Spring/Summer 2002

Table of Contents
1.   New Commissioner
2.   DFA Retirements
3.   Pesticide Security Reminder
4.  Chlopyralid Advisory
5.   AEEP Program Update
6.   CCA Treated Wood
7.   Methoprene Update
8.   2002 Mosquito Preview
9. Remaining 2002 Pesticide Exam Schedule
10. Staff Directory

Gov. Swift Names Douglas Gillespie Commissioner of Food and Agriculture

Governor Jane Swift swore-in Douglas P. Gillespie as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture during Agriculture Day at the State House on Wednesday, April 3rd. At 150 years old, DFA is one of the oldest state agencies in the nation.

"Doug Gillespie brings a long-standing commitment to Massachusetts farmers and agriculture to state government," said Swift. "Under his leadership, the Department of Food and Agriculture will continue to support Massachusetts family farms as an integral part of the state's economy and way of life."

A fourth-generation Massachusetts farmer, Gillespie comes to the Department of Food and Agriculture from his most recent position as Assistant Executive Director for the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation in Ashland. He has been with the Farm Bureau since 1990 and has also served as Director of Member Relations and Director of Government Relations.

"I have worked closely with Doug Gillespie on farm issues and know that he will be a great addition to the Department of Food and Agriculture," said Bob Durand, Secretary of Environmental Affairs. "He will continue to be a strong advocate for preserving the role that family farms play in making Massachusetts a special place."

Gillespie is in his fourth year on the Weston Board of Selectmen and has been active on the State Commission for the Conservation of Soil, Water and Related Resources. He has also been a board member of the Weston Land Trust and Vice Chairman of the Recycling and Solid Waste Advisory Committee for the Town of Weston.

Retirements

Commissioner Jonathan Healy and Chief Pesticide Bureau Inspector John Kenney recently retired from the Massachusetts Department of Food & Agriculture after many years of dedicated service.  Along with other recent retirees, both men have served the Department & the public well and are wished a happy and fruitful retirement.

Pesticide Safety & Site Security Advisory:
From The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office Of Pesticide Programs

With the peak of the application season rapidly approaching, the Pesticide Bureau is reminding all those who work with pesticides of the security alert issued last fall by the EPA regarding the storage, handling, and use of pesticides.

“The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing this Alert to all pesticide industry organizations, facilities, and handlers as a precaution during this heightened state of security awareness. This Alert highlights some general security areas that companies may want to review to ensure that appropriate measures are being implemented. EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs has developed this tailored summary of the Agency's Chemical Safety Alert entitled, "Chemical Accident Prevention: Site Security," which outlines measures to ensure secure and accident-free operations. Published in February 2000, the more detailed Chemical Safety Alert is available on the Web at: www.epa.gov/swercepp/p-small.htm#alerts.

It is important that all pesticide establishments review this information and take appropriate steps to minimize risk. This document does not substitute for EPA's regulations, nor is it a regulation itself. It cannot and does not impose legally binding requirements on EPA or the regulated community, and measures it describes may not apply to a particular situation based upon circumstances. The Agency may continue to provide further guidance in the future, as appropriate.

Knowing and Understanding Potential Security Threats

Businesses that manufacture, reformulate, sell, distribute, transport, store, or apply pesticides have long known the importance of risk mitigation steps for the safety of their workers, their customers, and their communities. For manufacturers and reformulators, efforts focus on ensuring that the facility is operated safely on a day-to-day basis. Manufacturers must use well-designed equipment, conduct preventive maintenance, implement up-to-date operating procedures, and employ well-trained staff. Those who distribute pesticides have focused on safe storage and accurate labeling of their products. For the pesticide user community, safety efforts have focused on strictly reading and following all label directions. Today, these efforts aren't necessarily enough.

While many of the steps to ensure an effective security program seem routine, they are critical to the health and safety of your business, facility, and community. Without effective security procedures, your business may be vulnerable to both internal and external threats, posing risks to yourself and employees, your building and machinery, stored pesticides, and even sensitive business information. If you have mobile pest application equipment, particularly aerial application equipment, special precautions should be taken to protect both your equipment and the surrounding community.

Recommended Considerations in Evaluating Pesticide Security

The security needs and critical control points will differ for every business and facility. However, some of the fundamental security control points include:

• Securing Buildings, Manufacturing Facilities, Storage Areas, and Surrounding Property: One of the most fundamental security needs is the prevention of intrusion to areas used to manufacture or store pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Elements of an effective security plan can range from basic fencing, lighting, and locks, to intrusion detection systems, cameras, and trained guards. For more information on basic tips on protecting your site, review EPA's report A Chemical Accident Prevention: Site Security" listed below in the section entitled "For More Information."
  
  
• Securing Pesticide Application Equipment and Vehicles: Facilities and pesticide businesses should ensure that they have appropriate security protections to prevent intruder access to equipment used in mixing, loading, and applying pesticides. Before operating pesticide application tools and vehicles, handlers must have proper authorization and identification.

• Aerial Application Equipment: Security awareness is particularly important for large-scale pesticide application equipment like aircraft and large trucks. The FBI has requested that aerial applicators be vigilant to any suspicious activity relative to the use, training in, or acquisition of dangerous chemicals or airborne application of same, including threats, unusual purchases, suspicious behavior by employees or customers, and unusual contacts with the public. Any suspicious circumstances or information should be reported to the FBI.
  
  
• Protecting Confidential Information: As business, safety, and security systems become more reliant on computer and communications technology, the need to secure these systems has grown. Such efforts include contingency planning for power losses, effective monitoring of access ports, adherence to password and backup procedures, and other mechanisms to maintain access for authorized personnel only.

• Designing Facilities and Equipment to Minimize Risk of Damage: Whether an intrusion to a computer by a hacker or a physical intrusion of your facility by a vandal or saboteur, it is important to take steps to minimize the extent of damage. For example, in order to prevent damage, the use of sturdy, reliable, and potentially blast-proof materials is essential in the construction of equipment used to transport and apply pesticides.

• Developing Procedures and Policies that Support Security Needs: Even the best hardware and staffing budgets are only as effective as the procedures and policies that control their use.
• Effective hiring and labor relations policies are important to obtain and retain good employees who will support and follow safety precautions. For example, the hiring process should ensure that pesticide handlers have all requisite training necessary to handle pesticides safely. Background checks of staff who have access to secure areas, particularly those areas where pesticides may be stored, are also necessary.
  
  
• Inventory management policies can help limit the amount of potentially hazardous pesticides stored on site, reducing the risks of accidental or intentional release or theft.
  
  
• Effective advance emergency response procedures can be critical, helping ensure that business officials and employees understand how to respond and whom to contact in the case of an emergency. Aside from accidents, such plans must also consider vandalism, bomb threats, and potential terrorist activity.

Timely Coordination With Authorities

If a breach of security or suspicious activity does occur, timely cooperation authorities is crucial. In addition to cooperation with your local police department, the FBI requests that you expeditiously report any threats or suspicious behavior to your local FBI field office. These agencies also must be informed if, as a registrant, you are made aware of any reports of adverse exposure under circumstances that are incongruous with your pesticide product's normal use pattern. Information on the location of the appropriate FBI office is available at www.fbi.gov.

For More Information

EPA and other Federal agencies have developed a variety of reference materials that may be helpful in reviewing the security of your business or operation.

• Many of the tips listed in this fact sheet are described in more detail in the Chemical Safety Alert entitled: A Chemical Accident Prevention: Site Security,@ published by EPA on February 2000 and available on the EPA Web site at: www.epa.gov/swercepp/p-small.htm#alerts.

• For information on other Agency programs to promote facility security and readiness, visit http://www.epa.gov/swercepp/.

• DOT has produced a separate advisory for transporters, available by contacting DOT at 202-366-6525.

• For objective science-based information about a variety of pesticide-related subjects, including pesticide products, recognition and management of pesticide poisonings, toxicology, and environmental chemistry, contact the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC). NPIC, a toll-free hotline funded, in part, by EPA, lists state pesticide regulatory agencies and provides links to their Web sites. NPIC can be contacted at: 1-800-858-7378, by e-mail at npic@ace.orst.edu, or by visiting the Web at: http://npic.orst.edu/.”

Damage to crops reported from herbicide tainted compost

Washington State Bans Use of Clopyralid on lawns

		A number of recent incidents in Washington and Pennsylvania have raised concerns that compost products containing traces of clopyralid, a persistent herbicide, can cause damage to certain flowers and vegetables. In Spokane, Washington, where a large number of lawns are professionally treated, composted yard clipping used in a greenhouse potting mix resulted in damage to tomatoes and other plants. At Penn State University, clopyralid was found in composted leaves which had been over sprayed with clopyralid during Fall applications. Straw bedding and manure collected from veterinary stables in Washington also contained traces of the herbicide. The problem is considered to be so pervasive in Washington, that the Department of Agriculture recently banned the use of herbicides containing clopyralid on lawns.

Clopyralid is a picolinic acid and the active ingredient in a number of turf products including Confront, Battleship, Chaser, Ultra, Millenium Ultra, Momentum, ProScape and Strike Three Ultra, all of which are manufactured by Dow Agro Science. Other product include Curtail, Lontrel, Redeem, Stinger, and Transline. Clopyralid is effective against noxious weeds, Kudzu, clover and dandelions. The labels on all Dow clopyralid products state that manure and foliage treated with clopyralid should not be used as a source of compost.

The problem arises because clopyralid does not break quickly down when composted and is active at levels as low as 3 parts per billion. According to a report in the October 2000 Washington State University Cooperative Extension newsletter, laboratory studies have shown clopyralid to be present at levels from 4.7 parts per million (ppm) to 31.9 ppm after 128 days of composting.

Effective March 1, 2002, Washington State Department of Agriculture has banned the use of herbicides containing clopyralid on lawns and turf. The stated purpose of the ban is to keep clopyralid from potentially contaminating compost. The ban is initially in effect for 120 days. By late June, the department plans to make the ban permanent and will consider additional restrictions on the use of the herbicide. Golf courses are exempt from the ban as long as no grass clippings, leaves or other vegetation are removed from a course and sent to a composting facility that provides product to the public.

No incidents have been reported in Massachusetts. However, the incidents elsewhere underscore a number of important points for applicators, homeowners, and municipal recycling coordinators. Applicators are required by law to “leave at the residence, public or private non-residential properties a written statement containing….any precautions indicated on the labeling relative to any post-application requirements…to ensure that the customer is aware of any precautions indicated on the label.” For example, the applicator must make the customer aware of any label statement which states that grass clippings treated with a clopyralid should not be used for composting. In municipalities where yard waste is directed toward composting centers, residents need to be better educated about the benefits of keeping yard clippings out of the waste stream entirely, by recycling grass clippings back into the lawn. Grass clippings left on the lawn will decompose and act as a natural organic fertilizer. Grasscycling should be the standard practice.

Ultimately ensuring better awareness and communication among homeowners, applicators and local recycling coordinators will go a long way towards helping to address the potential problems posed by these persistent herbicides.

For more information contact the enforcement branch of the Pesticide Bureau at the Department of Food and Agriculture 617-626-1781.

Water Quality Protection Funding Available to Farmers

The Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture's Agricultural Environmental Enhancement Program (AEEP) provides funding to farmers to install a variety of water quality protection practices. Eligible practices include the installation of pesticide storage facilities and mixing pads. All farmers who actively farm five acres or more that could potentially impact a water resource are eligible.  The funding is provided through the Rivers Protection Act legislation to support farmers’ environmental stewardship efforts.  The AEEP program is completing its fourth round of funding. The total allocated during this period from the legislative funding and additional Department allocations is $1.1 million.

Eight best management practices to properly manage pesticides have been funded in Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Franklin, Norfolk and Worcester Counties through the Agricultural Environmental Enhancement Program.  Management measures include the installation of pesticide storage sheds, mixing pads and roofs over mixing pads.  Many of the pesticide storage sheds have been designed using the “Storage, Mixing and Loading of Pesticides Guidelines” developed by the Department. Some of the sheds or storage units are being installed adjacent to a mixing pad designed, and in some cases partially funded, by the United States Department of Agriculture – Natural Resources Conservation Service.  The projects implemented as a result of these two programs have significantly reduced the potential threat to water resources posed by mixing, loading and storage of pesticides on farms.

More information about the Agricultural Environmental Enhancement Program can be found on the Department’s website or by calling the Coordinator, Susan Phinney at 617-626-1772. Copies of the “Storage, Mixing and Loading of Pesticides Guidelines” are available by calling the Pesticide Bureau.

Manufacturers of Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) Agree to End Residential uses of  (CCA) Treated Wood

Article from the EPA’s Office Of Pesticide Programs (OPP)

On February 12, 2002, EPA announced a voluntary decision by industry to move consumer use of treated lumber products away from a variety of pressure-treated wood that contains arsenic by December 31, 2003, in favor of new alternative wood preservatives. This transition affects virtually all residential uses of wood treated with chromated copper arsenate, also known as CCA, including wood used in play-structures, decks, picnic tables, landscaping timbers, residential fencing, patios and walkways/boardwalks. By January 2004, EPA will not allow CCA products for any of these residential uses. This decision will facilitate the voluntary transition to new alternative wood preservatives that do not contain arsenic in both the manufacturing and retail sectors. Although the Agency has not concluded that there is unreasonable risk to the public from these products, we do believe that any reduction in exposure to arsenic is desirable. This action comes years ahead of completing the Agency's regulatory and scientific assessment of CCA and will result in substantial reductions in potential exposure to CCA.

For more information on this development, please visit the EPA’s OPP website: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/cca_transition.htm

Pesticide Board Subcommittee Upholds Registration
of Methoprene Insect Growth Regulator

At its October meeting, the Massachusetts Pesticide Board Subcommittee decided by unanimous vote, not to modify the registration of mosquito larvicides containing methoprene. Methoprene is a widely used insect growth regulator, first registered for use by EPA in 1975. Earlier last year, an environmental group had requested that the subcommittee ban the use of methoprene based products, such as Altosid^®, in fish bearing waters in Massachusetts.

During a third public meeting focused on this issue, subcommittee members continued to hear both sides of a debate which centered on the impacts of methoprene to amphibians and crustaceans. The environmental group claimed that methoprene causes frog deformities and that the use of methoprene resulted in a lobster die off in Long Island Sound in 1999. Representatives from Wellmark International, the manufacturer of Altosid^® products, disputed these claims at the meeting. To support their position, they summarized several recent reports, including an EPA fact sheet. They further pointed out that methoprene was not used in the New York area until 2000 and so could not be a factor in the Long Island lobster die off which occurred in 1999.

Subcommittee members concluded that some questions persist regarding the potential for methoprene to adversely impact certain estuarine crustaceans during early stages of growth and development. The members agreed that the following facts have been established:

·        Application of methoprene products directly to estuaries in Massachusetts is minimal; and

·        The claims of an association between the 1999 Long Island Sound lobster die-off and the use of methoprene products in catch basins with New York City are not supported by the facts. 

The Subcommittee voted unanimously that no registration action be taken at this time.  Pesticide Bureau staff were directed to monitor ongoing toxicity studies, especially those related to estuarine crustaceans.

Mosquito Control - 2002 Season Preview

By John Smith
Director, Norfolk County Mosquito Control Project

What is the mosquito season going to be like in 2002?   That is the most frequent question asked of me these days. In Massachusetts, and I suspect most of the northeast, we are in the midst of a significant drought. How will that impact this seasons spring and summer re-flood populations?  What affect will the warmer than usual conditions this winter have on the season’s mosquito populations?  Unfortunately, predicting the intensity and level of this summers mosquito population is just as challenging as predicting the weather for the next several months.  As any New Englander would know, our current dry weather pattern could change dramatically and suddenly.  

That being said, there are a few things that I am confident about for this year. I strongly suspect West Nile Virus will be back and that it will present a significant problem for Massachusetts as well as other parts of the country. Many of the Mosquito Control Projects are in the process of ordering additional gravid traps and light traps for virus monitoring purposes. I have to admit I am thrilled at the prospect of having to do more surveillance. I came to work at the Norfolk County Mosquito Control Project almost 22 years ago as an entomologist and some times wonder why I ever left that position. The best days I have had at mosquito control are those days spent in the field collecting mosquitoes from our various trap locations. Another thing I am confident of is that we will all face uncertain budgets in the days and months ahead. The states economy and revenue projections are rather bleak which may cause problems when it comes to providing resources for West Nile Virus monitoring and control. We may be back to those days when we are out scrounging for parts in the heap of rusty old parts out behind the barn. One final thing I am confident of in the coming year is that there will be continuing opposition from some groups against nuisance control. I argued the point just the other day on the need for nuisance control. The person I was debating wanted to discontinue all nuisance control. My point was, and always has been, that if you plan to be proactive in your vector control operations you have to conduct nuisance control. It is important to remember that no mosquito larvae EVER transmitted virus to a human. Only the adult mosquito can transmit virus. So the thought of waiting till there is an “imminent risk” of transmission to humans goes against a truly proactive IPM plan and results in a program based solely on adulticiding. None of us wants that. A proactive nuisance control program maintains infrastructure, which will be needed for any emerging vector control problem. Rebuilding a program based on crisis management is a poor strategy. And let’s not forget the fact that there is significant demand from the public we serve to control mosquitoes with or without virus.

Remaining 2002

MASSACHUSETTS PESTICIDE CERTIFICATION/LICENSE EXAM SCHEDULE

Mail examination application(s) to
Department of Food & Agriculture
Pesticide Bureau
251 Causeway Street
Suite 500, Boston, MA 02114-2151

PLEASE ARRIVE AT THE EXAM SITE AT LEAST 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE EXAM STARTS!!!!

Exam Times: (NEW) Private and Commercial Certification exams start promptly at 9:00 AM Commercial Applicator (Core) and Dealer exams start promptly at 12:30 PM

Snow Times:        Call 617-626-1841 for a pre-recorded message with exam dates, location, and cancellation information.  In the event of bad weather, call after 6:30 AM on the morning of the scheduled exam and listen to the message.  If the exam has been canceled, the message will inform you and indicate that you should report on the snow date.

Pesticide Bureau News

This Newsletter is published by the Massachusetts Department of Food & Agriculture.

251 Causeway Street (Suite 500)
Boston, MA. 02114
Phone: 617- 626-1700

Website: http://www.state.ma.us/dfa/