The Environmental Protection Agency released new risk mitigation
measures for certain soil fumigant pesticides July 10 that it said
will increase protection for farm workers and
“bystanders”--people who live or work near fields being
fumigated.
The measures are included in the reregistration eligibility
decisions (REDs) for the soil fumigants methyl bromide, chloropicrin,
dazomet, metam sodium, and metam potassium, and classify fumigants as
restricted-use pesticides.
“The new restrictions protect workers and bystanders against
inadvertent exposure to soil fumigants and are practical to
implement,” said James Gulliford, EPA's assistant administrator
for prevention, pesticides and toxic substances.
Soil fumigants form a gas that permeates the soil and kills a wide
array of soil-borne pests. They are used primarily on potatoes,
tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, and peppers, according to the agency.
Millions of pounds are applied annually--for example, up to 62 million
pounds of metam sodium were applied in 2001, according to a 2005 EPA
report, Use and Usage of Soil Fumigants.
EPA said fumigants can become airborne, exposing workers and moving
off-site in concentrations that can pose health risks in adjacent
areas over periods of several hours to days after application. Health
effects can range from mild and reversible eye irritation to more
severe and irreversible effects, depending on the fumigant and the
level of exposure, the agency said.
The agency has opened a 60-day public comment period, ending Sept.
8, and said it will “refine the measures as needed.”
Among other criteria, the new steps would require applicators to:
• establish
buffer zones around treated fields to reduce risks from airborne
fumigant concentrations,
• provide
notices to inform bystanders and field workers about the location and
timing of fumigations and the associated buffer zones,
• provide
fumigant-specific safety information and training to first
responders,
• conduct
outreach programs to educate community members about fumigants, buffer
zones, how to recognize early signs of fumigant exposure, and how to
respond appropriately in case of an incident, and
• adopt
more stringent worker-protection measures and increase worker-safety
and fumigant-handling training
.
The area covered by a buffer zone would depend on the application
method, application rate, application block size, and emission control
measures, according to the RED fact sheets for the chemicals. Guidance
on the distances will be provided on the pesticide labels, EPA said.
The zones would remain in effect from the time fumigation begins to 48
hours after the application, it said.
Regarding worker safety, the agency said, “in most cases
inhalation risks can be mitigated with the use of air purifying
respirators equipped with approved respirator cartridge
filters.” But in applications involving high air concentrations
in which such respirators are inadequate, EPA would require handlers
to leave the area pending corrective action--for example, repair of a
tarp that has been damaged or displaced. Tarps are frequently used to
cover treated areas.
The measure also requires users to prepare fumigant management
plans specific to the sites where the chemicals are being
used.
Methyl Bromide Restriction.
EPA said its decision will halt the use of methyl bromide on sites
where alternative pesticides are available. In addition, the newly
registered fumigant iodomethane will be reexamined later this year
“to determine what new mitigation or restrictions are
necessary,” it said.
The fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene also may be subject to similar
provisions when the soil fumigants are again evaluated in 2013, EPA
noted.
CropLife America, the agriculture and pest management association,
said its sole fumigant-manufacturing member, Lafayette, Ind.-based
Chemtura Corp., “doesn't see any problem with compliance,”
spokeswoman Susan Helmick told BNA. Fumigant producers have been
working with EPA to develop the new risk management requirements, she
added.
The buffer zone requirement is one of the “most significant
changes proposed by EPA,” the advocacy group Pesticides Action
Network North America, known by the acronym PAN, said in a statement.
But “they may be too little to prevent acute poisonings,”
it said.
“Fumigation is an antiquated technology that relies on
killing everything in the soil,“ Susan Kegley, a chemist and PAN
senior scientist, said in the statement. “It's time to help
farmers move beyond this scorched-earth approach,” Kegley, said,
adding, “the new rules are a small start.“
Kegley also heads the Berkeley, Calif.-based Pesticide Research
Institute, which, according to its website, does research, analysis,
technical services, and consulting on the chemistry of pesticides,
industrial organics, inorganics, and heavy metals.
Comments on the new risk management measures for soil fumigants
should be submitted at
http://www.regulations.gov
and identified by Docket No. EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0123 (methyl bromide);
EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0125 (metam sodium and metam potassium);
EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0128 (dazomet), and EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0350
(chloropicrin).
By Bill Pritchard
More information on the EPA requirements for fumigant pesticides is
available at
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/soil_fumigants/#buffer.
Copyright 2008, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.