[Pollinator] SF Chronicle: Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data

Tue Aug 19 09:23:45 PDT 2008

Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data

Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment <mailto:jkay at sfchronicle.com>  Writer

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/08/19/MNKR12DBPO.D
TL&o=0&type=printable> A special breed of honeybee from Arizona gathers
pollen f...
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/08/19/MNKR12DBPO.D
TL&o=1&type=printable> A honey bee lands on an almond blossom.
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/08/19/MNKR12DBPO.D
TL&o=2&type=printable> An environmental group has filed suit to force the
EPA to...

(08-18) 18:37 PDT -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to
disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a
role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a
lawsuit filed Monday charges. 

The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA
required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years
ago. 

The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how
diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides, said
Aaron Colangelo, a lawyer for the group in Washington.

In the last two years, beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of hives
- 30 percent and upward - leading to a phenomenon called colony collapse
disorder. Scientists believe that the decline in bees is linked to an
onslaught of pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as well as a loss of
habitat and food. 

$15 billion in crops

Bees pollinate about one-third of the human diet, $15 billion worth of U.S.
crops, including almonds in California, blueberries in Maine, cucumbers in
North Carolina and 85 other commercial crops, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Not finding a cause of the collapse could prove
costly, scientists warn.

Representatives of the EPA said they hadn't seen the suit and couldn't
comment.

Clothianidin is the pesticide at the center of controversy. It is used to
coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of pesticides
called neonicotinoids. The pesticide was blamed for bee deaths in France and
Germany, which also is dealing with a colony collapse. Those two countries
have suspended its use until further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says
clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as
well as other pollinators, through residues in nectar and pollen. 

The EPA granted conditional registration for clothianidin in 2003 and at the
same time required that Bayer CropScience submit studies on chronic exposure
to honeybees, including a complete worker bee lifecycle study as well as an
evaluation of exposure and effects to the queen, the group said. The queen,
necessary for a colony, lives a few years; the workers live only six weeks,
but there is no honey without them.

"The public has no idea whether those studies have been submitted to the EPA
or not and, if so, what they show. Maybe they never came in. Maybe they came
in, and they show a real problem for bees. Maybe they're poorly conducted
studies that don't satisfy EPA's requirement," Colangelo said.

Request for records

On July 17, after getting no response from the EPA about securing the
studies, the environmental group filed a request under the Freedom of
Information Act, which requires the records within 20 business days absent
unusual circumstances. 

When the federal agency missed the August deadline, the group filed the
lawsuit, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to force the
EPA to turn over the records.

Greg Coffey, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience in Research Triangle Park,
N.C., said controlled field studies have demonstrated that clothianidin,
when used correctly, will not harm bees. He added that all of EPA's
requirements for conditional registration of clothianidin have been
submitted to the agency.

An EPA spokesman, Dale Kemery, said the agency couldn't comment on the
documents required under the conditional registration because the matter is
the subject of litigation.

Unusual circumstances

Generally, the EPA has taken the position that the bee deaths occurred under
unusual circumstances. In Germany, the corn lacked a seed coating that
ensured that the pesticide stuck to the seed, and equipment blew the
pesticide into a nearby canola field where bees fed.

The EPA is "reasonably confident" that a bee kill similar to Germany's
wouldn't happen in the United States because use is restricted to commercial
applicators who use stickier coatings, according to Kemery.

But because the stickier coatings aren't required, Kemery said, the EPA will
review its policies on seed-treatment labels.

In California, according to the 2006 Pesticide Use Report Summary, about 3
pounds of clothianidin was used, all on corn. Other members of the
neonicotinoid class, registered for a longer period of time, have been used
more frequently, including 127,000 pounds on broccoli, grapes, lettuce and
oranges. Some pesticides were used in buildings.

"We've been monitoring the bee die-off situation for a couple of years, and
it's a complex puzzle that may also involve mites, viruses and other
factors," said Glenn Brank, communications director for the state Department
of Pesticide Regulation.

The agency is conducting its own review of environmental data from
registered neonicotinoid pesticides as well as watching enforcement reports
from counties for any unusual environmental incidents involving bees, he
said. None was noted, Brank said.

Scientists presenting at the American Chemical Society national meeting
Monday reported that dozens of pesticides had been found in samples of adult
bees, broods, pollen and wax collected from honeybee colonies suspected to
have died from symptoms of colony collapse disorder, including some
neonicotinoids.

Entomologist Gabriela Chavarria, director of Natural Resources Defense
Council's Science Center, said over the years bees have had to withstand
devastating problems.

Bees pick up deadly farm and home chemicals when they visit flowers, or
encounter chemical drift from aerial and other applications. Fifteen years
ago, queen bees imported from China brought varroa mites that attacked
broods of worker bees. Microscopic tracheal mites invade the hives.

And now the new pesticide, clothianidin, is another problem, Chavarria said.
Scientists must find out whether the toxicity has been sufficiently studied,
she said.

"We want this information now. We cannot continue to wait. Bees are
disappearing. Our whole existence depends on them because we eat. The
flowers need to be pollinated, and the only ones to do it are the bees."

Colony collapse 

Honeybees, which pollinate everything from almonds to apples to avocados,
began abandoning their colonies in 2006, destroying about a third of their
hives.

Since then, their numbers have not improved. A survey of beekeepers in the
fall and winter 2007 by the Bee Research Lab and the Apiary Inspectors of
America showed that beekeepers lost about 35 percent of their hives compared
with 31 percent in 2006.

Scientists have not pinpointed the cause.

In 2007, Congress recognized colony collapse disorder as a threat and gave
the U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency funds to study honeybee
disappearances. In addition, the 2008 Farm Bill grants the USDA $20 million
each year to support bee research and related work. And earlier this year,
ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs, who relies on honeybees for 40 percent of its
flavors, awarded a $250,000 research grant to UC Davis and Pennsylvania
State University to research honeybees.

More info 

-- The Environmental Protection Agency: links.sfgate

.com/ZEOF

-- U.S. EPA fact sheet on the pesticide clothianidin: links.sfgate

.com/ZEOI

-- The Natural Resources Defense Council: links.sfgate

.com/ZEOG

E-mail Jane Kay at jkay at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/19/MNKR12DBPO.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20080819/cc080c4a/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5163 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20080819/cc080c4a/attachment-0003.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5237 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20080819/cc080c4a/attachment-0004.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 5634 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20080819/cc080c4a/attachment-0005.gif>