It's Time for EPA to Get Serious about Neonicotinoid Pesticides!

By Steve Holmer, Senior Policy Advisor, American Bird Conservancy & Director, Bird Conservation Alliance

Please write your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask her or him to support the Save America’s Pollinators Act of 2013. This bill will direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend registration for neonicotinoid insecticides, which are causing serious harm to birds, bees, and aquatic life.

The bill comes on the heels of American Bird Conservancy’s groundbreaking report documenting that songbirds can die from consuming a single neonicotinoid-coated seed. This report, along with the avalanche of recent research on neonicotinoids’ harms to pollinators, makes it clear that immediate action is needed. This bill was drafted by Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

Please Write Your Representative Now and Urge Support and Co-sponsorship of This Bill.  Click on: http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5400/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14827

ABC Report Charges EPA Ignored Staff Warnings, Approved Widespread Use of Dangerous Pesticides

As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.

“It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.

ABC commissioned world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre Mineau to conduct the research. The 100-page report, “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” reviews 200 studies on neonicotinoids including industry research obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act. The report evaluates the toxicological risk to birds and aquatic systems and includes extensive comparisons with the older pesticides that the neonicotinoids have replaced. The assessment concludes that the neonicotinoids are lethal to birds and to the aquatic systems on which they depend.

“A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,” Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the oldest neonicotinoid -- called imidacloprid -- can fatally poison a bird. And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”

The new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both surface- and ground water in the United States and around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates. Data on surface water contamination from surveys to date, most notably from California and from the Canadian Prairies, indicate that concentrations of several of the neonicotinoid insecticides are high enough to be causing impacts in aquatic food chains. Data from other jurisdictions such as the Netherlands show even higher levels of contamination.


The report also identifies procedural deficiencies in how the US Environmental Protection Agency assesses aquatic impacts. “EPA risk assessments have greatly underestimated this risk, using scientifically unsound, outdated methodology that has more to do with a game of chance than with a rigorous scientific process,” the report says.