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PA AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDES

Release Date: 06/21/96
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PA AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDES

FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1996

EPA ISSUES TWO AMENDMENTS TO WORKER PROTECTION STANDARDS FOR AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDES

EPA is issuing two final amendments to the Agency's Worker Protection Standards for agricultural pesticides. The amendments will make the standards more practical and flexible for states and farmers to implement while maintaining safeguards for agricultural workers. The amendments will encourage the use of lower toxicity pesticides, allow the use of languages other than Spanish when appropriate, and facilitate posting of pesticide-treated areas in nurseries and greenhouses. The first amendment decreases from 30 days to seven days, the time during which decontamination supplies (soap, water, paper towels) must be available to workers entering fields when low toxicity pesticides are used. Low toxicity pesticides are those which have restricted entry intervals of four hours or less. Until now, the standards required decontamination supplies to be available whenever a worker performed any activity in a pesticide-treated area or where entry had been restricted within the past 30 days. The second amendment allows employers to replace the Spanish language on required warning signs with another language tailored to suit the language most often used by workers in that location. The English portion of the sign must remain. The standards require posting of warning signs that are visible from all usual points of worker entry into the treated areas. Also, as part of the second amendment, EPA is permitting the use of smaller warning signs in nurseries and greenhouses. Signs of approximately four and one-half by five inches can be used if the distance between signs is 25 feet or less; signs of approximately seven by eight inches can be used if the distance between signs is 50 feet or less. EPA is continuing to work closely with the agricultural community, states and workers to promote better understanding of the Worker Protection Standards, clarify growers' responsibilities, support outreach and educational activities and identify and address issues of concern in the standards implementation. As part of this effort, EPA is conducting a series of meetings with growers and workers around the country. The next meeting is scheduled for June 26, in Biglerville, Pa. The two amendments will go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which is expected within 10 days.