Author's Note: The following is taken from a press release sent out by the Kauai Coalition to Enforce Ordinance 960, which I am a part of. I have written about Ordinance 960, previously Bill 2491, in this blog and elsewhere. The Kauai County bill, mandating pesticide disclosure and buffer zones, is set to go into effect in August. Shamelessly, the chemical companies have sued to keep residents in the dark about the pesticides they are being exposed to on a daily basis.
Recent reports by Cascadia Times have further revealed the exceptional volume of highly toxic pesticides being used by DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, Dow and BASF on Kauai, often adjacent to communities and sensitive environmental areas.
An analysis done by Cascadia Times of government pesticide databases and data from the Kauai “Good Neighbor Program” shows that the intensity of pesticide use on Kauai's chemical+GMO test fields “far surpasses the norm at most other American farms,” and in such quantities to have transformed parts of the island into “one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture.” The chemical companies have not provided data for other Hawaiian Islands, but operations on Molokai, Maui and Oahu likely use similarly high levels of pesticides.
Exceptional Volume Of Pesticides Used In Hawii
The recent data and analysis have strongly reinforced the immediate need for buffer zones, full pesticide disclosure, and investigation into health and environmental impacts of chemical company operations. Kauai County Council member Gary Hooser commented, “Seeing these figures gives a renewed urgency to enforcement of Ordinance 960, and a strong hint as to why the chemical companies are suing us to avoid compliance. They have lied and hidden things all along, and the more we find out, the more concerning it becomes.”
The most heavily used restricted-use pesticides are atrazine, permethrin, chlorpyrifos, paraquat, methomyl, metolachlor and alachlor. According to the article, all have been “linked to a variety of serious health problems ranging from childhood cognitive disorders to cancer. And when applied together in a toxic cocktail, their joint action can make them even more dangerous to exposed people.”
via Exceptional Volume of Pesticides Used by Chemical Companies in Hawaii | Andrea Brower.