Kayla Iuliano, Crain’s friend and reporter at the student-run University of Delaware Review, probed the University about why there was no notification, and in return was given standard bureaucratic prose: “University Spokesman John Brennan stated in an email message that workers are not required to post signs when areas are sprayed because the chemicals are not harmful when used properly, and personnel are trained in how to apply them,” she wrote in the University of Delaware Review. “He said the sprays are commonly used commercial products and are registered for use with the Environmental Protection Agency. ”˜They are recognized in the industry as safe when applied as directed’.” The pesticide widely applied to the Green is called “PowerZone,” which is composed […]
Posted in 2,4-D, Children/Schools, Deleware, Glyphosate, Lawns/Landscapes, MCPP, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Pesticide Regulation, Utah | 1 Comment »
02
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 2, 2010) A lawsuit filed March 1, 2010 in federal court against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeks to compel the Service to uproot genetically engineered (GE) crops from its Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. As many as 80 other national wildlife refuges across the country now growing GE crops are vulnerable to similar suits. Filed in the U.S. District Court for Delaware by the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety, the federal suit charges that the Fish & Wildlife Service had illegally entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing hundreds of acres to be plowed over without the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In March 2009, the same groups won a similar lawsuit against GE plantings on Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Ironically, Prime Hook has now been administratively incorporated into Bombay Hook, meaning that the same refuge management that is overseeing execution of the Prime Hook verdict is violating its tenets on Bombay Hook. In August 2009, several environmental groups led by the Center for Food […]
Posted in Deleware, Genetic Engineering, Litigation | No Comments »
