Pesticide Regulation Overhaul Needed to Protect Wildlife from Pesticides | Earthjustice

National Research Council finds regulation must account for greater risks

MAY 1, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — 

 

The National Research Council today issued a report finding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must do more to ensure that pesticides do not harm threatened and endangered fish and wildlife. The report,Assessing Risks to Endangered and Threatened Species from Pesticides, outlines significant steps to improve EPA’s current methods for evaluating the risk that pesticides pose to imperiled Pacific salmon as well as other fish and wildlife.

NMFS has found that 21 commonly used pesticides jeopardize already imperiled salmon and steelhead populations.
(Steve Mashuda / Earthjustice)

Among the report’s recommendations are that EPA more broadly account for pesticides’ direct and indirect harm to wildlife—including harm that is not immediately lethal, and impacts to food supply and habitat—and better consider the combined effects of exposure to multiple pesticides mixing in the environment. These recommendations echo what federal fisheries and wildlife scientists have been finding for years.

“This all boils down to doing the right thing: protecting wildlife and ultimately all of us from pesticide exposures,” said Aimee Code of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.

The report’s recommendations will help Pacific salmon populations impacted by the approximately 200 million pounds of pesticides applied on the West Coast every year.  Based on extensive research, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has found that 21 commonly used pesticides (including herbicides, fungicides and insecticides) jeopardize already imperiled salmon and steelhead populations. While the report does not directly review those decisions, it affirms many of the factors NMFS examined in its analyses.