On Aug. 6, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an Emergency Order directing the suspension of all registrations issued under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) for pesticide products containing the active ingredient dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA), also marketed under the trade name Dacthal. According to the EPA, this is the “first time in almost 40 years that EPA is using its emergency suspension authority to stop the use of a pesticide.”
What is DCPA?
DCPA is a benzoic acid herbicide that inhibits cell division of root tips in target plants. It controls annual grasses and broadleaf weeds before they emerge in a variety of agricultural crops. DCPA is registered for agricultural uses, including on Allium species, Brassica species, cucurbits, root vegetables, fruiting vegetables, strawberry, sod, and nursery ornamental production. Nonagricultural uses of DCPA include nonresidential grass/turf including golf courses and athletic fields. The EPA says that “While these turf uses are considered nonresidential because the treated turf is not a home lawn, there is still the potential for residential post-application exposures as a result of application to these use sites.”
What the Emergency Order Means
Essentially, by its emergency order, the EPA has determined that the “continued sale, distribution, or use of DCPA products during the time required to cancel such products would pose an imminent hazard and that an emergency exists that does not permit EPA to hold a hearing before suspending such products.” Effective immediately, no person in any state may distribute, sell, offer for sale, hold for sale, ship, deliver for shipment, or receive and (having so received) deliver or offer to deliver to any person any pesticide product containing DCPA. According to the EPA, these findings are based primarily on a “risk of thyroid hormone perturbations in the fetuses of female bystanders and workers who apply DCPA or who enter treated fields after application.” Further, “EPA has concerns that pregnant individuals may be currently exposed to DCPA at levels higher than those that cause fetal thyroid hormone disruption, but at which no thyroid effects would occur in the pregnant individual.” The EPA has determined that there is “no combination of practicable mitigations under which DCPA use can continue without presenting an imminent hazard.”
The company that is the sole registrant Dacthal products submitted to the EPA multiple mitigation proposals, which recommended reducing the “use pattern” among other restrictions, e.g., use only on certain vegetables, geographic limitations, and designation as a restricted use pesticide. The proposals were rejected by the EPA. According to the EPA, it “does not typically approve labeling that restricts the amount of product that individual handlers are allowed to use for several reasons.” The EPA says that there are various kinds of tasks individual handlers may need to do as part of an application, such as mixing the product, loading application equipment, using specific equipment, cleaning, repairing, or maintaining application equipment, and disposing of pesticides or materials with pesticide residue. In a nutshell, these multiple activities “can all lead to exposure, and make it difficult to adequately reduce exposure through a simple label restriction on the amount of a pesticide handled each day.”
At present, according to the EPA there is also no mechanism in place through which users can track compliance with the proposed daily amount handled limitations. Without a mechanism for reliably tracking the amounts of product handled per day (across different handling tasks as noted above), the EPA found that it would be very difficult to enforce the proposed label requirement. “Without a way to provide clear limits for all handler tasks and ensure compliance with a limit to the amount of product handled each day for each handler,” the EPA determined this mitigation measure would not adequately address these handler risks.
This article originally appeared on Goldberg Segalla.
About the Author:
Oliver E. Twaddell is a partner at Goldberg Segalla.