Pesticide use may breach water law.
GARDENERS are being urged to think carefully before using garden chemicals to avoid the risk of breaching water protection laws.
The Environment Department has also called on Islanders to use natural alternatives such as cutting back or removing weeds by hand rather than using weed killers and pesticides.
Pesticides, which are designed to kill insects, and herbicides, which are used to eradicate weeds, are approved for use by farmers, and in more diluted quantities in domestic gardens, but the department says that they must be used with care.
Environment’s pesticide adviser Steve Thompson said: ‘There are circumstances in which the correct use of pesticides can be beneficial, but the department would encourage anyone considering using or employing someone else to use pesticides to think about whether that’s the right approach, or whether there are other methods available to achieve the same result.’ Mr Thompson added that it was important that farmers and members of the public apply the chemicals according to manufacturers’ instructions.
These include following the recommended dose, wearing protective clothing and not using chemicals in any way which poses a risk to pets or wildlife.
In addition, pesticides must not be applied if there is a risk of spray drifting on the wind or running off into water courses.
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The petitioners, Pesticide Action Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council, cited studies show that Chlorpyrifos can have serious health consequences, such as damaging the nervous system of infants and children.
What is Chlorpyrifos?
This is why in 2007, environmental groups petitioned the EPA to ban its use in agricultural use as well.
The EPA denied the petition to ban Chlorpyrifos.
As Pruitt noted: “we need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on Chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment … By reversing the previous Administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results.” While Pruitt emphasized “sound science,” the EPA’s own internal research notes the harmful effect of this pesticide.
As much scholarship has found, poor and marginalized communities tend to be disproportionately exposed to pollution.
Consequently, they have less political power and this means that firms and the EPA may be less attentive to the harmful consequences of pesticide use on their health.
Less visible environmental problems tend to receive less attention from companies and regulators.
The slow effort to remove lead from drinking water is a case in point.
Aseem Prakash is professor of political science, the Walker Family Professor and the founding director of the Center for Environmental Politics at the University of Washington.