(Beyond Pesticides, April 17, 2023) In celebration of Earth Day and its sixth annual Ladybug Love^SM  campaign throughout the month of April, Natural Grocers is supporting Beyond Pesticides. The campaign celebrates insects that play a crucial role in food supply stability, and regenerative farming practices that use ladybugs and other beneficial insects instead of harmful synthetic pesticides to control pests. Natural Grocers will donate $1 to Beyond Pesticides for each person who pledges (including renewals, so do it again even if you pledged last year) “not use chemicals that harm ladybugs and other beneficial insects on their lawn or garden, and to support 100% organic produce.” Even if you have signed the pledge in previous years, please take moment to sign!

You do not need to shop at Natural Grocers to sign, but it’s a great store to shop at, if there’s one in your area! 

Sign the Ladybug Pledge and support Beyond Pesticides.

In partnership with major retailers like Natural Grocers and Stonyfield Organic, the Beyond Pesticides’ Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth training to assist community land managers in transitioning two public green spaces to organic landscape management, while aiming to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to eventually transition all public areas in a locality to these safer practices. Through this program, Beyond Pesticides has assisted local leaders in converting dozens of parks and recreational areas to organic practices and to eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. [Contact Beyond Pesticides ([email protected]) about converting two parks, as demonstration sites, to organic in your town.] 

Regarding the program, Natural Grocers says,” We have an exciting, long-term partnership with Beyond Pesticides. Part of that partnership includes fundraising campaigns throughout the year, specifically for Earth Day in April and Organic Month in September. Natural Grocers is a longtime leader of the organic movement through its national advocacy efforts. We are proud to partner with Beyond Pesticides to further the critical mission of converting local parks and playing fields to pesticide-free management practices to make them safer for kids and pets to play in.” 

Ask your mayor and local officials to convert to organic landcare in town/city/county parks and other public places.  

The targets for this Action are local executives and mayors across U.S cities and townships

(Beyond Pesticides, April 14, 2023) In March, scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a draft Biological Opinion (BiOp) stating that carbaryl and methomyl — two commonly used carbamate insecticides — cause significant harm to dozens of already-endangered fish species in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia, Willamette, and Snake rivers. The BiOp indicates that these toxic compounds, in wide use on orchards and field vegetables throughout the Willamette Valley, the Columbia River Gorge, and southeastern Washington, will likely threaten scores of species on the Endangered Species list: 37 species at risk from carbaryl and 30 from methomyl. In addition, the BiOp says, “both are likely to harm or destroy many areas designated as critical habitat for endangered species.” The mitigation measures proposed by NMFS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in light of this BiOp, are likely to be inadequate to the problem, given that both compounds can drift through air and/or migrate into groundwater and generate toxic runoff.

These two neurotoxic insecticides, carbaryl and methomyl, are very toxic to bees, birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms. In addition, carbaryl is a likely human carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor, and has harmful impacts on multiple bodily systems. Methomyl is also an endocrine disruptor, and can cause renal and hepatic damage.

NMFS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are the lead federal agencies tasked with implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Under the law’s requirements, EPA must evaluate any pesticide it registers to make sure it is not likely to result in jeopardy to the “continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species.”

When EPA makes a determination that a pesticide product may so affect such species or habitats, the agency must initiate formal consultation with NMFS, the FWS, or both. Those agencies may then develop and issue their own BiOps on the jeopardy a pesticide presents to listed species and/or critical habitats. The new NMFS draft BiOp is open to public comment until May 15; at some point after that date, EPA will provide official comments to NMFS for consideration in developing its final opinion.

Beyond Pesticides has noted — in its 2020 comments on the draft ESA Biological Evaluations for carbaryl and methomyl — that the ESA embodies a more precautionary approach than does the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), federal pesticide law. The consultation requirement means that scientists at FWS and/or NMFS, who have greater expertise in evaluating harms to species and their habitats than do EPA scientists, have the chance to influence EPA pesticide regulation.

The draft BiOp suggests measures to “avoid jeopardy, including a flexible list of chemical-specific measures to reduce loading of pesticides into aquatic habitats to protect them from adverse effects of pesticide exposure. It also includes measures to minimize take and impacts to critical habitats, such as the development of ESA educational materials, reporting of label compliance monitoring, and inclusion of label information about ecological incident reporting.” (Under ESA, “take” means unintentional harm or killing of an individual of a protected species.) According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, FWS “recommends either prohibiting the chemicals within 300 meters (about 325 yards) of species’ habitat or implementing mitigation practices, like expanding vegetation ditches as buffers or using tools that reduce runoff.”

The EPA website indicates that it and NMFS are particularly interested in public comments relating to (1) additional risk reduction options beyond those described in the biological opinion; (2) the general feasibility of drift reduction measures based on wind direction; and (3) runoff and/or spray drift reduction technologies. Clearly, EPA is aware that drift and runoff represent ongoing vectors for listed species’ exposures to these two compounds; a between-the-lines read might reasonably conclude that EPA understands that current measures do not adequately protect the Northwest species at risk from carbaryl and methomyl.

As background: According to the EPA website, in March 2021, the agency completed its final biological evaluations for carbaryl and methomyl — resulting in determinations of “likely to adversely affect” (LAA) for 1,640 listed species and 736 designated critical habitats for carbaryl, and 1,098 listed species and 736 designated critical habitats for methomyl. Carbaryl continues to undergo the every-15-years registration review required by FIFRA, the federal statute governing all things “pesticide”). In October 2022, EPA announced revisions to the proposed interim registration decision on methomyl.

In late December 2022, EPA proposed new mitigations to attempt to curb some of the harms of carbaryl’s use, including:

• some use cancellations for residential dust formulations, residential granular formulations on turf, use on rice, and backpack applications to control tree boring beetles
• additional personal protective equipment for some uses
• longer restricted entry intervals for some uses
• mandatory spray drift language that prohibits application within 25 feet of aquatic habitats for ground applications and 150 feet for aerial applications
• mitigation to reduce runoff through protection statements and application restrictions during rain
• measures to protect pollinators from carbaryl exposure, including restrictions on applications during bloom

EPA also proposed at the time a “pilot” set of measures for protection of four endangered species, one of which was — notably — steelhead trout in the upper Columbia River. It also offered a number of “reasonable alternative measures” intended to protect listed salmon and steelhead species in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California; those included vegetated filter strips, retention ponds, water control structures, no-till/reduced tillage practices, riparian hedgerow, and no-spray buffers. As of publication, no evidence of the enactment of these measures was publicly and readily available.

As for methomyl, EPA issued (in 2022) Proposed Revisions to the Methomyl Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision — on the heels of a successful lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network. EPA had made LAA determinations for 1,098 species and 281 designated critical habitats in its BiOp on the compound’s impacts. In response, the agency proffered another set of mitigation measures (roughly analogous to those for carbaryl), including a three-species pilot. Remarkably, EPA concluded that the proposed FIFRA mitigation largely addresses the potential effects, on Pacific salmon and steelhead species, of the use of methomyl.

In February 2023, Beyond Pesticides reported on other chemical pesticide assaults on Northwest salmonid species (which include steelhead trout); previously, we covered the harms of three organophosphate pesticides (chlorpyrifos, malathion, and diazinon) on these same species. (The organophosphate insecticide malathion and methomyl have a similar mode of action — acetylcholinesterase inhibition.) These fish species are economically, culturally, and ecologically critical to the region. The multiplicity of pesticides to which they are exposed, given intensive agricultural pesticide use in the region, contributes significantly to the well-documented decline of salmonid species. Subject simultaneously to impacts of pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change, these species are in trouble.

EPA has a history of continuing to allow use of pesticides that are demonstrably harmful, and taking relatively anemic measures to amend the compounds’ use, in an attempt to reduce harms; examples fairly abound. In the current biodiversity crisis, for which pesticides bear some responsibility, the agency’s lack of robust protective action is unacceptable.

In March 2022, EPA — succumbing to industry pressure — continued the registration of the organophosphate insecticide malathion, despite the agency’s own findings that this class of insecticides has negative impacts on more than 1,000 endangered and threatened species, and that malathion, specifically, threatens 1,284 species. In 2021, EPA reregistered paraquat, the most acutely dangerous herbicide on the market, with some additional constraints on its use. (It subsequently went to a federal court in October 2022 to request permission to return and reconsider its decision to reapprove paraquat.)

In 2016, EPA registered sulfoxaflor, a so-called “novel,” systemic, neurotoxic insecticide that, like neonicotinoids, acts on nACh (nicotinic acetylcholine) receptors, and is very toxic to bees. Beyond Pesticides wrote at the time, “This decision is the final result of a long-fought legal battle over the chemical’s registration, spearheaded by beekeepers and public health organizations concerned with what has been identified as EPA’s inadequate and flawed pesticide review processes. The agency claims that amendments made to the original registration . . . will protect pollinators. However, scientific studies have shown that there is no way to fully limit exposure to bees, especially native species that exist naturally in the environment, given that the chemical, being systemic, is found in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets.”

Sulfoxaflor is used to kill aphids and another sucking/piercing insects on many crops, including vegetables, fruits and tree fruits, and nuts. In 2019, EPA granted approvals for sulfoxaflor to be used extremely widely on crops that are highly attractive to pollinators — an astonishing move, given the toxicity to bees. Research suggests that beneficial insects are exposed to sulfoxaflor at relatively high concentrations in agricultural environments. In a late 2021 win for bees, a California Superior Court ruled that this “field legal but bee lethal” pesticide could no longer be used in the state.

In its comment to EPA on registration of sulfoxaflor, Beyond Pesticides wrote, “EPA is proposing to repeat missteps of the past by registering a pesticide known to be toxic to nontarget organisms without all required data to ensure its safety. As already seen with the neonicotinoid clothianidin, and the herbicide aminocyclopyrachlor, conditional registration without relevant ecological data can be detrimental to non-target species.” Indeed, according to The Chicago Tribune, attorneys general from Illinois and 12 other states have now called on EPA to restrict use of sufloxaflor because of its toxic impacts on bees and other pollinators.

Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman notes that, “EPA is consistently unrealistic and downright misleading about the real effects of the pesticide risk mitigation measures it enacts. They do not meet the agency’s statutory mandate to protect health and the environment; what result are agency decisions that allow harm to those people and ecosystems EPA is charged with protecting.”

Beyond Pesticides has repeatedly critiqued EPA for its abject lack of appropriate protective action on toxic pesticides — especially in the face of species on the brink of extinction, the unfolding pollinator and insect collapse, endemic human health impacts, and widespread contamination of natural resources and ecosystems. Many health and environmental advocates see EPA as an irresponsible federal agency falling far short of meeting its mission, as the nation (and world) face those extreme challenges.

“EPA is proposing risk mitigation measure that the agency knows do not work. It’s shameful,” said Mr. Feldman. He continued, “EPA knows that nothing short of cancellation is adequately protective, and the agency should know that we no longer need these toxic chemicals to produce food and manage landscapes.”

Conventional, chemical-intensive U.S. agriculture — and the huge network of businesses, trade groups, and government agencies and programs that inform, support, and help fund it — is incredibly “dug in” to pesticide use as the way to do business. This grave and recklessness addiction to chemical pesticides in agriculture can be genuinely solved through a solution that is known, demonstrable, executable, and scalable: the transition to organic, regenerative agricultural practices. Organic agriculture can not only maintain productivity and profitability, but also, increase societal resiliency, sustain living beings and Nature’s functional integrity, and liberate everyone and everything from the toxic impacts of pesticides.

Source: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/03/22/portland-oregon-pesticides-endangered-fish-species-carbaryl-methomyl-chinook-coho-salmon/

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 13, 2023) Representatives of the 1.2 million-strong “Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment,” European Citizens Initiative (ECI) called on the European Commission in a public hearing “to propose legal acts to phase out synthetic pesticides in EU (European Union) agriculture by 80% by 2030, starting with the most hazardous, and to become free of synthetic by 2035.” Advocates outlined the scientific consensus that biodiversity loss is endangering both the environment and food security and urged the executive branch to take immediate action. [See Previous Article]

The timing is opportune as the Commission recently announced a revised EU Pollinators Initiative (PI), aimed at reversing the decline in wild pollinators by 2030. Noted as “the key instrument to reduce the risk and use of pesticides” by Environment and Oceans Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius, the PI focuses on mitigating pesticides’ impact on pollinators as vital components to food security alongside conservation and restoration efforts of species and habitats in agricultural landscapes, or in other words, “pollinator-friendly farming.”

According to Martin Dermine, the executive director of PAN Europe, the hearing was a “strong democratic signal to EU and national decision-makers to listen to citizens and move away from toxic pesticides.”

It is clear that their voices were heard, as an organic farmer and lawmaker Sarah Wiener of Austria shifted the conversation by authoring a European Parliament report proposing the 80% increase with stricter baselines measuring the member states’ reductions. The baseline years referenced for measuring a state’s pesticide use are more recent (2018-2020 versus 2015-2017), thereby requiring countries that have reduced pesticide usage to nationally phase out a greater percentage of toxic agents within seven years.

Additionally, Ms. Wiener’s language breaks normative barriers; in the first amendment, the phrase “on the sustainable use of plant production products” is replaced with the phrase “on the use of pesticides.” According to the justification, the former phrase “trivializ[es] the nature of these products” and challenges the notion that chemical pesticides can be used sustainably, “especially as alternatives exist.”  Beyond semantics, the amendment’s text reflects a foundational shift as the direct use of the word “pesticides” makes greenwashing less likely and zeroes in on the reality of these noxious chemicals’ impact.

Negative public perception of pesticides has recently transformed the European zeitgeist. From 1.7 million citizens (about twice the population of Delaware) signing an initiative protecting bees in Bavaria to the “Stop pesticides” protests in Italy, grassroots movements are publicly voicing opposition to destructive environmental, agricultural, and pesticide policies. However, in contrast with citizens’ concerns, member states are opposing proposals perceived as ‘penalizing’ states that have more recently begun to reduce their pesticide use and removing exceptions, or “emergency derogations,” for pesticide use on a case-by-case emergency basis.  

Positive responses resonated from Parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) and among the center-left, Left and green policymakers, including the European Commission’s Claire Bury, the Deputy Director-General of Food and Health Safety. According to Commissioner Bury, European citizens clearly “want healthy food without pesticides” and stressed a progressive, but ambitious action accelerating access to biological alternatives. However, Parliament’s center-right and proponents of the flagship “Farm to Fork” strategy sharply rebuked the effort with false narratives stoking fears of food safety.

According to Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, a majority of member states advocated for a further impact assessment on the European Commission’s proposal before negotiations with the European Parliament, a delay tactic decried by green groups.  

However, on April 5, 2023 the Commission ultimately rejected the initiative signed by more than one million people, which requested EU-binding targets to reduce synthetic pesticides by 80% in 2030 and a total ban by 2035.

What comes next?

In alignment with organic advocates in agriculture, Beyond Pesticides champions widespread adoption of organic, regenerative systems and practices. Such systems may include mechanical and biological controls, trap crops, natural barriers, organic compatible inputs, and practices such as eliminating monocultures, adopting crop rotation, introducing beneficial predator insects, and a focus on building healthy, “living” soils.

Over 90 years after pesticides were first introduced in the United States, agricultural communities around the globe are still dependent on them, with 44% of farmers estimated to be poisoned by pesticides annually. According to advocates, what is necessary, in Europe, the United States, and around the world, is education around viable alternatives to harmful pesticides and grassroots support for a feasible transition economically to a holistic organic solution.

Ending toxic, petrochemical pesticides and fertilizer use in organic systems will alleviate the harmful impacts of these chemicals on species and ecosystem health. Beyond Pesticides captured the bigger picture in its introduction to its 2017 National Pesticide Forum, Healthy Hives, Healthy Lives, Healthy Land: “Complex biological communities support life.” Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ impact on pollinators, including bee pollinator decline, and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect bees and other pollinators, check out information on the BEE Protective Campaign, pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds, pesticide-free zones, bee-friendly habitats, and what you, or your state representative, can do to protect our pollinators. For more information on the insect apocalypse, see Beyond Pesticides’ article in the Pesticides and You journal, “Tracking Biodiversity: Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse.”

Visit the Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong webpage to learn more about the adverse health and environmental effects chemical-intensive farming poses for various crops and how eating organic produce reduces pesticide exposure. Buying, growing, and supporting organic agriculture eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment, protecting vulnerable pollinators. Organic land management eliminates the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Spring is around the corner, so get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledging to eliminate toxic pesticide use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Euractiv

(Beyond Pesticides, April 12, 2023) Spring represents a period of increased water, soil, and general ecosystem pollution, correlated with increased pesticide use and increased rainfall. Thus, April showers bring May flowers, and often pesticides. We offer this overview to share with friends, family, and your community in an effort to elevate the urgent need to eliminate pesticides and make the shift to organic land management.

Pesticides are pervasive in the environment, affecting all ecosystems, including air, water, and soil. Like clean air and water, healthy soils are integral to ecosystem function, interacting between Earth’s four main spheres (i.e., hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere) to support life. Pesticide use results in pervasive contamination of treated and nontarget sites. Even organic farmers and gardeners globally suffer from the widespread movement of pesticides through the air, water, and runoff from land. Attempts to protect property and ecosystems from pesticide use are a difficult, some say impossible, challenge. Efforts to prevent contamination become a large burden, with attempts to curtail pesticide drift with buffer zone areas and eliminate fertilizers or soil supplements with pesticide residues (e.g., manure and compost). Furthermore, the effects of climate change only exacerbate threats to ecosystem health, as studies show a link between the global climate emergency and the adverse impacts of pesticide exposure.

However, organic land management in agriculture and parks, playing fields, and landscapes offer the only real alternative for meaningful protection of those who work the land (farmworkers, farmers, landscapers, and gardeners) and all who eat food, drink water and breathe air. Additionally, the adoption of organic methods, particularly no-till organic, is an opportunity for farming both to mitigate agriculture’s contributions to climate change and to cope with the effects climate change has had and will have on agriculture. Research from the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial® (FST) has revealed that organic, regenerative agriculture actually has the potential to lessen the impacts of climate change. This occurs through the drastic reduction in petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer usage to produce the crops (approximately 75% less fertilizer use overall than chemical-intensive agriculture) and a significant increase in carbon sequestration in the soil. Most importantly, no-till organic methods produce comparable yields to conventional systems on average, and higher yields in drought years because of the greater water-holding capacity of the organic soils. Therefore, organic land management is not only necessary to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals but also to ensure the long-term sustainability of our land and ecosystems.

Prepare Your Spring Gardens without Synthetics.

Growing your own food can be a transformative experience. Whether you live in the city and only have room for a few window pots of herbs, or you have enough space to set up a backyard garden to provide nearly all your produce needs, growing your own food organically is worth a try. Planting organic seeds and plants can ensure a pesticide-free garden, since plants in garden centers are often grown from seeds coated with toxic fungicides, bee-harming insecticides like neonicotinoids (neonics), or drenched with them.

Eliminate Synthetic Chemicals.

Synthetic petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides lead to undesirable conditions that restrict water and air movement in the soil. High-nitrogen fertilizers can disrupt the nutrient balance, accelerate turf growth and increase the need for mowing, while contributing to thatch buildup.

Petroleum-based synthetic pesticides harm health and the environment with both immediate and long-term effects. To know what chemicals to avoid, the “40 Most Commonly Used Lawn and Landscape Pesticides” factsheets (on health and environmental effects) simplify the science on pesticides hazardous to people, pets, and the environment. Additionally, our herbicide analysis is an extensive document of over 100 nonorganic (conventional) and organic products with specified health and environmental effects. The chemicals in the analysis include:  

• 2,4-D 
• Carbaryl 
• Dicamba 
• Fipronil 
• Glyphosate
• Malathion 
• Mecoprop 
• Neonicotinoids 
• Pyrethroids 
• Sulfoxaflor

Why Avoid These Synthetic Chemicals?

To Protect Yourself, Your Family, and Your Pets

• *Pesticides have many uses in homes and communities without comprehensive public knowledge about the harm that they cause. A growing body of evidence in the scientific literature (documented in Beyond Pesticides Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database) shows that pesticide exposure can adversely affect neurological, respiratory, immune, and endocrine systems in humans, even at low levels.
• *Children are especially sensitive to pesticide exposure because they (1) take up more pesticides (relative to their body weight) than do adults, and (2) have developing organ systems that are more vulnerable to pesticide impacts and less able to detoxify harmful chemicals.
• *Furthermore, pets encounter pesticides by digging, sniffing, licking, and eating unknown objects. Toxic chemicals in insect sprays and baits, rodent poison, flea collars, weed killers, disinfectants, and more are also hazardous to our companion animals.

To Protect the Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators

As bees, butterflies, bats, and other pollinators suffer serious declines in their populations, we urge people and communities to plant a pesticide-free habitat that supports pollinator populations. We provide information to facilitate this in our BEE Protective Habitat Guide. Become a beekeeper in your own backyard: Backyard Beekeeping: Providing pollinator habitat one yard at a time! 

Urban Areas

• Pollinators: Significantly more pesticide residues are present in urban bumblebees that forage in nonorganic landscapes during April. However, honey bees kept on organic urban farms are less stressed from pesticide exposure. 

Suburban/Exurban/Rural Areas

• Pollinators: Bees in suburban environments remain at risk of pesticide exposure from contamination of areas in which they forage and breed due to toxic weed control, pesticide use on crops, and animal pest treatments on farms. Garden pesticide products and contaminated ornamental plants sold in garden centers play a key role in spreading pesticides through suburban areas. A study from the University of Sussex reveals that 70% of bee-attracting plants sold at a range of garden centers have traces of neonicotinoids. Researchers urge suburban farmers and gardeners to, in addition to adopting soil health practices, swap synthetic pesticides with natural predators, like ladybirds or lacewings, and the use of physical methods, such as hand-removal of pests, and netting or sticky traps.

To Protect Birds, Especially Song and Migrating Birds

Neonicotinoids are a class of highly toxic insecticides that are systemic and move through the vascular system of the treated plant, contaminating pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets and indiscriminately poisoning insects, birds, and soil and aquatic organisms. Seeds are often coated with neonicotinoids and plants are drenched with the chemical. However, birds can eat the poisoned seeds as a food source, causing many adverse effects, including effects on reproductive function and egg formation, and even death. For more information on the dangers of neonicotinoid-coated seeds, see Beyond Pesticides’ short video Seeds That Poison.

To Protect Beneficial Organisms and Microorganisms In and Around the Soil

Wildflowers, native shrubs, and trees, as well as urban green spaces, provide important habitats for beneficial organisms (e.g., worms, ants, beetles, etc.) and microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi). Synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides threaten their survivability, reproduction, and distribution of essential nutrients. Additionally, plants grown in chemically-treated areas are more vulnerable to parasites and pathogens. The adoption of organic land management practices, like planting pollinator-friendly plants and cover crops, and using organic mulch for weed suppression, create healthier plants that are less vulnerable to disease and infestation, and more resilient.

Urban Areas

• Many insects are the victims of the global insect apocalypse or population decline. Much research attributes the recent decline to several factors, including pesticide exposure. Broad-spectrum pesticides indiscriminately kill pests and nontarget organisms alike, as their ubiquitous use contaminates soils, even in untreated areas.
  • In addition to insects, the soil microbiome is essential for the proper functioning of the soil ecosystem. The microbiome is home to ecological communities of microorganisms living and working together. Toxic chemicals damage the soil microbiota by decreasing and altering biomass and microbiome composition (diversity). Pesticide use contaminates soil and results in a bacteria-dominant ecosystem, as these chemicals cause “vacant ecological niches, so organisms that were rare become abundant and vice versa.”  

Suburban (Rural) Areas

• One of the most concerning consequences of soil pesticide contamination is the impact on organisms, including beneficial insects and microbes. Conventional farming technologies promote the use of pesticides that directly and indirectly affect soil organisms.
  • Soil biology can change due to the presence of synthetic chemical pollutants like pesticides. Studies find some current-use pesticides induce changes in soil properties that re-release soil-bound chemicals into the ecosystem, contributing to contamination. Long-term or legacy contamination has resulted from the failure to regulate so-called stable chemicals that would bind to soil and remain immobile—thus beginning the continuing multigenerational poisoning from now-banned chemicals, like organochlorines, including DDT(its breakdown contaminant DDE) and chlordecone. Various studies find that glyphosate use stimulates soil erosion responsible for soil-based chemical emergence, harms the gut microbiota of honey bees, and destroys habitats for organisms like the monarch butterfly.

Spring Cleaning without Harmful Disinfectants

With spring cleaning upon us, many household disinfectants pose a risk to human, animal, and ecosystem health. To mitigate this hazard, advocates, including Beyond Pesticides, promote practices that eliminate toxic, synthetic chemical use by switching to organic and least-toxic pesticides to mitigate further risk.

Avoid Indoor Toxins

Exposure to disinfectant products containing toxic chemicals, such as chlorine bleach, peroxyacetic acid, quaternary ammonium compounds (quats), phenolic chemical compounds (i.e., cresols, hexachlorobenzene, and chlorophenols), sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione, and hydrochloric acid, are associated with a long list of adverse effects, from asthma to cancer. All of these chemicals can harm the respiratory system, with some quats shown to cause mutations, lower fertility, and increased antibiotic resistance. Many of these toxic disinfectants are harmful via more than one exposure route, as ingestion and inhalation also trigger potentially more harmful effects. Although chemical disinfectants kill viruses, bacteria, and other microbes via cell wall and protein destruction, they can also irritate and destroy the mucous membranes in animal and human respiratory and digestive tracts upon ingestion or inhalation. This exposure can lead to death in extreme cases.

People who have a preexisting condition or are of advanced age, who may have a weakened immune or respiratory system, are more vulnerable to the effects of the Covid-19 virus. Many of the products approved as disinfectants have negative impacts on the respiratory or immune system, thus reducing resistance to the disease. When managing viral and bacterial infections, chemicals that exacerbate the risk to vulnerable individuals are of serious concern. The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) report on an increase in poison control calls due to disinfectant misuse notes that a majority pertained to bleach products, a 62% increase in 2020, with a total disinfectant-related call increase of 108.8% between 2019 and 2020. We urge people to recognize that it is important during public health emergencies involving infectious diseases to scrutinize practices and products very carefully so that hazards presented by the crisis are not elevated because of the unnecessary threat introduced by toxic chemical use.

For more information on safe disinfectants, visit Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on Disinfectants and Sanitizers.

The Year(s) of Organic Solutions: The Safer, ORGANIC Choice

Following the organic/Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) label helps guide individuals to the organic-compatible, least-toxic products, safer choice products. There are two established lists of organic materials and products in “Products Compatible with Organic Landscape Management:”

* The National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances of the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), and

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of exempt pesticides, Section 25(b) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Residential

Some of the products you may need for your garden include seeds, potting soil, mulch, tools, fertilizer/soil supplements, and compost. For most small-scale gardeners, pest problems can be contained with simple removal (scout the insects and remove them). If you decide to use a product to manage pests, do not be fooled by products labeled as “safe” or “natural” (these products may contain nonorganic “inert” ingredients that may be toxic). In general, organic-compatible products will display an OMRI Listed® seal on their labels, but not all products that meet organic standards have this seal. This same caution applies to fertilizers and potting soil as well. One of the great things about gardening at home on a small scale is the potential to create all the material needed for soil health through simple composting of kitchen scraps and yard waste. 

When planting an organic garden, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to “Grow Your Own Organic Food,” including a resource page on steps to take before planting Grow Your Own Organic Food — Beyond Pesticides. Companies and Nurseries that Grow and Distribute Organic Seeds and Plants can be found in our Seed and Plant Directory Brochure.

If there is a problem with weeds taking over yards and gardens, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to “Read Your Weeds,” which identifies weeds in your lawn and suggests nontoxic, least-toxic, solutions. You can always check Beyond Pesticides’ suggestion for managing lawns and buildings at ManageSafe: Least-Toxic Control of Pests in the Home and Garden. Additionally, Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on the Ecological Management of Invasive Species is a great resource for broad weed management. Know your soil chemistry and biology with simple tests from land grant universities. For instance, clover is considered a typical turf weed (although more people are seeding microclover into lawns to provide nitrogen) that thrives in soil with low nitrogen levels, compaction issues, and drought stress. Many plants that are considered weeds have beneficial qualities (e.g., dandelions for bees). Try to develop a tolerance for some “weeds.”

Organic does not mean expensive, whether related to food or land management. As land management practices result in increased soil health, the microbial life in the soil cycles nutrients naturally and reduces the need for expensive fertilizers. Regarding organic food, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to buy organic on a budget, “The Real Affordability of Organic Food.” Buying organic produce whenever possible is always an option. On how to find and purchase organic products and why organic is about more than eliminating pesticide residues in the food and includes the protection of farmworkers and the environment in its production practices, visit the Beyond Pesticides webpage “Buying Organic” and “Eating with a Conscience.”

Community

Many urban areas have community gardens where one can get an individual plot for gardening. Community gardens in some urban environments have transformed the landscape and the community itself. Our Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth support for community land managers in transitioning public green spaces to organic landscape management. Contact Beyond Pesticides and we will collaborate with you to start two organic demonstration sites in your community at no charge, with the goal of providing the training and experience necessary for your parks department staff to transition all public areas in your community to these organic practices. Dozens of communities in all regions of the country already have organic communities where local parks, playing fields, and greenways are managed without unnecessary toxic pesticides and fertilizers. This is an opportunity for your community to address the three existential crises (to which petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers contribute) that we must all work to resolve—health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency.

Read about some successful community gardens in New York City from Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticides and You journal. If you want to get your hands dirty but do not have the space or the desire to start a garden, see if there are any community-supported farms near you that could use your helping hands-on weeding or other projects.

Check Out Beyond Pesticides’ Spring into Action page to further educate yourself on safer gardening practices around your home and community.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Beyond Pesticides                           

(Beyond Pesticides, April 11, 2023) Natural areas are often considered more pristine than urbanized locations, but a new study published in Nature Communications shows that the soils in natural lands can be just as polluted as those in more densely populated cities. The findings underscore the broad impacts that human activity is having on the health and stability of natural systems around the globe. In order to address widespread contamination, advocates urge government regulators to consider the full cradle to grave life cycle of toxic materials before releasing them into the environment.

An international contingent of scientists came together to conduct this research on a global scale, looking at soils on every continent. Soil samples were collected from urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas and paired together. Sampling was conducted in 56 cities in 17 countries, representing six continents. These data were also compared to soil samples taken from remote ecosystems in Antarctica. Scientists tested soils for eight heavy metals, 46 pesticide residues, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes.

Results reveal a wide distribution of tested contaminants in all samples taken. “Although the level of individual contaminants varied greatly across locations, we detected significant correlations among each type of soil contaminants studied,” the article explains. 

For metals, urban greenspaces had slightly higher levels than natural areas, a variation scientists attribute to anthropogenic factors. For instance, in 42% of urban sites and 36% of natural areas, arsenic contamination exceeds soil contamination levels set under regulations by the Finnish government.

Pesticides were widely detected, including in 63% of natural areas tested. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between these detections and those found in urban greenspaces. However, researchers indicate these data are likely an underestimate, as per the study’s supporting information, they did not measure some of the most widely used pesticides like glyphosate, 2,4-D, and paraquat. Scientists reason that atmospheric transport is likely playing a role, as well as potential deposition from agricultural sites (farm soils were not tested in the study).

Similar to other results, microplastics were widespread in every soil tested. This was also reasoned a result of atmospheric transport, with small fibers from plastic-based fabrics, ropes, nets, and other materials the likely source.

Antibiotic resistance genes were ubiquitous in both natural and urban soils, though the type of genes varied by soil. Urban greenspaces contained more diversity of these genes than natural areas. But the close similarity to the contamination is likely a result of physical movement of bacterial cells from urban to natural areas.

Despite its remote location, Antarctic soils did exhibit some of these major contaminants. In particular, microplastics were found to be just as widespread in Antarctic soils as those in all other locations. Pesticides were detected, but with less frequency, while levels of heavy metals fell below regulatory concern, and antibiotic resistance genes were below the level of detection.

Looking deeper into the findings, researchers determined that population density is the largest factor associated with the presence of microplastics. The less wealthy a city is, the more likely there would be microplastic and heavy metal contamination. For pesticides and antibiotic resistance genes, soil fertilizer applications is the greatest factor, indicating a significant human role in the global spread of these hazards. “Together, our work demonstrates that soils in nearby natural areas are as contaminated as our urban greenspaces at a large-spatial scale,” the authors write.

This is not the first study to find toxic contaminants in areas traditionally considered pristine or untouched. A 2020 study found that arctic glaciers are trapping pesticides and other atmospheric pollutants, and subsequently releasing them as they melt.

The release of any toxic material can have long term effects that are not limited merely to the location where such material was applied. Pesticides and other hazardous substances drift from direct application, volatilize, or become stirred up by dust, and can be taken into the atmosphere and deposited in locations hundreds of miles away.

Beyond Pesticides has long fought for a precautionary approach to the regulation of toxic pesticides and other materials. In order to safeguard health and the environment now and for future generations, it is critical pass laws that consider the full life-cycle of a material, and forgo production if hazards are too high. Take action today by telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Congress that all impacts from toxic pesticides- cradle to grave- must be considered before allowing use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source:  Nature Communications

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

(Beyond Pesticides, April 10, 2023) Congress has entrusted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the United States. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” it becomes urgently necessary to insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency. 

Tell Congress and the President to hold accountable political appointees at EPA who fail to uphold scientific integrity.      

OIG is an independent branch of EPA that can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct, without fear of improper influence. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.  

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. (Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.) Regarding the pesticide program, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Senior Counsel Peter Jenkins stated, “EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has bent so far over backwards to accommodate industry desires that it is now beyond chiropractic help – major surgery is required,” noting that while problems within OPP worsened under Trump, they preexisted his term and continue today. “Inside OPP, marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters,” Mr. Jenkins said. 

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions. Congress receives OIG’s annual report, which documents such failures and should trigger oversight hearings if those responsible are not held accountable.

Tell Congress and the President to hold accountable political appointees at EPA who fail to uphold scientific integrity.   

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

Congress has entrusted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the United States. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” it becomes urgently necessary to insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency.

OIG is an independent branch of EPA that can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct, without fear of improper influence. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. (Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.) Regarding the pesticide program, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Senior Counsel Peter Jenkins stated, “EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has bent so far over backwards to accommodate industry desires that it is now beyond chiropractic help – major surgery is required,” noting that while problems within OPP worsened under Trump, they preexisted his term and continue today. “Inside OPP, marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters,” Mr. Jenkins said.

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions. Congress receives OIG’s annual report, which documents such failures and should trigger oversight hearings if those responsible are not held accountable.

Thank you.

Letter to President Biden (This will require people to go to the White House website and copy and paste into the webform. There is a limit of 2000 characters in the form. People may use suggested language (below) from Beyond Pesticides, which is just under the character limit.):

Congress entrusted EPA with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the U.S. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” We must insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency.

OIG, an independent branch of EPA, can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 7, 2023) A  petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implores the agency to halt the practice of allowing pesticides banned in the U.S. to be exported to other countries without any consent from relevant governmental authorities in those nations. The two petitioners—the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)—are focusing on a longstanding practice of U.S. pesticide manufacturers and brokers, who sell toxic pesticide products that fail to qualify for EPA registration domestically to entities nearly anywhere in the world (except where the products are specifically prohibited). As Beyond Pesticides has noted, this is a dangerous and environmentally unjust practice and has for decades urged Congress and EPA to forbid it.

According to the CIEL press release on the matter, the petition was motivated by the reality that banned or voluntarily withdrawn pesticides “are routinely exported to countries that often have limited resources or capacity to assess and regulate chemical risks,” and that the “practice has directly fueled the influx of extremely hazardous pesticides to countries in the Global South, where they disproportionately harm Indigenous peoples and vulnerable and marginalized communities.” The organizations emphasize that, for example, more than four-fifths of countries that import neurotoxic pesticide compounds that are banned in the U.S. are egarded as developing or low-to-middle income, and that in more than three-fourths of those, roughly 30% (or more) of their agricultural workers suffer pesticide poisoning annually.

The petitioners argue that what they are urging EPA to do — “initiate rulemaking procedures to require prior informed consent for the export of pesticides unregistered in the United States” — would help less-well-resourced nations make informed decisions about whether (or under what conditions) to allow such hazardous products into their countries.

The petition notes, “Current EPA regulations and practice on the export of unregistered pesticides are incompatible with the legislative text and purpose of the FIFRA provisions. This becomes even more apparent in light of accepted understandings of ‘notice’ that have developed since 1978, and the fundamental change in pesticide trade since that time. The regulatory, scientific, and public health context with respect to pesticides and hazardous substances has shifted profoundly in the 65 years since FIFRA’s original adoption, and in the more than four decades since the statutory language of FIFRA §17 was amended to its current form.” (FIFRA is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the statute that governs the registration, regulation, sale, and use of pesticides.)

The petition also calls out the environmental injustice of current practice, and endorses the 2019 conclusions of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics Baskut Tuncak, JD. He then said that all countries — in order to “meet their obligations to respect, protect, and promote fundamental human rights,” must “adopt laws and policies consistent with their duty under international human rights law to prevent exposure to hazardous substances, protect the most vulnerable and susceptible and prevent discrimination; prohibit the export of chemicals and production processes that are prohibited from use domestically; and prevent the import of chemicals and production processes that are prohibited in the country from which they are exported.”

The petition cites three central arguments underlying its request for new rulemaking:

• The U.S. has binding obligations to provide prior informed consent regarding exports of delisted or unregistered pesticides under treaties which it has signed or ratified.
• The U.S. has a duty to ensure prior informed consent as a matter of customary international law.
• Prior informed consent is a legal tradition rooted in U.S. domestic law.

Absent prior informed consent (PIC), these unregistered pesticides are able to cross national borders and are often deployed “on the ground” with minimal oversight or enforcement of regulations that may exist. CBD and CIEL further argue that PIC is a “widely accepted legal concept that has been defined by many U.S. statutes, including FIFRA, U.S. multi-lateral agreements, and other international treaties and agreements.”

Commenting in 2020 on the global dynamics of this exportation of banned/unregistered pesticides, Mr. Tuncak said, in a statement endorsed by 35 other experts on the UN Human Rights Council, “Wealthier nations often create ‘double standards’ that allow the trade and use of banned chemicals in parts of the world where regulations are less strict. [The] ‘racialised nature of these standards cannot be ignored’ as the dangers [are] externalised to communities of African descent and other people of colour. These loopholes are a political concession to industry, allowing their chemical manufacturers to profit from inevitably poisoned workers and communities abroad, all the while importing cheaper products through global supply chains and fueling unsustainable consumption and production patterns. It is long-overdue that states stop this exploitation.”

The petitioners also maintain that the production of these banned pesticides — which is ongoing in the U.S. —disproportionately harms domestic fenceline communities that are more often (than those of other demographic groups) located nearby to pesticide (and other chemical) manufacturing facilities. Further, the residents of these “environmental justice” communities, often low-income and/or people of color, may well comprise much of the workforce for production of these compounds, putting them at additional, heightened health risk.

Spokespeople for both organizations offered their takes on the petition’s goals. CBD Environmental Health Science Director Nathan Donnelly commented, “The Biden EPA must end the horrifically immoral U.S. legacy of squeezing profits out of dangerous pesticides we refuse to use ourselves by shipping them off to developing countries. Pesticide companies are exploiting weak laws to dump their most toxic poisons on countries with extremely limited regulatory resources. This system is built on deception and shrouded in secrecy. It’s time to make it more transparent.”

CIEL President Carol Muffett said, “In the half-century since FIFRA’s notice requirements were last updated, the U.S. has dramatically expanded its pesticide exports while falling ever farther out of step with global standards governing those exports. EPA has the opportunity, authority, and . . . obligation to narrow that gap and provide importing countries with the critical information they need to better protect their own people and the U.S. public.”

For its part, EPA notes that although pesticides intended only to be sold abroad need not be registered in the U.S., their sale by exporters must comply with specific requirements under FIFRA, and exporters must submit reports to EPA. Such requirements have mostly to do with exporters keeping track of how much of what is sold to whom and when, as well as a requirement that importers must certify their understanding that the products are not registered in the U.S. In addition, every pesticide, active pesticide ingredient, and any pesticide “device” that is exported must bear labeling that meets FIFRA requirements.

EPA has long used labels as a mechanism to attempt to tweak the parameters along which pesticides are used domestically — changing a labeling requirement as a “baby step” means of trying to limit damage from use. The agency calls the label “a key part of pesticide regulation,” and cites label contents as critical to “safe” handling and use in order to avoid harm to human health and the environment.

Pesticide front-side labels may include: a restricted use pesticide statement; a product name, brand, or trademark; an ingredient statement; a child hazard warning statement; a signal word (“danger,” “warning,” or “caution”); a first aid statement; a skull and cross bones symbol and the word “poison”; and net contents/net weight. The back side includes a precautionary statement, directions for use, storage and disposal instructions, and a warranty statement.

Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman notes that EPA’s label restrictions should not be regarded as adequate for the protection of human and environmental health, primarily because the agency does not exercise sufficient scientific scrutiny in its registration of pesticides. Mr. Feldman cites broader issues relating to the serious hazards associated with U.S. exportation of all pesticides to developing countries. He comments: “Clearly, EPA bans pesticides or negotiates their withdrawal from the market because it is determined that their use results in unacceptable risk factors. Their removal from the market in the U.S. should result in a concurrent ban on exportation. More broadly, the problem extends to all pesticides, since EPA knows that the exportation of registered pesticides to countries that do not have the infrastructure, regulation, training, and enforcement to ensure product label compliance will result in harm to health and the environment. In fact, all legal uses of pesticides in the U.S. are based on EPA risk assessments, however weak or deficient, that establish allowed uses based on risk mitigation measures. EPA then determines that the resulting restrictions necessary to meet its standard of pesticide safety (or allowable harm) are reliant on the enforceability of pesticide product labels. However, it is clear that we allow pesticide exportation to countries without the resources and capacity to ensure compliance, thus, resulting in unacceptable harm by any standard.”

In 2020 coverage of this issue, Beyond Pesticides reviewed a study showing that companies in the United Kingdom and the European Union are also exporting such products, and that the biggest importers were countries in the Global South — Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, and Ukraine. In August 2022, our reporting looked at a BBC investigative team’s discovery that, “Export data from U.S. ports found that over 27 million pounds of pesticides forbidden for use domestically were shipped at an average of 32 thousand pounds per day. In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that banned pesticides were being produced in 23 U.S. states.”

As if the export of banned pesticides to other countries were not sufficiently concerning, a 2019 Truthout article — “Export of Banned US Pesticides Creates a Deadly Circle of Poison,” by Elisabeth McLaughlin — reminded Americans that the chickens of unethical practices will inevitably come home to roost. To wit, some of the food grown in countries using these U.S.-banned pesticides ultimately returns to American dinner plates, replete with residues of those pesticides.

EPA’s established “tolerances”(maximum residue levels) for pesticide residues on food do not apply to imported foods U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducts annual reviews of pesticide residue on both domestic and imported foods; in 2022, the review concluded that “samples of food imported to the U.S. from other countries appeared to pose a greater risk of containing pesticide residue. Countries documenting the highest number of import violations included Mexico, India, and Pakistan.”

Another reality in this scenario is that pesticides that have been effectively banned in the U.S. continue to contaminate the environment (and soils, in particular) and thus, continue to show up in food plants. Evidencing the persistence of some pesticides over time, the 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program (PDP) Annual Summary found that now-banned, “legacy” pesticides continue to show up as residue on food plants grown in the U.S., — including DDT, chlordane, dieldrin, and lindane.

In covering this issue in 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote: “For banned pesticides . . . the fates of agricultural workers thousands of miles away . . . may seem (increasingly) remote. . . . But it is critical to remember that legacy chemicals are ‘gifts that keep on giving,’ whether DDT from the ‘40s and ‘50s, DBCP in the ‘70s, or PFAS chemicals used for the past 90 years (among others). But in addition, the creation and deployment of toxic legacy chemicals are not all in the past; this is a ‘rolling admissions’ situation because we continue to . . . export toxic chemicals whose impacts may show up now, or may show up in a decade or more.”

In her article, Ms. McLaughlin pithily wrote, “When the federal government bans a pesticide, pro-industry loopholes allow agrochemical companies to recoup lost profits by manufacturing the same pesticide for use abroad. . . . This disturbing practice creates a ‘circle of poison’ where we are unknowingly consuming U.S.-banned chemicals in food produced in conditions dangerous to agricultural workers and their families. How can ethical responsibility for hazardous chemicals end at our borders?” She added, “With no comprehensive global regulatory framework to guide policy for transport, storage and use, the U.S. consciously subjects vulnerable agricultural workers overseas to chemicals known to cause harm and death, and widens international dependence of agriculture on pesticides.”

This export by agrochemical entities of pesticide compounds whose use the U.S. will not permit within its borders is an ethical and health outrage, as well as an assault on environmental justice communities in countries around the world. The petitioners’ request of EPA for new rulemaking to prevent this is certainly a useful step, and the agency should comply with it.

Yet the ultimate solution lies in eliminating the use of synthetic pesticides — some of which are registered and toxic, some of which are banned and toxic, and some of which are registered and have not yet been determined by EPA to be toxic enough — in the U.S. and worldwide. Beyond Pesticides has called for the transition to organic agricultural (and other land) management in the next decade. The public can help advance the organic transition by talking about the importance of it to everyone: family, friends, local food purveyors/markets, and local, state, and federal officials (elected and otherwise), and by supporting Beyond Pesticides and other advocacy groups, whether national, local, or international. Find more on how to help with our Tools for Change webpage.

Sources: https://www.ciel.org/news/epa-petitioned-to-halt-export-of-us-banned-pesticides-to-developing-countries/ and https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/environmental_health/pdfs/FIFRA-Petition-Section-17-March-2023.pdf

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 6, 2023) A study published in Global Change Biology adds to research demonstrating that climate change can exacerbate the adverse impacts of pesticide exposure on managed and wild bees. Temperature can alter the sublethal effect pesticides, particularly the neonicotinoid (neonic) imidacloprid and the sulfoximine sulfoxaflor, have on bumble bee behavior tied to fitness and pollination services. Both an increase and decrease in temperature can cause diverging thermal responses in bumble bee behavior. However, increasing temperature bares more severe behavior abnormalities than cooler temperatures.

The pervasiveness of pesticide exposure combined with climate change threatens global species biodiversity. As has been widely reported, pollinators (such as bees, monarch butterflies, and bats) are a bellwether for environmental stress as individuals and as colonies. Pesticides intensify pollinators’ vulnerability to health risks (such as pathogens and parasites), with pesticide-contaminated conditions limiting colony productivity, growth, and survival. Now more than ever, people are changing their sentiment toward sustainability, with two-thirds of consumers stating the importance of limiting climate change impacts and 88 percent supporting greater pollution reduction. The globe is currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one million species of plants and animals at risk. With the increasing rate of biodiversity loss, advocates say it is essential for government agencies to hold the pesticide industry accountable for the direct (i.e., excessive agrochemical use) and indirect (i.e., water pollution from runoff) impacts on ecosystems.

The study notes, “Our findings highlight the importance of multi-stressor studies to quantify threats to insects, which will help to improve dynamic evaluations of population tipping points and spatiotemporal risks to biodiversity across different climate regions.”

The study investigates six behaviors of bumblebees exposed to imidacloprid and sulfoxaflor at three different temperatures (21 ̊C/69.8 ̊F [Low], 27 ̊C /80.6 ̊F [Medium], 30 ̊C / 86 ̊F [High]). The behaviors under observation include: “1. Likelihood of being responsive; 2. Likelihood of movement; 3. Rates of walking; 4. Rate of food consumption; 4. Flight distance; and 5. Flight velocity.”

Of the six behaviors, imidacloprid significantly impacts the responsiveness, likelihood of movement, walking rate, and food consumption rate at lower temperatures and reduces flight distance by over 50 percent at higher temperatures. Sulfoxaflor impacts bumble bee walking rate at medium temperatures and reduces flight distance by 24 percent, but not as significantly as imidacloprid. With temperature predicted to increase, lead researcher from the Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park) at Imperial College London, Richard Gill, Ph.D., highlights, “The drop-off in flight performance at the highest temperature suggests a ‘tipping point’ has been reached in the bees’ ability to tolerate the combined temperature and pesticide exposure. This seeming cliff-edge effect happens over the span of just three degrees, which changes our perception of pesticide risk dynamics given such temperature changes can commonly occur over the space of a day.”

The United Nations states that 80 percent of the 115 top global food crops depend on insect pollination, with one-third of all U.S. crops depending on pollinators, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, research finds that many insect populations, including managed and wild pollinators, are collapsing. Monarchs are near extinction, and commercial beekeepers continue to experience declines that are putting them out of business. The continued loss of mayflies and fireflies disrupts the foundation of many food chains. Additionally, the decline in many bird species has links to insect declines. Since the 1970s, three billion birds have vanished. Despite habitat fragmentation and climate change, extensive use of pesticides, like neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor, pyrethroids, fipronil, and organophosphates, increase the potential risk and indiscriminate threat to all insects. Research shows that residues from neonicotinoids (including seed treatments) and sulfoxaflor accumulate and translocate to pollen and nectar of treated plants. Pyrethroids and fipronil impair bee learning, development, and behavioral function, reducing survivability and colony fitness. However, inert ingredients in these products cause similar or more severe impacts on insect populations, such as disruption in bee learning behavior through exposure to low doses of surfactants. With the global reliance on pollinator-dependent crops increasing over the past decades, a lack of pollinators threatens food security and stability for current and future generations.

Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) routinely finds widespread pesticide contamination of surface waters throughout the U.S. Scientists warn that neonicotinoids and other pesticides pose a direct threat to both insect and non-insect wildlife, including birds, aquatic animals, and other wildlife, which absorb pesticide sprays and vapors through respiration, as well as ingestion via food. Industrial agriculture and its use of hazardous pesticides, particularly systemic insecticides like the neonicotinoid class, are harming insect life and biodiversity throughout the globe. Most animals on Earth are insects, which play a significant role in sustaining the ecosystem, despite their size. Insects found in nature preserves are consistently contaminated with over a dozen pesticides, calling into question the ability of these areas to function as refuges for threatened and endangered species. With rampant pesticide use and ubiquitous contamination, it is imperative that lawmakers and regulators embrace stronger measures to reverse the ominous trajectory society continues to follow, especially with the ongoing global insect apocalypse.

The wide range of temperatures in temperate regions can significantly impact bee health and survival more severely when combined with pesticide exposure, demonstrating synergistic (combined) effects on flight performance within a three-degree Celsius increase. However, the synergistic impacts of pesticides and climate change are not a new phenomenon. A 2023 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) utilizing a climate and land use model confirms that recorded temperature during the warm seasons has a greater impact on bee declines, with a twofold increase in negative stressors. However, bees are not the only insects a risk of chemical exposure. Research published in 2017 highlighted a major red flag for insect populations worldwide, finding a 77 percent decline in German nature preserves of flying insect biomass. A systematic review of insect population decline studies published in 2019 found that 41% of insect species worldwide are declining. The declines of butterflies, wild bumblebees, and honey bees have links to hazardous pesticide use in conventional agricultural systems. Since 1990, roughly a quarter of the global insect population has been vanishing, according to research published in Science. This research finds worldwide trends in declines in terrestrial insect biomass to be nearly 1% each year (~9% each decade).

To mitigate the risks associated with chemical exposure from toxic pesticides, advocates say the manufacturing and use of pesticides need addressing, first and foremost. Global leaders should curtail the continued manufacturing of chemical pollutants that readily contaminate the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to discount threats like the insect apocalypse, evidenced by a 75% decline in insect abundance, threatening global ecosystems and food production that depends on animal pollination. If pesticide use and manufacturing are amplifying the impacts of the climate crisis, especially on vital pollinators, advocates argue that it is essential to incite change by enhancing pesticide policy and regulation that eliminate use. 

Dr. Gill, concludes, “…[T]he frequency to which bees will be exposed to pesticides and extreme temperatures under climate change are predicted to increase. Our work can help to inform the right concentrations and application times of pesticides across different climatic regions of the world to help safeguard pollinators, such as bees.”

Ending toxic pesticide use can alleviate the harmful impacts of these chemicals on species and ecosystem health. Beyond Pesticides captured the bigger picture in its introduction to its 2017 National Pesticide Forum, Healthy Hives, Healthy Lives, Healthy Land: “Complex biological communities support life.” Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ impact on pollinators, including bee pollinator decline, and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect bees and other pollinators, check out information on the BEE Protective Campaign, pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds, pesticide-free zones, bee-friendly habitats, and what you, or your state representative, can do to protect our pollinators. For more information on the insect apocalypse, see Beyond Pesticides’ article in the Pesticides and You journal, “Tracking Biodiversity: Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse.”

Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds that agriculture, forestry, and other land use contributes about 23% of total net anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, while organic production reduces greenhouse gas emissions and sequesters carbon in the soil. Learn more about the possibility of sequestering more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions by switching to organic management practices by reading Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming. For more information about organic food production, visit the Beyond Pesticides Keeping Organic Strong webpage. Learn more about the adverse health and environmental effects chemical-intensive farming poses for various crops and how eating organic produce reduces pesticide exposure. Buying, growing, and supporting organic agriculture eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic land management eliminates the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Spring is around the corner, so get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledging to eliminate toxic pesticide use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Science Daily, Global Change Biology

(Beyond Pesticides, April 5, 2023) A collective of Mayan beekeepers (Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas) in Mexico are implicating chemical industry giant Bayer/Monsanto in a massive die-off of more than 300,000 bees among their combined apiaries. According to Mexico News Daily, the total value of losses represent a staggering $663,000 U.S. dollars (12 million pesos). The incident is the latest instance of the pesticide  and agrichemical industry setting up shop in a local community and wrecking the health of the local ecology.

Mayan beekeepers explain that Bayer/Monsanto recently started operations on a ranch near Crucero Oxá in the southern Mexican state of Campeche. A local businessman placed the 50 hectare ranch on loan to the company. Since that arrangement, the company has aerially sprayed row crops like corn and soy with undisclosed chemicals. “One of Bayer’s engineers or technicians allowed us to take samples from one of their crops after the bees started to die,” said beekeeper José Manuel Poot Chan, to the newspaper La Jornada Maya. “We are exhausting all possible legal instances, while members of the Welfare Ministry already came to offer humanitarian social aid to cover part of the damages.”

Beekeepers suspect that the company is using the site to test new pesticides it is developing. This is not at all unheard of for a tropical environment. In the United States, giant chemical corps have been the focus of ongoing campaigns by grassroots health advocates in Hawaiian counties for its hazardous use of experimental pesticides. For instance, in 2016 Syngenta/ChemChina was fined nearly $5 million for exposing a dozen agricultural workers to an unregistered pesticide. According to data gathered by the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, in 2014 alone there were 1,381 field test sites in Hawaii and 178 sites in California.

Bee kill incidents from aerial spraying campaigns also have a saddening history. In 2016 in Dorchester County, SC, over two million honey bees were killed after an aerial mosquito spray campaign dropped the hazardous organophosphate insecticide Naled over yards and farms. These incidents show the importance and necessity of embracing pesticide alternatives on a broad scale.

To the Mexican government’s credit, there are efforts to move in that direction. Mexican President López Obrador announced in 2020 that his government would phase out glyphosate and work to embrace a more sustainable approach to agricultural production. Víctor M. Toledo, the Mexican Minister of the Environment, said the government’s goal is to produce food that is “safer, healthier and more respectful of the environment (más seguro, más sano y respetuoso con el medio ambiente).” The government also indicated it would aim to support time-tested practices developed by indigenous farmers. The United States, for its part, has worked on behalf of the chemical industry to pressure the Obrador administration to rescind this intended phaseout. While the U.S. government was successful in stopping similar actions in Thailand, there is no current indication that Mexico will rescind this decree.

In the context of these proclamations, the actions by Bayer/Monsanto are certainly not doing anything to endear itself to the local community. “I see no hope; on the contrary, the use of these products has worsened while [also] affecting those of us who are dedicated to beekeeping, and [it’s] harming our bees,” said Leydy Pech, beekeeper and longtime activist leader for Maya beekeepers to La Jornada Maya. In 2020, Ms. Pech received the international Goldman environmental prize for her work stopping Monsanto from producing genetically engineered soybeans in seven Mexican states.

These incidents and the dire situation with pollinator populations in the state underscore the need to place actions behind positive proclamations. It is evident that Bayer/Monsanto is incapable of being a good neighbor, given the inherent hazards associated with the core of their business practices. In an open letter posted in a recent tweet, Mayan beekeepers are calling on the government to open an investigation and urgently prohibit pesticide fumigation in the region.

These disaffected Mayan communities are part of global resistance efforts against the actions of agrichemical corporations. In Hawaii, advocates in Maui County are responding to this threat in a variety of ways. Since the start of the pandemic, work has focused on homegrown food security. Rather than direct local resources to chemical dependent farming practices, Maui lawmakers are embracing grassroots work to establish a local food hub, and organic agriculture in the community ag park.

Join Beyond Pesticides in urging the current U.S. administration to hold polluters like Bayer/Monsanto accountable for their actions, and adopt a new direction for pesticide regulation that challenges the so-called benefits of pesticides, and protects farmworkers, pollinators, and broader biodiversity.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Mexico News Daily (also see tweet in Spanish from Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas

(Beyond Pesticides, April 4, 2023) The pesticide industry focused the entirety of their “legislative day” late last month on an effort to roll back local democratic decision making and implement federal pesticide preemption of local governance in the Farm Bill. “Something that most people don’t know,” J.D. Darr, the director of legislative and regulatory affairs for the National Pest Management Association told Pest Control Technology (PCT), “is that the Ag Committee does have oversight of a small sliver of FIFRA. So, the Farm Bill is a really good vehicle for us making regulatory decisions surrounding pesticide.” Contrary to Mr. Darr’s statement, pesticide reform advocates are well aware of the threat the pesticide industry poses in the 2023 Farm Bill, having defeated a similar effort in 2018, and repeated attempts to implement pesticide preemption in the preemption-free states of Maine and Maryland. Reform advocates are pushing Congress to include in the Farm Bill diametrically opposing language already contained with Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.

The pesticide industry’s lobby day attempted to soften the industry’ image in Congress by including a range of non-pesticide related issues, such as a “friendly political discussion” between conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg and NPR reporter Mara Liasson, sponsored by multinational chemical company FMC. Other sessions were sponsored by major pesticide producers, such as BASF and Corteva (formerly called DowDuPont).

In an interview with PCT, Mr. Darr forwarded a range of unfounded myths about the viability of local authority. It is critically important that the public and members of Congress understand the true facts behind the industry’s dangerous falsehoods. There is nothing democratic, sustainable, or healthy about an effort that is focused squarely on creating conditions to apply ever more toxic chemicals in local communities. Here are the major falsehoods pesticide corporations are trying to sell U.S. politicians on:

Myth: Federal and state law provide adequate protections from toxic pesticides. (Mr. Darr says state agencies are “adequately reviewing pesticides.”)

Fact: Deficiencies in the federal pesticide regulatory process are well documented and date back decades. Problems with inert ingredient disclosure, failure to regulate endocrine (hormone) disruptors, the frequency of ‘conditionally’ registered pesticides without important health and safety information, assumption of complete label compliance, and lack of consideration for sensitive and vulnerable populations are merely a few of the grave insufficiencies within EPA’s pesticide registration process. These concerns, and tendency for state regulatory agencies to merely rubber stamp EPA approvals provides a role for local communities to play in protecting their resident’s health and environment.

Myth: Local officials do not have the expertise to restrict pesticides. (Mr. Darr says at the local level, staffing and resources are “kind of lacking.”)

Fact: This claim flies in the face of common sense. Local officials are in fact likely the most knowledgeable individuals in a community regarding sensitive sites may need protections from toxic pesticides. In the Wisconsin v Mortier Supreme Court decision that established the rights of localities, the justices referenced the importance of local rights over local factors, like climate, population, geography and water supply. Local officials should have the right to protect their most vulnerable community members like children and the elderly from toxic exposure. They know the playgrounds, local swimming holes and drinking water sources, the conservation areas with vulnerable species, and other sensitive or unique local environments better than state and federal officials. They are also savvier than that claim gives them credit for –scientific resources are readily available for local lawmakers wishing to read up on the dangers and alternatives to pesticides. In any case, Beyond Pesticides knows of no local policies where lawmakers did not consult or hear testimony from experts on both sides of an issue when considering pesticide restrictions. This issue is well studied, and unfortunately the argument is merely an attempt to stifle democratic conversations in local communities. 

Myth: Allowing local authority will hurt local pesticide or lawn care businesses. (Mr. Darr says “our member companies are forced to deal with a bit of regulatory uncertainty…”)

Fact: While there hasn’t been an extensive amount of scientific study specifically on local pesticide reform policies, the research we do have does not bare out that argument.

A peer-reviewed study conducted on the implementation of Toronto, Canada’s pesticide law (a policy similar to those passed in Maine and Maryland localities) found that lawn care company businesses actually increased by 30% during the implementation phase of their ordinance, as pesticide use decreased among both homeowners and lawn care companies. Again, this is common sense, as folks uneasy about using what may be perceived as ‘new’ natural land care methods will look to established experts or new green companies to manage their landscapes. Rather than hurt local companies, these laws incentivize a new green, sustainable industry in communities.

Myth: Local authority will create a patchwork of laws that would be too difficult for land care officials to follow. (Mr. Darr says NPMA companies also have to deal with “…just a patchwork of localities…which is really burdensome”)

Fact: This has not been borne out in any states where there is no pesticide preemption. We have present, existing examples that disprove this argument. In both Maine and Maryland the laws passed to date are nearly identical in restricting the use of all but organic and minimum risk pesticide use. There is no evidence for this ‘patchwork theory’ as communities generally look towards their neighbors for similar or consistent policy language (very few local communities want to be first out the gate).

Even if it were the case, local businesses navigate these issues all the time– they work through local zoning, smoking and other health codes, water use limits, or other restrictions aimed at addressing unique local situations. Part of running a business is understanding and adapting to local laws.  

Local leaders say that local communities must have the right to protect the health of their residents and local ecology from the hazards associated with toxic pesticides. Large multinational companies should have no say in this process but are working to influence lawmakers to bully local communities into permitting the use of toxic products that go against their community’s values. Help Beyond Pesticides and our allies push back against inclusion of this regressive, anti-democratic language in the Farm Bill by taking action and sending a letter to your members of Congress today.  

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: PCT(1), PCT(2)

(Beyond Pesticides, April 3, 2023) The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has opened its public comment period, with comments on organic standards due by 11:59 pm EDT April 5. April 5 is also the deadline for registering for the upcoming public comment webinar on April 18 and 20, which precedes the online meeting April 25-27—in which the NOSB deliberates on issues concerning how organic food is produced. Written comments must be submitted through Regulations.gov.

As always, there are many important issues on the NOSB agenda this Spring. For a complete discussion, see Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) and the Spring 2023 issues page, where you can find Beyond Pesticides’ comments on all issues facing the NOSB at this meeting. In the spirit of “continuous improvement,” we urge you to submit comments (please feel free to use our comments on the KOS page) that contribute to an increasingly improved organic production system. If you have already submitted comments on the key issues we have suggested (below), please take a look at the Beyond Pesticides’ KOS page and pick an issue to comment on. (The public is welcome to cut-and-paste from the Beyond Pesticides’ comments posted on its KOS page.) Here are some high priority issues for Beyond Pesticides:

Prohibit the Routine Allowance of Ingredients Processed with Ion Exchange. Because the ion exchange process is a chemical process, all organic ingredients processed in this manner must be subject to review by the NOSB. Ion exchange creates synthetic ingredients through chemical change—removing some components and substituting other chemicals—that are used in processed food. It is not simply filtration. Chemicals in the ion exchange resins may leak into the food product. Yet, the Handling Subcommittee of the NOSB is proposing to allow any and all resins without review. To maintain the integrity of the organic label, resins must be subject to full National List (National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances) review to determine whether these ingredients meet organic standards, rather than establishing a blanket allowance of ion exchange in organic processing.

Organic Agriculture is Climate-Smart Agriculture. In a draft letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the NOSB has written an excellent primer on how organic agriculture responds to the climate emergency. An important caveat is that NOP and certifiers must hold organic producers to the letter and spirit of the Organic Foods Production Act, which requires that organic production be soil-based, incorporate diversity, and protect the environment. Operations based on hydroponics or confined animal facilities, and those that replace native ecosystems with organic farms do not meet those requirements. The NOSB has made its position clear on those issues and must insist that NOP and certifiers carry out NOSB recommendations and consistently enforce the law—for the sake of reducing climate change, biodiversity loss, and human health impacts, as well as fairness. The NOSB should also stress the need for USDA to dramatically increase support for converting chemical-intensive agriculture to organic. It is critical that the National Organic Program ask, “What more should USDA be doing to advance organic?” As the Board states, the resiliency of organic is established: “Organic is the solution to mitigating climate change and responding to it.” However, despite the astronomical growth in organic consumption in the U.S., conversion to organic agriculture lags behind demand. USDA could and should require the adoption of organic/climate-smart practices a prerequisite for receiving the benefits of its programs and abandon its promotion of chemical-intensive agriculture supported by the biotech/chemical industry.

Plastic mulch is under consideration this year as a part of its five-year review cycle. This is part of the larger issue relating to the use of plastic in organic production and handling. Awareness is growing about the impacts of plastic—and the microplastic particles resulting from its use—on human health and the environment. Plastics manufacture requires transportation of hazardous chemicals, such as those involved in the recent derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Plastic mulch should not be relisted as allowable in organic production. Moreover, the NOSB should initiate action to eliminate all uses of plastic in organic processing and packaging.

The NOSB should use the review (or sunset) process to eliminate nonorganic ingredients in processed organic foods. Materials listed in §205.606 in the organic regulations are nonorganic agricultural ingredients that may comprise 5% of organic-labeled processed foods. The intent of the law is to allow restricted nonorganic ingredients (fully disclosed and limited) when their organic form is not available. However, materials should not remain on §205.606 if they can be supplied organically, and we can now grow virtually anything organically. The Handling Subcommittee needs to ask the question of potential suppliers, “Could you supply the need if the organic form is required?” The materials on §205.606 up for sunset review this year are made from agricultural products that can be supplied organically and thus should be taken off the National List of allowed materials.

>>Submit Comments Now.

Need help in submitting comments? Regulations.gov requires more than a single click, but it is not difficult. Please feel free to cut-and-paste language from the comments above into Regulations.gov and add or adjust the text to personalize it. See this instructional video. (Regulations.gov has changed its look since this video was made.)

Thank you for keeping organic strong!

(Beyond Pesticides, March 31, 2023) A report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies the most recent event in the very long chronicle of EPA dysfunction that — put charitably — constitutes failures to enact its mission, and more accurately, sometimes crosses the line into malfeasance. In the report, OIG concludes that EPA’s 2021 PFBS Toxicity Assessment failed to “uphold the agency’s commitments to scientific integrity and information quality,” and that the agency’s actions “left the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health.” As reported by The Guardian, “Trump administration appointees at . . . EPA meddled in agency science to weaken the toxicity assessment of a dangerous chemical.” Last year, Beyond Pesticide concerns about the myriad risks and harms of pesticides intersected with those about the PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances) family of chemical compounds, of which PFBS is a member, when a study found very high levels of PFAS in multiple pesticide products.

The EPA OIG explains why it undertook the evaluation that led to this report: “to determine whether the EPA followed applicable policies and procedures to develop and publish the January 19, 2021 perfluorobutane sulfonic acid toxicity assessment. Two weeks after publication, the EPA removed the toxicity assessment from its website, citing political interference and Scientific Integrity Policy violations. . . . The EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy, established in 2012, states that science is the backbone of the EPA’s decision making and that the Agency depends on the integrity of its science to protect human health and the environment. All EPA employees — including scientists, managers, and political appointees — must follow the Scientific Integrity Policy.”

PFBS (perfluorobutane sulfonate) is one of thousands of PFAS “forever chemicals” that are emerging as a ubiquitous and serious threat to human and organismic health. These compounds do not break down in the environment, and can move through soils, contaminate water resources, and bioaccumulate in aquatic and terrestrial organisms. The Guardian writes that PFBS “is toxic at low levels. Research has linked the chemical to kidney disease, reproductive problems and thyroid damage, and it has been found throughout the environment, including in an estimated 860,000 Americans’ drinking water.”

Concurrent with the recent Biden administration EPA announcement of new proposed federal standards for PFAS compounds in drinking water, the Environmental Working Group published an interactive map of the nearly 3,000 (and rising) number of sites in the U.S. (and two territories) contaminated by PFAS chemicals. EPA warned, in June 2022, that PFAS compounds, linked to reproductive, immune, cardiovascular, and endocrine (especially thyroid) anomalies and to several kinds of cancer, are an even greater health threat than was previously known. Many advocates have noted that the proposed new federal standards are still inadequate because they are less stringent than the interim advisory levels for safe consumption EPA set out last year — lifetime exposures of no more than 0.004 to 0.02 ppt (parts per trillion), depending on the type of PFAS compound.

The OIG report notes “unprecedented” interference on the part of Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and other political appointees in the PFBS assessment. At the 11^th hour, Mr. Wheeler ordered the insertion of a range of toxicity values, rather than a specific limit. The compromised assessment, which would have guided drinking water standards for the chemical, as well as targets that polluters would need to meet in pollution cleanup — thus, allowing companies to remediate PFBS to higher, more-dangerous levels — was published just four days prior to the inauguration of President Biden. The OIG report notes that “The new numbers were inserted without being fully scientifically vetted, and they lacked ‘technical and quality assurance review.’” Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) notes that “[t]hey were trying so hard to get [the assessment] out before Trump left office.”

The Biden administration yanked the 2021 PFBS assessment in February 2021 because of its determination that there had been political interference. According to The Guardian, it was republished several months later “using what it said is sound science, and declared it had resolved the issue.” But some EPA scientists related to the newspaper that “several employees willingly worked with the Trump appointees to weaken the assessment, and they were never reprimanded or fired. The scientists say the controversy is part of a deeper problem afflicting EPA: industry influence on career staff, and an unwillingness from the EPA to address it.

‘The issue is part of the larger rot at the agency of career staff working with industry to weaken the EPA,’ a current agency scientist familiar with the situation said. The scientist did not use their name for fear of reprisal.”

After the 2021 assessment was pulled, the Biden administration declared in a statement that the EPA evaluation of PFBS had been “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship.” The Guardian reports that, “During its review, the administration took no action against career employees who implemented the political appointees’ changes. Those employees ‘made the changes happily,’ according to PEER’s Kyla Bennett, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), but remained at the agency.”

According to The Guardian’s coverage, internal emails from the ebbing days of the Trump EPA, as well as comments in the OIG report, indicate that career employees in the agency’s OCSPP (Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention) either asked for the toxicity metric changes or did not object to them. Reportedly, the sole career employee who opposed the order for changes to the PFBS assessment was Orme-Zavaleta, who told The Guardian that Administrator Wheeler’s order “flew in the face of scientific integrity.” Former EPA scientist Betsy Southerland told the paper that the changes were “something that industry has always wanted.”

Beyond Pesticides has repeatedly highlighted the too-cozy relationship between the chemical industries and EPA, with particular attention to the impacts on EPA’s registration and regulation of pesticides. A 2021 press release on a letter sent to the Biden Administration by Beyond Pesticides and PEER (with 35 other groups) summarized the issues: “The Office of Pesticides Programs within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has become so captured by industry that it has lost sight of its health and environmental mission. . . . [T]he groups are urging the Biden administration to adopt reforms within OPP to ensure pesticide approval and use decisions are science-based.”

It continues, “Inside OPP [EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs], marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters. . . . The letter recounts a litany of improper pesticide approval decisions, some of which were blocked in court, while still others are being reversed under Biden. But the groups say these cases are symptomatic of a larger institutional illness that calls for thoroughgoing reforms. The cumulative effects of years and decades of this regulatory abuse are untold human deaths, disabilities, and illnesses. Industry has been forced to pay out billions of dollars for damages claims over OPP-approved products. The groups also point to the decline of pollinators — the key to American food security — due to the indiscriminate application of highly potent pesticides. The health of non-target wildlife, as well as our soil and waters, is under chemical siege.” 

Beyond Pesticides has covered many of the transgressions of EPA during the Trump administration, including those related to pesticides (e.g., dicamba, chlorpyrifos), scientific integrity, lack of transparency and accountability, poor enforcement of regulations, and water protection, among others. Investigative journalists Cary Gillam, Sharon Lerner, and PEER have all bird dogged EPA on its chemical and pesticide policies and regulations; Beyond Pesticides has featured their work (and others’) in various Daily News Blog entries. See, for example, coverage on EPA’s ongoing failures and malfeasance: EPA reliance on industry research; the “revolving door” between industry and EPA; chemical industry influence on the agency; the corrupt alteration of scientific information, as related to the pesticide dicamba; and so many instances of EPA disregarding scientifically demonstrable harms that they cannot reasonably be listed here.

Beyond Pesticides’ three-part series, based in part on Ms. Lerner’s work, goes directly to these issues: undermining of EPA function by industry influence, the susceptibility of EPA officials and managers to corrupt behavior, and the ongoing failure of the agency to align its efforts with its own 2012 Scientific Integrity Policy, here and here. Further, the many transgressions of the Trump EPA are a dramatic demonstration of how whip-sawed EPA’s operations and approach can be with the advent of administrations whose politics harbor animus toward regulation — even though the agency’s job is to protect human and environmental health.

As is the practice for the offices of federal Inspectors General in reports on their internal agency investigations, the EPA OIG made recommendations to the agency. Three of those are directed to the assistant administrator for Research and Development; they (1) “aim to reduce procedural confusion and strengthen existing policies, procedures, and guidance by clarifying if and when comments expressing scientific disagreement can be expressed; (2) making clear if and when toxicity ranges are acceptable; and (3) using the OIG as a resource for high-profile scientific integrity concerns that relate to political interference or that assert risk to human health or the environment.” Another is directed to the assistant administrator for Mission Support: “to update policies and procedures on environmental information quality to require additional quality assurance reviews for EPA products.” The last goes to the deputy administrator of EPA: “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions when changes occur as a result of policy decisions.”

Whether and how EPA chooses to adopt these recommendations remains to be seen. Yet even this OIG report — though potentially helpful in righting EPA’s ship — does not address the comprehensive overhaul needed at EPA to ensure it pursues its mission with integrity, based in science, and with protection of health and environment at the helm.

As Beyond Pesticides recently wrote, “[EPA’s] track record, on so many pesticides [and chemicals broadly], is to deal with one compound (under a narrow range of circumstances and/or narrow time frame and/or specific exposure levels) at a time. Beyond Pesticides has dubbed this the ‘whack-a-mole’ struggle on pesticides. Each regulatory baby step at EPA, each judicial settlement or knock-down of a particular pesticide, each bit of research demonstrating harms — these represent small, incremental advances on a pesticide [and broad “chemical saturation”] problem that is vast in scope. But this approach is wholly inadequate to the devastation that [dangerous chemicals] are causing, and it continues the “collision course” we are on re: human health and well-being, biodiversity collapse, and the climate crisis. A precautionary approach . . . is far more suited to the task of genuinely protecting public health and the environment.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/23/trump-appointees-epa-toxic-chemical-pfas-pfbs-toxic?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, March 30, 2023) A study published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety finds that the commonly used herbicide, atrazine, promotes breast cancer development through suppression of immune cell stimulation, and thus function, and upregulation of enzymes mediating tumor development. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is a disease that causes breast cells to grow out of control, with the type of breast cancer depending on the cells themselves. Several studies and reports, including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, identify hundreds of chemicals as influential factors associated with breast cancer risk.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, causing the second most cancer-related deaths in the United States. Past studies suggest genetic inheritance factors influence breast cancer occurrence. However, genetic factors only play a minor role in the incidence of breast cancer, while exposure to external environmental factors (i.e., chemical exposure) appears to play a more notable role. One in ten women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis, and genetics can only account for five to ten percent of cases. There are grave concerns over exposure to endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals and pollutants that cause adverse health effects. Therefore, advocates point to the need for national policies to reassess hazards associated with disease development from exposure to chemical pollutants. The study notes, “This study demonstrated that atrazine accelerated the cell cycle and encouraged the proliferation and invasion of breast cancer tumor cells. Furthermore, atrazine can reduce anti-tumor immunity by decreasing lymphocyte infiltration and modulating cytokine production inside the tumor microenvironment, thereby promoting tumor immune escape and breast cancer progression. To fully understand the mechanism underlying atrazine’s immunosuppression of breast cancers, further research is needed.”

Beyond cancer, atrazine is a notoriously toxic herbicide known to cause different health issues, including skin and respiratory diseases, cancer, and kidney/liver damage. Therefore, it is essential to understand how external stimuli—like environmental pollution from pesticides—can drive breast cancer development.

The researchers examine how exposure to atrazine impacts 4T1 breast cancer cell development, facilitating tumor metastasis (spread from the primary site of origin into different parts of the body) and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels to support tissue growth). Exposure to atrazine significantly increases breast cancer cell spread, tumor size, and the expression/upregulation of MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases) enzymes, mediating precursor tumors to breast cancer. The percentage of lymphocytes in the thymus and spleen responsible for coordinating the immune response by stimulating other immune cells (CD4 + and CD3) are lower in atrazine exposure cohorts, with the CD4 + /CD8 + immune cell ratio lower than control groups. The abundance of CD4 + and CD8 + lymphocytes that infiltrate tumors decreases, suggesting atrazine’s suppression of the local and systemic immune function on tumors and upregulation of tumor growth promotes breast cancer development.

The connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new. Several studies link pesticide use and residue to various cancers, from more prevalent forms like breast cancer to rare forms like kidney cancer nephroblastoma (Wilms’ tumor). The link between agricultural practices and pesticide-related illnesses is stark, with over 63 percent of commonly used lawn pesticides and 70 percent of commonly used school pesticides showing links to cancer. Past research demonstrates the mechanism by which cancer can develop after pesticides enter the bloodstream. An experimental study showed that pesticide exposure produces reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are highly unstable and cause potential DNA and cell damage that propagates cancer development. Additionally, pesticides can increase cancer risk through alternate mechanisms, including genotoxicity (gene damage), epigenetics (gene expression), immunotoxicity, tumors, and endocrine (hormone) disruption.

Research demonstrates that endocrine disruption is prevalent among many pesticide products like herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and pesticide manufacturing by-products or contaminants like dioxin (TCDD). These chemical ingredients can enter the body, disrupting hormones and causing adverse developmental, disease, and reproductive problems.

Regarding atrazine, EPA registers the pesticide as a restricted-use, and only certified pesticide applicators can use the chemical because of its effects on health and ecology. However, encountering pesticides can happen at any point during the pesticide’s production, transportation, storage, or application. The general population mainly encounters atrazine through drinking water, as reports of atrazine contamination demonstrate the chemical’s widespreadcontamination of waterways (e.g., rivers, streams, surface/groundwater). However, licensed pesticide applicators may also encounter atrazine via inhalation during crop treatments. Furthermore, atrazine can volatilize into the atmosphere by up to 14 percent of the applied volume during treatments.

Hormone-related cancers have ties to endocrine disruption and immune disruption. The endocrine and immune systems transmit signals to one another as multiple immune processes are involved in endocrine diseases. Thus, hormones generated by the endocrine system greatly influence breast cancer and other hormonal cancer (e.g., prostate, thyroid, etc.) incidents among humans. Although most types of breast cancers are hormonally responsive and thus dependent on the synthesis of either estrogen, progesterone, or too much of the protein called HER2, G protein-coupled estrogen receptors (GPERs) regulate estrogen through non-genetic cellular pathways, forgoing attachment to standard molecular receptors, leading to triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Triple-negative breast cancer has a higher rate of recurrence and worse clinical outcomes than other breast cancers. Xenoestrogens, like atrazine (external estrogen and synthetic compounds sources), can stimulate GPER upregulation and activation in cancer cells. However, although the connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new, this study demonstrates the upregulation of MMP enzymes in cancer cells (4T1-Luc) associated with breast cancer development. The researchers consider these cancer cells ideal models to study the immune mechanisms, especially for TNBC, as the cells in TNBC lack receptors for estrogen or progesterone hormones, as well as limited HER2 protein occurrence, and TNBC does not respond to hormonal therapy medicines or medicines that target the HER2 protein.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Hence, studies concerning pesticides and cancer help future epidemiologic research understand the underlying mechanisms that cause cancer. With far too many diseases in the U.S. associated with pesticide exposure, eliminating pesticide use is critically important to the safeguarding of public health and addressing cost burdens for local communities. Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD) is a vital resource for additional scientific literature that documents elevated cancer rates and other chronic diseases and illnesses among people exposed to pesticides. This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms of pesticide exposure, see PIDD pages on breast cancer, endocrine disruption, and other diseases.

Proper prevention practices like buying, growing, and supporting organic can eliminate exposure to toxic pesticides. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. For more information on how organic is the right choice for farmers and consumers , see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 

(Beyond Pesticides, March 29, 2023) A commonly used slug killer known as metaldehyde can hamper the growth of garden vegetables. This finding, published in the journal Scientific Reports, provides a helpful reminder for gardeners to seek out non and less toxic management approaches as spring comes into full swing and pests arrive. While slugs can be devastating to seedlings this time of the year, some simple approaches can help reduce pest pressure while maintaining the quality and integrity of one’s garden plot.

Metaldehyde is a molluscicide that is applied through a bait, causing slugs to expel mucus and completely dry out. It has been in use since the 1940s, but like many pesticides from that era, there are a range of hazardous impacts that were not adequately studied at the time and are only beginning to be understood today. In mammals, ingestion of the chemical has been linked to neurotoxicity, including tremors, loss of coordination, rapid breathing and heart rate, vomiting, seizures and even death. Although humans are less likely to eat the baits, these risks are particularly pronounced for children and pets.

Data on the impacts this material poses to plant growth is few and far between. To remedy this, and better understand whether metaldehyde could impact yields, scientists utilized Allium cepa, or onion plants, as a model test organism.

Onion bulbs were purchased and divided into four different treatment groups with increasing levels of metaldehyde exposure (in the form an aqueous solution), as well as an unexposed control group. Scientists observed growth patterns and the genotoxic impacts of exposure to the material.

While the control group saw 100% germination success, this rate decreased as metaldehyde concentrations increased. It follows that the highest rate of exposure resulting in the greatest inhibition of plant growth. Adverse impacts were also seen to root growth and root elongation, and onions exposed to the chemical recorded a consistently lower weight than those unexposed. These were merely the apparent physical impacts; metaldehyde also resulted in statistically significant DNA damage to exposed bulbs. DNA fragmentation is seen in root tip cells, and effects are noted on the activities of antioxidant enzymes, indicating elevated stress levels in the plants.

“The results of this study highlighted the need for new and detailed studies on the undesirable effects of metaldehyde on non-target organisms, including humans,” the authors say.

Commercial slug baits should not be necessary in the garden. Although the National Organic Program permits the use of an alternative to metaldehyde, iron phosphate, in slug and snail control, its efficacy relies on a synergy between iron phosphate and a so-called “inert” ingredient known as EDTA. In 2014, Beyond Pesticides called on the National Organic Standards Board to delist iron phosphate slug products due to the risks that EDTA poses to soil organisms, as well its ability to contaminate soil, sediment and local waterways.

The good news for gardeners dealing with snail and slug problems is that management is still possible without these more toxic baiting products. Work to reduce moisture and consider the type of mulch that is being applied –straw can be an excellent mulch, but there are times in which its use can attract slugs. Never water at night, and consider tactics like drip irrigation in particularly damp, slug-prone areas as slugs are attracted to moisture. Hand-picking slugs out of the garden with a disposable glove and placing them into soapy water isn’t a favorite activity among any gardener, but it can be an effective way to reduce populations. Domestic foul can also be helpful at lowering slug populations but need to be closely monitored around growing crops.

There is evidence that effective biological controls are coming closer to commercialization. Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have been on the case for many years now, and made a promising discovery in 2020 when they found a nematode that effectively ‘liquified’ slug populations. The OSU research team also discovered that slugs can be attracted with simple bread dough. While that research utilized bread dough to attract and metaldehyde to kill, many traps and baits on the market, such as the Snailer, can work with bread dough and water without the need for additional pesticide, as they bar pests from exiting and cause the slug or snail to drown.

For more information on managing these problematic pests, see Beyond Pesticides ManageSafe webpage on least toxic control of snails and slugs.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Scientific Reports

Image Source: Wikimedia

(Beyond Pesticides, March 28, 2023) High concentrations of fully intact, never broken down DDT remain on the California seafloor decades after it was dumped off its southern coast in the middle of the 20^th century. “We still see original DDT on the seafloor from 50, 60, 70 years ago, which tells us that it’s not breaking down the way that [we] once thought it should,” University of California Santa Barbara scientist David Valentine, PhD, told the Los Angeles Times. “And what we’re seeing now is that there is DDT that has ended up all over the place, not just within this tight little circle on a map that we referred to as Dumpsite Two.”

These findings underscore the enormity of legal and regulatory decisions to approve production of hazardous chemicals. While many may believe the legacy of DDT ended with its ban in the early 1970s, the California findings raise a deeper problem not only with U.S. chemical policy, but also the response from well-meaning environmental nonprofits that continues to play out to this day. As many in the environmental community invest tremendous resources in seeking to ban problematic pesticides or chemicals of the day after the contamination has occurred (DDT being a prime example), the associated challenges of time, cost, and limited success, point to the critical need for environmental laws to assess the full life-cycle (manufacture, transportation, storage, use, and disposal) of a chemical’s potential poisoning and contamination before coming to market. Advocates maintain that this front-end analysis must prevent the allowance of toxic substances in light of the availability of nontoxic practices and products. 

In 2000, a legal fight alerted the world to the fact that Montrose Chemical Corp, the main manufacturer of DDT throughout the mid-20^th century, had dumped over 100 tons of DDT into the Los Angeles sewer system, contaminating the Palos Verdes Shelf along the coast. While a plan was set in place for this location, effectively no attention was given to evidence from shipping logs that, after WW2, DDT was regularly loaded onto barges and dumped in massive quantities a few miles out to sea. In 2020, this stockpile was rediscovered, discovered by Dr. Valentine on a hunch as he set out to study other aspects of the sea floor.

Research published last year finds that this massive stockpile has hampered wildlife recovery efforts of along coastal California. Dolphins, sea lions, other marine mammals, and the iconic California condor have all been found burdened with contamination from DDT and related compounds. In total, these animals recorded an astounding 415 different chemicals in their bodies. Critically, condors that spend their time along the coast contain seven times more DDT in their blood than findings from inland condors. This contamination places us back at square one, with reports as far back as 2006 showing thinning eggshells within condor nests.

The recent findings have generated interest from the federal government, which has put over $10 million into further researching the extent of the contamination. The finding are a Pandora’s box of revelations. The dump site is shockingly larger than initially assumed, and is not limited to DDT. As John Lyons, acting deputy director of the EPA’s Region 9 Superfund Division, told the Los Angeles Times, “When the DDT was dumped, it is highly likely that other materials — either from the tanks on the barges, or barrels being pushed over the side of the barges — would have been disposed at the same time.” For the DDT itself, evidence suggests that it is concentrated in a layer that is a mere two and a quarter inches below the surface of the sea floor, meaning that any disturbance effectively has the ability to generate contamination. According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers could not even retrieve a ‘control’ sample from the ocean floor as it came up contaminated with DDT.

Place these findings in the context of an understanding that the campaign to ban DDT was successful. With these data the only response can be an attempt to contain further damage. But it is critical that from these events we learn and apply lessons for future fights against toxic pesticides. It is not enough to merely ban a pesticide. To this day, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s answer to eliminating the remaining stocks of a banned pesticide is to use it up before the ban takes effect. In other words, remaining barrels are not dumped in a specific location but diluted throughout the nation and world.

For example, even with the known, Stockholm Convention-banned wood preservative pesticide pentachlorophenol, U.S. regulations banning the chemical provide a generous five-year phase-out to allow for the use of remaining stocks. Although this material is on its way out after decades of poisoning and contamination, over the course of its lifecycle it has created numerous Superfund sites that have harmed generations of families and continues to this day. Moreover, this decision makes little impact on the broader wood preservative industry, which can continue to manufacture wood products coated with materials like copper chromium arsenate or creosote, another chemical that has a multigenerational legacy of harm.  

While eliminating ongoing damage and immediate threats are critical aspects of environmental work, the environmental community must shift its focus to demanding the reframing of environmental law to address the full life-cycle of a chemical’s poisoning and contamination. Beyond Pesticides has long sought for the adoption of alternatives assessments in the pesticide registration process. With this approach, the precautionary principle is embraced, and if nonchemical or less toxic alternatives are currently available for a proposed new chemistry, that material will not be registered. In order to safeguard health and the environment now and for future generations, it is critical to seek and pass laws with a shelf-life as long as the toxicological activity of the materials it regulates. By embracing living laws and regulations that stop the production of toxic pesticides at the source, we can avoid burdening future generators with the same hazardous legacy we must now confront.  

For more information on Beyond Pesticides priorities for federal pesticide reform, and to join us in seeking these reforms, see the article “Groups Tell EPA’s Pesticide Program It’s a Failure, Call for Immediate Reforms.”

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Image Source: Wikimedia

(Beyond Pesticides, March 27, 2023) In a move labeled “risk mitigation”—that is, mitigation of the risk to its shareholders—Bayer-Monsanto announced in 2021 that it would phase out Roundup™ products containing glyphosate for the residential lawn and garden market as of January 2023. In taking this action, Bayer-Monsanto is making no admissions, and glyphosate products will still be available to farmers. However, Lowe’s and Home Depot are still selling the glyphosate-based lawn and garden products.

Tell Lowe’s and Home Depot to eliminate Roundup™ and other toxic pesticides, promote organic practices, and sell organic compatible products. 

In fact, since this is a voluntary reformulation, and Bayer-Monsanto has decided its own timing, the company cannot be held accountable to anything. The company could change its mind, and stores can continue to sell the glyphosate-based products as long as they want. And keep in mind that replacement versions of Roundup™ products are also toxic. Roundup® Dual Action, for example, contains the following active ingredients: triethylamine salt of triclopyr, fluazipop-P-butyl, diquat dibromide, and ammonium salt of imazapic.

Thus, Bayer/Monsanto announces that it is changing the formulation of Roundup and moving away from glyphosate, while continuing to sell Roundup™ products formulated both with and without glyphosate—leaving consumers unaware of their risks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not taken any meaningful action to restrict glyphosate, and so we continue to see the threats to people and ecosystems associated with the chemical’s use. Of course, some of those who have been harmed by Roundup have secured large jury verdicts against Bayer-Monsanto for the harm inflicted and the Supreme Court, in failing to take an appeal from Bayer-Monsanto has upheld those jury verdicts. But glyphosate is the tip of the iceberg in a sea of toxic pesticides that have no place in our society. We know, for instance, that neonicotinoid insecticides have indiscriminately harmed pollinators, birds, and living organisms (terrestrial and aquatic) that are crucial to ecosystems that support life.

So, the alternative is to fiercely advance organic practices and hold responsible corporations to do the same. To do otherwise is to ignore the existential threat that petrochemical pesticides pose to health, biodiversity, and climate.

Tell Lowe’s and Home Depot to eliminate Roundup™ and other toxic pesticides, promote organic practices, and sell organic compatible products.

Letter to Lowe’s and Home Depot

In a move labeled “risk mitigation” — that is, mitigation of the risk to its shareholders — Bayer-Monsanto announced in 2021 that it would phase out Roundup™ products containing glyphosate for the residential lawn and garden market as of January 2023. In taking this action, Bayer-Monsanto is making no admissions. Lawn and garden glyphosate products will still be available if companies like yours sell it and until supplies are exhausted.

My understanding is that your stores still sell glyphosate-based lawn and garden products. As you know, Bayer-Monsanto’s decision on Roundup is a voluntary reformulation, and therefore the company has decided its own timing. I do not think that the continued sale of Roundup is responsible corporate behavior.

Please know that replacement versions of Roundup™ products are also toxic. Roundup® Dual Action, for example, contains the following active ingredients: triethylamine salt of triclopyr, fluazipop-P-butyl, diquat dibromide, and ammonium salt of imazapic—ingredients that are reproductive and developmental toxicants, sensitizers, and toxic to aquatic and other organisms.

When it comes to weeds, gardeners need good tools that enable them to control them with minimal effort and damage to their plants. Although gardeners differ in their preference for style of garden hoe, all must be sharp to operate efficiently, so files for sharpening should be located near the hoes, and customer service representatives should be prepared to demonstrate their use.

Weed-free and chemical-free organic mulches — such as straw or wood chips — are garden essentials for both weed control and long-term organic fertility. Speaking of fertility, natural fertility builds healthy soil for growing strong plants that resist insect and disease damage, while synthetic fertilizers kill valuable soil organisms. Healthy soils retain water and are especially helpful to plants in times of drought. Stores should stock fertility products approved for use in organic production.

We need to adopt practices in sync with nature that supports soil biology, cycles nutrients for plants naturally, retains moisture and water, and increases resiliency. Please:

1. Remove Roundup from your stores now.
2. Remove all toxic lawn and landscape pesticides from your shelves.
3. Remove synthetic fossil fuel-based fertilizers.
4. Fill your shelves with products compatible with certified organic products.
5. Teach consumers of methods and products that support soil health, a clean environment, and vibrant landscapes.

See https://www.beyondpesticides.org/resources/lawns-and-landscapes/overview for more information.

(Beyond Pesticides. March 24, 2023) The news on March 20 yielded a telling juxtaposition as the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report asserting that the world is on the “brink of catastrophic warming” — even while Congressional Republicans passed a measure to allow corporate profiteers to make that warming worse. Fortunately, President Biden vetoed that “ESG” bill, which sought to overturn a Labor Department rule that eased the ability of pension and 401(k) fund managers to consider environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) impacts of investments and shareholder rights decisions. (On March 23, House Republicans tried, but failed, to override the veto.) The IPCC‘s definitive report finds that humanity is very close to a dangerous climate threshold, but that “it does not mean we are doomed” if humans rapidly transition off of burning fossil fuels. Beyond Pesticides endorses both investment rules that advance protection of the climate, people, and the environment, and dramatic action on climate — including the cessation of use of fossil-fuel-derived synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and the transition to organic agriculture and land management.

The IPCC report, says The Washington Post (WaPo), asserts that the world is very likely to blow by the 1.5°C (2.7°F) Paris Agreement goal (of global average temperature increase above preindustrial temperatures) by the early 2030s. WaPo reports that, “Beyond that 1.5°C threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end.”

The report prompted U.N. Secretary General António Guterres “to demand that developed countries such as the United States eliminate carbon emissions by 2040 — a decade earlier than the rest of the world. With few nations on track to fulfill their climate commitments and with the developing world already suffering disproportionately from climate disasters, he said, rich countries have a responsibility to act faster than their low-income counterparts.”

WaPo continues: “Calling the report a ‘how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb,’ Guterres announced on Monday an ‘acceleration agenda’ that would speed up global actions on climate. Emerging economies including China and India — which plan to reach net zero in 2060 and 2070, respectively — must hasten their emissions-cutting efforts alongside developed nations, Guterres said.” Both the Secretary General and the IPCC report call for humans to phase out — rapidly — use of gas, oil, and coal, which generate more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The February 28 House vote on the Republican-led ESG measure passed, 216–204, passed, with all Republicans voting “yea,” and one Democrat — Representative Golden (ME) — crossing over party lines to vote for it. Democrats Castro (TX), Cleaver (MO), Davis (IL), Garcia (IL), Lofgren (CA), Sarbanes (MD), and Wild (PA) did not vote. On March 1, Republicans prevailed in the Senate vote, 50–46, in which they all voted for the measure, along with Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Jon Tester (MT); both are up for re-election in 2024 in conservative-leaning states. Democratic Senators Merkley (OR), Feinstein (CA), and Fetterman (PA) did not vote.

The Biden Labor Department rule on ESG, which now prevails because of the President’s veto, aims to protect the interests of people who have assets in pension and 401(k) accounts by allowing plan managers to choose stocks, bonds, funds (and other instruments) with the risks of investment choices as part of the calculus. The ESG rule applies to plans that invest $12 trillion, in the aggregate, on behalf of more than 150 million people.

There are demonstrable financial risks that come with investing in companies involved in worsening the climate crisis, polluting environments, endangering the health of workers and the public, and engaging in non-transparent, inequitable, and insufficiently accountable corporate practices. Companies that disregard (or, as via the Trump rule, could not consider) ESG criteria expose themselves to risks of consumer boycotts, environmental disasters, and/or reputation scandal, among others.

And, according to coverage by The Globe and Mail, “[T]he majority of ESG-focused investments outperform the broader market,” in part because they enjoy lower capital costs and have better access to debt due to their reduced risk. In 2022, ESG funds lagged non-ESG funds for the first time because of the Russian war on Ukraine, which caused upheaval in energy market dynamics. (See more on sustainable investing from McKinsey&Company here.)

Many companies now incorporate ESG into their operations; according to McKinsey Sustainability, more than 90% of S&P 500 companies and 70% of Russell 1000 companies generate ESG reports of some sort. Bankrate reports that roughly two-thirds of privately owned companies have put ESG initiatives in place, and 89% of investors weigh ESG issues in making investment decisions. Abrdn, a UK-based investment company, concludes that “ESG factors bring lower volatility and therefore lower risk, and consequently higher risk-adjusted returns.”

Research out of the London School of Economics has found that, as of 2018, the global economy had suffered losses of $24 trillion USD due to climate change; researchers concluded that ESG is an effective tool in countering climate change because it guides investment toward companies whose operations reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ADEC Innovations’ coverage of the research identifies multiple examples of climate progress traceable to ESG.

The upswell in ESG activity — some of which is likely greenwashing by companies — has propelled the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to take a look at the ESG landscape. JDSupra notes that in 2022, the FTC “published a Notice soliciting public comment on proposed updates to its Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, colloquially known as the ‘Green Guides.’” The Green Guides were created to help companies avoid making “unfair or deceptive” environmental marketing claims.

Much has changed since the guides were last updated in 2012, with many more companies (in part because of the influence of ESG) now touting their products or services as “environmentally friendly” or “environmentally conscious.” The FTC is reviewing the guides with an eye to these developments. In addition, and potentially importantly, “While the Green Guides are currently just that — non–legally binding guidelines — one of the FTC’s comment requests asks whether the Green Guides should be codified as federal regulations, carrying the force of law.”

On March 20, WaPo covered the Presidential veto and wrote, “In his letter informing Congress of the veto, Biden said the Labor Department rule ‘protects the hard-earned life savings and pensions of tens of millions of workers and retirees across the country’ and allows retirement plan fiduciaries to make ‘fully informed investment decisions by considering all relevant factors. The Republican-led bill would force retirement managers to ignore these relevant risk factors, disregarding the principles of free markets and jeopardizing the life savings of working families and retirees.’ The Republican bill, he said, would stop plan fiduciaries from ‘taking into account factors like the physical risks of climate change and poor corporate governance, that could affect investment returns.’”

In addition, ESG policies attract investors who want to advance environmental/climate, good governance, and/or social responsibility. The Republican measure to kneecap the new rule is another use of the Congressional Review Act to attempt to nullify a rule of a Biden administration agency in what many pundits are calling the latest in the Republican war against “wokeness” — broadly and in this case, in business practices.

With the raging climate crisis ongoing, the conservative Right (which at this juncture harbors most Republicans) appears hell-bent on countering progress on emissions reductions. Indeed, in January 2023, WaPo reported on a group, Consumers’ Research, that has been working largely behind the scenes to prevent financial institutions from dealing with the reality of climate change. WaPo wrote, “Bankrolled by mysterious donors, a little-known group named Consumers’ Research has emerged as a key player in the conservative crusade to prevent Wall Street from factoring climate change into its investment decisions.”

Among the organization’s recent activities was joining a late-2022 pressure campaign brought by 13 state attorneys general to “investigate” Vanguard for its “meddling with [the] energy industry to achieve progressive political goals at the expense of market efficiency. . . . Within days, Vanguard announced it was quitting a coalition called the Net Zero Asset Managers Alliance and shelved its own modest pledges to cut the amount of greenhouse gas emissions linked to companies in which it invests. Leaders of Consumers’ Research were surprised — and elated.”

In May 2022, The New York Times reported on the (at least parallel) organized Republican effort to punish companies for climate (and other “woke”) actions. This is done sometimes through laws pushed through by Republican-dominated state legislatures; it also comes via direct pressure from Republicans on state agency leaders who have the power to make regulations in their states; and/or pressure on “independent” organizations that rate or accredit companies. The NYT wrote, “Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.”

The Republican Congressional attempt to derail President Biden’s rule on ESG was clearly another salvo in attempts to beat back action on the climate crisis, which many conservatives promote as another flash point in their “culture wars,” and to prop up their beloved fossil fuel industry. As WaPo says so well: “If you took Republicans’ feigned outrage at what they call ‘woke Wall Street’ seriously, you might think they were undergoing a dramatic ideological repositioning. Though conservatives have long declared their commitment to limited government and laissez faire economics, today’s Republicans are eager for government to make more economic decisions for market actors, at least on issues that fit in with their larger culture war. But look more closely and you’ll also see another version of an old story: The GOP helping out its favored industries while claiming it’s good for everyone.”

Much more attention and response are needed on the part of the public to demand robust and immediate action on the climate crisis, and to let legislators and other officials at all levels know how critically important this issue is. Beyond Pesticides asks you to take action: join organizations working on climate change; call/write/pester your federal and state legislators to support action; write letters to the editor for the largest newspaper near you; organize locally with other climate activists; and support organizations that are doing effective climate work.

Remember that the future is not yet written, and although humanity is in a tough spot — which is made worse by powerful people who care only for power and profit — as IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee said, “Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action will not only reduce losses and damages for nature and people, it will also provide wider benefits. This [report] underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action and shows that, if we act now, we can still secure a liveable, sustainable future for all.”

Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/20/climate-change-ipcc-report-15/ and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/20/biden-veto-investment-rule-republicans/

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, March 23, 2023) A case report article published in Frontier in Public Health confirms one of the first reported deaths from inhalation of the fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D or Telone) during work, resulting in acute renal (kidney) failure, hyperkalemia (high potassium levels in the blood), and brain edema (swelling). 1,3-D is a highly toxic fumigant used on a variety of crops, but primarily on potatoes, tobacco, strawberries, peanuts, and tomatoes to manage unwanted nematodes in soils. The chlorine-containing compound used in a greenhouse space entered the body of a 50-year-old man in China, being absorbed through the respiratory tract. Despite dilution from his wife, the compound was still strong enough to cause harm to human health. Without proper ventilation and personal protective equipment, wearing merely a surgical mask did not adequately defend against exposure to 1,3-D.

This case represents the broader issue of how toxic chemical compounds can enter the body, causing physiological damage. Specifically, pesticides can increase the permeability (absorptiveness) of the blood-brain barrier that filters various molecules entering the brain from the circulatory system. However, the permeation of pesticide molecules elevates the expression and accumulation of soluble proteins in the brain involved in neuroinflammation, which plays a critical role in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s diseases (PD), and Huntington’s diseases (HD). Considering over 300 environmental contaminants and their byproducts, including pesticides, are chemicals commonly present in human blood and urine samples, neurotoxicity risk increases when crossing the brain barrier. Therefore, cases like this highlight the importance of understanding how chemicals interact with the body to induce long-term health and disease prognosis. 

A 50-year-old man, who worked in the family greenhouse, inspected the greenhouse between the hour of 10 pm to 3 am without proper ventilation, without wearing respiratory protection, and bare-chested. Before these 5 hours, the man’s wife diluted 1,3-D with water at a 1:50 ratio and irrigated the enclosed greenhouse using the diluted 1,3-D on the floor surface at the door and a trench in the field. After application, the man entered the greenhouse alone for inspection. Upon returning home, the man began to experience headaches, dizziness, and other discomforts for three days before other symptoms arose, including blurred vision, unclear speech, and worsened dizziness. By the end of the third day, the man presented to the emergency department of a local hospital with dizziness, nonchalance (out of it), confusion, as well as newly developed irritability symptoms. Despite a cranial CT scan, the brain displayed no abnormalities on the third and fourth days. However, doctors shortly transferred the man to the ICU. By the fifth day, CT examinations showed unclear portions of the brain (sulci and cisternae), suggesting atrophic changes (wasting or thinning of tissue) in the brain, and on day six, a craniocerebral magnetic resonance examination showed widespread enlargement of the brainstem, uneven nerve signal, and a narrowed fourth ventricle (a series of interconnected hollows within the brain that contain cerebrospinal fluid [CSF]). The brain tissue exhibited widespread swelling, the downward shifting of the cerebellar tonsil, and indistinguishable sulci and cisternae. Additionally, the three paired main arteries that supply blood to the brain (bilateral anterior, middle, and posterior cerebral arteries) were nearly invisible.

The case determined that: “Walking in the damp climate, high temperature, and poorly ventilated greenhouses, when exposed to 1, 3-dichloropropene for a short time, the patient inhaled 1, 3-dichloropropene and quickly experienced dizziness, fatigue, nausea, unconsciousness, breathing difficulties, and other symptoms. Combined with the results of the serological test and brain magnetic resonance imaging, the symptomatic presentation was consistent with the manifestation of acute 1, 3-dichloropropene poisoning.”

The nervous system is an integral part of the human body, including the brain, spinal cord, and a vast network of nerves and neurons, all of which are responsible for many bodily functions—from sensation to movement. However, exposure to chemical toxicants, like pesticides, can cause neurotoxic effects or exacerbate preexisting chemical damage to the nervous system. The impacts of pesticides on the nervous system, including the brain, are hazardous, especially for chronically exposed individuals (e.g., farmworkers) or during critical windows of vulnerability and development (e.g., childhood, pregnancy). Mounting evidence over the past years shows that chronic exposure to sublethal (low) levels of pesticides adversely affects the central nervous system (CNS) and neural receptors, such as connections between nerves, the brain, enzymes, and DNA. Specifically, researchers identify agricultural chemical exposure as a cause of many adverse CNS impacts and neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, advocates say it is essential to avoid toxic chemical exposure to lessen potential acute and chronic health risks.

Whether 1,3-D exposure is short-term or long-term, certain concentrations are harmful to the human body in a closed environment, like the greenhouse in this case. Absorption through the respiratory tract may allow the compound to cross the blood-brain barrier, depose in the brain tissue, then inhibit the central nervous system and cause diffuse brain tissue edema, leading to acute damage to the heart (including the vascular system), lung (respiratory), and kidney (renal) function, eventually resulting in death. Additionally, EPA first classified 1,3-D as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” in 1985 until the primary manufacturer, Dow Chemical Company, requested EPA conduct the current cancer re-evaluation, resulting in 1,3-D downgrading from “likely” to “suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity.”

For those who may consider this issue outside of their concern, note that a recent study focusing on the Western United States determined fumigant pesticides have close links to county-level cancer rates. Not only does this compound cause respiratory stimulation response and central nervous system inhibition after inhalation, but the volatile organic compound also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone and poor air quality.

There is a lack of complete understanding of the etiology of pesticide-induced diseases, including predictable lag time between chemical exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data. Pesticides themselves can possess the ability to disrupt neurological function. Pesticides’ impact on the nervous system, including the brain, are hazardous, especially for chronically exposed individuals or during critical windows of vulnerability and development. Although occupational and environmental factors like pesticides adversely affect human health, regulatory reviews have numerous limitations in defining real-world poisoning, as captured by epidemiologic studies in Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD) and Daily News Blog. The adverse health effects of pesticides, exposure, and the aggregate risk of pesticides showcase a need for more exact research surrounding occupational and residential pesticide exposure to make complete determinations, thus highlighting the importance of fully recognizing uncertainty with regulatory decisions that are precautionary. Existing information, including this study, supports the clear need for a strategic shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the effects of pesticide exposure on neurological health, see Beyond Pesticides’ PIDD pages on brain and nervous system disorders, including dementia-like diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and other impacts on cognitive function. 

Beyond Pesticides advocates a precautionary approach to pest management in land management and agriculture by transiting to organic. Buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment and from your diet. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source:  Frontier in Public Health

(Beyond Pesticides, March 22, 2023) Pesticide use on golf courses in the United States poses significantly more risk to human health than those in Europe, according to a study published this month in Science of the Total Environment. The findings highlight yet another area of land management where the U.S. is dangerously behind the European Union, as these countries are set to ban pesticides in parks, playgrounds, and playing fields, and have established a 50% reduction goal for agriculture by 2030. Meanwhile U.S. agencies continue to perpetuate widespread toxic pesticide use, with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack even working to counter the EU’s reduction goals through a separate, “market-oriented” initiative alongside pesticide industry-friendly countries like UAE and Brazil.

Researchers found that pesticide risks from golf courses in the U.S. were on average 15 times higher than those in the EU. In order to come to that conclusion, surveys were sent out to courses in eight regions: East Texas, Florida, the Midwest, Northeast, and Northwest in the U.S., and the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Norway in Europe. Recorded answers (including product applied, date, rate, and area of application) were incorporated into the development of a hazard quotient (HQ), a ratio of pesticide exposure to a chemical’s toxicity. High hazard quotients indicate high risks to human health, while lower numbers indicate less risk. Such a model only captures the acute effects of pesticides, and not chronic impacts, but can nonetheless provide important data about pesticide dangers.

The highest single HQ for a golf course was found in Florida at 40,806. While the region with the highest average hazard quotient was U.S. Northwest at 13,696, with the lowest was found in Norway and Denmark at 64. In East Texas and Florida pesticide greens represented the greatest risk, but in all other locations fairways had the highest HQ. Fungicides posed the greatest health risk in Florida, the Midwest, Northeast, and Norway, while herbicides filled this role in East Texas, the Northwest, and Denmark. Insecticides posed the greatest risk for golf courses in the UK.

Although scientists hypothesized that golf courses in more southern regions of the U.S., with their longer growing seasons, would pose a greater risk than those with shorter seasons, this findings did not pan out. Economic factors also played less of a role than researchers expected. Only in Europe and the northern U.S. were any correlations found, with pesticide budget significantly factoring into pesticide risk. However, in all regions, pesticide use intensity was strongly associated with the number of maintenance employees on staff and the pesticide budget per hectare.

Overall scientists zeroed in on one defining factor differentiating pesticide risk on a region’s golf course: the regulatory environment. As the study explains, “Golf courses in regulatory environments where <100 pesticide products were available had a median CWA-HQ [component-weighted-average hazard quotient) of 248, which was significantly lower than mean pesticide risk on golf courses located in regulatory environments which allowed >100 pesticide products, which had a mean CWA-HQ of 7031.”

Indeed while the EU regulates pesticides based on hazards, the inherent toxicity of a chemical pesticide, the U.S. regulates based on risk, looking at the chance a pesticide will have a harmful effect on human health or the environment. “The risk based system used by the EPA has led to a much higher number of pesticides being available for golf courses in the US,” the study notes. In Denmark and Norway, less than 20 pesticide products are permitted to be applied to golf courses.

It is worth emphasizing that this review only focused on acute risks posed by pesticides. Chronic impacts present a greater long term threat to human health, as consistent exposure over years of playing or golf course maintenance adds to one’s exposome, the sum total of toxic exposures over one’s lifetime. While research is few and far between, a factor primarily based on the difficult in getting pesticide use reports from golf courses, the research available indicate elevated risk of various cancers (brain, prostate, non-Hodgkin lymphoma) and nervous system disorders among golf course superintendents.

Beyond Pesticides encourages proactive engagement with golf courses that heavily apply toxic pesticides, particularly in areas around homes, hospitals, playgrounds, and other sensitive sites. The program page Golf, Pesticides, and Organic Practices provides examples of courses that have gone organic or are moving in the right direction. As well as a strategy for advocates to follow to ‘Green Your Local Course.’

For more on the dangers of golf course pesticide use, including a personal, heart-felt story of how these dangers translate to real-world impacts, readers are encouraged to watch Ground War, a documentary created by Andrew Nisker after his healthy and fit dad suddenly developed an environmental-related cancer.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Science of the Total Environment
Image Source: Wikimedia

(Beyond Pesticides, March 21, 2023) Placing honey bee hives in agricultural areas creates stress that leads to microbial imbalances, according to research published in Scientific Reports by Croatian scientists this month. The research highlights the fragility and absurdity of chemical-driven agricultural systems dependent upon both pollinators and products that harm or kill off these sensitive species. While regulators in the United States continue to prop up unsustainable practices, more and more consumers are seeking out and engaging with the key alternative to this system by supporting organic farms and foodstuffs at their farmers market and grocery store.

Scientists began by creating 33 colonies from three apiaries within an agricultural region in Croatia, utilizing four brood frames, two honey frames, and mated queens. Of these 33 newly created hives, 22 were relocated to a separate agricultural region, and 11 were placed roughly six miles away from a nature preserve and considered a semi-natural area. A separate group of 10 hives that had been established on a small island (Unije, Croatia) in the Adriatic Sea were included in the study in order to represent a completely natural location.

After roughly two weeks of colony formation, scientists collected samples to represent the multiple different microbial niches within bee hives. These include bee gut, bee bread, hive entrance and internal hive air; in sum researchers term this the ‘apibiome’ of a given colony. Using a process called rRNA gene amplification, scientists conducted an analysis of the relative abundances of different bacteria detected. Focus was placed on identifying bacteria that were distinct between the three different study groups.

Hives located in primarily agricultural regions reveal a lower level of species evenness, indicating an imbalance in the abundance of species found within a hive’s apibiome. In particular, these hives had lower levels of bacteria considered beneficial for honey bees. There is also evidence of a stress response pathways within bee guts. The findings fall along a gradient, with the semi-natural hives representing a marked improvement over hives located in agricultural regions after the two-week shift. Natural hives, according to the study, “displayed bacterial profiles associated with good health, and were enriched in Acetobacteraceae and the gut core members Snodgrasella, Lactobacillus and Commensalibacter (involved in nutrient acquisition and immune responses).”

Researchers indicate that the bacterium of Arsenophonus genus were most prevalent within the agricultural hives and declined along a similar gradient from ag to natural environments. This indicates that these bacteria may be a key indicator of stressors and poor colony health brought on by difficult living conditions.

“The microbiota of the Unije Island hive is more balanced, its proportion of beneficial microorganisms is higher and in a semi-natural environment the proportion gradually decreases, whereas in the agricultural environment the composition of the hive is highly imbalanced, more opportunistic bacteria are found and it is more sensitive to diseases,” explained Iratxe Zarraonaindia, PhD.

These data match up closely with prior research on the damage that agricultural pesticide use can do to individual honeybee microbiomes. A study published in 2016 found that mixtures of various pesticides results in adverse changes to the make-up of honeybee gut bacteria. Another study on pesticide mixtures published six years later found that such adverse changes to a honeybee’s gut increases susceptibility to disease and pathogens, and likely reduces a pollinator’s life span.  A meta-analysis conducted in early 2022 determined that pesticides create these disturbances in one of two ways – either by directly harming microbes or by indirectly harming pollinators, resulting in gut microbial shifts.

Researchers continue to find new ways in which chemical-intensive agriculture is harming pollinators and the wider environment, underscoring the need for alternative systems that do not utilize these dangerous practices. It is imperative for those concerned about pollinator protection to engage with and help grow these alternatives.

Beyond Pesticides has long embraced organic agriculture as the key response to the damages brought about by pesticide-laden food production. But even organic can be subject to weakening and corporate attack, necessitating an engaged consumer base. Join Beyond Pesticides today in urging Organic to Lead the Way by contributing your voice to strong organic agriculture at upcoming the National Organic Standards Board meeting.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source:  Scientific Reports, Phys.org press release

(Beyond Pesticides, March 20, 2023) As a means of taking on the challenges of health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency, the review and updating of organic standards requires the public involvement in the current public comment period. This is required to keep organic strong and continually improving.

The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is receiving written comments from the public through April 5, 2023. This precedes the upcoming public comment webinar on April 18 and 20 and deliberative hearing April 25-27—concerning how organic food is produced. Sign up for a 3-minute comment to let U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) know how important organic is at the webinar by April 5. Written comments must be submitted through Regulations.gov. by 11:59 pm EDT April 5. Links to the virtual comment webinars will be provided approximately one week before the webinars.

The NOSB is responsible for guiding USDA in its administration of the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), including the materials allowed to be used in organic production and handling. The role of the NOSB is especially important as we depend on organic production to protect our ecosystem, mitigate climate change, and enhance our health.

The NOSB plays an important role in bringing the views of organic consumers and producers to bear on USDA, which is not always in sync with organic principles and not giving sufficient support to the critical need to end the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. There are many important issues on the NOSB agenda this Spring. For a complete discussion, see Keeping Organic Strong and the Spring 2023 Beyond Pesticides’ issues webpage. Here are some of our high priority issues for the upcoming meeting:

Prohibit the Routine Allowance of Ingredients Processed with Ion Exchange. Because the ion exchange process is a chemical process, all organic ingredients processed in this manner must be subject to review by the NOSB. Ion exchange creates synthetic ingredients through chemical change—removing some components and substituting other chemicals—that are used in processed food. It is not simply filtration. Chemicals in the ion exchange resins may leak into the food product. Yet, the Handling Subcommittee of the NOSB is proposing to allow any and all resins without review. To maintain the integrity of the organic label, resins must be subject to full National List (National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances) review to determine whether these ingredients meet organic standards, rather than establishing a blanket allowance of ion exchange in organic processing.

Organic Agriculture is Climate-Smart Agriculture. In a draft letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the NOSB has written an excellent primer on how organic agriculture responds to the climate emergency. However, the letter needs to stress the need for USDA to dramatically increase support for converting chemical-intensive agriculture to organic. It is critical that the National Organic Program ask, “What more should USDA be doing to advance organic?” As the Board states, the resiliency of organic is established: “Organic is the solution to mitigating climate change and responding to it.” However, despite the astronomical growth in organic consumption in the U.S., conversion to organic agriculture lags behind demand. USDA could and should require the adoption of organic/climate-smart practices a prerequisite for receiving the benefits of its programs and abandon its promotion of chemical-intensive agriculture supported by the biotech/chemical industry.

Plastic mulch is under consideration this year as a part of its five-year review cycle. This is part of the larger issue relating to the use of plastic in organic production and handling. Awareness is growing about the impacts of plastic—and the microplastic particles resulting from its use—on human health and the environment. Plastics manufacture requires transportation of hazardous chemicals, such as those involved in the recent derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Plastic mulch should not be relisted as allowable in organic production. Moreover, the NOSB should initiate action to eliminate all uses of plastic in organic processing and packaging.

The NOSB should use the review (or sunset) process to eliminate nonorganic ingredients in processed organic foods. Materials listed in §205.606 in the organic regulations are nonorganic agricultural ingredients that may comprise 5% of organic-labeled processed foods. The intent of the law is to allow restricted nonorganic ingredients (fully disclosed and limited) when their organic form is not available. However, materials should not remain on §205.606 if they can be supplied organically, and we can now grow virtually anything organically. The Handling Subcommittee needs to ask the question of potential suppliers, “Could you supply the need if the organic form is required?” The materials on §205.606 up for sunset review this year are made from agricultural products that can be supplied organically and thus should be taken off the National List of allowed materials.

>>Submit Comments Now.

Need help in submitting comments? Regulations.gov requires more than a single click, but it is not difficult. Please feel free to cut-and-paste the three comments above into Regulations.gov and add or adjust the text to personalize it. See this instructional video. (Regulations.gov has changed its look since this video was made.)

Thank you for keeping organic strong!

Visit Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong webpage, where we post background and Beyond Pesticides’ comments on all the issues before the National Organic Standards Board this session.

(Beyond Pesticides, March 17, 2023) The U.S. House of Representatives’ Republican majority voted on March 9 to overturn a Biden administration rule that expands the definition of and protections for the “waters of the United States.” The rule, Revised Definition of Waters of the United States, clarifies that thousands of wetlands, smaller streams, and other kinds of waterways are included under the Clean Water Act’s protection provisions. The overturning resolution now goes to the Senate, and is expected to be taken up very soon; President Biden has said he will exercise his veto power if it reaches his desk. Were that veto overridden, this rollback would put at greater risk the nation’s waterways, from all sorts of pollution, including the more than 90% of the nation’s rivers and streams that are contaminated with five or more pesticides, according to Beyond Pesticides 2020 coverage.

You can contact your U.S. Senators HERE to let them know you want them to support Clean Water by voting against legislation that undermines protection of our waterways.

The rules promulgated by EPA and other federal agencies to protect the nation’s waters arise primarily from 1972’s Clean Water Act (amended in 1977 and 1987). That act, although referencing various kinds of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), does not actually define what that means. The interpretation of a definition has been an ongoing political kerfuffle for 15 years, according to Bloomberg Law, which asserts that the definition has is has been expanded and narrowed multiple times, depending on administrations.

Finalized in late December 2022, the rule is scheduled to go into effect on March 20. (See this Fact Sheet on the rule.) The Biden WOTUS rule, according to E&E News Greenwire, “would give federal protection to large waterways, like interstate rivers and streams and wetlands that are adjacent to them.” On the matter of which wetlands qualify for federal protection under the new WOTUS definition, the rule does not so much draw “bright-line rules” about, “for example, wetlands that are more than a specific number of feet from a jurisdictional water [being] not ‘adjacent.’” (The Obama WOTUS rule did draw such “bright lines” about federal jurisdiction.) Instead, “a more nuanced approach is required” because the impacts of a wetland on a larger waterway is variable with region, climate, and local hydrodynamics. The rule does say, “The agencies can state, based on nearly 45 years of implementation . . . that in a substantial number of cases, adjacent wetlands abut (touch) a jurisdictional water. . . . [O]n the whole, nationwide, adjacent wetlands are within a few hundred feet from jurisdictional waters.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through the final rule, repeals the previous, Trump administration rule that scaled back water protections that had been in place with the Obama rule. Beyond Pesticides wrote about that in early 2020: “President Obama’s WOTUS, aka Clean Water Rule, has provided protections from pesticide runoff and other pollutants to millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams. . . . The WOTUS rule was created to provide greater protections from pollution, and to ‘bring clarity to decades of political and legal debate over which waters should qualify.’ The rule included many smaller waterways and wetlands that function as recharge areas or tributaries to larger water bodies.”

Then, Republicans and industry/trade/business groups clamored loudly against the more-protective Obama administration definition of WOTUS. The same is happening today with the Biden rule, which the same general crew of opponents claim constitutes regulatory overreach that is “burdensome” to private enterprise, property rights, and — essentially — what they consider their “right” to pollute. This position ignores the reality of pollution of the nation’s water resources — not only the ubiquity of impacts, but also, the variety and extent of harms to human health, ecosystems, and biodiversity, as well as the disproportionate impacts of both water pollution and its sources on low-income communities and communities of color.

In bringing this to a House vote, Republicans employed the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn final rules of federal agencies, and is typically used on recently enacted rules and during changes of administration (accompanied by a shift in majority control in the House or Senate). With their recently acquired House majority (222–213), Republicans were able to pass the measure to overturn the Biden WOTUS rule with a 227–198 vote.

Voting for the rollback were 218 Republicans (1 voted against); 197 Democrats voted against it (9 voted for); and 7 Democrats and 2 Republicans failed to vote. Democratic House members who voted to overturn the rule included Representatives Sanford Bishop and David Scott (GA), Jim Costa and Jimmy Panetta (CA), Angie Craig (MN), Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Donald Davis (NC), and Jared Golden (ME); Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) was the one Republican who voted against the measure.

As this measure moves to the Senate, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV) has already declared his support for it. The Associated Press notes that Senator Manchin is a “frequent Biden antagonist” who “represents an energy-producing state and frequently clashes with Democrats on environmental issues.” Given the Senate Democrats’ narrow majority (51–49), Senator Manchin’s defection, coupled with recent Senate absences of Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman for health reasons — if those absences continue — could pose a challenge for Senate Democrats, Bloomberg Law asserts.

Senator Manchin commented, echoing Republican and industry talking points, that the Biden rule “would interject further regulatory confusion, place unnecessary burdens on small businesses, farmers and local communities, and cause serious economic damage.” Republican Representative David Rouzer (NC), Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee Chair, commented to the Associated Press: “The EPA rule ‘needs to be repealed so Americans across the country are protected from subjective regulatory overreach making it harder to farm, build and generate economic prosperity.’”

The Biden Administration has countered that its clean water rule would actually responsibly guide business and agriculture, and that overturning the rule would generate more uncertainty. EPA, on its website, says that the “final rule establishes a clear and reasonable definition of ‘waters of the United States’ and reduces the uncertainty from constantly changing regulatory definitions that has harmed communities and our nation’s waters.”

The agency further notes, “The agencies developed this rule with consideration of the relevant provisions of the Clean Water Act and the statute as a whole, relevant Supreme Court case law, and the agencies’ technical expertise after more than 45 years of implementing the longstanding pre-2015 ‘waters of the United States’ framework. This rule also considers the best available science and extensive public comment to establish a definition of ‘waters of the United States’ that supports public health, environmental protection, agricultural activity, and economic growth.”

Meanwhile, litigation on the WOTUS definition sits with the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS); a decision for the plaintiff, according to Earthjustice, “could gut the Clean Water Act.” The case, Sackett vs. EPA, was brought by Michael Sackett, an Idaho property owner who sued EPA over its ruling that he and his wife needed a permit to infill a wetland (and build a home on it) next to an Idaho lake, and were in violation of the Clean Water Act. The plaintiff has asked SCOTUS to determine whether a lower court applied the correct standards in its ruling for EPA, and whether EPA has authority over the Sacketts’ private property. The crux of the case re: the federal rule is whether (and which) wetlands meet the definition of “waters of the United States.” Plaintiffs were distressed by the December 30 announcement of the final rule — prior to a SCOTUS decision in the case.

Of course, industry interests have come out in force, filing many amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in support of the plaintiffs. Those entities include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; conservative organizations the Cato Institute, Liberty Justice Center, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation; the National Federation of Independent Business; the National Association of Home Builders; the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association; 14 agricultural organizations; and a host of conservative, regional “legal foundations,” among others. In Jun 2022, Earthjustice filed an amicus brief on behalf of Native tribes seeking to defend existing water protections for waterways on which they depend for food, economy, and culture. A SCOTUS decision in the case is expected soon.

The organization American Rivers explains the stakes of the case well: “The Supreme Court decision . . . means more than just redefining the Clean Water Act. Siding with polluters would mean denying communities across the country access to clean water — a fundamental human right. If [SCOTUS] rules against the EPA, the drinking water of one in three people in this country will be at risk. Countless wetlands and streams across the country — vital for fish and wildlife habitat and flood protection for communities — are also at risk. For example, the Court could remove protections for 80% of streams in the Southwest alone. . . . [I]n the case of Sackett v. EPA, big polluters are arguing that [SCOTUS] should weaken the scope of the Clean Water Act. This means countless streams and wetlands all over the country would no longer be protected — and polluters could have free rein to use our nation’s waters as sewers once more.” 

The support among business, industry, and agriculture groups for the SCOTUS plaintiff and the House vote on WOTUS (and Republican spin on it) lays bare the aims and determination of those who profit from polluting. The House resolution on WOTUS was introduced by two Republicans — Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Sam Graves (MO) and Representative Rouzer — and cosponsored by 170 others. The House website titles its press release on the vote “House Votes to Overturn Flawed, Overreaching Biden WOTUS Rule.” (The Senate resolution was introduced by Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito [WV]).

Representative Graves commented in the press release: “American families, farmers, small businesses, and entire communities are suffering under the economic crises caused by the disastrous Biden policies of the last two years. The last thing they need is this Administration’s inexplicable decision to move the country back toward the overreaching, costly, and burdensome regulations of the past, which is exactly what this WOTUS rule does.” Representative Rouzer amped up the provocative language, saying, “President Biden’s new WOTUS rule is a nuclear warhead aimed squarely at our farm families, small businesses, homebuilders, every property owner, and entire communities because of its overreaching definition. Cloaked under the guise of clean water, all this rule does is expand the federal government’s control over states, localities, and private landowners, making it harder to farm, build, and generate economic prosperity.”

Earthjustice summarizes the case for this protective rule and its WOTUS definition: “[It] is based on vigorous science. The agencies that made the new rule reviewed hundreds of scientific articles when making this rule and worked through thousands of public comments to develop a framework for protecting our nation’s waters from industrial pollution. The rule is not perfect, but it is a crucial step toward restoring protection to a network of waterways that support healthy ecosystems, and economies. More than three in four people support stronger federal protections for our nation’s waters.”

Beyond Pesticides encourages members of the public to advocate strongly with their U.S. Senators to uphold the Biden WOTUS rule, which represents badly needed protection for the nation’s waterways, and the ecosystems, organisms, and people who depend on them — essentially, everyone and everything. Click HERE to take action by contacting your U.S. Senators. 

Sources: https://apnews.com/article/biden-clean-water-manchin-republicans-epa-environment-1bb64abf01d910f4c4763ad49883a8cb and https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/house-passed-water-rule-baits-bidens-veto-with-absent-democrats

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, March 16, 2023) Highly hazardous PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are leaching out of plastic containers and contaminating food products, according to research published in Environment Technology and Letters this month. The data confirm the results of prior research focused on the propensity of PFAS to contaminate various pesticide products through the storage containers. That data led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a warning over the potential for direct PFAS contamination of food. The current study, conducted by scientists at Notre Dame University, confirms these worst fears and shows that the containers of commonly used products like ketchup and mayonnaise are leaching out levels that post a threat to human health. “Not only did we measure significant concentrations of PFAS in these containers, we can estimate the PFAS that were leaching off creating a direct path of exposure,” said study coauthor Graham Peaslee, PhD, professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Notre Dame.

In breaking news on Tuesday, EPA is setting standards for two PFAS, PFOA and PFOS at no more than 4 parts per trillion in drinking water. While testing will be required, this measure is limited by its scope, requiring only monitoring of a few other PFAS compounds.

At issue are HDPE (high density polyethylene) containers, a type of plastic that may or may not be fluorinated prior to filling them with various materials. Fluorinating these containers “allows for cheaper and more efficient production of plastics that contain desirable properties, primarily increased barrier properties,” according to the study. In other words, fluoridation is being used to address the potential for gasses, water vapor, light and other factors that would impact the quality of product in the packaging. The material is as common as your milk jug and used to store a wide variety of substances – from foodstuffs to shampoo, motor oil, detergents and pesticides.

Using food samples retrieved from glass jars, scientists tested them by adding samples to both fluorinated and non-fluorinated HDPE containers. Scientists tested the amount of PFAS in these containers using plain water, methanol, and acetone as reference. And food samples added to both treated and untreated HDPE containers, including ketchup, olive oil, and mayonnaise were also analyzed for their PFAS levels. Further tests were conducted where containers and food were heated, to determine if that increased the effects. Testing methods employed a similar approach recently taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to measure PFAS in foods.

Results from even nonfluorinated containers represented a risk, ranging from 10 parts per trillion to 880 parts per trillion. Fluorinated containers hit between an astounding 45,120 and 94,810 ppt. These numbers include a summation of a range of PFAS analytes, including PFOA, PFDA, PFBA, and many others.

Food samples left in these containers did contain PFAS in a range of 2,660, 5,950, and 7,190 correspondingly in olive oil, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Heat also increased the leaching process significantly. As the study indicates, “In fluorinated containers, sums of PFAS concentrations were 27 times higher in samples exposed at 50 °C than those exposed at room temperature, demonstrating that exposure to elevated temperatures significantly increased the migration of PFAS from the containers into the water.”

In sum, the study finds that using an estimated five servings per week of just one of the food products measured would be 770 to 2,680 ppt per kilogram of body weight each week. The study provides a comparison to the European Union, where  a tolerable weekly intake limit of 4,400 ppt per week was set. Given that a few dabs of mayo or ketchup over the course of the week can nearly reach this level, the risks come into clear focus.

If this was not concerning enough, this is far from the only source of PFAS chemicals in our environment. This process is also occurring with pesticides stored in HDPE containers, and there is also significant concern regarding leaching from wastewater treatment plants, which consistently record high PFAS outflow. Combined, these represent additional threats of contamination to the land were food is grown and the water used on crops, which in many places around the country includes that very same wastewater outflow.

There are also issues EPA has not addressed: with evidence from another recent study that certain insecticides may contain PFAS levels as high as 19,200,000 parts per trillion, and that these applications leach into food grown on site, currently existing global contamination adds another concerning data point to the risks individuals in the US and around the world are encountering with PFAS.

“We measured concentrations of PFOA that significantly exceeded the limit set by the EPA’s 2022 Health Advisory Limits,” said Dr. Peaslee. “Now, consider that not only do we know that the chemicals are migrating into the substances stored in them, but that the containers themselves work their way back into the environment through landfills. PFAS doesn’t biodegrade. It doesn’t go away. Once these chemicals are used, they get into the groundwater, they get into our biological systems, and they cause significant health problems.”

Beyond Pesticides is calling on Congress to act on bipartisan bill — the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act —legislation introduced by the Maine Delegation modeled on a policy the state of Maine recently passed.

Act now by telling your U.S. Senators and Representative to cosponsor the Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act. If they are already cosponsors, thank them. Tell EPA to stop the spread of legacy chemicals.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: University of Notre Dame, Environment Technology and Letters