Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, has asked the EPA to revoke the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s authority to enforce federal pesticide regulations, claiming the department’s pesticide program is understaffed and effectively failing to do its job, reports Honolulu Civil Beat. “The public is at risk and the Department of Agriculture is asleep at the wheel,” Paul Achitoff, managing attorney of Earthjustice, told Civil Beat.
Earthjustice cited an EPA annual report that detailed numerous problems with the state’s pesticide program, including poorly-prepared reports and “a backlog of 700 inspection files, some of which dated back to 2008.”
“HDOA’s failure to responsibly investigate and enforce has allowed children to repeatedly be exposed to pesticides at school with no consequences, nor even any acknowledgement that pesticides likely were involved,” Achitoff wrote in the request to the EPA. “On one day at Waimea Canyon Middle School, 60 students and two teachers were taken to the hospital. Several years later, when HDOA finally conducted an investigation, air samples revealed the presence of chlorpyrifos, metolachlor and bifenthrin, but HDOA refused to attribute the symptoms to pesticide exposure, instead supporting a risible theory about ‘stinkweed.’”
In FY2015, the department completed 314 site inspections, 74 fewer than in FY2014, according to the EPA report. In May, the “EPA required the department to complete an action plan for reducing its backlog further,” says Civil Beat. “The plan identified the need to buy new lab equipment, noting a 10-month backlog for analyzing samples.”
Scott Enright, director of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, told Civil Beat that the department is reviewing backlogged cases and hopes to add four more inspectors to its staff of seven by the end of the year.
If the EPA decides to revoke the department’s enforcement authority, the state would have 90 days to correct problems before the EPA took over. An EPA spokesman confirmed that the agency was reviewing the Earthjustice request.