Conference Call at the Request of  Earthjustice and NRDC, April 7, 2009

Next Steps for Spray Drift

Participants

Earthjustice:  Patti Goldman, Janette Brimmer, Kristen Boyles

NRDC:  Aaron Colangelo, Levi Jones

OPP:  Steve Bradbury, Bill Jordan, Rick Keigwin, Margaret Rice, Cathryn
O’Connell, Jill Bloom

OGC:  Mark Dyner, Michele Knorr

Introduction

Patti Goldman said the organizations were “heartened” by the
direction the Agency was taking with spray drift and related concerns. 
It was agreed that nothing specific about the chlorpyrifos lawsuit would
be discussed.

Spray Drift PR Notice

Cathryn O’Connell discussed the general nature of the Notice and
characterized the comments that were received during the public comment
period, which closed March 5. She noted that the docket is still
processing comments and noted that write-in campaigns and petitions
submitted to the docket included over 30,000 signatories.  Many of the
comments concerned the “could cause adverse effects” language. 
Asked about the schedule for next steps, she said that the Office was
sorting through the comments and had not yet developed a defined
schedule for next steps.

Petition to Protect Children from Pesticide Drift, Earthjustice and
Farmworker Justice

Jill Bloom noted that the Petition Docket had not received as many
comments as had the PR Notice Docket, that there was a good degree of
duplication in the comments for the two dockets, and that there was also
some overlap with the Revised Worker Risk Assessment Docket (closing
April 12). A workgroup has been assembled to advise management of policy
and technical issues raised by the petition.  The workgroup is
considering the petition’s requests on both 1) interim protections for
OPs and other acutely toxic pesticide classes, and 2) expedited
integration of drift exposures to children into Agency assessments and
risk management decisions.  The workgroup hopes to brief management on
its recommendations in the next several months.

Pesticide-Specific Advocacy

Patti Goldman indicated that if the Agency took action on immediate
no-spray zones for the pesticides of particular concern, it would be
less critical to expedite the inclusion of spray drift exposures into
the review of other pesticides.

Next steps

The group agreed to have a follow-up call in 2-3 months.

