EPA wants stay on buffers

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked a federal judge to continue a stay in a lawsuit to force the agency to implement new measures to protect salmon from pesticides.

EPA on April 13 asked Judge Thomas S. Zilly of the U.S. District Court of Western Washington to extend the stay until Sept. 28.

An initial 90-day stay on the suit expired March 30.

The plaintiff, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, told the court it plans to formally object to the request. The court gave NCAP until April 30 to file its opposition motion.

NCAP initially filed the suit to force EPA to implement salmon-protection measures developed by the National Marine Fisheries Service for six commonly used insecticides.

The agency in a phone call with Western state agriculture departments and parties in the suit proposed no-spray buffer zones around salmon-bearing waters as part of a suite of options it is considering.

EPA reportedly requested the stay to give parties involved in the suit time to come to an agreement.

--Mitch Lies

EPA: 2,4-D registrations stay

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has denied a request to cancel all registrations for the herbicide 2,4-D.

The agency, which is responsible for registering pesticides, said it reviewed "all the available studies" and weighed public testimony in making its decision.

"Based on studies ... the agency concluded that the science behind our current ecological and worker risk assessments for 2,4-D is sound and there is no basis to change the registrations," the agency wrote in a press release.

In 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council requested that EPA cancel all product registrations for 2,4-D.

The herbicide is found in approximately 600 products registered for agricultural residential, industrial and aquatic uses.

--Mitch Lies