Sapna Thottathil joins CDPR as Deputy Director of Sustainable Pest Management  

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced Sapna Thottathil will lead the department’s statewide collaboration and coordination to foster sustainable pest management (SPM) across California’s urban, agricultural and wildland settings. Thottathil brings 20 years of experience as a leader in sustainable food and farming, and climate, health and equity program management, policy and research to her role as DPR’s Deputy Director of Sustainable Pest Management.  Prior to joining DPR, Thottathil was Managing Director at the University of California (UC) Center for Climate, Health and Equity, where she oversaw more than 20 research and education programs and facilitated a multi-stakeholder strategic planning process. Previously, she was the Associate Director of Sustainability at the UC Office of the President, where she helped lead a UC Regent-supported task force that developed a statewide IPM policy for UC’s 10 campuses and six health systems. Thottathil was also a leader in a variety of other roles that will advance her collaborative work in addressing the challenges of SPM adoption, including building strategic partnerships and supply chains between institutions like K-12 schools and hospitals and food producers. Earlier in her career, Thottathil was a climate researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in England and documented on-the-ground organic farming practices in India. She began her career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an Environmental Protection Specialist. Thottathil earned a BA in environmental studies and at BA in international studies from the University of Chicago, an MS in environmental change and management from Oxford University, and a PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley.  Thottathil will join the department beginning Sept. 9, 2024.

EPA Finalizes Herbicide Strategy to Protect Endangered Species

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its final Herbicide Strategy to protect over 900 federally endangered and threatened (listed) species from the potential impacts of herbicides. EPA will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicides exposure to these species when it registers new herbicides and when it reevaluates registered herbicides under a process called registration review. The final strategy incorporates a wide range of stakeholder input, ensuring EPA not only protects species but also preserves a wide range of pesticides for farmers and growers. The Herbicide Strategy identifies protections for hundreds of listed species up front and will apply to thousands of pesticide products as they go through registration or registration review, thus allowing EPA to protect listed species much faster. In response to comments on the initial draft, EPA made many improvements to the draft, with the primary changes falling into three categories:

• Making the strategy easier to understand and incorporating up-to-date data and refined analyses;
• Increasing flexibility for pesticide users to implement mitigation measures in the strategy; and,
• Reducing the amount of additional mitigation that may be needed when users either have already adopted accepted practices to reduce pesticide runoff or apply herbicides in an area where runoff potential is lower.

The final strategy includes more options for mitigation measures compared to the draft, while still protecting listed species. The strategy also reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who have already implemented measures identified in the strategy to reduce pesticide movement from treated fields into habitats through pesticide spray drift and runoff from a field. The measures include cover crops, conservation tillage, windbreaks, and adjuvants. Further, some measures, such as berms, are enough to fully address runoff concerns. Growers who already use those measures will not need any other runoff measures.  The final strategy also recognizes that applicators who work with a runoff/erosion specialist or participate in a conservation program are more likely to effectively implement mitigation measures.  Geographic characteristics may also reduce the level of mitigation needed, such as farming in an area with flat lands, or with minimal rain such as western U.S. counties that are in the driest climates. As a result, in many of those counties, a grower may need to undertake few or no additional runoff mitigations for herbicides that are not very toxic to listed species.  The final strategy uses the most updated information and processes to determine whether an herbicide will impact a listed species and identify protections to address any impacts. To determine impacts, the strategy considers where a species lives, what it needs to survive (for example for food or pollinators), where the pesticide will end up in the environment, and what kind of impacts the pesticide might have if it reaches the species. These refinements allow EPA to focus restrictions only in situations where they are needed.  The final strategy itself does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use. Rather, EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicides. EPA is also developing a calculator that applicators can use to help determine what further mitigation measures, if any, they may need to take in light of mitigations they may already have in place.

Truck Emissions Testing Postponed until 2025

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been sending out notices to applicable vehicle owners, requesting that they register with the new Heavy-Duty Inspection & Maintenance rule.  Any owner/operator of a 14,000 GVWR truck or heavier, must report their equipment into the new database developed by CARB as well as pay a per truck annual compliance fee. Along with registering, the fleet owner is then required to conduct and submit annual opacity or emission controls inspections done by a 3^rd party in order to obtain the vehicle’s annual registration paperwork. It was recently noticed to all applicable businesses and vehicle owners that the testing requirement of the rule has been postponed for the 2024 year, and will take effect in 2025. Currently, CARB is still awaiting an approval waiver from EPA Region 9. CARB is being challenged on the several of their approved rules, specifically the Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, which pushes businesses to expedite the deployment of electric vehicles within a fleet. Stay tuned for more updates.

Association Once Again Pushes for Science When it Comes to PM_2.5

Last week, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District provided an update on their efforts to implement their PM2.5 State Implementation Plan to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for the 24-hour standard of 12 ug/m3 for PM_2.5.  In public testimony, Association President/CEO Roger A. Isom urged the Board to reinvigorate the Governing Board’s Study Agency. Isom reminded the board that the Air District achieved the one-hour ozone standard, the PM₁₀ standard and the 65 ug/m3 PM_2.5 standard, based on the results and guidance from all the research that was conducted under the Central California Ozone Study (CCOS) and the California Regional Particulate Matter Air Quality Study  (CRPMAQS), both of which were overseen by the Governing Board’s Study Agency. Isom urged science be the driving factor as the District looks to add new or stricter Conservation Management Practices (CMPs) for farming operations, and to low dust harvesters for tree nut operations. This will become especially important as the District begin looking at the next standard set forth by Federal EPA, which is the 9 ug/m3 PM_2.5 standard.  Governing Board Chairman Vito Chiesa (Stanislaus County Supervisor and walnut grower) wrapped up comments by agreeing with Isom and stating that meeting the new 9 ug/m3 PM_2.5 standard is “going to be very difficult and we’re going to need lots of help like FARMER funding”.  The Association will continue to stay at the forefront of this issue as it does on all regulatory items facing the agricultural industry.