May 26, 2005 -- Senate Passes Bill to Release Pesticide Use Information by Watershed
Compromise Bill Should Allow Pesticide Tracking System to Move Forward
For Immediate Release:
May 26, 2005
Contact:
Matt Blevins, 503-819-9375
Laura Weiss, 503-222-1963, ext. 111
SENATE PASSES BILL TO RELEASE PESTICIDE INFORMATION BY WATERSHED
Compromise Bill Should Allow Pesticide Tracking System to Move Forward
The Senate today passed a compromise version of a pesticide use reporting bill to ensure that pesticide use information collected from growers is released to the public by watershed. The compromise legislation, an effort to address confidentiality concerns expressed by some members of the agricultural community, ensures that pesticide use information is released to the public on a large enough scale to guarantee privacy for pesticide users. The vote was 16 to 11.
Several stakeholders, including the Oregon Environmental Council, drinking water providers and public health experts, agreed to support the compromise in the interest of getting pesticide use reporting back on track.
“The message we keep hearing is that reporting should be by watershed,” said Matt Blevins, Legislative Affairs Director for OEC. “This bill is a reasonable compromise that ensures that the information collected about agricultural pesticide use is released by watershed, while still providing health and water quality researchers with the data they need to protect our health.”
The amended bill, SB 290, would change the way information about pesticide use is released by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, so that pesticide use information from the agricultural and forestry sectors would be released to the public by watershed. The bill also deletes the 2009 sunset currently in the existing law.
In 1999, the Legislature passed the Pesticide Use Reporting Act, requiring the Oregon Department of Agriculture to collect basic information about pesticide use from all commercial and government users of pesticides. Tracking pesticide use will provide health researchers, water quality specialists and the public with clear information about when and where pesticides are used across Oregon, in both urban and rural areas.
Despite overwhelming passage of the law, the Legislature has blocked implementation of the program, so the program has never been fully operational.
Pesticides are widely used throughout Oregon, not only on farms and forests, but also in schools, parks, roadsides, hospitals, grocery stores, public buildings and, of course, in homes and gardens across the state. A fully functioning pesticide use reporting system will provide basic information needed to protect human health and water quality in both urban and rural parts of the state. It will also benefit agriculture by providing marketing advantages and clarifying the relative use of pesticides in urban and rural areas of the state.
# # #
