Today the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) published a notice in the Federal Register (79 FR
4867-4868) proposing to add another use of methyl bromide to their current Plant
Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) Treatment Manual under the immediate need
provisions of 7
CFR §305.3. This time it is for the treatment of kumquats for fruit fly
infestations.
The new treatment schedule, T101-n-3, has been added to the
PPQ subject to revision or removal based upon comments received per this
notice. Public comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # APHIS-2013-0095).
A copy of the Treatment Evaluation Document (TED) supporting this adoption may
be found in that docket.
STANDARD RANT
Once again the folly of excluding methyl bromide from the
list of DHS chemicals of interest (COI)
for the CFATS program based upon the putative ‘phasing out’ of the
chemical by EPA is exposed. While greatly reduced, the use of methyl bromide will
continue for the foreseeable future as it is an effective pesticide that is
readily adaptable to treatment of new pests.
Since this is a toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) chemical
(which is why it is such an effective pesticide) it should be included in the
CFATS list of COI that trigger reporting to DHS.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment