Two lawsuits, filed Sept. 15, claim EPA has not complied with the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) to protect children from pesticides.
A coalition of environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), filed one lawsuit asking that a federal court mandate the EPA abide by guidelines set by FQPA for protecting infants and children 10 times more stringently than adults.
FQPA states that if EPA can show that there is no additional safety risk for infants and children, the 10-fold reductions need not be met.
“In general, EPA has a very rigorous regulatory program of oversight for pesticide use in the United States,” said David Deegan, spokesman for EPA. “EPA has not deviated from on-going efforts to fully implement the Food Quality Protection Act.”
Aaron Colangelo, a staff attorney at NRDC, said that NRDC has been raising safety issues with EPA for five years and that EPA has not responded to the petitions.
“We’re asking the court to force EPA to start over on their safety assessments for five pesticides and about 150 total food uses,” Colangelo said. “We targeted five pesticides that we thought were posing the greatest risks for kids and farm workers and their families and also five of the pesticides for which EPA’s decision not to use the safety factor was least justified.”
The five pesticides included in NRDC’s lawsuit are Alachlor, Captan, Diazinon, Disulfoton and Oxyde-meton-methyl.
“There are probably dozens of others that we could have challenged also, and we may still. But these are the five that are listed on this lawsuit,” Colangelo said.
Specifically, the NRDC lawsuit charges that EPA has violated FQPA by failing to use a 10-fold infant and child protection safety factor; failing to protect highly vulnerable or highly exposed people, including farm workers’ children and other children living on or near farms; and relying on a confidential, proprietary, industry-developed computer model to determine pesticide risks.
The second lawsuit against EPA was brought by the states of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. The lawsuit also states that EPA has not complied with FQPA in order to protect children from pesticide residues.
“Congress put EPA on track to develop standards for children’s exposure to pesticide residue in foods back in 1996,” said Marc Violette, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. “Here in New York, we have been involved with, for a couple of years, meetings and conference calls in an effort by us to nudge EPA toward meeting this mandate from Congress. We filed the lawsuit yesterday (Sept. 15) only when it became apparent that EPA was not moving forward. We felt that, in the interest of protecting children, the lawsuit was the last tool to move EPA toward completion of its task.”
Karen Kaufmann, assistant attorney general in New York, said that they have been monitoring EPA’s registration documents.
“They (EPA) have to use the 10-fold factor unless they have reliable data that says they’re (pesticides) safe,” Kaufmann said. “They are clearly missing specific kinds of studies they are required to have.
“It (the lawsuit) is requesting that the court vacate these decisions on five pesticides (Alachlor, Chlorothalonil, Methomyl, Metribuzin and Thiodicarb). A favorable decision will get them to apply the law correctly in all of their future registrations. We are asking the court to intervene.”
