Paraquat Training Update 11/27/2020

Paraquat Training Update

NPSEC is currently revising the label-mandated paraquat training to include the following changes:

Closed-system Requirement – As of December 31st of this year, paraquat registrants will no longer be able to distribute or sell paraquat products in container less than 120 gallons without closed systems for removing product from the original container, any subsequent transfer of the product, and complete removal and rinsing of the product container. However, dealers and distributors will be permitted to continue to sell paraquat products that do not meet the closed-system requirement until their stocks run out.
Jar Testing – Tank-mix compatibility testing, aka jar testing, is prohibited. Users are advised to check the product website for a list of some products that have been evaluated for compatibility.

Applicators who have already completed training are still compliant for three years from the time they completed the original training – they do not have to take the updated training until their three-year renewal anniversary.

Remember to always follow the label directions of the product you are using; the label is the law.

EPA Seeking Comments on Updated Plant Biostimulants Guidance

This original announcement was published by the EPA on November 25, 2020. Click here for more.

In recognition of the growing class of products generally known as plant biostimulants, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting comments on an updated Draft Guidance for Plant Regulators and Claims, Including Plant Biostimulants.

“Plant biostimulants are increasingly being used by farmers to increase agriculture productivity,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Alexandra Dapolito Dunn. “When finalized, our Plant Biostimulants Guidance will provide sought-after certainty and transparency for this growing area of the economy.”

Plant biostimulants are a relatively new but growing category of products containing naturally occurring substances and microbes. Their increasing popularity arises from their ability to enhance agricultural productivity through stimulation of natural plant processes using substances and microbes already present in the environment. Plant biostimulants can also reduce the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, making it an attractive option for sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management programs. Benefits include:

Increased plant growth, vigor, yield and production.
Improved soil health.
Optimized nutrient use.
Increased water efficiency.

While many plant biostimulants are not regulated as pesticides, certain mixtures and plant regulators can be pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Today’s released updated draft guidance incorporates diverse and helpful changes made in response to stakeholder feedback received during the draft guidance’s initial comment period in 2019. EPA now will seek input on those changes, including the wording of certain plant and non-plant regulator claim examples.

The public comment period will be open for 30 days in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2018-0258 at www.regulations.gov. After carefully considering the comments received, EPA anticipates finalizing this guidance in January 2021.

EPA Awards $2.5 Million to the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs for Farmworker Pesticide Training

This original announcement was published by the EPA on November 19, 2020. Click here for more information!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) to receive up to $500,000 annually to conduct pesticide safety training across the country over the next five years. With EPA funding, AFOP will administer this grant to provide occupational health and safety trainings to migrant and seasonal farmworkers in more than 25 states through a network of over 200 trainers.

“EPA is pleased to continue working with the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs as we work toward our common goal of protecting our farmworkers and their families,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Alexandra Dapolito Dunn. “This exciting partnership complements our Agricultural Worker Protection Standard perfectly and will develop national pesticide safety training, education, and outreach for farmworkers and their families in rural agricultural areas.”

“AFOP is delighted to continue working with EPA to provide pesticide safety instruction to the nation’s farmworkers. Together with EPA, we touch real lives by empowering agricultural workers with the knowledge they need to better protect themselves, their homes, and their families from pesticide exposure,” said AFOP Executive Director Daniel Sheehan. “Agriculture is ranked consistently as one of, if not the, most dangerous of occupations. Through EPA’s support, AFOP is able to help make that job a whole lot safer.”

As the recipient of the cooperative agreement, AFOP will continue to enhance safe working conditions for agricultural workers at local, state and national levels, with targeted outreach to low-income, low-literacy, and non-English speaking farmworkers.

Through its previous 2015-2020 cooperative agreement with EPA, AFOP trained 184,000 farmworkers and 30,000 children on pesticide safety. This work was made possible through EPA’s National Farmworker Training grant program which focuses on training educators to teach agricultural workers and their families how to reduce the risks from pesticide exposure. For more information, visit EPA’s Pesticide Worker Safety Cooperative Agreements webpage.

EPA Announces Implementation of Electronic Gold Seal Letter for Exporting Pesticides

This original announcement was published by EPA on November 17, 2020. Click here for more information.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now providing pesticide registrants with electronic Certificates of Registration, commonly known as gold seal letters. This improved process allows for the electronic gold seal letters to be emailed to registrants rather than physically mailed, providing a key flexibility during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

These letters serve as proof for pesticide exporters that the product is registered with EPA and meets all necessary registration requirements. Registrants can request gold seal certificate letters from the Agency for use internationally. For information on how to request a gold seal certificate letter, including information on how registrants should present the letters to the U.S. Department of State when authentication is needed for business purposes, please visit https://www.epa.gov/pria-fees/m006-pria-fee-category.

Approved labels and gold seal letters for registered pesticide products can be found on the Pesticide Product and Label System.

Now Available for Public Comment: ORD Staff Handbook for Developing IRIS Assessments

This original announcement was published by EPA’s Health and Environment Risk Assessment team on November 10, 2020. Click here for more information.

Notice: EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Program released the Office of Research and Development (ORD) Staff Handbook for Developing IRIS Assessments, or IRIS Handbook, for a 90-day public comment period. The IRIS Handbook provides operating procedures for developing IRIS assessments including problem formulation approaches and methods for conducting systematic review, dose response analysis, and developing toxicity values.

EPA is submitting a notice for publication in the Federal Register (FR). Please refer to the official notice in a forthcoming FR publication, which will appear on the Federal Register website (https://www.federalregister.gov/) and on Regulations.gov (https://www.regulations.gov) in Docket No. EPA-HQ-ORD-2018-0654. Once published in the Federal Register, an additional IRIS listserv notice will be distributed to notify the public.

For more information on this document, please visit the EPA IRIS website.

EPA Releases Draft Biological Evaluations for Atrazine, Simazine and Propazine

This original announcement was published by the EPA on Friday, November 6, 2020. Click here for more information.

EPA is taking the next step in its regulatory review of atrazine, simazine and propazine, three widely-used herbicides used to control a variety of grasses and broadleaf weeds. Atrazine is used on about 75 million acres of agricultural crop land every year and is especially effective, affordable, and well-studied.

In September 2020, EPA announced its interim registration review decisions for atrazine, simazine and propazine (collectively known as the triazines), finalizing measures to protect human health, mitigate potential ecological risks while providing America’s farmers with valuable tools they have come to rely upon.

Today, EPA is releasing its draft biological evaluations (BEs) for triazines for public review and comment. Biological evaluations are the beginning of EPA’s Endangered Species Act consultation review process for pesticides where the agency determines if an endangered or threatened species or critical habitat could be affected by the use of a certain pesticide.

EPA will accept public comments on the draft evaluations until Jan. 5, 2021. After carefully considering the public comments received and any additional data received, the agency will finalize the BEs. If EPA determines a pesticide may affect a listed species or its critical habitat, the agency will consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (the Services) as appropriate. The Services will then issue a biological opinion to determine if the population of a species would be adversely impacted and, if so, propose ways to reduce risks. It is the goal of EPA to ensure that pesticides can continue to be used safely with minimal impacts to threatened and endangered species.

This is the second group of pesticides, and the first herbicides, where the agency used its March 2020 Revised Method for National Level Listed Species Biological Evaluations of Conventional Pesticides to assess potential impacts that these herbicides may have on threatened and endangered species and their critical habitats. As such, EPA used advanced exposure modeling techniques to estimate exposures to plants in various environments such as wetlands.

The biological evaluations make effects determinations for 1,795 listed species and 792 designated critical habitats when these pesticides are used according to product labels. This includes no effect (NE), not likely to adversely affect (NLAA), and likely to adversely affect (LAA) determinations. A summary of LAA determinations for atrazine, simazine, and propazine is below:

Atrazine is likely to adversely affect 54 percent of all species and 40 percent of critical habitats ;
Propazine is likely to adversely affect 4 percent of all species and 2 percent of critical habitats; and,
Simazine is likely to adversely affect approximately 53 percent of species and 40 percent of critical habitats.

To read the biological evaluations, please visit our webpage. EPA is accepting public comments via docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0514 at www.regulations.gov.

EPA Proposes Updates to List of Pests of Significant Health Importance

This original announcement was published by the EPA on November 4, 2020. Click here for more information.

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released an updated list of pests of significant health importance for public review and comment.

Federal law requires EPA, in coordination with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to identify pests of significant public health importance and in coordination with the Public Health Service, to develop and implement programs to improve and facilitate the safe and necessary use of chemical, biological, and other methods to combat and control such pests of public health importance. The list serves as a useful tool for private and public organizations including local or state governments, departments of public health, pesticide registrants, and non-governmental organizations when making decisions and plans about future public health actions.

Since this list’s original publication in 2002, new vector-borne diseases have been identified and pests that had been previously thought of as benign or nuisance pests have been found to adversely impact public health. EPA, CDC and USDA collaborated to update the list to incorporate significant changes regarding vector-borne diseases and related research, and eliminate gaps or ambiguities in the current pests list.

The draft Pesticide Registration Notice more precisely describes both the pests and expected public health impacts and adds several new pests (ex. brown dog tick) and public health impacts (ex. Zika fever and coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2). Other pests have been renamed or grouped with similar species or removed altogether (ex. hobo spider).

The list does not affect the regulatory status of any registration or application for registration of any pesticide product.

EPA will take public comment on the draft Pesticide Registration Notice during a 60-day public comment period ending on January 3, 2021 via www.regulations.gov (Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0260).

EPA Proposes Registration of New Active Ingredient to Control Corn Rootworm and Other Pests

This original announcement was published by the EPA on October 30, 2020. Click here for more information.

EPA is proposing to register pesticide products containing the new active ingredient broflanilide.

Broflanilide is an insecticide designed to control soil-dwelling insects (ex. corn rootworm larvae, seedcorn maggot, white grubs, and wireworms) on corn and tuberous and corm vegetables. It can also be used as seed treatment to control wireworms on cereal grains.

EPA is also proposing to use bloflanilide for control of flies, ants, bedbugs, cockroaches, termites and other insects in industrial, commercial and residential areas.

EPA has not identified any risks of concern for human health.

EPA is proposing specific mitigations to address potential ecological risks to bees. These include advisory language to reduce exposure to pollinators from spray drift by using ultra coarse spray nozzles, directions for use for treated seed to reduce exposure to birds and mammals, and the use of a vegetative buffer strip within 15 feet of waterbodies to address risks to aquatic invertebrates.

To read more about the proposed registration of broflanilide and to comment, see docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2018-0053 at www.regulations.gov. The public comment period will be open for 30 days, closing on November 29, 2020.

EPA Finalizes Improvements to Pesticide Application Exclusion Zone Requirements

This original announcement was published by the EPA on October 29, 2020. Click here for more information!

Today, at Overman Farms in Goldsboro, N.C., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler will announce that the agency has finalized important improvements to requirements for the pesticide application exclusion zone (AEZ)—the area surrounding pesticide application equipment that exists only during outdoor production pesticide applications. EPA’s targeted changes improve the enforceability and workability of the AEZ requirements, decrease regulatory burdens for farmers, and maintain critical worker protections. Today’s revisions are consistent with the 2018 Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA). The AEZ requirements are part of EPA’s agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) regulations.

“Since day one, the Trump Administration has been committed to protecting the health of all our citizens,” said EPA Administrator Wheeler. “The changes to the AEZ requirements make it easier to ensure people near our nation’s farms are protected, while simultaneously enhancing the workability of these provisions for farm owners and protecting the environment.”

This final action balances the input EPA received from a wide range of stakeholders during the proposed action’s 90-day comment period. EPA has clarified and simplified the AEZ requirements based in part on input from state pesticide regulatory agencies and agricultural stakeholders after the adoption of the 2015 WPS rule. Consistent with PRIA, EPA is only implementing changes related to the AEZ requirements in the WPS. These targeted changes include:

AEZ requirements only apply within the boundaries of the agricultural establishment, removing off-farm responsibilities that were difficult for state regulators to enforce.
Immediate family members of farm owners are now exempted from all aspects of the AEZ requirements. Farm owners and their immediate family are now able to shelter in place inside closed buildings, giving farm owners and immediate family members flexibility to decide whether to stay on-site during pesticide applications, rather than compelling them to leave even when they feel safe remaining.
New clarifying language has been added so that pesticide applications that are suspended due to individuals entering an AEZ may be resumed after those individuals have left the AEZ.
Simplified criteria to determine whether pesticide applications are subject to the 25- or 100-foot AEZ.

No changes were made to the “Do Not Contact” provision that prohibits a handler/applicator and the handler’s employer from applying a pesticide in such a way that it contacts workers or other persons directly or through drift.

To read the rule in full, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/worker-protection-standard-application-exclusion-zone

Background

The original WPS regulation was enacted in 1992 under EPA’s Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) authorities to protect farm workers from pesticide exposures in production agriculture. The WPS requires owners and employers on agricultural establishments and commercial pesticide-handling establishments to protect employees on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses from occupational exposure to agricultural pesticides.

In 2015, EPA finalized various significant revisions to the 1992 WPS. Among the 2015 revisions was a new provision requiring agricultural employers to keep workers and all other individuals out of an area called the “application exclusion zone” (AEZ) during outdoor pesticide applications. The AEZ is the area surrounding pesticide application equipment that exists only during outdoor production pesticide applications. The AEZ will be 25 feet in all directions for ground pesticide applications when sprayed from a height greater than 12 inches, and 100 feet in all directions for outdoor aerial, air blast, air-propelled, fumigant, smoke, mist and fog pesticide applications.

The initial intent of the AEZ was to supplement existing WPS provisions for farm workers to better protect them and other on-farm persons that could be contacted by pesticides. However, state regulators expressed concerns with enforcing the complex AEZ requirements and farm owners expressed concerns with applying and complying with pesticide regulations.

EPA Continues Webinar Series Dedicated to Integrated Pest Management Strategies

This original announcement was published by the EPA on October 29, 2020. Click here for more information!

On Nov. 12, 2020, EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs continues its focus on integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. EPA will host a 60-minute webinar, IPM for Scale Insect Pests of Trees and Woody Ornamentals, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session.

Objectives for the webinar include:

Learning how to identify between different types of scale insects – armored and soft – and control tactics for each;
Determining IPM preventative measures appropriate for each stage of the scale insect life cycle;
Learning how to identify and manage an infestation and what actions to take to minimize tree, shrub or ornamental damage; and
Understanding how to incorporate pesticides safely into a comprehensive IPM plan.

The featured speaker for this event is Richard Buckley, the Director of Rutgers University Plant Diagnostic Lab and Nematode Detection Service.

Furthermore, pest management professionals and arborists can seek continuing education credits from their associations or states by participating in this webinar.

Register here: IPM for Scale Insect Pests of Trees and Woody Ornamentals – Nov. 12 | 2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EST

Following this webinar, EPA will discuss the topic of Invasive Woody Plant Management on Dec. 1, 2020.