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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Calls for EPA to Phase Out Pesticides Hit Pay Dirt

Ecology and farmworker groups say the Environmental Protection Agency must stop bowing to pressures from the citrus industry and instead promote organic solutions.

WASHINGTON (CN) — Now that a federal court has rescinded approval for a chemical popular in Florida orange groves but known to impair childhood brain development, groups that call for a pesticide-free future are not taking time to rest on their laurels.

“This is the case with every single pesticide: the EPA does not comply with the Endangered Species Act,” Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity specializing in pesticide policy, said in a phone interview. “They have been neglecting the act ever since it came into law.”

The D.C. Circuit dealt the latest blow Monday, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency had overlooked its obligation to carry out an Endangered Species Act assessment when it approved the pesticide aldicarb in the waning days of the Trump administration.

An organic compound proven to help combat citrus greening, a disease marked by small pests called psyllids, aldicarb is the active ingredient in a Bayer pesticide called Temik but started getting phased out over a decade ago after the World Health Organization classified it as “extremely hazardous.” Digestion or even exposure to the chemical can cause severe side effects in adults and impair brain development in young children.  

“It’s a very sharp rebuke for their practices of not complying with federal law,” Donley said, referring to the D.C. Circuit's endorsement of a challenge his group filed in March. “This is a wake-up call moving forward that you need to comply with the law, which is not currently standard practice.”

Donley pointed to the slew of lawsuits that his group has brought over the EPA's noncompliance with environmental reviews as evidence that the agency's pesticide office is broken. 

Jeannie Economos with the Farmworker Association of Florida — one of the groups that joined the Center for Biological Diversity's challenge — urged that the agency needs to take steps to phase out and eventually eliminate pesticides altogether. 

“Just like we have a date for climate change, to get emissions down for 2030, we need a similar date for pesticides,” Economos said in a phone interview. 

In lieu of pesticides, Economos continued, the EPA must work with farmers and the Department of Agriculture to suggest organic ways to deal with the scourge of citrus greening.

“Instead of bowing to pressures from growers who want to use more pesticides, the EPA should be researching, identifying and promoting more sustainable organic practices that are working — and not just pour more chemicals on the problem,” Economos said. 

Canine detector Maci, a Belgian malinois, interrogates red grapefruit trees in a commercial orchard in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. In a row of trees, the canine will abruptly stop and sit ‘alerts’ when he acquires the scent profile of a tree positive for CLas — Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus. Note canine is wearing red rubber shoes to protect it from thorny weeds. (USDA via Courthouse News)

Environmental groups have long warned that pesticides are only a “quick fix” to the problem, as pests develop a resistance to treatment, requiring farmers to use harsher and more dangerous chemicals. For the citrus industry, however, chemicals are the only thing that works. 

“We are in the fight of our lives against this disease — with jobs, production and economic impact plummeting,” said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual, a group that represents the citrus industry. “We don’t have a silver bullet to beat this disease, and aldicarb was going to be another tool in the toolbox.”

Economos counters that environmental and health protection should be the top priority given that the pesticides are toxic to farmworkers and can poison groundwater.

“It’s a huge relief,” Economos said. “Farmers are already so exposed to pesticides, and allowing another pesticide which is already banned in 100 countries is a horrible insult to them. I’m glad the court realized what we already know.

“We should be moving away from these dangerous pesticides and not moving toward them," she added.

Trump's EPA made the Aldicarb approval official on Jan. 12, following a big push from the citrus industry and only one week of soliciting comments from the public.

Categories / Appeals, Environment, Government, Health

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