AES Comments on DRAFT Reporting Requirements for the PGP

11/23/09

We have reviewed the proposed PGP section on reporting. A fundamental question that needs to be addressed is the purpose of the annua l report. It must be kept in mind that the pesticide applications made by a perm ittee over a year’s period may cover a large area (a state or county) and may involve hundreds or thousands of individual applications. Some applications may also be quite large (thousands of acres in a single mission – for example 120 gallons of naled (a erial adulticide) can treat 25,600 acres at 0.06 oz/acre). Some areas may be treated multiple times during a year. The proposed annual report seems designed for treatments to a single or a limited number of locations.

We suggest that the most useful information th at could be collected from this reporting is the amount of use over the treated acreage with in a geographic area such as a county or sub-county region. The Agency and state lead agencies can then review the information to identify areas with the highe st or most concentrated us e. Conversely, requirements that specific application data be report ed on an annual basi s will place a large, unnecessary reporting burden on permittees a nd a large resource drain on the USEPA and state lead agencies. Reporting individual tr eatment locations will require a very robust and expensive data base.

Here are our specific comments/questions re ferenced to the Sec tion of the DRAFT.

9.1 Annual Report

If you are required to submit an NOI as identified in Part 1.2.2, you must submit an annual report electronically to EPA that includes the following information:

- Permittee’s name

- NPDES permit tracking number(s)

- Permittee’s mailing address

- Contact person name, title, and phone number

- For the calendar year:

o Name(s) of products used and active ingredients of those products For each product,

 Location (e.g., county, city, town village) where applied

 Quantity applied directly to waters

 Quantity applied over or near waters

 Pests targeted

o Description(s) of locations treated, including identification of any waterbodies to which pesticides were applied directly

EPA strongly recommends that you submit this re port electronically using the Annual Reporting Form provided as Appendix H. You must submit the a nnual report to EPA no later than February 15 of the following year for all pesticide activities occurring January through December 31. The appropriate address for the report are Identified in Part 11.0. Operators obtaining permit coverage within 30 days of the end of the calendar year are not required to subm it an annual report for that first partial year but must submit annual reports thereafter.COMMENTS:

The EPA Registration Number should be re ported. The “product name” is ambiguous and can lead to confusion. The EPA Registration Number will provide brand name, formulation, and active ingredient without requiring duplicative reporting. For FIFRA 25(b) products the complete name of the produc t and active ingredientmust be provided.

Will the permit tracking number be automati cally issued upon electronic submission of an NOI, or will the CWA agency need to review, "approve" the NOI, and then issue the tracking number to the permittee? If the latter, will the NOI submitter have to wait for receipt of a permit tracking number before making applications, or can they consider themselves covered once their NOI is

submitted?

The requirement for “pests targeted” is superf luous. Pesticides are expensive and would not be applied without a need. Record keep ing required as part of the BAT process will document the need for the pesticides app lied. The individual species of pests (e.g. mosquitoes) may change over time, increasing th e complexity of the data base required.

The requirement for “descriptions of locations treated” is vague. Areas treated may not be identified, named water bodies –in fact, for mosquito control, named water bodies will be rarely if ever, treated. Areas that peri odically flood or receive high tides will more

often be the sites of treatment. The data base will have to be very large to accommodate the descriptions and locations of poten tially hundreds of treatment locations.

The term “near” needs to be clearly de fined. With no guidance on what "near" is, reporting quantities applied near a water body will either be a very crude estimate or an overestimation of risk to a water body. The latter would result if the entire amount applied were reported as near a water body. In contrast, the former would occur if one considered that only a portion of a treatme nt may be made near a water body, while the rest of the application could be a greater distance away and, less likely to reach, let alone, impact the water body. Only the applications or the portions of an a pplication that could impact a water body should be reported. We have proposed a definition of near - ( an application within one swath width of the application equipment used. For example, application by a truck based ULV adulticide rig has an operational swath width of 300 feet. Therefore a “near” water application would be within 300 f eet of waters of the state. For an airplane, the swath width is 1000 feet, therefore “nea r water” is within 1000 feet. For a hand held spray wand, the swath width can be established during calibration, but is typically tw o feet. Near water would th en be within two feet.) to which the Agency has not responded.9.2 Adverse Incident Reporting

You must immediately notify EPA and the appropri ate state wildlife or na tural resources agency and submit an incident report if you become aware or have been informed that an adverse incident has occurred in connection with a discharge from your pesticide application. See Part 5.3.1. You must provide an electronic report of the adverse in cident to the appropriate EPA address listed in Part 11 and to the State Lead Agency for pesticide regulation (see http://npic.orst.edu/state1.htm ) within 14 days when the adverse effects were first observed. Contents of the written incident report must include:

• Name of permittee, mailing address, and telephone number

• Name, address, and telephone number of contact person

• Date permittee became aware of the incident

• Date of incident (if appropriate, list start and end dates)

• Location of incident (city, county, state, waterbody name)

• Product Name and EPA Registration Number

• Formulation, if known

• Evidence the label directions were not followed (e.g., yes, no, unknown)

• A brief description of the circumstances of the incident

• Symptoms or adverse effects

• Magnitude of the effect (e.g. aquatic square area or total stream distance affected)

• Pesticide application rate, intended use site (e.g., banks, above, or direct to water), and method of application

• Description of the habitat and the circum stances under which th e incident occurred

• If plants were impacted, the type of plant lif e affected (i.e., crop, forest, orchard, home garden, ornamental foliage, etc)

• If laboratory tests were performed, indicate what test(s) were performed and provide a summary of the test results.

• Actions to be taken to prevent recurrence of incident.

• All requirements listed in 8.1.4

COMMENTS:

What is meant by "adverse"? Temporary and non-lethal symptoms may occur in nontarget plants after aquatic herbicide applica tions. Impacts to certain aquatic invertebrate species may occur with subsequent populat ion rebound. It could be possible for a smallscale fish kill (due to low dissolved oxygen) to occur following an application made in

accordance with label directi ons. It should also be noted that many non-pesticidal management techniques (mechanical harvesting for aquatic weeds, water draw downs for insect management) can have sign ificant non-target effects also.

The purpose of the incident reporting also needs to be clearly understood. The purpose should be to alert the regulatory agencies so that they can co nduct an inves tigation if the situation warrants it. For that purpose th e adverse effect report can be simpler than proposed here. Descriptions of habitat, types of plants aff ected, etc. can be simplified to a statement of the adverse effect observed, and the extent of the effect, which will allow state lead agencies to determin e if investigation is warranted.

The permit tracking number should be included.The EPA Reg. No. for the pesticide associat ed with the incident should be reported.

The date of the application should be included.

A statement as to whether the label was followed is superfluous. This will be determined during an investigation by the state lead agency.

Very few mosquito control applications w ill be to named water bodies. A geographic descriptor, lat/long coordinates, or GPS coordinate is more useful.

It is unlikely that laborator y tests will have been conduc ted. Analyses for pesticide residues in environmental samples routinel y take weeks to months to complete.

What are the requirements in 8.1.4?