California Department of Pesticide Regulation Sued for Frog Decline
Sarabeth Matilsky
December 22, 2002
It sounds like a joke, but unfortunately it isn't. On December 4, 2002, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) sued the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) for failing to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. According to the lawsuit, DPR is sidestepping a state law that requires re-evaluation of pesticides if they are likely to contaminate the environment or present a hazard to wildlife. Current evidence shows that pesticides are drifting into pristine areas of the Sierra Nevada, contaminating waterways and harming frogs and other amphibians.
CATs says that DPR failed to review impacts of pesticides widely found in Sierra amphibian habitat and linked to steep declines in California red-legged frog and other amphibians listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Michael Graf, CATs' attorney: "Given the new study showing that amphibian populations are more likely to be in decline if their habitat is downwind of land devoted to agriculture and pesticide use, it's simply irresponsible for (the agency) to continue to bury its head in the sand on this issue."
Under the California Environmental Quality Act, DPR is required to re-evaluate pesticide registrations each year if new evidence is found of significant environmental impacts. "The Department of Pesticide Regulation has known since 1993 that drift of insecticides applied to agricultural crops in the Central Valley has contaminated pristine areas of the Sierra Nevada, yet it has never investigated the extent of this pollution," said Patty Clary, Executive Director of CATs. "Nor has DPR responded when studies showed the extreme sensitivity of Sierran frogs to these chemicals, even while populations of these frogs are crashing."
According to Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), there has been a sharp decline in populations of the red-legged frog, foothill yellow-legged frog, mountain yellow-legged frog and Yosemite toad over the past two decades. Some of the species have disappeared from seemingly pristine habitats in the Sierra Nevada.
Not coincidentally, roughly 156 million pounds of pesticides are applied to crops in the Central Valley each, a portion of which are carried by winds into those seemingly untouched areas of the Sierra Nevada (2000 figures). Rainwater then carries the drifting pesticides back to earth, where they can be absorbed easily through frogs' moist skin.
PANNA reports that a recent U.S. Geological Survey study found organophosphate pesticides, including chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon, in Sierra amphibian habitats. Diazinon and chlorpyrifos have turned up in tissues of more than half of the frogs caught in Yosemite National Park and 86% of frogs tested in the Lake Tahoe area. The California Water Quality Control Board found concentrations of diazinon in winter rainwater exceeded the lethal dose for at least one small invertebrate that is a food source by fish.
CATs' lawsuit is based on evidence showing that the pesticides can disrupt the endocrine system of amphibians, resulting in damage to the entire species. The chemicals can trigger hormonally-caused alteration of normal sexual development, or immune system interference, rendering the animals more susceptible to disease.
Despite the controversy, DPR has disregarded procedure and re-registered chemicals such as diazinon, chlorpyrifos, malathion, parathion and endosulfan for another year of legal use. CATs also names California-licensed pesticide producers Dow Agrosciences LLC, FMC Corp., Gowan Co., Zeneca Inc., Platte Chemical Co., and Syngenta Crop Protection Inc. Too bad those companies can't be trusted to take matters into their own hands, and do the right thing even when their regulatory agency isn't.
Contact: Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, 315 P Street, Eureka, CA 95501, phone 707-445-5100, fax 707-445-5151, email cats@alternatives2toxics.org, Web site http://www.alternatives2toxics.org.