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New York affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation
AVOIDABLE RISK: PESTICIDE USE AND PATTERNS IN NEW YORK CITY FOR 1999
January 2003, data from 1999
In 1996, New York State enacted the Pesticide Reporting Law in order to gather data on the amount, location, and types of pesticides applied in the state by commercial applicators and sold to farmers.1 Environmental Advocates of New York and NYPIRG have released two previous analyses of the data for New York City for the reporting years 1997 and 1998.2 This fact sheet summarizes the data for the third year of the program – 1999 – as well as information on pesticide use in Central Park, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Examining the 1999 data once again illuminates the patterns and nature of risk New York City residents face from the use of toxic chemicals for pest control. Understanding these risks is the first step in reducing them.3
| Major Findings |
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DISCUSSION
Overall Pesticide Use: The total amount of
pesticides reported in New York City in 1999 was a hefty 3.4 million
pounds and 238,441 gallons (Table
1).4 These figures are less than those for either of
the two previous reporting years (statewide figures for 1999 as a
whole were less than for 1998, though comparable to 1997 figures).
It is, however, too soon to determine whether this represents a real
decline in pesticide use or merely reflects reporting problems
(discussed below), technical changes such as a shift to more
concentrated products, or normal year to year variation in pesticide
applications. Several more years of data will be necessary to flesh
this out.
While still constituting an outsized 7% of the total gallons and 13%
of the total pounds reported statewide in 1999 (a percentage that is
especially large in light of the fact that New York City occupies
less than 1% of the state’s total geographic area), these figures
represent a drop from previous years. In 1997 and 1998, New York
City’s share of the total pesticide use in the state ranged between
18% and 36%. Although Brooklyn has consistently logged in among the
highest use counties in the state (ranking second out of all New
York State counties by pounds and 7th by gallons in 1999), and
Manhattan was still high (ranking 11th by both pounds and gallons),
reporting for the New York City boroughs showed much greater
fluctuation in totals and ranks between 1999 and the previous
reporting years. There is no consistent pattern to these
fluctuations within individual boroughs or between gallons and
pounds that can be related to changes in pest pressure or pest
management practices. This is in contrast to the relative stability
from year to year of pesticide amounts reported in most other
counties across the state and in the statewide totals.
Further complicating the picture was an enormous amount of
commercial applicator pesticide use in New York State that, due to
improper reporting, could not be assigned to a particular county.
These misreported data accounted for 6% of the gallons and 12% of
the pounds applied by commercial applicators. If a substantial
portion of these unattributed applications were actually made in New
York City, it would explain a good deal of the discrepancy between
the past years’ levels and those reported in 1999. The fact that, as
noted above, overall statewide totals and the amounts reported in
most other counties were relatively consistent over the three years,
while the amounts reported in New York City fluctuated more widely,
leads to a suspicion that the unattributed data may include a
considerable amount of New York City applications. Only the state,
however, has access to the detailed data necessary to investigate
this question.
Overall, the discrepancies between the data for New York City in
1999 versus the previous two years raise a red flag about city
applicator compliance with reporting requirements and, by extension,
with all of the laws that govern the use of these toxic chemicals in
high risk urban settings.
Top Pesticides Used: The most heavily used
pesticides in New York City in 1999 were once again those that pose
serious health hazards, with a preponderance of neurotoxic
insecticides, including:
- Chlorpyrifos: The most heavily used
pesticide by gallons, chlorpyrifos (known by the trade name
Dursban®) is a highly neurotoxic organophosphate insecticide, so
dangerous that the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has now banned it for virtually all non-agricultural uses
due to both its risk of acute poisoning and concerns that it may
also cause developmental damage to fetuses and infants. Because
these data were collected prior to the EPA-mandated phase-out,
however, chlorpyrifos is still at the top of the list in 1999 in
New York City.
- Cypermethrin: The most heavily used pesticide reported by pounds and the second highest by gallons in New York City in 1999 was the pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin. There are indications that pyrethroids may interfere with the immune5 and endocrine systems.6 Cypermethrin in particular has been specifically linked to immune suppression,7 potential chromosomal damage,8 and reproductive damage,9 and has been classified by EPA as a possible human carcinogen. And while pyrethroids are generally of less acute toxicity than organophosphates, poisonings can occur,10 and there have been specific reports of cypermethrin poisoning in the medical literature.11
Many other dangerous pesticides dominated the pesticides reported
in the highest quantities, including the overwhelmingly toxic
fumigant and ozone depleter methyl bromide (used in ship holds in
the harbor), other neurotoxic insecticide relatives of chlorpyrifos
and cypermethrin, and a few rodenticides.
There was, however, a bright note. For the first time, boric acid, a
mainstay of the “least-toxic” pest management arsenal, made it onto
the list of top 15 pesticides reported by pounds. The fact that its
relative rank rose this past year is a sign that some applicators
are offering safer pest management services to their customers. The
more people request alternatives to dangerous pesticides, the more
available they will become. We hope to see boric acid rising still
higher on the list of pesticides used in New York City in future
years.
Mosquito Control for West Nile virus: 1999 was the
first year of the West Nile virus outbreak that prompted New York
City and other counties in the metropolitan area to spray for
mosquito control. Three different pesticides were deployed for this
purpose in various parts of New York City. These products contained
the active ingredients malathion (Fyfanon ULV®), an organophosphate
insecticide, and two pyrethroid insecticides, resmethrin (Scourge®)
and D-phenothrin (Anvil®). Piecing together the total amounts of
each of these reported in the five boroughs in 1999 yielded a total
of 2118 gallons and 636 pounds — less than 1% of the total amount of
gallons and 0.01% of the pounds used in the city that year.
The fact that the amount of mosquito control pesticide was small
relative to the overall amount of pesticides used in New York City
is not a reason to dismiss concerns about spraying for West Nile
virus control. Questions about the exposure risk and efficacy of
deploying pesticides in urban and suburban settings require a
separate and full discussion of their own. What these figures do
underscore, however, is the serious and overwhelming nature of
routine pesticide use in New York City, for which there are readily
available alternatives. Too often, routine risks become invisible
simply because of their daily nature. The low ratio of mosquito
control pesticides to overall pesticide use is a reason to focus
heightened attention on routine pesticide use, not to disregard
concerns about West Nile virus control.
Central Park: Pesticide reporting records for
Central Park for 1999, 2000 and 2001, obtained under a Freedom of
Information Act request, revealed substantial pesticide use.12
In addition to heavy use of rodenticides park-wide, there were
considerable amounts of other pesticides applied to many of the most
frequented areas of the park, including the Great Lawn, Conservatory
Garden, Sheep Meadow, Bowling Green, and Cedar Hill. Although the
amount of each individual pesticide applied varies from year to year
with weather and other conditions, the overall record of the past
three years in Central Park is of consistent, intense pesticide use,
with literally hundreds of applications each year.
Among the numerous different pesticides applied, (the familiar
Round-Up® and Dursban® among them) were the following:
- PCNB: A fungicide classified as a possible
human carcinogen by EPA, PCNB (pentachloronitrobenzene) has been
associated with liver damage and developmental toxicity in
toxicological studies.13 The half-life of PCNB –
meaning the time it takes for half of the pesticide to break
down – is highly dependent on soil and weather conditions and
has been recorded as anywhere from three weeks to more than a
year. Some of its toxic breakdown products (including
hexachlorobenzene) persist for 2-3 years.14 The PCNB
applied to turf in the park, as well as its breakdown products,
are therefore likely to persist throughout the season and future
years, posing an exposure risk to people, pets, and wildlife.
While conversations with park officials indicate that use of
PCNB has been discontinued since these data reports were filed,
the long-life of PCNB’s breakdown products will ensure that
exposure will continue for some time.
- Thiophanate-methyl: A fungicide classified
as a likely human carcinogen by EPA, both thiophanate-methyl and
its chief breakdown product, MBC (also known as carbendazim) are
developmental toxins and genotoxins. MBC is also associated with
adverse reproductive effects, including testicular
abnormalities.15 EPA has particularly noted excessive
risk from exposure to turf treated with this pesticide.16
- Prodiamine: The herbicide prodiamine is
also classified by EPA as a possible human carcinogen. It has a
half-life of approximately 4 months17 meaning that
it, like PCNB, is likely to persist throughout the season.
Many New Yorkers were justifiably concerned over aerial and other
spray applications of insecticides in the park for controlling
mosquitoes during the height of the West Nile virus control efforts.
At the same time as these pesticides were being sprayed, however,
the grounds themselves were receiving repeated applications of
numerous different and often persistent pesticides, each of which
have a range of associated health hazards. Because these
applications are not as dramatic as helicopter-borne sprays, they
escape public attention, but they carry serious exposure and health
questions, and they are undertaken, for the most part, for purely
aesthetic purposes.
Central Park officials have indicated that they are taking steps to
implement organic approaches in many areas of the park, such as the
Ramble, and to test alternative products and train staff in organic
methods. These are laudable activities that should be expanded so
that no area of the Park is subjected to chemical applications (see
recommendation below).
Security Risks: In the immediate wake of 9/11, crop
dusters were temporarily grounded, FBI-generated lists of
particularly hazardous pesticides were removed from the internet,
and repeated security warnings were issued to people storing
pesticides. Many of the pesticides used in New York City are nerve
poisons, with all the potential hazards that fact entails. Beyond
the daily risks incurred from the use of such pesticides, we have
become newly aware that there are other inherent risks in having
large amounts of dangerous chemicals stored, transported, and
applied in dense urban and suburban neighborhoods, or near sensitive
areas. With a multiplicity of alternatives, eliminating pesticide
use is a feasible way to increase our safety on both a daily basis
and under extraordinary circumstances.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The pesticide reporting data again demonstrate high levels of
pesticide use in New York City. These findings have been further
bolstered by a recent New York State Attorney General’s report, Pest
Control in Public Housing, Schools, and Parks: Urban Children at
Risk,18 and reports in the medical literature.19
The nature of this urban pesticide use – neurotoxic insecticides
predominating – the number of people affected, and the intimacy of
indoor urban exposure, militate for immediate attention to reducing
the hazard. The fluctuations and data gaps in the reporting data for
New York City also point to compliance problems. Such problems are
not simply a concern for the reporting data, but for what they may
indicate about overall compliance with regulations regarding the
storage, transport, and application of these toxic chemicals. The
following recommendations are designed to address both the magnitude
of the risk and the lurking hazards in these data discrepancies.
- ENACT THE URBAN PESTICIDE BILL: The New
York City Council and Mayor Bloomberg should urge the enactment
of the Urban Pesticide Bill (sponsored by Assemblyman Keith
Wright and Senator Carl Marcellino) that would mandate a closer
look at pesticide use in New York City and elsewhere, and
strategies for improving public safety with alternative pest
control policies. The bill would also require pesticide
applicators to be trained in non-toxic methods of pest control
so that they can earn a livelihood and control pests more
effectively without endangering their health or the health of
their clients. This legislation is an opportunity to make
tangible progress toward safer pest control, as well as to sort
out the troubling fluctuations in the pesticide reporting data
and what this might mean for overall compliance (or lack
thereof) with pesticide application laws.
- PHASE OUT AESTHETIC USE OF PESTICIDES ON CITY
PROPERTY: An increasing number of municipalities across
the country – including the cities of San Francisco and Buffalo,
and Westchester, Suffolk, and Albany counties – are phasing out
the use of chemical pesticides on public property. While
addressing all of its pesticide use may be too ambitious given
the current strains on New York City resources, the city could
make a painless and important start by eliminating pesticide use
for purely aesthetic purposes, beginning with Central Park.
Green spaces where people picnic, children and pets play, and
wildlife find an urban haven, should be free of toxic hazards.
When Central Park was first created, lawn care pesticides did
not yet exist. New York City could simultaneously honor history,
safeguard public health, and protect the wildlife denizens of
the park by going chemical-free.
- SUPPORT PILOT PROJECTS TO IMPLEMENT PESTICIDE
ALTERNATIVES: Over the past few years, pilot projects
in both the public and private sectors have sought to evaluate
the health status of residents exposed to pesticides in their
homes and the effectiveness of alternative means of pest
management. Ongoing projects in the New York City Department of
Health and the New York City Housing Authority, and at Mt. Sinai
and Columbia Medical Schools, have all yielded important and
useful information about the ease and effectiveness of
transitions to alternatives. Funding to continue and expand
public projects has been cast in doubt during these difficult
financial times. But the potential health and long-term economic
benefits make them a necessity for future funding. The New York
City Council and Mayor Bloomberg should include support for such
pilot projects in the budget.
- WORK TO IMPLEMENT ALTERNATIVES IN SCHOOLS: Parents and staff who receive notice of pesticide use in schools as a result of the 2000 Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law should follow up with school officials to seek safer ways of managing pests that do not expose children to toxic chemicals.
Enormous amounts of dangerous pesticides are used every day in New York City, largely in high-risk indoor settings. Though dramatic events, such as spraying to control West Nile virus, garner the lion’s share of public and media attention, the data demonstrate that daily, routine use is the overwhelming source of exposure for New York City residents. Both to reduce the risk inherent in repeated, routine exposure, and also the hazard presented by the presence of dangerous chemicals stored and transported in such a densely populated city, New York City residents and policymakers need to adopt the many safer strategies that exist. New York City must kick its chemical habit.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENS
Environmental Advocates of New York and NYPIRG gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the New York Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Bauman Foundation, the Norcross Wildlife Foundation, the Wellspring Foundation, and Dr. Lucy Waletzky. The opinions expressed in this report are solely those of our organizations and do not necessarily reflect the views of any funder or individual acknowledged here.
ENDNOTES
1 1 Commercial applicators submit a detailed report on their pesticide application annually to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Pesticide use by farmers is assessed indirectly from reports filed with DEC by sellers of pesticides. Details of the reporting requirements can be found at http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dshm/pesticid/prl.htm. The pesticide data reports themselves can be found at: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/psur.
2 Thier, A. 2000. The Toxic Treadmill. Environmental Advocates and NYPIRG. Albany, New York. Thier, A., J. Enck, and C. Klossner. 1998. Plagued by Pesticides. Environmental Advocates and NYPIRG. Albany, New York.
3 For a full discussion of the methodology used to analyze the pesticide data, please visit the Environmental Advocates website (methodology).
4 Two notes on the New York City data: First, the pesticides reported in New York City were almost entirely commercial applications, although some very small amounts of pesticides were reported in the sales to farmers category. Because there is little farming to speak of in Manhattan, it is likely that these pesticides were reported inaccurately. As such, they were not listed separately in Table 1, but included in the overall totals. Second, the data are reported by DEC in either liquid or solid measures. These are additive, not duplicative.
5 Diel, F. et al. 1999. Pyrethroids and piperonyl-butoxide affect human T-lymphocytes in vitro. Toxicology Letters. 107:65-74. see also Stiller-Winkler, R. et al. 1999. Immunological parameters in humans exposed to pesticides in the agricultural environment. Toxicology Letters. 107:219-224.
6 Go, V. et al. 1999. Estrogenic Potential of Certain Pyrethroid Compounds in the MCF-7 Human Breast Carcinoma Cell Line. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107(3):173-177. see also Eil, C. and B.C. Nisula. 1990. The Binding Properties of Pyrethroids to Human Skin Fibroblast Androgen Receptors and to Sex Hormone Binding Globulin. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry. 35(3/4):409-414.
7 Santoni, G. et al. 1999. Alterations of T cell distribution and functions in prenatally cypermethrin-exposed rats: possible involvement of catecholamines. Toxicology. 138(3)L 175-187. see also Santoni, G. et al. 1998. Cypermethin-induced alteration of thymocyte distribution and functions in prenatally-exposed rats. Toxicology. 125: 67-78. see also Desi, I. et al. 1985. Immunotoxicological Investigation of the Effects of a Pesticide: Cypermethrin. Archives of Toxicology. Suppl.8:305-309.
8 Amer, S.M. et al. 1993. Induction of chromosomal aberrations and sister chromatid exchange in vivo and in vitro by the insecticide cypermethrin. Journal of Applied Toxicology. 13(5):341-345. see also Puig, M. et al. 1989. Analysis of cytogenetic damage induced in cultured human lymphocytes by the pyrethroid insecticides cypermethrin and fenvalerate. Mutagenesis. 4(1):72-74.
9 Elbetieha, A., etal. 2001. Evaluation of the Toxic Potentials of Cypermethrin Pesticide on Some Reproductive and Fertility Parameters in Male Rats. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 41: 522-528.
10 Reigart, J.R. and J.R. Roberts. 1999. Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings. Fifth Edition. United States Environmental Protection Agency. EPA 735-R-98-003. Washington D.C. see also O’Malley, M. 1997. Clinical evaluation of pesticide exposure and poisonings. Lancet. 349:1161-1166. see also Muller-Mohnssen. 1999. Chronic sequelae and irreversible injuries following acute pyrethroid intoxication. Toxicology Letters. 107:161-175.
11 Lessenger, J.E. 1992. Five office workers inadvertently exposed to cypermethrin. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. 35(4):261-267.
12 Under state law, citizens do not have the right to request pesticide reporting records from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the agency that collects them, or to obtain any specific records on applications to private property. However, citizens do have the right to obtain pesticide application records for public property by filing a Freedom of Information Act request directly with the public agency making the applications.
13 Extoxnet. 1996. Quintozene, PCNB; Pesticide Information Profile. http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/quintoze.htm.
14 Ibid.
15 Office of Pesticide Programs. 2001. Tolerance Reassessment and Reregistration: Thiophanate Methyl: Thiophanate Methyl Summary. Environmental Protection Agency. Washington D.C. http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/tm/tmsummary.htm.
16 Ibid.
17 Agricultural Research Service. 1995. ARS Pesticide Properties Database. http://wizard.arsusda.gov/acsl/textfiles/PRODIAMINE.
18 Report can be viewed at: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/environment/pest_control_public_housing.pdf.
19 Whyatt, R.M. et al. 2002. Residential Pesticide Use during Pregnancy among a Cohort of Urban Minority Women. Environmental Health Perspectives. 110(5):507-514.
© January 2003, Environmental Advocates of New York and New York Public Interest Research Group Fund