Posted on 06/13/2006 3:32:57 AM PDT by prisoner6
SEATTLE (AP) — The federal government plans to phase out a common pesticide that has been used on apples, pears and other crops since the late 1950s, acting amid complaints from environmental groups that the chemical poisons farmworkers.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it would end the use of azinphos-methyl beginning next year on nuts, nursery stocks and Brussels sprouts. The pesticide, also called AZM, would be banned on apples, blueberries, cherries, pears and parsley in 2010.
The agency's plan is up for public comment for two months.
During the phaseout, the EPA also plans to eliminate aerial spraying, require 100-foot buffers around water bodies and require medical monitoring of workers entering fields sprayed with AZM.
"This pesticide has put thousands of workers at risk of serious illness every year," Erik Nicholson, of the United Farmworkers of America, said in a news release Monday.
Farmworker and environmental groups sued the EPA in federal court in Seattle in 2004, arguing that the agency was wrong to continue allowing a pesticide that could cause seizures, paralysis and death. That lawsuit was settled when the EPA agreed to reconsider the use of the AZM and another pesticide, phosmet.
The environmental law firm Earthjustice said AZM is derived from nerve agents used during World War II. It has been most commonly used in Washington, Oregon, California, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
On the Net:
www.epa.gov/pesticides/op/azm/phaseout_fs.htm
prisoner6
I think the question is how much are mexicans, guats and hondurans worth since they are the folks working the fields.
I think they are all disposable cause there are two or three coming to take each picking job available.
The EPA has long been a useless government organization that cripples this nation with stupid regulaations based on the envirowacko philosophies. Thanks to the EPA, DDT is banned in most of the world and the death that has been visited on humans as a result of mosquitos ranges into the tens of millions. The common pesticides used on fruits and other crops will kill those industries if we cannot continue to use them because people won't buy apples if they face the increased risk of biting into a worm or other pest.
The EPA's policies are deeply rooted in "feel good" politics as opposed to sound, proven science. If these pesticides have been around since the 50s as the article states, it is highly doubtful they are causing the damage to crop workers as claimed.
Oh, no its not. It can be found in six words: "...acting amid complaints from environmental groups...".
The unspoken being potential lawsuits at companies that make, and growers that use, AZM.
All done after a span of nearly 60 years. All done in the name of -- not consumers but-- migrant workers. But then lawyers can be patient.
Found it. It is from the Economist and is an old article that requires a log in to see.
It appears I was about right on my memory of what Americans and Japanese cost. I was wrong - Indians are worth closer to 1 million a piece.
There is a great graph on what regulations cost. Apparently child proof lighters were a great deal in cost per lives saved. Landfill restrictions and Formaldehyde exposure was a costly and fairly useless expense.
For the life of I never figured out how to post graphics on FR, so I can't show the best parts. Here, however is an excerpt
Macabre maths
But common sense gets you only so far when dealing with risks to safety, security and health. How far, for instance, should a government go to save lives by reducing everyday hazards? Life is priceless, of course, especially when it is yours or a loved one's. Yet governments have budgets and must try to weigh costs and benefits. If a life can be saved for a few thousand dollars, that sounds like money well spent. But what if the cost is $100m?
According to Kip Viscusi of the Harvard Law School, the price that Americans put on a life is around $7m. He has researched what people are willing to pay to reduce the risk of death at their place of work and how much money they will accept to compensate them for an increased risk of dying on the job. By cross-analysing data from many surveys, he says, it is possible to discover the value people put on avoiding the loss of a life. Different countries, it seems, have different preferences (see chart 2). The Japanese, perhaps true to their reputation of being risk-averse, put a price of almost $10m on each life, whereas the Taiwanese seem to be satisfied with a modest $600,000. In general, as countries get richer the price of a life goes up: by 5-6% for every 10% rise in income per head, according to Mr Viscusi.
A country's rule book should reflect its people's preferences, but John Morrall, an official at America's Office of Management and Budget, noted 20 years ago that many regulations fail a basic cost-benefit test. He has just updated his analysis by looking at 76 American regulations for the period from 1960-2001, and has found that government is still doing a poor job. Only just over half the regulations he studied were “cost-effective” as defined by saving a life at the cost of less than $7m, and some were vastly more expensive. In itself, that may not be a bad thing: people may well decide to spend a lot more to protect themselves from particularly nasty deaths, and less to prevent deaths that result from voluntary risk-taking. The problem comes when inefficient regulation is promoted at the expense of the thriftier sort.
According to Mr Morrall, environmental regulations, such as restrictions on hazardous waste and other kinds of pollution, generally cost over $1 billion for every life saved, often much more (see table 3). The cost of such regulations, many of them designed to reduce the use of substances that cause cancer, is far higher than the results seem to justify.
Oh year:
Story name is: The price of prudence from
Jan 22nd 2004
The URL: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2347855, but you need a pass
Hammer meet nail.
Well Said.
prisoner6
AZM is pretty nasty stuff: highly toxic absorbed through the skin. Applicators need to be in full protective gear (moon suits, respirators, etc). Phosmet, however, isn't anything like that (although the eco-weenies hate it because it is an organophosphate) and the EPA has recently renewed it.
If these idiots keep this up, by 2100 farmers won't even be able to spray irrigation water on plants unless they purify it first.
Not a biochem major, here, but familiar with the Ivory Tower methodologies of the EPA; issuing edicts very often in a total vacuum where scientific facts, are concerned.
So, wouldn't it have been better to just stick with DDT?
That DDT causes -- or even has anything remotely to do with -- the thinning of bird egg shells has been thoroughly debunked. It was a very good and versatile product until the granolas got their dander up -- and, boy, have they EVER got plenty of THAT -- and went on their rage against it; panning it as the source of all Evil. Turns out, they were all or mostly wrong, but will we have to live for etenrity in the shadow of their past stupidity?
Could you show me evidence of this? What caused the bird shell thinning then because it was real and the reason the Bald Eagle, among other birds, were engandered at one point. Now they are back quite impressively.
DDT is one of the best mosquitoe killers ever discovered, so it would be a huge issue if it really didn't have serious negative environmental consequences - as some chemicals sometimes do.
Here are some links I found. the last, in particular, seems to be a well-balanced presentation of research results.
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb010704.shtml
The upshot seems to be that DDT does induce SOME thinning in the shells of eggs of raptor species because of an as-yet unknow physiochemical process that creates more of the DDT metabolite DDE in raptors than in other types of birds.
It seems likely that some unknown x-thousand individual members of the various raptor species may have been saved by the ban on DDT, but the damning fact remains that upwards of half a billion people have died from malaria borne by mosquitos that could have been eradicated by DDT.
So, I gess, the environmentalist calculus is:
x-thousand avian raptors == 500 million human lives
Further, the backchannel enviro view is that this is acceptable because it suppresses global human population growth.
Dr. Mengele would be SO proud.
All this can be laid at the grave of Nixon; the only fairness is that the grave was dug By Johnson.
Special-interst grouos have become the 5th Estate.
I think they are measuring these in Pesos.
Hurricanes in the Naples nesting grounds led to the biggest loss of eagles in the lower Americas as they went from a high of 150-175 from 1941-47 to a low of almost zero by 1952 after five years of strong and destructive storms that ripped the trees.
The thinning was remarkable for its lack of examples and undisciplined study.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.