USEPA
Top officials at the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) contend that a newly proposed Bush Administration rule that would all but eliminate a requirement for these agencies to consult each other on pesticide registrations will actually increase cooperation. In fact, say many, EPA officials over the years have largely ignored the consultations, required under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). However, many environmentalists contend that industry is pushing the new rule. Comments on the rule were due March 30.
Although the Endangered Species Act required consultations among federal agencies before registering a pesticide, they probably occurred infrequently and may no longer be necessary.
The proposed rule, published on January 30 (Fed. Regist. 2004, 69, 4465–4480), states that if EPA officials determine that a pesticide registration is not likely to adversely affect endangered species, they no longer need to ask FWS or NMFS for their concurrence, as is now required by the ESA, says Clint Riley, special assistant to the director of FWS. In addition, the new rule says that if EPA finds that a pesticide is likely to adversely affect endangered species, the agency may make its own detailed determination of those effects. “A year-long study by scientists from the agencies determined that EPA is capable of producing an effects determination that appropriately considers the effects of pesticides on endangered species,” Riley says. The pro-
posed rule also allows FWS and NMFS to amend EPA’s determination if they don’t like it, he adds. Others contend that the changes have been proposed for different reasons. EPA has had trouble cooperating with the wildlife agencies because it is afraid that the ESA will hold up registrations of pesticides that the agency wants to keep on the market, says Aaron Colangelo, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Environmental groups have sued EPA for collusion over meeting in secret with industry concerning the proposed rules, according to Colangelo, whose group is involved in the lawsuit. Currently, the ESA mandates that EPA ask FWS and NMFS to draft biological opinions of how the roughly 700 active ingredients in pesticides now on the market affect any of the 1260 listed endangered species and their habitats. After formal consultation, the FWS or NMFS drafts an opinion that states whether using the pesticide will help push species to extinction and recommends actions to avoid harmful effects. “These biological opinions have been summarily ignored by EPA, even with the full force of the ESA, so why would they comply now that the consultations are cut?” asks Jamie Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and director of FWS from 1997 to 2001. The last formal consultation was in 1993, adds Mike Senatore, litigation director with Defenders of Wildlife. Other environmentalists say that the proposed rule is another example of subverting science to serve the interests of industry. The EPAconducted assessments won’t be the same as those produced by FWS and NMFS biologists because EPA’s mandate under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is to register pesticides, not protect endangered species, Clark says. Risk assessments under FIFRA, which are based on the notion that pesticides should cause no unreasonable adverse effect, weigh mistakes more
News Briefs Ozone, fine dust plague Great Lakes air Local sources of smog help drive air quality over accepted limits in cross-border regions of the United States and Canada, according to a new report from the International Joint Commission, a binational watchdog for the Great Lakes region. Researchers have tracked concentrations of 6 criteria pollutants and 15 hazardous air pollutants during the past 10 years in Detroit–Windsor, Port Huron– Sarnia, and Sault Ste. Maries. Although emissions of hazardous air pollutants have declined since 1991, the ozone and fine dust that make up smog continue to threaten the health of children and the elderly, the report says. Air Quality in Selected Binational Great Lakes Urban Regions is available at www.ijc.org/php/publications/ html/airqual/index.htm.
Campus climate changing The presence of more than 500 students from 105 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities at a conference at Harvard University on what campuses can do to halt global climate change “demonstrates a growing unrest with U.S. climate policies,” according to campaign organizer Bill Parish. Over the past two years, student-led protests have prompted more than 40 colleges to reduce their impact on global warming. For example, some schools have pledged to meet or exceed the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. “We’re really frustrated with how the Bush Administration and many members of Congress are responding to the threat of global warming,” says Allison Rogers, a Harvard senior and student director of the university’s new Resource Efficiency Program. For more information, go to www.climatecampaign.org.
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PHOTODISC
Administration drops pesticide consultations
Environmental▼News lightly than assessments under the ESA, where mistakes in registering pesticides are viewed as potentially irreversible and biologists are directed to preclude extinction, Senatore explains. Clark charges that the proposed rules were drafted by the office of Craig Manson, the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, whose political motivation is to ease the way for farmers to use pesticides, not to protect declining species. The recommenda-
tions of career biologists at FWS and NMFS were totally disregarded, and the new rules were drafted with industry help and support, Senatore charges. Many career staff at FWS and NMFS would not speak to ES&T—some were fearful of reprisals by Administration officials—but confirmed that environmentalists’ claims of industry interference were accurate. EPA’s poor compliance record with the ESA is now being played out in the courts, Senatore says. On
January 22, the U.S. District Court in Seattle ordered EPA to consult with NMFS on the adverse effects of pesticides on endangered salmon and established interim protections that ban application of 38 pesticides near streams in Washington, Oregon, and California. Similar lawsuits over the impact of pesticides on sea turtles in the Chesapeake Bay and California’s red-legged frog are threading their way through the courts, Senatore says. —JANET PELLEY
Mercury woes appear to grow more slowly than normal along a particular circuit in their brains. However, the researchers did not find a link between prenatal exposure to PCBs and electrical signal latencies. The study, one of the first to look for neurodevelopmental effects in older children, is likely to fuel the RHONDA SAUNDERS
Two new studies find that problems arising from mercury exposure may be more severe than previously thought. Children born to women who ate large amounts of seafood containing methylmercury during pregnancy can suffer brain development that persists at least into adolescence, according to results from a large, long-term study of Faroe Islanders. Meanwhile, a preliminary estimate from the U.S. EPA finds that about 630,000 infants are born every year in the United States with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood, which is roughly twice the agency’s earlier calculations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently advises pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children to avoid eating fish with high levels of mercury, although many consumer and environmental groups argue that the warnings are inadequate. The study of children on the Faroe Islands—several islands in the Atlantic, northwest of Scotland, where inhabitants eat a lot of fish and whale meat—was led by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Philippe Grandjean. Because of their diets, Faroe Islanders are exposed to high levels of mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants. The researchers found that 14year-olds who had high levels of mercury in their umbilical cord blood at birth continued to show neurological deficits previously identified at age 7. In particular, the children transmitted electrical signals
Children whose mother ate large amounts of mercury-contaminated seafood during pregnancy could suffer unique problems.
continuing debate about the health effects of this toxic form of mercury. According to Grandjean, the study suggests that “when mercury gets into the brain of a fetus, it will cause damage and that damage will be permanent.” The researchers also found latencies in electrical signals from other parts of the brain in 14-yearolds who are linked to current mercury exposure, which suggests that postnatal exposure may damage brain functions in a different way than during fetal development, according to the authors. More than 850 14-year-olds participated in the study, which began with over 1000
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mothers and their children. However, the mercury picture that is emerging from modern longterm studies is not entirely clear. A second large long-term investigation on the tropical Seychelles Islands, where inhabitants also eat lots of fish, has found little evidence that mercury exposure during brain development causes harm. The difference may arise from the Faroe Islanders’ unique, whale-rich diet, according to University of Rochester neurologist Gary Myers, one of the principal investigators in the Seychelles study. He notes that toxins other than mercury in the whale meat might explain some of the detrimental effects. Meanwhile, a new estimate of the number of children born with unsafe blood mercury levels was presented by EPA scientist Kate Mahaffey in January at the National Forum on Contaminants in Fish. The new estimate is based on a recent analysis of methylmercury in maternal and fetal umbilical cord blood that found that the mercury level in fetal blood is 1.7 times higher than that in maternal blood—not one to one as previously assumed (Environ. Health Perspect. 2003, 111, 1465–1470). This means that a mercury level of only 3.5 parts per billion (ppb) in a mother’s blood would be enough for her fetus’s blood to exceed the 5.8-ppb safety level. Nearly 16% of U.S. women have mercury blood levels of 3.5 ppb or higher, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. —REBECCA RENNER
