EPA proposed a strategy Thursday to reduce insecticide exposure to hundreds of federally listed endangered species that includes a wide range of mitigation measures addressing spray drift and erosion.
The release of the draft comes days after 318 agricultural groups urged the agency to refine the way it evaluates the risks to species, saying the assessments can “significantly overstate” the risks of chemical use and require pesticide users to “adopt more costly, stringent restrictions than are truly necessary to protect listed species.”
The groups, including the American Soybean Association and a broad range of national and state producer groups, asked EPA in a letter “to initiate conversations with stakeholders on ESA risk assessment improvements no later than September.” The final herbicide strategy is due by Aug, 30, as required by a settlement agreement the agency reached with the Center for Biological Diversity.
For years, federal courts have ruled EPA has shirked its legal duty under the Endangered Species Act to analyze the impacts of pesticides on endangered species.
In the latest draft strategy and one proposed earlier this year addressing herbicides, the agency is trying to streamline required consultations with the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, which in the past have focused on one active ingredient at a time.
The herbicide and insecticide strategies are similar, proposing menus of mitigation options growers can choose from to achieve the required species protection.
Grower groups, however, have been critical of the approach taken thus far. In their letter, they say that EPA’s current methods to assess risk “are exceedingly conservative, often relying on unrefined models and very conservative assumptions in lieu of considering available relevant and reliable scientific and commercial data.”
CropLife America CEO Alexandra Dunn said CLA appreciates "EPA’s diligent efforts to resolve the challenges of ESA review of pesticide registration decisions, including the transparency the agency provided stakeholders through recent listening sessions." CLA may ask for more time to comment and "will continue to advocate for reforms to the risk assessment and other aspects of the process to make ESA review work for all stakeholders.”
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Alan Meadows, a soybean farmer from Tennessee and an American Soybean Association director, said that while “EPA has made clear improvements" in its draft "compared to earlier proposals like the draft herbicide strategy," the group does have "lingering concerns like whether EPA is meeting its requirements to verify these restrictions are necessary."
EPA needs to "conduct proper risk assessments to ensure farmers are not being asked to adopt costly restrictions that are unnecessary to protect listed species, and we are not confident that is happening under this proposal. We are also concerned about how other aspects of the proposal, such as on-field mitigation, will work in safeguarding farmers’ ability to protect their crops."
However, Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “I’m encouraged to see the EPA recognize that insecticides pose a major threat to our most endangered pollinators and finally step up with a plan to protect them. I urge the EPA to stand strong against the inevitable attacks by Big Ag, which has spent decades poisoning wildlife and now attacks all efforts to enact reasonable protections for endangered species.”
EPA said in the strategy it is “developing a process to refine maps” for Pesticide Use Limitation Areas (PULAs) that are tailored to address exposure to specific species.
For reducing exposure from runoff and erosion, EPA will identify the level of mitigation needed as points, allowing “for greater flexibility and inclusion of mitigation measures that have different levels of efficacy to address pesticides with different levels of potential impacts to different species. With few exceptions, the mitigations available to insecticide applicators are expected to be the same as those available to herbicide applicators because the application methods and approaches for reducing off-site transport are similar for both types of pesticides.”
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This article was updated to include reaction from CropLife America, the American Soybean Association and the Center foir Biological Diversity.
