The Environmental Protection Agency has released its draft strategy for determining how growers can minimize harm to endangered species through use of fungicides.

The strategy largely follows the frameworks contained in previous blueprints issued for herbicide and insecticide use. In all cases, the documents are not “self-implementing,” but will be applied “when evaluating applications for new conventional active ingredient registrations and during conventional registration review decisions,” the latest strategy says.

The strategy “is meant to identify mitigation for fungicides based on exposure, toxicity, and use information for implementation in registration and registration review actions,” it says. The goal is to reduce harm to species listed under the Endangered Species Act from exposure to fungicides and applies to all states except Hawaii.

Like the previous strategies, this one was subject to a deadline laid out in a settlement agreed to by EPA, CropLife America and other industry groups, and the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network.

EPA has tried to address its ESA obligations comprehensively in recent years after being faced with multiple lawsuits forcing it to engage in ESA-required interagency consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

But those consultations took years, and in 2022 the agency released a workplan to streamline its approach to meet its duty under the ESA to address impacts on more than 1,600 listed species.

“EPA’s Pesticide Program has struggled for decades with meeting its ESA obligations,” that plan said. “Even though EPA has approved over 1,000 pesticide ingredients and thousands of pesticide uses over the past decades, it has met its ESA obligations for less than 5% of those actions.”

After the strategy is finalized in November, “EPA may identify specific mitigation measures everywhere the pesticide is applied to be implemented on labels as part of a proposed FIFRA action when appropriate,” the strategy says. “EPA may also propose label language that requires a specific level of mitigation and directs the user to EPA’s Mitigation Menu website.”

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The strategy outlines the specific types of mitigation likely to make the cut. In many cases, since spray drift is considered a risk, EPA has identified adjuvants that can be used to reduce the distance a pesticide drifts off-field into species habitat.

EPA says applicators can use oil emulsion drift reduction adjuvants and polysaccharide, or guar gum, to reduce the size of buffers when spraying. “Polymer adjuvants are not considered for spray drift buffer reduction at this time due to their susceptibly to pump shear after multiple circulations in a spray tank, reducing the spray drift control in later applications,” the strategy says.

The strategy says EPA has identified 85 listed vertebrates, 39 listed invertebrates (including 15 listed mussels that depend on fish), and 136 listed plants as potentially requiring mitigation in Pesticide Use Limitation Areas (PULAs).

"A PULA is the specific geographic area associated with particular pesticide mitigation for a listed species, groups of listed species, or designated critical habitat," according to the strategy.

“Between the draft and final Fungicide Strategy, EPA will engage with stakeholders (e.g., grower groups, certified pesticide applicators, federal and state partners [and nongovernmental organizations] through meetings and webinars to discuss possible updates to mitigation measures and implementation of the strategy,” the agency says.

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