New Jersey Passes School Pesticide Legislation
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Date:
Tue, 17 Dec 2002 09:20:59 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
New Jersey Passes School Pesticide Legislation
By Brad Harbison
12/13/2002
URL: http://www.pctonline.com/news/news.asp?ID=1533/
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey has become the latest state to pass school pesticide legislation.
New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey signed a law Thursday dubbed the School Environmental Protection Act. The law would:
· Allow schools to use traditional pesticides only as a last resort and mandate all parents with children enrolled in the treated school be notified before any use;
· Catalogue stockpiles of pesticides and disclose toxicity information for all chemicals used and keep records of pesticide use;
· Exempt limited emergency spraying from the guidelines.
The bill received support from pest control industry organizations such as the New Jersey Pest Management Association (NJPMA) and the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) as well as environmental groups such as the New Jersey Environmental Federation (NJEF) and the Sierra Club.
Phil Cooper, president of Lawrenceville, N.J.-based Cooper Pest Control and chairman of NJPMA's government affairs committee, said the law is a big win for the pest control industry.
"We are very pleased with the law," Cooper said. "Most of us are carrying out (the law's provisions) already. This law forces schools that are not doing IPM to do it, which is something we want anyway." Like several other states, New Jersey began formulating a plan for school pesticide legislation after the School Environmental Pesticide Act (SEPA) was defeated earlier this year.
NJPMA and Gene Harrington, manager of government affairs, NPMA, worked with the New Jersey Environmental Federation to put together the bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Buono in June.
Cooper said NJPMA and NPMA were able to gain a number of important concessions. Under New Jersey's new law, schools are responsible for carrying out the notification. In other words, schools must sign a document stating that they carried out the notification process. Cooper said this provision will limit liabilities for PCOs.
Harrington added that the New Jersey law contains many of the same elements as SEPA.
"I think it preserves the use of almost all of the products that PCOs use and doesn't require any prior notification (from PCOs) for the use of those products, so I don't know think it's really going to disrupt what PCOs are already doing in the schools," he said.
In fact, the New Jersey law could produce some positive benefits for New Jersey PCOs, Harrington added.
"It may cause schools to become more reliant on the professional pest management industry for the management of pests in and around schools," Harrington says.
In the past year, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine and Rhode Island all passed school pesticide legislation.
"Because so many states were awaiting the outcome of SEPA, this was supposed to be a slow year, so the fact that four states approved school pesticide legislation shows you that this issue has strong traction," Harrington said. "I think this issue will be very active next year."
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