EPA’s final herbicide strategy, designed to protect more than 900 species listed as threatened or endangered, includes more options for growers and reduces the burden on applicators compared to the draft released last year, the agency said Tuesday.
EPA identified a handful of mitigation measures that, when used on a field by themselves, “would result in runoff/erosion exposures that would not likely have a potential for population-level impacts” to listed species. They are: systems with permanent berms; tailwater return systems, and subsurface tile drains, with controlled drainage structures.
The strategy also says “growers/applicators that work with a runoff/erosion specialist or participate in a conservation program would likely achieve higher-than-average mitigation measure efficacy and benefits of mitigation tracking.”
“The strategy also reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who have already implemented measures identified in the strategy to reduce pesticide movement from treated fields into habitats through pesticide spray drift and runoff from a field,” EPA said in a news release. “The measures include cover crops, conservation tillage, windbreaks, and adjuvants.”
For now, the strategy “does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use,” the agency said in its release. “EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicides. EPA understands that the spray drift and runoff mitigation from the strategy can be complicated for some pesticide users to adopt for the first time.”
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs Jake Li said said that finalizing the first major strategy for endangered species "is a historic step in EPA meeting its Endangered Species Act (ESA) obligations. By identifying protections earlier in the pesticide review process, we are far more efficiently protecting listed species from the millions of pounds of herbicides applied each year and reducing burdensome uncertainty for the farmers that use them.”
Since it released a draft herbicide strategy a little more than a year ago, EPA said it worked to make it “easier to understand and incorporate[e] up-to-date data and refined analyses” as well as increase flexibility to implement mitigation measures.
The agency also said it had reduced the “amount of additional mitigation that may be needed when users either have already adopted accepted practices to reduce pesticide runoff or apply herbicides in an area where runoff potential is lower.”
The agency has struggled for years to meet its obligations under the ESA, which requires that EPA evaluate the impact of crop protection chemicals on federally listed species. Numerous courts have criticized EPA for failing to fulfill its requirements.
EPA agreed to prepare the herbicide strategy, along with a similar draft strategy for insecticides, as part of a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity.
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