The stakes couldn’t be higher. Dow’s 2,4-D corn, soon to be followed by 2,4-D soybeans and cotton, are the first of many new GE crops designed to launch American agriculture into a new era of increased dependence on more toxic pesticides, reversing decades of progress. Two-thirds of GE crops awaiting approval by USDA are resistant to one to three herbicides each, with many more in the longer-term pipeline. For instance, Monsanto has developed crops resistant to dicamba, a close chemical cousin to 2,4-D.

According to agricultural expert Dr. Charles Benbrook, 2,4-D corn will trigger an astounding 30-fold increase in 2,4-D use on corn by the end of the decade, assuming widespread planting. 2,4-D soybeans and cotton will boost usage still more. Yet USDA has provided no analysis of the serious harm to human health, the environment or neighboring farms that will result.

Farmers, women and children at greatest risk

Farmers are on the front line. While generally healthier than other Americans, farmers suffer higher rates of certain cancers, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), a cancer of the lymph nodes that kills 30 percent of those afflicted. Numerous studies in Sweden, Canada and by scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute have found that farmers who use 2,4-D and related herbicides are more likely to contract deadly NHL. While Sweden, Norway and Denmark have banned 2,4-D based on such studies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refuses to act. Other studies link farmer 2,4-D exposure to greater risk of Parkinson’s Disease.

The rest of us may also be at risk. 2,4-D is known to be a hormone-disrupting chemical, which can affect critical developmental processes in very small amounts. Lactating rats fed low doses of 2,4-D exhibit impaired maternal behavior while their pups weigh less. Children of pesticide applicators in areas of Minnesota with heavy use of chlorophenoxy herbicides like 2,4-D had a disproportionately higher incidence of birth anomalies than in non-crop regions or where these herbicides were less used. 2,4-D is frequently detected in surface water, albeit at low levels.

Based on these and numerous other studies, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petitioned EPA in 2008 to ban 2,4-D, and recently sued the Agency for its failure to respond. Meanwhile, the latest available data show that 2,4-D is still contaminated with low levels of extremely toxic dioxins, which may or may not be the cause of 2,4-D’s toxicity.

Chemical arms race with weeds

Farmers would have no interest in 2,4-D crops if there weren’t a raging epidemic of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Glyphosate-resistant weeds evolved to infest millions of acres of cropland through massive, unregulated use of glyphosate on Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant soybeans, corn and cotton. This epidemic of “superweeds” has alarmed agricultural scientists, triggering a substantial increase in herbicide use, greater use of soil-eroding tillage operations, and a return to weeding crews hoeing hundreds of thousands of acres, dramatically increasing production costs. A National Academy of Sciences committee singled out glyphosate-resistant weeds as an issue demanding national attention, and a leading weed scientist warns they represent a threat to global food production.

As farmers struggle to contend with a problem that Monsanto assured them would never arise, Dow sees a golden opportunity, marketing its 2,4-D crops as a false solution to glyphosate-resistant weeds. Dow scientist John Jachetta excitedly announced in the Wall Street Journal ”a new era” and “a very significant opportunity” for chemical companies in 2,4-D and similar herbicide-resistant crops.

Far from solving the resistant weed problem, however, a recent peer-reviewed study by Penn State weed ecologists suggests that 2,4-D crops (along with Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant crops) will trigger an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D or dicamba, another salvo in the all-out “chemical arms race” between herbicide-resistant crops and weeds. Weeds resistant to multiple herbicides are already on the rise, prompting an Illinois weed scientist to warn that ”we are running out of options” to confront what is rapidly becoming an “unmanageable problem.” The Center for Food Safety made similar findings in a 2008 report and in Congressional testimony on resistant weeds in 2010. The Penn State study also outlines sustainable weed control techniques that could avert further weed resistance.

Crop damage from herbicide drift

The Penn State scientists also warn that the massive increases in use of drift-prone 2,4-D and dicamba accompanying resistant crops will threaten neighbors’ crops through drift. Soybeans, cotton, most vegetables, grapes and many other crops are damaged by very low levels of 2,4-D. Even now, 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other pesticide. Farmers agree. Iowa corn and soybean grower George Naylor was recently quoted in a Greenwire story, and speaks for many farmers who are concerned about 2,4-D corn:

“It’s a big turning point for agriculture,” Naylor said. “If they are going to keep going down this road by coming up with a quick fix to the problems they created in the first place, then the problems are just going to compound… My neighborhood and a lot of farm neighborhoods are just going to be sacrificed zones,” added Naylor… “There is going to be stuff in the air all the time.”

In fact, a new coalition of farmers and food processors–the Save Our Crops Coalition–is organizing to stop 2,4-D crops from concern over huge crop losses due to 2,4-D drift.

Impacts on endangered species

2,4-D drift and runoff will also impact wild plants and animals. Because it is such a potent plant-killer, 2,4-D can harm animals by killing the plants they depend on for habitat and food. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that even now, 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several threatened and endangered species, including salmon and related fishes, the California red-legged frog, and the Alameda whipsnake. USDA’s approval of 2,4-D resistant corn can only make matters much worse, likely placing many other species at risk.

Comment period ends April 27, 2012

If approved, millions of acres of 2,4-D corn could be planted as early as next year. USDA’s public comment period is open until Friday, April 27, 2012. Tell USDA to deny Dow’s petition to approve 2,4-D corn. Comments may be submitted to the agency through the Center for Food Safety’s action link or through Regulations.gov. For more information on 2,4-D corn, see our fact sheet and more extensive Food Safety Review.

Originally published on Huffington Post

The case underscores one of the major problems with CAFOs, which is the massive amount of manure they produce and the manners by which operators dispose of it, which have major environmental implications. According to the EPA, “a single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day,” which is “equivalent to that of 20-40 people.” The quantity of manure produced by one dairy cow can be multiplied on a CAFO by hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of heads. This higher concentration of CAFO animals leads to a higher concentration of animal waste, a problem that holds true for all types of livestock raised in these operations. As CARE describes the scale of the waste problem:

Operations like the Nelson Faria Dairy produce as much waste as a city of over 200,000 people. Unlike cities, however, which treat their wastes, the dairy industry applies manure to agricultural fields primarily to get rid of it.

In moderation, manure is a great soil fertilizer, but the sheer amount (and concentration) of untreated waste generated by CAFOs is a serious liability. When too much manure is spread out over fields for soil to properly absorb it, or when manure lagoons leak, overflow or rupture, rain and stormwater runoff can carry the waste into groundwater and nearby waterways. This over-application or discharge of CAFO animal waste is an egregious example of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution, where the source(s) is diffuse and can have a wide distribution area. Untreated animal waste is a hazard for both public health and ecosystems because it can contain harmful quantities of nutrients, pathogens and heavy metals. (Ecocentric has covered the problems associated with large amounts of untreated CAFO animal waste.)

The case of the improper handling of manure on the Nelson Faria Dairy is typical of the CAFO industry. While state and federal animal waste rules exist, their enforcement is lax at best. As CARE President, Helen Reddout, explained:

The Washington Department of Agriculture had recently inspected the dairy and found that it was doing an excellent job managing its manure. Nothing could be further from the truth…It is now time for the agencies who are supposed to be protecting our health to follow the precedent set by this Order. Our state and federal laws were aimed at protecting people and now it’s time for the agencies responsible for safeguarding public health to do just that.

Reddout goes on to explain the reality of state agency CAFO inspections:

Washington Departments of Ecology and Agriculture (WSDA) are supposed to monitor and regulate the dairy industry to ensure that operations do not harm public health or the environment. Unfortunately, inspections often involve nothing more than cursory visits by WSDA staff. If problems are found, dairy owners receive only a slap on the wrist, at best.

The hope is that this court victory against CAFO manure handling and pollution – little mentioned in the media – will help set a precedent toward better practices, regulation and enforcement of the CAFO industry. Reddout acknowledges that this court victory is one small step, albeit an important one, that shows that CAFOs aren’t above the law and puts them on notice for pollution practices, a particularly big deal for the economically (and thus politically) strong Yakima Valley dairy industry. Based on the compelling evidence of agricultural water contamination in the Lower Yakima Valley, and bolstered by the recent ruling, the EPA selected the area for inclusion in a study monitoring nitrate pollution in groundwater. Reddout expects the EPA report to be released in late Spring 2012.

CARE and their allies in the Royal City area deserve our congratulations for this major legal victory that may ultimately inspire a regulatory approach to CAFOs capable of safeguarding human and ecological health. Government agencies must acknowledge the great harm cased by CAFO pollution and hold the industry accountable for the true costs CAFOs impose upon the public.

As expressed by CARE’s lead attorney, Charlie Tebbutt, “Citizens have once again proven that the CAFO industry is a huge polluter. It is time for the state agencies to step up.”

To find out how many CAFOs are in your area, check out Food & Water Watch’s Factory Farm Map:

http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/

**********

Legal Documents

Memorandum of Decision (PDF)

Order of Decision (PDF)

Background and Resources

Hidden Wells, Dirty Waters (Yakima Herald online resource that includes a contaminated well  map and various investigative reports on the issue.)

“Farmers Put up Stink Over Stench” (background article from Seattle Times, Wednesday, July 7, 2004)

Socially Responsible Agricultural Project – Washington

Originally published on Ecocentric

Imagine a series of pits that, if combined, would cover an area 40 acres in size carved 20 feet deep. Laid out as a perfect square, each side is 1,320 feet long, enough to hold 16 football fields. Now imagine it full of millions of gallons of festering manure from over 5,000 dairy cows plunked down into rural Jo Daviess County in northern Illinois. Imagine also, that these cesspools would be excavated from a porous Karst geological formation, with the propensity to percolate directly into the groundwater, along with a cocktail of nitrates, phosphorous, hydrogen sulfide, bacteria, and other substances like antibiotic drugs.If your state’s Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t bother fulfilling its obligations to permit such potential pollution hazards under the Clean Water Act, you have little choice but to start your own citizen activist organization. For three years, the HOMES group (Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards) has been emptying its pockets for attorneys fees, organizing rallies, documenting abuses, and constructing a legal case against a California mega-dairy that wants to—as they see it—invade their community, an agricultural region with many legacy farms spanning multiple generations.

The challenge before the HOMES group is made all the more difficult because Illinois communities have lost the ability to refuse the zoning of an industrial animal factory operation in their area to protect public health. “Local control” over such decisions, in Illinois as in many other states, has been relegated to the state level. In fact, just this week a HOMES’ group appeal was denied by the Illinois Supreme Court, affirming that the state’s Department of Agriculture has the ultimate say in CAFO siting decisions. It also limits citizens’ rights to sue the Department of Agriculture for improper implementation or enforcement of regulations.

I participated in a community discussion about CAFOs sponsored by the HOMES group last week. It was an opportunity to listen to talks from long-time activists Dr. Kendall Thu of Northern Illinois University (contributor of a great essay to my CAFO book)

and Dr. John Ikerd

, retired agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, whose work greatly informed the book’s pieces on the community impacts of industrial animal factory agriculture. I also had a good chance to meet other committed anti-CAFO activists, such as grain farmer Karen Hudson and public interest attorney Danielle Diamond, both with the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project.

This leg of the CAFO outreach campaign started about an hour outside of  Chicago, driving west and south through the Land of Lincoln, known by the anti-CAFO activists as the Land of Stinkin’. There are over 3,200 CAFOs in the state, primarily hog and dairy operations. To pump a steady stream of feed into these protein factories, Illinois produces a staggering amount of corn. We drove for hours and hours at the 65 mph speed limit, passing field after monoculture field of corn, fields right up to the highway, right up to farm houses, right next to mutated suburban developments with barely a forest or hedgerow or clump of trees in sight. In this day of soaring commodity prices, soaring demand for animal feed and ethanol,  farms are planted, as they say, “fencerow to fencerow.”

The mega-dairy that the HOMES citizen activist group is fighting against is owned by A. J. Bos, a corporate agribusiness from California. It has already established one of the country’s largest dairies in northeastern Oregon, Threemile Canyon, which I have visited and am told is now the third largest emitter of airborne ammonia in the nation—no small achievement if true. One of the departing acts of public service of the Bush administration was to remove Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on the reporting of air emissions including ammonia, an airborne pollutant and health hazard that can literally travel for miles from a livestock operation. The CAFO industry has been given a get out of jail free card when it comes to Clean Air Act violations.

This large-scale industrial assault is set against the backdrop of the unraveling Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan and I can’t help thinking of the out of control scale of our industrial operations. The CAFO industry is essentially telling us they’re too big to fail, we need their massive confinement systems if we want a cheap and abundant food supply. The costs of polluting a community’s groundwater, eroding their living standards, degrading their air quality and filling the countryside with the odors of thousands of cows, never allowed to touch a bland of grass, and generating more manure than milk on a daily basis are simply the price of cheap dairy products. What they don’t say is that the jobs a CAFO actually brings to an area will most likely be very few and low paying. It will also spell the end for numerous small and mid-size independent producers in the region. And in time, once a community is opened up to the animal factory industry, it begins a downward economic spiral with few other development options.

Glimmers of hope remain. Although construction of the mega-dairy is well underway, the barns remain incomplete and no animals are confined yet. Last October, a bright purple leachate of rotting silage, applied onto fields of the A. J. Bos land, contaminated a tributary to the Apple River. As a result, the US EPA is now questioning whether this CAFO can possibly be a “zero discharge facility” as the corporation has alleged. (That’s essentially the way the system works. A CAFO promises they are not going to discharge, and unless challenged, the government believes them.) Meanwhile, a second citizens’ activist group, Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water, is successfully petitioning the US EPA to withdraw the Illinois EPA’s Clean Water Act permitting authority because of their failure to properly regulate existing CAFOs. The pressure is now on the Illinois EPA to step up their regulatory oversight or risk US EPA taking over administration of the Clean Water Act in the state.

In northern Illinois, and across the country, everyday citizens are doing the work of the state and federal government to prevent a complete fouling of their communities by industrial animal factories. This is hardly the time to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, a pursuit senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle are currently attempting. In many states, the Clean Water Act remains one of the only tools that offers citizens any kind of legal recourse and environmental protection from installations such as shit spewing absentee landowner corporate mega-dairies. In an age of increasing voluntary corporate compliance, community self-preservation hangs by barely a thread.

Originally published on Me and My Planet

This is a story about crap–literally, tons of it. Piling up in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and being sprayed onto farm fields, animal manure is polluting the nation’s waterways and is nearly impossible to regulate.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling [PDF] reversing the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requiring CAFOs to obtain a Clean Water Act permit in order to pollute. The court did uphold the EPA’s right to fine those that do pollute after the fact. Here’s the rub: Farmers are not responsible for manure that exits their property and enters waterways when it rains.

This is one of the many lawsuits against the EPA–issued by both environmental groups and pro-agribusiness organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Pork Producers Council, and United Egg Producers. For a small agency, with a $10 billion annual budget, it seems a lawsuit is the only way to force the EPA to take action. Hamstringing the EPA, which is high on the national Republican agenda [PDF], is both part of the grand plan of maintaining business as usual for agribusiness interests and a coordinated effort to step up the culture wars ahead of the 2012 election.

The EPA has been taking heat from agribusiness interests for decades, but that heat has been ratcheted up since Republicans took the House this year. Congress has called in EPA head Lisa Jackson to question her so many times, they’ve joked about giving her a parking space. She’s been asked, for example, about her plans to regulate greenhouse gases after a court mandate required it and about a plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay–the largest estuary in the U.S.–which is surrounded by industrial farms. In fact, the questioning has at times even become absurd, with GOP committee leaders stoking fears of regulating “cow flatulence, farm dust or milk spilled on dairy farms.”

Critics claim that the EPA stepping in to regulate greenhouse gases or farm run-off would eliminate jobs. There is, in fact, no proof or precedence from other environment-protecting regulations to demonstrate this and Jackson eloquently argued that regulation instead spurs creativity and creates jobs in an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal last December, on the 40th anniversary of the agency’s founding.

The history of that founding is instructive: In 1970, appalled by the deteriorating quality of the air and water, 20 million people took to the streets (the largest American protest ever) on Earth Day and demanded that the Nixon Administration do something. This was just months after the Cuyahoga River in Ohio had caught fire because of flammable pollution.  The EPA was created and laws were written to support it: the Clear Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which gave the agency the ability to clean up where industrialization had made a big mess.

Along with banning the pesticide DDT, which has been linked to cancer and persists in the environment today, and taking on the biggest polluters, one of the early jobs of the EPA was to stop the practice of allowing human waste to be dumped in our waterways. It turns out that this was causing excessive algae growth, killing fish and other creatures, and was rendering these waters unswimmable. Since modern sewage treatment plants became de rigueur in the U.S., the problem has developed anew: Virtual animal cities producing tons of manure without any really sane method (ponds lined with plastic, anyone?) for keeping it out of our waterways have sprung up in greater numbers, with similar results. A tide of Republican deregulation along with a lack of interest or understanding by the public of the issues has allowed the problem to progress.

Every year nearly 10 billion animals are being raised and slaughtered for food in the U.S., and industry wants the public to believe that their waste is being used as a resource. But the fact of the matter is that there is just too much of it and it is filled with chemicals and antibiotics–chickens are often given feed that contains arsenic, for example. Those antibiotics might even be increasing the amount of nitrates in our drinking water. Manure was once a part of a functioning farm, but now it has become ersatz–stinking up rural areas, causing fly epidemics, and being linked to illnesses.

The Chesapeake Bay could set a precedent for cleaning up America’s waterways after years of run-off has spawned inter-sex frogs there and has created a “dead zone”–an area lacking oxygen where fish go belly up–which covers 40 percent of the Bay and is destroying the local fishing industry. The Chesapeake Bay isn’t alone: In the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrates and other run-off from Midwestern farm fields empties out of the Mississippi, there is a dead zone the size of Connecticut.

The EPA set out to clean up the Chesapeake Bay by putting it on a ‘diet’–regulating how much run-off from farms can enter the Bay. This set off a fire storm from agribusiness interests–the poultry industry in particular operates many facilities near the Bay, the House has attempted to defund the project and the Farm Bureau filed a lawsuit to take on the proposed Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) limits. These critics argue that voluntary measures are working just fine.

Unlike USDA, which is caught between promoting and regulating food and FDA, which deals with food, drug and product safety on an ever threatened budget, EPA has always understood its role as having to play the bad guy: Getting us to change things because it’s the right thing to do and because it improves our lives in the long term. It remains to be seen whether or not the public will rally in support of the EPA this time around. In light of the fact that a Democratic House and Senate couldn’t pass a climate bill–even with concessions to Republicans–and our president has not prioritized the environment like many might have wished, the EPA may be our only hope for making real changes that impact the way we produce our food.

Photo: aerial of a dead zone

For further insight on the pollution in America’s waterways, I highly recommend the Frontline documentary Poisoned Waters, which can be watched for free in its entirety here.

In both the case of the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s vast chicken factories and that of GM alfalfa, industrial agriculture is admitting that it needs to trash its neighbors and the surrounding landscape to thrive. It wants us to believe that there are no alternatives if we want to feed ourselves plentifully.

The idea that protecting the environment is a luxury we can’t afford is a standard defense for corporations in many sectors–though typically only trotted out by the dirtiest industrial polluters (e.g. coal and oil companies).

This argument tends to be more effective when the environment that’s being trashed has already been depopulated by economic forces (as in the sad decline of rural America). And as the natural gas drilling industry has discovered, it’s a lot easier to steamroll the widely disbursed residents of West Texas than it is when you’re drilling near population centers in New York or Pennsylvania. Still, the thing agribusiness has going for it is that, by and large, it has moved its biggest operations away from media and public attention.

But I do wonder in the two cases Philpott addresses, if agribusiness is using this threat as more an act of desperation than clever strategy. In the case of the Chesapeake, for which it is the primary cause of pollution at this point, industrial agriculture is mostly benefiting now from the unwillingness of local governments to take responsibility for the mess created by overuse of fertilizer and under-treatment of factory farm waste.

In fact, the “sky is falling” rhetoric is a direct response to the EPA’s move to penalize state and local governments for polluting the bay. As this WaPo article documented, the actual desire is to force farmers to pay, not consumers. When faced with the continued death of an eco-system from which millions of residents of several states benefit, claims of falling skies may not quite be enough.

As for the new USDA policy that supports protecting organic agriculture from contamination by genetically modified crops–on this point, agribusiness is all bluster. The USDA is partly doing this out of good intentions, but mostly because the science, and far more importantly, the courts, are demanding this policy shift. Even the Supreme Court, packed as it is with an industry-friendly majority, had to acknowledge the real risks of genetic contamination to other, legitimate forms of agriculture. And the series of losses in court over GM sugar beets has forced the USDA to bend, if not break, the law to maintain any plantings.

This fight is one to be welcomed. It represents the coming of age of organic ag. It doesn’t mean the reign of agribusiness is anywhere near over–but it does mean that organic agriculture is big enough and financially successful enough to represent a sector worthy of legal and policy protections. After all, there’s now real money at stake!

Look at me getting all sunny. Must be something in the water… Too bad agribusiness doesn’t want to clean it up.

Originally published on Beyond Green

Consumer Reports’ latest tests of 42 samples from cans and pouches of tuna bought primarily in the New York metropolitan area and online confirm that white (albacore) tuna usually contains far more mercury than light tuna. According to Consumers Union, pregnant women should avoid tuna and younger women and kids should limit their consumption.

“Canned tuna, especially white, tends to be high in mercury, and younger women and children should limit how much they eat. As a precaution, pregnant women should avoid tuna entirely,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Technical Policy, at Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advise that women of childbearing age and young children may eat up to 12 ounces a week of light tuna or other “low in mercury” seafood, including, within that limit, up to 6 ounces per week of white tuna.

Consumers Union’s fish-safety experts continue to suggest a more cautious approach, advising pregnant women, as a precaution, to avoid eating tuna because of its potential effects on fetal development. Consumers Union further advises that children who weigh more than 45 pounds limit their weekly intake from 4 to 12.5 ounces of light tuna or from 1.5 to 4 ounces of white tuna, depending on their weight; and children who weigh less than 45 pounds limit their weekly intake from 0 to 4 ounces of light tuna or from 0 to 1.5 ounces of white tuna, depending on their weight.

Consumer Reports’ tests, conducted at an outside lab, found:

• Every sample contained measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million (ppm). The FDA can take legal action to pull products containing 1 ppm or more from the market. (It never has, according to an FDA spokesman.)
• Samples of white tuna had 0.217 to 0.774 ppm of mercury and averaged 0.427 ppm. By eating 2.5 ounces (about half a can) of any of the tested samples, a woman of childbearing age would exceed the daily mercury intake that EPA considers safe.
• Samples of light tuna had 0.018 to 0.176 ppm and averaged 0.071 ppm. At that average, a woman of childbearing age eating 2.5 ounces would get less than the EPA’s limit, but for about half the tested samples, eating 5 ounces (about one can) would exceed the limit.

In 2006, Consumer Reports scrutinized [PDF] the results of the FDA’s tests in 2002 to 2004 of mercury levels in hundreds of samples of canned tuna. The agency’s white-tuna samples averaged 0.353 ppm; light tuna, 0.118 ppm. But Consumer Reports found that as much as six percent of the FDA’s light-tuna samples had at least as much mercury as the average in white tuna—in some cases more than twice as much.

Given the uncertainties about the impact of occasional fetal exposure to such high levels, Consumer Reports urged the FDA to warn consumers about occasional spikes in mercury levels in canned light tuna. More than four years later, the FDA still hasn’t issued such a warning. When asked why by Consumers Union, an FDA spokesman indicated to the group that the agency had already taken the spikes into account when formulating its mercury advice.

“The FDA should strengthen its current guidance and advise pregnant women to avoid tuna altogether, especially given the uncertainties about the impact of occasional fetal exposure to high mercury levels,” said Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union. “The FDA should also continue to test for mercury across the spectrum of fish and seafood in the marketplace in order to provide consumers with adequate information on the mercury levels of all fish.”

Halloran noted that there may well be other species that vulnerable groups like pregnant women should avoid, but the FDA needs to conduct more testing to draw conclusions. “The last set of FDA data gathered from 2002-2004 and published in 2006 needs to be updated and the sample size of many species should be increased,” she said.

Heavy metal accumulates in tuna and other fish in an especially toxic form, methylmercury, which comes from mercury released by coal-fired power plants and other industrial or natural sources. According to Consumers Union, some studies have linked even low-level mercury exposure in pregnant women and young children to subtle impairments in hearing, hand-eye coordination, and learning ability. Other evidence [PDF] suggests that frequent consumption of high-mercury fish might affect adults’ neurologic, cardiovascular, and immune systems. The body is slow to eliminate mercury so it can accumulate in people over time.

Fish are rich in protein, vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids. Studies have shown that omega-3s reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke and might also elevate mood and help prevent certain cancers, cognitive decline, and certain eye diseases. During pregnancy, omega-3s might help in developing the fetus’s brain and visual system.

“Fortunately, it’s easy to choose lower-mercury fish that are also rich in healthful omega-3 fatty acids,” Dr. Rangan said. “That’s especially important for women who are pregnant or might become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children, because fetuses and youngsters are still developing their nervous systems and are therefore at particular risk from methylmercury’s neurotoxic effects.”

Federal agencies advise children and women of childbearing age to avoid four high-mercury fish: king mackerel, shark, swordfish, and tilefish.

So what kind of seafood is safe to eat? According to Rangan, popular seafood, including clams, Alaskan salmon, shrimp, and tilapia, contain relatively little mercury and are better choices. Other lower-mercury choices include: oysters, pollock, sardines, Pacific flounder and sole, herring, mullet, and scallops (with some limitations for women of child-bearing age and children).

The story appears in the January 2011 issue of Consumer Reports and is also available free online.

Photo: Kiruh via Flickr

California’s little-known Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) entered the spotlight this month as scientists, farm workers, and activists rallied against the department’s proposal to approve methyl iodide for use in the state’s $2.1 billion strawberry industry. (Civil Eats first reported on methyl iodide here.) On Thursday, DPR officials along with scientists testified at a State Senate hearing on the controversial fumigant, which chemists classify as a neurotoxin and carcinogen. Dozens of activists attended the hearing and delivered to Governor Schwarzenegger some 40,000 letters of opposition to the DPR proposal.

DPR Director Mary-Ann Warmerdam said that the state is under federal pressure to approve methyl iodide as an alternative to methyl bromide, the ozone-depleting fumigant that the U.S. is phasing out per the Montreal Protocol. In 2007, the EPA reversed its initial ban on methyl iodide, making it possible for Arysta LifeScience to distribute the fumigant under the brand name of MIDASã. While Schwarzenegger and Warmerdam suggest their hands are tied, other alternatives to methyl bromide do exist––including crop rotation and a new technique pioneered at UC Santa Cruz called anaerobic soil disinfestation.

Although the DPR would permit farmers to use methyl iodide on a range of crops from tomatoes to stone fruit, the high cost of MIDASã makes it economically viable only for luxury crops like strawberries. Which is why all eyes––including the EPA’s––are on California. “The reality is that California is the biggest user of fumigant pesticides for strawberries in the country,” Paul Towers, the state director of Pesticide Watch, said. “As a result, Californians are in the bulls-eye of pesticide manufacturers hoping to push their newest toxic product.” If the DPR reverses course by rejecting Arysta’s application, the EPA would likely re-evaluate its own 2007 decision.

To date however, Schwarzenegger and Warmerdam have been pushing Arysta’s application through the state risk assessment process. And that has scientists extremely worried. Both the DPR’s in-house scientific team and an independent review committee concluded that methyl iodide poses grave risks––cancer and miscarriage among them––that are not yet fully understood. The DPR recommendations come out of “an enormous vacuum” of information, said UCLA chemist Dr. John Froines. Other scientists blasted the DPR for proposing that California growers be permitted to apply methyl iodide at up to 100 pounds per acre. This translates into potential exposure rates for farm workers and nearby residents that are 100 times greater than the scientists reluctantly established as the upper limit for safe use of the pesticide. Molecular biologist Dr. Ed Loechler explained that methyl iodide presents a tremendous public health threat because of how readily it can cause DNA mutations and, by extension, cancer.

Susan Kegley, director of the Pesticide Research Institute, would add that the environmental risks are just as serious, but perhaps even less well understood. When Florida approved methyl iodide, the state required Arysta to undertake ongoing water monitoring to assess the fumigant’s environmental impact. But the company has so far failed to carry out this study, even though groundwater contamination may prove to be the most serious long-term impact.

Warmerdam assured Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, who convened Thursday’s hearing, that the DPR’s proposed regulations are more strict than the EPA’s and would mitigate both the health and environmental risks. These regulations would require all workers who apply methyl iodide be fitted with respirators, applied fields be covered with a protective tarp for 24-hours, and buffer zones be established to protect nearby workers and residents. Opponents maintain that these measures are grossly insufficient. Assembly member Bill Monning said, “the problem we have in the real world is that you have workers working in adjacent fields–– they’re not wearing respirators” and pesticides get blown from “field A to field B to residential area.” Warmerdam admitted as much, acknowledging that the DPR does not take real world variables into account. She went on to say that violations simply reflect “a bad personal decision” on the part of workers or farm owners.

Responding to Warmerdam’s testimony, Towers highlighted the disconnect between the DRP proposal and the enormous scientific and public consensus about methyl iodide: “Yesterday’s hearing demonstrated the Schwarzenegger Administration’s clear disregard for science. In the face of substantial testimony from world-class scientists about the public health dangers to farm workers, neighboring communities, and consumers, the Administration is choosing to look the other way.”

Activist groups and politicians are gearing up to fight the DPR if they do indeed register methyl iodide; but they are also working to mobilize an even larger public outcry. Now that the deadline for public comments has been extending to June 29th (the original deadline was set for June 14th), concerned consumers, farmers and farm workers can submit their comments by email or visit CREDO’s website to sign a petition.

For more information about petitions and contacting legislators, the DPR, and the Governor’s Office:

Credo Action

Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)

Pesticide Watch

Californians for Pesticide Reform

Endosulfan also easily spreads through the air (no doubt like the nerve gases from which pesticides such as this were derived). A 2008 National Park Service report found significant levels of endosulfan throughout Western national park eco-systems, even when there was no nearby agricultural use. A Scientific American article observed, unlike its organochlorine brethren, endosulfan’s environmental concentrations “have been increasing since the 1980s in the Arctic and in other remote ecosystems.” As a result of all this and along with other data released during the EPA’s lengthy re-examination of the pesticide, California delared endosulfan to be a “toxic air contaminant” in 2008.

In short, good riddance.

On a related note, can I just say that Florida agribusiness really doesn’t play nice, and not only because its farmworkers are at some of the gravest risk from the use of endosulfan. Let’s take just a moment to review Florida’s recent agricultural lowlights. First, there were the thousands of farmworkers in Immokalee (aka “the tomato capital of the United States”) kept in virtual slavery — and exposed by the great Barry Estabrook. Next, came the sad saga of the sugar industry’s role in the degradation of the Everglades and its ability to end up the recipient of a financial windfall in the plan to clear them up. And just the other week, we learned of the tragedy of Apopka, Florida (Barry Estabrook, again), where agribusiness poisoned thousands of workers, then received its own bailout from the state government while the workers have been left to sicken and die on their own. Florida, what is your problem?

Now, back to the issue at hand: You really have to question the length of time it took to get a product as dangerous as endosulfan off the shelf. And let’s be clear, the EPA still must “negotiate” with endosulfan’s producer Makhteshim Agan in order to avoid a long phaseout; if the company balks, and to be fair there’s no indication at this time that they will, endosulfan could stay on the market for an extended period. Assuming that doesn’t happen and it soon becomes unavailable in the US, endosulfan remains in use in India and Australia.

And this one victory must be considered against the thousands of toxic chemicals that continue to surround poison us. A case in point is the newly approved pesticide methyl iodide — even more toxic than methyl bromide, the chemical it replaces. Unless California’s legislature acts quickly, methyl iodide will soon go into wide use on the state’s conventional strawberry crop.

It’s hard to revel in the victory over one supertoxic pesticide when another shambles up right behind it. Indeed, if you start to do the math, it becomes clear that ten-year-long campaigns against a list of thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of hazardous chemicals in our environment is simply too long and winding a road to environmental health. And if, as Tom Philpott suggests, agribusiness responds to regulations and resistance with more toxic chemical solutions to our “problems,” we will end up at a very unfortunately destination.

Bees have been dying off in record numbers over the past few years — some American beekeepers have lost anywhere from 30 to 90% of their bees.  The situation, termed Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD], has wreaked havoc on American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by honeybees every year.

So I did what San Francisco State University biologist Gretchen LeBeun, creator of the Great Sunflower Project, has asked. I planted a Lemon Queen sunflower. And then I stood there watching for bees. I timed the first arrival, 7 minutes, 33 seconds. I stood in my front yard for over twenty minutes watching bees circle the new plant, doing loops around the Cone flowers and the Tickseed and circling back. Gretchen has asked us sunflower-planter participants to time how long it takes five bees to find this grand dame plant and then to send in this data via their website, to be included in their big research project on the honeybee disappearing act, the most mysterious and disturbing event in the world of agriculture today.

Recently, I saw Ted Jones, expert bee-wrangler, owner of Jones’ Apiaries in Farmington, Connecticut, and President of Connecticut Beekeepers, running around town with a truck bed full of hives and buzzing bees. With over 400 colonies of honeybees, Ted stays very busy renting hives to neighboring restaurants, farms and stores. Less than 10% of bees remain in the wild today and most farmers must rely on commercial beekeepers to keep their crops pollinated.

Ted says work has really picked up and that he hardly has a day off. “It used to be that you just dropped off the hives at the beginning of the season and then you come to pick them up at the end. But no more.” Now Ted needs to visit the hives every two to three weeks to make sure all is well.

Ted says that the bees this year, however, seem to be doing better, that the bees’ survival rate has improved and that they “are holding their own.” Not coming back full swing, mind you, but holding up just ok. The Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and USDA-ARS Beltsville Honey Bee Lab conducted a survey between September 2008 and early April 2009 and discovered that managed bee colonies have suffered a total loss of 28.6% out of the U.S’s estimated 2.3 million colonies. That is less than 31% and higher from the previous years, but this lesser loss still remains unsustainable.

Some scientists say it’s because of cell phones. Others say it’s related to the Bt-spliced GMO crops. Then there are the confirmed believers who attribute this global demise to a natural foe, the Varroa mite. And then there are the ubiquitous pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that we humans use to continually douse our fruits, grains and vegetables. Yet what is most mysterious of all is not why this is happening but rather why is it taking so long to find out? Is there no research being funded for this?

Other countries are finding explanations. Take Germany and the Bayer AG insecticide known as clothianidin. Many insecticides used against soybean aphids are highly toxic to bees and beekeepers do whatever they can to keep their bees away from this one in particular. In June 2008, Germany banned clothianidin and the CEO of Bayer AG and one other top ranking executive have been accused by the group Coalition Against Bayer Dangers of “knowingly polluting the environment.”

And yet, as devastating as this honeybee loss is, and as toxic as pesticides seem to be to these bees and as damning as the evidence is that links pesticides directly to the demise of honeybees, our own government has been reluctant to put their money where their honey is. That is, until now.

Last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council looked into the impact of pesticides on honeybee populations in the US and began to suspect the US government was keeping vital information from the public. Since the EPA refused to cooperate with the NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records on the toxicity of pesticides to bees, the NRDC was left with no choice and filed a lawsuit against the EPA in August 2008.

Congress in its infinite wisdom has come to finally recognize CCD as a threat, and the Food, Conservation and Energy Act has provided the USDA with emergency funds of $20 million a year from 2008 to 2012 for honey bee research. BUT, as of May 8 of this year, Executive Director of Pollinator Partnership Laurie Davies Adams, submitted a letter signed also by the American Bee Federation and Häagen-Dazs to Chairman Herb Kohl and Ranking Member Sam House from the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, calling the USDA’s efforts “stagnant” and asking them to please stop neglecting this critical pollinator research.

Then someone must have put a bee in someone’s bonnet at the USDA. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack signed a proclamation designating a 2009 National Pollinator Week which took place from June 22 – 28 and a Congressional Pollinator Briefing was held on Friday, June 26. According to Tom Van Arsdall, Director of Public Affairs for Pollinator Partnership, this Briefing “was instrumental in leading to major action.” For one, Representative Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) saw to it that $5 million for CCD and pollinator research was added into the Agriculture Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 10 (FY10) on the House floor. Häagen-Dazs, Burt’s Bees, and the almond industry’s foundation have also become big contributors to honeybee research. So maybe something really is happening or will be very soon.

But the UK may have beat us to it. Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog reports back in April that a Pollinator Initiative has been created under the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership including the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government. Beyond Pesticides quotes Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust: “It is extremely important that we move swiftly to understand and try to reverse the decline in the populations of bees and other pollinating insects. The devastating effect that this decline may have on our environment would almost certainly have a serious impact on our health and well being. Without pollinating insects, many important crops and native plants would be severely harmed.”

As far as the EPA now goes, they have come back to the table, bee helmet in hand, and have offered a Pollinator Protection Strategic Plan which will help structure the EPA’s work in this pollinator arena in the future. This fall in October, they will be hosting the International meeting of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) at EPA’s Headquarters in Washington DC. They are also participating in NAPPC’s pesticide task force work to develop educational materials for pesticide applicators and facilitating NAPPC’s participation in the August 11-13, 2009, annual conference of the North American Pesticide Safety Educators (NAPSE) in Charleston, SC.

So bee-wranglers, while you are waiting for your honeybees to come back to the hive, perhaps some wrangling work can be had over yonder on Capital Hill. Contact your Senators and urge them to ensure that funding for honey bee and pollinator research be added to Ag Appropriations on the Senate floor. Get bee-sy today.

Photo: cproppe