Market Farming

[Marcie Rosenzweig <fullcircle AT jps.net>]

FYI with comment period

Marcie


Status:  U
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 07:48:19 -0800
From: Steve R Sutter <srsutter AT ucdavis.edu>
Subject: pesticide drift rules to tighten?
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Current agricultural worker protection regulations require a pesticide label statement "Do not apply this product in a way that will contact workers or other persons either directly or through drift."  Each year, though, states receive about 2,500 complaints of drift from individuals, and the agency believes many incidents are unreported.

A US EPA draft (proposed) notice to registrants (generally the pesticide manufacturers) could result in new label statements deemed by some farm lobbyists as very troublesome, if not oppressive.  Environmental groups, on the other hand, are concerned the proposed strengthened controls on pesticide spray (and dust) drift don't go far enough to protect human health and the environment.

To this writer, it appears that if the proposals remain substantially unchanged, more pesticide labels, over the next few years, may require no-spray zones (measured in feet from protected sites, to be determined for a particular product) also known as "buffer" zones.  (These no-spray zones would have to be part of the operator's property.)

Along with that, spraying (or dusting) could be limited by label guidance, for example, to times when wind speed "is 3 - 10 mph at the application site [and outside the orchard/vineyard on the upwind side] as measured by an anemometer."  At least one environmental group suggests that the public urge the USEPA to lower the upper limit to 8 mph. 

The USEPA "believes it is important to require applicators to measure wind speed at the application site and with an anemometer, an inexpensive instrument for this purpose, in order to obtain an accurate measurement." 

Comments may be submitted to USEPA on PR Notice 2001-X on or before Friday March 29, 2002.  The USEPA PR Notice is at http://www.epa.gov/opppmsd1/PR_Notices/prdraft-spraydrift801.htm

Send emails to opp-docket AT epa.gov, with OPP-00730A in the subject line, or send a letter referencing Docket No. OPP-00730A to: Public Information and Integrity Branch (PIRIB), Information Resources and Services Division (7502C), Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC 20460 USA.

Steve Sutter, University of California Cooperative Extension
Area Personnel Management Farm Advisor - Fresno, Kings, Madera, and Tulare
1720 S. Maple Ave., Fresno, CA 93702
(559) 456-7560  Cellular (559) 313-6182 http://are.berkeley.edu/APMP/
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Marcie A. Rosenzweig
Full Circle 
3377 Early Times Ln
Auburn, CA  95603-7900
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