Table of Contents:

Glossary of Key Terms
Summary
i. Introduction
ii. Why the Data Matter: The Risks of Pesticides
Sidebar: Food Quality Protection Act of 1996
Sidebar: Breakdown Products
iii. What the Data Reveal: Findings
Sidebar: What Gets Reported and What Does Not
Sidebar: Mosquito Control Pesticides
Sidebar: Resources for Alternative Pest Control
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Tables 4 and 5
Table 6
Table 7
Maps
iv. Recommendations
Sidebar: Neighbor Notification: The Next Level of Right-to-Know
v. Conclusion
vi. References
Appendix: Methodology and Data Quality Issues

Regional Reports

Greater Rochester Area
Table 1 | Table 2 | Map 1 | Map 2

Long Island
Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3

New York City
Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3 | Map 1 | Map 2

Westchester County
Table 1 | Table 2

Western New York
Table 1 | Table 2 | Map 1 | Map 2

This report was produced as part of the New York State Pesticide Right-to-Know and Reduction Project, a joint initiative of Environmental Advocates and the New York Public Interest Research Group Fund, Inc. (NYPIRG) under the direction of Audrey Thier (Environmental Advocates) and Laura Haight (NYPIRG). Other people who contributed substantially to this report were Marty DeBenedictis and Steven Romalewski, of NYPIRG’s Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP), Laura DiBetta (Environmental Advocates), and Megan McConagha (NYPIRG).

We want to thank Chris Meyer, executive director of NYPIRG, and Val Washington, executive director of Environmental Advocates, for their insight and assistance in reviewing this report; James Beech and George Larocca of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C. for clarifying aspects of the EPA’s pesticide product data; and William Smith and Robert Warfield of the Cornell Pesticide Management Education Program for their continuing availability in answering our questions about the particulars of New York State’s data.

Our groups also gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Bauman Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Westchester Community Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and Dr. Lucy R. Waletzky.

The opinions expressed in this report are solely those of our organizations and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person, organization, or funder acknowledged here.

 Glossary of Key Terms

Active Ingredient: an agent that is specifically intended to kill, repel, or otherwise deter a target organism, and which is registered with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as such. Active ingredients are listed on pesticide product labels.

Certified Applicator: anyone who has received a certificate for having been trained in pesticide use and passed tests in subjects related to pesticide application by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Certification is necessary to perform any pesticide application for hire, and to purchase and apply restricted use pesticides. All commercial applicators must be certified. Private applicators (farmers) need only be certified if they apply restricted use pesticides.

Commercial Applicator: anyone who applies pesticides for hire, including: lawn and garden applicators; exterminators; custodial and groundskeeping staff in schools, office buildings, and other structures; and municipal employees who apply pesticides in such places as parks or on roadsides. Some commercial applicators are hired to make agricultural applications on farms they do not own themselves (most aerial applicators are commercial applicators, for example).

General Use Pesticide: a pesticide that is available for sale to any person.

Inert Ingredient: any ingredient of a pesticide product that is not the active ingredient. Inert ingredients are not displayed on the product label and are often highly toxic. They are added to increase the potency of the active ingredient, or to act as a carrier (aiding in dispersion or adherence).

Metabolite: a chemical product formed upon the breakdown of a pesticide or other chemical. Also known as a degradate.

Pesticide Product: a mixture of pesticide active ingredients and inert ingredients, and can also include fertilizers. Some pesticide products consist entirely of active ingredients.

Private Applicator: a farmer who applies pesticides only on property he or she owns or rents for the purpose of producing an agricultural commodity.

Restricted Use Pesticide: a pesticide for which limitations have been established regarding where and how it can be used. Restricted use pesticides can only be obtained and applied by certified applicators.

Target Organism or Target Pest: insects, weeds, fungi, or other pests that a pesticide is specifically intended to kill or repel.

 Summary

Two years of data are now available under New York State’s pesticide reporting law and they confirm that New York is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. These pesticides pose a constellation of hazards: health risks such as neurotoxicity, carcinogenicity, and endocrine, immune, and reproductive system damage; environmental risks such as contamination of indoor and ambient air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations. New York is not unique in its over-reliance on hazardous pesticides, but it has the opportunity to be unique in how it faces up to this knowledge. The pesticide reporting data offer the insight to direct this effort, showing not just the greatest hazards but also the greatest avenues for progress.

The data reveal the following:

An enormous amount of pesticides – 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds – were reported used by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in New York State in 1998. For 1997, the first year of reporting, 3.5 million gallons and 25.3 million pounds of pesticides were reported.

Urban and suburban downstate counties again report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings (Brooklyn) and Queens counties respectively. In 1997, the top counties were New York (Manhattan) and Kings counties by gallons and pounds respectively. In 1998, the downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds of pesticides reported for the state in 1998. The predominant pesticides reported for New York City were insecticides.

Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and lawn care. This overall pattern does not mean that non-agricultural use is greater in all geographic regions of the state, or that agricultural pesticides pose less of a risk. Agricultural pesticide use predominates in the corn and fruit growing regions in the western part of the state and the Hudson Valley, and many of the agricultural pesticides reported are extremely acutely toxic and pose significant water contamination hazards.

A substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of ever-mounting evidence of their dangers and readily available alternatives. Recommendations to reduce New York’s reliance on highly toxic pesticides include the following:

New York State should ban the use of the most toxic pesticides and eliminate pesticide use in settings where they pose particular dangers. Using all available information – including EPA’s carcinogenicity, acute toxicity, and pending endocrine disruption classifications, the pesticide reporting data, poisoning registry and poison control center reports, and the scientific literature – New York State should eliminate those pesticides that are the most toxic. It should also prohibit those uses that pose the greatest risks, such as neurotoxic insecticides in day care centers, or water-contaminating herbicides in drinking water recharge areas.

New York State should actively promote safer alternatives to pesticides. The success of organic farmers and practitioners of alternative pest control in structural maintenance and lawn care proves that pest management and pesticides are not one and the same. New York State needs to make an institutional commitment to promoting the spread of these safer practices. The state should: provide funding for research, training, and loan support to organic farmers and to conventional farmers making the transition to organic; establish a procurement preference for organic foods and other products; and require that all pesticide applicators be trained in non-toxic alternative pest management as a condition of their licenses. In addition, New York State and local governments should adopt pesticide phase-out policies for managing public property in order to reduce pesticide use and risks, and to lead by example. Seven municipalities in the state have already done so.

All counties in New York State and New York City should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law. Nearly ten years of debate in the New York State Legislature culminated in the enactment of the Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law in August 2000. The new law requires that all day care centers and schools provide 48 hours advance notice of pesticide applications to staff and parents. It also allows counties, and the City of New York, to adopt local laws requiring commercial applicators to provide 48-hour advance notice to adjacent neighbors of most lawn care pesticide applications. As of this writing, Suffolk County has already enacted the county Neighbor Notification law, and bills to do so are currently being debated in numerous other counties across the state.

Pesticide manufacturers should be assessed a variable tax tied to their pesticide sales, sufficient to finance all pesticide programs. Programs to enforce pesticide regulations are chronically understaffed and underfinanced because the funds for these programs come chiefly from taxpayers’ wallets. As with other industries that cause environmental harm, the polluter, in this case the chemical manufacturer, should pay.

Give Local Governments the Authority to Regulate Pesticide Use. New York State law vests all authority to regulate pesticides with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Each municipality is unique and deserves the right, if it so chooses, to craft pesticide policies that go farther than state law to protect its residents, drinking water, and ecological resources. Preventing municipal autonomy benefits only the chemical and applicator industries, which block reform by focusing all of their considerable lobbying personnel and funds at the state and federal levels.

Examine and Reduce Pesticide Use in New York City. The pesticide reporting data again confirm that New York City accounts for an outsized share of the state’s overall reported pesticide use. The nature of that use – hazardous insecticides predominating – and the number of people affected demand immediate attention to reducing the hazard. The New York City Council should allocate funds to examine pesticide use in the city in general and on municipal property in particular, and enact a policy to institute alternatives to pesticide use on municipal property.

Allocate More Resources to Protect Farmworkers. Farmworkers are essential to New York State agriculture, yet they labor under difficult conditions, including routine exposure to high levels of pesticides, many of which have been declared too dangerous for residential use. DEC administers and enforces the Worker Protection Standard, a federal regulation intended to protect agricultural workers from the dangers of pesticides. The state budget should include funding for a new position in each DEC region specifically for Worker Protection Standard enforcement.

Aesthetic use of pesticides – on lawns, trees, shrubs and ornamental gardens – should be banned. Using toxic substances for an entirely frivolous purpose is all public health and environmental risk, and no benefit.

Improve the Pesticide Reporting Data. As important as the pesticide data are for highlighting broad trends and identifying chemicals and risk patterns in need of closer scrutiny, they could be made even more useful and accessible to the public if: all data collected were available to the public, not just summaries; farmers reported their use of agricultural pesticides the same way commercial applicators do, instead of indirectly through sales; and sales of all pesticides were reported so that homeowner use could be estimated. Legislation to effect these improvements should be enacted.

Remove Barriers to Justice for Pesticide Exposure. People are routinely exposed to and injured by pesticides, but current laws and regulations set a high bar for proving a violation of regulation and a low one for proving compliance. Regulatory language should be amended to simplify the definition of pesticide contamination and include a presumption that any off-site pesticides (“chemical trespass”) constitute a violation. All violations of pesticide law and regulation should be referred to the New York State Attorney General’s Office so that clear case law on such contamination can be established.

I. Introduction 

When New York State's Pesticide Reporting Law was enacted in 1996, it was among the first such policies in the nation. Its passage was the result of a multi-year effort by environmentalists and breast cancer activists who believed that there was an unconscionable lack of information about precisely where and how these ubiquitous toxic chemicals were being used in the state. Though not exactly voices in the wilderness, proponents of the bill nonetheless faced a notable level of disinterest, and occasionally outright disbelief, in making the case that pesticide use was an important health and environmental issue in dire need of greater scrutiny and policy reform.

How times have changed. Pesticide issues are in the headlines as never before - from mosquito spraying for West Nile virus, to bans on common products, to right-to-know campaigns across the nation. There is a new awareness that synthetic pesticides – which entered commerce as novel products for agriculture and disease control after World War II and have, by stealthy increments, pervaded every aspect of our lives – are laden with risks. As this recognition spurs deeper questions about pesticide use, the pesticide reporting data become ever more important. Until they were available, our understanding of pesticide use and exposure patterns was largely conjecture; a shaky foundation on which to base an entire regulatory system intended to protect public health and the environment.

For New York, that began to change two years ago, when the first data collected under the Pesticide Reporting Law – preliminary data for 19971 – were released. They contained important revelations about pesticide use patterns that could only have been guessed at before: first was the enormity of pesticide use overall, second was the fact that the majority of it was in urban and suburban areas, and third was the dominance of hazardous products, such as highly neurotoxic insecticides.² Two complete years of New York reporting data (1997 and 1998) are now available³ and the 1998 data confirm much of what the original 1997 data demonstrated, chiefly that there is an overwhelming amount of these products used in the state: 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were reported used by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998.

New York is not unique in its over-reliance on hazardous pesticides, but it has the opportunity to be unique in how it faces up to this knowledge. The state has already made some initial forays into reform, beginning with the pesticide use reporting law itself and continuing with the enactment, this past August, of a pesticide prenotification law (see box on page 31). It is now time to follow up on these initial steps – time to identify and eliminate the most hazardous products, protect vulnerable or highly exposed populations (such as children and farmworkers), and require the use of safer alternatives. The pesticide reporting data offer the insight to direct this effort, showing not just the greatest hazards but also the greatest avenues for progress. This report takes a closer look at the 1998 data, with a comparison to the final 1997 figures, to help New York State take a bolder step down the road to reform.

II. Why the Data Matter: The Risks of Pesticides

Pesticides pose a constellation of hazards. Though the gaps in our understanding of these are shockingly large considering how long these products have been on the market and how widely used they are, what information we do possess represents a sobering call to action. A general review of these risks, therefore, is an essential framework for understanding the particular problems highlighted by the reporting data.

Health Hazards of Pesticides
At the heart of the need for stronger pesticide regulation is the fact that synthetic pesticides are poisons, selected precisely for their ability to kill or repel living organisms. Pesticides that are known to cause serious adverse health effects are routinely registered for use in New York State and the rest of the nation. Yet the mounting evidence of the impact of these hazards cries out for immediate action to reduce them.

Neurotoxicity
Foremost among pesticide effects is nervous system damage. Pesticides can cause immediate illness, known as acute poisoning,⁴ ranging from mild flu-like symptoms, headaches, and dizziness, to respiratory distress, seizures and, in the most extreme cases, death. They can also cause lingering neurological damage, either following an episode of acute poisoning⁵ or as a result of chronic exposure in the absence of actual poisoning symptoms,⁶ and they have been repeatedly associated with Parkinson's disease⁷ and other degenerative neurological illnesses.⁸

Many different kinds of pesticides are neurotoxic, but neurotoxicity is a particular risk with the two major classes of insecticides, the organophosphates and carbamates. These work by inhibiting an enzyme – cholinesterase – that is essential to normal nervous system function in insects and humans alike (and all other animals as well). By design, therefore, they interrupt a crucial neurological pathway, placing people and other non-target animals at the same risk. Organophosphates in particular have a grim record regarding acute poisoning from cholinesterase inhibition. A 1999 United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review of poison control center data concluded that:

“Organophosphate pesticides pose a greater hazard from exposure than do other pesticides, especially for children under six years of age. Children were three times more likely to be hospitalized, five times more likely to be admitted for critical care, and four times more likely to have experienced a major medical outcome or death than if exposed to some other pesticide…For adults and older children the differences were not nearly so dramatic, though adults were 50% more likely to be admitted for hospitalization and nearly twice as likely to require treatment in an intensive care unit.”⁹

Organophosphate and carbamate poisoning in children may also result in a different set of symptoms from those adults commonly experience, including increased muscle tension and rigidity.¹⁰ It was due to this strong evidence of significant risks, particularly to children, whose immature nervous systems are more vulnerable,¹¹ that EPA began with these two chemical families when it was required by the federal Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA) to reassess all pesticide products for safety (see box below). Furthermore, recent research also indicates that chronic exposure to pesticides in general,¹² and to organophosphates and carbamates in particular, may impede normal brain development in fetuses, infants, and children, even at levels too low to produce any other symptoms of pesticide poisoning.¹³ These findings led, in part, to the recent ban on certain chlorpyrifos products (see discussion of chlorpyrifos on page 22).

Carcinogenicity
A substantial portion of all pesticide active ingredients are classified by the EPA as known or suspected carcinogens¹⁴ and the medical literature is rife with research showing associations between pesticides and numerous types of cancer, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,¹⁵ childhood cancers,¹⁶ multiple myeloma,¹⁷ breast cancer,¹⁸ prostate cancer,¹⁹ ovarian cancer,²⁰ leukemias,²¹ and pancreatic cancer.²² These findings are reinforced by more general reports indicating that workers with heavy pesticide exposure have higher rates of certain cancers.²³

Several of the cancers most commonly associated with pesticides in the epidemiological literature, such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a particularly deadly disease, and childhood cancers, are those whose incidence rates have risen dramatically in recent decades. For example, the rate of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma incidence in New York State has risen 69% for males and 48% for females during the period 1976 to 1997.²⁴ The two most common forms of childhood cancers, brain cancers known as gliomas, and leukemia, rose by 40% and 5% respectively during the period 1974-1991.²⁵ The fact that incidence rates have surged over such a relatively short period of time is, in itself, an indication that environmental exposures may be contributing factors; underlying genetic susceptibility cannot change over that span of time. The further fact that overall pesticide use has proliferated in tandem with these rising cancer rates and that direct associations between specific pesticides and cancer is common in the epidemiological literature are compelling indications that these agents should be considered highly suspect.

Endocrine Disruption
Attempts to understand the increased rates of yet another cancer – breast cancer – have ignited interest in the ability of some pesticides and other chemicals to mimic, block, or spur increases in levels of naturally occurring hormones.²⁶ The phenomenon, known as endocrine disruption, is the subject of a new federal testing program, which is still in the formative stage and will not lead to any determinations or policy changes in the immediate future. The issue is, however, a pressing one. Disturbances in the endocrine system have far-ranging implications. In addition to possibly fueling the increase in hormone-sensitive cancers, such as breast cancer, alteration in the body's delicate hormonal balance can play havoc with the fundamental processes of development and growth, including sexual maturation, fertility, and reproduction.²⁷

Other Adverse Effects
Pesticides have also been associated with immune system disturbances,²⁸ reproductive impairment,²⁹ chromosomal damage,³⁰ and birth defects, including male genital abnormalities, which may be on the rise across the globe.³¹ In addition, many pesticides cause respiratory distress, including bronchospasm, a particular concern in light of the recent dramatic increase in asthma rates. The prevalence of childhood asthma has risen by 58% since 1980, with inner cities most hard hit.³²

The intricate nature of biological functioning means that many of the toxic effects of pesticides are intertwined - chromosomal damage and immune system suppression, for example, can lead to cancer, and hormonal disruption can lead to birth defects. Segregating one effect from the other, while useful for the purpose of investigation and discussion, does not mean that they occur independently in reality. Nor does the general focus on human health in the above discussion mean that these risks are limited to people. Non-target and beneficial insects (e.g. honeybees, ladybugs, dragonflies), birds, aquatic organisms, wildlife, and domestic animals, are all vulnerable to pesticide toxicity.³³

Environmental Contamination
Rachel Carson first sounded the alarm about general environmental contamination from pesticides in her seminal 1962 book Silent Spring, but it took years for the regulatory powers that be to absorb and react to her insights. One of the pivotal events to effect a deeper change occurred in New York State. In 1979, the highly neurotoxic insecticide aldicarb was found for the first time in the aquifer beneath the potato farms of Suffolk County, despite laboratory and field testing data indicating that groundwater contamination was not a risk. Prior to that time, conventional wisdom held, Carson's exposé notwithstanding, that pesticides would not migrate to groundwater as a result of normal agricultural use and that testing protocols were sufficient to determine which, if any, posed such a risk.³⁴ Suffolk County's experience with aldicarb unequivocally proved both of these assumptions wrong. The lessons learned apply equally well to other media - pesticide contamination of ground and surface water, indoor and outdoor air, and food is now a clearly established phenomenon.

Water
In the years after aldicarb's detection on Long Island, regulatory and testing programs for pesticides in water at the local, state, and federal levels sprang up across the country – programs designed to detect, assess, and mitigate the damage. The task is an enormous one and the fact that pesticides are a continuing problem indicates that such programs have failed in achieving the fundamental goal of protecting water supplies. The pervasiveness of the water contamination problem was recently highlighted in a report by the United States Geological Survey's (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA):

“…[P]esticides are widespread in streams and groundwater, occurring in geographic and seasonal patterns that follow land use and related pesticide use…One of the most striking findings was that one or more pesticides were found in almost every stream sample collected. More than 95 percent of the samples collected from streams and almost 50 percent of samples collected from wells contained at least one pesticide.”³⁵

The problem is even more pronounced in vulnerable areas such as Long Island, where one recent study found pesticides in 44 of 50 samples in Suffolk County wells, with some samples containing as many as 11 different pesticides.³⁶ The widespread nature of the problem should no longer come as a surprise. Nearly a decade ago, in the wake of the aldicarb discovery, EPA listed 46 pesticides present in groundwater as the result of "normal agricultural use,"³⁷ and a number of these, including atrazine, alachlor, metolachlor, metribuzin, diazinon, dicamba, and trifluralin, remain among the top pesticides reported used or sold in New York State today. Although many of the agricultural pesticides pose the greatest water contamination hazard (most notably, atrazine and metolachlor), it is by no means a strictly agricultural problem. Pesticide detections in urbanized watersheds reflect those pesticides most heavily used in urban and suburban areas.³⁸

Many reports on pesticide contamination state that few water quality standards were exceeded. But as USGS researchers point out, merely meeting current standards is not a guarantee that water is safe, for the following reasons:
"- Criteria are not established for many pesticides.
- Cumulative exposures from drinking water plus food and other avenues are not considered.
- Mixtures and transformation products…are not considered.
- The effects of seasonal exposure have not been evaluated.
- Some types of potential effects, such as endocrine disruption, reproductive or nervous system disorders, and unique responses of sensitive individuals have not yet been assessed."³⁹

Add to this list of caveats the fact that certain water quality standards are indeed exceeded in New York State.⁴⁰ One study of more than 2300 Nassau and Suffolk county wells found that drinking water standards were exceeded in 8% of the wells tested overall, 15.4% in eastern Suffolk County alone.⁴¹ The real hazard is even greater than this implies, however, because specific drinking water standards have not been established for all of the 32 pesticides and their metabolites detected in that study.

EPA has taken some actions to mitigate this problem, such as restricting the use of some pesticides based on their ability to contaminate groundwater and requiring the development of state groundwater management plans. Yet routine detections continue – an unavoidable consequence of pesticide use.

Air
When a pesticide does not turn up as a water contaminant, it is often because it has escaped to pollute the air instead. While no less troubling than water contamination, air contamination is significantly less well characterized and addressed. The most dramatic and recognized route of air contamination is drift – droplets of sprayed pesticides that travel off the property where they are applied. EPA has stated that: "[o]ff-target spray can affect human health and the environment.….There are thousands of complaints of off-target spray drift each year."⁴² Though equipment modifications and avoiding dangerous weather patterns can minimize drift, the EPA nonetheless notes that: "some degree of drift of spray particles will occur from nearly all applications."⁴³ Air contamination from drift is thus an inevitable result of spraying and one to which regulatory programs are essentially unequipped to respond.

Evaporation, while less obvious than drift, may actually be the largest single source of pesticides in the atmosphere.⁴⁴ Unlike drift, evaporation is not limited to sprayed pesticides but occurs with liquid, powder, and granular pesticides as well. And once pesticides evaporate, they become part of the atmospheric water cycle. The USGS states that: "[n]early every pesticide that has been investigated has been detected in air, rain, snow, or fog throughout the country at different times of the year."⁴⁵ Like water contamination, air and precipitation monitoring show that local air detections of pesticides generally reflect pesticide use in the monitoring area,⁴⁶ though some pesticides are also carried distances away from application sites and redeposited in areas where they have never been used.⁴⁷ More persistent pesticides, such as DDT, can travel in the upper atmosphere to the most remote locations on earth.⁴⁸

If water quality standards offer little comfort that levels of pesticides are not causing health or ecological problems, the situation is less comforting still for air contamination. There are essentially no standards to provide a benchmark of exposure, and no regular programs to monitor pesticide levels in air, even if such standards existed.

Indoor Environments
The proliferation of pesticide uses in or around homes and institutional settings such as schools and office buildings, and the absence of sunlight, rain, and wind to break down or disperse pesticides when they are found indoors (even though breakdown products are not necessarily safer, see box on page 5), means that contamination of indoor environments can be a significant exposure route.

Pesticides can concentrate in indoor dust and residues after being tracked in from treated lawns,⁴⁹ or from adjacent agricultural applications. Household dust levels of organophosphates, for example, were found to be significantly higher in farmworker homes (which were generally located near orchards where such pesticides were used) than in the homes of non-agricultural families, and these dust levels were also substantially higher than exterior soil levels of the same pesticides.⁵⁰

Pesticides can also cause indoor air and surface contamination after being directly deployed inside homes and buildings. One study found that a 24-hour exposure standard⁵¹ was exceeded in 14% of 213 air samples taken from 53 Louisiana homes, and that interior chlorpyrifos levels varied significantly with the season, rising in spring and summer when more applications occurred.⁵² Pesticides can be detected on household surfaces for days,⁵³ and even years⁵⁴ after indoor application. Some pesticides have been found to cling to toys and other absorbent surfaces such as pillows and upholstered furniture, creating reservoirs of contamination.⁵⁵

A few studies have found specific associations between indoor use of pesticides and increased incidence of early-onset Parkinson's disease⁵⁶ and childhood brain cancer.⁵⁷

Food
Deliberately spraying poisons on the food we eat is counterintuitive in the plainest way. Yet doing so is the foundation of "conventional" agriculture, something of a misnomer since the system to which it refers is not more than a half-century old – an offshoot of the post-World War II synthetic chemical era. Hand-in-glove with the infusion of chemicals into agriculture was the steady transformation of diversified, small family farms to corporate-managed monocultures⁵⁸ – enormous acreages of single crops, usually single genotypes of a given crop. Monocultures represent a vast feeding ground for the pests who are adapted to them and so they require ever-escalating applications of pesticides to suppress crop losses as pests develop resistance (see below). The end result is an upward spiral of chemical dependence.

Those increasing amounts of pesticides find their way onto our tables as residues on foods. For years, assurances of residue safety were offered up by industry and regulators alike. In 1993, however, these were exposed as empty, when a committee of the National Research Council demonstrated that the residue limit or "tolerance" setting system resulted in pesticide levels that could be dangerous, particularly to infants and children.⁵⁹ Subsequent analyses have reinforced the fact that hazardous residue levels exist on produce in the United States (though levels vary between foods).⁶⁰

FQPA was passed in the wake of the National Research Council study, revamping the tolerance setting process with an eye to infant and child safety and to assessing cumulative exposures of pesticides, instead of a narrow chemical by chemical approach. But FQPA has been slow getting off the ground. Many of the decisions made to date in the assessment of individual chemicals have been overly lenient, and the residue limits to which we are exposed have not been reduced (see box on page 3).

Residues are not the only health issue associated with pesticide use on food. The use of pesticides in agriculture also has significant health implications for farmers and farmworkers who apply the chemicals, labor in the fields or orchards after application, and handle produce in processing plants. These workers, their families, and the people who live near heavily sprayed fields, are subject to pesticide drift, dust and soil residues, and drinking well contamination. As long as we rely on "conventional" agriculture, our food and the people on the frontline of its production, will be at risk.

Resistance and Resurgence Risks
Marketing propaganda aside, pesticides often do not even accomplish their promised task. Pesticide use and overuse can exacerbate existing pest problems or create new ones, through the development of pesticide resistance, subsequent pest resurgence, and secondary pest infestations. Insect, weed, and fungal populations, with their short generation times, are well adapted to developing pesticide resistance.⁶¹ Four decades ago Rachel Carson wrote:

“If Darwin were alive today the insect world would delight and astound him with its impressive verification of his theories of the survival of the fittest. Under the stress of intensive chemical spraying the weaker members of the insect populations are being weeded out. Now, in many areas and among many species only the strong and fit remain to defy our efforts to contain them.”⁶²

Although directed at insects, Carson's comments apply equally to the full range of pests at which we hurl chemical weaponry. Resistance means that pest populations are not eradicated by the products applied but can rebound, less controllable and more damaging than before. This prompts the use of ever more potent or frequent applications of poisons, creating what is known as the "pesticide treadmill." The looming public health crisis of antibiotic resistance offers a chilling and precise parallel; overuse of common antibiotics has generated bacterial strains that only respond to the most potent antibiotics, or to none at all.

Pest resurgence in the wake of resistance is well described and has been implicated as a factor in new malaria and dengue fever outbreaks across the globe, the possible result of over-reliance on pesticides for controlling the adult mosquito vectors of these diseases.⁶³ Secondary pest infestations occur when natural predators that have kept other potential pests in check are themselves wiped out by pesticides. Species less sensitive to the pesticides, now without the control of predators, become new problems, potentially as damaging than the first, or more so.⁶⁴

Pesticide use thus begets more pesticide use. Resistance, resurgence, and secondary pests mean that pesticide use can be a self-defeating strategy over the long haul – winning the odd battle, but losing the pest control war.

Sidebar: Food Quality Protection Act of 1996

In 1993, the National Research Council’s report Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children revealed that our current regulatory system allows pesticide exposures from food and other sources that are potentially harmful, particularly to children. These findings prompted Congress to unanimously pass the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) in 1996. FQPA enacted a host of fundamental reforms to federal pesticide law, including the following:

• Allowable residues (known as “tolerances”) of pesticides in food must meet a safety standard: a reasonable certainty of no harm from aggregate exposure to the pesticide from all sources. In addition, safety must be assessed by looking at all pesticides with the same toxic effect, an approach that reflects more realistic exposure patterns. Previously, there was no articulated safety standard. Pesticides were registered by balancing risks and benefits, and using the notably low standard that they “not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” (7 U.S.C. 136a(c)(5)).

• When setting tolerances, the specific impact on infants and children and the cumulative exposure to all pesticides that have the same toxic effect must be considered. EPA must then make a finding that aggregate exposure to the pesticide will not result in harm to infants or children. Children, because of their immature nervous and immune systems, smaller body size, and higher metabolic rates, are more susceptible to the toxic effects of chemicals and require greater protections than do adults.

• All chemicals, pesticides included, must be assessed for their endocrine disrupting capability.

All pesticides currently registered for use in the United States must be evaluated and reregistered under these newer strictures. Because of their high toxicity, particularly to children, EPA is beginning the reregistration process with organophosphate insecticides and will then move to the carbamate insecticides.

EPA has been slow out of the gate on this admittedly enormous undertaking (there are hundreds of pesticide active ingredients to be evaluated). But the delay is not all due to the size of the task and the vagaries of bureaucracy. Methodical protests from manufacturers, who rightly fear that their products can not withstand this higher level of scrutiny, account for a substantial measure of the slow pace. Their efforts continued this past legislative session, when chemical lobbyists at the federal level succeeded in getting Congressman Richard Pombo of California to introduce further delaying legislation. Though tabled for now, Pombo’s bill remains a clear reminder of industry’s determination to stymie the process, and it will likely become an issue again.¹

Despite the delays and the fact that some of the decisions handed down to date have left products and applications of considerable risk (particularly to farmworkers) on the market, some crucial actions have been forthcoming under FQPA. Most notably, this past June, EPA announced a ban on virtually all non-agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos. More such decisions are in the offing and with each new review the public record documenting pesticide risks grows and, it is hoped, decisions that reduce those risks will also mount.

1 For an illuminating exposé of the tactics use by the chemical industry to thwart regulation and restrictions on pesticide products, see Fagin, D. and M. LaVelle. 1996. Toxic Deception. Birch Lane Press.
 

Sidebar: Breakdown of Products

The contamination story does not stop with the pesticides themselves. We are often told that pesticides have “broken down” after exposure to sunlight, water, or air, and therefore pose no threat. But the breakdown compounds, or “metabolites,” can be as or more toxic than the parent pesticide compounds. The organophosphate dichlorvos, for example, is a pesticide in its own right and hazardous enough to be sold only in restricted use products, but it is also the breakdown product of another pesticide, trichlorfon. Any assessment of pesticide contamination problems cannot be considered complete until metabolites have been identified and analyzed as well.¹ Growing recognition of this problem as it pertains to water testing is spurring more studies that examine metabolites as well as parent compounds, including several recent surveys in New York State.² But it is not a routine practice at other levels of water investigation and, because no systematic monitoring or sampling program for understanding indoor or ambient air contamination of pesticides currently exists, it has not emerged as an air quality issue yet. Assurances that pesticides have broken down, should therefore be tempered with the understanding that this does not necessarily mean risk has abated.

1 Kolpin, D.W. et al. 2000. Finding minimal herbicide concentrations in ground water? Try looking for degradates. The Science of the Total Environment. 248:115-122. see also Kolpin D.W. et al. 1998. The Environmental Occurrence of Herbicides; The Importance of Degradates in Ground Water. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 35:385-390. 2 Phillips, P. et al. 2000. Pesticides and Their Metabolites in Three Small Public Water-supply Reservoir Systems, Western New York, 1998-1999. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4278. see also Phillips, P.J. et al. 2000. Pesticides in Wells in Agricultural and Urban Areas of the Hudson River Basin. Northeastern Geology. 22(1):1-9. see also Phillips, P. et al. 1999. Pesticides and their Metabolites in Wells of Suffolk County, New York, 1998. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4095

III. What the Data Reveal: Findings

Two complete years of pesticide reporting data are now available⁶⁵ and they confirm that an enormous amount of pesticides are used by commercial applicators and sold to farmers each year in New York State – 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds in 1998 and 3.5 million gallons and 25.3 million pounds in 1997.

With only two years of data, it is not yet possible to make statements regarding how these overall amounts of pesticides compare to past use in the state. The fact that the 1998 totals are higher than those for 1997 may be due at least in part to the fact that reporting compliance was higher in the second year of the program,⁶⁶ but this will not be clear until more years of data are available.

It is also not possible to place these overall pesticide reporting figures in the broader context of other state or federal statistics. Only one other state, California, currently collects and releases pesticide use data (though a few other states have recently passed laws to establish their own reporting programs) and it does so based on amounts of pesticide active ingredients. EPA's national summaries of pesticide use and sales estimates are also based on active ingredients. New York's data are reported by the amount of pesticide products as a whole – the combination of active and so-called "inert" ingredients (see the Appendix for a fuller description of this issue).

But while these external comparisons are not yet possible, internal comparison and analysis are – such as how New York's different reporting sectors and geographic regions compare to one another, which pesticides are used in the greatest amounts, and the risks of those pesticides. In the following discussion of these points, our emphasis is on the second year of data – 1998 – because DEC and Cornell's experience with the first year of data led to improvements in the reporting and error-checking systems.⁶⁷ The 1997 data are therefore used here for comparison purposes only, to highlight where the two years of data support or contradict each other, but not for trend analysis until there are more years of data under the new error-checking system.⁶⁸

I. Geographic Patterns: Downstate Urban and Suburban Counties Again Report More Pesticides than Upstate and Rural Counties
The most startling revelation of the first round of New York State pesticide reporting data for the year 1997 was the fact that, overall, downstate urban and suburban counties reported more pesticides than did upstate and rural counties. This pattern was confirmed by the data for 1998 (with some departure from the 1997 data on the particulars, discussed below), and is highlighted in Maps 1 and 2.

In 1998, Kings County (Brooklyn) was the top ranked county for overall pesticides reported by gallons, with 692,551 gallons reported (Tables 2 and 3). Queens was the top with pounds, at 3,476,131 pounds, followed closely by Kings County, with 3,447,073. All five boroughs of New York City found their way into the top ten counties reporting by gallons. Together, the downstate area, comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester, accounted for 60% of the total gallons reported for the state and 49% of the pounds. This same downstate block occupies only 4% of the state's total geographic area, making its outsized proportion of pesticide use all the more striking.

Of the top ten counties for overall pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and the top ten by pounds, only five were upstate (north of Westchester) – Erie, Monroe, Chautauqua, St.Lawrence, and Greene – and of those, Erie and Monroe both have significant urban and suburban populations, both ranking in the top ten most populous counties in the state (Table 4).

It is more difficult to determine the nature of pesticide use for the other three high-ranking upstate counties due to the fact that an unusually large amount, more than 90% of the pesticides reported for St. Lawrence County and half for Greene County, had invalid EPA registration numbers (this is in contrast to most other counties; the overall amount of invalid or otherwise unknown registration numbers accounted for only 2% of the total pesticides reported in 1998 by gallons, and 5% by pounds statewide). The major product that was reported with a valid EPA registration number in Greene County was an arsenic- and chromium-containing pesticide used in manufacturing pressure treated wood (see discussion on page 27). The major pesticides reported with valid EPA registration numbers in St. Lawrence County were herbicides and various pesticides related to paper production, including chlorine.

Although this general pattern is consistent between the two years of data, there are discrepancies that require highlighting. In 1997, New York County (Manhattan) topped the list of counties for total pesticides reported, with 635,152 gallons, and was the fourth highest by pounds, at 1,079,572 pounds. In the 1998 data, New York County dropped to fifth place by gallons at 281,313 gallons, and 23rd by pounds at 271,744 pounds. At the same time, Kings County, which was ranked 21st by gallons in the 1997 data, and Queens, which had been 39th by pounds, rose to become the top counties in gallons and pounds respectively.

These differences notwithstanding, the dominance of pesticide use in New York City with respect to the rest of the state is unchanged by this inter-borough shifting. Both the total amount of pesticides used in New York City and the percentage of statewide use were actually higher in 1998 data than in 1997. In 1997, New York City, which accounts for less than 1% of the state's geographic area, accounted for 29% of the total gallons and 18% of the total pounds of pesticides reported in the state. In 1998, those figures rose to 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds reported. As noted above, the relative newness of the data means that it is not possible to state whether this difference represents an actual rise in use, but it does appear to confirm the reliability of the pattern. This shift between adjacent boroughs could be attributable to addressing errors (applicators misreporting their business address as the address of application, or vice-versa), poor compliance with the details of reporting in either year of the program, confusion over reporting dilution amounts, or a combination of these factors. Several more years of error-checked data are necessary before these discrepancies even out or the reasons for them become clear. DEC must be vigorous in chasing down the cause of any such fluctuations in the future.

As was true when we reported on the preliminary data released for 1997, it is not possible to definitively answer the question of why such large amounts of pesticides are used in New York City. The public is not privy to the data on "target pest" – the ostensible reason why the pesticides are used – nor is such data collected by DEC, although it is required to be kept on file by the applicators. It is also not possible to precisely determine such information just by examining the pesticide products used, because products are so often registered for a wide range of pests and settings.

Still, some broad guesses can be made based on the fact that the pesticide products used in the greatest amounts in New York City are primarily insecticides, as opposed to rodenticides, herbicides, or fungicides. It is reasonable to assume that in New York City, particularly in Manhattan, a considerable portion of these insecticides are being used indoors for such pests as roaches and fleas, placing occupants at even higher risk than if they were used outside, for the reasons discussed in the Environmental Contamination section on page 7. Further, these pesticides are all those with neurotoxicity concerns, most notably the organophosphate chlorpyrifos (Dursban Pro®), but also the carbamates propoxur (Baygon 70 WP Insecticide®) and bendiocarb (Ficam W®), and the pyrethroids cypermethrin (Cynoff EC Insecticide®), cyhalothrin (Demand CS Insecticide®), and zeta-cypermethrin (Demon TC Insecticide®). In addition to neurotoxicity, these pesticides can pose other acute risks, including respiratory problems. Upon exposure to organophosphates such as chlorpyrifos, for example, "[b]ronchospasm and bronchorrhea can occur, producing tightness in the chest, wheezing, productive cough, and pulmonary edema."⁶⁹ Bronchospasm is also a symptom of carbamate poisoning.⁷⁰ With skyrocketing asthma rates in urban areas, the possible contribution of pesticide exposure calls out for examination.

II. Non-Agricultural Pesticide Use is Greater than Agricultural Statewide
The infusion of pesticides into all aspects of modern life has occurred so incrementally that they are still treated as a chiefly agricultural and food residue issue in public discourse, and in much of the nation that is an accurate perception. EPA's pesticide use and sales data indicate that agricultural pesticides account for 77% of the nation's total pesticide use.⁷¹ But the pattern does not hold here. The 1998 data again highlight the fact that non-agricultural pesticide use has eclipsed agricultural use in terms of absolute amounts on a statewide basis in New York (with regional variation noted below). There are several indicators that point to this conclusion:

- In New York State, the amount of pesticides used by commercial applicators dwarfs sales to farmers by approximately 80% to 20%, a ratio that holds true for both the 1997 and 1998 data (see Table 1). This ratio is a rough measure of the dominance of non-agricultural over agricultural use, but not a perfect one. Some farmers hire commercial applicators instead of applying pesticides themselves and, therefore, some portion of commercial applicator use is agricultural. Balancing this, however, is the fact that commercial applicator use does not account for all non-agricultural pesticide use because homeowner applications, which are virtually all non-agricultural, are not included anywhere on the state's pesticide reporting program (nor can they be estimated based on the current categories of data received by the state).

- Although sales to farmers is not a perfect measure of total agricultural use for the reason described above, it is a good indicator of those counties where agricultural use is dominant (even if some portion of their pesticide use turns up in the commercial applicator column). In both 1997 and 1998, the top counties for total pesticides reported overlapped little with the top counties for sales to farmers, further evidence of the dominance of pesticide use in urban and suburban areas. Of the top twenty counties (top ten for gallons and top ten for pounds) for total pesticides reported in 1998, only three (Suffolk, Chautauqua, and Monroe) were also in the top twenty for sales to farmers. The same is true for the 1997 county rankings, although the specific agricultural counties – Orange, Wayne, and Genesee – differ. One interesting note: in 1998, Suffolk County was ranked top in sales to farmers, and second and third overall for gallons and pounds respectively. Although sales to farmers only accounted for 17% of total pesticides reported for Suffolk County by gallons and 23% by pounds, its ranking is a reminder of how important agriculture remains this close to the population center of the state, and in a geographic area that rests atop a sole source aquifer that has notable groundwater contamination problems.

- The counties with the highest amounts of pesticides reported are generally the same as those with the highest total populations and population densities (Table 4) and relatively smaller geographic areas (Table 5) – the amount of pesticides reported is thus roughly a function of the number of people in an area, and not the amount of available land. The top ten counties in terms of total amount of pesticides reported by gallons were also the top ten counties for total estimated population (except for Richmond County, which is 11th by population) and for population density (except for Erie County, which is 11th for population density). Of the top ten counties by pounds of pesticides reported, only Chautauqua, St. Lawrence, and Greene were not also among the top ten by total population or population density. In contrast, of the top ten counties in terms of total land area only St. Lawrence County found its way into the top ten for pesticides reported by either gallons or pounds.

This pattern is the result of the overwhelming amount of pesticides that are used in urban and suburban areas. It is not a blanket statement about the use pattern in each individual region in the state, nor should it be interpreted as minimizing the problems associated with contamination from agricultural pesticide use in areas where such use is dominant. For example, as shown in Maps 3 and 4, sales to farmers outweigh commercial applicator use in the corn and fruit growing regions from Oneida County and the Finger Lakes westward (though this pattern is less pronounced for pesticides applied as solids rather than liquids) as well as in some of the counties in the Hudson Valley. Moreover, the top pesticides reported for agriculture are those, like atrazine, cyanazine, and metolachlor, that pose the most serious water contamination risks, and those, such as the soil fumigants methyl bromide, metam sodium, and chloropicrin, that pose severe poisoning risks. The need for regulatory and other programs to both mitigate the profound risks posed by agricultural pesticides and support organic farming is unabated by these findings.

Clearly, however, new programs aimed specifically at addressing the unique risks of urban and suburban pesticide use are also needed. In addition to indoor use of neurotoxic insecticides, discussed above, the data also point to a tremendous amount of products used for lawn care. Moreover, many of these products are those which combine fertilizer and various pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicicides). For example, Lesco Pre-M Plus Fertilizer, a product that combines the herbicide pendimethalin with fertilizer, was the second most heavily used product by pounds (1.6 million) reported by commercial applicators in the state in 1998. Applying pesticides in combination with fertilizers means that these pesticides are not necessarily being used in response to any documented pest problem, but as a routine part of lawn maintenance, blanketing an entire property on a set schedule. Both the enormous amount of reported use in suburban counties, and the fact that much of that use is merely a matter of routine belies industry protestations that it is reducing pesticide use through the use of integrated pest management (IPM).

Studies to examine urban hazards have been launched in the private sector,⁷² but the public sector needs to actively take up the charge of examining both urban and suburban use, considering the dimension of the problem and the number of people affected.

III. Health Effects by Category
One of the difficulties in generating an overall picture of pesticide risks is the scattered nature of the information. A profusion of programs at all levels of government examine pesticide hazards from single angles in different media (e.g. water, food), and individual research is found throughout the scientific literature. Nowhere is this information brought together in a coherent whole, although EPA has just begun to do so for individual active ingredients under the reregistration requirements of FQPA, though the process still suffers from a chemical by chemical approach that downplays aggregate risks. There are, however, a few overarching ways to describe the pesticide data in terms of broad categories of health effects using existing criteria (a fuller discussion of the sources for this analysis can be found in the Appendix) and these plainly demonstrate that a substantial percentage of the pesticides used and sold in New York State are those with serious toxicity concerns (Table 6).

In 1998, 31% of the gallons and 44% of the pounds of pesticides reported in New York State contained active ingredients classified by the EPA as known, probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens. The only products containing known human carcinogens were found in the commercial applicator use by pounds reporting category and these were wood preservatives containing arsenic and chromium.

This percentage should not be interpreted in absolute terms. Not all pesticide active ingredients have been classified for carcinogenicity by EPA; many pesticides that do not appear in these totals will eventually be labeled as known or suspected carcinogens. Furthermore, the evaluation process is frequently a rocky one and the classification of some products is controversial. This past February, for example, EPA classified malathion as a "likely" human carcinogen after years of review, and listed it as such in EPA's database. The manufacturer, Cheminova, contested the classification and the decision was reversed in the space of a few months, though it continues to be a matter of internal discussion at EPA's Science Advisory Panel. Another active ingredient, 2,4-D, has been caught in EPA's "Special Review" process because of carcinogenicity concerns since the 1980s. A final decision is pending but it will likely result in calling 2,4-D a Class "D" carcinogen – "unclassifiable with regard to carcinogenicity" – essentially a non-decision in spite of considerable and alarming evidence to the contrary (see discussion below). Even without the inclusion of these and other disputed chemicals, and those that have not yet been evaluated for carcinogenicity at all, well over a third of the pesticides reported in the state carry potential carcinogenicity risks as classified by the EPA.

In addition, 28% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds reported in 1998 are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity.⁷³ The vast majority of chemicals have not et been tested for this effect although all are slated to be under the requirements of FQPA. In future years, this testing program will generate a more precise list of which chemicals pose endocrine disrupting risks. It is possible that some of the chemicals now suspected may not prove to have this effect after more testing, but equally likely that more chemicals not yet tested will turn up as problems.

Neurotoxic organophosphate and carbamate insecticides accounted for 25% of the gallons and 23% of the pounds reported in 1998. This analysis focused on organophosphates and carbamates because of the unique neurotoxic risks they pose, discussed above, but many other pesticides are neurotoxic, including the pyrethroids, five of which are among the top pesticides reported in the state (see below). The total amount of neurotoxins in Table 6 thus does not include all pesticides that have neurotoxic effects, but those that pose the greatest acute neurotoxic hazard.

IV. Health Effects of the Major Active Ingredients: Hazardous Products Predominate
Examining health effects categorically is one way of describing pesticide hazards. A qualitative discussion of the top active ingredients is another, fleshing out the risk picture sketched in by the limited lists used above. Doing so clearly demonstrates that, while there are low risk pesticides available (such as boric acid, biopesticides, and biologically based horticultural oils), these are not the ones that predominate in New York State. Instead, the pesticide active ingredients reported in the highest amounts pose significant hazards. The most prevalent pesticides for 1998 (which substantially mirrored those for 1997) are displayed in Table 7 (see the Appendix for a description of the ranking process) and described below.

It is essential to remember, when reading the chemical by chemical summaries of the top pesticides reported in 1998, that we are rarely exposed to such materials one at a time, but as complex mixtures that may multiply the effects of one another (synergism), inhibit, or otherwise alter them. Though consideration of mixtures and cumulative exposures is on the increase, it is still a new line of inquiry and not currently a part of regulatory programs. A limited assessment of cumulative effects within families of related chemicals will be forthcoming under FQPA for the purposes of tolerance setting.

Chlorpyrifos
The broad-spectrum insecticide chlorpyrifos (known by the trade names Dursban® and Lorsban®) has been available for thirty years, growing in market share to become one of the most heavily used pesticides in the nation and New York State. In 1998, it was the top active ingredient overall by gallons and the second by pounds (it was first and third respectively in 1997). This dominance reflects a combination of factors: vigorous marketing, the wide range of insect pests for which it is registered, and its replacement of previously banned chemicals (most notably chlordane for termite control).

The market dominance of chlorpyrifos evolved despite its dangerous track record. "[O]ne of the leading causes of acute insecticide poisoning incidents in the United States,"⁷⁴ chlorpyrifos also causes persistent neurological symptoms and may cause peripheral nerve degeneration⁷⁵ and suppression of the immune system.⁷⁶ More recent research indicates that chlorpyrifos may also selectively target the immature, developing brain - inhibiting brain cell replication (leading to decreased overall cell numbers), suppressing DNA, RNA and protein synthesis, and causing cell death and other cell abnormalities.⁷⁷ In addition, because cholinesterase plays a central role in nerve cell growth and development, chlorpyrifos and other chemicals that inhibit cholinesterase have been found to inhibit neurite (the cellular extensions by which nerves send and receive signals) growth.⁷⁸ These effects can occur at levels of chlorpyrifos too low to cause the classic symptom of organophosphate poisoning – depressed bloodstream levels of the enzyme cholinesterase.⁷⁹ Such subtle damage can lead to developmental learning deficits, particularly from chronic (low-level, repeated) exposure, such as occurs with regular spraying or treatment of a house, apartment, or office.⁸⁰ In this way, chlorpyrifos' effects may parallel those of another environmental health scourge - lead. And like lead poisoning, fetuses, infants, and young children are most at risk for these effects.

As a result of these latest findings and the cumulative record of poisoning hazards, in June 2000 EPA announced that it was banning virtually all non-agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos. Most agricultural uses, however, will be unchanged by this action. In New York State, chlorpyrifos was the top product sold to farmers by pounds in 1998. The EPA's decision on chlorpyrifos is a major step forward in reducing risk from this pesticide, but it still leaves many serious exposure issues for farmworkers, farm families, and adjacent neighbors, as well as continuing food residues on many crops.

Other Organophosphate Insecticides
In addition to chlorpyrifos, three other organophosphates – diazinon, trichlorfon, and terbufos – appear among the top active ingredients reported in the state. Another organophosphate, dichlorvos, is a breakdown product of trichlorfon. As is characteristic of all organophosphates, diazinon, trichlorfon, terbufos, and dichlorvos are cholinesterase inhibitors and present significant neurotoxicity concerns (products that contain dichlorvos are classified as restricted use due to their high toxicity, but when dichlorvos is formed as a breakdown product, it is beyond regulatory control). Diazinon, used in agriculture, and institutional and residential settings, is "one of the leading causes of acute reactions to insecticide use...," primarily due to its residential uses, although EPA has also noted numerous occupational exposure scenarios for diazinon, as well as numerous residential ones, that result in what the agency considers excessive risk.⁸¹ Diazinon was banned in 1990 by EPA for use on golf courses and sod farms because of bird kills, but is still available for other lawn uses.

Trichlorfon is classified by the EPA as a likely human carcinogen at high doses and may also be a reproductive and developmental toxin, and mutagenic.⁸² Dichlorvos is classified as having "suggestive evidence" of carcinogenicity by EPA. Terbufos, a highly toxic agricultural insecticide with no registered residential uses, poses excessive risks for farmworkers, and is also considered a potential drinking water risk.⁸³

Carbamate Insecticides
Like the organophosphates, carbamates also interfere with the nervous system enzyme cholinesterase and pose significant neurotoxicity hazards. Three carbamates are among the top active ingredients reported in the state in 1998: carbaryl, propoxur, and bendiocarb. Propoxur is classified as a probable human carcinogen by EPA,⁸⁴ and carbaryl (the active ingredient in Sevin®) is classified as a possible human carcinogen. Carbaryl has also been linked to sperm abnormalities⁸⁵ and developmental disorders.⁸⁶ All products containing bendiocarb have been voluntarily cancelled by the manufacturer and should, therefore, not turn up in future reporting years.

Pyrethroid Insecticides
The top pesticide active ingredient by pounds was the pyrethroid, cypermethrin, and the second overall by gallons another pyrethroid, zeta-cypermethrin. Three other pyrethroids – permethrin, cyfluthrin, and tefluthrin – were also among the top pesticides reported in 1998. Pyrethroids are neurotoxins of lower acute toxicity when compared to organophosphates and carbamates as a class, although poisoning does occur⁸⁷ and there are also reports of persistent symptoms when exposures occurred as a result of indoor use.⁸⁸

Pyrethroids are more commonly associated in the medical literature with a range of chronic effects. There are indications that pyrethroids may interfere with the immune⁸⁹ and endocrine systems.⁹⁰ Cypermethrin in particular has been specifically linked to immune suppression⁹¹ and potential chromosomal damage.⁹² both been classified by EPA as possible human carcinogens; cyfluthrin, zeta-cypermethrin, and tefluthrin have not yet been classified as to carcinogenicity. In addition, pyrethroids are synthetic analogs of another class of pesticides – pyrethrins – which can cause allergic and asthmatic reactions⁹³ – raising the specter that such reactions may be possible for pyrethroids as well. All pyrethroids are extremely toxic to beneficial insects, including bees, and aquatic organisms.⁹⁴

Triazine Herbicides
Atrazine, cyanazine, and metribuzin are triazine herbicides (often referred to as corn herbicides because of their heavy use on that crop), known to disrupt normal endocrine function⁹⁵ and repeatedly linked in the epidemiological literature to various cancers (atrazine and cyanazine are both classified as possible human carcinogens by the EPA; metribuzin is Class D, not classifiable), including breast⁹⁶ and ovarian cancer.⁹⁷ Atrazine and cyanazine have been linked with developmental problems as well.⁹⁸

As of December, 1999, cyanazine is no longer sold or distributed in the U.S. as a result of a voluntary withdrawal by its chief manufacturer, DuPont. Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis), the manufacturer of atrazine, did not follow suit and this widely used herbicide and frequent water contaminant will continue to be available. Underscoring the risk this availability poses, a recent study in the Hudson River Basin by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) found that: "(a)trazine was the most commonly detected pesticide in surface water and groundwater and was found in nearly every sample in which any other pesticide was detected."⁹⁹

Acetanilide Herbicides
Metolachlor and alachlor are acetanilide herbicides (also known as corn herbicides like the triazines). Alachlor is classified by EPA as a likely human carcinogen at high doses. Metolachlor is classified as a possible human carcinogen and, along with atrazine and cyanazine, has been implicated as a developmental toxin.¹⁰⁰ Both are common contaminants in surface and groundwater in the areas where they are used.¹⁰¹

In 1997, DEC denied registration for a related herbicide, acetochlor, because of its "oncogenic [tumor causing] effects, potential groundwater contamination resulting from degradates of acetochlor, and toxicity to nontarget aquatic plants due to acetochlor runoff to surface water."¹⁰² As laudable as that decision was, it leaves metolachlor and alachlor, with their parallel hazards, still on the market.

Chlorophenoxy Herbicides
2,4-D, Dicamba, Mecoprop, and MCPP all are part of a family of related chemicals known as the chlorophenoxy herbicides, which first achieved notoriety as components of the defoliant Agent Orange (a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) in the Vietnam War. Chlorophenoxy herbicides have been strongly implicated in certain cancers, most notably non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.¹⁰³ The weight of evidence prompted the EPA to initiate a "special review" of 2,4-D in the 1980s, a process that has yet to officially conclude. Currently, 2,4-D is classified by the EPA as a Class "D" carcinogen, meaning that it is not yet classifiable regarding carcinogenicity. Dicamba is also a Class "D" carcinogen. Mecoprop and MCPP have not been classified for carcinogenicity by EPA at this time. This means that in spite of the considerable evidence of their carcinogenicity, these four compounds are not included in the percentage of products that contain carcinogens discussed on page 20.

2,4-D has also been specifically linked to canine lymphoma in pet dogs whose owners treat their lawns,¹⁰⁴ childhood cancers,¹⁰⁵ sperm damage,¹⁰⁶ possible endocrine disruption,¹⁰⁷ damage to the developing nervous system,¹⁰⁸ and persistent neurological damage.¹⁰⁹

Dinitroaniline Herbicides
Pendimethalin, trifluralin and benfluralin are dinitroaniline herbicides. Pendimethalin and trifluralin are classified as possible human carcinogens by the EPA (benfluralin has not yet been classified for carcinogenicity). Some toxicological studies have shown that pendimethalin and trifluralin may be reproductive toxins.¹¹⁰

Fungicides
Maneb, mancozeb, captan, and chlorothalonil are fungicides and all are classified as probable or likely human carcinogens by the EPA. Maneb and mancozeb also both contain the heavy metal manganese. Manganese is an essential nutrient when ingested in moderate quantities. When inhaled, however, it is a serious poison that can cause an irreversible, degenerative illness related to Parkinson's disease known as manganism. Manganese-containing pesticides have, not surprisingly, been linked to manganism.¹¹¹

Fumigants
Three fumigants – metam sodium, chloropicrin and methyl bromide – turn up among the top pesticides sold to farmers. All three are classified by the EPA in Toxicity Category I, the category designating pesticides of the highest acute toxicity. They present a significant danger both to people in the immediate vicinity where they are used and, due to their nature as highly diffusive gases, the more general area as well. Fumigants are used to sterilize fields before planting and are also often used in grain storage facilities.

Metam sodium, which degrades upon contact with water to the highly toxic gas methyl isothiocyanate,¹¹² caused a major fish kill in the Sacramento River and large scale human exposure incidents in California.¹¹³ It is also classified as a probable human carcinogen by the EPA.

Methyl bromide is a severe respiratory irritant, capable of causing pulmonary edema and bleeding as well as other acute poisoning symptoms (nausea, vomiting, and convulsions), significant long-term damage to the nervous system,¹¹⁴ and fatalities. It is also a severe ozone depleter, scheduled for phase-out by 2005. Chloropicrin, which is often combined with methyl bromide in the same product, poses similarly severe poisoning risks (characterized by headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, pulmonary edema, and corrosive gastroenteritis).¹¹⁵

Zinc phosphide
An extremely toxic rodenticide with both agricultural and non-agricultural uses, zinc phosphide can cause pulmonary edema, liver failure, heart rhythm disturbances, convulsions, and death.¹¹⁶ In addition, zinc phosphide breaks down into highly toxic phosphine gas, which is "extremely irritating to the respiratory tract…[and] produces severe systemic toxicity."¹¹⁷ Phosphine gas has also been associated with chromosomal damage.¹¹⁸

Wood Preservatives
Although not in the top 15 chemicals reported in 1998, special mention should be made of arsenic acid anhydride and chromic acid. Together with copper (II) oxide these are used as wood preservatives to produce the euphemistically named "pressure-treated" wood. These compounds are classified by EPA as known human carcinogens. Both are also acutely and chronically poisonous, and damaging to the liver. Chromic acid is also highly corrosive.¹¹⁹

Sidebar: What Gets Reported and What Does Not

The Pesticide Reporting Law (Article 33, Title 12 of the Environmental Conservation Law) requires that the following information be reported to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC):

• For each separate pesticide application, commercial applicators must report the pesticide product used, the quantity applied, and the date and location by address. In addition, commercial applicators must keep corresponding records for each application on dosage rate, method of application, and target organism (the reason for the application), but these records are subject to inspection only, and are not required to be submitted.
  
• l All businesses licensed to sell restricted use pesticides must collect the following information from private applicators (farmers) and report it to DEC: the name of all pesticide products purchased, both general and restricted use, the quantity purchased and the date of purchase, and the address of the intended location of application.

Of the information collected, the general public only has access to the names and quantities of each product aggregated by either zip code or county, and cannot determine more specific exposures or target pest. The more detailed data are available for use by state agencies or researchers who must apply for access through the New York State Department of Health.

There are numerous categories of use and particular data points not captured by the Pesticide Reporting Law, but a few bear particular note.

• Homeowner use is not reported, nor are stores or manufacturers required to report sales of general use pesticides (the only kind that homeowners may legally obtain) that could be used to estimate homeowner use.
  
• General use pesticides sold to farmers through stores or dealers who are not licensed to sell restricted use pesticides are not reported.
  
• Inert ingredients in the products are neither reported in the database, nor available as a matter of public record in any other venue. The name notwithstanding, “inert” ingredients, including such chemicals as toluene and napthalene, can be highly toxic in their own right.
  
• And, falling under the category of “Brave New World,” pesticides that are produced by genetically engineered plants are also not reported.

For a discussion of changes to the pesticide reporting law that would improve the breadth and utility of the data, see Recommendations.

Sidebar: Mosquito Control Pesticdes

Although not among the top pesticides reported in 1998, three other pesticide active ingredients – malathion, resmethrin, and sumithrin – deserve mention for their role in control efforts against West Nile virus-bearing mosquitoes in the New York City metropolitan region in 1999. When the 1999 data are finalized (the preliminary data now available are neither complete nor error-checked), it will be possible to see how the amounts of these pesticides compare to the total amount of pesticides used for routine purposes. Until then, it is useful to summarize the health effects of these products, as a reminder that using pesticides to control West Nile virus also carries with it a public health risk.

Malathion is an organophosphate insecticide. Although it is one of the less acutely poisonous of this family of pesticides, malathion, like all organophosphates, can lead to poisoning symptoms, such as respiratory distress, headaches, dizziness, and nausea.¹ And like all organophosphates, at high doses it can cause more serious effects.² Malathion has also been associated with a host of chronic health hazards. It may compromise the immune system,³ lead to reproductive harm,⁴ and cause genetic mutations or interfere with normal cell replication.⁵ One study of aerially applied malathion for medfly control in California found an association between malathion exposure during the second trimester of pregnancy and the occurrence of gastrointestinal abnormalities in infants.⁶ Malathion also became the subject of considerable controversy in the spring of this year, when the EPA’s decision to classify it as a likely human carcinogen – a decision that was the product of a years-long review – was overturned in the space of a few months after the manufacturer challenged the interpretation of a pathology study.

Resmethrin and sumithrin are synthetic pyrethroid insecticides and carry with them all the general risks for pyrethroids outlined beginning on page 24. In addition, adverse liver and thyroid effects have been reported in toxicology testing of resmethrin.⁷ Both sumithrin and resmethrin, along with several other pyrethroids, have been specifically implicated in endocrine disruption.⁸ Neither resmethrin nor sumithrin has yet been classified with regard to carcinogenicity, although products that contain these substances often include the synergist piperonyl butoxide (PBO), which has been classified by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen, as have several other pyrethroid insecticides, including permethrin and cypermethrin. All pyrethroids are extremely toxic to beneficial insects, including bees, and aquatic organisms.⁹

1 Reigart, J.R. and J.R. Roberts. 1999. Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings. United States Environmental Protection Agency. EPA 735-R-98-003.
2 Ibid.
3 Fan, A. 1998. 1998 Malathion Literature Review. Memorandum from Anna M. Fan PhD, Chief, Pesticide And Environmental Toxicology Section to Richard Kreutzer, M.D. Chief Environmental Health Investigations Branch, Department of Health Services, California Environmental Protection Agency. June 26, 1998. see also Desi, I. et al. 1978. Studies on the Immunosuppressive Effect of Organochlorine and Organophosphoric Insecticides in Subacute Experiments. Journal of Hygiene, Epidemiology, Microbiology, and Immunology. 1:115-122.
4 Contreras H.R. and E. Bustos-Obregon. 1999. Morphological alterations in mouse testis by a single dose of malathion. Journal of Experimental Zoology. 284(3):355-9. see also Balasubramanian, K. et al. 1987. Effect of malathion on the testis of male albino rats. Medical Science Research. 15:229-230. see also Wyttenbach, C.R. and S.C. Thompson. 1985. The Effects of the Organophosphate Insecticide Malathion on Very Young Chick Embryos: Malformations Detected by Histological Examination. The American Journal Of Anatomy. 174:187-202.
5 See Fan note 3 above. see also Rupa, D.S. et al. 1991. Frequency of Sister-Chromatid Exchange in Peripheral Lymphocytes of Male Pesticide Applicators. Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis. 18:136-138. see also New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. 1997. Hazardous Substances Fact Sheet: Malathion. Trenton, New Jersey.
6 Thomas, D.C. et al. 1992. Reproductive Outcomes in Relation to Malathion Spraying in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1981-1982. Epidemiology. 3:32-39.
7 Extoxnet. 1996. Pesticide Information Profile: Resmethrin. Oregon State University. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/resmethr.htm
8 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.
9 Kegley, S. et al. 1999. Disturbing the Balance: Ecological Impacts of Pesticides in California. Californians for Pesticide Reform. San Franciscso.

Sidebar: Resources for Alternative Pest Control

Pest management and pesticides are not synonymous, they only appear so through the concerted efforts of the chemical marketing and public relations industry. Alternative pest management methods are available for virtually all pest problems and, like any efforts aimed at good health, they emphasize prevention – addressing the root cause of infestations instead of the superficial symptoms. Alternative measures for pest control include:

1. Physical controls. For indoor pest control, simple maintenance such as caulking cracks and crevices, plugging holes with plaster or steel wool, eliminating water leaks in roofs or pipes, and storing food in sealed glass or plastic containers deny pests a means of entry and a source of water or food. At the same time, these strategies improve overall structural integrity and livability for the people inside. Outdoor physical controls are equally founded in common sense, such as directing water away from structures (via guttering, proper placement of stairs), moving woodpiles away from buildings, and removing rotting carpentry or old stumps.

2. Biological controls. Natural enemies of pests (such as parasitic wasps, nematodes, and ladybugs), microbial agents (such as Bacillus thuringiensis), plant extracts, and insect hormones (pheromones) that disrupt normal mating and development capitalize on natural checks and balances to control problem pests. Biological controls are a burgeoning field of research, although some of these may pose hazards for non-target organisms and require careful scrutiny before use.

3. Cultural controls. Cultivation techniques to keep pests in check include crop rotation and cover crops to break up weed and insect cycles, mulching, building up soil structure and natural biotic communities (e.g. earthworms). For landscaping, planting native or hardy species, adapted to the soil and climate condition of a given site, obviate the need for artificial chemical maintenance.

4. Least toxic controls. When preventative methods need an extra boost, certain low risk pesticides or other agents can help get infestations under control. Examples include boric acid and silica gels for household pests, biologically-based horticultural oils that do not contain synthetic pesticides, and solutions of vinegar, soap, or garlic, for outdoor insects and fungi. EPA also maintains a list of pesticides that are of such low risk they are exempt from regulation, such as garlic and mint oils.

Numerous non-profit organizations and businesses provide information, training, and products to help find safer methods of addressing pest problems. The resource list below provides a sampling with which to begin research.

Organizations with information on pesticide risks and alternatives:
New York Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides: (518) 426-8246, www.crisny.org/not-for-profit/nycap/nycap.htm
Beyond Pesticides/NCAMP: (202) 543-5450, www.beyondpesticides.org
Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides: (541) 344-5044, www.pesticide.org
Pesticide Action Network of North America: (415) 981-3939, www.panna.org
Californians for Pesticide Reform: (415) 981-1771, www.igc.org/cpr
Safer Pest Control Project: (312) 641-5575, www.spcpweb.org
Bio-Integral Resource Center: (510) 524-2567, www.birc.org

Pesticide Databases
National Pesticide Telecommunications Network: http://ace.orst.edu/info/nptn
Pesticide Action Network Pesticide Database: www.pesticideinfo.org
Environmental Defense Scorecard: www.scorecard.org

A few websites for Alternative Products1
Gardens Alive: www.gardensalive.com
Victor Poison Free Pest Control: www.victorpest.com
North Country Organics: www.connriver.net/NCO/HOME

And the indispensable compendium of alternative solutions, available in bookstores and libraries:
Olkowski, W. et al. 1991. Common-Sense Pest Control: Least-toxic solutions for your home, garden, pets and community. The Taunton Press. Newtown, CT.

Our websites contain a variety of information on pesticide risks, policy issues, and upcoming events and campaigns of interest.
Environmental Advocates: www.eany.org
NYPIRG: www.nypirg.org

1 Listing here is for reference purposes and does not constitute an endorsement of any product or service.

Table 1

Table 1: Total Amount of Pesticide Products Applied by Commercial Applicators and
Sold to Farmers in New York State – 1997 & 1998 

Gallons
____________________________________________________________________________

User Category                                                      1997                             1998   

            Commercial Applicators                           2,783,764                       3,608,305

            Sales to Farmers                                        761,505                          915,725

            Total                                                       3,545,268                       4,524,031

 

Pounds
___________________________________________________________________________
 

User Category                                                      1997                             1998   

          Commercial Applicators                          19,487,948                   23,551,787

            Sales to Farmers                                      5,823,805                      5,818,361

            Total                                                     25,311,753                   29,370,148

 

Source:  1997 and 1998 NYSDEC Pesticide Sales and Applications Database

Table 2

Table 3

Tables 4 and 5

Table 4.
New York State Counties: Estimated Population and Population Density
(population per square mile), Ranked by Population
County	Population	Population
	Estimate	per square mile
Kings	2,268,297	32,619
Queens	2,000,642	17,839
New York	1,551,844	52,419
Suffolk	1,383,847	1,451
Nassau	1,305,057	4,489
Bronx	1,194,099	28,641
Erie	925,957	927
Westchester	905,572	2,021
Monroe	712,419	1,083
Onondaga	456,215	601
Richmond	413,280	6,467
Orange	334,199	377
Albany	292,006	559
Rockland	284,022	1,524
Dutchess	268,237	324
Oneida	229,714	207
Niagara	216,164	422
Saratoga	199,733	223
Broome	195,246	300
Ulster	167,293	147
Rensselaer	151,445	236
Schenectady	143,871	724
Chautauqua	137,431	134
Oswego	123,875	128
St. Lawrence	112,853	42
Jefferson	109,920	87
Ontario	99,791	148
Steuben	97,699	71
Tompkins	97,656	198
Wayne	95,521	148
Putnam	94,844	363
Chemung	91,738	233
Cattaraugus	84,477	64
Cayuga	81,703	119
Clinton	79,722	83
Madison	71,127	105
Sullivan	69,331	71
Livingston	65,851	99
Herkimer	63,354	47
Columbia	63,002	99
Warren	61,441	68
Otsego	60,619	60
Genesee	60,469	122
Washington	60,141	71
Fulton	52,851	109
Tioga	52,216	101
Chenango	50,704	58
Allegany	50,553	49
Montgomery	50,369	128
Franklin	48,511	29
Greene	48,348	69
Cortland	48,006	98
Delaware	46,362	33
Orleans	45,022	107
Wyoming	44,189	72
Essex	37,507	21
Schoharie	32,050	51
Seneca	31,925	104
Lewis	27,289	21
Yates	24,556	67
Schuyler	19,229	57
Hamilton	5,190	3
Sources: (1)Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. 2000. County
Population Estimates for July 1, 1999 and Population Change for April 1, 1990 to July 1, 1999. United
States Census Bureau. Washington, DC. website:
http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/county/co-99-2/99C2_36.txt
(2)United States Census Bureau. 1996. Land Area, Population, and Density for States and Counties:
1990. website: http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/90den_stco.txt

 

Table 5.
New York State Counties
Ranked by Size in Square Miles
County	Square
	Miles
St. Lawrence	2,686
Essex	1,797
Hamilton	1,721
Franklin	1,632
Delaware	1,446
Herkimer	1,412
Steuben	1,393
Cattaraugus	1,310
Lewis	1,276
Jefferson	1,272
Oneida	1,213
Ulster	1,127
Chautauqua	1,062
Erie	1,045
Clinton	1,039
Allegany	1,030
Otsego	1,003
Sullivan	970
Oswego	953
Suffolk	911
Chenango	894
Warren	870
Washington	836
Orange	816
Saratoga	812
Dutchess	802
Onondaga	780
Broome	707
Cayuga	693
Monroe	659
Madison	656
Rensselaer	654
Greene	648
Ontario	644
Columbia	636
Livingston	632
Schoharie	622
Wayne	604
Wyoming	593
Albany	524
Niagara	523
Tioga	519
Cortland	500
Fulton	496
Genesee	494
Tompkins	476
Westchester	433
Chemung	408
Montgomery	405
Orleans	391
Yates	338
Schuyler	329
Seneca	325
Nassau	287
Putnam	232
Schenectady	206
Rockland	174
Queens	109
Kings	71
Richmond	59
Bronx	42
New York	28
Source: United States Census Bureau. 1996. Land Area, Population,
and Density for States and Counties: 1990. website:
http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/90den_stco.txt

Table 6

Table 6. Total Amount of Pesticide Products Applied by Commercial Applicators and Sold to Farmers in New York State Containing Active Ingredients with Listed Health Hazards - 1998
Sold to Farmers in New York State Containing Active Ingredients with Listed Health Hazards - 1998	Sales to Farmers		Commercial Applicator Use		Total
	Gallons	Pounds	Gallons	Pounds	Gallons	Pounds
Known Carcinogens(1)	0	0	0	397,395	0	397,395
Probable and Likely Carcinogens(1)	121,005	1,183,424	180,715	1,105,296	301,720	2,288,720
Possible Carcinogens(1)	482,327	612,214	621,165	9,607,730	1,103,491	10,219,944
Neurotoxins(2)	36,953	2,101,333	1,074,709	4,551,094	1,111,662	6,652,426
Endocrine Disruptors(3)	350,327	1,129,957	936,509	6,850,852	1,286,836	7,980,808

Source: 1998 NYSDEC Pesticide Sales and Applications Database
(1)Office of Pesticide Programs. 1999. Office of Pesticide Programs List of Chemicals Evaluated for Carcinogenic Potential. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Washington, D.C. Memorandum dated June 11, 1998.
(2)Neurotoxin amounts were calculated by totaling up all organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.(3)Calborn, T. 1998. Endocrine disruption from environmental toxicants. in: Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Third Edition. ed. Rom W.N. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven Publishers. pp. 807-816.

Table 7

Table 7. Most Heavily Used Active Ingredients in New York State, Ranked by Prevalence - 1998
Rank	Sales to Farmers
	Gallons	Pounds
1	Atrazine	Chlorpyrifos
2	Metolachlor	Tefluthrin
3	Pendimethalin	Mancozeb
4	Glyphosate	Captan
5	Metam-sodium	Terbufos
6	Petroleum distillate, oils, solvent, etc.	Alachlor
7	Metribuzin	Atrazine
8	Alachlor	Zinc phosphide
9	Maneb	Cryolite
10	Flumetsulam	Cyanazine
11	2,4-D	Methyl bromide
12	EPTC	Chloropicrin
13	Chlorothalonil	Sulfur
14	Paraquat dichloride	Dichlobenil
15	Dicamba	Trichlorfon
Rank	Commercial Applicator Use
	Gallons	Pounds
1	Chlorpyrifos	Cypermethrin
2	Zeta-Cypermethrin	Pendimethalin
3	Petroleum distillate, oils, solvent, etc.	Diazinon
4	Permethrin	Chlorpyrifos
5	2,4-D	Benfluralin
6	MCPP	Imidacloprid
7	Dicamba	Trifluralin
8	Propoxur	Chlorine
9	Glyphosate	2,4-D
10	Atrazine	Trichlorfon
11	Pendimethalin	Dicamba
12	Cyfluthrin	Mecoprop
13	Carbaryl	Bis(trichloromethyl) sulfone
14	Metolachlor	Methylene bis(thiocyanate)
15	Propamocarb hydrochloride	Bendiocarb
Rank	Total
	Gallons	Pounds
1	Chlorpyrifos	Cypermethrin
2	Zeta-Cypermethrin	Chlorpyrifos
3	Atrazine	Pendimethalin
4	Petroleum distillate, oils, solvent, etc.	Diazinon
5	Metolachlor	Benfluralin
6	Pendimethalin	Imidacloprid
7	Permethrin	Tefluthrin
8	2,4-D	Trifluralin
9	Glyphosate	Chlorine
10	MCPP	Mancozeb
11	Dicamba	2,4-D
12	Propoxur	Trichlorfon
13	Cyfluthrin	Dicamba
14	Carbaryl	Mecoprop
15	Propamocarb hydrochloride	Bis(trichloromethyl) sulfone
Source: 1998 NYSDEC Pesticide Sales and Applications Database

Maps

Map 1
Map 2
Map 3
Map 4

Recommendations

Unlike other forms of environmental contamination, pesticides are not the incidental byproducts of an unrelated process. They are intentionally released into the environment – dispersal is inherent to their function. As a direct consequence of this release, we have had to construct an elaborate and enormously costly regulatory machinery to literally chase after them once deployed – to examine, assess, and attempt to mitigate the inevitable contamination they cause. Any discussion of needed policy reforms must be framed by the fundamental question of whether such risk and expense is acceptable just because the market will bear it.

New York's pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system: a routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of ever-mounting evidence of their dangers and readily available alternatives. The following are recommendations for getting New York off this toxic treadmill: minimizing risk, encouraging alternatives, and reforming the system by which we regulate these toxic substances.

Eliminate the Most Hazardous Pesticides and Uses
Every few years, and accelerating now under FQPA, single pesticides or uses of certain products are banned. This happens once evidence of their hazards builds to the point that it overwhelms regulatory inertia and the possibility that a challenge to regulation would prevail in court. Each of these actions is a mixture of good and bad news. It is good news in that some hazard is being eliminated, but bad news in that it confirms the hazard to which we had been exposed for the duration of that pesticide's availability. Chlorpyrifos is the latest example of a product now deemed excessively dangerous after years of heavy use. For the whole of its thirty years on the market, however, regulators and industry alike offered bromides about its safety when used according to label instructions, as they had done for the previously banned DDT, chlordane and others. Not all synthetic pesticides pose the same level or type of hazard, but the fact that similar assurances are bandied about for every available pesticide, until such time as a regulatory about-face declares them false, does not inspire confidence in any such statement.

Unfortunately, banning single products often means that other products, whose hazards are not yet as well-defined, fill the market vacuum created – the result is risk substitution but not necessarily risk reduction. The rise in chlorpyrifos' commercial predominance after the ban on chlordane for termite control is one of the clearest examples of this kind of toxic shell game. Common sense, science, and efficiency all point to the need for a broader, categorical approach toward eliminating those chemicals or uses that pose substantial danger.

The mechanism for doing so is the existing pesticide product registration system. Only products registered by both New York State (by DEC) and the federal government (by EPA) can be used in the state. New York has the legal authority to be as restrictive as it deems necessary in conferring or revoking pesticide product registrations. At various occasions in the past, it has led the charge, banning aldicarb on Long Island for example, ahead of the federal government. It did so again recently, denying registration to acetochlor. If New York denies registration, that product cannot be used in the state even if it is registered by the federal government (though certain programs that grant special exceptions do exist). The registration process also allows the government to impose specific restrictions on a product's use.

Using current information on pesticide hazards, such as EPA's carcinogenicity lists, the National Toxicology Program's databases, California's Proposition 65 lists of chemicals known to cause various adverse health effects, pesticide poisoning and exposure incidents, and the scientific literature, DEC and the New York State Department of Health (DOH) could assess pesticides now registered and ban those chemicals or those uses that pose the greatest risk. DOH could also use the pesticide reporting data to make comparisons to its cancer and birth defect registries, or other sources of disease information. In California, for example, researchers have used that state's pesticide reporting data to identify patterns linking high pesticide use to cancer¹²⁰ and Parkinson's disease.¹²¹ In Minnesota, researchers have used even sketchier data to show links to birth defects.¹²² There is a wealth of information at DEC and DOH's fingertips with which to make more prudent assessments of pesticide risks and to ameliorate them.

In order to eliminate the greatest pesticide hazards:
-DEC should revoke the registrations for pesticides that are: classified by the EPA as known, probable, or likely carcinogens; of highest acute toxicity (as defined by EPA Toxicity categories); potential endocrine disruptors (as identified by existing research and the soon-to-be instituted testing program at EPA); and reproductive or developmental toxins.

-DEC and DOH should identify those applications of greatest risk due to their setting (such as indoor use of organophosphates and carbamates), and their potential to expose vulnerable populations (such as in day care centers, schools, and hospitals) or resources (such as sole source aquifers). Pesticide product registrations that allow use in those circumstances should be revoked.

Promoting Alternatives
Pesticides are stopgap measures that address the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of pest infestations. Frequently they do not even address symptoms, but are applied on a routine schedule rather than in response to an actual infestation. Pesticides can actually lead to greater use in the long run, due to pest resistance, resurgence, and secondary infestations. The success of organic farmers and practitioners of alternative pest control in structural maintenance and lawn care, prove that pest management and pesticides need not be considered one and the same. Yet New York State's institutional commitment to promoting the spread of safer practices is slim. One notable exception is the New York State Department of Transportation's (DOT) pilot program to assess alternatives to herbicides on roadside rights-of-way, a progressive undertaking that is nonetheless slowed by budget constraints. More recently, DEC has initiated a program, established with funding specifically provided by the Legislature, to provide grants to municipalities for training in non-toxic pest management and for making structural improvements to "pest-proof" public buildings and property.

Many European nations have recognized the ultimate sustainability of organic agriculture and instituted incentive programs to promote conversions to organic farming, with great success.¹²³ On the non-agricultural side, policies that phase-out the use of most pesticides on municipal property, inspired by a pioneering 1996 phase-out ordinance in San Francisco, have now passed in seven New York State communities and other communities across the country. By setting concrete deadlines and clear criteria regarding which pesticides must be phased out (as opposed to relying on nebulous terminology, such as the catch-all phrase "integrated pest management"), these phase-out policies force the adoption of alternative approaches and lead the way in demonstrating their feasibility to other municipalities and to the general public as well.

In order to accelerate the adoption of non-chemical pest management techniques:
-The New York Department of Agriculture and Markets should establish an Office of Organic Agriculture to offer research, training, and loan support to organic farmers, and to conventional farmers making the transition to organic crop production.

-The state government and individual local governments should adopt pesticide phase-out policies that would gradually eliminate the use of pesticides on public property. Seven New York municipalities have already done so, and more are actively considering such a policy. Legislation to enact a statewide phase-out policy has been considered in the state Assembly but not the Senate.

-New York State government should adopt a procurement preference for organic food and other products that allows the normal constraints of low-bidding to be modified for the greater good of promoting organic practices, as has been done to promote markets for recycled paper.

Enact County Pesticide Neighbor Notification Laws
Nearly ten years of debate in the New York State Legislature culminated in the enactment of the Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law in August 2000 (see box this page), overriding the reflexive opposition of the chemical manufacturer and applicator industries. But there is still another hurdle to clear before all the provisions of the law go into effect. While the day care and school notice provisions will be in force automatically on July 1, 2001, the lawn notice requirements must be formally adopted at the local level by counties and the City of New York. As of this writing, Suffolk County has already enacted the required local law, and bills to do so are currently being debated in numerous other counties across the state.

-All counties in New York State and New York City should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law. Advance notice gives neighbors the opportunity to take measures to protect their families and property from pesticide exposure.

Financing Pesticide Regulation and Enforcement
Proposals for pesticide policy reforms and critiques of existing enforcement efforts are met with the familiar refrain that pesticide programs are underfunded and understaffed. The claim is valid, largely because these programs are primarily financed from New York State taxpayers' pockets. With the exception of nominal pesticide product registration and applicator certification fees, those who profit from pesticides do not shoulder the true cost of their use. As with other industries that cause harm, the polluter should pay. California taxes manufacturers on their sales of pesticides (known as the mill tax) and New York State considered establishing such a tax in the 1980s. The time for such a reform in New York State is long overdue.

-Pesticide manufacturers should be assessed a variable tax tied to their pesticide sales sufficient to finance the state’s pesticide regulatory programs.

Give Local Governments the Authority to Regulate Pesticide Use
New York State law vests all authority to regulate pesticides with DEC, even though federal law does not preclude localities from enacting their own pesticide use policies. Each municipality is unique and deserves the right, if it so chooses, to craft pesticide policies that go farther than state law to protect its residents, drinking water, and ecological resources. There are numerous instances where local governments have attempted to regulate pesticide use in their communities only to be thwarted by state law, most notably Nassau County's early efforts to adopt pesticide prenotification requirements. Preventing such municipal autonomy benefits only the chemical and applicator industries, which can block reform by focusing all of their considerable lobbying personnel and funds at the state and federal levels. Several bills to grant municipalities control over pesticide policy are active in the New York State Assembly, but have never been taken up by the Senate.

-Legislation to grant municipalities the authority to regulate pesticide use in their own jurisdictions should be enacted.

Examine and Reduce Pesticide Use in New York City
The pesticide reporting data again confirm that New York City accounts for an outsized share of the state's overall reported pesticide use. The nature of that use – neurotoxic insecticides predominating – and the number of people affected demand immediate attention to reducing the hazard.

Pest management and pesticides are not synonymous, they only appear so through the concerted efforts of the chemical marketing and public relations industry. Alternative pest management methods are available for virtually all pest problems and, like any efforts aimed at good health, they emphasize prevention – addressing the root cause of infestations instead of the superficial symptoms. Alternative measures for pest control include:

-The New York City Council should allocate funds to examine pesticide use in the city in general and on municipal property in particular, and enact a policy to institute alternatives to pesticide use on municipal property.

Eliminate Aesthetic Use of Pesticides
Thirty to forty years ago, lawn and ornamental plant pesticide applications were virtually unknown – everyone's yard was organic. The marketing boom in lawn care pesticides has manufactured its own new chemical aesthetic, creating a source of risk where there was none before. There are no negative public health repercussions, and everything to gain, by entirely eliminating this gratuitous source of risk.

-Using toxic substances for an entirely frivolous purpose is all public health and environmental risk, and no benefit. Aesthetic use of pesticides - on lawns, trees, shrubs and ornamental gardens - should be banned.

Address Farmworker Risks
Farmworkers are essential to New York State's agricultural economy. Yet they labor under difficult conditions and are routinely exposed to high levels of pesticides, many of which have been declared too dangerous for residential use. DEC administers and enforces the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), a federal regulation intended to protect agricultural workers from the dangers of pesticides by ensuring that basic health and safety measures are followed. In the state's fiscal year 2000 budget, the Legislature allocated money to assist in implementing WPS, a step forward in recognizing the importance of programs to protect farmworkers. But the money cannot be used to hire new staff to administer the program and conduct inspections. A new institutional commitment to bringing on new staff specifically for this purpose is necessary to continue some of the forward movement and improvements in farmworkers' lives.

-The state budget should include funding for a new position in each DEC region specifically for enforcement of the Worker Protection Standard.

Improve the Pesticide Reporting Data
As important as the pesticide data are for highlighting broad trends and identifying chemicals and risk patterns in need of closer scrutiny, they could be made even more useful and accessible to the public with some key modifications. Some of these are simple and could be undertaken by DEC without statutory change (which the agency has already indicated it is willing to do), such as providing the data by active ingredient as well as product, and expressing all data in the single measure of pounds. Others would require new legislation to be enacted, but would greatly add to the utility of the data. In addition to the actual content of the data, DEC has failed for three years running now to release complete data on the statutory deadline of the July 1 following the reporting year, releasing only partial data on that date with no concrete indication of when final data are forthcoming. Missing the statutory deadline in the first year can be chalked up to the newness of the program. After three years running, however, the program must be reformed to meet its obligations.

The following reforms to the pesticide reporting requirements should be enacted:
-All data kept by commercial applicators and farmers should be submitted to DEC and made available to the public. Currently, the public only has access to the name and amount of each pesticide product used in a given zip code or county. Far more detailed information is submitted to the state and still more is kept on file by applicators, available for inspection by DEC but not automatically submitted. Without knowing the full details of where, why, and how pesticides are being used, people can neither understand their exposure, nor facilitate the development and implementation of safer alternatives.

-Farmers should submit the same detailed reports on pesticide use as commercial applicators are required to do. Under the law's current requirements, farmer reporting is indirect, through sales. The information farmers keep on site is less than that kept by commercial applicators and is limited to restricted use products only. Direct and complete use reporting by farmers would give agricultural and integrated pest management researchers real, site-specific data to work with, and allow more accurate comparisons with commercial applicator data.

-Sales of all pesticides should be reported by the manufacturer to DEC so they can be compared to commercial applicator and farmer sales data to yield an estimate of overall homeowner use. Having manufacturers' sales data on restricted use pesticides, as we now do, is only useful for a limited subset of individual product inquiries.

Remove Barriers to Justice for Pesticide Exposure
People are routinely exposed to and injured by pesticides. But current laws and regulations set a high bar for proving a violation of regulation and a low one for proving compliance. The system needs reforming to first prevent exposure and then to ensure that unsafe practices are redressed.

The difficulty begins with regulatory language that holds applicators to the following nebulous standard: "Pesticides must be used in such a manner and under such wind and other conditions as to prevent contamination of people, pets, fish, wildlife, crops, property, structures, lands, pasturage or waters adjacent to the area of use." (6 NYCRR 325.2(a))

There is no need for such vagueness. The conditions that cause pesticide drift, for example, are well known and the days on which such conditions occur can be predicted before the fact and identified afterward. DEC and DOH have published a tip sheet on minimizing pesticide drift that states: “- Avoid application if wind speeds are greater than 10 mph or if winds are gusty.
- Avoid applications during temperature inversions - when air near the ground is cooler than air above it. An inversion can be detected by observing smoke from a ground source - smoke will move horizontally and concentrate in a cloud instead of spreading upward.
- Avoid applications during high temperatures and low humidity. These conditions increase the pesticide's evaporation rate, resulting in smaller droplets that are more likely to drift.”¹²⁴

Yet when pesticides are sprayed on those days – and they are as a matter of routine – the burden of proof falls to the government or an injured party and it is notoriously difficult to document these occurrences under the current system. People who report drift episodes often find that too much time has elapsed between the time of the incident and the time samples are taken for such samples to be accurate.

The burden of proof is made heavier by an overly stringent standard for proving contamination. Current pesticide regulations define contamination as "the presence of a pesticide or pesticides in or on areas other than the target area, in quantities which are or may be injurious to humans or the environment." (6 NYCRR Part 325.1(u)). The mere presence of pesticides on property where they were not applied – known as "chemical trespass" – should be considered a violation, without the additional burden of proving harm. The current regulatory injunctions against drift are vague enough as is, but the definition of contamination erects such a high hurdle as to render them toothless.

Drift is not the only way in which people are injured by pesticides. Termiticide applications and exposures in office buildings and schools are other scenarios that have resulted in significant exposure incidents in recent years. But when DEC negotiates settlements with the applicators accused of violations, the process can be lengthy and byzantine, and the fact that it is a negotiation can mean that the settlement is less stringent than justified by the situation, or does not result in an admission of culpability on the part of the applicators that would serve as a warning to future potential customers.

Many applicators, however, are plainly culpable. EPA's recent analysis of poison control center data for residential exposures documented, for example, that pesticide control applicators and their products were responsible for a disproportionate number of serious poisonings when compared to homeowner applications and poisonings, stating that: "Part of this increased hazard results from exposure to higher toxicity concentrates and part is due to careless, poorly supervised, and/or poorly trained PCOs [pest control operators]."¹²⁵ That our regulatory system cannot prevent what the record of poisoning outcomes demonstrates, underscores the need for reform and a new approach.

If all violations of pesticide law and regulations were automatically referred to the New York State Attorney General's Office, the full measure of the law's enforcement potential could be brought to bear. Clear case law could then be established and the seriousness of these violations would be underscored, acting as a deterrent to future violations and easing the way for prosecuting future cases.

-DEC should enforce its own tip sheet recommendations regarding weather conditions that promote drift by pursuing, as violations, all applications that occur during such weather conditions, and by amending the regulations to reflect the tip sheet strictures so that applicators are legally on notice as to what constitutes acceptable practice.

-Simple chemical trespass should be the legal standard for contamination. The current regulatory definition of contamination should be amended to delete the requirement to prove that off-site pesticides were found "in quantities which are or may be injurious to humans or the environment" (6NYCRR 325.1(u)).

_DEC and DOH should conduct a public information campaign and establish a hotline number to inform people of the specific steps they need to take to document a pesticide exposure and how to proceed.

-DEC should refer all violations of pesticide law or regulations to the Attorney General's Office.

Sidebar: Neighbor Notification

On August 21, 2000, New York State formally enacted the Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law (Chapter 285 of the Laws of 2000) and further broadened the rights of New Yorkers to know about their exposure to toxic pesticides. The focus of nearly a decade of activism, the new law will require that day care centers post notice of impending pesticide use at child dropoff points at least 48 hours prior to application, and that schools notify staff and parents of their right to sign up for a registry to receive 48 hours prior notice before pesticide applications are made. All staff and parents, regardless of whether they sign up for the registry, will, three times a year, receive a full accounting of pesticides used on school premises.

In addition, the law enables counties to adopt requirements that all abutting neighbors whose property line is within 150 feet of a commercial lawn pesticide application receive 48 hours prior notice, and that homeowners who make pesticide applications to their lawns post the same yellow warning signs now required of commercial lawn applicators. Before passage, counties that wanted to require such prior notice (Nassau County, for example, attempted to enact such a local law), were precluded from doing so by state law, which vests all right to regulate pesticide use with the state government.

The most immediate benefit of neighbor notification is that it will provide a warning to afford people the opportunity to take simple precautions to minimize their exposure. Forewarned is forearmed. In addition, the law should also spur adoption of less hazardous means of pest control by exempting certain pesticides, such as EPA-exempt materials (e.g. mint and garlic oils), biopesticides such as llus thuringiensis,low toxicity materials, such as boric acid, from the prior notice requirements.

Although the daycare center and schools provisions automatically go into effect statewide as of July 1, 2001, adoption of the lawn notice requirements must now occur on the county level.

Conclusion

The pesticide reporting data once again confirm New York State's addiction to these hazardous synthetic chemicals. These findings arrive at a key point in time, when a steady drumbeat in the media has raised public consciousness of pesticide risks, prompting new questions from an ever-broader cross section of citizens and policymakers. As never before, people are recognizing that pesticides are not silver bullets, but clumsy, non-specific poisons that leave an inevitable trail of contamination in their wake and do predictable harm. With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe for our policymakers to reverse course, to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers – who employ battalions of lobbyists and a vast public relations machine to impede reform at every level – and make pesticide alternatives the norm in New York State.

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33 Kegley, S. et al. 1999. Disturbing the Balance: Ecological Impacts of Pesticides in California. Californians for Pesticide Reform. San Francisco. see also Benbrook, C.M. et al. 1996. Pest Management at the Crossroads. Consumers Union. Yonkers, New York.
34 General Accounting Office. 1991. Pesticides: EPA Could Do More to Minimize Groundwater Contamination. GAO/RCED-91-75. see also Zaki, M.H. et al. 1982. Pesticides in Groundwater: The Aldicarb Story in Suffolk County, NY. American Journal of Public Health. 72:1391-1395.
35 Gilliom, R.J. et al. 1999. Testing Water Quality for Pesticide Pollution: U.S. Geological Survey investigations reveal widespread contamination of the nation’s water resources. Environmental Science and Technology/News. April 1, 1999:164A-169A.
36 Phillips, P.J. et al. 1999. Pesticides and their Metabolites in Wells of Suffolk County New York, 1998. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4095.
37 See General Accounting Office note 34 above.
38 Phillips, P.J. et al. 2000a. Pesticides in Wells in Agricultural and Urban Areas of the Hudson River Basin. Northeastern Geology. 22(1):1-9. See Gilliom et al. note 35 above. see also Phillips, P.J. et al. 1998. Pesticide Concentrations in Surface Waters of New York State in Relation to Land Use – 1997. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 98-4104.
39 See Gilliom et al. note 35 above.
40 Phillips, P.J. et al. 2000b. Pesticides and Their Metabolites in Three Small Public Water-Supply Reservoir Systems, Western New York, 1998-99. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4278. see also Phillips, P.J. et al. 1999. Note 36 above.
41 Suffolk County Department of Health Services. 1999. Water Quality Monitoring Program to Detect Pesticide Contamination in Groundwaters of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, NY. White Paper.
42 United States Environmental Protection Agency. 1999. EPA For Your Information: Spray Drift of Pesticides. EPA 735F99024. Washington D.C.
43 Ibid.
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50 Simcox, N.J. et al.1995. Pesticides in Household Dust and Soil: Exposure Pathways for Children of Agricultural Families. Environmental Health Perspectives. 103(12):1226-1134.
51 A 24-hour standard refers to the maximum allowable dose in a 24-hour period.
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55 Gurunathan, S. et al. 1998. Accumulation of Chlorpyrifos on Residential Surfaces and Toys Accessible to Children. Environmental Health Perspectives. 106(1):9-16.
56 See Butterfield et al. note 7 above.
57 See Pogoda and Preston-Martin note 16 above.
58 United States Department of Agriculture. 1998. A Time to Act: A Report of the USDA National Commission on Small Farms. United States Department of Agriculture. Washington D.C.
59 See National Research Council. 1993 note 11 above.
60 Consumers Union. 1999. How safe is our produce? Consumer Reports. March 1999. see also Wiles, R. et al. 1998. Overexposed: Organohosphate Insecticides in Children’s Food. Environmental Working Group. Washington D.C.
61 Oettmeier, W. 1999. Herbicide resistance and supersensitivity in photosystem II. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. 55:1255-1277. see also Hoy, M.A. 1998. Myths, models and mitigation of resistance to pesticides. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 353:1787-1795. see also Brogdon, W.G. and J.C. McAllister. 1998. Insecticide Resistance and Vector Control. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 4(4):605-613. see also Morse, J.G. 1998. Agricultural implications of pesticide-induced hormesis of insects and mites. Human and Experimental Toxicology. 17:266-269. see also National Research Council. 1986. Pesticide Resistance: Strategies and Tactics for Management. National Academy Press. Washington D.C.
62 Carson, R. 1962. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin . Boston.
63 Gubler, D.J. 1998. Resurgent Vector-Borne Diseases as a Global Health Problem. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 4(3):442-450.
64 National Research Council. 1989. Alternative Agriculture. National Academy Press. Washington D.C.
65 Data for 1999 are available but incomplete and not yet error-checked.
66 Division of Solid and Hazardous Materials. 2000. Final Report on 1998 New York State Pesticide Sales and Applications. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Albany, New York.
67 Ibid.
68 References to the 1997 data in this report will differ from those found in our original Plagued by Pesticides series, released in 1998, because the 1997 data were updated and finalized after those reports were released. We have fully reanalyzed the 1997 data for this report.
69 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above.
70 Ibid.
71 Aspelin, A.L. and A.H.Grube. 1999. Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage: 1996 and 1997 Market Estimates. Biological and Economic Analysis Division. Office of Pesticide Programs. Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Washington D.C.
72 Landrigan, P.J. et al. 1999. Pesticides and Inner-City Children: Exposures, Risks, and Prevention. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107(Suppl 3):431-437.
73Colborn, T. 1998. Endocrine disruption from environmental toxicants. In: Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Third Edition. Ed. Rom, W.N. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven Publishers.
74Blondell, J. and V.A. Dobozy. 1997. Review of Chlorpyrifos Poisoning Data. United States Environmental Protection Agency Memorandum. January 14, 1997. Washington D.C.
75 Kaplan, J.G. et al. 1993. Sensory neuropathy associated with Dursban (chlorpyrifos) exposure. Neurology. 43:2193-2196.
76See Thrasher et al. note 28 above.
77 See Dam et al. note 13 above. see also Johnson et al. note 13 above. Song, X. et al. 1998. Modeling the Developmental Neurotoxicity of Chlorpyrifos in Vitro: Macromolecule Synthesis in PC12 Cells. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 151:182-191. see also Roy, T.E. et al. 1998. Chlorpyrifos Elicits Mitotic Abnormalities and Apoptosis in Neuroepithelium if Cultured Rat Embryos. Teratology. 58:62-68. see also Campbell, C.G. et al. 1997. Chlorpyrifos Interferes with Cell Development in Rat Brain Regions. Brain Research Bulletin. 43(2):179-189. see also Whitney, K.D. et al. 1995. Developmental Neurotoxicity of Chlorpyrifos: Cellular Mechanisms. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 134:53-62.
78 Brimijoin S. and C. Koenigsberger. 1999. Cholinesterases in Neural Development: New Findings and Toxicologic Implications. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107 (Suppl.1):59-64. see also Lauder, J.M. and U.B. Schambra. Morphogenetic Roles of Acetylcholine. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107(Suppl.1):65-69. Bigbee, J.W. et al. 1999. Morphogenic Role for Acetylcholinesterase in Axonal Outgrowth during Neural Development. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107 (Suppl.1):81-87. see also Song, X. et al. 1998. Modeling the Developmental Neurotoxicity of Chlorpyrifos in Vitro: Macromolecule Synthesis in PC12 Cells. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 151:182-191. 79 Campbell, C.G. et al. 1997. Chlorpyrifos Interferes with Cell Development in Rat Brain Regions. Brain Research Bulletin 43(2):179-189. see also. Whitney, K.D. et al. 1995. Developmental Neurotoxicity of Chlorpyrifos: Cellular Mechanisms. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 134:53-62.
80Cohn, J. and R.C. Macphail. 1997. Chlorpyrifos Produces Selective Learning Deficits in Rats Working Under a Schedule of Repeated Acquisition and Performance. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 283(1):312-20.
81United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2000. Diazinon. Revised HED Preliminary Human Health Risk Assessment for the Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) D262343. PC Code: 057801. List A. Case No. 0238. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Washington D.C.
82 Extoxnet. 1996. Trichlorfon: Pesticide Information Profile. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/trichlor.htm
83 United States Environmental Protection Agency. 1999. Human Health Risk Assessment. Terbufos. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Washington D.C.
84 United States Environmental Protection Agency. 1997. Propoxur. R.E.D Fact Sheet. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Washington D.C.
85 See Wyrobek note 29 above.
86 New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. 1996. Carbaryl: Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet. New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Trenton, New Jersey.
87 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above. see also O’Malley, M. note 4 above.
88 See Muller-Mohnssen note 5 above.
89 See Diel. et al. note 28 above. see also Stiller-Winkler, et al. note 28 above.
90 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 Eil, C. and B.C. Nisula. note 27 above.
91 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.
92 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.
93 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above.
94 See Kegley note 33 above. see also Extoxnet. 1996. Cypermethrin; Pesticide Information Profile. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/cypermet.htm see also Extoxnet. 1996. Cyfluthrin; Pesticide Information Profile. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/cyfluthr.htm
95 See Cooper note 27 above. see also Kniewald note 27 above.
96 See Kettles note 18 above.
97 See Donna note 20 above.
98 Munger, R. et al. 1997. Intrauterine Growth Retardation in Iowa Communities with Herbicide-contaminated Drinking Water Supplies. Environmental Health Perspectives. 105(3):308-314.
99 Wall, G.R. et al. 1998. Water Quality in the Hudson River Basin: New York and Adjacent States, 1992-1995. United States Geological Survey Circular 1165.
100 See Munger et al. note 98 above.
101 See Phillips et al. 2000b note 40 above.
102 Letter from Norman Nosenchuck, Director, Division of Solid and Hazardous Materials, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to Michael S. O’Connor, Acetochlor Registration Partnership, c/o Zeneca Ag Products. April 10, 1997.
103 See Institute of Medicine note 15 above. Washington D.C. see also Fontana et al. note 15 above. see also Garry, V.F. et al. 1994. Survey of Health and Use Characterization of Pesticide Appliers in Minnesota. Archives of Environmental Health. 49(5):337-343. see also Zahm, S. H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cancer Research (Supplement): 52:5485S-5488S. see also Scherr, P.A. et al. 1992. Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and Occupational Exposure. Cancer Research (Supplement). 52:5503S-5509S.
104 Hayes, H.M. et al. 1995. On the Association between Canine Malignant Lymphoma and Opportunity for Exposure to 2,4-Dichloophenoxy Acid. Environmental Research. 70:119-125. Hayes, H.M. et al. 1991. Case-control study of canine malignant lymphoma: Positive association with dog owner’s use of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid herbicides. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 83:1226-1231.
105 Leiss, J. and D.A. Savitz. 1995. Home Pesticide Use and Childhood Cancer: A Case-Control Study. American Journal of Public Health. 85(2):249-252.
106 See also Lerda and Rizzi note 29 above.
107 See Colborn 1998 note 73 above. see also Rawlings note 27 above.
108 Bortolozzi, A.A. et al. 1999. Behavioral Alterations Induced in Rats by a Pre- and Postnatal Exposure to 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid. Neurotoxicology and Teratology. 21(4):451-465.
109 Goldstein, N.P. et al. 1959. Peripheral Neuropathy after Exposure to an Ester of Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid. Journal of the American Medical Association. 171(10):1306-1309.
110 Extoxnet. 1996. Pesticide Information Profiles: Trifluralin. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/triflura.htm See also Extoxnet. 1996. Pesticide Information Profiles: Pendimethalin. http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/pendimet.htm
111 Ferraz, H.B. et al. 1988. Chronic exposure to the fungicide maneb may produce symptoms and signs of CNS manganese intoxication. Neurology. 38:550-553.
112 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above.
113 Pesticide Action Network. 2000. Farmworker Community Poisoned by Pesticide Drift. PANUPS. February 18, 2000. San Francisco, CA.
114 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above.
115 Ibid. see also New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. 1998. Chloropicrin: Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet. New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Trenton.
116 See Reigart and Roberts note 4 above.
117 Ibid.
118 Garry, V.F. et al. 1989. Human Genotoxicity: Pesticide Applicators and Phosphine. Science. 246:251-255.
119 New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. 1996. Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet: Chromic Acid. New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Trenton, New Jersey.
120 Mills, P. 1998. Correlation Analysis of Pesticide Use Data and Cancer Incidence Rates in California Counties. Archives of Environmental Health. 53(6):410-413.
121 See Ritz and Yu. note 7 above.
122 See Garry et al. 1996. note 31 above.
123 Repetto, P. 2000. The Organic Opportunity. White Paper.
124 New York State Department of Health and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 1997. Pesticide Spray Drift. Tip Sheet.
125 See Blondell 1999 note 4 above.

Pest management and pesticides are not synonymous, they only appear so through the concerted efforts of the chemical marketing and public relations industry. Alternative pest management methods are available for virtually all pest problems and, like any efforts aimed at good health, they emphasize prevention – addressing the root cause of infestations instead of the superficial symptoms. Alternative measures for pest control include:

Appendix: Methodology and Data Quality Issues

Data Sources
Several databases were used to calculate pesticide use and sales amounts in New York State, amounts and relative rankings of pesticide active ingredients, and their health effects. These are:
a) The data collected by DEC under the 1996 Pesticide Reporting Law, for the years 1997 and 1998, downloaded from the internet at the Cornell University Pesticide Management Education Program website: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/regulation/psur. Four key tables from this database for each year were used:
- Statewide Use: Total Commercial Applicator Pesticide Use in New York State Summarized by Product.
- County Use: Total Commercial Applicator Pesticide Use in each County Summarized by Product.
- Statewide Sales: Commercial Permittee Annual Sales Report for Restricted Use Pesticides and General Use Agricultural Pesticides in New York State Summarized by Product.
- County Sales: Commercial Permittee Annual Sales Report for Restricted Use Pesticides and General Use Agricultural Pesticides in each County Summarized by Product

b) A series of interrelated tables from EPA’s Pesticide Product Information System (PPIS), which link pesticide products from the DEC reporting database with the active ingredients used in those products. The PPIS data were downloaded from EPA’s website at: http://www.epa.gov/opppmsd1/PPISdata/index.html

c) Health Effects database on pesticide active ingredients, assembled from a variety of official lists and other sources. The sources for health effects information were EPA’s carcinogenicity classifications1 and a list of potential endocrine disruptors generated by one of the leading researchers on the topic, Dr.Theo Colborn.² The neurotoxins category included all organophosphate and carbamate insecticides by virtue of the particular hazards they pose on this score, as outlined in the main body of the report. Other pesticides also have neurotoxic effects, so this category underestimates the amount of neurotoxins actually used and sold in New York State. These various sources of information were compiled into a unified Health Effects database that was then compared to the active ingredients identified in DEC’s pesticide reporting database.

Data Analysis Process and Issues
Analyzing and comparing these databases entailed a number of steps and decisions relating to the nature of the available data.

a) Reporting Categories:
Commercial Application versus Sales to Farmers
The data submitted to DEC fall into two broad categories: commercial applicator use and sales to farmers. Commercial applicators include anyone who applies pesticides for hire: lawn and garden applicators, exterminators, custodial and groundskeeping staff, and municipal employees. Some commercial applicators also make applications on agricultural land that they do not own or operate (for example, most aerial applications are commercial). Commercial applicators are required to report the details of each separate application made during the previous year.

The sales to farmers category is an indirect measure of agricultural application. All businesses that sell restricted use pesticides are required to report sales of all pesticides, both general and restricted use, to farmers using them on their own crops. For each product sold, vendors must record, among other things, the address of the intended pesticide application.

These two categories of pesticide reports were analyzed separately, and then combined to yield estimates of the total amount of pesticides used and sold in the state. Data on sales to farmers is not duplicative of commercial applicator data, so combining them should not result in overestimates. Although sales to farmers is an indirect measure of actual farmer use, and not strictly comparable to commercial applicator use, it is the best available surrogate for such use.

There is a third category of reporting – sales of restricted use pesticides – that was not used in this report for several reasons. First, these data are partially redundant with the sales to farmers database. Second, they are only reported as aggregated data, not tied to any application location, so they do not add any new information beyond either the commercial applicator or sales to farmer data. Third, because they are only for restricted and not general use products, they cannot be used for estimating homeowner use.

b) Gallons and Pounds
DEC’s databases display the amounts of pesticide products in both volume (gallons) and weight (pounds), depending on how the information was reported to the agency. Other reporting programs, such as California’s, convert all liquid measures to weight and then express the data in a single measure – pounds. This makes for unified rankings that are simpler and easier to interpret. In order to make such a conversion, it is necessary to know the specific gravity for each pesticide product reported. DEC has this information in its confidential, proprietary database that is compiled for pesticide product registration (the information is submitted by the manufacturer) but which cannot be released to the public. DEC could, however, make this conversion in-house and has indicated that it intends to do so in the future.3 Until that time, and for this report, data are expressed in both gallons and pounds.

c) Pesticide products versus active ingredients
The term “pesticide” can be used interchangeably to mean either a pesticide product or that product’s active ingredients. Active ingredients are those agents that give the pesticide product its purported pesticidal properties. Products contain one or more active ingredients, and a single active ingredient can be formulated into numerous different products. Products also contain so-called “inert” ingredients, which give the product volume or bulk, or contribute to its dispersion or adherence. Inert ingredients are frequently toxic in themselves and can even be found as active ingredients in other products, but they are not disclosed. Roundup® and Dursban® are product names; glyphosate and chlorpyrifos are their respective active ingredients.

Under New York State’s Pesticide Reporting Law, DEC is only required to report the product name when releasing data, although it is not precluded from also reporting active ingredients. To date, DEC has chosen only to report product names, though, as with conversion to pounds, it has indicated an intention to report by active ingredient as well in the future.4 Because most toxicological and environmental effects information, as well as EPA’s registration decisions, are based primarily on active ingredient,5 it was necessary to translate products to active ingredients for this analysis as follows: the EPA Product Number reported in DEC’s database was linked to a corresponding EPA product registration number in the PPIS product formulation table. This table contained an identifying number (a “PC Code”) for each active ingredient, as well as the percent active ingredient in each product. The PPIS formulation table was then linked by PC Code to the PPIS table that included chemical names in order to determine the name of each active ingredient. We were able to do this for all but one product in the 1998 data, which accounted for only 22 gallons.

Because the PPIS database lists the amount of active ingredients in each pesticide product according to the percent by weight of the active ingredient, and because, without specific gravity information for the products, it is not possible to determine total product weight, it was not possible to determine the overall weight of each active ingredient reported in New York State. Therefore, in order to rank the most heavily used active ingredients and discuss the amounts of cancer-causing or otherwise toxic active ingredients, the report lists the amount (in pounds and gallons) of total pesticide products containing the particular active ingredients applicable to each section of the report. One active ingredient, 2,4-D, is actually a family of related compounds. Because the chemicals in this family are considered together for toxicological purposes by EPA, they were aggregated in this report for the purpose of ranking active ingredients.

Even though it is necessary to know active ingredients for the reasons just described, there are two key advantages to having the total amount of product reported and expressing overall amounts used in the state this way (as opposed to relying solely on the active ingredient component). First, the so-called inert ingredients in the product are often highly toxic in their own right.6 Discussing pesticides solely in terms of active ingredients therefore dismisses a substantial contributor to risk, simply because inert ingredients are not disclosed and therefore not reported to DEC or the consumer. Second, many active ingredients are very potent, exerting a powerful effect at very low concentrations. Expressing the amount of pesticides only in terms of active ingredient amount would thus tend to underestimate the impact of such pesticides. The inverse is also true, however, for less potent pesticides. Having both active ingredient information and product information to make both kinds of analysis is therefore ideal.

d) Health Effects data
To determine the amount of pesticides used and sold in New York that are associated with specific health hazards, we compared the active ingredient information from EPA’s PPIS database with the Health Effects database generated as described above. DEC’s data was first linked with the PPIS tables, which contain a Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number for each active ingredient. This was then linked to the Health Effects database, which also contained CAS numbers to identify each active ingredient. Products that contained more than one active ingredient that met the same health effect criteria (e.g. carcinogenicity or neurotoxicity) were only counted once in a that health effect category for the purpose of generating total amounts of products with a given health effect.

It is important to remember that not all chemicals have been examined for these health effects. Many are not on the carcinogenicity or endocrine disruptor lists, for example, because they have not yet been evaluated for these effects, not because they have been exonerated, though the latter is true for some – EPA, for example, has a carcinogenicity class “E” for chemicals for which there is evidence of non-carcinogenicity (glyphosate and chlorpyrifos are examples of class “E” pesticides).

e) Data discrepancy
The final total for gallons of pesticides reported in 1997 used in this report differs from the final figure in DEC’s database. In that year, a single entry of 4.9 million gallons of a pesticide with an invalid EPA registration number was reported in Queens. Both the overwhelming amount of this particular entry, and the fact that it was tied to an invalid number, made the entry highly suspect to us. At the risk of underestimating pesticide use in Queens for 1997, we decided to drop this figure from the totals used in Table 1. This anomalous data point also highlights the deficiencies of the error checking process for the first year of data.

1 Office of Pesticide Programs. 1999. Office of Pesticide Programs List of Chemicals Evaluated for Carcinogenic Potential. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Memorandum dated August 25, 1999. Data in this memorandum were updated through direct inquiry to the Office of Pesticide Programs Health Effects Division.
2 Colborn, T. 1998. Endocrine disruption from environmental toxicants. In: Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Third Edition. Ed. Rom, W.N. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven Publishers. Pp. 807-816.
3 Division of Solid and Hazardous Materials. 2000. Final Annual Report on 1998 New York State Pesticide Sales and Applications. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Albany, NY.
4 Ibid.
5 The exception is “Toxicity Category,” which is a measure of how potent a pesticide product is in causing short-term poisoning or injury. Each separate product is tested as whole (active and inert ingredients together) and assigned one of four Toxicity Categories, designated on the product label by a “signal” word, such as “danger,” “warning,” or “caution.” Many active ingredients can be formulated into products with different toxicity categories depending on the nature of the product and its concentration of active ingredient, or formulation.
6 Surgan, M.H. and A.J.Gershon. Office of the Attorney General. 2000. The Secret Ingredients in Pesticides: Reducing the Risk. Office of the Attorney General. Environmental Protection Bureau. New York.

Regional Reports

Greater Rochester Area
This regional report, a supplement to The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State, 1997-1998, is a snapshot of pesticide use and sales patterns in the Greater Rochester area of Monroe, Wayne, Livingston, Ontario, and Genesee counties in 1998. The analysis is based on data from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) pesticide reporting program. Under the Pesticide Reporting Law of 1996, DEC collects detailed pesticide use data annually from the state’s commercial pesticide applicators and information on sales to farmers.

Summary of Statewide Findings
New York is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. According to New York’s pesticide reporting data, 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were applied by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998 alone. The dangers of such use are myriad. Pesticides pose health risks such as nervous system toxicity, carcinogenicity, and damage to the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems; environmental risks such as contamination of air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations.

Efforts to mitigate these risks must start with understanding what, where, and why pesticides are used in the state. Analyzing New York’s pesticide reporting data challenges many of our basic assumptions about the nature of that use. Among the key revelations (for a thorough discussion of these points, see the full Toxic Treadmill report):

• Urban and suburban downstate counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings County (Brooklyn) and Queens County respectively. The downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds of pesticides reported for the state in 1998.
• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and for lawn care.
• Even though safer alternatives abound, a substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

Patterns of Pesticide Use in Rochester
A more specific look at the pesticide reporting data for the five-county region of Monroe, Wayne, Livingston, Ontario, and Genesee counties yields the following information:

Monroe County reported the highest amount of pesticides in the five-county region.

• Monroe County is among the top ten counties in the state (9th by gallons, 6th by pounds) for total amount of pesticides reported in 1998. In the five-county area, Monroe reported well over a third more pesticides than Wayne County, the next highest county in the region (Table 1).
• The bulk of Monroe County’s use is commercial application (more than 80% of the total reported in the county), as opposed to sales to farmers, and is thus primarily non-agricultural. This is in keeping with statewide trends, where the more urbanized counties dominate pesticide use.
• All five of the top pesticides applied by commercial applicators by pounds in Monroe County were lawn care products that combine pesticides and fertilizers (as were many of the products applied in lesser quantities). The use of pesticide fertilizer combinations means that applications are not necessarily occurring in response to a documented pest problem, but as a routine part of lawn maintenance and, more than likely, on a set schedule. By applying pesticides in this manner, as part of a fertilizer product that blankets an entire property, overuse is virtually assured and minimization techniques such as spot treatments do not occur.

The five county region as a whole reports some of the highest pesticide sales to farmers in the state.

• Wayne County is the second highest county in the state for amount of pesticides sold to farmers by both gallons and pounds, with Genesee County third highest for sales to farmers by gallons.
• In contrast to the dominance of non-agricultural pesticide use in Monroe County and statewide, sales to farmers represents 53% of the total pesticides reported overall for the five county region, indicating that for the region as a whole, agricultural use is greater than non-agricultural use.
• The five-county region accounted for only 4% of the state’s reported commercial applicator pesticide use, but more than 18% of its sales to farmers.

The pesticides used in the region are hazardous.

• Forty-one percent of the pesticides used in the Greater Rochester area are classified by EPA as probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens. More than 20% are suspected of disrupting normal hormonal balance, affecting everything from daily physical functioning to the fundamentals of reproduction and fertility.
• The top three pesticides by gallons both overall and in the commercial applicator category were MCPP, 2,4-D, dicamba (Table 2), related chlorophenoxy herbicides that have been repeatedly linked to certain cancers, most notably non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,1 as well as other adverse health effects. In Monroe County, where the bulk of commercial application occurs, there has been a 39% increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for males and a 68% increase for females during the period 1976-1997.2 While no statements about cause and effect are possible, the high use of pesticides linked to this dangerous disease, and the dramatically increasing disease rates are a parallel that should spur immediate investigation and prudent reduction in such pesticide use.
• The top pesticide reported in the region by pounds was chlorpyrifos (the active ingredient in Dursban® and Lorsban®). As noted above, chlorpyrifos was banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high neurotoxicity, particularly to developing fetuses, infants, and children.
• Atrazine, metolachlor, alachlor, and cyanazine, are all herbicides among the top pesticides sold to farmers in the region and all are significant and unavoidable water contaminants, identified by the EPA as contaminating groundwater as a result of normal agricultural use,3 and documented in the region’s water.4 This contamination is of particular concern given the potential adverse health effects of the pesticides. Atrazine, cyanazine, and metolachlor are classified by EPA as possible human carcinogens and alachlor is classified as a likely human carcinogen at high concentrations. Atrazine, cyanazine, and metolachlor have been implicated as developmental toxins.5 Reports have also linked the triazine herbicides (of which atrazine and cyanazine are examples) to breast6 and ovarian cancers,7 and endocrine disruption.8
• Other top pesticides used in the region also pose a host of health risks. Mancozeb, maneb, captan and chlorothalonil are all fungicides classified as probable or likely human carcinogens by the EPA. Methyl bromide and chlorpicrin are classified by the EPA in Toxicity Category I, the category designating pesticides of the greatest immediate danger. They present a significant hazard both to people in the immediate vicinity where they are used and, due to their nature as highly diffusive gases, the more general area as well. For descriptions of the health risks of other top pesticides in the region, see the full Toxic Treadmill report.

Recommendations
New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers and despite readily available alternatives. Turning the tide will require an institutional commitment to removing the most dangerous pesticides from the market and mandating the use of safer alternatives. Though many of these steps need to occur at the state and federal levels, there are a number of actions that can be taken locally:

• Communities in the Greater Rochester region can reduce their use of pesticides by enacting policies that phase out the use of most pesticides on public property in that municipality. Eight municipalities in New York State have already done so, including Buffalo and the town of West Seneca in Erie County. Not only do such phase-outs reduce actual pesticide use and exposure, but they are an excellent opportunity for government to lead by example and demonstrate that pest management can occur through safer means than pesticide use.
• Each county should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the state’s new Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law, enacted in August 2000. In counties that do so, advance notice of pesticide applications on lawns will give neighbors the opportunity to take measures to protect their families and property from pesticide exposure.
• Each county Department of Health should make it a priority to examine the pesticide reporting data for its jurisdiction to see where particularly risky pesticides, such as methyl bromide and chlorpyrifos, are being used, or where blanket lawn applications are occurring without underlying pest problems, in order to identify safer alternative strategies.

With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe for our policymakers to reverse course, to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers and make pesticide alternatives the norm in New York State.

References
1 Institute of Medicine. 1999. Veteran’s and Agent Orange: Update 1998. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. see also Hardell, L. and M. Eriksson. 1999. A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Exposure to Pesticides. Cancer. 85:1353-1360. see also Fontana, A. et al. 1998. Incidence Rates of Lymphomas and Environmental Measurements of Phenoxy Herbicides: Ecological Analysis and Case-Control Study. Archives of Environmental Health. 53(6):384-387. see also Zahm, S.H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cancer Research (Suppl) 52:5485s-5488s. 2 Figures are taken from the 1999 and 2000 editions of the New York State Cancer Registry, published by the New York State Department of Health. 3 General Accounting Office. 1991. Pesticides: EPA Could Do More to Minimize Groundwater Contamination. GAO/RCED-91-75. 4 Phillips, P.J. et al. 2000. Pesticides and Their Metabolites in Three Small Public Water-Supply Reservoir Systems, Western New York, 1998-99. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4278. 5 Munger, R. et al. 1997. Intrauterine Growth Retardation in Iowa Communities with Herbicide-contaminated Drinking Water Supplies. Environmental Health Perspectives. 105(3):308-314. 6 Kettles, M.A. et al. 1997. Triazine Herbicide Exposure and Breast Cancer Incidence: An Ecologic Study of Kentucky Counties. Environmental Health Perspectives. 105(11):1222-1227. 7 Donna, A. et al. 1989. Triazine herbicides and ovarian epithelial neoplasms. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health. 15:47-53. 8 Cooper, R.L. et al. 1996. Effect of Atrazine on Ovarian Function in the Rat. Reproductive Toxicology. 10(4):257-264. see also Kniewald, J. et al. 1987. Indirect Influence of s-Triazines on Rat Gonadotropic Mechanism at Early Postnatal Period. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry. 27(4-6):1095-1100.

Table 1 | Table 2 | Map 1 | Map 2

Long Island

This regional report, a supplement to The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State, 1997-1998, is a snapshot of pesticide use and sales patterns on Long Island in 1998. The analysis is based on data from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) pesticide reporting program. Under the Pesticide Reporting Law of 1996, DEC collects detailed pesticide use data annually from the state’s commercial pesticide applicators and information on sales to farmers.

Summary of Statewide Findings
New York is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. According to New York’s pesticide reporting data, 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were applied by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998 alone. The dangers of such use are myriad. Pesticides pose health risks such as nervous system toxicity, carcinogenicity, and damage to the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems; environmental risks such as contamination of air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations.

Efforts to mitigate these risks must start with understanding what, where, and why pesticides are used in the state. Analyzing New York’s pesticide reporting data challenges many of our basic assumptions about the nature of that use. Among the key revelations (for a thorough discussion of these points, see the full Toxic Treadmill report):

• Urban and suburban downstate counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings County (Brooklyn) and Queens County respectively. The downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds of pesticides reported for the state in 1998.
• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and for lawn care.
• Even though safer alternatives abound, a substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

Pesticide Use Patterns on Long Island
A more specific look at the pesticide reporting data for Long Island yields the following information:

Long Island reports heavy pesticide use

• Suffolk and Nassau counties are, respectively, the second and third highest counties in the state for the amount of pesticides reported by gallons, and the third and fourth highest for those pesticides reported by pounds. Suffolk County reports the most pesticides in the state sold to farmers, topping all other counties, including the heavily agricultural upstate counties. Long Island accounted for approximately one-fifth of all the pesticides reported in the state in 1998. The region’s high pesticide use is particularly outsized when compared to its physical size; Long Island accounts for only 2.5% of the state’s total geographic area.

• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use on Long Island, though the pattern differs between the two Long Island counties. In Nassau County, virtually all of the pesticides reported were applied by commercial applicators. In Suffolk County, 83% of the gallons and 77% of the pounds were applied by commercial applicators. Thus, while 90% of the total gallons and 88% of the total pounds of pesticides reported on Long Island were applied by commercial applicators, agricultural applications remain an important contributor to Suffolk County’s overall pesticide use.

The specific pesticides and use patterns on Long Island are hazardous

• Thirty-six percent of the total pesticides reported on Long Island by gallons and 44% reported by pounds contained pesticide active ingredients classified by EPA as probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens (Table 2). These percentages, however, are likely underestimates (see bullet on chlorophenoxy herbicides below). The proportion of pesticides reported sold to farmers that contained pesticide active ingredients classified by EPA as probable, likely, or possible carcinogens was 63% of the gallons and 60% of the pounds – considerably higher than the overall proportion of suspected carcinogens. Thirty-two percent of the total gallons reported and 16% of the total pounds contained pesticide active ingredients suspected of disrupting normal hormonal balance, affecting everything from daily physical functioning to the fundamentals of reproduction and fertility. Nineteen percent of the total gallons reported and 23% of the total pounds are highly neurotoxic, organophosphate or carbamate insecticides.

• The top two pesticides applied by pounds (Table 3) – pendimethalin and benfluralin – as well as the fifth, trifluralin, are all related herbicides. Pendimethalin and trifluralin are classified by the EPA as possible human carcinogens; benfluralin has not yet been classified for carcinogenicity, but it shares many of the same chemical properties with pendimethalin and trifluralin.

• Among the top pesticides reported are 2,4-D, dicamba, MCPP, and mecoprop, related chlorophenoxy herbicides used in lawn care and agriculture alike, that have been repeatedly linked to certain cancers, most notably non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,1 as well as other adverse health effects. Despite the considerable evidence for their carcinogenicity, EPA still labels 2,4-D and dicamba as carcinogenicity Class “D,” meaning they are “not yet classifiable.” MCPP and mecoprop have not been assigned any carcinogenicity designation at all by EPA. This means that these pesticides are not included in the percentages of suspected carcinogens cited above because EPA has not yet made a final determination for them.

  The question is not merely academic. During the period beginning in 1976 and ending in 1997, there was a 44% increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Nassau County. In Suffolk County during that same period, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma incidence increased 68% for males, and 50% for females.2 While no statements about cause and effect are possible, the high use of chlorophenoxy herbicides that have been strongly associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the corresponding dramatic increase in its incidence are a parallel that should spur immediate investigation and prudent reduction of such pesticide use.

• The third highest pesticide reported on Long Island was the organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos (the active ingredient in Dursban®). As noted above, chlorpyrifos was banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high neurotoxicity, particularly to developing fetuses, infants, and children. In December 2000, EPA announced a residential phase-out of another organophosphate insecticide, diazinon – also among the top pesticides reported on Long Island. Both chlorpyrifos and diazinon had been on the market for decades with assurances, now revealed as bankrupt, that they posed no undue risks if used according to label instructions. Not all synthetic pesticides pose the same level or type of hazard, but the fact that similar assurances are bandied about for every available pesticide, until such time as a regulatory about-face declares them false, should prompt serious questions about the risks of all pesticides.
• Nine of the top 15 pesticide products applied by commercial applicators by pounds on Long Island were lawn care products that combine pesticides and fertilizers, as were many of the products applied in lesser quantities. The use of pesticide fertilizer combinations means that applications are not necessarily occurring in response to a documented pest problem, but as a routine part of lawn maintenance and, more than likely, on a set schedule. By applying pesticides in this manner, as part of a fertilizer product that blankets an entire property, overuse is virtually assured and minimization techniques such as spot treatments do not occur.
• The top pesticide sold to farmers by gallons (accounting for nearly half of all the pesticides sold to farmers by gallons) and the fourth highest by gallons overall, was the exceptionally toxic soil fumigant metam sodium. Metam sodium is classified by the EPA as a probable human carcinogen and also as Toxicity Category I, the category designating pesticides of the highest acute toxicity (acute toxicity refers to a product's ability to cause immediate illness). All such fumigants present a significant danger both to people in the immediate vicinity where they are used and, due to their nature as highly diffusive gases, the more general area as well. Metam sodium's particular hazards include the fact that it degrades upon contact with water to the highly toxic gas methyl isothiocyanate, which, according to EPA's pesticide poisoning handbook is "a gas that is extremely irritating to respiratory mucous membranes, to the eyes, and to the lungs. Inhalation of methyl isothiocyanate may cause pulmonary edema (severe respiratory distress, coughing of bloody, frothy sputum). For this reason, metam-sodium is considered a fumigant. It must be used in outdoor settings only, and stringent precautions must be taken to avoid inhalation of evolved gas."3 Metam sodium also caused a major fish kill in the Sacramento River and large scale human exposure incidents in California.4

  The use of this fumigant poses immediate public health concerns. Air monitoring immediately after application is essential to determine the impact of such use on local air quality.


 
• Long Island, with its sole source aquifer and porous, sandy soils, has a history of being uniquely vulnerable to the problem of water contamination by pesticides. One recent study found pesticides in 44 of 50 samples in Suffolk County wells, with some samples containing as many as 11 different pesticides.5 The widespread nature of the problem should no longer come as a surprise. Nearly a decade ago, EPA listed 46 pesticides present in groundwater as the result of “normal agricultural use.”6 Eight of these – atrazine, chlorothalonil, 2,4-D, methamidophos, methomyl, methyl parathion, metolachlor, and trifluralin – were among the top products sold to farmers on Long Island in 1998. Six of these – chlorothalonil, 2,4-D, diazinon, dicamba, malathion, and trifluralin – were among the top pesticides reported used by commercial applicators.

Recommendations
New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers and despite readily available alternatives. Turning the tide will require an institutional commitment to removing the most dangerous pesticides from the market, mandating the use of safer alternatives, and eliminating gratuitous pesticide use. Though many of these steps need to occur at the state and federal levels, there are a number of actions that can be taken locally:

• The Nassau and Suffolk County Health Departments should each make it a priority to examine the pesticide reporting data for their jurisdictions to see where particularly risky pesticides are being used, or where blanket lawn applications are occurring without underlying pest problems, in order to take proactive steps to eliminate the most hazardous uses and identify safer alternative strategies. In particular, the use of such large amounts of highly toxic and volatile metam sodium for agricultural purposes on Long Island demands immediate attention from both state and county public health authorities. Incidents across the country and the world have underscored the real potential for this chemical to cause large-scale health and environmental disasters.
   
• Nassau County and other municipalities on Long Island should adopt formal policies to phase out their own use of pesticides on public property as eight municipalities across the state, including Suffolk County, and others across the country already have. Not only do such phase-outs reduce actual pesticide use and exposure, but they are an excellent opportunity for government to lead by example and demonstrate that pest management can occur through safer means than pesticide use.
   
• Nassau and Suffolk Counties should use the opportunity now afforded them by the newly-enacted Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law to develop public education materials and programs about lawn care pesticide hazards and non-toxic pest management alternatives.
   
• The power of the chemical lobby has ensured that, at least in the short-term, dangerous pesticides will be both available and vigorously marketed. Consumers must use their own power – the power of their pocketbooks – to turn this situation around, particularly for those pesticide uses that are entirely gratuitous. Using toxic substances for the entirely frivolous purpose of pest control on lawns and ornamental plants is all public health and environmental risk, and no benefit. Long Islanders are particularly lucky in that there are a wealth of local environmental and health advocacy organizations that can help them find safer, effective alternatives to the pest management situations for which they now resort to chemicals. Residents should avail themselves of these resources and reject the hazards of the chemical aesthetic.

With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe to reverse course, to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers and make pesticide alternatives the norm on Long Island and in New York State.

References
1 Institute of Medicine. 1999. Veteran’s and Agent Orange: Update 1998. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. see also Hardell, L. and M. Eriksson. 1999. A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Exposure to Pesticides. Cancer. 85:1353-1360. see also Fontana, A. et al. 1998. Incidence Rates of Lymphomas and Environmental Measurements of Phenoxy Herbicides: Ecological Analysis and Case-Control Study. Archives of Environmental Health. 53(6):384-387. see also Zahm, S.H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cancer Research (Suppl) 52:5485s-5488s.
2 Figures are taken from the 1999 and 2000 editions of the New York State Cancer Registry, published by the New York State Department of Health.
3 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.
4 Pesticide Action Network. 2000. Farmworker Community Poisoned by Pesticide Drift. PANUPS. February 18, 2000. San Francisco, CA.
5 Phillips, P.J. et al. 1999. Pesticides and their Metabolites in Wells of Suffolk County New York, 1998. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4095.
6 General Accounting Office. 1991. Pesticides: EPA Could Do More to Minimize Groundwater Contamination. United States General Accounting Office. Washington D.C. GAO/RCED-91-75.

Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3

New York City

This regional report, a supplement to The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State, 1997-1998, is a snapshot of pesticide use and sales patterns in New York City in 1998. The analysis is based on data from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) pesticide reporting program. Under the Pesticide Reporting Law of 1996, DEC collects detailed pesticide use data annually from the state’s commercial pesticide applicators and information on sales to farmers.
 

Summary of Statewide Findings
New York State is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. According to New York’s pesticide reporting data, 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were applied by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998 alone. The dangers of such use are myriad. Pesticides pose health risks such as nervous system toxicity, carcinogenicity, and damage to the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems; environmental risks such as contamination of air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations.

Efforts to mitigate these risks must start with understanding what, where, and why pesticides are used in the state. Analyzing New York’s pesticide reporting data challenges many of our basic assumptions about the nature of that use. Among the key revelations:

• Urban and suburban downstate counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings County (Brooklyn) and Queens County respectively. The downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area.
• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and for lawn care.
• Even though safer alternatives abound, a substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

Pesticide Use Patterns in New York City
A more specific look at the pesticide reporting data for New York City yields the following information:

New York City reports the heaviest pesticide use in the state

• As noted above, New York City boroughs top the list of New York State counties with the greatest pesticide use. Kings County (Brooklyn) had the highest amount of pesticides reported by gallons and Queens County the highest by pounds, followed closely by Brooklyn. All five boroughs of New York City found their way into the top ten counties reported by gallons. Overall, New York City accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds reported statewide in 1998, a particularly outsized proportion considering that the city accounts for less than 1% of the state’s geographic area. New York City’s pesticide use also dominated the state in 1997.
   
• As expected, the pesticides reported for New York City in 1998 are almost entirely for non-agricultural purposes, such as interior pest control and lawn care. Virtually all of the pesticides reported in New York City were applied by commercial applicators. Less than .01% of the total pesticides reported were from sales to farmers. The bulk of reported use was insecticides, as opposed to herbicides, fungicides, or rodenticides.

The specific pesticides and use patterns in New York City are hazardous

• Sixty-five percent of the pesticides reported by pounds and 23% of those reported by gallons in New York City contained active ingredients suspected of disrupting the hormone system, a phenomenon also known as endocrine disruption (Table 2). The high percentage of solid pesticides used in the city that may cause endocrine disruption (approximately 2.5 times that of the percentage statewide) is chiefly due to the predominance of the pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin in the pounds category. A single pesticide product – CYNOFF EC Insecticide® – whose active ingredient is cypermethrin, alone accounted for 63% of the total pounds reported for New York City. Like all pyrethroids, cypermethrin is a suspected endocrine disruptor; it has also been linked to immune suppression1 and potential chromosomal damage.2

  Though these figures predate spraying for West Nile virus, it is noteworthy that the two products used in the city’s mosquito control efforts in 2000, Scourge® and Anvil®, also contained pyrethroid insecticides. The fresh awareness of pesticide hazards sparked by spraying for West Nile virus should force an examination of the prodigious routine use of pyrethroids and other pesticides.
   

• Sixty-five percent of the pesticides reported in New York City by pounds and 12% reported by gallons contained active ingredients classified by EPA as probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens. Again, the high percentage of carcinogens in the pounds category (approximately 20% higher than the statewide percentage) is largely attributable to the heavy use of cypermethrin, which is classified by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen.
   
• The finding that a higher percentage of solid pesticides as opposed to liquid pesticides contain suspected carcinogens and endocrine disruptors does not mean that the liquid pesticides used in New York City pose fewer risks than the solids. In 1998, the pesticides reported by gallons were more than twice as likely to be highly neurotoxic organophosphate or carbamate insecticides than were those reported by pounds: 47% of the reported gallons and 21% of the pounds belonged to these two families of insecticides. These pesticides work by inhibiting an enzyme – cholinesterase – that is essential to normal nervous system function in insects and humans alike (and all other animals as well). By design, therefore, they interrupt a crucial neurological pathway. In addition to the hazards of acute poisoning posed by these pesticides, recent research also indicates that chronic exposure to pesticides in general,3 and to organophosphates and carbamates in particular, may impede normal brain development in fetuses, infants, and children, even at levels too low to produce any other symptoms of pesticide poisoning.4 In this way, the effects of these pesticides may parallel those of another urban scourge – lead.

 
• The top pesticide reported in the city by gallons and the 6th highest by pounds was the organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos (the active ingredient in Dursban®). As noted above, chlorpyrifos was banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high neurotoxicity, particularly to developing fetuses, infants, and children. In October 2000, EPA announced a residential phase-out of another organophosphate insecticide, diazinon – the second most heavily used pesticide in the city by pounds and the 9th by gallons – also for its risks to children.

  Both chlorpyrifos and diazinon had been on the market for decades, with assurances now revealed as bankrupt, that they posed no undue risks if used according to label instructions. Not all synthetic pesticides pose the same level or type of hazard, but the fact that similar assurances are bandied about for every available pesticide, until such time as a regulatory about-face declares them false, should prompt serious questions about the risks of all pesticides. Such risks may be particularly severe in the indoor settings typical of city use, where pesticides can cling to surfaces and linger in indoor air for long periods.


 
• Four of the top 15 active ingredients reported by pounds (bromadiolone, diphacinone, brodaficoum, and difethialone) are rodenticides, as is one of the top 15 reported by gallons (bromadiolone). Despite their ranking among the top individual pesticide active ingredients, they account for a small percentage of overall reported use. The four top rodenticides by pounds together account for only 4% of the total pounds reported. The single rodenticide among the top 15 by gallons accounts for less than 1% of the total gallons.

 
• Methyl bromide, the 11th most heavily used pesticide by pounds, is a severe respiratory irritant, capable of causing pulmonary edema and bleeding as well as other acute poisoning symptoms (nausea, vomiting, and convulsions), significant long-term damage to the nervous system,5 and fatalities. It is also a severe ozone depleter, scheduled for phase-out by 2005. After methyl bromide appeared among the top pesticides used in the city in the first year of data (1997), the New York State Department of Health took a closer look at the data and found that methyl bromide was being used to treat stored food (though whether this was in warehouses, on cargo ships in the harbor, or other storage areas, was not specifically delineated). Due to its nature as a highly diffusive gas, methyl bromide poses a hazard to the general area in which it is used. It is essential that the precise uses of methyl bromide in New York City be identified so that the risk to neighboring areas can be understood and eliminated.

 
• Methyl bromide, the 11th most heavily used pesticide by pounds, is a severe respiratory irritant, capable of causing pulmonary edema and bleeding as well as other acute poisoning symptoms (nausea, vomiting, and convulsions), significant long-term damage to the nervous system,5 and fatalities. It is also a severe ozone depleter, scheduled for phase-out by 2005. After methyl bromide appeared among the top pesticides used in the city in the first year of data (1997), the New York State Department of Health took a closer look at the data and found that methyl bromide was being used to treat stored food (though whether this was in warehouses, on cargo ships in the harbor, or other storage areas, was not specifically delineated). Due to its nature as a highly diffusive gas, methyl bromide poses a hazard to the general area in which it is used. It is essential that the precise uses of methyl bromide in New York City be identified so that the risk to neighboring areas can be understood and eliminated.

Recommendations
New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers and despite readily available alternatives. Turning the tide will require an institutional commitment to removing the most dangerous pesticides from the market, mandating the use of safer alternatives, and eliminating gratuitous pesticide use. Though many of these steps need to occur at the state and federal levels, there are a number of actions that can be taken locally:

• New York City should examine its own use of pesticides on municipal property – such as public schools, parks, and housing – as a first step in determining where safer alternatives can be used. The City Council should fund an independent evaluation of the city’s current pest control policies, practices, and programs to assess the potential health consequences associated with municipal pesticide use and to develop recommendations for pesticide use reduction. By making a commitment to reducing its own pesticide use, New York City government can lead by example and demonstrate that pest control through safer means is a viable reality.
   
• The City Council should establish a Pest Management Board with representation from the medical community, environmental and health advocacy groups, community-based organizations, people with expertise in pest management, agency officials, and other interested individuals and organizations to monitor and advise the city on safer pest control practices. Similar boards have been highly successful in Buffalo, Albany, and Westchester County.
   
• New York City should encourage pilot programs to control pest problems in high-risk indoor settings, such as apartment buildings and schools, without resorting to synthetic pesticides. Funding is available from the state for training in non-toxic pest control.
   
• New York City should adopt the state’s Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law, enacted in August 2000, which would require advance notice of pesticide applications on lawns in order to give neighbors the opportunity to take measures to protect their families and property from pesticide exposure.

 
• The New York State Legislature should establish a commission to investigate the high use of pesticides in urban settings and recommend policy reforms to protect urban environmental health.

The exceptionally high levels of pesticide use and exposure in New York City merit serious attention from policymakers and the public health community. With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe to reverse course – to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers and make pesticide alternatives the norm in New York City and New York State.

References
1 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.
2 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.
3 Guillette, E.A. et al. 1998. An Anthropological Approach to the Evaluation of Preschool Children Exposed to Pesticides in Mexico. Environmental Health Perspectives. 106(6):347-353. see also Weiss, B. 1997. Pesticides As A Source Of Developmental Disabilities. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews. 3:246-256.
4 Brimijoin S. and C. Koenigsberger. 1999. Cholinesterases in Neural Development: New Findings and Toxicologic Implications. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107 (Suppl.1):59-64. see also Lauder, J.M. and U.B. Schambra. 1999. Morphogenetic Roles of Acetylcholine. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107(Suppl.1):65-69. see also Bigbee, J.W. et al. 1999. Morphogenic Role for Acetylcholinesterase in Axonal Outgrowth during Neural Development. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107 (Suppl.1):81-87. see also Dam, K. et al. 1998. Developmental neurotoxicity of chlorpyrifos: delayed targeting of DNA synthesis after repeated administration. Developmental Brain Research. 108:39-45. see also Johnson, D.E. et al. 1998. Early Biochemical Detection of Delayed Neurotoxicity Resulting from Developmental Exposure to Chlorpyrifos. Brain Research Bulletin. 45(2):143-147. see also Song, X. et al. 1997. Cellular Mechanisms for Developmental Toxicity of Chlorpyrifos: Targeting the Adenylyl Cyclase Signaling Cascade. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 145:158-174.
5Reigart, 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.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the New York Community Trust, the New York Foundation, and the J.P. Morgan Charitable Trust for their generous support of the New York City Pesticide Right-to-Know and Reduction Project, a joint initiative of Environmental Advocates and the New York Public Interest Research Group Fund. We would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Bauman Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and Dr. Lucy R. Waletzky. The maps in this report were prepared by NYPIRG’s Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP).

Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3 | Map 1 | Map 2

Westchester County

This regional report, a supplement to The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State, 1997-1998, is a snapshot of pesticide use and sales patterns in Westchester County in 1998. The analysis is based on data from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) pesticide reporting program. Under the Pesticide Reporting Law of 1996, DEC collects detailed pesticide use data annually from the state’s commercial pesticide applicators and information on sales to farmers.

Summary of Statewide Findings
New York is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. According to New York’s pesticide reporting data, 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were applied by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998 alone. The dangers of such use are myriad. Pesticides pose health risks such as nervous system toxicity, carcinogenicity, and damage to the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems; environmental risks such as contamination of air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations.

Efforts to mitigate these risks must start with understanding what, where, and why pesticides are used in the state. Analyzing New York’s pesticide reporting data challenges many of our basic assumptions about the nature of that use. Among the key revelations (for a thorough discussion of these points, see the full Toxic Treadmill report):BR>

• Urban and suburban downstate counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings County (Brooklyn) and Queens County respectively. The downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds of pesticides reported for the state in 1998.
   
• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and for lawn care.
   
• Even though safer alternatives abound, a substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

Patterns of Pesticide Use in Westchester County
A more specific look at the pesticide reporting data for Westchester County yields the following information:

Westchester County reports heavy pesticide use.

• Westchester County is among the top ten counties in the state (7th by gallons, 5th by pounds) for overall amount of pesticides reported in 1998, with a total of 198,000 gallons and 1.2 million pounds reported. The county’s pesticide use is particularly outsized when compared to its physical size. While Westchester County accounted for 4% of the total pesticides reported for New York State in 1998, it occupies less than 1% of the state’s total geographic area.
   
• Virtually all (more than 99%) of the pesticides reported for Westchester County in 1998 were commercial applications, as opposed to sales to farmers. Pesticide use in Westchester County is, therefore, almost entirely for non-agricultural purposes such as lawn care, structural pest control, and roadside vegetation control (the reporting year precedes any spraying for control of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus).

The specific pesticides and use patterns in Westchester County are hazardous.

• Twenty-two percent of the pesticides reported in Westchester County by gallons and 47% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens (Table 1). These percentages, however, are likely underestimates (see below). Twenty-three percent of the total gallons reported and 15% of the total pounds are suspected of disrupting normal hormonal balance, affecting everything from daily physical functioning to the fundamentals of reproduction and fertility. Twenty-three percent of the total gallons reported and 17% of the total pounds are highly neurotoxic, organophosphate or carbamate insecticides.
   
• The top three pesticides active ingredients applied by pounds – pendimethalin, trifluralin, and benfluralin – are all related herbicides. Pendimethalin and trifluralin are classified by the EPA as possible human carcinogens; benfluralin has not yet been classified for carcinogenicity.
   
• The second highest pesticide reported in the region by gallons and the 6th highest by pounds was chlorpyrifos (the active ingredient in Dursban®). As noted above, chlorpyrifos was banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high neurotoxicity, particularly to developing fetuses, infants, and children. The fact that a pesticide so hazardous it is now banned for residential uses, ranks as one of the top pesticides used in the county should call into question the prudence of using any synthetic pesticides.
   
• Among the top pesticides reported are 2,4-D, dicamba, MCPP, and mecoprop (Table 2), related chlorophenoxy herbicides used in lawn care, that have been repeatedly linked to certain cancers, most notably non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,1 as well as other adverse health effects. Despite the considerable evidence for their carcinogenicity, EPA still labels 2,4-D and dicamba as carcinogenicity Class “D,” meaning they are “not yet classifiable.” MCPP and mecoprop have not been assigned any carcinogenicity designation at all by EPA. This means that these pesticides are not included in the percentages of suspected carcinogens cited above because EPA has not yet made a final determination for them.

  The question is not merely academic. During the period beginning in 1976 and ending in 1997, there was a 45% increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for males and a 39% increase for females in Westchester County.2 While no statements about cause and effect are possible, the high use of chlorophenoxy herbicides that have been strongly associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the corresponding dramatic increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a parallel that should spur immediate investigation and prudent reduction of such pesticide use.
   

• All five of the top pesticide products applied by commercial applicators by pounds (more than 30% of the total pounds) in Westchester County were lawn care products that combine pesticides and fertilizers, as were many of the products applied in lesser quantities. The use of pesticide fertilizer combinations means that applications are not necessarily occurring in response to a documented pest problem, but as a routine part of lawn maintenance and, more than likely, on a set schedule. By applying pesticides in this manner, as part of a fertilizer product that blankets an entire property, overuse is virtually assured and minimization techniques such as spot treatments do not occur.

A bright note….
In 1998, boric acid made it into the top 15 pesticides used by pounds in Westchester County, though not in 1997. It is too soon to tell if this represents a real shift among commercial applicators to using boric acid — a non-volatile insecticide with significantly fewer toxicity concerns than other insecticides (except when directly ingested) – the fact that this stalwart of the least-toxic pest control arsenal shows up among the top pesticides used in Westchester County is an encouraging finding.

…and an unfortunate one
The top “product” by pounds in Westchester County in 1998 wasn’t a product at all, but 128,000 pounds of pesticides without a valid EPA registration number listed. This means that, for a substantial portion of the pesticides applied as solids in Westchester County, we cannot tell what the products used were because of improperly filed forms.

Recommendations
New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers and despite readily available alternatives. Turning the tide will require an institutional commitment to removing the most dangerous pesticides from the market, mandating the use of safer alternatives, and eliminating gratuitous pesticide use. Though many of these steps need to occur at the state and federal levels, there are a number of actions that can be taken locally:

• Communities in Westchester County can reduce their use of pesticides by enacting policies that phase out the use of most pesticides on public property in that municipality. Eight municipalities in New York State have already done so, including Westchester County itself, in October 2000, and the Town of Greenburgh, in 1999. Not only do such phase-outs reduce actual pesticide use and exposure, but they are an excellent opportunity for government to lead by example and demonstrate that pest management can occur through safer means than pesticide use.
   
• Westchester County should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the state’s new Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law, enacted in August 2000. In counties that do so, advance notice of pesticide applications on lawns will give neighbors the opportunity to take measures to protect their families and property from pesticide exposure.
   
• The Westchester County Department of Health should use the pesticide reporting data in its ongoing efforts to promote pesticide use reduction, to see where particularly risky pesticides, such as chlorpyrifos, are being used, or where blanket lawn applications are occurring without underlying pest problems, in order to identify and promote safer alternative strategies.

With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe to reverse course, to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers and make pesticide alternatives the norm in Westchester County and New York State.

References
1 Institute of Medicine. 1999. Veteran’s and Agent Orange: Update 1998. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. see also Hardell, L. and M. Eriksson. 1999. A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Exposure to Pesticides. Cancer. 85:1353-1360. see also Fontana, A. et al. 1998. Incidence Rates of Lymphomas and Environmental Measurements of Phenoxy Herbicides: Ecological Analysis and Case-Control Study. Archives of Environmental Health. 53(6):384-387. see also Zahm, S.H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cancer Research (Suppl) 52:5485s-5488s. 2 Figures are taken from the 1999 and 2000 editions of the New York State Cancer Registry, published by the New York State Department of Health.

Table 1 | Table 2

Western New York

This regional report, a supplement to The Toxic Treadmill: Pesticide Use and Sales in New York State, 1997-1998, is a snapshot of pesticide use and sales patterns in the Western New York region of Cattaraugus, Chatauqua, Erie, and Niagara counties in 1998. The analysis is based on data from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) pesticide reporting program. Under the Pesticide Reporting Law of 1996, DEC collects detailed pesticide use data annually from the state’s commercial pesticide applicators and information on sales to farmers.

Summary of Statewide Findings
New York is heavily dependent on the use of toxic pesticides. According to New York’s pesticide reporting data, 4.5 million gallons and 29.4 million pounds were applied by commercial applicators or sold to farmers in 1998 alone. The dangers of such use are myriad. Pesticides pose health risks such as nervous system toxicity, carcinogenicity, and damage to the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems; environmental risks such as contamination of air, water, and food; and increased pest problems due to pesticide resistance and secondary infestations.

Efforts to mitigate these risks must start with understanding what, where, and why pesticides are used in the state. Analyzing New York’s pesticide reporting data challenges many of our basic assumptions about the nature of that use. Among the key revelations (for a thorough discussion of these points, see the full Toxic Treadmill report):

• Urban and suburban downstate counties report greater use than upstate and rural counties, with New York City topping the charts. In 1998, the counties reporting the highest amounts of pesticides overall by gallons and pounds were Kings County (Brooklyn) and Queens County respectively. The downstate area comprising New York City and the adjacent counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester accounted for 60% of the gallons and 48% of the pounds reported statewide, while constituting only 4% of the state’s geographic area. New York City alone accounted for 36% of the total gallons and 27% of the total pounds of pesticides reported for the state in 1998.
   
• Overall, non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use statewide. Although pesticides are conventionally thought of as chiefly an agricultural issue, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 77% of the nation’s total pesticide use is agricultural, this pattern does not hold true for New York State. Non-agricultural use predominates over agricultural use on a statewide basis due to the overwhelming total amount of pesticides reported in urban and suburban areas for controlling indoor pests and for lawn care.
   
• Even though safer alternatives abound, a substantial percentage of the overall pesticides reported in New York State have serious toxicity risks, as do the most heavily used individual pesticides. Nearly a third of the total amount of pesticides reported by gallons in 1998 and 44% reported by pounds are classified by EPA as known or suspected carcinogens. More than a quarter are suspected of having endocrine disrupting activity, and approximately one quarter belong to the highly neurotoxic chemical families of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. The top pesticide reported by gallons and the second by pounds in 1998 was chlorpyrifos (found in the products Dursban® and Lorsban®), a broad-spectrum insecticide recently banned by EPA in June 2000 for virtually all non-agricultural uses because of its high toxicity.

Patterns of Pesticide Use in Western New York
A more specific look at the pesticide reporting data for the Western New York region of Cattaraugus, Chatauqua, Erie, and Niagara Counties yields the following information:

Erie and Chautauqua counties report high pesticide use, with Erie County’s use dominating the region overall.

• Erie and Chautauqua counties are both among the top ten counties in the state for total amount of pesticides reported in 1998. Erie County is 8th by both gallons and pounds, Chautauqua County is 7th by pounds.
   
• Within the Western New York region, Erie County logs in the highest amount of pesticides reported by gallons with more than three times the amount of pesticides reported for next highest Niagara County (Table 1). Although Chautauqua County is the highest county in the region for pounds of pesticides reported in 1998, Erie County follows closely with only approximately 7% less pesticide reported than in Chautauqua County. Moreover, 74% of Chautauqua County’s pesticide use by pounds was attributable to a single industrial water treatment chlorine product in a single zip code (14701). Without this single entry, Chautauqua County drops to third place in the region, behind Niagara County, for total reported pesticides by pounds. Erie County, therefore, should be considered dominant overall in both gallons and pounds of pesticides reported and, indeed, in 1997, Erie County was the top county in the region by both gallons and pounds, with Niagara County second, again both by gallons and pounds.
   
• Cattaraugus County reported the least amount of pesticides in the region by both gallons and pounds in 1997 and 1998.

Non-agricultural pesticide use is greater than agricultural use in the region.

• As is true statewide, non-agricultural pesticide use appears to dominate over agricultural use in the Western New York region, due primarily to the large amount of pesticides used in Erie County. Commercial applications, as opposed to sales to farmers, account for 69% of the gallons and 80% of the pounds reported overall in the region. Niagara County is the highest county in the region for sales to farmers by both gallons and pounds.
• In Erie County, four of the top six pesticides applied by commercial applicators by pounds were lawn care products that combine pesticides and fertilizers (as were many of the products applied in lesser quantities). The use of pesticide fertilizer combinations means that applications are not necessarily occurring in response to a documented pest problem, but as a routine part of lawn maintenance and, more than likely, on a set schedule. By applying pesticides in this manner, as part of a fertilizer product that blankets an entire property, overuse is virtually assured and minimization techniques such as spot treatments do not occur.

The pesticides used in the region are hazardous.

• Approximately one-third of the pesticides reported in the Western New York region are classified by EPA as known, probable, likely, or possible human carcinogens. Twenty-nine percent of the total gallons and 11% of the total pounds of pesticides reported are suspected of disrupting normal hormonal balance, affecting everything from daily physical functioning to the fundamentals of reproduction and fertility.
• The top three pesticides by gallons both overall and in the commercial applicator category were MCPP, 2,4-D, and dicamba (Table 2), related chlorophenoxy herbicides that have been repeatedly linked to certain cancers, most notably non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,1 as well as other adverse health effects. In Erie County, where the bulk of commercial application occurs, there has been a 46% increase in the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for males and a 57% increase for females during the period 1976-1997.2 While no statements about cause and effect are possible, the high use of pesticides linked to this dangerous disease, and the dramatically increasing disease rates are a parallel that should spur immediate investigation and prudent reduction in the use of such pesticides.
• Atrazine, metolachlor, alachlor, and simazine, are all herbicides among the top pesticides sold to farmers in the region and all are significant and unavoidable water contaminants, identified by the EPA as contaminating groundwater as a result of normal agricultural use,3 and documented in the region’s water.4 This contamination is of particular concern given the potential adverse health effects of the pesticides. Atrazine, cyanazine, and metolachlor are classified as possible human carcinogens and alachlor is classified as a likely human carcinogen at high concentrations. Atrazine, cyanazine, and metolachlor have been implicated as developmental toxins.5 Reports have also linked the triazine herbicides (of which atrazine and simazine are examples) to breast6 and ovarian cancers,7 and endocrine disruption.8
• Other top pesticides used in the region also pose a host of health risks. Mancozeb and maneb are fungicides classified as probable human carcinogens by the EPA. Methyl bromide is classified by the EPA in Toxicity Category I, the category designating pesticides of the highest acute toxicity. It presents a significant and immediate danger both to people in the immediate vicinity where they are used and, due to their nature as highly diffusive gases, the more general area as well, and is scheduled for phase-out nationwide in 2005 due to its severe ozone-depleting properties. For descriptions of the health risks of other top pesticides in the region, see the full Toxic Treadmill report.

Recommendations
New York’s pesticide reporting data clearly demonstrate the consequences of the current system of pesticide regulation: routine reliance on enormous quantities of toxic chemicals in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers and despite readily available alternatives. Turning the tide will require an institutional commitment to removing the most dangerous pesticides from the market and mandating the use of safer alternatives. Though many of these steps need to occur at the state and federal levels, there are a number of actions that can be taken locally:

• Communities in Western New York can reduce their use of pesticides by enacting policies that phase out the use of most pesticides on public property in that municipality. Eight municipalities in New York State, including the City of Buffalo and the town of West Seneca, have already done so. Not only do such phase-outs reduce actual pesticide use and exposure, but they are an excellent opportunity for government to lead by example and demonstrate that pest management can occur through safer means than pesticide use.
• Each county should adopt the lawn notice provisions of the state’s new Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law, enacted in August 2000. In counties that do so, advance notice of pesticide applications on lawns will give neighbors the opportunity to take measures to protect their families and property from pesticide exposure.
• Each county Department of Health should make it a priority to examine the pesticide reporting data for its jurisdiction to see where particularly risky pesticides, such as methyl bromide and chlorpyrifos, are being used, or where blanket lawn applications are occurring without underlying pest problems, in order to identify safer alternative strategies.

With safer pest management practiced on a daily basis across the nation, continued reliance on pesticides puts New Yorkers at unnecessary risk. The time is ripe for our policymakers to reverse course, to reject the risks and financial burdens foisted upon society by pesticide manufacturers and make pesticide alternatives the norm in New York State.

References
1 Institute of Medicine. 1999. Veteran’s and Agent Orange: Update 1998. National Academy Press. Washington D.C. see also Hardell, L. and M. Eriksson. 1999. A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Exposure to Pesticides. Cancer. 85:1353-1360. see also Fontana, A. et al. 1998. Incidence Rates of Lymphomas and Environmental Measurements of Phenoxy Herbicides: Ecological Analysis and Case-Control Study. Archives of Environmental Health. 53(6):384-387. see also Zahm, S.H. and A. Blair. 1992. Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cancer Research (Suppl) 52:5485s-5488s.
2 Figures are taken from the 1999 and 2000 editions of the New York State Cancer Registry, published by the New York State Department of Health.
3 General Accounting Office. 1991. Pesticides: EPA Could Do More to Minimize Groundwater Contamination. GAO/RCED-91-75.
4 Phillips, P.J. et al. 2000. Pesticides and Their Metabolites in Three Small Public Water-Supply Reservoir Systems, Western New York, 1998-99. United States Geological Survey. WRIR 99-4278.
5 Munger, R. et al. 1997. Intrauterine Growth Retardation in Iowa Communities with Herbicide-contaminated Drinking Water Supplies. Environmental Health Perspectives. 105(3):308-314.
6 Kettles, M.A. et al. 1997. Triazine Herbicide Exposure and Breast Cancer Incidence: An Ecologic Study of Kentucky Counties. Environmental Health Perspectives. 105(11):1222-1227.
7 Donna, A. et al. 1989. Triazine herbicides and ovarian epithelial neoplasms. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health. 15:47-53.
8 Cooper, R.L. et al. 1996. Effect of Atrazine on Ovarian Function in the Rat. Reproductive Toxicology. 10(4):257-264. see also Kniewald, J. et al. 1987. Indirect Influence of s-Triazines on Rat Gonadotropic Mechanism at Early Postnatal Period. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry. 27(4-6):1095-1100.

Table 1 | Table 2 | Map 1 | Map 2