The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to make its endangered species herbicide strategy easier for growers to implement by increasing the number of conservation measures they can employ and using better maps to identify where the practices are needed.
The agency has been under pressure from the courts to comply with a feature of the Endangered Species Act that requires EPA to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and/or National Marine Fisheries Service to avoid harm to federally listed species or their habitat.
“We want to make the strategy easier to understand,” Deputy Administrator for Pesticide Programs Jake Li told attendees of CropLife America’s annual regulatory conference Tuesday. An update to the strategy went out Tuesday afternoon to stakeholders, including the Center for Biological Diversity, which is a party with CropLife and EPA in a lawsuit that sets deadlines for the agency to complete the herbicide strategy and an insecticide strategy.
EPA negotiated a delay to complete the herbicide strategy from May 30 until Aug. 30, which was approved by a judge in February. The agency plans to release a draft insecticide strategy by July 30, as specified in a settlement agreement with CropLife and CBD.
The herbicide strategy has received strong criticism from the crop protection industry and a wide array of growers who have called it confusing and impractical. They also have said it would cover areas not actually occupied by species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Better maps will help, Li said. CBD recently released new maps based on FWS data, and Li said EPA has been working with the center and the FWS, as well as the University of Georgia, to more accurately chart species locations.
The new maps are expected to considerably reduce the areas where growers might have to employ certain conservation practices.
“We really are trying to limit the scope of the mitigation measures that are needed,” Li said.
In the update to the strategy released Tuesday, EPA said many commenters on the draft strategy “complained about the complexity of the decision framework to determine the amount of mitigation a label requires for a particular pesticide product – up to nine points of mitigation.”
Although points will still be assigned to particular conservation practices, EPA said it will now use four tiers – none, low, medium, high – to describe the effectiveness of the mitigation that may be needed, it added. “EPA also plans to create educational materials that concisely explain” how users would determine the amount of mitigation needed based on the product label. “EPA plans to include in the educational materials summary information on how EPA calculates this amount based on the toxicity and other properties of an herbicide, and on where and how it is applied.”
The agency also plans to make nine more conservation practices eligible for mitigation, including erosion barriers, reservoir tillage and soil carbon amendments. EPA will hold a workshop next month with USDA to hear from growers “to identify other measures to add to the mitigation menu that can reduce pesticide runoff and erosion.”
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EPA also is considering reducing the mitigation that may be needed "when growers have already adopted practices to reduce pesticide runoff or where runoff is minimal,” it adds. “For example, in areas of the country with flat lands or minimal precipitation, EPA is considering approaches to reduce the mitigation burden on growers. As a result, those growers may need less or no additional measures to use agricultural herbicides, compared to those in the draft strategy.”
Another area being looked at is whether “growers could meet any necessary mitigation requirements if they participate in agricultural conservation programs or work with qualified experts to design and implement mitigation measures,” the update says.
“I know people will continue to take issue with some of our decisions and policies,” Li said. “But please know that we're really committed to improving how we do this work [and] how we comply with the Endangered Species Act, so that it's workable for pesticide users and it provides the protections” for endangered species.
EPA plans to revisit efficacy rankings of high, medium or low of various measures on the mitigation menu.
For example, EPA is looking at dividing the efficacy data on cover crops into subgroups based on how long a cover crop is in place “relative to the time of the year a commodity crop is planted (e.g., fall vs spring for a summer crop) and on the presence of the cover crop at planting (e.g., tillage vs no-tillage).
“EPA expects this updated analysis will increase the efficacy and assigned points for highly effective cover crop practices,” the update says. “Similarly, EPA is evaluating efficacy for vegetative filter strips based on the length of the filter strip and plans to create two categories of filter strips: 20- to 30 feet and 30-plus feet. Depending on the results of this evaluation, the mitigation menu may assign points for 20-foot vegetative filter strips with more assigned points for strips exceeding 30 feet.”
EPA plans to apply the strategy when issuing new active ingredient registrations or registration review decisions under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
“For any herbicide, the mitigation measures from the strategy will not become effective until we adopt labels for that herbicide as part of a new registration or registration decision,” Li said, noting that the strategy won’t suddenly become effective Aug. 30.
At least one attendee liked what she heard.
“I’m really pleased that EPA has listened to input from impacted stakeholders including our grower allies and is prioritizing successful implementation,” said Cindy Smith, agricultural relations director at Gowan Co., a global agricultural consulting firm, who has been monitoring EPA’s ESA efforts closely. “We want it to be successful and implementable.”
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