What is the latest ruling from the Court?
Judge Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has imposed buffer zones restricting use of 38 pesticides along streams supporting threatened and endangered salmon. The order requires 20-yard no-spray buffers and 100-yard buffers in which aerial applications cannot occur. The buffers will remain in place until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completes Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) consultations on the pesticides, which is expected to take at least an additional two to three years for many of the pesticides. Judge Coughenour has also ruled that for seven pesticides that have been frequently detected in urban surface waters, EPA must provide point of sale warnings that the pesticides may harm salmon when used in urban areas, because they pollute salmon streams. King County, Washington, has designed three graphics that illustrate the salmon warning the Judge is requiring.
The U.S. Supreme Court has turned aside an effort by the pesticide industry to overturn lower court rulings putting in place no-spray buffer zones near western salmon streams and consumer warnings on certain toxic pesticides. As a result of this action, no-spray buffers to keep the most toxic pesticides out of salmon streams will stay in place, and consumers will be warned that some pesticides pose a hazard to salmon. In January of 2004, Federal District Court Judge Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington imposed buffer zones restricting use of 38 pesticides along streams supporting threatened and endangered salmon. The order requires 20-yard no-spray buffers and 100-yard buffers in which aerial applications cannot occur. The buffers will remain in place until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completes Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) consultations on the pesticides, which is expected to take at least an additional two to three years for
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