WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2016 - State agencies that enforce
farmworker protection standards would like more time to comply with EPA’s new
regulations, scheduled to go into effect in January.
The biggest problem with the fast-approaching deadline is
that EPA’s outreach materials, designed to help growers and pesticide
applicators comply with the new standards, have only recently become available.
“It takes time,” said Liza Fleeson Trossbach, program
manager for pesticide services in Virginia’s Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Services. And given the busy-ness of the growing season and the delay
in the release of educational materials, “We just haven’t had the opportunity”
to get out and meet with growers, she said.
Trossbach spoke with Agri-Pulse
after a session of EPA’s Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee, which met for
two days last week in Arlington, Virginia. She was representing the Association
of American Pesticide Control Officials (AAPCO). State agencies are charged
with implementing the new standards,
which were issued a year ago and which will mostly go into effect Jan. 2.
Trossbach said AAPCO is concerned about being able to meet
the compliance date with the narrow window to reach growers and applicators.
Kevin Keaney, chief of EPA’s certification and worker
protection branch in the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), said EPA would be
speaking with affected parties, including AAPCO, on “how to accommodate your
needs and still have things function.”
Among the states’ concerns is language in the final rule
about application exclusion zones (AEZs). These are areas surrounding the
pesticide application equipment “that must be free of all persons other than
appropriately trained and equipped handlers during pesticide applications,” according
to a list of Frequently Asked Question put out by the agency in April.
“The AEZ is 100 feet for aerial, air blast, fumigant, smoke,
mist and fog applications, as well as spray applications using very fine or
fine droplet sizes,” EPA says. Additionally, an AEZ of 25 feet is required when
the pesticide is sprayed using droplet sizes of medium or larger and from more
than 12 inches above the plant medium. An application that does not fall into
one of these categories does not require an AEZ.
But state officials want to know whether the agency will
allow workers to “shelter in place” if they happen to be living in housing
within the AEZ.
AAPCO
President Dennis Howard told OPP chief Jack Housenger in an August letter that
“a number of states have stringent agricultural-labor housing regulations or
standards. It is believed by many, that if the housing is adequate (fully
enclosed and tightly constructed), it is safer to ‘shelter in place’ vs.
leaving the AEZ and returning soon after the application.”
Housenger
replied in October that EPA would continue to work with the states to resolve
the AEZ issue.
One
state, Oregon, plans to adopt regulations that will allow “shelter in place”
within the AEZ. The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Division (known as
Oregon OSHA), which does not fall under EPA’s jurisdiction, worked with an
advisory committee that included growers and farmworker representatives to
develop the regulations.
Kathleen
Kincade, an occupational health specialist in Oregon OSHA, said fruit growers
in the state were worried they might have to chop down trees in order to create
enough space for AEZ’s.
In a
proposed rule that is now open for public comment and will be the subject of
hearings this month, “We did adopt the AEZ (provisions),” Kincade said. “But we
also included a compliance alternative that we believe would be equally
protective.”
Allowing
workers to stay in housing that is sufficiently airtight would be better than
forcing them to leave and stand in the cold just so they could be outside the
100-foot AEZ, she said.
Mike
Doke agrees. He’s the executive director of Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers, many
of whose 400-plus members would have been forced out of business if the EPA AEZ
regulations were followed to the letter.
Doke
says his growers have made significant progress in reducing the amount of
pesticides they use, but sometimes have to spray in the middle of the night
when the wind has died down in order to reduce drift. Airblast sprayers used to
treat fruit trees, some of which are as tall as 30 feet, “are very precise,”
Doke said.
The
shelter-in-place requirements “will allow us to keep our safe practices. It
really supports what our growers do here.”
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