Editor’s note: The Boston Globe ran a story on March 11 on the following issue.
To the editor:
So what does the Massachusetts Pollinator Protection Plan change for the better? Well, nothing really. It’s 14 pages of carefully crafted waffle to avoid mentioning the crux of the problem: “neonicitinoid” insecticides. There are so many independent scientific studies showing this class of pesticide as highly toxic to honey bees and pollinators in general that it’s hard to keep count. France just banned neonicitinoids (neonics) altogether; we can’t even mention their name.
The EPA says beekeepers don’t manage mites properly, and therein lies a large part of the problem. However, scientific research shows sub-lethal exposure to neonics increases mite infestations, reduces brood, increases broodless periods; and decreases winter survival rates for honey bees. The gut pathogen Nosema ceranae, another significant cause of winter mortality, is triggered by both pesticides and fungicides. The reality in the field and Science overlap—what a remarkable coincidence—but still our unelected officials can’t understand.
Meanwhile our local pollinators are being decimated. Many, like bumble bees and monarch butterflies, are proving more susceptible than honey bees to the toxic effects of neonics. According to the USGS, 90 percent of the nation’s water ways and streams are polluted with insecticides and herbicides, including neonics, despite the catastrophic effect neonics have on aquatic life as well. The truth is neonics are killing off all invertebrate life forms.
Laughably, the EPA’s solution is to teach commercial pesticide applicators how to apply these pesticides more sensitively. However, no regulation of the 100s of gallons of these insecticides stacked up in garden supply shelves across the state that residents can apply anyhow; no reduction in the application rates of these lawn products that use higher doses of neonics than conventional agriculture; no labeling for packs of potted “pollinator friendly” plants pre-treated with neonics, turning food into death traps for pollinators. In fact, the EPA won’t even ask manufacturers to disclose all the ingredients in pesticides, something eminent bee scientist Marla Spivak has requested for years.
One has to ask, who exactly is the EPA protecting? Fifty million pounds of insecticides a year pollute our lands. They are persistent, systemic and accumulate in the soil. Furthermore, when combined, pesticides have been shown up to 1,000 percent more lethal. Nonetheless, with over 1,200 agrochemicals approved, it is evident the EPA hasn’t yet found a chemical it doesn’t like—especially neonicitinoid insecticides.
In 2009 the EPA scientists conducted an assessment of clothianidin, a neonic used as a seed treatment on corn and many other crops. In their damning 101-page report, EPA scientists concluded that “acute toxicity studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis.” Instead of suspending or withdrawing the registration of this insecticide like the European Union did, the EPA is waiting until 2018 to “review the data.” Yes, read that again.
I actually spoke to Jeff Herndon, Director of Pesticide Registrations at the EPA, on January 31, 2010 about this report and three other studies showing the catastrophic effects of neonicitinoid pesticides on honey bees. I asked him bluntly what part of “it’s killing the bees” he didn’t understand. His response was surprisingly honest: “We’ve always known.”
Yes, we’ve always known, but we still pretend we don’t. This Pollinator Protection Plan is 14 pages of empty words masquerading as “doing something,” when we’re doing precisely nothing. It’s a boondoggle, a joke, a disgrace!
Sincerely,
Charlotte Trim
108 Codman Rd.
P.S. In Middlesex County, we lost over 90 percent of our managed hives over the past two winters, not the 29 percent loss mentioned as “the problem” in the MDAR plan.
P.P.S. Has anyone seen a bumblebee this year?
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Bravo!! or rather, Brava!!! to you both for speaking out about this incredibly urgent problem!!
Just one tiny, insignificant Q: Given this insane weather, isn’t it still early to be seeing bumblebees??
But far more importantly, we need to start a movement of ‘telling it like it is’, and waking up our nation to this tragic crisis!
Thanks to Charlotte Trim for this accurate and conscious- raising letter. It reminds me of other ways the EPA fails to protect life, such as allowing known cancer causing chemicals to be used in cosmetics, which are absorbed into the skin. In Europe, these chemicals are banned outright because the health of the populace in many of those countries is the primary consideration in determining approval of a chemical, not the profit margin of a company with lobbying power. It is the name of the EPA which is misleading, we continue to call it the environmental protection agency when it never has been that: it was named that precisely to inspire public trust and mitigate protest by independent researchers whose discoveries may have halted damaging trends in production and sales by powerful companies. In fact, the EPA’s role has long been to harness the negative effects of scientific discovery on corporations into legislation that is palatable from the standpoint of business growth. The EPA protects the special interests of large chemical companies and it is naive to think otherwise. The honey bees and their wise advocates are helpless against the human greed that is nurtured under the guise of ‘progress’, and protected in our society which values monetary gain above all. I comend Ms. Trim for her perseverance in bringing truth to light. May it not be overshadowed by the dark implication of those with power that to challenge the intrinsically corrupt value system of rampant, unbridled capitalism is un-American.