U.S. Farmers Use Pesticide Despite Treaty
That is not what the treaty envisioned, said David Doniger, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the 1990s, he worked on the protocol as director of climate change for the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Nobody expected you would use the exemptions to cancel the final step of the phaseout or even go backward,” Doniger said.
With methyl bromide probably sticking around for several years, the EPA is re-examining its health and safety standards.
California, which grows more than 85 percent of the nation’s strawberries and other methyl bromide-dependent crops, launched regulations last year to improve its strictest-in-the-nation protections for farmworkers and others.