{"id":73830,"date":"2016-05-23T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73830"},"modified":"2016-05-20T11:35:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T10:35:41","slug":"how-activists-are-restricting-use-of-major-pesticide-glyphosate-in-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/how-activists-are-restricting-use-of-major-pesticide-glyphosate-in-hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"How Activists Are Restricting Use of Major Pesticide Glyphosate in Hawaii"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glyphosate use has risen with the adoption of GM crops, but Hawaii environmentalists have found a novel way to curb its use.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A tassel of corn grows in a field on Pioneer Hi-Bred International land in Waialua, Hawaii, on April 16, 2014.
Audrey McAvoy\u2014AP<\/p><\/div>\n

17 May 2016 – <\/em>Glyphosate, the world\u2019s most widely-used<\/a> herbicide, has become a major target for environmentalists. But despite growing evidence<\/a> of the chemical\u2019s potentially dangerous health effects\u2014the pesticide was deemed<\/a> a \u201cprobable human carcinogen\u201d by the World Health Organization last year\u2014efforts to ban the chemical in the U.S. have repeatedly failed. Supporters of glyphosate, which is often used together with genetically modified crops, respond<\/a> that no study has proven that the chemical definitively causes cancer in humans, and note that the pesticide effectively protects crops that feed millions around the world.<\/p>\n

But on the Hawaiian island of Maui, nearly 5,000 miles from the offices of federal regulators in Washington D.C., a small group of activists have figured out how to use a little-known provision of a federal law to stop some uses of glyphosate in their community. The law is known as FIFRA, short for the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, and it requires pesticide sprayers to do something you might imagine they\u2019d be doing anyway: follow the safety instructions on the product\u2019s label down to the letter. But because those safety instructions can be difficult to meet, activists have been able to use the label to force sprayers to change their ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people are unaware that that\u2019s a requirement of the label. They just spray it and think it\u2019s safe,\u201d says Brad Edwards, a social worker turned anti-pesticide campaigner in Hawaii. \u201cThis now means that government, individuals, condo associations\u2014they need to take measures to keep people and pets off sprayed areas until they dry.\u201d<\/p>\n

For products containing glyphosate, following the label means keeping people away from the area where the product has been used for four hours after applications for agriculture, or until the product dries when sprayed for non-agricultural purposes\u2014a time period that varies. That can be difficult in places like long stretches of roads and highways where extended monitoring to keep people away from recently sprayed areas is virtually impossible. But for a long time in Maui, as in many communities across the country, pesticide sprayers simply sprayed and moved on\u2014and no one bothered to hold them to the safety directions of their own product.<\/p>\n

Enter Hawaii\u2019s activists. The effort on Maui to curb glyphosate gained momentum last year as parents began to circulate photographs of government employees spraying Round Up, the primary commercial product containing glyphosate, according to Elle Cochran, a Maui County council member. Footage showed authorities spraying on highways, roads and near schools without any visible effort to keep people away.<\/p>\n

Edwards first grew concerned early last year when he saw a truck spray along a road near his home, shortly before children were due to walk through the area for an event. He began a long process of complaints, taking the issue to various state agencies, but received little response. Finally, he and other activists reached Stephen Rodgers, who oversees pesticide application on Maui\u2019s state highways. The uncertainty raised by activists over the labeling issue was enough to convince Rodgers to make the eventual switch to organic pesticides. His department no longer purchases Roundup and will stop using the product entirely once the existing supply has been exhausted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have sentries, we post signs, and the signs just say \u2018herbicide spray.\u2019 There\u2019s an issue and we haven\u2019t fully solved it yet,\u201d says Rodgers. \u201cWe had this ever increasing public scrutiny, and we\u2019re here to maintain highways and not here to get into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change has motivated activists who say that the labeling issue will force change across the state. And, while efforts thus far have focused on voluntary action, activists have heard rumors of litigation and investigations into how glyphosate is used in Hawaii. \u201cIt has become common knowledge amongst Maui County residents that \u2018the label is the law\u2019 and just how vital it is to follow the label requirements in order to ensure public health and safety,\u201d says Cochran. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official declined to comment on the record on glyphosate use in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

The Hawaii activists are not the first to realize the potential for using the labeling law to challenge practices on glyphosate, says Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy group. \u201cIf a law is not being enforced, people and companies will just ignore it until they\u2019re told not to,\u201d he says. But \u201cto just say this is too burdensome, that\u2019s not a defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards and his fellow activists hope to take the campaign national, encourage concerned parents in thousands of communities across the country to use labeling law to restrict glyphosate use. But supporters of glyphosate suggest that the Hawaii campaign has little basis, arguing the pesticide has 40-year history of safe use. Monsanto, which markets glyphosate as part of the pesticide Roundup, says that the science behind glyphosate shows that it is safe. A company spokesperson said that Roundup labels \u201ccomply with applicable regulations\u201d and the spray takes \u201cvery short time to dry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of our products is our top priority,\u201d a Monsanto spokesperson says. \u201cIn regard to glyphosate, let\u2019s be clear: glyphosate is not a carcinogen and no pesticide regulator in the world considers it to be one.\u201d The EPA is currently reviewing<\/a> whether glyphosate qualifies as a human carcinogen and has said a ruling should be expected by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Farmers have employed glyphosate for decades. But use of the pesticide exploded in the early 2000s with the introduction of genetically-modified crops that are design to resist the pesticide. And as use of the chemical increased\u2014from 11 million pounds annually in 1987 to nearly 300 million in 2013\u2014so did the number of studies suggesting health concerns. Most significantly, significant exposure to glyphosate in farm workers has been linked to increased risk<\/a> of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer. Other research<\/a> has shown a link between glyphosate and cancer in mice. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), ruled last year that the pesticide is a \u201cprobable human carcinogen.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, a number of prominent studies<\/a> have found that glyphosate used on crops does not pose a health risk to humans. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a separate branch of the WHO, said this week<\/a> that that pesticide is \u201cunlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans.\u201d The European Food Safety Authority has also said that glyphosate was \u201cunlikely\u201d to contribute significantly to cancer in humans. The EPA is behind schedule in a review of the chemical but has continued to approve products containing the pesticide.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time glyphosate was viewed as an innocuous herbicide,\u201d says Dr. Philip Landrigan, dean for global health at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. \u201cA lot of things have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 time.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glyphosate use has risen with the adoption of GM crops, but Hawaii environmentalists have found a novel way to curb its use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organic-gmo-genetic-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}