Volume 20, No. 3, July 2002
EPA to Re-Issue Pesticide Drift Labeling
Update on a Proposed State and Local Needs Label for Roundup Original
for Late Season Weed Control on Dry Edible Beans
Johnson urges producers to obey pesticide laws
August 2002 Pesticide Container Recycling Opportunities Announced
Can't find a copy of the label on-line?
Two significant personnel changes will take place in the Pesticide Program over the next month and I would like to share them with you.
About the time that you receive this issue of the Pesticide Quarterly, Arla Rudy-Malmedal will have resigned her secretarial position. She, her husband Tristan, and their young child will be moving to the Twin Cities where Tristan will begin studies on a veterinary medicine degree at the University of Minnesota. Arla will begin a new position with a day care as a child development specialist. This is something she studied for in college, and she is looking forward to finally using her education.
Arla began work with the Pesticide Program in January of 1998. She worked part time for several years while she attended school at NDSU. Last summer she moved to a full time position with us. She started out as our point person on Financial Responsibility and soon added more responsibilities like web development. She has been an important component of our program's success and she will be sorely missed. Thanks Arla, you've been a pleasure to work with!
The end of August will also mean the retirement of long time NDSU Extension editorial specialist, Gary Moran. Gary is not directly involved in the day to day activities of the Pesticide Program, but he is an essential behind the scenes player. He of course edits all our publications and, by the way, this will be Gary's 78th and final review of the Pesticide Quarterly. He is a professional in every sense of the word and I am grateful for not only his reviews, but also for the management and ordering of our publications. This is another big hat that he has worn over the years and he has managed this expertly as well. We will miss Gary. Thanks, and enjoy your retirement!
Have a productive summer and a safe harvest.
Andrew A. Thostenson,
Pesticide Program Specialist
Editor's Note: The following article comes from Larry Schulze, the Pesticide Coordinator for the University of Nebraska
The Environmental Protection Agency extended its comment period several times since late last year on its proposed new labeling statements for spray and dust drift mitigation. The EPA provided guidance on drift label statements for pesticide products in an attempt to provide pesticide registrants, applicators, and other individuals responsible for pesticide applications with improved and more consistent product label statements in its draft Pesticide Registration Notice. The proposed action was intended to help control pesticide drift from spray and dust applications in order to protect human health and the environment.
A huge public response resulted in one of the largest number of comments that have been submitted to EPA on a specific item. EPA has now announced that it has withdrawn its drift proposal and will issue a revised draft for additional future comment. For ground boom applications, the PR Notice proposed a maximum nozzle height of 4 feet, a maximum wind speed of 10 miles/hour as measured by an anemometer, and a resultant droplet size as per label requirements (fine, medium, coarse, very coarse, etc.). Proposed aerial applications required a maximum boom width of 75 percent of the wingspan (90 percent of rotary blades), an allowable wind speed range of 3 to 10 miles/hour, and resultant droplet size as per label requirements. (For additional details see the April 2002 issue of The Pesticide Quarterly newsletter.)
Anne Lindsay, of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, noted that the draft PR notice drew 5,249 public comments. Of these, 1,771 individual or unique comments were received and about 3,500 comments were the result of campaign or "repeat" comments. Only 21 comments provided a response with data to support submitted views or opinions. In general, farmers and the agricultural community did not favor the draft proposal but private citizens did. Proposed wind speed restrictions, application height (especially for aerial applicators), enforcement issues (too vague to enforce), and economic hardships (new equipment purchases) on small farms were the primary raised concerns.
Overall, the comments were received from the following groups: 56 percent from growers (farmers), 17 percent from agri-retail, 4 percent from associations, 1.4 percent from special interests, 1.0 percent from applicators (commercial), and 0.3 percent from registrants.
In the meantime, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to seek dialogue and conduct stakeholder workshops to solicit additional input. The Agency will then prepare another draft pesticide registration notice for public comment.
In June, Monsanto requested that the North Dakota Department of Agriculture (NDDA) support a State and Local Needs Label (SLN) for Roundup Original herbicide on dry edible beans. This special use would allow growers to apply the pesticide late in the growing season to control late season weeds like Canada thistle.
Upon receipt of this request, the NDDA contacted major bean processing groups in North Dakota and asked for their input on whether or not this would be useful. Their response was not enthusiastic. They expressed concern that North Dakota dry beans that were treated in this manner could be discriminated against in the market place. For example: Michigan or Idaho could argue that their beans were free of any residue of Roundup, while North Dakota beans may or may not contain residues. Hence the marketing jab.
At the time of this writing, the NDDA has decided not to issue the SLN. However, if the North Dakota bean processing industry changes its position, or if other states like Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, or Washington issue their own SLNs, the NDDA may reconsider this decision.
Lower prices make Canadian-registered pesticides attractive to U.S. producers, but importing those chemicals is in almost all cases illegal.
"It is against federal and state law to import any pesticide for use in the U.S., unless an Environmental Protection Agency-approved label, complete with registration and establishment numbers, is attached to the container," said Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson. "There is no exception."
Johnson said several North Dakota producers have allegedly brought the Canadian-registered version of the herbicide Liberty® into North Dakota. These cases are currently under investigation by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture (NDDA) and EPA.
"I can understand these producers' frustration with Liberty®," Johnson said. "The U.S.-registered version costs $9 per acre more than the Canadian version. That's a lot of money."
Johnson said some pesticide manufacturers, among them American corporations, are using the current federal law to discriminate against American farmers and ranchers by selling identical or similar formulations of pesticides in the U.S. at substantially higher prices.
Figures complied by NDDA pesticide specialists show North Dakota producers could save an estimated $25 million annually, if they could buy Canadian-registered versions of 27 different pesticides.
"A few years ago, the savings North Dakota producers would have realized buying pesticides in Canada was $45 million," Johnson said. "While the overall price disparity is moving in the right direction, the discrepancy is still very significant."
Johnson pointed out that in some cases, Canadian products cost the same or more than their U.S. counterparts, but the total difference is overwhelmingly against U.S. producers.
"Senator Dorgan and Congressman Pomeroy have introduced legislation to allow states to register identical or substantially similar Canadian-registered products, thereby eliminating the price differences," Johnson said. "In the meantime, I realize that the present situation is unfair to American producers, but we must follow the present law and regulations. People who break the law will only hurt themselves."
UAP Northern Plains will again collect plastic pesticide containers for recycling this August. The collections are free and open to all. However, the following container specifications must be strictly adhered to:
The dates, times, and locations are listed in the following table:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Time Location City County ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8/05/2002 8 - 10 Air Dakota Flight Hettinger Adams 8/05/2002 11 - 1 Scranton Equity (Fert Plant) Scranton Bowman 8/05/2002 2 - 4 Bowman Grain Bowman Bowman 8/06/2002 8 - 10 Halliday Farmers Elev. Halliday Dunn 8/06/2002 11 - 1 Bloomvale Inc Taylor Stark 8/06/2002 2 - 4 Regent Grain Regent Hettinger 8/07/2002 8 - 10 Aerial Crop Care Hebron Morton 8/07/2002 11 - 1 Dakota Grain Elgin Grant 8/07/2002 2 - 4 Bently Equity Elev. Bentley Hettinger 8/08/2002 8 - 10 Fitterer Oil Co. New England Hettinger 8/08/2002 11 - 1 Dakota Ag Seeds Belfield Stark 8/08/2002 2 - 4 Golva Coop Golva Golden Valley 8/09/2002 8 - 4 UAP Northern Plains Dickinson Stark 8/13/2002 9 - 11 Midwest Ag Services Jamestown Stutsman 8/13/2002 1 - 3 Agroline LTD Wimbledon Barnes 8/14/2002 9 - 11 Larson Grain LaMoure Lamoure 8/14/2002 1 - 3 Gwinner Elevator Gwinner Sargent 8/14/2002 8 - 4 UAP Northern Plains Mapleton Cass 8/15/2002 9 - 11 UAP Northern Plains Devils Lake Ramsey 8/15/2002 1 - 3 Fairdale Fars. Coop Elev. Fairdale Walsh 8/16/2002 9 - 11 Clifford Farmers Elev. Clifford Trail 8/16/2002 1 - 3 Arthur Company Arthur Cass 8/20/2002 9 - 11 UAP Northern Plains Drayton Pembina 8/20/2002 1 - 3 UAP Northern Plains Grand Forks Grand Forks 8/20/2002 8 - 10 Taylor Ag Watford City McKenzie 8/20/2002 11 - 1 Plaza/Makoti Equity Elev. Plaza Mountrail 8/20/2002 2 - 4 Dakota Agronomy Partners Minot Ward 8/21/2002 8 - 4 UAP Northern Plains Mapleton Cass 8/21/2002 9 - 11 UAP Northern Plains Carrington Foster 8/21/2002 1 - 3 Helm Flying Harvey Wells 8/21/2002 11 - 1 Curt Undlin Co. Lansford Bottineau 8/21/2002 2 - 4 United Agronomy Berthold Ward 8/22/2002 9 - 11 UAP Northern Plains Rugby Pierce 8/22/2002 1 - 3 Rolla Flying Service Rolla Rolette 8/22/2002 8 - 10 Ambrose Farmers Elev. Ambrose Divide 8/22/2002 11 - 1 Harvest States Bowbells Burke 8/22/2002 2 - 4 Farmers Union Oil Stanley Mountrail 8/23/2002 8 - 4 UAP Northern Plains Williston Williams ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The NDSU Pesticide Program web site has state labels, links to commercial label databases, and links to manufacturer label sites so users can find information about the pesticides they intend to use. Unfortunately we cannot get them all. But a little-used Web site maintained by EPA is becoming more user friendly and it is available to the public. If you cannot find what you are looking for on our site try the following:
Pesticide Product Label System (PPLS)
The Pesticide Product Label System is a collection of images, in multi-page TIFF format, of pesticide labels which have been approved by the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) under Section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The collection contains the initially approved label for pesticide products registered under FIFRA Section 3 as well as subsequent versions of labels which have changed via amendment or notification.
In addition to the stamped approved labels this collection contains any associated correspondence about the terms of registration, specifying any changes the registrant was required to make in the final printed label. Because some label amendments address only portions of the label, you may have to review several labels for a single product to determine the complete terms of registration.
The collection does not identify those products that have been subsequently canceled or transferred, but rather identifies each pesticide label as it appeared at the time that it was approved.
The label images are indexed by EPA registration number and the date on which the label was initially registered or amended. If you do not know the registration number, you can search all federally registered products by active ingredient, product name, or company name, in EPA's Pesticide Product Label System.
The link to PPLS is: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/pestlabels
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Need
help with pesticide certification or |
| Contact: NDSU Pesticide Training and Certification Program PO Box 5051 NDSU Fargo ND 58105-5051
Phone: 701/231-7180,
Email: pesticid@ndsuext.nodak.edu |
Pesticide Quarterly, Volume 20, No. 3, July 2002
NDSU Extension Service, North Dakota State University of Agriculture and
Applied Science, and U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Sharon D. Anderson,
Director, Fargo, North Dakota. Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8
and June 30, 1914. We offer our programs and facilities to all persons regardless of race,
color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, age, Vietnam era veterans status, or
sexual orientation; and are an equal opportunity employer.
This publication will be made available in alternative format for persons with
disabilities upon request 701/231-7881.