Environmental groups sue U.S. EPA for pesticide applicator rule delay

Health and farmworker organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for postponing a decision to protect farmworkers from exposure to restricted-use pesticides such as chlorpyrifos — a controversial pesticide linked to serious health issues. The delay also prevents the agency from setting an age requirement prohibiting young farmworkers from applying such pesticides.
 

The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s decision to postpone the effective date for implementation of the Certification of Pesticide Applicators (CPA) rule could lead to adverse harmful health issues for farmworkers and other people. That revised CPA rule — originally published on January 4 with an implementation date of March 6 — would have, in part, imposed strict standards that require pesticide applicators to be at least 18 years old, be able to read and write, and establish an annual applicator safety training. Currently, there is no minimum age limit for the roughly one million certified applicators nationwide.
 

The lawsuit also states that the EPA failed to provide the public “adequate notice” to comment on rules to delay the effective date of implementation; failed to consider the adverse effects the delay would cause to farmworkers and their families regularly exposed to restricted use pesticides; and failed to consult with other government agencies to review environmental health consequences.
 

The CPA training would provide in-language lessons for people on the potential dangers of pesticide exposure, how to use equipment properly, how to prevent environmental contamination like runoff and drift, and how to report pesticide safety violations to enforcement agencies. The rule would also require training for aerial spray applications, so applicators would lessen the impact of the off-target movement of pesticides on plants, animals, and bystanders. A 2008 longitudinal government study found anywhere between 37 percent and 68 percent of acute pesticide-related illnesses are caused by pesticide drift into local communities.
 

Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt delayed a decision to ban the restricted-use insecticide chlorpyrifos primarily used to systemically kill pests on agricultural crops. At the time, Pruitt’s agency rejected calls to ban the use of chlorpyrifos, claiming “the science addressing neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved.”
 

Pruitt’s agency also put industry economic interests ahead of farmworker health safety, arguing that the continued use of chlorpyrifos would provide “regulatory certainty” for thousands of farms reliant on the pesticide and that more research was needed. His decision superseded the scientific recommendation made by the Obama administration supporting a gradual ban of chlorpyrifos. Past scientific research found a correlation between the pesticide and human health problems for farmworkers and children.