Spray drift from pesticides might travel farther and last longer than first thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Spray drift from pesticides might travel farther and last longer than first thought. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Pesticide drift – the spray, droplets, and dust that’s stirred up during application – has always been
a health concern, but a study by the California Air Resources Board combined with other studies,
found that pesticide drift lasts longer than just the moment of application.
Susan Kegley is a scientist with the Pesticide Action Network North America:
“It turns out that for many pesticides, the greater part of the drift happens in the hours and days
and even weeks after the pesticide is applied and these levels are high enough to be of concern.
And right now, EPA does not look at those types of exposures for most of the pesticides it
evaluates.
Groups wanted stricter rules on pesticide handling are calling for more studies saying that
pesticide drift might be responsible for higher rates of cancer and other health problems in rural
areas surrounded by farmland being sprayed with pesticides.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.