Proposed Pesticide Changes
Proposed Pesticide Changes. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
EPA is at it again. They are proposing changes to the existing regulation concerning the certification of applicators of restricted use pesticides. WSDA issued comments urging EPA to not adopt these changes to the existing programs. Ranie Haas, WSTFA's Director of Regulatory and Industry Affairs has sent a letter to EPA with comments to support the WSDA's letter.
HAAS: EPA recently proposed some rule for pesticide applicators certification and there are a couple proposals that we're not too excited about. One of them is WSDA currently requires pesticide licensees to re-certify every five years and what this new proposal is wanting to do is it would change it to a three year re-certification cycle.
That would also require a 40% increase in license fees.
HAAS: The other proposal that we're not happy with is the recertification credit in each license category. Currently Washington has 23 license categories and if Washington State University or WSDA were to provide these classes at a cost, applicators are still going to have to go, physically go to these classes in so many of these categories. I think they're going to choose not to go because it's time away from work.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
