01/04/06 Pesticide notification proposal pulled

Washington Ag January 4, 2006 State Department of Agriculture Director Valoria Loveland has decided to withdraw a proposed rule that would have required two days advance written notice before specific pesticides could be applied with certain methods on land adjacent to various community facilities like schools, hospitals and licensed day care centers. The proposal would have primarily impacted orchardists. Director Loveland says the rule making process developed no proposals that met with general agreement and those organizations that would receive notifications played little role in the process and didn't even seem that interested in the issue. Loveland: "Once the notification was received what were those people to do with it they were asking back. Well, I don't have authority to have them do anything with it. So again, I think it was a lot of effort, a lot of work, but it is a lot more complicated than it sounds and we couldn't figure out how to make it work on the ground and be beneficial to anyone who received the information." Loveland is considering proposing a pilot rule to test in a specific geographic area. She also points out there are existing state laws prohibiting pesticide drift that could contaminate the facilities that were covered in the withdrawn proposal. I'm Bob Hoff.