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Pesticide News Story: Endosulfan Updated Risk Assessments Available; Usage Information Requested
For Release: November 16, 2007
EPA is announcing the availability of its updated human health and ecological risk assessments for the organochlorine pesticide endosulfan. These new assessments are based in part on new data submitted by registrants as required in the Agency’s 2002 Endosulfan Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED). In addition, EPA is requesting public comment on the Agency’s updated analysis of endosulfan use information and preliminary assessment of endosulfan’s importance to growers. An insecticide and acaricide, endosulfan is used on a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, cereal grains, and cotton, as well as ornamentals, trees, and vines. As EPA’s November 16, 2007, Federal Register notice explains, the Agency is requesting public comment during a 60-day period.
Based on a recently submitted developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) study, EPA has determined that endosulfan poses risks to workers, even with maximum personal protective equipment and engineering controls, as well as post-application risks that would warrant extending reentry intervals by multiple days. Although dietary risks generally are not of concern, according to the updated risk assessment, the Agency has concerns about indigenous peoples’ dietary exposure to endosulfan as a result of this pesticide’s ability to migrate to sites distant from use areas, and because of the uncertainty in the potential for endosulfan to bioaccumulate in foods consumed by subsistence hunters/fishers. New information also suggests that parent endosulfan and its sulfate degradate may pose greater ecological risks to aquatic and terrestrial organisms than reflected in the 2002 RED. Additional studies on the sulfate degradate of endosulfan demonstrate its equal toxicity and increased persistence as compared to endosulfan parent, representing an additional source for total endosulfan residues to enter aquatic and terrestrial food chains. Updated usage information and the availability of alternatives indicate that endosulfan may provide low benefits for producers of many crops, and moderate to high benefits for some crops in certain regions of the country.
In a Note to Readers (Endosulfan Reader's Guide), EPA summarizes the updated endosulfan risk assessments and benefits analysis and provides questions to help the public prepare comments that will be most useful to the Agency in completing its assessment of this pesticide. The Note to Readers, updated risk assessments, and related information are available in the endosulfan docket, EPA-HQ-OPP-2002-0262, at http://www.regulations.gov (go to "Search for Dockets" at top of page).