[5] Settlement Reached Over Pesticide Review
The National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to complete consultations on the effects of 37 pesticides on West Coast salmon and steelhead as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental and fishing groups last year to get the feds to comply to terms of an earlier ruling. The parties have agreed to a schedule for completion over the next four years with the first reviews to be finished by October.
A federal court ordered the EPA to consult with NMFS over the pesticides more than five years ago, but NMFS has never come up with a plan for reducing their effects on fish.
"Today's agreement is a victory for all of us," said Aimee Code of Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, a plaintiff in the case, on July 30, "Keeping pesticides out of the river also keeps pesticides out of drinking water and out of our bodies."
Some lab studies have shown detrimental effects on young salmon from some chemicals in pesticides, like diazinon on the homing instinct. Soon after the settlement was announced, NMFS released a draft report that examined diazinon and two other pesticides. In the draft, NMFS says there is overwhelming evidence that suggests the pesticides are interfering with the ability of salmon to swim, find food, reproduce and escape bigger fish trying to eat them.
Back in 2002 in earlier litigation, Seattle federal court judge John Coughenour granted part of a motion for summary judgment agreeing with a claim by the Washington Toxics Coalition that the EPA had failed to consult with NMFS about effects of registered pesticides on listed fish and their habitat. But he denied their claim that EPA had violated a section of the ESA that called for the agency to promote the conservation of threatened and endangered salmonids.
The judge approved a schedule for the federal agency to consult with NMFS over the effects of 55 active ingredients of pesticides, because plaintiffs "have provided some evidence of potential harm to the species of their interest, salmon." But he dismissed environmentalists' claims with respect to another 898 unidentified ingredients, saying they "submit absolutely no evidence in any form showing that EPA's respective actions are fairly traceable to an actual or threatened injury to threatened and endangered salmonids."
In 2003, Judge Coughenour ruled that, for the time being, he would go along with environmentalists' recommendations that called for buffer zones along streams to keep pesticides from harming wild salmonids listed under the ESA. His ruling said the plaintiffs had demonstrated "with reasonable scientific certainty" that the buffers, 20 yards for ground applications and 100 yards for aerial applications, "will, unlike the status quo, substantially contribute to the prevention of jeopardy." In 2005, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the ruling. -B.R.
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