The Clean Water Act spray permit issue
Washington Ag Today March 18, 2011 Under one part of federal law the Environmental Protection Agency can approve the use of a crop protection chemical for use on or near water. That’s under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. As Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission explains, a federal court decision changed that. Voigt: “There is another branch of the EPA that manages the Clean Water Act and the court says according to that act you actually have to have a permit to apply a pesticide even though the other branch of EPA says you don‘t. So there is actually a piece of legislation before Congress now to fix that, to kind of reverse that court ruling and say no as long as the EPA approves a pesticides use for in and around water that is all you need. Because otherwise if we don‘t have this legislative fix it will just be a bureaucracy of paperwork that growers will have to get a permit for all of their pesticide applications.” The court ordered deadline for the EPA to have a permit system in place is April 9th but Voigt says; Voigt: “Also the EPA did go back to the 6th Circuit Court and ask for an extension so hopefully the legislation will be approved by Congress and we won‘t have to worry about this or at least the court will grant an extension to the EPA and this will be pushed off until at least the fall.” That’s Washington Ag Today. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net.
