Maine weighs ban on agrichemicals linked to diseases

(The Center Square) – Environmental groups are urging Maine lawmakers to ban a chemical commonly used on agricultural crops that has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

A proposal being considered by the Maine Legislature would require the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to phase out the use of pesticides containing chlorpyrifos by 2022.

Colin Antaya, a legal fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation, said chlorpyrifos is an “outdated and dangerous pesticide” and part of a class of neurotoxins developed for chemical warfare.

“The weight of the evidence demonstrating chlorpyrifos’ harm to humans, and particularly to infants and children, is beyond debate,” Antaya told members of the Legislature’s Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry in recent testimony. “Chlorpyrifos is associated with lung cancer, endocrine disruption, and cardiovascular disease.”

Rep. Dave Miramant, D-Knox, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, said several other states, including Hawaii, California and New York, have taken steps to phase out the use of the chemical.

“Maine needs to take the same step to protect our children who are bioaccumulating this toxin and having their future destroyed for corporate profits,” Miramant said.

Not surprisingly, the agrochemical industry is pushing back on the proposal and others that are aimed at limiting potentially toxic chemicals from being used on crops.

Riley Titus, a lobbyist for the trade group CropLife America, said chlorpyrifos is “one of the more widely studied pesticide products in the world” and is vital to “combating a range of pest pressures to fruit and vegetable crops.”

“Eliminating this pesticide would remove an invaluable tool for farmers and could cause future threats to food security and production in Maine, and cost commodity producers, the state, and land managers substantial amounts of money in damaged investments and natural resources,” he told the committee.

Rick Deadwyler, a lobbyist with Corteva AgriScience, said studies “have shown that current uses of chlorpyrifos meet the U.S. regulatory standard of a “reasonable certainty of no harm.”

But the Maine Medical Society, which supports the ban, says the potential harm from the chemical outweighs its benefits to the state’s agricultural industry.

“While the MMA appreciates the impact that Maine farms have on the health of its residents by growing the best broccoli, apples and other produce, it is certainly concerned with the neurological well-being of its youngest and most vulnerable citizens,” the group said in recent testimony in support of the bill. “This bill would ensure that pregnant mothers, babies and young children will not be exposed to this harmful pesticide through chlorpyrifos application in Maine.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently studying whether to classify the chemical as a toxin and ban its use for food production. Before leaving office, then-President Donald Trump lifted a 2015 ban on use of chlorpyrifos. But President Joe Biden has ordered a review of that action and others Trump took at the EPA before he stepped down from office in January.

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