Subj:   Comments Re: Docket Control Number OPP-00684
Date:   1/22/01 12:25:46 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:   Pollinator
To: [log in to unmask]

[log in to unmask]      Docket Control Number OPP-00684
Re: Federal Register: November 22, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 226)] [Notices]

Comments by David L. Green, Pollination Specialist    [log in to unmask]
PO Box 1200
Hemingway, SC  29554-1200

CONTENTS
I.  General Comments
    A. What is good about the current pesticide/bee protection law?
    B. Flaws in the current pesticide/bee protection law.
    C. What is good about the proposed pesticide/bee protection setup?
    D. Flaws in the proposed pesticide/bee protection setup.
II.  Responses to specific questions in the EPA proposal.

I . A.  What is good about the current pesticide/bee protection law?
    1. Current law relies on specific label directions that are custom
designed for the specific hazards of the material. These label directions are
the law for that particular material.
    2.  While some bees are private property, the current laws recognizes
that all bees are an environmental resource.  The threat to our pollinators
by misused pesticides is a much more significant environmental issue than
pandas or snail darters. Serious damage to our pollinators could result in
great economic disruptions in the United States, and even possibly bring on
famine in America. Even slight shortages in our food supply could well lead
to panicky hoarding, and for significant diet problems for economically
disadvantaged persons in our nation. Our supply of natural vitamin C, for
example, is highly dependent upon pollinators.
    3. Label directions clearly make the APPLICATOR responsible for bee
protection. This is rightfully so, because he is the one who choses to use a
toxic material with environmental implications, and he is the ONLY one who
really has control of all aspects of that application.
    4.  Current label directions clearly indicate ALL bees are protected.
While many officials refuse to enforce for anything other than managed honey
bees, wild bees of many species are an important part of the pollination mix,
especially for small growers, gardeners and others who do not place honeybees
for pollination.

   B.  Flaws in the current pesticide/bee protection law.
    1. Pesticide literature/recommendations do not implement the current
label laws, and continue to advise past methods that are violations today.
Many references in extension and other pesticide recommendations state or
imply that the label directions for bees are optional rather than mandatory.
The Clemson Extension publication on protecting bees clearly states, "where
possible," as if the applicator can make a judgment call whether bee
protection is "possible."  And of course, the applicator's criteria are not
always concerned with bees.  Even worse, recommendations frequently advise
applicators to notify beekeepers, with the statement or implication that the
applicator no longer has to concern himself with the label. States that
officially do this are violating federal law, by instituting less strict
pesticide laws than the Federal ones. Any government agency that officially
allows this evasion of label directions, is seizing beekeeper assets without
compensation, a violation of the Bill of Rights.
    2. Enforcement is uneven to nonexistent in various states. One state
pesticide enforcement official recently called bees "trespassers," a concept
that was deliberately negated by FIFRA and current label directions.
Investigations of violations/bee kills are often incompetent, and merely
consist of paper shuffling, with enforcement actions being very rare. Even
more rare is compensation for damages done to beekeepers. In cases of bee
kills, samples need to be taken in a matter of hours, and it may be several
days before an investigator will come. The investigator is often not
knowledgeable about bees, and is terrified of them. He/she may not even know
how to take appropriate samples. Investigative blunders may also be
deliberate.
    Beekeepers have become cynical. Mention of pesticide kills will rouse a
lot of heat at a beekeeper meeting, but reports of many bee kills are never
made, because beekeepers know that no action will be taken.
    3.  Current practices were not sufficient to prevent me from sustaining
hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage during my beekeeping career. I
have had damage in more than one state, and have observed or been aware of
hundreds of incidents of damage in many states, including New York, Florida,
South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California,
Colorado, Arizona, and others. I have had damage from Penncap M, Guthion,
Malathion, Dibrom, Lannate, Lorsban, and many other pesticides used in
violation of label directions.
    4.  In practice, the current system does not provide ANY protection to
wild pollinators.  In South Carolina, a statement to the media by Cam Lay, an
official of the Department of Pesticide Regulation specifically stated that
only managed honeybees have any protection, which violates any common sense
reading of the label directions.
    5.  The current system makes no provision for pollinator remediation.
Those who dump toxic waste into streams are required to restock fish that are
killed by their action. Those who kill pollinators by sloppy pesticide use
should be required to restock pollinators. If those who damage bees were
required to replace them, such pesticide misuse would soon drop to very low
levels.
    Beekeepers who are damaged may be unable to restock an area, because they
are impoverished by the damage. In 1990, I did not have sufficient bees left
after the 1989 post-Hugo mosquito application damage to meet my pollination
contract obligations to watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber and squash growers.
I had to take money from the first ones I put out, to purchase more bees to
supply later growers. This expense is a long term capital investment, but had
to come from current income, and it meant that there was no profit for the
1990 season.  In addition half my equipment did not have bees to fill it, so
it sat empty during the summer and was eaten up by wax worms. Not only should
compensation be made, but it must be adequate for ALL losses, and be timely,
to prevent further losses.
   C. What is good about the proposed pesticide/bee protection setup?
     "This product is toxic to bees exposed to treatment and for
_X_hours/days** following treatment. Do not apply this pesticide to blooming,
pollen-shedding or nectar-producing parts of plants if bees may forage on the
plants during this time period."
     This statement, if made a mandatory federal direction on pesticide
labels, with NO exceptions, could produce very good protection of ALL bees,
both domestic and wild.

   D. Flaws in the proposed pesticide/bee protection setup.
    1. It is not clear that this label will be mandatory. It must not be
solely advisory.  If it is not mandatory, then it is BIASED in favor of the
convenience of the pesticide industry, and against the livelihoods of
beekeepers, which is NOT EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAW.
    2. The law should also make clear that "bees" are defined as ANY bee
species, not just Apis mellifera (honeybees).
    3. The proposed label should end as per the quote above. It goes on to
provide a way for states to evade compliance, which is a major flaw in the
proposal. Many states will not have very good compliance, and some will have
none at all. Past experience shows that many states will use this exemption
to shift the responsibility for bee protection from the pesticide users to
beekeepers. Such schemes of evasion will provide NO protection for wild
pollinators, and will place an unjust and impossible burden on beekeepers.
See I.B.1 above and II.D.3 below.
   Beekeeping nowadays is an interstate endeavor, and the issue of pesticide
misuse is of national concern. Damage that occurs in one state to migratory
bees, can cause pollination shortages in another state. So pesticide laws
that relate to bees should be unified and consistent, at the federal rather
than the state level.  See II.D.1 below.
    4.  The label direction is based on toxicity studies provided by
registrants, which can be tainted or biased. There needs to be an objective
means of verifying the accuracy of such studies and strong measures taken
against registrants, if untrue statements are made.
    5.  There needs to be a proviso for pollinator remediation paid for by
those who violate the label. Realistic damages should be provided to
beekeepers who suffer losses and damages should be doubled every thirty days
by law, to encourage prompt remediation and stop consequent losses.  Wild
pollinators should be restocked under the supervision of an appropriate and
objective agency, such as a state wildlife department, as early as possible
in the natural season, but no later than one year after the damage occurred.
    6. The following reading would strengthen and improve the label statement:
"This product is toxic to bees exposed to treatment and for _X_hours/days**
following treatment. Do not apply this pesticide to blooming, pollen-shedding
or nectar-producing parts of plants (including drift to non target blossoms),
if bees may forage on the plants during this time period."

II.  Responses to specific questions in the EPA proposal.

  A.    <<Should the precautionary labeling language of the new policy allow
for an exception from bee precautions for wide-area public health spray
programs?>>

    NO, it should not allow exemptions.  These widespread programs are
becoming increasingly frequent, and are among the most hazardous of all for
wild and domestic pollinators. Widespread applications provide no "islands of
safety" for wild bees from which to recover, and beekeepers can be too badly
damaged financially to recover. This happened to me in the applications
following Hurricane Hugo in 1989, when label directions were not accurately
followed and my own losses amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, from
which my pollination business has never been able to fully recover.  The
pollinator environmental issue is also a public health issue, as our food
supply is directly dependent on pollinators, whether this means beekeepers
who do pollination with honeybees, or wild pollinators such as bumble bees,
mason bees, leafcutter bees, carpenter bees, and butterflies.

    All of the post-Hugo applications could have complied with label
directions and protected wild and domestic pollinators, had there been a
simple monitoring system to determine when bees were foraging, instead of
timing applications by assumption of when bees were foraging.  I offered to
help do this monitoring, but was rebuffed.  I saw the same evasion of the
labels during applications following Hurricane Andrew, Fran, and Floyd.

    After Hurricane Hugo's mosquito spray program, wild bee populations took
several years to recover to anywhere near the former populations. I tried to
get Clemson and others to document this, but no one would do so. Clemson
University receives research donations from the pesticide industry and no one
is willing to "rock the boat."

    The damage done to one beekeeper in the post-Floyd applications by Horry
County are displayed at: http://members.aol.com/gardenbees/    The Department
of Pesticide Regulation concluded that the applications were in violation of
the label directions, yet did nothing for enforcement. The beekeeper
involved, in my estimation, sustained about $10,000 worth of damage. He was
generous and submitted a claim for only the remedial labor involved, for
$2,000.  Even that claim has so far been ignored by Horry County, and he has
received no help from the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

  B.  <<Should the new policy described in the PR Notice allow a 24 hour
period of toxicity statement on labels in the absence of data as a permanent
option, or only temporarily until registrants submit residual toxicity data?
>>

     The assumption should be 96 hours. This will err on the side of safety
for the bees, and spur the registrants to get the toxicity studies done.

  C.  <<From the commentator's perspective as a pesticide user, beekeeper,
state regulator, or other interested party, would a specific time period of
toxicity to bees on the label be more or less useful than the current policy
which includes a label prohibition on applications while bees are visiting
the treatment area?>>

    The specific toxicity period would be an improvement, if the application
prohibition were mandatory.   Insecticides with low residual activity can be
applied by timing the application to avoid the actual foraging times of the
bees, (which should be determined by actual monitoring not guesswork). But
highly residual materials should not be applied to any bloom that is
attractive to bees, because bees will be visiting and contacting the poison,
long before the residual activity ends.   I have seen recommendations from
the manufacturers of highly residual insecticides (such as Penncap M) that
advise users to apply when bees are not actually foraging. This ignores the
residual activity of the material and amounts to a recommendation of
pesticide misuse.  I have also seen enforcement officials evade enforcement
action by simply ignoring the residual statement on present bee labels.

  D.  <<Is the label condition that pesticides can be applied if the user
participates in a state bee protection program likely to encourage
bee-protection efforts?>>

     The label directions should be mandatory and federal.
    1.  Most commercial beekeepers are migratory and the season of activity
is extremely intense. When bees are delivered to pollination sites, it is
imperative that they not be even one day late, or growers can suffer large
losses from pollination deficiency. Beekeepers do not have the luxury of
dealing with a maze of local regulations. There should be one unified law
that applies to all states. I have had pollination contracts with a single
customer that placed bees on sites in two states and multiple counties. In
these cases beekeepers usually do not even know where the bees will go until
they actually arrive at the central distribution site. Beekeepers may work
for 24 hours or more before the luxury of sleep is possible. We usually do
the job very well, often in adverse weather and other conditions. It is not
right to add another bureaucratic layer by making beekeepers deal separately
with different state regulations.
    2.  Currently states are allowed to make stricter controls on pesticides
but not less strict than federal standards. This has often been evaded, but
should be continued as a matter of specific law. If allowed, many states
(such as South Carolina, which has a small bee industry, and a powerful
cotton industry - which THINKS it does not need bees), will have NO realistic
protection for wild and domestic bees.
    3.   States have long evaded the present law by implementing programs
that allow the user to not comply with label directions, if they notify
beekeepers. The applicator is the rightful one to be responsible for safe use
of the pesticide; he is the one who has chosen to use a toxic material with
environmental implications. Dumping this responsibility onto beekeepers is a
seizure of the beekeepers' property without compensation, a violation of the
Bill of Rights.
    These state plans have traditionally been used to evade label compliance.
Every beekeeper who has plans for productive work for the day, can have that
plan trumped by any pesticide applicator who is to make an application within
flight range of any of the beekeepers' bee yards or pollination locations.
Oftentimes multiple locations are involved on a single day, and beekeepers
simply do not have the personnel to attend to multiple situations. Hobby
beekeepers have other employment and their bosses may not take kindly to
their request for time off to protect their bees.
    Almost all of my bees are within range of cotton during cotton bloom, and
there is no viable way to remove them from the area. On any given day in
midsummer, potentially a dozen sites may be exposed, if cotton growers are
allowed to misuse insecticides. I am only a single person who cannot be on
more than one site at a time. The state authorities have clearly indicated
that they would implement a plan which would make me responsible anyway.
    The state already did this in the applications after Hurricane Hugo. They
told beekeepers to protect the bees. I had bees in over 50 locations in seven
of the ten counties that were sprayed. Many trees were down and most of these
bees were inaccessible. On any given day, I have to make several phone calls
to find out where the planned applications would be, and I often wound up
without the needed information. Yet they demanded that I protect the bees, an
impossible demand.
    4.  Any state programs that evade mandatory label directions that are the
responsibility of the pesticide user, will offer NO protection to wild
pollinators.  As indicated earlier, wild pollinators were severely damaged by
the Hurricane Hugo applications. In the following seasons, I saw whole fields
of watermelons that were unmarketable, because they were poorly pollinated,
and the growers had traditionally depended on wild pollinators.
    5.  The state programs are much more vulnerable to conflict of interest.
South Carolina Department of Pesticide Regulation is a branch of Clemson
University, which receives grants from the pesticide industry. The Department
has, in my own experience, exhibited so much reluctance to enforce the bee
protection labels that it appears to be "in the pocket" of the pesticide
industry. It has been characterized by inept investigations and indifference.
The only time I have gotten significant enforcement is when I handed them an
ironclad case, with the perpetrator caught red-handed in the violation on
video tape.  On other occasions the appropriate video was given, showing
violations in progress, but no action was taken. One of these events that was
ignored was a violation by Clemson Extension personnel at the Pee Dee
Experiment Station in Florence, SC.