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<H2>Lawsuit Seeks EPA Pesticide Data</H2>
<DIV class=post-credit>by Jane Kay</DIV>
<DIV class=post-body>
<P>WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose
records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the
disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed
Monday charges.<A title="0819 01 1"
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<P>The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA
required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years
ago.</P>
<P>The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how
diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides, said Aaron
Colangelo, a lawyer for the group in Washington.</P>
<P>In the last two years, beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of hives -
30 percent and upward - leading to a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.
Scientists believe that the decline in bees is linked to an onslaught of
pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as well as a loss of habitat and
food.</P>
<P><STRONG>$15 billion in crops</STRONG></P>
<P>Bees pollinate about one-third of the human diet, $15 billion worth of U.S.
crops, including almonds in California, blueberries in Maine, cucumbers in North
Carolina and 85 other commercial crops, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. Not finding a cause of the collapse could prove costly, scientists
warn.</P>
<P>Representatives of the EPA said they hadn’t seen the suit and couldn’t
comment.</P>
<P>Clothianidin is the pesticide at the center of controversy. It is used to
coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of pesticides
called neonicotinoids. The pesticide was blamed for bee deaths in France and
Germany, which also is dealing with a colony collapse. Those two countries have
suspended its use until further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says
clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well
as other pollinators, through residues in nectar and pollen.</P>
<P>The EPA granted conditional registration for clothianidin in 2003 and at the
same time required that Bayer CropScience submit studies on chronic exposure to
honeybees, including a complete worker bee lifecycle study as well as an
evaluation of exposure and effects to the queen, the group said. The queen,
necessary for a colony, lives a few years; the workers live only six weeks, but
there is no honey without them.</P>
<P>“The public has no idea whether those studies have been submitted to the EPA
or not and, if so, what they show. Maybe they never came in. Maybe they came in,
and they show a real problem for bees. Maybe they’re poorly conducted studies
that don’t satisfy EPA’s requirement,” Colangelo said.<BR>Request for
records</P>
<P>On July 17, after getting no response from the EPA about securing the
studies, the environmental group filed a request under the Freedom of
Information Act, which requires the records within 20 business days absent
unusual circumstances.</P>
<P>When the federal agency missed the August deadline, the group filed the
lawsuit, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to force the EPA to
turn over the records.</P>
<P>Greg Coffey, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience in Research Triangle Park,
N.C., said controlled field studies have demonstrated that clothianidin, when
used correctly, will not harm bees. He added that all of EPA’s requirements for
conditional registration of clothianidin have been submitted to the agency.</P>
<P>An EPA spokesman, Dale Kemery, said the agency couldn’t comment on the
documents required under the conditional registration because the matter is the
subject of litigation.<BR><STRONG>Unusual circumstances</STRONG></P>
<P>Generally, the EPA has taken the position that the bee deaths occurred under
unusual circumstances. In Germany, the corn lacked a seed coating that ensured
that the pesticide stuck to the seed, and equipment blew the pesticide into a
nearby canola field where bees fed.</P>
<P>The EPA is “reasonably confident” that a bee kill similar to Germany’s
wouldn’t happen in the United States because use is restricted to commercial
applicators who use stickier coatings, according to Kemery.</P>
<P>But because the stickier coatings aren’t required, Kemery said, the EPA will
review its policies on seed-treatment labels.</P>
<P>In California, according to the 2006 Pesticide Use Report Summary, about 3
pounds of clothianidin was used, all on corn. Other members of the neonicotinoid
class, registered for a longer period of time, have been used more frequently,
including 127,000 pounds on broccoli, grapes, lettuce and oranges. Some
pesticides were used in buildings.</P>
<P>“We’ve been monitoring the bee die-off situation for a couple of years, and
it’s a complex puzzle that may also involve mites, viruses and other factors,”
said Glenn Brank, communications director for the state Department of Pesticide
Regulation.</P>
<P>The agency is conducting its own review of environmental data from registered
neonicotinoid pesticides as well as watching enforcement reports from counties
for any unusual environmental incidents involving bees, he said. None was noted,
Brank said.</P>
<P>Scientists presenting at the American Chemical Society national meeting
Monday reported that dozens of pesticides had been found in samples of adult
bees, broods, pollen and wax collected from honeybee colonies suspected to have
died from symptoms of colony collapse disorder, including some
neonicotinoids.</P>
<P>Entomologist Gabriela Chavarria, director of Natural Resources Defense
Council’s Science Center, said over the years bees have had to withstand
devastating problems.</P>
<P>Bees pick up deadly farm and home chemicals when they visit flowers, or
encounter chemical drift from aerial and other applications. Fifteen years ago,
queen bees imported from China brought varroa mites that attacked broods of
worker bees. Microscopic tracheal mites invade the hives.</P>
<P>And now the new pesticide, clothianidin, is another problem, Chavarria said.
Scientists must find out whether the toxicity has been sufficiently studied, she
said.</P>
<P>“We want this information now. We cannot continue to wait. Bees are
disappearing. Our whole existence depends on them because we eat. The flowers
need to be pollinated, and the only ones to do it are the
bees.”<BR><STRONG>Colony collapse</STRONG></P>
<P>Honeybees, which pollinate everything from almonds to apples to avocados,
began abandoning their colonies in 2006, destroying about a third of their
hives.</P>
<P>Since then, their numbers have not improved. A survey of beekeepers in the
fall and winter 2007 by the Bee Research Lab and the Apiary Inspectors of
America showed that beekeepers lost about 35 percent of their hives compared
with 31 percent in 2006.</P>
<P>Scientists have not pinpointed the cause.</P>
<P>In 2007, Congress recognized colony collapse disorder as a threat and gave
the U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency funds to study honeybee
disappearances. In addition, the 2008 Farm Bill grants the USDA $20 million each
year to support bee research and related work. And earlier this year, ice cream
maker Haagen-Dazs, who relies on honeybees for 40 percent of its flavors,
awarded a $250,000 research grant to UC Davis and Pennsylvania State University
to research honeybees.</P>
<P align=center>© 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.</P>
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