Sep 24, 2009Metam Sodium RED Final Draft Due January, Growers Concerned About 2011
The wait and anticipation is over. Potato growers anxiously awaiting the EPA’s new Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) on metam sodium are now parsing the new directives from the federal agency. On June 3 EPA released its RED for the fumigant along with REDs for chloropicrin, dazomet and methyl bromide.
John Orr, American Vanguard Corp.’s northern region product development specialist, sought to answer questions and grower concerns during his presentation at the Idaho Grower Shippers Association’s convention in Sun Valley Sept. 2. on the new regulations for metam sodium.
Orr said the fumigant would now be a restricted-use product, which was not unexpected and might even have been overdue.
However, he felt EPA has been a little heavier on regulation than was necessary and that the federal agency is not looking at the science behind the issues.
Orr said there would be no changes this fall in current application practices but there would be, “considerable changes right after the first of the year and subsequent changes in 2011.”
Orr said that field management plans would be implemented in 2010.
“Every field will have a fumigant management plan. Plans will be site specific,” he said.
There also will be mandatory and advisory Good Agricultural Practices for metam sodium application. Maximum air temperature will be 90 degrees with a minimum wind speed of 2 mph and a maximum wind speed of 8 mph for all normal release center pivots.
Training certification will be required for applicators or supervisors. All handlers must be certified or under direct supervision of someone who is certified.
There will also be a five-day reentry period prohibiting people from entering to a treated field during that period.
Those are the basic changes facing growers in 2010, Orr said.
“The scary part starts in 2011,” he said. “This is when we’re going to start the buffer zones. The monitoring is really going to kick into gear for both applicators and monitoring the buffer zones.
The buffer zone for a high release center pivot, over 8 feet with an end gun sprinkler, will be 1,150 feet from the edge of the field without an overlap for 12 hours. For a medium release center pivot, the buffer zone requirement drops to 950 feet. The buffer zone drops to 750 feet when applied by low release technology called “”smart drop.””
“”The key there,”” Orr said, speaking about low release technology, “”is you can overlap, you can put all your pivots on at the same time.””
One regulation that Orr thought the EPA might change involves shank injection of metam sodium and the ban on overlapping fields.
“”This absolutely doesn’t make sense to anyone,”” he said. “”Even EPA, they cannot figure out why they put that in there. I think there is some good opportunity change this one.””
Orr believes that the EPA will release a final RED on metam sodium in January and encouraged growers to continue lobbying for changes in the current RED.
–William Schaefer“