In a nod to grower concerns, EPA indicates it likely will revise a plan for reducing pesticide impacts on endangered species by “minimizing” rather than prohibiting applications in species habitat.
Under pressure from the courts, the agency has been trying to fix the way it registers pesticides while accounting for effects on endangered species subject to federal protective measures.
The agency rolled out the Vulnerable Species Pilot in June and a herbicide strategy in July, both of which were criticized by growers — and the ag industry in general — who said the plans were too complicated to implement and would prohibit applications on millions of acres of cropland. The agency issued an updated VSP just before Thanksgiving.
Estimates of affected cropland are in the millions of acres. For the VSP alone, USDA has said 14 million acres, while the American Soybean Association has put the number at 97 million when taking into account both avoiding species habitat and mitigating for use by reducing the amount of pesticides used and employing conservation measures.
Based on comments it received, the agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs said in an update that its “current thinking for agricultural uses is that the proposed VSP mitigation would not need to include avoidance, but rather would focus on minimization.”
EPA’s Jan Matuszko, director of OPP’s Environmental Fate and Effects Division, said after meeting with state regulators Monday that the agency wants to gather more input before finalizing its VSP, the next update for which will be in fall 2024.
On avoidance areas, she said the agency is looking at “where they’re needed and where they’re not.”
“We're still considering things. We're still working on it,” Matuszko told Agri-Pulse.
“The overarching message is we are listening to the states, we're listening to our stakeholders, and we're adjusting,” she said. “These are firsts for us, too,” she added, emphasizing the novelty of the approach and the need for more feedback to refine it.
“When we put out a draft, it's a draft,” Matuszko said. “It's our current thinking. It is not final. We’re open to new ideas, we’re open to thinking about it differently.”
At the same time, “We must meet our [Endangered Species Act] obligations,” she said. “And so what we're really looking for is people to help us find solutions.”
Grower groups and state regulators are still eager for details.
Alan Meadows, an American Soybean Association director and soybean grower from Halls, Tennessee, said while ASA appreciates the update to the pilot, “the agency’s response is narrow and unfortunately leads to more questions than answers.”
He said he’s glad EPA has acknowledged its pesticide use limitation area maps need to be revised, “but the agency provides little detail on what those refinements will ultimately look like and if they will be workable for agriculture.”
In the update, EPA said it would “refine the proposed [Pesticide Use Limitation Areas] by (1) mapping species habitats explicitly, rather than using text to describe habitats to which the PULA is meant to apply and (2) reduce the PULAs to only include locations within the species’ ranges that are most important for species conservation.”
Meadows, however, said “other vital questions, such as what the high costs of implementation would mean for farmers, who is responsible for compliance, and how the agency’s legal obligations would be met under this proposal remain unaddressed.”
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The update “doesn’t provide a whole lot of reassurance,” said Kyle Kunkler, ASA’s director of government affairs. “We’re not seeing a lot of detail.”
Nevertheless, he said ASA is pleased EPA continues to reach out for feedback and says the group is having conversations with EPA officials about the species and herbicide strategies.
At a meeting this week, state pesticide regulators expressed concern with the pace of the pesticide proposals. In addition to the VSP and the herbicide strategy (which is due to be finalized in May 2024), EPA recently rolled out a rodenticide strategy, is planning to release an insecticide strategy in January 2025, and has a fungicide strategy on its schedule, though no release date has been announced.
State officials, who are responsible for enforcement of the federal pesticide law in their states, almost uniformly expressed trepidation about the new strategies, at the meeting of the State FIFRA Issues Research and Evaluation Group this week.
Kyle Kunkler, ASA“Traditionally, we hold the applicator responsible for following the label,” Roger Mackedanz of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said on the sidelines of the meeting. But with EPA considering ways for growers to mitigate using conservation practices such as cover crops or filtered buffer strips, “there are some potential land use issues” involved that could complicate matters.
An EPA official at the meeting called potential enforcement situations “a case-by-case situation” but that “in general, a grower could be held liable.”
“States unanimously conveyed a sense of unpreparedness, underscored by a shared belief in the necessity for further training,” state pesticide regulators in EPA Region 4 states said in comments shared at the meeting. The region includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and six tribes.
“There was a strong desire for guidance from the EPA,” they said, citing issues such as management of overlapping PULAs and record-keeping.
Mackendanz said the earlier EPA can coordinate with states, the better.
“We've expressed for years that we should be part of early discussions,” he said. Although he added that EPA is “taking steps to bring us into the process, what we're trying to do is get into that process earlier.”
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