Lori Quillen asks about how to find information on chemical application
regulations/guidelines in several states.

In some states pesticides are regulated by a division within a department of
agriculture with a name similar to Pesticide Management Division, such as
here in WA.  If you contact the home pages of state departments of
agriculture, look under headings that refer to pesticides, environment,
department organization or any other title that gets you to the various
functions within the departments.  Then scan the home pages for pesticides
or similar titles, and then look for what are usually called statutes and
regulations.  Here in WA are statutes are called Chapters in the Revised
Code of WA (RCWs) and Chapters in the Washington Administrative Code (WACs,
also called regulations).  The RCW is the umbrella authority instrument
enacted by the legislature, the WACs are enacted by the authority granted to
the  director of the Department of Agriculture by the legislature.  The RCW
has language of a general nature relating to public health, worker safety,
pesticide use, mixing, and disposal, while the WAC is written to address
specific problems not covered in the EPA Section 3 label or to tailor the
product use to a specific crop and local environment, or for research
purposes.

It may be difficult to find the chapters on the web without a lot of
searching under a lot of titles because these may be quite different from
state to state.  Another way to look for statutes and rules is to go to the
state home page, then the code revisor (or some such designation).  You may
also find a link to the code revisor under the state's legislative page.

I usually find that it is easiest to go to the state's home page, find the
department of agriculture, find the pesticide page and send an e-mail to the
contact person, or just send an email to the department's home page contact
person and ask for a copy of the statutes and rules about the subject you're
interested in.

Some states, including WA do not have a fully developed home page or
division pages yet.  We're just now developing our Industry Apiary Program
home page.  On it I want links to statutes and rules about bees, pesticides,
honey, sanitation, and other topics of interest to beekeepers.

Lori, I will look into the pesticide Chapter numbers for WA and get back to
you with the texts.  I think I can do that by next Thursday.

In some states pesticide statutes and rule language have been influenced by
the beekeeping community to protect pollinators, i.e. usually thought of as
managed honey bees.  This is certainly true in WA and CA.  Here in WA we
have put a lot of effort into education, and regulatory language to protect
honey bees.  Most of the native pollinators are non-existent in areas of
general agriculture because of all the chemicals used over the years.

Regards,

James C Bach
WA State Apiarist
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