SUNS 4312 Thursday 29 October 1998
ENVIRONMENT: US DELAYS BAN ON TOXIC PESTICIDE
Washington, Oct. 28 (IPS/Danielle Knight) -- Environmental organisations are accusing the U.S. government of slipping through legislation to delay a ban on the toxic pesticide methyl bromide,
blamed for health problems and depletion of the ozone layer.
The environmentalists say the government cloaked the offending legislation in the omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress last week amid outcries from both Republicans and Democrats over the fact no one could possibly know all of the bill's details.
Now it has been revealed the legislation will delay any ban on methyl bromide, a toxic pesticide blamed for health problems and depleting the ozone layer.
"In approving this legislation, Congress and the President are saying they don't care about communities and farm workers who continue to be poisoned by this dangerous pesticide," says Kristin Schafer, program coordinator at the California-based Pesticide Action Network.
"The delay also means continued destruction of the ozone layer just when it is the most vulnerable - this means more skin cancer, cataracts and weakened immune systems for people around the world," she says.
The threat from methyl bromide is so great that more than 160 countries who signed the Montreal Protocol - the international ozone layer protection treaty - have agreed to a global phase-out of the pesticide.
As part of that agreement, industrialised countries are to stop using methyl bromide by 2005 at the latest, with developing countries phasing it out by 2015. Some countries in Europe already have banned the chemical.
Under the U.S. Clean Air Act, phase-out of methyl bromide was scheduled for January 2001. Yet, a last minute amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill was added to the omnibus bill by Democratic Congressman Vic Fazio that delays the ban until 2005. By approving the omnibus bill, Clinton reversed his October 8 veto of the original bill proposed by Fazio.
"The Administration has pulled the plug on the methyl bromide ban which will give us four additional years of exposure to this toxic, ozone depleting substance," says Brandon MacGillis, director of campaigns for Washington-based Ozone Action, a non-governmental advocacy group.
Besides delaying the ban, the legislation also will allow the United States to continue using methyl bromide under special circumstances after the ban takes effect. Producers of the pesticide in the United States will also be allowed under the amendment to continue manufacturing and exporting methyl bromide to developing countries up to and after the ban.
"Vice President Al Gore's lack of leadership and timing could not be worse," says MacGillis. "At a time when the rest of the world is moving to phase this chemical out, he is caving in to the pesticide industries who produce methyl bromide."
The United States is the world's largest user of methyl bromide, accounting for 40 percent of global consumption of the chemical. The odourless gas is used widely in the states of Florida and California to control soil-inhabiting pests on tomatoes and other crops like strawberries and peppers.
Methyl bromide has been found to cause birth defects and brain damage in laboratory animals. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to the chemical can also cause irritation to the eyes and skin, dizziness, headaches, kidney, lung and heart problems and even death.
Many of the migrant farm workers who come in contact with the pesticide are from Mexico, Central America, and Haiti. Dangerous levels of the chemical have been reported to drift off of fields by the wind and settle in residential areas and schools, says Schafer.
The pesticide also has the ability to react and destroy the stratospheric ozone layer, which filters out the sun's harmful ultraviolet-B (UV-B) rays - known to cause skin cancer and cataracts.
According to scientists, methyl bromide is at least 50 times more destructive to the ozone layer than chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - the now-banned substance used in refrigerators, air conditioners and as an aerosol propellant. While difficult to accurately quantify, scientists estimate that methyl bromide chemical probably is responsible for between five and 10 percent of worldwide ozone depletion.
Earlier this month, the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation and the U.S. National that this year the ozone hole over the Antarctic is the largest observed since it first developed in the early 1980s.
This year's hole, currently about 26 million square kilometres, is larger than the area of North America, they report. Last year at this time the hole was as much as 19 million square kilometres, they report.
Despite this recent information, Fazio and some Republican lawmakers say that getting rid of methyl bromide will put large farms out of business in the United States. They argue that other countries who can still use the pesticide will more competitive economically.
But, environmental groups say inexpensive alternatives to methyl bromide can be just as effective. A report released this summer by Friends of the Earth and other organisations described various
alternatives to methyl bromide, including Dazitol - a non-chemical substance made from food ingredients like chili peppers that has been proven effective in controlling pests on tomato plants in large farms in Florida.
Environmentalists say that the pesticide industry is acting like the producers of CFCs who fought regulators furiously before the ozone-depleting chemicals eventually were banned.
"A decade later, we now hear a different story from the same industry groups (who fought the bans on CFCs)," says the Friends of the Earth report.
"Not only were they able to find effective alternatives, but in many cases, the alternatives are better and cheaper... Similarly, viable, ecologically sound alternatives to methyl bromide are also available."