Deadline extended on pesticide phaseout???
By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
December 20, 2004

WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency officials Monday backed off private assurances to Dow AgroSciences, the maker of the pesticide Dursban, that the company could have up to three more years before a final decision on whether to ban the use of the pesticide in home construction.

A Dow spokesman, Garry Hamlin, told Scripps Howard News Service that EPA officials notified the company last week that the agency would wait as long as three years for the company to conduct additional tests before reaching a decision on whether to ban the pesticide's use in construction.

However, after receiving media inquiries, EPA officials contacted Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences Monday afternoon, informing the company that "no final decision has been made'' on a time extension, agency and company officials said.

During a recent meeting between the agency and Dow, "junior level'' EPA officials told the company it would be given up to three years to continue to use Dursban in home construction, but senior officials in the agency have not yet agreed to the plan, said Jim Jones, head of the EPA's pesticides office.

A final decision is not expected for another four to six weeks, Jones said.

The production of Dursban, the most commonly used termite killer in new home construction, was to have stopped by Dec. 31 of this year and its use phased out by Dec. 31, 2005, under an agreement between the EPA and Dow.

However, that agreement, announced in June 2000, allowed for continued production of Dursban, a trade name for the chemical chlorpyrifos, depending on the results of a safety analysis by Dow.

The company submitted its safety analysis to EPA a year ago and was notified last week that an air monitoring study will be needed to determine the extent to which people are exposed to chlorpyrifos through its use in home construction, Hamlin said.

The chemical is applied to soil to kill termites before a concrete foundation is laid, Hamlin said.

The EPA has banned the production of chlorpyrifos for most home and garden uses and imposed restrictions on its agricultural use because of concerns it might interfere with brain development in children.

EPA officials told Dow last week the company had a year to design the air monitoring study, another year to conduct the study, and a third year for the agency to evaluate the results, Hamlin said.

"We do in fact intend to conduct the air monitoring to document that the air levels of chlorpyrifos are indeed below the agency's level of concern," Hamlin said.

At this point, Dow will have to stop production of Dursban for construction use on Dec. 31, but it's possible the company will be allowed to resume production depending upon the agency's decision, Jones said.

"We're still evaluating whether or not whether we think this use can be continued safely,'' Jones said. "Senior people in agency feel this case hasn't been made yet.''

Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a public health group, said he also was told privately by EPA officials of the three-year extension.

"If EPA proceeds with this deal, it is shirking its basic responsibility to protect children and the public from hazardous pesticides like chlorpyrifos and only serving the interests of Dow Chemical," Feldman said. "There are widely available alternatives which make this hazardous chemical simply unnecessary."

About 380 gallons of the pesticide are pumped into the ground during the construction of a 2,000 square foot home, Feldman said. Nationally, about 400 million gallons of pre-construction termite-killer are used every year, he said.

Studies of other pesticides used in construction have shown they can escape from the soil into concrete and eventually into indoor air, Feldman said.

"I think the point here was that EPA knew from previous reviews of other chemicals that these chemicals in the soil tend to find their way into homes from this particular use when they decided with Dow in June 2000 to remove this particular use from the market," Feldman said.

Chlorpyrifos is one of a group of chemicals called organophosphates that were developed by the German company I.G. Farben as nerve gases in World War II. It is designed to kill insects by disrupting their brains and nervous systems.

Infants and young children, whose brains and nervous systems are still developing, are especially vulnerable to injury from overexposure to organophosphates.

From 1993 to 1996, nearly 63,000 reports were made to U.S. poison control centers regarding unintentional exposure to organophosphates. Almost 25,000 of the incidents involved children younger than 6.

On the Net: www.dowagro.com/homepage/index.htm

www.beyondpesticides.org

(Reach Joan Lowy at lowyj@shns.com)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------