November 21, 2008
NOAA Pesticides BiOp Says Three Chemicals Endanger Salmon; Calls For Buffer Zones
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Bulletin
NOAA Fisheries Service on Tuesday issued a biological opinion that concludes three chemicals used in pesticides -- diazonin, malathion, and chlorpyrifos -- are likely to jeopardize 27 West Coast salmon and steelhead populations that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The opinion sent to the Environmental Protection Agency says that use of pesticides containing the chemicals should be prohibited in buffer zones along salmon streams. The affected stocks include 13 listed Columbia/Snake river basin species.
EPA examines and registers ingredients of a pesticide to ensure there will be no unreasonable adverse effects. Once registered, a pesticide must be used in a way that is consistent with EPA approved directions on the label.
A biological opinion is NOAA Fisheries Service's assessment of whether a federal action is likely to jeopardize endangered or threatened species, or their critical habitat.
EPA will use NOAA's biological opinion as it decides how pesticides containing the three chemicals can be used.
The NOAA biological opinion says these three chemicals may be used in pesticides if farmers and others follow specific restrictions on how and when they apply the pesticides to their fields and crops. NOAA says these restrictions should be made explicit on the pesticide labels.
"Scientific research has shown that these three chemicals when found in streams can damage and even kill salmon," said Jim Balsiger, acting NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service. "The chemicals may also harm stream water quality and the small fish and insects that salmon eat. The restrictions are designed to prevent harmful effects."
The BiOp's "reasonable and prudent alternative" lists conditions by with the chemicals can be used. The requirements include:
The final BiOp is the first of nine that NOAA will issue between now and Feb. 29, 2012, with each looking at a particular set of chemicals. In all 37 active chemical ingredients used in pesticides will be reviewed. Litigation prompted EPA's request that NOAA prepare the opinions.
In a lawsuit filed in 2001 by the Washington Toxics Coalition, the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour of Seattle ruled in 2002 that the EPA had violated the ESA when it failed to consult with NOAA Fisheries when approving the physical applications of the pesticides. He required the EPA to complete its consultation by Dec. 1, 2004. Earthjustice represented the plaintiffs in court.
On Jan. 22, 2004, Coughenour approved an injunction request that set buffer zones for 34 of the pesticides until EPA completes its review and establishes its own restrictions on the pesticides. That injunction prohibited aerial spraying of the chemicals within 300 feet of salmon bearing streams and it prohibited ground spraying within 60 feet of those streams.
Croplife America and other agricultural organizations appealed the injunction but Coughenour's order was upheld.
The review process lagged, however, so the fishing and environmental groups late last year filed another complaint, claiming unreasonable delay. They ultimately agreed to a settlement that established the review timetable.
"The federal government has just admitted that these three deadly poisons are washing off into our rivers and streams and harming West Coast salmon runs and who knows what else," said Joshua Osborne-Klein, of Earthjustice. "The government says these poisons are increasing the risk of salmon extinction substantially. We need to find alternatives and act quickly to prevent these chemicals from reaching West Coast rivers and streams."
"Our hope is that this will encourage growers to consider other chemicals. There are safer chemicals available" and organic alternatives for controlling pests, Osborne-Klein said.
EPA officials are beginning their review of the 430-page document.
"It's 400 pages long and we just got it," said EPA spokesman Dale Kamery. "We don't know what direction we're going to go yet." The agency will likely draft a formal response to NOAA, he said.
"The final decision is going to be based on the science. EPA is a scientific organization," Kamery said.
EPA in a Sept. 15 letter to NOAA was sharply critical of a draft pesticide BiOp released in July.
"'The draft lacks a level of transparency necessary for EPA to understand NMFS' rationale for its opinion that the use of any of these pesticides will jeopardize the continued existence of any of the species at issue," according to the letter signed by Debra Edwards, director of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
"While your transmittal letter requested that we jointly discuss reasonable and prudent alternatives (RPAs) to prevent likely jeopardy, it is difficult for us to meaningfully engage in such discussion at the time," the EPA letter said. "First, we have serious questions and doubts about the support for NMFS' conclusion that these three pesticides jeopardize all of these species and adversely modify their critical habitat.
"Second, the Draft provides no basis from which to have a meaningful discussion of RPAs since it fails to identify a level of exposure to these pesticides that would not result, in NMFS opinion, in jeopardy to the species. Without a target level of exposure, there could be no basis for agreement between our agencies that any alternative was either necessary or appropriate," Edwards' letter said.
CropLife America too is in a review mode.
"Honestly, we're as disappointed with the final biological opinion as we were with the draft," CropLife spokeswoman Susan Helmick said of the organization's early impression. CropLife represents 80 developers, manufacturers, formulators and distributors of crop protection products used by American farmers and growers.
"We're still assessing the crop protection impacts" that the measures mandated by NOAA might have, she said.
"We have grave doubts about the way they put it together," Heather Hansen, executive director of Washington Friends of Farms and Forests, said of NOAA's new BiOp. "We don't think it's scientifically sound." After a cursory review of the document, she said it appears to largely mirror the draft BiOp, which employed old data and did not reflect current pesticide use patterns.
"For the most part detections have been at extremely low levels," Hansen said of the three chemicals' presence in Washington Department of Agriculture water quality monitoring in recent years. Pesticides containing the chemicals are particularly important for the state's fruit growers and nurseries.
Implementing NOAA's prescriptions "would affect not only the livelihoods of growers but would force a shift" in what is grown and where it is grown, Hansen said.
There are available alternatives to the pesticide "but they are more complicated to use, more expensive and they don't always work," Hansen said. Infestations of "quarantine" pests render fruit crops unsaleable.
NOAA scientists found the chemicals not only can be lethal to salmon at certain concentrations, but can also hinder salmon growth at lower levels of concentration by impairing their ability to smell their prey and by reducing the amount of small fish and insects for food. The chemicals have also been found to slow the swimming of salmon or make their swimming erratic, impairing their ability to return to their natal streams to spawn and to avoid predators.
"NMFS reached this conclusion because measured and predicted concentrations of the three active ingredients in salmonid habitats, particularly in off-channel habitats, are likely to cause adverse effects to listed species including significant reductions in survival, reproduction, migration, and growth," the BiOp says. "Further, all but one population of listed Pacific salmonids are likely to suffer reductions in viability given the severity of expected changes in abundance and productivity associated with the proposed action.
"These adverse effects are expected to appreciably reduce the likelihood of both the survival and recovery of the listed Pacific salmonids," according to the BiOp.
The BiOp RPA also directs EPA to develop and implement a NMFS-approved effectiveness monitoring plan for off-channel habitats and produce annual reports. The plan must identify representative off-channel habitats within agricultural areas prone to drift and runoff of pesticides and that are now used by threatened and endangered Pacific salmonids, including at least two sites for each general species (ESU, DPS) i.e., coho salmon, chum salmon, steelhead, sockeye salmon, and ocean-type chinook and stream-type chinook salmon.
"The action as implemented under the RPA will remove the likelihood of jeopardy and of destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat," the BiOp says.
"In the proposed RPA, NMFS is not attempting to ensure that there is no take of listed species. NMFS believes take will occur, and has provided an incidental take statement exempting that take from the take prohibitions, as long as the action is conducted according to the RPA and reasonable and prudent measures (RPM).
"Avoiding take would most likely entail canceling registration, or prohibiting use in watersheds inhabited by salmonids. The goal of the RPA is to reduce exposure to ensure that the action is not likely to jeopardize listed species or destroy or adversely modify critical habitat," according to the BiOp.
The biological opinion can be found at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr
